Chapter 4: Seeing Africa through the Eyes of an Educator

A reflection on the 2018-19 Global Education Seminars in West Africa.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cip_ges_2019/1007/thumbnail.jp

In This Spirit: Helping Preservice Teachers Thrive During the Pandemic Through Adaptation and Change

“New times demand new methods”, William Joseph Chaminade. These words reflect the lived experiences of two faculty women of color, identified as Afro Caribbean and African American scholar practitioners in education at a Marianist university. We share our different narratives of the experience from the dual lens of social emotional learning and culturally responsive pedagogy with our classes and students as they thrived during a pandemic. Included in these narratives will be a discussion of the continued community building process, exploration of efforts to learn more about the teaching profession, social justice and advocacy as we learn about others, and challenges encountered in creating virtual learning environments, as spaces to express themselves and dig deeply into their experiences as preservice teachers. This essay gives voice to the work of two faculty of color who found their work more valuable and accessible to students during these tough times

Faculty of Color and Collective Memory Work: An Examination of Intersectionality, Privilege, and Marginalization

As a means of highlighting new possibilities for interrupting White privilege, and supporting and honoring critical community building among faculty of Color in teacher education programs, this paper offers the theoretical and methodological resources of collective memory work as a tool for interrogating teacher education\u27s entanglements in the complex, yet normalized, processes of White privilege. This paper, written by three faculty members of Color, aims to provide hope for an escape from the construction of hierarchies, taxonomies, and White/non-White binaries that establish and enforce arbitrary boundaries that prevent people from different racialized groups from working together to disrupt White privilege and oppression

New Directions to Promote Global Education on College Campuses and in Communities

In 2000, South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki stated that the twenty-first century would be the “Century of Africa.” Indeed I, like many, believe that Africa is a continent full of promise, rich cultural heritage, blessed with a wealth of natural resources, and poised to become a hub of innovation and progress. Recently, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken remarked that Africa is headed toward becoming one of the world’s most important economic regions, and that it will have a hand in shaping in the future of the world. Recent advances have been made in solar power, the “green tech” industry working to reduce carbon emissions, and the steady increase in access to education for both elementary and secondary school students.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/global_voices_5/1009/thumbnail.jp

Expanding World Views and Supporting Intercultural Competence: A Model for Understanding, Assessment and Growth for Teacher Educators

Intentional efforts for teacher education candidates to expand their worldview throughout their program of study can lead to growth in their intercultural development as measured by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) (Hammer & Bennett, 1998). This study examines the impact of utilizing the Inter-Cultural Action Plan (ICAP), a results-guided self-designed action plan, on the developmental orientation (Bennett, 2011) of the candidate’s intercultural development as measured by the IDI. Significant impact on a candidate’s developmental orientation is identified when candidates take ownership of their experiences in the form of an action plan that includes coursework and out of class opportunities

Culturally Responsive Education: Teacher Education Fit for the Times

How do we educators collectively engage in critical community building and solidarity work to disrupt traditional systems that perpetuate inequities using our voices to build curriculum to inform and empower students? The pursuit of epistemic justice requires new practices in classrooms and new commitments and practices at the system level if we are to build and sustain communities of hope within teacher education and P-12 schools. As research evolves in culturally responsive education (CRE) to include abolitionist teaching, anti-racist teaching and decolonizing of curriculum, higher education social justice educators have a responsibility to disrupt the status quo of a broken failing education system and collaborate with K-12 educators to unearth and learn new pedagogical strategies in professional learning communities developing a collective, concerted voice to positively impact the best education for all students. A culture of inclusion and equity in education needs a shared set of assumptions and beliefs among educator preparation programs and school districts. It is critical to deepen teachers\u27 understanding and practices of CRE to disrupt existing inequitable social and organizational structures in schools to reinvent and advocate an educational system that supports social justice, creates culturally responsive curriculum, and provides an infrastructure to support a healthy social emotional and sustainable school climate. In response to P-12 school district data on equity within the schools over 200 in-service teachers, participated in professional development to further examine their understanding of CRE practices in the classroom as they set intentional goals to meet their equity needs

Developing Culturally Responsive Anti-racist Activists

How do educators collectively engage in critical community building and solidarity work to disrupt traditional systems that perpetuate inequities by using their voices to build curriculum to inform and empower students? The pursuit of epistemic justice requires new practices in classrooms and new commitments and practices at the system level if we are to build and sustain communities of hope within teacher education. A necessary first step requires committing to learning, to a life of the mind that is a counter-hegemonic act, resisting white racist colonization, and enacting a revolutionary pedagogy of resistance (Hooks, Teaching to transgress: Education as the practices of freedom. Routledge, 1994). In this chapter, we share our stories as social justice advocates: our reimagining of the Urban Teacher Academy (UTA), a self-selected certificate program designed to prepare candidates from a predominantly white institution (PWI) to teach in urban classrooms. The structure of this program centers on activist pedagogical practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, abolitionist, and anti-racist teaching integrated into clinical experiences that strengthen and empower teacher candidates. As a means of highlighting new possibilities for revolutionary pedagogical practices of justice, this chapter offers theoretical and methodological resources with which to interrogate education preparation program’s entanglements in colonized systems of reinforced racism. Picower (2021) noted that “rather than using education as a vehicle to create a more equitable and just society, teachers whose understanding of race are unexamined either purposely or unconsciously, use their curriculum to indoctrinate the next generation with the same racist belief” (p. 4). Bollin and Finkel (1995) have concluded that preservice teachers are unwilling to teach in an educational setting that is culturally unfamiliar or that could possibly cause them discomfort because of their inability to relate to the students and their families.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1119/thumbnail.jp

Social and Emotional Learning: Educating the Whole Person in the University Classroom

Kennedy Union 222 Social-emotional competencies are associated with increases in college students’ engagement in learning, ability to handle stress, capacity for problem solving, retention, and academic achievement. Our department is in the third year of embedding the development of students’ social-emotional competencies throughout our degrees programs using the Social Emotional Dimensions of Teaching and Learning and Culturally Responsive Teaching framework. Unlike other models for social-emotional competence, this one is nested specifically within teaching and learning, takes culture into account, and is practical and actionable. The SEDTL/CRT framework was formulated with teacher preparation and K-12 learning in mind. Beyond teacher education, however, the framework can be broadly applied to enhance teaching and learning across various university disciplines. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the social-emotional dimensions of teaching and learning and several strategies they can infuse into their own university teaching