“The Hardest Thing to Turn From”: The Effects of Service-Learning on Preparing Urban Educators

Abstract

In this article, the author describes her use of service-learning as a pedagogical strategy for developing preservice students' dispositions for urban teaching. Twenty-one students were enrolled in a multicultural education course with a service-learning requirement. This was the students' first teacher education course in a two-year, urban-focused strand of the university's larger teacher education program. Students engaged in tutoring in local urban elementary and high schools. They also conducted observations, interviews, and worked in a community center. The author describes how the action-reflection process differed for students from urban home and schooling backgrounds and those from suburban home and schooling backgrounds. She posits that the service-learning experience facilitated the reflection process in students that led them to be more social justice-oriented in their thoughts about urban teaching. The author also argues that the experience enhanced their commitment to and motivations for urban teaching. Of particular focus is the effect the service-learning had on preservice students of color who were the racial majority in this cohort. The author also discusses some of the challenges faced as a teacher educator attempting to be more holistic in her teaching through the use of service-learning and implications for urban teacher education courses and program design.

Dorinda J. Carter Andrews is an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on black achievement, race and equality in education, and preparing teachers for culturally diverse classrooms.

Notes

1. In my work, I capitalize the terms “Black” and “White” because they are proper nouns used to identify racial groups. It is a matter of respect for the racial groups. Wachal (2000) states, “Capitalization is determined by whether a term is a proper noun or not. Surely Black is synonymous with Negro, just as White is synonymous with Caucasian. Either they are all proper nouns or none of them is” (pp. 364–365).

2. There is much debate in teacher education about what we actually mean by “dispositions.” In fact, the Journal of Teacher Education dedicated an entire issue to this topic (see December, 2007, volume 58, number 5). In this article, I am referring to an individual's ideals and ways of thinking that then affect the behaviors they employ in their careers as classroom teachers.

3. In this article, I use the terms preserivce students and teacher candidates interchangeably to refer to those individuals matriculating through a teacher preparation program. I also use the terms teacher education and teacher preparation interchangeably.

4. All names of individuals and programs are pseudonyms.

5. Course themes and concepts included topics such as: racism; sexism; white privilege; classism; linguicism; special education and disabilities; ableism; the myth of meritocracy; social mobility and social reproduction theory; theories of cultural, social, and human capital; heterosexism and homophobia; and the achievement gap. Preservice teachers engaged in critical examination of how these concepts proved advantageous and oppressive for different cultural groups and individuals.