Naturalized Patterns of Silence and Disconnection: A Counterstory of a Black Female Preservice Teacher

• In Event: Silences, Listening, and Multimodality in Justice-Oriented Teacher Education

Abstract

This study draws on Critical Race Feminism, focusing on the relationship between processes of teaching, ideology and curriculum and racialization of preservice teachers (PST). We explore a telling case of a Black PST’s experiences of planning, conducting and reflecting on a read aloud of a children’s picturebook about a young Black girl’s experiences of racism. After her white mentor teacher expressed concerns about the text, Paula taught the picturebook but not without resistance from her mentor teacher. Implications explore the ways in which teacher education produces and (re)produces systems of inequity/ideology, power and control and the need to take responsibility for preparing educators (both mentor and PST) to actively interrupt naturalized patterns of silence, disconnection and detachment.

Authors

• Faythe Beauchemin, University of Arkansas

• Heather Hill, Cleveland State University

• Melissa I. Wilson, The Ohio State University