Building and Sustaining Trust: Ethnic Studies Professional Development and Teacher Training

• In Event: A Window of Opportunity: Building an Ethnic Studies Dual Enrollment Program in Pomona, CA

Abstract

This presentation centers the findings from implementing an Ethnic Studies Professional Development course that was created by the presenter. The course was required for selected qualifying teachers during the summers of 2023 and 2024, and also included professional development days during fall of 2023 where teachers went to CPP to assess how the course was going. This professional development was framed to combat a history of Eurocentric professional development with educators. In essence, traditional PD is often what Freire (1970) argues to be a “banking model,” where hired professionals deposit Eurocentric knowledge and practices into educators’ brains. The presentation will discuss the PD framework that centered teacher knowledge, which we found was central to building and sustaining trust.

Author

• José Manuel Aguilar-Hernández, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona