Abstract
In this chapter, the authors outline the ongoing dialogues, thought processes, and pedagogical moves they make as two seasoned colleagues of color attempting to enhance the cultural competence of students through a critical multicultural education course offered at a public university-based teacher education program. They document how we address many enduring moral, ethical, and epistemological questions through their practice that are unique to educators of color working at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). They frame the work within the literature on diversity and social justice pedagogy and link their own work to the broader well-documented challenges faced by many educators of color at PWIs. They tackle the thorny concept of cultural competence, offering their professional understanding of an admittedly contested topic. They draw on spirituality to ground the “heart and soul work” they undertake that enhances their own critical consciousness as it is continually nurtured in dialogic relation to their students.
TopIntroduction
We borrow our title from Parker Palmer’s (1983) now classic text, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, in which Palmer called for the lifelong cultivation of each educator’s deep inner wisdom as essential leaven for transformative teaching and learning practice. Holding firm to a spiritual understanding of our vocation helps to ground our commitment to providing effective multicultural programming, despite the challenges imposed by the current political climate (hooks, 1999). That teachers today live and must operate in highly politically charged contexts is beyond debate. As a result of heightened polarization and the ongoing culture wars that escalated beginning in the 1980s (Shor, 1992), educational equity leaders and social justice-oriented educators, especially those of color, have come under increasing levels of scrutiny (Ruparelia, 2014). Particularly at taxpayer-funded public institutions in the “red states,” progressive-minded higher education faculty frequently encounter criticism from conservative college students and legislators for pushing a “liberal” agenda. In response, educators like ourselves necessarily hone our skills at reading and responding to the shifting social and political landscape in which we teach and struggle. In the end, we believe that this makes us better teachers, as we are forced to thoughtfully re-examine our pedagogy in relation to present-day exigencies in dialogic relation, whether with participants in our classrooms or professional development sessions.
While educators like to tell themselves that they can create the conditions for learning that are “safe spaces” for frank and open discussions related to issues of social justice in education, we have become aware that students from different backgrounds sometimes express dismay and resentment, especially when dialogue in the classroom becomes heated or charged with conflicting social and political views (Bonilla-Silva, 2015; Matias, 2016; Ohito, 2016; Singleton, 2015). Nevertheless, as of 2020, white students have become the minority in public schools (now making up less than 49% of the approximately 50 million students enrolled K-12) (Krogstad, & Fry, 2014). According to the US Department of Education, as of 2016, the teaching force was 80% white and 77% female (USDE National Center for Educational Statistics, 2017). The rapid demographic shifts in schools, in our view, create an escalating sense of urgency to directly address educational disparities and the particular role of whiteness in schools with burgeoning minoritized student populations.
Given the sense of urgency to transform the teaching force, it is vital to take into account pre-service and in-service teachers’ situated identities in teacher education (Morales, Espinoza, & Duke, 2020). How we attempt to orchestrate transformative learning experiences by drawing on our own situated identities as our multicultural “superpower” provides the focus of this chapter. We focus on the interwoven links between the intellectual, emotional, and psychological labor--what we refer to as spiritually-grounded “heart and soul work” that simultaneously motivates and sustains us as we address challenges in our daily struggles as faculty of color frequently working against the current in predominantly white institutions (PWIs).
Key Terms in this Chapter
White Privilege: The benefits and privileges associated with being White or being socialized and/or interpreted as White. Founded on ideologies of ethnocentrism, White supremacy, racism and oppression of people of color.
Epistemologies: Theories and conceptions of human knowledge.
Praxis: The practical application of theory or theory-informed practice.
Teacher Education: The preparation of post-secondary students for the profession of teaching. Coursework and field-based professional experiences that focus on the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed to become a teacher.
Social Justice: The focused efforts and commitments of social actors to dismantle of all forms of oppression – economic, racial, religious, gender, sexuality, nativity, etc.
Prolepsis: In an education context, prolepsis is a teacher’s critical, hopeful orientation towards students based on high expectations for what they can be or do. A commitment to speak and respond to students as though they are already exhibiting or performing at the level you know they are capable.
Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs): Those institutions whose histories, policies, practices, and ideologies center whiteness or the white majority. PWIs, by design, tend to marginalize the identities, perspectives, and practices of people of color.
Race Evasion: An individual’s tendency to avoid engaging in conversations involving issues of race and/or to avoid interracial/intercultural interactions with others who they perceive as different.