“Is Their Kindness Rooted in Our Liberation?” Teacher Educator of Color Critical Funds of Caring

• In Event: Restoration, Liberation, and Antiracism With Preservice Teachers

Abstract

In this paper we conceptualize critical funds of caring as pedagogical practice that challenges ‘niceness’ and ‘kindness– institutional norms and practices that obscure and perpetuate structural racism in K-12 schools and are staples of elementary teacher preparation. We explore how teacher educators of Color embody critical funds of caring in their teaching and relational relationships with preservice, racially minoritized teachers of Color. Building on funds of caring (Newcomer, 2018), and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), we highlight four components of critical funds of caring that extend our understanding of how teacher educators of Color confront hegemonic, assimilatory and subtractive schooling: 1) enacting teaching as political work 2) caring rooted in collective liberation, 3) humanizing vulnerability and 4) culturally, linguistically sustaining praxis.

Authors

• Arturo Nevárez, California State University - Stanislaus

• Diane Nevarez, California State University - Stanislaus