A Place-Based Counternarrative to Settler Colonial Teacher Education Practices

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Twelve
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonizing and (Re)Imagining Our Field Through Critical Theories, Research, and Practices (Table 7)

Abstract

The exploitative processes of settler colonialism on which the U.S. was built, and that continue even today, include Indigenous elimination, anti-Black racism, and immigrant exploitation (Kashyap, 2020). Culturally responsive place-based teaching is often a pressing need in the field of early childhood education because it is difficult to understand one’s own culture as well as other people’s when culture is silenced and also commodified (Derman-Sparks & Ramsey, 2011). To respond in the context of my community and teacher education program during the Covid-19 pandemic, this research looked at this question:

°How might White preservice teachers learn to confront settler colonialism in their early childhood classrooms, through listening to children and families?

Author

• Melissa Beth Sherfinski, West Virginia University
  Presenting Author