Healing Teachers Heal: A Critical Posthuman Self-Study of Embodied Teacher Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Posthumanism, Teachers, and Teacher Education (Table 6)

Abstract

Further exploring embodied pedagogy in teacher education is essential to the creation of healing centered environments that can disrupt the cycle of harm that the historical legacy of colonization has left in the education system. This critical self-study which employs a posthumanist theoretical lens offers insight into the internal process of two teacher educators as they continue their processes of unlearning in order to be more fully present and culturally responsive in their classrooms. Findings indicate that cultivating embodiment supports relationality, presence, and normalizing the discomfort required for transformation. Additionally, the findings offer insight into how viewing pluriversality as generative might support reframing our quest for cultural pluralism as not only welcome and celebrated, but in fact necessary and critical.

Authors

• mel potts, California State University - East Bay

• ash busby, San Jose State University