Case 2: “If Learning is a Social Endeavor, why am i Doing this Alone?”: Teacher Educator Learning From a Racialized Perspective

The work of teacher educators combines three perspectives—our experiences as former classroom teachers, as educators in academia, and as learners through the lens of teacher candidates. Yet the role that largely shapes those perspectives—but is often unacknowledged—is our racialized identity. Over the past decade, the academization of teacher education has shifted our roles from being contextualized in school as a workplace, to school as a place of structured apprenticeship for our students (Davey, 2013). Likewise, there has been an imposition of external evaluations on teacher preparation performance, such as the EdTPA, or the emphasis on standards from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (Dover & Shultz, 2016). As a result, these reforms have emphasized meeting benchmarks and have de-emphasized students’ analysis of the structural inequities within schooling that limit their abilities to effectively reach students and their families. This case highlights the impact of these changes on teacher educators of Color, like myself, and our practices, particularly in a profession where 88% of teacher educators are White (Ladson-Billings, 2005). Through this case, I hope to spotlight (a) the roles that teacher educators of Color take on in their own learning and practices with teacher candidates, (b) how teacher educators should analyze and reconceptualize the language common in teaching standards, and (c) how candidates can access community resources to promote and reflection on identities. Focusing on the standard of promoting cultural competence and social justice, I highlight my role as a teacher educator of Color and my professional development through a racialized lens. I use Kohli and Pizzaro’s (2022) idea of capitalizing the word “Color” as a way of honoring the racialized identities of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).