Introducing Extraordinary Pedagogies: An Endarkened Feminist Approach to Revolutionizing Teacher Consciousness

• In Event: Extraordinary Pedagogies: An Endarkened Feminist Approach to Revolutionizing Teacher Consciousness

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework of the Session
This symposium is informed by a curriculum model based on more than ten years of ethnographic teacher research generated within an intensive immersion pre-practicum course. It shows how to complicate white preservice teachers’ awareness of identity politics; develop their capacity to situate themselves within these politics; and understand their diverse students’ situatedness. The model helps preservice teachers navigate stressful relational and institutional dynamics involving race and gender injuries; evolve leadership in social justice through emotional justice; and cultivate respect for new literacies and logics within teaching/learning contexts. This complex consciousness and activism are generated quickly by integrating pedagogical shock, an ontological framework for personhood, extraordinary literacies, and direct inquiry into white supremacist patriarchal ideologies in urban education.

Overview of the Presentation
To foster understanding, respect, trust, and deep connection among teachers and students, it is essential to create curricular and experiential models that sustain these relational attributes. Teachers are pivotal change agents within academic and social contexts. Therefore, extraordinary pedagogies—teaching/learning praxes that empower teachers to engage with minoritized students' spiritual, social, cultural, and somatic identities—are crucial. These pedagogies dissolve supremacist and separatist beliefs and behaviors related to personhood.

This panel will introduce the Philadelphia Urban Seminar, a high-impact, two-week immersion course for preservice teachers that fosters extraordinary pedagogies early in their careers. Designed to develop the ideological stances of predominantly white preservice teachers for urban contexts, this model mediates the perceptual and practical breaches between a mostly white teacher workforce and diverse student populations. The seminar cultivates preservice teachers' capacity to know themselves and their students. Key principles and practices, including classroom exercises, transformative assignments, and heart-opening readings, will be shared.

Scholarly Significance
Extraordinary pedagogies create extraordinary outcomes. This curricular model enhances white preservice teachers’ awareness of identity politics; helps them situate themselves within these politics; and develops their capacity to understand their diverse students' situatedness. It also cultivates stamina in navigating stressful relational and institutional dynamics involving race and gender injuries, evolves leadership in social justice through emotional justice, and fosters respect for new literacies and logics. This model achieves complex consciousness and activism quickly by integrating pedagogical shock, an ontological framework for personhood, extraordinary literacies, and direct inquiry into white supremacist patriarchal ideologies in urban education.

Structure of the Symposium
The five panelists will introduce and explore the five components of this model. Each component will be presented via a brief paper by a colleague. Each presentation will last 12 minutes, totaling 60 minutes, with 15-20 minutes for discussion.

Author

• Jeanine M. Staples-Dixon, Pennsylvania State University