Community Mentors, Teacher Candidates, and Transformational Learning Through a Pedagogy of Care and Connection

• In Event: 29.050 - Teacher Education for Equity: National and International Perspectives

Abstract

Theoretical/Conceptual Perspectives and Related Literature
U.S. public education has arguably been as much about social and cultural assimilation as it has been about learning (Spring, 2004). Ample evidence exists of education for cultural assimilation, sanctioned by government policy (PBS, 2009). The history of Indian boarding schools is one example, however, the plight of native children is not isolated, as there are abundant examples of policies instituted to remedy the presumed cultural deficits of black and brown children (Center for Racial Justice Innovation, 2006; Woodson, 1933/1990).

Documentary Account of the Program/Project/Practice
The [Program Name] (Author, 2016) immerses preservice teachers in a community setting for an entire semester’s coursework. The purpose of the immersive semester is to engage future teachers in the interplay of factors that influence children’s learning, and to propel them to advance issues of social justice and educational equity.

The program privileges community expertise as a decisive element of candidate learning, as they explore the strengths and challenges of a low-income, African-American neighborhood through the lived history of its residents. Each candidate is assigned a community mentor who serves as a cultural ambassador. With mentors, candidates attend family gatherings, worship services, and community events, garnering insight into the values of families. Throughout the semester, candidates participate in critical service learning (Mitchell, 2008) alongside their mentors and members of the neighborhood community council.

Empirical Research Questions/Design/Findings/Analyses
The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which teacher candidates increased their understanding of, and ability to enact, culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) through their relationships with community mentors.

Based on a grounded theory approach to the analysis of data, including candidate written journals, transcriptions of courageous conversations (Singleton & Linton, 2006), and candidate lesson plans, the following assertions emerged:

1. Mentors’ care, concern, and hospitality provided an almost immediate connection to the community that allowed for new learning to occur;
2. Becoming part of a family in the neighborhood allowed candidates an inside view into the values and beliefs integral to life in the community;
3. Attending neighborhood events alongside mentors allowed candidates the ability to witness, participate in, and interpret community organization and mobilization efforts;
4. Participating in courageous conversations alongside community mentors afforded an opportunity for meaningful dialogue on issues of race, power, and privilege;
5. Attending church with mentors provided an invaluable opportunity to experience and study oral language traditions that candidates were able to integrate effectively into their teaching; and
6. Building relationships with community members dispelled candidates’ deficit orientation, and engendered a strength and resiliency-based framework through which to view the community and its members.

Candidates’ ability to learn in a culturally novel setting was predicated on being cared for by community mentors, thus allowing them to feel at home. A significant finding is candidates’ transferal of this revelation to their future teaching, embracing how critical it will be for them to transfer this level of care to their future students in order that they might feel at home in the process of learning.

Authors

• Eva M. Zygmunt, Ball State University

• Kristin Cipollone, Ball State University

• Patricia Clark, Ball State University

• Susan Tancock, Ball State University

• Jon M. Clausen, Ball State University