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This volume unmasks tensions among economic, political, and educational goals in the context of becoming and being a teacher. Chapters frame becoming and being a teacher within commitments to democracy and political literacy while confronting neoliberal assumptions about American society, universal public education, and education reform. A wide variety of teachers and scholars discuss teacher preparation and teaching through evidence-based examinations of complex problems and solutions facing teachers, education policymakers, the public, and students. Teaching is embraced as a political act, and critical subjectivity is endorsed as a rejection of objectivity and traditional paradigms of teaching designed to create a compliant teacher workforce. The book honors and celebrates voice and collective voice, both of which speak to and from the inexorable fact of becoming and being a teacher as one and the same.
List of contents
Contents: P. L. Thomas: Introduction - Thomas Robertine: Continuous Becoming: Fieldwork as a Mutually Transformative Experience - Ana L. Cruz: Becoming a Teacher: Fostering a Democratically Conscious Citizenry Through Critical Pedagogy - Katherine Crawford-Garrett: Teach for America, Urban Reform, and the New Taylorism in Public Education - Lisa William-White: Becoming a Teacher in an Era of Curricular Standardization and Reductionist Learning Outcomes: A Poetic Interpretation - Anthony Cody: Learning to Teach: Values in Action - Brad J. Porfilio/Lauren Hoffman: The Corporate Takeover of Teacher Education: Exposing and Challenging NCTQ's Neoliberal Agenda - John L. Hoben: Right-Thinking People: Becoming a Teacher Educator in the Age of Austerity - John M. Elmore: Neoliberalism and Teacher Preparation: Systematic Barriers to Critical Democratic Education - Julie A. Gorlewski/David A. Gorlewski: Too Late for Public Education? Becoming a Teacher in a Neoliberal Era - Lawrence Baines: Ignorance Is Strength: Teaching in the Shadow of Big Brother - Ann G. Winfield/Alan S. Canestrari: Beware Reformers Bearing Gifts: How the Right Uses the Language of Social Justice to Reinforce Inequity - Gordon D. Bambrick: Spotlight on Failure: The Mythology of Corporate Education Reform - Amy Seely Flint/Eliza Allen/Tara Campbell/Amy Fraser/Danielle Hilaski/Linda James/Sanjuana Rodriguez/Natasha Thornton: More Than Graphs and Scripted Programs: Teachers Navigating the Educational Policy Terrain - Dana M. Stachowiak: Not Bound by Stupid Binaries: Dismantling Gender in Public Schools Through a New Consciousness and Claiming of Agency - Galen Leonhardy: So This Is America: A Narrative of Becoming and Being a Teacher - Regletto Aldrich D. Imbong: Neoliberalism and the Filipino Teacher: Shaking the System for a Genuine Democracy - Katie Stover/Crystal Glover: Mandated Scripted Curriculum: A Benefit or Barrier to Democratic Teaching and Learning? - A. Scott Henderson: Schools as Battlegrounds: The Authoritarian Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas - Melissa Winchell/Patricia Chouinard: Troubling Traditional Notions of «Prepared»: Two Urban Teachers Ignite the Boundaries of Progressive and Critical Theories - Dawn Mitchell: Why Accountability Measures Fail: Practitioner Perspectives on the Role of Teacher Efficacy - Michael Svec: Empowerment Through Classroom Cultural Inquiries - P. L. Thomas: Conclusion. «[N]ot the Time...to Follow the Line of Least Resistance».
About the author
P. L. Thomas (Ed.D. in curriculum and instruction, University of South Carolina) is Associate Professor of Education at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. He is a column editor for English Journal (National Council of Teachers of English), series editor for the Critical Literacy Teaching Series, and author of numerous books and journal articles. His most recent volume is Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Education.
Summary
Teaching is embraced as a political act, and critical subjectivity is endorsed as a rejection of objectivity and traditional paradigms of teaching designed to create a compliant teacher workforce. This book unmasks tensions among economic, political, and educational goals in the context of becoming and being a teacher.
