Acts of Solidarity: Developing Urban Social Justice Educators in the Struggle for Quality Public Education.

Abstract

In many instances, teacher programs have been positioned as apolitical entities with the task of preparing teachers to perform the duties and responsibilities of the profession. Instead, the position of the authors is that because teaching is a deeply endeavor that requires expert knowledge of issues beyond the classroom, teacher programs must embrace a particular responsibility. We agree with Cochran-Smith that teacher is a issue that requires intentional blurring of the roles of teacher practitioner, teacher researcher, and critic/analyst of the policies, agendas, and popular and professional discourses that directly or indirectly influence teacher education (Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 4). In so doing, we recognize that political in this sense is not referencing electoral partisan politics. Instead, it is in reference to the overt and nuanced power relationships between the state (both local and federal), public policy, and its residents. Teaching should not be considered outside of this construct. By taking the position that teaching for social justice is an act of necessity and solidarity, this work seeks to highlight two examples of teacher initiatives. Because the relationships between teacher, student, family, school, and state are integral to the teaching process, three central questions guide our thinking and teaching. The first question in our inquiry is in what ways can teacher be re-conceptualized in relation to communities to address the function of teaching? Secondly, how can teacher renegotiate traditional relationships with key stakeholders to move towards social justice education? Finally, what specific strategies and innovations are teacher educators implementing within communities and schools to develop social justice educators? In order to engage these questions, we operate from Freire's position of developing conscientization within teacher candidates (Freire, 1993). Herein is the process of developing consciousness-raising within teacher candidates in order to reflect and begin to ask critical questions of their practice as teachers. Discussed in detail in later sections, the two cases cited here speak to the process of making it possible for teachers to create such conditions without fear of persecution. To start the process, we begin with a working definition of social justice in education. Following this section is a brief section linking the contexts of teacher for social justice in Chicago and New York City. The third section (titled Part One) is a narrative example of building school and community relationships in Chicago, outlining the process by which a teacher educator engaged a school and the surrounding community as well as a an example of a collaborative teacher designed assessment tool for preservice teachers. The fourth section of the document (titled Part Two) discusses the New York context, providing an example of what building solidarity with student and community looks like at the classroom level. Concluding the document is a discussion of the importance of social justice in teacher in a day and age where local, state, and national conversations are dominated by the rhetoric of market economy and standardization. On Method and Positionality As this article is a narrative account of our experiences as teacher educators, it should also be considered in the line of research that takes into account the commitment of the scholar activist to work in solidarity with schools and communities (e.g., Thuiwai-Smith, 1999; Lipman in Koval et. al., 2007; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2007). Recognizing the exploitative relationships in which researchers have engaged over the years to gain access to communities for the sake of gathering data and presenting at conferences, we do not seek the same association. …