Building Pedagogues: White Practicing Teachers and the Struggle for Antiracist Work in Schools

Description

An in-depth account and model of antiracist professional development for white practicing teachers. Antiracist professional development for white teachers often follows a one-size-fits-all model, focusing on narrow notions of race and especially white privilege at the expense of more radical analyses of white supremacy. Frustrated with this model, Zachary A. Casey and Shannon K. McManimon, both white teacher educators, developed a two-year professional development seminar called “RaceWork” with eight white practicing teachers committed to advancing antiracism in their classrooms, schools, and communities. Drawing on interviews, field notes, teacher reflections, and classroom observations, Building Pedagogues details the program’s theoretical and pedagogical foundations; Casey and McManimon’s unique tripartite approach to race and racism at personal, local, and structural levels; learnings, strategies, and practical interventions that emerged from the program; and the challenges and resistance these teachers faced. As the story of RaceWork and a model for implementing it, the book concludes by reminding its audience of teachers, teacher educators, and researchers that antiracist professional development is a continual, open-ended process. The work of building pedagogues is an ongoing process. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Who We are Becoming Contexts: Time, Space, and (White) Community Origins of RaceWork: Who We Are and What We Decided to Try RaceWork Goals PD Focusing on White Racial Identities and Legacies of White Supremacy in Schools Enacting Structural, Antiracist Change in Classrooms and Schools Research Contexts: Key Terms and Participating Teachers White Supremacy and Structural Oppression Pedagogy/Pedagogical White/Black Focus of Race in the United States Privilege/White Privilege Intersectionality RaceWork Teachers Outline of Chapters Building Pedagogues: Nouns and Verbs Chapter 1 What We Read RaceWork’s Tripartite Model Texts Supporting RaceWork’s Tripartite Approach Whiteness as Structural: Theoretical and Historical Constructions Whiteness Institutionalized in Schools: White Supremacy and/as Structural Racism in Education White Racial Identities Doing the Work Anti-Oppressive Teaching and Learning Challenges to Enacting Antiracist Practices: Languages We Live Enacting Antiracist Practices Chapter 2 What We Did Pedagogical Orientation Doing PD Differently Facilitating a Critical Pedagogical Space What We Did Together Pacing: Big Picture Pacing: Individual Sessions What We Learned Together Part 1 The Personal Chapter 3 Fears Fear of Getting It Wrong Fear of Not Doing Enough Fear of Harming Existing Relationships Fear of Being Called Racist Resisting Fear: Not Feeling Alone Fear as Reflexive: The Place of Fear in Praxis Chapter 4 Personal Change Growth as Metaphor and as Assessment What It Means to “Change”: White Teachers Voicing Sociopolitical Consciousness Racial Fluency or “I See Race Everywhere!” Inside the Course: (Re)Sources for Change Change as Ongoing: White Antiracism as Becoming Part 2 The Local Chapter 5 Relationships Relationships within RaceWork: Rethinking “Accountability” Relationships with Students Relationships with Students’ Parents and Caregivers Finding Comrades: Building Relationships Outside of RaceWork Building Pedagogical Relationships Chapter 6 Tensions: Conflicts with Colleagues in Three Movements Returning to Fear Movement Conflict One: Blaming (“Shooting”) the Messenger Movement Conflict Two: Sticking Up for Students Movement Conflict Three: Acting Institutionally— Reproducing White Supremacy For a Pedagogical Orientation to Work with Colleagues Part 3 The Structural Chapter 7 White Privilege (Re)Defining White Privilege Institutional Power: Hegemonically “White” Spaces and Practices Sociopolitical Consciousness of White Privilege: Pushing Past Confession For the End of the “Beginning” of Antiracist Work with White Teachers Chapter 8 Seeing and Getting “It” “Reading” Racially: Naming the “It” Not Getting “It” and/as Complicity Getting “It” as a Process Beyond the Politics of Language: For a Material Antiracism The Work Chapter 9 Approaches and Beliefs Desiring and Resisting the Simplicity of Checklists and Strategies Pedagogies of Complexity: Why There Isn’t “One Way to Do It” Chapter 10 For the Future of Antiracist Work with Practicing Teachers: From Professional Development to Critical Teacher Learning Experiencing RaceWork: Professional Learning Practice Shifting Perspectives Centering Collaborative Relationships Involving Local Contexts Moving Into, Regardless of Where Teachers Are Starting From RaceWork as Teacher Education RaceWork as a Paradoxical Model Scaling Up and Zooming In: Shrinking the Terrain of Antiracist Professional Learning Returning to Reinvention Appendixes Appendix A What We Read First Semester: Building a Foundation October 2012, Structural Whiteness November 2012, Institutional Whiteness and Structural White Supremacy in Schools December 2012, White Racial Identities (and Cultural Norms) Second Semester: Goal-Setting for Our Own Contexts/Pedagogical Spaces January 2013, Whiteness in Contexts of Schools February 2013, Inquiring Into Our Own Practices in Schools March 2013, Our Work as Educators May 2013, Each Teacher Chose to Receive a Copy Of Either Second Year: What Do We Need for Further Action? September 2013, Exploring Other Models of Antiracist Work October 2013, Having Conversations with Colleagues November 2013, Intersectionality December 2013, Working in Our School Contexts January/February 2014, Being an Expert and Being a Beginner March 2014 Appendix B Intertwined Research Methodological Choices, Processes, and Approaches References Index