Contents Foreword Christopher P. Brown ?ix Acknowledgments ?xiii Introduction ?1 "The Bubble" ?2 Place-Based Education and Its Potential ?4 A Dynamic Charge for Teacher Education ?5 Chapter Summaries ?5 1. ?The Need for Place-Based Teacher Education ?7 Contexts for the Book ?7 Three Challenges Connecting the Places ?9 Why We Need Place-Based Teacher Education ?11 Neoliberal Challenges to Place-Based Teacher Education ?13 Reclaiming Accountability ?16 Challenges of Reclaiming Accountability ?18 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?20 What's Next? ?20 2. ?Theoretical Framework ?21 The Nature of Meaning-Making ?21 Three Approaches to Place-Based Education ?22 Humanizing Place-Based Education in School Classrooms ?23 Place-Based Teacher Education ?29 Negotiation: Sensing and Resisting Neoliberal Policies ?32 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?37 What's Next? ?37 3. ?The Narrative Portfolio Project ?38 Context of the Teacher Education Program ?38 The Narrative Portfolio as a Counter-Narrative to Failure ?44 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?56 What's Next? ?56 4. ?Resisting Neoliberalism Through Place-Based Narrative Portfolio Work ?57 Getting Lost in Places ?58 Vignette 1. Critical Reflection on Place ?61 Vignette 2. Dialogism With Place in Mind ?65 Vignette 3. Transforming I-It to I-You ?71 Vignette 4. Diffraction: Bending Around Barriers ?75 Conclusion ?80 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?81 What's Next? ?81 5. ?Pairing Our Place-Based Approach With Racial Justice ?82 Antiracist Education ?83 COVID-19 and Antiracist Teaching ?87 Place-Based Education Post-Graduation ?99 Conclusion ?105 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?106 What's Next? ?106 6. ?Practice and Policy Implications ?107 Teacher Education Program Assessment in the "Cluster" ?108 Transforming Teacher Education Assessment ?112 The Change Process ?114 Suggestions for Practice ?118 Conclusion ?123 Questions for Reflection and Discussion ?123 What's Next? ?123 Appendix A. Methodology: Capturing Meanings of Place-Based Education and Assessment ?125 Background for the Study ?125 Method ?125 Appendix B. Lenses of Teacher Education and Revised "10 Characteristics of the Novice Teacher" for PDS Mentors and Faculty Professional Development ?133 Appendix C. A Portrait of Becoming ?137 Our Places ?138 Learners and Teachers ?139 Beginning the Year: Looking and Seeing as an Ethnographer ?139 Exploring the Literature: Disrupting the Commonplaces ?140 Our Journey ?141 Our Learning ?141 A Reflective Pause With an Eye to the Future ?142 Final Thoughts ?143 Appendix D. Destiny's Book Club: Stamped by Reynolds & Kendi (2020) (Abbreviated Version) ?145 References ?147 Index ?163 About the Authors ?175
Most practitioners and scholars agree that critical and reflective early childhood and elementary teachers are foundational for children's holistic growth and development. Yet current policies focused on elevating testing and performativity are contributing to student and teacher anxiety and alienation. This book offers a counternarrative to neoliberal standardized preservice teacher development and assessment processes. The author examines how a cohort of teacher educators worked alongside their preservice teachers-both groups predominately White and female-to redesign their teacher education program. Sherfinski reveals how the narrative portfolio, an inquiry-based alternative to accreditation and standards-based assessments, was designed to locally document, resist, and disrupt the status quo. The narrative portfolio speaks back to standardized preservice teacher assessments by providing spaces for teacher candidates to demonstrate their knowledge of theory and practice as enacted in the natural settings of school and community. Rooted in Belonging shows why humanizing, democratic, place-based practices should be at the forefront of teacher education. Book Features: Provides a rare portrait of equity-based teacher education at the confluence of place-based approaches, student diversity, and teacher education. Grapples with tough issues such as how the shared Whiteness of preservice teachers and children and their families play out alongside their differences. Explores how educators negotiate deep ideological differences while still preparing teachers for critical work. Examines how the current political climate around Black Lives Matters, the 2020 presidential election, and the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to the challenges of working in communities. Discusses how race, space, time, and settler colonialism shape the work of preservice teachers and their teacher educators. Shares action research and teacher leadership assignments, critical thinking and planning exercises, personal reflections, and preservice teachers' narrative portfolio artifacts.
Melissa Sherfinski is an associate professor of early childhood and elementary education at West Virginia University. Sharon Hayes is an associate professor of elementary education at West Virginia University.