The purpose of this study is to explore the racialized tensions between a preservice teacher (PSTOC) of color and his white mentor teacher (MT) in an urban school. At a time when more teacher preparation programs are moving toward justice-oriented coursework (Reagan & Hambacher, 2021), it is increasingly important to find ways of aligning the critical commitments between university and PK–12 schools. Grounded in a theory of white supremacy culture and scholarship on the relationships between pre-serviceand mentor teachers and racial trauma for educators of color, we pose the following research question: How does the relationship between a preservice teacher of color and a white mentor teacher demonstrate racialized tension and white supremacy culture? This qualitative study uses fictionalized vignettes to explore and explain the data. We also draw implications for teacher preparation, especially programs focused on equity and justice in urban education.
When Kevin walks into school that morning, it is very quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet. The normal “buzz” of the hallway has been replaced with an oppressive hush. He’s never been in this school before, but he knows that the first day of school is typically a busy and joyful– maybe even loud–one. Last night, as he prepared for his first day as a student teacher at Horace Mann, an urban elementary school, Kevin had been excited about meeting his mentor teacher, Mr. Connor, and their students. He doesn’t know much about Mr. Connor, just that he’s white and has been teaching at Horace Mann for five years. He had eagerly checked his email one more time before bed to see if his mentor emailed him back (no luck) and that’s when he saw the news. Another unarmed Black man had been shot and killed by police in a city an hour away. There was a video, but he didn’t want to watch it. He started texting with friends and family, but even as he was having those conversations, he was thinking about what would happen in the classroom the next day. Would his mentor talk about it?
Would the third graders know what happened? How would he respond if they asked him about it? It was a restless night and now, facing down the long hallway at Horace Mann, he has no answers.
Kevin’s story, begun above, is one that may feel familiar to teacher educators and practitioners who are faced with preparing and supporting preservice teachers (PSTs) for urban schools. Urban schools serve predominantly students of Color, yet are still staffed by a majority of white teachers. At the same time, more teacher preparation programs are creating urban teacher residencies or Grown Your Own programs for future teachers of Color and moving toward justice-oriented coursework (Reagan & Hambacher, 2021). Thus, it is increasingly important to find ways of aligning the critical commitments between university and PK–12 schools and between preservice teachers of Color and their likely white mentors. As Kevin’s expanded story below will show, the purpose of this study is to explore the racialized tensions between a preservice teacher (PSTOC) of Color and his white mentor teacher (MT).
Unique to this study is the methodology of fictionalized vignettes as a way to explore this relationship. This form of qualitative and narrative research offers “a way to engage in imagination that enriches inquiry spaces and research understandings” (Caine et al., 2017, p. 217). While Kevin himself is not a real person, Mr. Connor is; we put them in conversation to advance the field’s understanding of the possibilities and challenges of teacher preparation toward justice and equity when PSTs, especially PSTOC, continue to enter urban schools that perpetuate racism. Grounded in a theory of white supremacy culture and scholarship on teacher preparation and mentoring, we pose the following research question: How does the relationship between a preservice teacher of Color and a white mentor teacher demonstrate racialized tension and white supremacy culture?
Theoretical Framework
As critical race scholars, we approach all of our research with the understanding that “race matters and should be studied and conceptualized in making sense of reality and our ontological ways of knowing” (Milner, 2017, p. 296). As Ladson-Billings (1998) explains, Critical Race theorists take up the “the strategy… of unmasking and exposing racism in its various permutations” (p. 11). For the purposes of this paper, we focus, in particular, on one core tenet of CRT, the permanence of racism:
CRT begins with the notion that racism is “normal, not aberrant, in American society’ ’ (Delgado, 1995, p. xiv), and, because it is so enmeshed in the fabric of our social order, it appears both normal and natural to people in this culture. (Ladson-Billings, 1998 p. 11)
We explain more in the methods section below how the CRT tenet of counter-storytelling relates to this article, but here, we explore the particularities of the permanence of racism by outlining the related theory of white supremacy culture (Okun, 2021). White supremacy culture is the “widespread ideology baked into the beliefs, values, norms, and standards of our groups (many if not most of them), our communities, our towns, our states, our nation, teaching us both overtly and covertly that whiteness holds value, whiteness is value” (Okun, 2021). Everyone is socialized into the culture of white supremacy, or the “tools of whiteness” (Picower, 2009), because the characteristics of white supremacy culture appear in “all aspects of our national life—health, education, employment, incarceration, policing, the law, the environment, immigration, agriculture, food, housing” (Okun, 2021). White supremacy culture is perpetuated individually, interpersonally, and institutionally and “shapes how we think and act, how we make decisions and behave” (Okun, 2021). Take, for example, the “overwhelming presence of whiteness in teacher education” (Sleeter, 2001). This means that policies and practices that have been “normalized” in teacher preparation programs for decades–such as policies about ‘professional’ dress and behavior, as well as curricula that advance color-evasive pedagogies–reflect the characteristics of white supremacy culture and merit deep introspection and reimagining from teacher education faculty. Table 1 describes Okun’s (2021) nine characteristics of white supremacy culture in more detail. In our Discussion section, we share more about how we see examples of multiple characteristics in this study.
Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture (Okun, 2021)*
| Characteristic | Definition (Okun, 2021) |
|---|---|
| Fear | “White supremacy culture’s number one strategy is to make us afraid. When we are afraid, we lose touch with our power and become more easily manipulated by the promise of an illusory safety.” |
| One Right Way | “The belief there is one right way to do things. Connected to the belief in an objective ‘perfect’ that is both attainable and desirable for everyone. Connected to the belief that I am qualified to know what the perfect right way is for myself and others.” |
| Either/Or Thinking and The Binary | “Reduces the complexity of life and the nuance of our relationships with each other and all living things into either/or, yes or no, right or wrong in ways that reinforce urgency, one right way perfectionist thinking, and abuse of power.” |
| Denial and Defensiveness | “The habit of denying and defending against the ways in which white supremacy and racism are produced and our individual or collective participation in that production.” |
| Right to Comfort, Fear of Conflict, and Power Hoarding | ”The internalization that I or we have a right to comfort, which means we cannot tolerate conflict, particularly open conflict.” |
| Individualism | “Our cultural story that we make it on our own, without help, while pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, is a toxic denial of our essential interdependence and the reality that we are all in this, literally, together.” |
| Progress in More/Quantity over Quality | “The assumption that the goal is always more and bigger with an emphasis on what we can “objectively” measure as more valuable than the quality of our relationships to all living beings.” |
| Worship of the Written Word | “Honoring only what is written and even then only what is written to a narrow standard, even when what is written is full of misinformation and lies. An erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other and all living things.” |
| Urgency | “Applying the urgency of racial and social justice to our every day lives in ways that perpetuate power imbalance and disregard for our need to breathe and pause and reflect.” |
*Table organization originally developed for (Author 2 and co-authors, under review, 2024)
Literature Review
A growing number of urban teacher preparation programs have adopted justice-oriented approaches for developing PSTs’ dispositions and pedagogies (Reagan & Hambacher, 2021). Given the historical critique about the ambiguity of the term “social justice” (Cochran-Smith, 2010; Zeichner, 2009), we first clarify the definition used for this study. Drawing from the work of equity-focused scholars, we conceptualize justice-oriented teacher preparation as one that centers critical onto-epistemologies by allowing PSTs to reflect on their own historically and sociopolitically situated positionalities and the role these identities play in the formation of their teacher identities. Justice-oriented preparation also supports PSTs in developing pedagogical stances that critique the status quo of schooling, validate marginalized students’ and communities’ ways of knowing, and understand the sociopolitical contexts that shape students’ and communities’ lives (Freire, 1990; hooks, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Nieto & Bode, 2008).
Implementation of Justice-Oriented Practices Versus the Realities of Schooling
As teacher educators, we have found that, in general, PSTs voice concerns about not having opportunities to implement learning from their teacher education programs during their student teaching experience, but especially when that learning centers justice-oriented concepts. This, in part, is what motivated our study. Despite the aspirational goals of justice-oriented teacher education programs, new teachers find that the realities of schools are often unconducive to developing, implementing, and sustaining their nascent, yet critically-informed teaching praxis (Flores, 2007; Walker & Ardell, 2020). Research demonstrates that teacher candidates who were required to use mandated curricula felt it “contradict[ed] their personal beliefs and/or [did] not allow them to integrate what they have learned from their teacher education course (Richmond et al., 2020; Roegman & Kohlman, 2020)” (Walker & Ardell, 2020, p. 134). Flores (2007) examined the experiences of new urban educators who completed a social justice teacher preparation program. Her study revealed that the expectations and ideals that novice teachers formulate regarding teaching and learning during their preservice experience differ from the realities of urban schooling. Contrary to the theoretical instruction they received in their programs regarding humanizing, student-centered pedagogies, novice teachers experienced school environments that prioritized “discipline and order,” prohibited students from speaking their native language, and taught using scripted curricula (p. 387). They also had to constantly make sense of what it meant to teach for social justice in schools among colleagues who either criticized their approaches or who were not provided the material resources or time to learn about justice-oriented concepts (Flores, 2007). From Flores’ work with new educators, we can extrapolate that PSTs will be faced with the same reality when entering their student teaching placements.
Benefits and Challenges of Preservice and Mentor Teacher Relationships
The significant role that MTs play in PSTs’ development has been well-established in literature on preservice and mentor teacher relationships. Researchers have found that successful mentoring relationships share common traits, such as a sense of shared values (Tauer, 1998), honest and open communication (Stanulis & Russell, 2000), mutual respect and relational trust (Abell et al., 1995), a nurturing and supportive student teaching environment (Ferrier-Kerr, 2009) and the mentor’s willingness to serve (Nasser-Abu Alhija & Fresko, 2014). However, access to MTs who exhibit the above traits is often dependent on inconsistent mentor selection processes (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011), even though research suggests mentor teacher selection is one of the most important contributing factors to the success of novice teachers (Hirsch et al., 2009; Kapadia et al., 2007). For example, in a study of induction and mentoring programs, Ingersoll and Strong (2011) observed:
How carefully mentors are selected is an issue for programs, as is whether selection to be a mentor is truly voluntary or a semimandatory assignment. Some programs include training for mentors; some programs do not. Programs differ according to whether and how they pay mentors for their services. Some programs devote attention to the match between mentor and mentee; others do not. (p. 204)
The lack of intentionality and variable nature of some mentor selection and matching processes may often lead to a mismatch between MTs and PSTs. More specifically, justice-oriented PSTs may discover that their values, sociopolitical awareness, and understandings regarding teaching and learning conflict with those of their assigned mentors. This ideological mismatch is more likely when PSTs are paired with MTs who, as Guenther and Wexler (2021) found, are themselves unaware of the need for critical, justice-centered orientations when supporting PSTs.
A critical component of the mentoring relationship is an opportunity for PSTs to share openly about their lived experiences and how those intersect with their teacher identities. Yet “teacher candidates sometimes end their student teaching experience feeling they have not sufficiently utilized their funds of identity” (Walker & Ardell, 2020, p. 134). Esteban-Guitart and Moll (2014) describe funds of identity as “historically accumulated, culturally developed, and socially distributed resources that are essential for a person’s self-definition, self-expression, and self-understanding” (p. 31). One’s ways of knowing and understanding (or funds of knowledge, as defined by Moll and colleagues, 1992) become funds of identity when they actively inform one’s perceptions and sensemaking of the world. The inability of PSTs to utilize their funds of identity may be even more salient for those educated in justice-oriented teacher education programs and those who hold identities that have been historically and contemporarily marginalized in society—and by extension—schools. Specifically, PSTOC may find that a mismatch in their PST/MT relationship contributes to a hostile and racially traumatic (Kohli, 2016) student teaching experience when they are placed with MTs who express problematic views regarding justice-oriented content taught at the university, students and communities of Color, and current sociopolitical events.
In this study, we deliberately put a PSTOC into conversation with a white MT to reflect the above themes from the literature. We imagined what it would be like for a MT who had no preparation and support for his mentor role (both of which did not exist in the district studied) and who exhibited characteristics of white supremacy in his interactions with students, staff, and one of us (Darius), who was interviewing the MT for his dissertation. In doing so, we extend the arguments of scholars who argue for intentional, well-supported, and justice-oriented placements for PSTs.
Methods
This manuscript is based on data collected in a qualitative case study that utilized interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic observations. For the purposes of this paper, however, and borrowing from Beneke et al. (2022), “we use fictionalization as a rhetorical move to encourage readers to look at…classrooms in new ways, recognizing that ‘if the confessed purpose of a narrative is to encourage readers to ‘try looking at it in this way,’ the truth of the account may not be of primary importance’ (Noddings, 1995, p. 130)” (p. 10). We also take up storytelling in support of CRT’s charge that stories can be used as “theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and work toward social justice” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 23).
Darius, as part of an study on culturally responsive teaching and leadership in an urban district in the midwest, interviewed Mr. Connor. The initial study did not include PSTs, but given our experiences working with this group–especially how they try to make sense of the critical concepts they are learning in the university when they enter student teaching in often restrictive environments–we wondered what it would look like for Mr. Connor to “meet” one of these novice educators. Though their dialogue is fictionalized, Mr. Connor’s comments are verbatim, as he spoke them directly to Darius–also a Black man as we have envisioned in Kevin–the first time they met. Thus, we curated fictionalized vignettes by combining (1) interview data from Mr. Connor, (2) ethnographic data about the school and classroom setting in an urban elementary school, and (3) composite characteristics of justice-oriented PSTOCs, informed by current scholarship and our work as teacher educators in urban teacher preparation programs.
Why Fictionalized Vignettes?
As we worked together to consider how to tell Mr. Connor’s story, we turned to Maxine Greene’s exhortation to make use of the social imagination, to consider how fiction can support scholars and educators “in our longing for something better than unacceptable present conditions” (Greene, 1988, p. xi). While we could have presented Mr. Connor’s data as a more traditional case study, we appreciate how “fictionalization provides a way to enter into field texts in a different manner, a way that requires an imaginative act” (Caine et al., 2017, p. 219). In their methods article on fictionalization in qualitative inquiry, Caine et al. (2017) call on scholars to create ‘as if’ worlds (Sarbin, 2004), “places that are fictionalized but are being drawn from, and are in response to, lives and living. The worlds created are narrative constructions, fictionalized out of the stuff of memory and drawing on field texts…” (p. 218).
Two mentor texts from which we took inspiration also focus on teaching in urban classrooms. Chang and Rosiek (2003), writing about a science teacher’s culturally responsive pedagogy, crafted a fictionalized narrative as part of a case study that “seeks to bring competing imperatives into conceptual tension, creating an aporia [a paradox] that is intended to induce a deeper level of reflection” (p. 256). We craft a similar paradox in our vignettes below–the competing imperatives of a student teachers’ supposed ‘learning’ from MTs and the reality of a mismatch between novice and veteran, between educators with different racial identities. Beneke et al. (2022), writing about curricular practices in an urban school, use fictionalization to “illustrate the multidimensionality of carceral logics used to enforce these oppressive ideologies within early literacy classrooms. While all of the fictionalized interactions we highlight as carceral may not occur simultaneously in one lesson or classroom, we use fictionalization as a rhetorical move to encourage readers to look at early literacy classrooms in new ways” (p. 10). Similarly, we argue that the case of Kevin and Mr. Connor illustrates the “multidimensionality of oppressive forces” within typical student teaching models and hope that the fictionalized case “supports efforts to disrupt educational hegemony” (Beneke et al., 2022, p. 9).
Storytelling as Data Analysis
Writing is really a way of thinking—not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic, or just sweet.—Toni Morrison
Our analysis took place both before, during, and after our writing of the fictionalized vignettes. That is, the storytelling itself was part of the analytical process, or “analysis in another manner, creating another layer to deepen awareness” (Caine et al., 2017, p. 217). Our data analysis process included: (1) reviewing Mr. Connor’s data individually and collectively, (2) determining a character with whom we wanted Mr. Connor to interact, (3) reviewing ethnographic data about the school and classroom settings, and (4) writing and revising three scenes in which Mr. Connor and Kevin interact. We met weekly to discuss our writing and the authorial choices we made in the vignettes, as well as how we saw the story aligning or diverging from literature on PSTs of color, student teacher and mentor relationships, and white supremacy culture in urban schools.
The scenes can be viewed as composite vignettes (Beneke et al., 2022) that combine what we know to be true, from personal and professional experiences, about how student teachers interact with their mentors, especially at the beginning of a school year, and the attitudes and dispositions of many white educators in urban schools. Each fictionalized choice that we made was an effort to make the scenes feel as “true” as possible, as something that scholars and practitioners could read and resonate with. We aimed to curate a story that could receive the same supportive review as Barone (2001) wrote for the fictionalized work of Sconiers and Rosiek (2000):
While the precise events and situations described here may not have occurred in my own classroom, they could have. For this reader, the empirical details of the account render it plausible, believable, credible. Similarly, the particulars of Jameson’s [the main character in the article] life story ring true, fostering an empathic identification with a figurative character and entrance into his virtual world. A reader may place the rendering of this possible world alongside remembered life events. Any dissonance that results may prompt the questioning of certain habits, attitudes, and practices that the reader had come to take for granted. (p. 738)
Positionality
We come to this work as justice-oriented teacher educators who have served as program coordinators of equity-focused teacher education programs. Our research and teaching interests converge around issues of racial and social justice and teacher preparation in urban schools. We are also both former K–12 teachers in the urban South and have supported PSTs and their MTs in districts throughout the south, midwest, and northeastern United States. Darius identifies as an African American cisgender man. Alyssa identifies as a white cisgender woman. As we considered Mr. Connor’s story and crafted Kevin’s alongside it, we drew on our personal and professional experiences working in urban schools and striving for racial and social justice in learning spaces.
Findings: A Day in Mr. Connor and Kevin’s Classroom
We invite you to “come along” with us on a day in an urban school where Mr. Connor and Kevin meet. As a reminder, the vignettes below have been crafted as a way to put into conversation the direct quotations from Mr. Connor with the composite character of Kevin, in a situation that feels true to urban school life.
Scene 1: Before School
Mr. Connor is busy taping name tags to the desks when Kevin enters the room. They greet each other with a hand shake and then Mr. Connor tells Kevin to put his bag in the corner by the front of the room. It is a crowded classroom with 30 desks and posters on the walls that encourage students to develop the traits of grit, resilience, and perseverance. Kevin isn’t sure if he should make small talk, mention what happened last night, or talk about something else entirely, but he doesn’t have to wonder for long because Mr. Connor launches right into conversation. “I’m glad you’re here and I think the kids are going to be glad you’re here, too. My principal says we need more Black teachers in this school because most of our kids are Black.”
Kevin nods, not sure what to say next.
“As you can see, I’m white and I don’t look like the students I teach. But you know, to me, you don’t put a label on any single child at all. They are all individuals. They are human beings. There is no color to them. Like I said, I don’t care who walks through that door. You are a human being and your life matters to me. I care about each and every one of you and I will do my very best to teach each and every one of you every single day and there will be no preconceived notions. If you’re Black, I’m not going to look down on you any differently because you’re all smart. You are all capable learners.”
There is so much going on in those few sentences that Kevin doesn’t even know where to start in responding. He settles for an “uh huh” when he notices that Mr. Connor, still taping name tags and looking furtively at the clock to check how much time before the kids arrive, is prepared to continue sharing his opinions.
“When you’re in this classroom, I think all students can learn. I am really good at differentiating and doing the thing where, if somebody isn’t able to do something and then I work with them and find different ways if they’re not getting it the first time. I come at it from a different angle and say, ‘You know what? Let’s try it this way. You know what? We haven’t tried it this way yet,’ until they finally start to grasp it.”
The bell rings and the intercom comes on almost immediately. “Teachers, please report to your morning duty stations,” a voice says through the crackling, “Students will be arriving in 5 minutes. Buses may be running late this morning.” Mr. Connor finishes taping the last name tag and grabs a lanyard and keys from the desk. “You can come with me,” he tells Kevin, “We’ve got bus duty, so we have to go to the front of the school and wait for the buses to come in.” As they walk, Mr. Connor and Kevin trade life facts about themselves–where they were born, how long they’ve lived in this city, and how they decided to become teachers. “I decided when I was in high school,” Kevin says, “After I had a really great math teacher who was a Black man, too. He inspired me to go into education.”
When it’s clear the buses will be arriving late, Mr. Connor leans back against the brick wall of the school and sighs. “No one brings their own kids here; it’s all buses all the time. Even though the parents know the buses will get their kids to school late almost every day. They just don’t care, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Kevin asks, and Mr. Connor continues, “I mean, you go into some homes and education is not at the forefront because maybe the parents had a bad experience with education. So now their kids can have the same issues that they had. I’ve had that happen before where I’ve had to try to change the perception. So I have to tell the parents, ‘I’m sorry that you had that experience and I don’t want that experience for your child. And I’m on your side. I’m on your side. I want to work with you on how we can get your child to the next level.”
Am I really going to have to put up with hearing all of this for the whole year? It had only been 20 minutes and I’m sick of it already, Kevin thinks. Again, he isn’t sure how much he should push back on Mr. Connor’s deficit thinking and clearly racist views of his Black students and their families.
“Why do you think they don’t care?” he probes, and Mr. Connor sighs, twirling the keys on his lanyard and gesturing at the housing complex across the street. “The kids live in places like that,” he says with disgust, “And the parents don’t want to work to try to get a better place because they want to be on welfare. It’s like what I was talking about with my kids last year. We were talking about jobs. And they’re saying things like, ‘Why do I have to get a job? I’m going to get the government to take care of me.’ Already in third grade, we’re having these conversations with your kids and that’s not just one or two. It’s the majority of my classroom. Something has to give. We have, again, these cultures at home. It’s what’s taking place at home and then coming into the classroom.”
What is this guy’s deal? Kevin thinks to himself. How has he been teaching here for five years when he thinks this about his students? It reminds him of so many of his own teachers in elementary school, who said they were “nice” but who clearly harbored racist beliefs of him and his classmates. The buses arrive a few minutes later (not that late at all, Kevin notices), and the kids begin to spill out, full of laughter and joy and questions. Kevin feels his excitement building again. He can’t wait to get to know them.
Scene 2: Lunch Time
Kevin watches attentively as Mr. Connor models how he expects students to transition from the classroom to the lunchroom. “When I call your name, line up silently on a Level 0 with your hands behind your back,” he asserts as he points to the front of the room. As he follows the direction of Mr. Connor’s pointing, he sees a poster with voice levels labeled from 0 to 4. Being the first day, it takes awhile for the third graders to compose their giggles, as their hands clasp, unclasp, and fall to their sides with a muffled thud. With arms folded, Mr. Connor faces them and waits until they are completely silent. His muscular frame hovering over them and with a flick of his right index finger, he motions to the line leader to enter the hallway.
As they walk to the lunchroom, Kevin’s mind is brimming with an assortment of thoughts and questions about what he is seeing. “Why do they walk with their hands behind their backs?” he begins.
“It’s a great way to keep these kids in line, literally and figuratively,” Mr. Connor says. “If I didn’t enforce this, they’d have their hands everywhere—destroying student work, annoying and hitting each other. So I just nip all that in the bud with a little preemptive law and order.”
My thoughts exactly, Kevin muses. Prison. “Well, here we are,” Mr. Connor pauses as his students enter the lunchroom single file, their feet tracing the route of the red electrical tape along the perimeter of the lunchroom’s cinder block walls. “The teacher assistants will take it from here. How about we head back to the classroom? We can chat and chew and get to know more about each other.”
“Sure, that works for me,” agrees Kevin. As they walk down the hall, Mr. Connor breaks the silence. “I know you told me about how you were inspired to teach, and excuse me if this sounds a little bit blunt, but what possesses a young guy like you, with so many options and opportunities ahead of you, to decide to become a teacher—especially with all the current political pressure and unnecessary paperwork?”
“Well, like I said, a Black male teacher inspired me. And you already know that there aren’t many of us to begin with. So I really believe–” Mr. Connor interrupts, “You see, that’s what we don’t need in schools…” Kevin turns to see a Black Lives Matter poster on the bulletin board outside a classroom door. He remembers this classroom from earlier in the morning when he passed it on the way to Mr. Connor’s room. He remembers the brief moment of calm and affirmation the poster brought him as he prepared to embark on his first day as a student teacher. But now, Kevin’s teeth clench and his face grows taut as he struggles to constrain his emotions. Mr. Connor’s remark is a sobering dose of reality, and as Kevin’s sense of belonging dissipates, he considers his naivete. Stunned, he does nothing but let out a nervous, awkward laugh. “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already,” Mr. Connor continues.
When they enter the classroom, Kevin grabs his lunch from his backpack in the front corner of the room and sits down at a small kidney table in the rear. His cell phone vibrates with two quick pulses: Vzzt, Vzzt. A gray notification across the screen reads: Protests Erupt As Community Demands Answers in Latest Shooting of Unarmed Black Man. Although he has been avoiding it, Kevin clicks the notification and watches the video. A Black man, about Kevin’s age, holds his hands and keys in the air. His keys drop and as the man moves to pick them up, the officer shoots him twice. As the man’s body falls, Kevin swipes quickly out of the video and throws his phone into his backpack. Kevin has seen reruns of this movie with similar cast, roles, plot, and ending time and time again.
Watching the video brings to the surface all of the emotions Kevin is feeling about his mentor teacher’s comments. Everything from his deficit thinking about his students’ families to his comment about his colleague’s Black Lives Matter poster. How can he think that and teach Black kids? Kevin surely can’t ask such direct questions. The last thing he needs is for his mentor teacher to label him as unprofessional on his first day of student teaching. But he also knows he can’t just leave what is happening just an hour away, in a community that looks just like his community, at the door; a community that looks like the community of students in this classroom.
Remember, you are a guest in your mentor teachers’ classroom. It’s a privilege to learn and grow in their space. The advice of Kevin’s university instructor echoes in his mind. Taking all this into account, Kevin asks a simple question, “Did you hear about the guy that just got shot by police?”
Mr. Connor looks up from getting his lunch arranged on the table. “You know, you’re like the third person to ask me that today. I had two students ask me the same question this morning. They think because they are Black, they are going to get shot by the police. Complete craziness,” Mr. Connor says. “I mean, it happens once in a while, but they can’t keep walking around with this constant fear that they might be the next one. And I told them point blank, ‘your parents shouldn’t be telling you that either.’ Because that’s who’s putting that garbage in their heads. Why should a kid be thinking about that, especially at school? I don’t really want to get into that with students; it’s going to become a huge thing, a fight, you know. I had this discussion with my students after the Trayvon Martin shooting. When they looked back at the bodycam footage, many were individuals who were not following directions. And this is what I told my students, because we watched it. Are there unfortunately some crooked cops? Of course. Crooked white cops, Black cops, Muslims cops. There’s crooked everything. To be honest, these kids should just assume that it’s not going to happen to them because it won’t. As far as the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I am a firm believer that all lives matter because in life it’s not about race. It all boils down to how you as an individual are trying to make society better through whatever job or profession you have. I worked hard to get here, too. That’s why I teach. For me, all my students’ lives matter. That’s my philosophy and I’m proud that my teaching practice reflects that.”
Kevin is again speechless as he tries to process all the contradictory beliefs he has just heard. He looks at his phone and pretends to be distracted. “Hey, Mr. Connor, can I step out and take this call real quick?” asked Kevin. “No problem,” responds Mr. Connor. Once outside of the room, Kevin walks down to the exit door, gazes out toward the school playground, and releases an exasperated sigh. He texts his fellow cohort member, Mario: Man, you won’t believe what my MT just said. TTYL.
Scene 3: End of Day
When Kevin returns from the main office, the final bell has already rung and Mr. Connor is alone in the room. Kevin had been sitting in that office, in those rickety chairs with a crying child, for over thirty minutes before the principal came out to bring the child into her office. “It was just a hoodie,” the child said to the principal, echoing Kevin’s thoughts exactly, “And it’s only the first day. I didn’t think he’d care that much, Miss.”
Kevin had been relieved she didn’t ask him what happened. Because what would he say? The truth was that he didn’t know how it had all escalated so quickly. One minute they were supposed to be doing math worksheets and the next, Mr. Connor was looming over the child’s desk with hands on hips, raising his voice about “School rules”-this and “you know better”-that. And then he was telling Kevin to “escort” the child to the principal’s office “for appropriate disciplinary action.”
“So what’s the deal?” Mr. Connor probes now, “Did she say what she was going to do?” Kevin shakes his head and wonders aloud, “What usually happens?”
“Nothing really. It’s supposed to be a three strikes rule and then suspension, but she doesn’t do that. She doesn’t do the suspensions. I feel that she should. I feel that the parents need to see that side of her. What the parents see is the, ‘Yep, yep. Oh, I’m compassionate. I’m understanding. I’m this and I’m that.’ But they don’t see the, ‘I’ve had enough of this. We’ve worked with you. We’ve tried this. We’ve tried that. You’re not accepting responsibility here. You’re not trying to work with us anymore.’”
It has only been about eight hours, but Kevin has already figured out that he can’t–maybe shouldn’t—say much when Mr. Connor gets started on explaining something to him. Before he has a chance to respond, Mr. Connor is off again, this time talking about the principal forming a “CRPBIS” group in response to district efforts to have more culturally relevant behavioral supports in their schools. “I mean, I joined it, you know, but then all of our talks were about us as white people, not about behavior supports or teaching at all. It was just privilege, privilege, privilege.” Gee, I wonder why, Kevin thinks. Seems like you could use some of that.
“It was just a waste of time though, so I stopped going. Let’s just be honest: There is no such thing as privilege. A lot of my friends are Black. My really good friends are Black, and we have these discussions, too. I bounce these ideas off of them and I brought up that Waking Up White book and the whole privilege thing. And I don’t know, putting myself in somebody else’s shoes is not the same thing as looking at somebody and understanding that we all go through trials. We all have our ups and our downs. Some people’s ups are a lot more than others. Some people’s downs are a lot more severe than others. But we all go through it, regardless of what race you are.”
Kevin starts packing up his bag, thinking, Is this guy for real? He’s really just going all in on the colorblindness right now. Mr. Connor gets up to erase the white board and continues, “To say that one gets privilege more than the other, I don’t know. I’m a history major. I have all sorts of history. I have the African American history, I have the Japanese history, the Chinese history, the Muslim history, the Native American history, the Jewish history. I mean, we’re talking about magnitudes of history and oppression… To all of a sudden make people think that they are privileged in some way because of the color of their skin or where they grew up is not right. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. I think we need to look at it as each individual human being deserves an education here at school, regardless of what color they are or where they’ve come from.”
Again, Kevin stays silent, waiting for the rest of the diatribe. But this time, Mr. Connor is silent, head cocked to the side, looking with curiosity at Kevin. Kevin takes a deep breath and steels himself for whatever question is about to come next. Is now the time? Do I tell him what I think about all that he’s said and done today? But, in the end, it’s nothing of substance at all. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?” It appears Mr. Connor doesn’t care a bit about what Kevin thinks. Maybe that’s for the best?
He does have to come back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after…
Discussion
Findings above demonstrate that (a) Mr. Connor exhibits multiple characteristics of white supremacy culture in his interactions with Kevin, some more frequently than others, and often moving between characteristics in his explanations of his beliefs and practices; and (b) the relationship between Mr. Connor and Kevin illustrates the danger of PST/MT mismatch and the harmful impacts that can result. As the vignette illustrates, white supremacy culture is an insidious part of PK–12 schooling, including in mentor teachers’ attitudes and practices. This harms PK–12 students and PSTs. As more programs shift to justice-oriented foci, there are still potential pitfalls of fieldwork when implemented uncritically or in more ‘traditional’ ways, such as when a mentor teacher and a PST are an ideological mismatch. Such a mismatch–and the racist practices that result–exacerbates the racial trauma of PSTOCs like Kevin and negates the supposed and stated commitments of justice-oriented teacher education.
White Supremacy Culture in MT’s Beliefs and Practices
Mr. Connor exhibited all aspects of white supremacy culture to varying degrees. Table 2 includes examples from the study where Mr. Connor’s quotations aligned with the theoretical framework of white supremacy culture (Okun, 2021). For instance, when describing himself and other white people, he exhibited individualism and denial/defensiveness. When describing children or families of Color, he most often exhibited fear, one right way, denial/defensiveness, and power hoarding. In many ways, Mr. Connor exhibits well-documented tools of Whiteness, demonstrating a refusal to acknowledge his own privilege and minimizing or ignoring the struggles of marginalized groups (Picower, 2009). Yet as ‘typical’ as these beliefs are, given his role as both a teacher to students of Color and a mentor to a PSTOC, his attitudes and practices are incredibly dangerous and harmful.
Mr. Connor’s comments also illustrate the fluid and practiced characteristics of white supremacy culture. That is, he has adopted so many of these characteristics that he easily elides between and among them as a matter of fact. For example, take his lengthy response to Kevin’s question about if Mr. Connor had heard about the police murder the night before. In the graphic below, we have highlighted portions that exemplify multiple characteristics, building on each other to ignore and invalidate the experiences of Kevin, their students, and their students’ families.
Finally, Mr. Connor’s beliefs appear to be connected to and rooted in his identity as a history major and educator. Demonstrating the characteristic of worship of the written word, Mr. Connor relies on his interpretation of history to argue that racial privilege does not exist. His description of his reading also reveals a problematic objectification and a possession of marginalized groups, as he repeats the phrase “I have the…” (“I have all sorts of history. I have the African American history, I have the Japanese history, the Chinese history, the Muslim history, the Native American history, the Jewish history.”). Overall, Mr. Connor’s beliefs and practices illustrate the core tenet of CRT that racism is omnipresent and that white supremacy culture is alive and well in urban schools today.
Examples of White Supremacy Culture in Mr. Connor’s Comments
| Characteristic | Examples from this Study |
|---|---|
| Fear | “It’s a great way to keep these kids in line, literally and figuratively. If I didn’t enforce this, they’d have their hands everywhere—destroying student work, annoying and hitting each other. So I just nip all that in the bud with a little preemptive law and order.” (Scene 2) |
| One Right Way | “You go into some homes and education is not at the forefront because maybe they had parents who had a bad experience with education. So now their kids can have the same issues that they had. I’ve had that happen before where I’ve had to try to change the perception.” (Scene 1) |
| Mr. Connor was looming over the child’s desk with hands on hips, raising his voice about “School rules”-this and “you know better”-that. (Scene 3) | |
| Either/Or Thinking and The Binary | “Even though the parents know the buses will get their kids to school late almost every day. They just don’t care, you know?” (Scene 1) |
| “The kids live in places like that… and the parents don’t want to work to try to get a better place because they want to be on welfare. It’s like what I was talking about with my kids last year. We were talking about jobs. And they’re saying things like, ‘Why do I have to get a job?’ ‘I’m going to get the government to take care of me.’ Already in third grade, we’re having these conversations with your kids and that’s not just one or two. It’s the majority of my classroom. Something has to give. We have, again, these cultures at home. It’s what’s taking place at home and then coming into the classroom.” (Scene 1) | |
| Denial and Defensiveness | “…you don’t put a label on any single child at all. They are all individuals. They are human beings. There is no color to them. Like I said, I don’t care who walks through that door. You are a human being and your life matters to me. I care about each and every one of you and I will do my very best to teach each and every one of you every single day and there will be no preconceived notions. If you’re Black, I’m not going to look down on you any differently because you’re all smart. You are all capable learners.” (Scene 1) |
| They think because they are Black, they are going to get shot by the police. Complete craziness,” Mr. Connor says with a chuckle. “I mean, it happens once in a while, but they can’t keep walking around with this constant fear that they might be the next one. (Scene 2) | |
| I had this discussion with my students after the Trayvon Martin shooting. When they looked back at the bodycam footage, many were individuals who were not following directions. And this is what I told my students, because we watched it. Are there unfortunately some crooked cops? Of course. Crooked white cops, Black cops, Muslims cops. There’s crooked everything. To be honest, these kids should just assume that it’s not going to happen to them because it won’t. (Scene 2) | |
| There is no such thing as privilege. A lot of my friends are Black. My really good friends are Black, and we have these discussions too. I bounce these ideas off of them and I brought up that Waking Up White book and the whole privilege thing. And I don’t know, putting myself in somebody else’s shoes is not the same thing as looking at somebody and understanding that we all go through trials. We all have our ups and our downs. Some people’s ups are a lot more than others. Some people’s downs are a lot more severe than others. But we all go through it. Regardless of what race you are.” (Scene 3) | |
| Right to Comfort, Fear of Conflict, and Power Hoarding | And I told them point blank, “your parents shouldn’t be telling you that either.” Because that’s who’s putting that garbage in their heads. Why should a kid be thinking about that, especially at school? I don’t really want to get into that with students; it’s going to become a huge thing, a fight, you know. (Scene 2) |
| She doesn’t do the suspensions. I feel that she should. I feel that the parents need to see that side of her. What the parents see is the, ‘Yep, yep. Oh, I’m compassionate. I’m understanding. I’m this and I’m that.’ But they don’t see the, ‘I’ve had enough of this. We’ve worked with you. We’ve tried this. We’ve tried that. You’re not accepting responsibility here. You’re not trying to work with us anymore.’” (Scene 3) | |
| Individualism | As far as the whole Black Lives Matter thing, I am a firm believer that all lives matter because in life it’s not about race. It all boils down to how you as an individual are trying to make society better through whatever job or profession you have. I worked hard to get here, too. That’s why I teach. For me, all my students’ lives matter. That’s my philosophy and I’m proud that my teaching practice reflects that.” (Scene 2) |
| To all of a sudden make people think that they are privileged in some way because of the color of their skin or where they grew up is not right. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. I think we need to look at it as each individual human being deserves an education here at school, regardless of what color they are or where they’ve come from.” (Scene 3) | |
| Progress in More | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
| Worship of the Written Word | To say that one gets privilege more than the other, I don’t know. I’m a history major. I have all sorts of history. I have the African American history, I have the Japanese history, the Chinese history, the Muslim history, the Native American history, the Jewish history. I mean, we’re talking about magnitudes of history and oppression (Scene 3) |
| Urgency | “We don’t have time for any of that when these kids are failing tests already.” (Scene 2) |
PST/MT Mismatch and Impact on PSTs
Throughout the vignettes, Kevin’s internal dialogue provides a glimpse into how he is making sense of his MT’s comments. Although he is viscerally disturbed by his MT’s white supremacist beliefs, and has been taught in his justice-oriented teacher education program to critique and challenge such beliefs, Kevin feels emotionally unsafe due to a perceived ideological mismatch and lack of potential for honest and open MT/PST communication (Stanulis & Russell, 2000). Consider the final scene, when Kevin believed the moment had come for him to express to Mr. Connor the feelings he had been grappling with the entire day:
Kevin takes a deep breath and steels himself for whatever question is about to come next. Is now the time? Do I tell him what I think about all that he’s said and done today? But, in the end, it’s nothing of substance at all. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?” It appears Mr. Connor doesn’t care a bit about what Kevin thinks. Maybe that’s for the best? He does have to come back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after…
We can imagine that Kevin’s inability to muster an adequate response to Mr .Connor’s comments may have been the result of his socialization within a teacher preparation program that was justice-oriented, yet also cautioned PSTs to be mindful that they are “guests in their mentor teachers’ classrooms.” The influence of this socialization can be observed in Scene 2, when Kevin weighs the consequences of voicing his concerns to his MT or appearing “unprofessional” on his first day of student teaching. However, we also know that PSTOCs experience disillusionment, racial trauma, and racial battle fatigue (Pizarro & Kohli, 2020 ), which Mr. Connor reinforces throughout the day. Thus, a paradox emerges where upholding notions and perceptions of professionalism come at the cost of silencing and inflicting harm on PSTOC.
When Kevin entered Mr. Connor’s classroom, he brought with him his various funds of identity (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014), or the wealth of experiences and ways of knowing and understanding that he has developed as a young Black man. Kevin’s funds of identity were shaped by his interactions in a justice-oriented teacher education program, but they were also shaped by his experiences and realities of being a part of a community that has been historically marginalized. And as he prepared for the first day of student teaching, he found himself grappling with a quotidian reality for his community—the shooting of an unarmed Black man– and he questioned whether or not his MT would be prepared and critically conscious enough to address the issue with students. What Kevin hoped would be a nurturing and supportive student teaching environment (Ferrier-Kerr, 2009) turned out to be a space that reignited the racial trauma he was attempting to avoid, if only temporarily. For example, in Scene 2, Kevin interpreted the presence of a Black Lives Matter poster as an indication that teachers were in solidarity with his community and understood the sociopolitical realities that they faced; when in reality, his closest contact that day argued that “all lives matter” and against the reality of privilege. In sum, Kevin’s placement in Mr. Connor’s classroom holds the potential to exacerbate his racial trauma, require him to bear witness to the racial trauma of Mr. Connor’s students, and contradict his learning in this teacher preparation program.
Implications and Conclusion
This study has implications for teacher preparation, teacher development and support, and future research. First, it is vital that teacher preparation programs ensure stronger matching among preservice teachers and mentor teachers. Any teacher educator has heard student teachers express concerns about their placements; this is often followed by the refrain that learning can still happen, that MTs can also “show you what not to do.” However, this dismisses the racial trauma that PSTOC have to face when working in such close relationships with teachers like Mr. Connor. In particular, teacher preparation programs should develop systems that allow for matching PSTs with MTs who have dispositions that are aligned to critical, justice-oriented stances and who are willing to support the continued learning of PSTs and the application of justice-oriented pedagogies during their student teaching. When placing PSTOCs in fieldwork, programs must ensure that PSTOCs’ funds of identity will be encouraged and welcomed in their placement classrooms. This is not to say that student teaching placements are the only areas of improvement needed for supporting PSTOCs, however. We know that PSTOCs also experience racial trauma in their programs and in their everyday experiences outside the university, as well. Thus, better support for PSTOC is an overarching goal to which teacher education should aspire.
This study also holds implications for teacher development. Specifically, mentor teachers need more opportunities and better support to develop their own justice-oriented dispositions and practices. There still exists a great disconnection between the theory of justice-oriented collaboration and realities of schooling, as illustrated in the above literature and findings. Because these theories do not always show up in ideal ways in practice, MTs need additional professional development. We acknowledge that, although this vignette focused on the tensions between a Black man PST and his white MT, white supremacy culture in schools is not only upheld by white MTs. Offering these opportunities to all MTs in collaboration with universities and inviting PSTs would encourage more humanizing collaboration and ensure there is consistent messaging about the goals, vision, and commitments of school-university partnerships.
Finally, this study offers implications for future research, particularly the use of fictionalized vignettes in equity-focused research. Concurring with Smith et al. (2022), we argue that
fictionalising data is a valuable research method. We have shaped the findings from our research into an aesthetic product through rigorous and robust means and yet the outcome remains open enough to allow readers to find their own interpretations. In this respect, the product is thought-provoking rather than conclusive, which is a defining characteristic of art. We believe this acknowledges the complexity of the issues explored and is, therefore, a meaningful contribution to educational research.
We hope that Kevin and Mr. Connor’s story provides a thought-provoking glimpse into how the relationship between PSTs and MTs is yet another space where white supremacy culture exists and can be perpetuated in urban schools; and we hope that this glimpse compels the field to move toward more anti-racist and anti-oppressive programs as a whole.
