Knowledge, Pedagogy, and Postmulticulturalism: Shifting the Locus of Learning in Urban Teacher Education

212 Pages·2013·1.205 MB·English

by  Gay Wilgus (eds.)

Knowledge, Pedagogy, and
Postmulticulturalism
Knowledge, Pedagogy, and
Postmulticulturalism
Shifting the Locus of Learning
in Urban Teacher Education
Edited by Gay Wilgus
knowledge, pedagogy, and postmulticulturalism
Copyright © Gay Wilgus, 2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-27589-9
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-44641-4 ISBN 978-1-137-27590-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137275905
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available from the Library of
Congress.
Knowledge, pedagogy, and postmulticulturalism: shifting the locus of learning in urban
teacher education / ed. by Gay Wilgus.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 1- 137- 27589- 9 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Teachers— Training of— United States. 2. Education, Urban— United States. I.
Wilgus, Gay, editor of compilation. II. Blumenreich, Megan. Discovering inquiry-
based learning through oral history projects.
LB1715.K58 2013
370.71'1— dc23 2012046793
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: May 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2013
To our students, for all the places they take us
Contents
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
1 Discovering Inquiry- Based Learning through
Oral History Projects 21
Megan Blumenreich, EdD
2 “I’m Not Just Gonna Settle for Anything”:
Inciting Teacher Efficacy through Critical Pedagogies 39
Vicki Garavuso, EdD
3 Intertextuality, Music, and Critical Pedagogy 63
Charles Malone, PhD
4 Transforming Classrooms: Teacher Education,
Social Studies, and Curriculum Drama 83
Catherine Franklin, EdD
5 Incorporating Teacher Candidates’ Prior Beliefs and Funds of
Knowledge in Theories of Child Development 107
Amita Gupta, EdD
6 Prioritizing the Social in Academic Writing: The Experiences
of Ethnically, Linguistically, and Generationally Diverse Early
Childhood Teacher Candidates 129
Gay Wilgus, PhD
7 Special Education Teacher Preparation: Growing
Disability Studies in the Absence of Resistance 153
Linda Ware, PhD
viii Contents
8 Postmulticulturalism: Cultivating Alternative Canons,
a Critical Vernacular, and Student- Generated
Understandings of Their “Lived- Situatedness” 177
Gay Wilgus, PhD
Appendix A: Writing Background Survey 195
Appendix B: Interview Questions 199
Notes on Contributors 201
Index 203
Tables
4.1 Birthplace of students born internationally 86
4.2 US Senate compared to classroom senate 91
7.1 2003– 5 City College Graduate Bulletin and
2006 revised course descriptions 161
7.2 Competing perspectives: Psychologist- parent- child 169
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks to Christine Sleeter, Andra Miletta, and Nick Michelli
for their generosity and guidance in the shaping of this project.
Preface
Educators, reporters, and most parents on the left, right, and center agree
that schools are in shambles. They differ on the analysis of what is wrong
and how to fix it. The Right’s program of evaluating teachers, students,
and administrators by high-s takes testing results and teacher subservi-
ence to this lunatic regime is still dominant but has fallen on hard times.
Despite its adherence to this draconian and retributive policy, the Obama
administration has been forced to grant exceptions to states who want to
be freed of it. The Center, among whose leading spokespersons is NYU
professor Diane Ravitch, has focused narrowly on the ills of high- stakes
standardized testing but does not engage in the substantive question of
classroom practice, except to condemn its consequence: that teaching is
almost exclusively devoted to test preparation. Until now most of the Left
has confined its criticism to issues of discrimination, particularly unequal
racial, ethnic, and class access to the best schools. Recently, left- educators
joined the Center in defending teachers who have borne a considerable
portion of public blame for the decline. Even the superintendent of
Atlanta schools has remarked that the education industry is the only one
that blames the workers for its problems.
This is a unique book in several respects. Its aim is not to provide
a comprehensive plan to save the schools but, instead, to suggest that
the key to a real education is to address classroom practice. All of the
authors in this collection begin by suggesting that the teacher must
respect the students. Gay Wilgus and her colleagues have extended
the debate to the places where genuine education might take place,
the classroom. In their rich tapestry of approaches there is one com-
mon theme: they intend to “learn from their students” as much as
teach them. In this respect, they mean to challenge what Paulo Freire
disdainfully referred to as the “banking model of education,” in which
the omniscient pedagogue pours knowledge into the empty heads of
students. Instead they propose a model of interaction in which both
of the interlocutors benefit from the exchange. To be sure, teachers
presumably bring to the exchange a thorough command of the subject
matter, a tool box of techniques, and their own experience. But what
do the students bring?