This chapter highlights one pre-service teacher's approach to facilitating critical conversations during his student teaching experience. Situated in a 6th grade English language arts classroom, the pre-service teacher aimed to engage his students in small and whole class discussions around issues of race, immigration, and stereotyping during a world cultural literature unit he planned. Using excerpts from classroom discussions, data suggest that he responded to student dialogue in one of three ways: advancing student dialogue that was consistent with his instructional goals, 2) disrupting student dialogue that was inconsistent with his goals, or 3) overlooking uncomfortable or complex student dialogue that was inconsistent with his instructional goals. Implications from this research suggest the need for more opportunities during teacher education programs for pre-service teachers to engage in approximations, calculated planning, and mentoring conversations designed to better prepare pre-service teachers for facilitating academic discourse around controversial topics.
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“It’s like Donald Trump. He says Mexican people don’t work.”
Sixth grade Latina student, Carla, offered this evidence of personal experience during a class conversation about stereotyping, showcasing the undeniable presence of the current political climate in classrooms today. While this particular conversation was centered around stereotypes generally and the specific literature that the students had just finished reading in their “Passport Around the World” unit, Carla’s personal and cultural experiences shaped her argument and serve as an example of how anti-immigration rhetoric impacts our students and K-12 classrooms. Students of all ages hear, read, and otherwise absorb political “rants” and breaking news in increasing numbers due to the accessibility of news and political-based opinions through social media and other news outlets (boyd, 2015; Loader, Vromen, & Xenos, 2014). Students have opinions on political and social issues at a younger age and the classroom should serve as a space where they can not only share their own ideas to be reinforced, but also develop new perspectives, hear opposing views, and deepen their own understanding of issues.
To comprehend, consider, and critique the messages that students encounter around them, students need opportunities to explore them with others. Academic discourse can serve as a vehicle for change—to encourage understanding over ignorance and discussion over silencing. Teaching in culturally relevant ways involves adapting not just the content of what we teach, but also adapting how it is taught (Appleman, 2015). So, while students should read texts that represent diverse opinions, perspectives, and characters, we also must model for students how to question, critique, and think about them in ways that promote empathy and deep understanding. This type of teaching requires that teachers understand the complexity of the issues being discussed as well as how to facilitate discussions with students in ways that promote awareness, rather than reinforce stereotypes.
To not address current political and social issues would be to ignore students’ personal and cultural lives and to isolate the classroom from the realities of our world today. And yet many teachers avoid or feel ambivalence towards or difficult conversations in the classroom because they are uncomfortable (Borsheim-Black, 2018) or they assume that they do not know how to facilitate discussion without muffling one’s beliefs or compromising a positive, safe classroom culture (Bender-Slack, 2010). To prevent eschewal, preparation for facilitating critical class discussions should begin at the pre-service teacher education level. Pre-service teacher (PSTs) should be equipped with both the theoretical and practical tools for facilitating critical conversations with their students (Bender-Slack, 2010;Vetter, Schieble, & Meacham, 2018). When PSTs explore adolescent discussions around issues such as race, immigration, and stereotyping, as Carla was engaged in, it can advance their understanding of how to respond to conflicting or controversial ideas, and otherwise facilitate authentic class discussions evident in adolescent classrooms today.
As such, this chapter highlights a case study of one white male pre-service English language arts (ELA) teacher as he taught a unit on stereotypes and prejudice using multicultural literature. It is guided by the questions: How does one pre-service teacher facilitate critical discussions with adolescents? How does he respond to statements that reinforce prejudice?