“Because in the end, the most socially just exercise might not be transforming biases, but revealing them—allowing teacher learners to see where they are with respect to learning to serve. This way, should they choose not to, or should they fail to change, they can opt out. And both the teacher learners and their potential students might be better off for it” (Kirkland, 2014).
After reading about teacher preparedness to serve + school-to-prison pipeline statistics, I want to piece some thoughts together to develop a big-picture labyrinth, so hear me out and tell me what you think.
Idea #1: The goal of any teacher learner program, I would think, is to send the very best teachers out into the field each year, confident that they have the tools to be successful teaching students, but also guiding those same students to be successful themselves. I found it alarming when Kirkland confirmed that “some teacher learners leave their service-learning experiences not much different, but at times far more biased, than when they entered” (2014, p. 588). It’s a question I have often pondered: how and why is that possible? Referring back to my MVP (at the top), if we know that student-teaching can actually reinforce one’s biases, what backward planning can we begin to implement immediately to ensure that by time teacher learners arrive to the field experience, they have been given ample time to explore their biases —not necessarily transform them in any way— in order to be adequately informed as to whether this is the best career path for them?
Idea #2: As far as the school-to-prison pipeline, I think that in order to resolve such a complex issue, fostering critical cultural consciousness is key. This goes for students, but I would argue it especially for teachers. Gay (2002, 2010) defines critical cultural consciousness as “becoming aware of [one’s] own cultural socialization and the effects that this has on [his/her] interactions with diverse students” (Cramer, Gonzalez & Pellegrini-Lafont, 2014, p. 468). It’s true that children of color, children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children with disabilities are disproportionately dropping out of school; it’s also true that many teachers are not prepared to teach to or even learn from those particular students’ culture and values.
This leads me to a “chicken or egg” type of question. What should come first: 1) an integrated learning model that better incorporates previously disenfranchised students into the curriculum and school culture or 2) teacher learner programs that provides them the space to explore their cultural socialization and how it forms/shapes their biases about students from diverse backgrounds? Better yet, both at the same time?
Finally, what would happen if we encouraged teachers to no longer pursue being educators (and respecting them for it) when they discover their biases don’t adequately permit them to serve ALL students? If only educators prepared to serve ALL students were allowed to teach, would these dropout rates naturally decrease?
I definitely agree, with respect to your “chicken or egg” questions, that indeed, both should be implemented simultaneously and I’d add that sooner rather than later is urgently needed as well. I think the article specifically targets critiques of programs like https://www.cityyear.org/joincorps but thanks you your post I can definitely see, and side with you on, the high need for retrospective analysis in student teaching placements in these communities. I think in order to encourage the “stepping down” of teachers who’s biases don’t adequately permit them to service all students, we also need to hold accountable the education system that continues to hire teachers from said programs knowing that the data regarding their biases is out there. To someone hiring that type of teacher, that’s not a dealbreaker and we need to challenge that as well.