One Experienced Teacher’s "Ever-Evolving" Approach to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Site of Possibility and Inspiration (Poster 30)

• In Event: Saturday Poster Session 1:15 pm
  In Poster Session: Teacher Education and Student Experiences

Abstract

Too often culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) is oversimplified, implemented as a checklist, or co-opted by whiteness. In response, research overcompensates by focusing on what went wrong. This study, in contrast, highlights one seasoned white teacher’s (on-going) development as a culturally relevant pedagogue as a path of possibility, allowing a personalized look into the complex, nuanced, and ‘ever-evolving’ nature of equity work in schools. Highlighting the development of teacher sociopolitical consciousness, particularly racial identity and historical situatedness, cultivating teacher vulnerability, and embracing student relevancy– are a few pragmatic shifts teachers can undertake to authentically, dynamically, and joyfully (though not necessarily ease-fully) fulfill CRP’s social justice promise.

Author

• Marika Belusa, University of Minnesota