A Pedagogy of Becoming: Socialization & Psychoanalytic Sense-Making for Teacher Candidates

• In Event: Becoming Educators: Mentorship and Justice-Oriented Praxis

Abstract

This analysis demonstrates ways in which teacher educators can pedagogically challenge the complicated socializations (discourses) and discursive ‘competing chronologies’ (britzman, 2003) teacher candidates both carry/produce within their process of ‘becoming teacher.’ These socialized discourses often include beliefs and embodiments that are racialized, queered, religious, neoliberal/merit-based, etc. We reflect on our use of several pedagogical tools that foregrounds our educational philosophy foundation courses that are meant to strategically open more discursive spaces within/outside of the discourses shaping teacher candidates and to intentionally challenge candidates to grapple with their own ideological, ontological, and ethical tensions that often stay hidden/unnamed during their teacher induction process. Overall, our goal is to illustrate how we engage future teachers in interrogating their own socialization and related competing chronologies so to positively impact their pedagogical commitments. Attention is especially paid to implications for their future teaching when working with marginalized youth, families, and communities.

Authors

• Tracey M Pyscher, Western Washington University

• Shirley Prichard, Western Washington University