Silences, Silencing, and Silenced: Teacher Educators of Color Contend With Technologies of Silence in Teacher Education

• In Event: Current Issues in Teachers' Lives and Teacher Education

Abstract

In this study, four teacher educators of Color seek to decenter whiteness in teacher education by deeply analyzing how silence functions as a racialized mechanism of violence. In our theorizing of silence, we apply what we name as technologies of silence - silences, silencing, and silenced - to examine how silence inflicts violence upon teacher educators of Color. Utilizing Collective Memory Work, we have met over two years to discuss and write counternarratives grounded in Critical Race Theory as a method to critically analyze our individual and collective onto-epistemologies. We focus on the harms we experience through technologies of silence. Ultimately, we name the ways silence damages, but also acts as resistance when teacher educators of Color center healing, support, and transformation.

Authors

• Sharon Leathers, Ramapo College

• Ramon Vasquez, University of Minnesota

• Amos Joon Lee, University of California - Riverside

• Ranita Cheruvu, University of North Texas