The Imperative: Social Justice and Equity in Middle Childhood Teacher Preparation

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The Imperative Social Justice and Equity in
Middle Childhood Teacher Preparation

• A Symposium onMiddle Level Teacher Preparation
  Destin, Florida
• February 9-10, 2007

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Diane Ross, Ph. D.Assistant ProfessorMiddle
Level Teacher EducationOtterbein College

• dross_at_otterbein.edu
• 614.823.1836
• 330.697.3707

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Where does the journey start?

• It starts with NMSA standards.

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Standard 1 Young Adolescent Development

• Middle level teacher candidates
• understand the major concepts,
• principles, theories, and research related
• to young adolescent development, and
• they provide opportunities that support
• student development and learning

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One of the criteria for assessment of this
standard is as follows

• Candidates must respect and appreciate the
• range of individual developmental differences of
• all young adolescents. They must believe that
• diversity among all young adolescents is an
• asset. They must use this knowledge to
• provide all young adolescents with learning
• opportunities that are developmentally
• responsive, socially just and equitable,
• and academically rigorous.

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NCATE/NMSA has left the problematictasks of
defining social justice and equity
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Defining Social Justice and Equity

• Rizvi (1998)-social justice is not a timeless or
  static concept but instead reflects the changing
  social and economic conditions in society
• Rawls (1972) -every person is entitled to the
  most complete basic rights as anyone else
• if anyone has more than another, the person most
  in need should receive more
• Nozick (1976) entitlement, requires just
  competition but not necessarily just outcomes
• Marxist social-democratic theory
• importance of needs
• community is more than a collection of
  individuals
• members are responsible to the greater good

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Historical ImplicationsProgressivism/
Reconstructivism.

• Dewey, 1916, 1938
• Counts, 1932
• Freire, 1970
• Apple, 1979
• Goodlad, 1979
• Kliebard, 1986
• Ayers, 1998

• Kesson
• Henderson, 2000
• Hamilton
• McWilliam, 2001
• Kozol
• Kohl
• Ladson Billings

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How do you understand preparing middle childhood
teachers to teach for social justice and equity
in your middle childhood teacher education
program?
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Present conditions that interfere with social
justice and equity in teacher education

• White teachers candidates
• 88 whites in 1971- 90.7 in 1996
• Black teacher candidates
• 8.1 in 1971 to 7.3 in 1996
• Other
• 3.6 in 1971 to 2.0 in 1996
• Teacher Education Faculty
• 87-90 white
• Pitifully homogeneous

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Pre-service educators

• They do not believe racism is a problem
  (Moultry, 1988 Goodlad, 1990).
• They enter the teaching profession for reasons
  other than changing society to make it more just
  and equitable (Ginsburg Newman, 1985
  Goodlad, 1990 National Center for Education
  Information data, 1996).

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• They do not believe Whiteness is
• a culture and are unable to reflect
• on their own status as privileged
• White persons
• (Schwartz, 1996, Bradfield-Kreider, 2001
  Carpenter, 2000).

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• They resist changing any beliefs they
• have brought into teaching and they
• particularly resist beliefs imposed on
• them
• (Bradfield-Kreider, 2001 Carpenter, 2000
  Dewey, 1938 Goodlad, 1990 Ginsburg Newman,
  1985 Howard, 1999 Jipson, 1995 Titus, 2000
  MacIntosh, 1989 Moultry, 1988 Simpson, 1992
  Sobel Taylor, 2001 Strike Posner, 1992
  Tatum, 1992 Pohan Mathison, 1999).

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White privilege

• Understanding the personal implications of White
  privilege, especially in socially diverse,
  unjust, and inequitable environments is essential
  
• (Howard, 1999 Nieto, 1999 McIntosh, 1989
  Levine, 1996).

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• Teacher educators have asked pre-service
  educators to reflect on their Whiteness, their
  attitudes towards racism, sexism, and other
  issues of injustice and inequity in order to
  overcome their biases and to be effective
  teachers in working with school children from
  diverse backgrounds
• (Posner, 1996 Schon, 1990).

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• Little, if any, research however, has been
  published on teacher educators reflections on
  their own dispositions related to social justice
  and equity.

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Basic assumptions in middle childhood teacher
education

• Teacher educators must examine
• their own beliefs about social
• justice and equity in order to
• model the disposition for teacher
• candidates.

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• In order to prepare socio-politically
• conscious educators, teacher
• educators must practice socio-
• political consciousness in their own
• work.

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My scholarly journey to understand how to
prepare socially just and equitable middle level
educators
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Journey

• Martha Holden Jennings Scholar- Understanding the
  Holocaust through Childrens Literature
• Dissertation Social Justice and Equity A
  Middle Childhood Educators Journey
• SAIL- Summer Academy for Integrated Learning
• The EPU (European University Center for Peace
  Studies)
• Center for Peace Research and Peace Education,
  Klagenfurt, Austria
• Inter-American Summit on Conflict Resolution
  Education (CRE). Cleveland, USA.
• This we believe with an urban focus Social
  justice and equity in urban middle schools.-
  presentation and book proposal
• Tanzania.????

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Martha Holden Jennings Teaching the Holocaust
through Childrens Literature
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The International Youth Library

• Largest library for international children's and
  youth literature in the world.
• 1949 Jella Lepman
• Post World War II
• New hope and values after the years of Nazi
  terror and the horrors of war
• New understanding for other people and nations
• Discourse about children's literature children
• Collection of nearly 540,000 books, with 500,000
• volumes of children's and youth books in more
  than 130 languages
• http//www.ijb.de/entry2.html

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What did I learn?

• Educating for social justice and equity is not
  about understanding the victim but much more
  about understanding the perpetuators

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Doctoral Dissertation

• Research Question
• What are my own personal/professional
  understandings and dispositions related to young
  adolescents?
• What were the issues and dilemmas that social
  justice and equity in the education of developed
  as I attempted to prepare middle childhood
  educators to teach for social justice and equity?
  How did I address the issues that arose.

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Methodology

• Heuristics
• To know and understand the nature, meanings, and
  essence of a particular phenomenon.
• Autobiography
• Phenomenology
• Case Studies

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What did I learn?

• Becoming a middle childhood teacher educator who
  believes in social justice and equity is not
  about teaching others about this, but about
  becoming this

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Project SAIL Summer Academy for
IntegratedLearning Teachers and Students
Learning Together

• Columbus City Schools and Otterbein College

 
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SAIL

• Strategy One Provide professional development
  based upon proven practices in middle level
  education and culturally relevant pedagogy for
  teachers at Medina, Indianola, and Crestview
  Middle Schools
• Strategy Two Expose urban middle school
  students to evidence-based teaching strategies
  that improve attitudes toward learning and
  enhance academic achievement
• Strategy Three Develop urban field experiences
  for pre-service teachers consistent with proven
  practices in middle level education to increase
  their urban employment

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What have I learned?

• Social justice and equity is not
• only about integrating curriculum,
• but about integrating
• communities and voices. Social
• justice and equity comes when all
• feel that their voices are
• respected.

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European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU)

• http//www.aspr.ac.at/

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 Social Justice and Equity in Education Overview

• How does ones worldview affect the paradigms of
  education?
• How do state or federal mandates affect education
  and society?
• How does the issue of intolerance, injustice,
  racism and inequity affect schools and society?  
  
• How do schools promote or dissuade the
  perpetuation of violence and war in society?
• How does one prepare teachers to respond to the
  injustices and inequities in education and
  society?

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(front) Dominque- Uganda (child soldier at 9,
research on equity with girl child
education) Naghmeh- Iran (research on women and
leadership roles) (back) Soe- Myanmar (research
on education and equity in Burma) Farai
Zimbabwe (research on peace education in African
nations)
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What did I learn?

• I have a desire to understand the lack of
  consistent quality education available to
  children in the world
• I have a desire to understand global issues of
  social justice and equity in education in the
  future
• My knowledge was so small in the big picture of
  the world, I gained a much larger perspective on
  the meanings of social justice and equity
• The United States and its perspectives was such a
  small sliver of the knowledge necessary to
  understand the concepts of peace, justice, and
  equity in education
• Narrowness of knowledge evident in the American
  perspective, was not shared by everyone
• This led to concerns of imperialism, dominance,
  and entitled privilege by Americans.

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Klagenfurt, Austria Center for Peace Research
and Peace Education
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Center for Peace Research and Peace Education

• The key issues facing our society today, such as
  securing and maintaining peace, living together
  in multicultural societies, global education for
  a world society and non-violent approaches to
  conflicts, demand thorough scientific research
  and the most current up-to-date academic teaching.

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What did I learn?

• Europe is aware of the implications of world
  violence and conflict in their lives because of
  geographic proximity and cultural values of
  community
• USA has an allusion that even in the 21st century
  with our geographic isolation and capitalistic
  attitudes, we can become apathetic to world
  violence and conflict

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Where am I going
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Inter-American Summit on Conflict Resolution
Education March 14-17, 2007,  Metropolitan
Campus Cleveland Ohio

• This first-ever Summit
• Develop a hemispheric infrastructure throughout
  the Americas
• Advance the work in the fields of conflict
  resolution education and peace education.
• Policymakers and educators representing regions
  across the United States and select member
  countries of the OAS representing North, Central,
  South America and the Caribbean.
• Exchange program best practices, evaluation
  methodology
• Creation of policy implementation structures
• Consideration of obstacles to success.

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Camp Kilimanjaro

• See man-made and natural wonders of the area,
• Experience how hard the women work
• Get to know the people - maybe even work with one
  of the children.
• Villagers want to hear about you, your customs,
  and your country of origin
• 99 of the people who come to Africa stay in
  fancy hotels, take sterile safaris, never
  venturing into the towns or villages where they
  could meet and associate with the people.

http//www.campkilimanjaro.com/
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This We Believe with an Urban Focus

• National Middle School Association support of a
• collaborative book project

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This We Believe with an Urban Focus
Urban
Student
Subject
More than half of all single women with children
age 5 and under live in poverty
Middle School Vision 14 Tenets
8,390 grandparents are primary caregivers for
their grandchildren
10 of Franklin County residents (100,000) lack
health insurance coverage
16.85 of the overall population in Franklin
County are living below the poverty guideline
23.4 of those living in poverty are children
Society
Self
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This We Believe with an Urban Focus

• Co-authors in the book include middle childhood
  teachers and teacher candidates that I have
  worked with for years as well as middle childhood
  teachers, teacher educators, and school
  administrators who heard about this book and have
  committed to spending the next six months in
  dialogue with each other
• Co-authors were asked to be reflective and engage
  in a professional dialogue and personal growth.
• Online forum. With this online discussion board,
  I chose one tenet from This We Believe to post
  each month. I asked each person to agree to post
  once a week and to respond to someone once a week
  as well looking for clarifications and posing
  challenging questions.
• Telling your story is essential but not
  sufficient
• The goal is to take people beyond their stories
• These co-authors agreed also to be confronted
  with some of their own myths and misconceptions
  so as to be forced to consider new possibilities
  and new perceptions of their problems and their
  situations.

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What have I learnedso far..

• Being collaborative is hard work
• My attempt to be self-reflective and vulnerable
  so as to encourage others to do the same is not
  always as effective as I was hoping and can still
  be misconstrued as Diane being all about Diane..

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Future Implications for Middle Childhood Teacher
Education

• The only way that we can ensure that our
• pre-service educators have any
• possibility of acquiring these dispositions
• of social justice and equity is for us to spend
• our lives, as middle childhood teacher
• educators, acquiring those dispositions in
• ourselves. In the process of holding
• accountable others, we must first hold
• accountable ourselves.

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What are the implications of this in higher
education?
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What are the implications for this in teacher
education?
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What are the implications for this in middle
childhood teacher education?