Teacher Education (Re)configured for the Age of Dread

• In Event: Teachers' Affective Experiences

Abstract

The term “dread” brings many things to mind (Goldberg, 2021). Surprisingly, while emotions have been the subject of a growing area of interdisciplinary research (Zembylas, 2003), no studies have examined the emotions expressed by teacher educators who dread continuing in the profession at a time when the old world is dying and a new one has yet to be born. Despite the importance of theorizing teacher educators’ emotions, especially those teaching courses about race and racism either to undergraduates or graduates, there remains a paucity of research necessary for developing nuanced understandings of the complexity of emotions related to dread. In this paper I argue that the causes for this dread do not emanate from personal pathologies or dystopian nightmares somewhere beyond the horizon. Instead, these feelings of dread emerge from a close acquaintance with current modes of colonial schooling.

Author

• Ramon Vasquez, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities