Concept Paper for Discussion: Defining the Community Teacher

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Defining the Community Teacher Part of the legacy of people like Ella Baker and Septima Clark is a faith that ordinary people who learn to believe in themselves are capable of extraordinary acts, or better, of acts that seem extraordinary to us precisely because we have such an impoverished sense of the capabilities of ordinary people. If we are surprised at what these people accomplished, our surprise may be a commentary on the angle of vision from which we view them. That same angle of vision may make it difficult to see that of the gifts they brought to the making of the movement, courage may have been the least. Charles Paine, From I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. (1995, University of California Press, page 5 of the Introduction).

Intr oduction The above quote profoundly articulates the vision of the Community Teacher in several ways. It is an emblem of the recent regional history of the Learning Tree as an educational movement on behalf of Black and Latino students in Springfield and Boston. It also represents the essence of the educational enterprise of the broader movementhistory of the civil rights movement. Third, the quote is an emblem of the historical legacy of African American traditions of struggle for education and freedom. For African Americans in particular, the idea of education as both the means and the ends has been central to the struggle for a more democratic, socially just society. Finally, the quote expresses the essence of teaching for the Community Teacher – the elicitation of human potential and agency. In this tradition, education is seen as the practice of assisting people to find agency in, and responsibility for, their struggle for freedom. The work of a Community Teacher is that of catalyzing processes of collective leadership – a philosophy that Ella Jo Baker instilled in the younger members of the SNCC, as did, Septima Clark. In this tradition, education is seen as eliciting the possibilities for achievement in learners by recognizing and building upon the capacities they already have -- the way that Bob Moses did by showing prospective voter registrants in rural Mississippi where he canvassed, so they could begin to imagine the act of registering to vote. In this tradition, the connections between education and the larger movements and struggles for freedom and justice are clear – the way Septima Clark treated literacy and voter registration as means to an end, not merely as political ends in themselves. Ms. Clark drafted the Highlander statement of purpose that speaks of “broadening the scope of democracy to include everyone and deepening the concept to include every relationship.”

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.

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Out of the movements for civil rights comes an important tradition of community organizing and community connection. By 1961, thirty-seven Citizenship Schools had been established in the Sea Islands and the nearby mainland in South Carolina. The aim of the schools was to create involved and empowered citizens, not just voters and not just readers. Ella Baker was a Community Teacher. Septima Clark was a Community Teacher. Bob Moses was, and continues to be, a Community Teacher in the same tradition. What is a Community Teacher? The term “community teacher” connotes an accomplished practitioner who is culturally connected with students, families and communities in ways that have yet to be articulated by any of the plethora of professional teaching standards. Community Teachers draw on the tradition of the Citizenship Schools Septima Clark developed in conjunction with the Highlander School. Like the early movements for civil rights, community teaching is routed in the development of people finding agency in the commitment to and collaboration with others. Embedded in this tradition is a different sense of what freedom means and the aim of long-term development of leadership among ordinary people. A community teacher is an accomplished teacher who possesses and works to build on his/her contextualized knowledge of culture, community, and identity of children and families as the core of his/her teaching practice. Community teachers possess a "multicultural competence" that incorporates a deep and sophisticated understanding of race, racism and the contemporary contexts of schooling. Community Teachers are individuals who typically gain this understanding as a result of living and working in the same under-resourced communities where students from diverse backgrounds live and go to school. Many currently practicing community teachers are products of the city school system themselves and understand first-hand the obstacles facing young people growing up in central city neighborhoods. In contemporary settings of urban schools, Community Teachers have a track record of successful work with children and youth in urban communities, working in such agencies as the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, the YMCA, the YWCA, and the Urban League, prior to becoming certified teachers. Community Teachers see themselves as change agents and view their work as that of transforming people, systems and society. Despite their own less-than-empowering experiences in school, they see education as the key to success for the young people whom they serve. Most articulate a sense of commitment to their community – a sense of “giving back.” In short, a community teacher is not only someone who has “got game” with respect to working successfully with children and youth in urban contexts, but produces demonstrable results in the development and achievement of their students.

What is the Epistemology of the Community Teacher?

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There is something in the shared cultural and historical experience of a people that organizes their activity as they are engaged in a shared enterprise. A peoples’ culture, and the historical experience and expression of that culture, is a shaping factor and an organizing force in any collective human activity. Therefore, education that is valuable must take account of the factors that matter to a people – their history, their collective culture, their intellectual traditions and their shared aims. This idea is consistent with the thesis of socio-historical thinkers in the tradition of the Russian psychologists Vygotsky and their American counterparts in Michael Cole and James Wertsch, whose school of thought that parallels, and is consistent with, the tradition of the community teacher. In developing the Community Teacher perspective for teacher preparation, we draw on this socio-historical perspective on learning and development because it refocuses theory on teaching and learning in the broader context of human institutions, culture and politics. As a result, a Community Teacher framework embodies an epistemology that differs from the conventional and traditional ways of viewing learning, education, teaching and schooling. These are detailed below. Key Features of the Community Teachers epistemology: •

The Community Teacher concept is an approach to instruction that says “no” to the transmission model (also known as the “banking concept”) of learning. It is an approach to instruction that embraces the idea that learners are active in the creation of their knowledge, proactive in the use of knowledge, and interactive in social/professional contexts that give that knowledge meaning and value.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that replaces our conventional notion of learning as a process of individuals internalizing information. In place of this “internalizing information” view, the community teacher concept views learning as individuals putting knowledge to use and developing understanding-inpractice. This perspective is embodied in the dictum Information does not become knowledge until it is used or applied.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that pays careful attention to the situatedness of learning – that the setting, context and fabric of human relationships in which learning occurs is important to the quality and impact of that learning. This is a view that resists the separation of learning from practice and purposeful activity. This view also resists the separation of schooling from the everyday world of students.

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The Community Teacher concept refocuses the teacher’s attention to an important but neglected component of student learning--the acquisition of knowledge. That is, learners acquire knowledge and proficiencies in ways that are not so much the result of the direct teaching of a teacher, but

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rather emerge from the learner’s interaction with people and settings – especially with more capable others engaged in the practice for which that knowledge is important. •

The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that pays a great deal of attention to the structure and social organization of the learning environment. The Community Teacher organizes experiences and structures learning environments in ways that will maximize the learner’s opportunity to acquire new knowledge and, more importantly, to put new knowledge to use in the appropriate ways. The skilled Community Teacher is able to create a context with the appropriate cultural tools, social relationships, and experiences, which organize the learner's activities for acquiring, applying and practicing new knowledge.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that pays a great deal of attention to the ethical, spiritual and historical dimensions of the purposeful human activities of school learning. For example, this would include a commitment to social justice and recognition of the spiritual heritage in the collective experience of African Americans and other learners of color.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that provides “a way into practice” for the learner – affording him or her access to the core of the subject matter, field of study, discipline, and/or profession about which they are learning.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning in which the term "practice" has at least two important meanings. One of these is the practice that individual learners do in order to fully internalize and put to use the knowledge they have tentatively acquired. The other notion of practice is the recognizable pattern of activity more capable practitioners engage in and to which novice learners are exposed to. Practice is the enactment of knowledge.

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The Community Teacher concept is an approach to teaching and learning that takes advantage of the fact that our activity and our cognitive learning is always bound up with the co-participation and activity of others. It is an approach that views learning as a process of co-participation and activity with other persons and human systems. The skilled Community Teacher, therefore, is able to construct a "community of practice" -- a figured world of the discipline --a sort of micro ecology of the practice of law or research inquiry or whatever the field of study is.

As a result, the Community Teacher is always mindful of creating the meaningful connections between what is being learned and what is important to the lives, families and experiences of the learner. Learning needs to be situated in meaningful doing.

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.

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Community Teachers engage in what I call “meaning making practices” (Murrell, 2001). During the voter registration movement in the early 1960’s, the meaning of learning to read and write was perhaps clearer than it is now in urban education, but certainly no less urgent. On this account, Community Teachers engage in, and elicit from students, what I have called “inquiry practices” in which they are critical consumers of packaged curricula and conventional curriculum standards by continuously asking: “Of what value is this material to the development of my students, their families and our communities?”

The Value Added of the Community Teacher to Board Certification The term accomplished practice is actually a useful one, one which I have appropriated from the literature of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). Board Certified teachers are determined by measures of “the right stuff” to be accomplished practitioners. However, I would argue that the accomplished teacher is determined not so much by the expertise they bring but by the results they produce in the form of demonstrable learning achievements among their students. Put simply, the accomplished teacher accomplishes something beyond putting together portfolios and passing difficult tests on pedagogy. Among the baseline qualities of a truly accomplished teacher are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Passion for teaching and learning; Crossing the boarders of language and culture; Commitment to social justice and global responsibility; Disposition for continuous learning and self-assessment; Community connection; Reformer practices – operating as change agents; Cultivators of democratic communities of learning.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards would not disagree that these are qualities either possessed or striven for by its board certified teachers. Yet, there is a value added when envisioning the community teacher as a particular kind of accomplished practitioner. A person could ostensibly meet all of the requirements of National Board certification, and not be a Community Teacher. The value added has to do with a broader and deeper understanding of institutional racism, the tasks of development among Black and Latino children, and what it means to create anti-racist pedagogy in ways that enable children, colleagues, families and communities. The value added for the community teacher goes beyond an ethic of caring, to agency toward social justice combined with sense of advocacy on behalf of historically underserved populations in America. In short, the Community Teacher must meet a higher level of accountability.

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.

Concept Paper for Discussion: Defining the Community Teacher In my view, being accountable at the level of a Community Teacher’s practice would mean grappling, simultaneously with the so-called achievement gap, the per-pupil spending gap, the quality teacher gap, the material and intellectual resources gap, and the social justice gap. Being accountable in this vision would require a conceptualization of teaching practice broader than the currently over-used notion of the good teacher as the battle-ready or “tooled-up” practitioner. The “battle ready” part is represented by such things as the variety of programs to get former military personnel into teaching, and by the implicit metaphor of “combat” experience used by many schools of education in reference to their urban school placements. The “tooled-up” (i.e., the state of a teacher having been exposed to all the necessary teaching tools and strategies) reference is, of course, the essence of the whole national agenda for professional teaching standards. Both miss the point of regarding the higher standard of accountability, ethics, and impact of the Community Teacher. The currently operating notion of teacher preparation seems to regard teacher quality as a matter of merely having the right stuff, as determined by performance assessments for a range of skills and demonstrations of teaching performance. What is missing from consideration is whether these demonstrations actually mean that the teacher will be successful with the population of students most underserved by public schooling in America. The Community Teacher concept pushes this notion of accountability and ethics. When we talk about the quality of teachers and teaching practice, our measures ought to include all of the dimensions of agency teachers must exhibit on behalf of students in order to promote their development as learners and as people. To do this, we need to be mindful of more than just the micro level of activity – instructional activity and interaction in classroom instructional settings. We would need to be just as thorough about teachers’ capacity in meso-level settings of professional activity where they interact with the many other social systems in the school – curriculum committees with colleagues, parent groups, administrators and mixes of these groups engaged in the work of schooling. From the perspective of the Community Teacher, teaching could not be regarded as accomplished practice unless there are positive impacts for students in classrooms (micro), for the professional setting among colleagues (meso), and the institutions of schools (macro). Teacher must accomplish positive results in classrooms, in schools, and the wider community. In essence, the accomplished teacher is ethically responsible and morally accountable for what happens to his or her students, and to their families and communities. In other words, it is not enough for a teacher to be competent in his/her classroom practice, but must act in ways that contest the destructive and often contradictory teacher education agendas. Accomplished teachers have the moral responsibility for systems of practice that are effective, just, and focus initiative in precisely those areas where it is needed most.

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.

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What Skills, Dispositions, and Knowledge does the Community Teacher Possess that the Quality Teacher Does Not? Community Teachers act in ways that are above and beyond what is specified in the performance standards of the Board Certified Teacher. For example, Community teachers are distinguished from accomplished teachers defined by conventional means (NBTPS) based upon their enacted perspective on race and racism. Specifically, they understand the difference between racism as a system of privilege, whereas most white, culturally mainstream teachers have to undergo a process of understanding racism is something beyond the immediate experience of individuals – i.e., racism as instances of bigotry, discrimination, racial prejudice and stereotyping. Community Teachers know how to build community in multiracial settings – exhibiting the capacity to root out and confront the use of racism as a weapon of aggression among children. This capacity is an example of the kind of proficiency that Community Teachers have beyond that articulated by the National Board of Teaching and Professional Standards. To be effective in countering the nascent fabric of racism endemic in school settings, the expectations we place on teachers has to include a deep understanding of racism works in society. Accomplished teachers, in order to be effective with African American and Latino students, need to see, recognize and respond to the racialized sub-texts of children’s interactions. White teachers from culturally mainstream backgrounds fail to see these things as a general rule, and are in fact, motivated to maintain a myopia about race and racism. In order to do this active, anti-racist community building, the Community Teacher draws on a broader understanding of the economic, political and historical constitution of racism. They need this understanding to accurately interpret how children construe race and struggle with the developmental tasks of identity formation. Knowing that race is a weapon that is always available to white students (and, actually, students of color as well) to inflict psychic injury requires this broader understanding. Despite how accomplished Board Certified Teachers are according to the NBTPS assessment, there is no guarantee that candidates clearly distinguish institutional racism from the commonly accepted view of racism as racial discrimination, bigotry, and stereotyping. It is a legacy of the violence of racism that can persist even among “good kids” (Meier, in print). The Community Teacher possesses a sophisticated view of racial identity development and recognizes that children’s racial identities are not singular, complete and fixed, but rather are multifaceted competing “identities” that are fluid and fragmented (Hatcher & Troya, 1993). Community integrity practices – job one here is building trust, something that has never been a priority in teacher education programs because of an epistemology that bestows authority on the teacher rather than the teacher having to earn the authority by their demonstrated capacities in working successfully with children. Community teachers know the difference between the oversimplistic and overgeneralized “oppositional identity” that shows up in some educational literature (e.g., Fordham, 1988; Fordham &

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Ogbu, 1998). The that idea that Black and Latino learners, especially males, develop “oppositional identities” as a means of rejecting school experience as “acting white” is too simplistic. Community Teachers who understand human development know that all adolescents engage in situational, unsophisticated kinds of protest that is about testing adult authority. Community teachers are actively anti-racist, which is not a criterion, quality or standard required of candidates for National Board Certification. What makes becoming a community teacher difficult for many white, culturally mainstream candidates are not their race, but their cultural and political encapsulation. Howard (1999), Tatum (1997), Macintosh (1989) all point to the difficulty for white, mainstream individuals, being members of the hegemonic group in the United States vis a vis Black people, to see their own dominance and participation in the system of racial privilege. Community teachers put action into what academics have described as culturally relevant teaching.

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.

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References Hatcher, R. and Troyna, B. (1993). Racialization and Children. In C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow (Eds.). Race, identity and representation in education. New York: Routledge. pp. 109-125. Fordham, S. & Ogbu, J. (1998). Black students’ school success: Coping with the ‘burden of acting white,’ Urban Review, 18(3), 176-206. Fordham, S. (1988). Racelessness as a factor in black students' school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory? Harvard Educational Review, 58(4), 4-84. MacIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, 49(4), 10-12. McIntyre, A. (1997). Making meaning of whiteness: Exploring racial identity with white teachers. New York: State University of New York Press. Murrell, P. C., Jr. (February 2002). African-Centered Pedagogy: Developing Schools of Achievement for African American Children. New York: SUNY Press. Murrell, P. C., Jr., (2001). The community teacher: A new framework for effective urban teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Tatum, B. (1997). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? New York: Basic Books. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. (E. Hanfman & G. Bakar, Eds. And Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E.Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Free Press.

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Table 1 -- Practice Standards (from African Centered Pedagogy) Engagement and On the part of the teacher, these are actions and arrangements that Participation encourage and promote the interest, engagement and participation of Practices students – with each other and with the learning activity. These practices aim to provide sustained effort and commitment with respect to the learning activity, and sustained interpersonal engagement with the community of learners. On the part of the learner, these are strategies and other means by which the learner mobilizes himself or herself to engage productively with others, put forth effort, and participate in the activities of learning. Identity Development Practices

Community Integrity Practices

MeaningMaking Practices

On the part of the teacher, these are actions and arrangements that result in healthy identity development and self-construction as an able learner. The beneficial outcomes for students are productive self-exploration and self-definition in the context of meaningful rich inquiry about the world. Literature selections and topic selections related to social justice and the students’ backgrounds are particularly important for the teacher. On the part of the learner, these are actions that involve trying out different roles, representations and expressions of self by discourse, stance, dress and particularly, language. In general, learner practices of identity development include all means of self-definition and re-definition.

On the part of the teacher, these are activities and arrangements for organizing the intellectual and social life of a community of learners. The teacher creates a setting of social cohesion and cultural richness. The teacher incorporates cultural features (e.g., fictive kinship, communicative styles) and knowledge (e.g.., the intellectual traditions of the African American heritage). These practices also identify and support students’ initiative in building community integrity. On the part of the learner, these practices involve forming relationships and maintaining membership in a learning community. The learner participates in community integrity practices by joining, belonging, supporting other members in whatever the core activities of the group are.

On the part of the teacher, these are activities and arrangements for making explicit cultural models (especially sign and symbol structures) and cultural patterns to amplify the interpretative frameworks of learners. These practices are particularly important for discourse practices and for

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engaging students in what Freire calls “reading the world.” They result in demonstrations of understanding through complex and rich activities, not just on paper and pencil achievement tests. On the part of the learner, these are practices of inquiry that involve appropriation (taking for there own use), interpretation and consumption of cultural forms, signs, symbols and other forms of symbolic representation. The aim for learners is that develop deep skills in analysis and interpretation of information and ideas, as well developing a critical regard of how and for what purposes they were produced. Practices of Inquiry

On the part of the teacher, these are activities and arrangements for critical inquiry. This involves making students aware of their appropriation of symbols, signs, and other representations of meaning in the act of expressing and creating new meaning. The outcomes are students adept at interrogating the use and consumption of signs, symbols and other symbolic representations. They develop the critical capacities to analyze, reflect, critique and act to transform the conditions under which they live. Learner practices of inquiry are conceived as various forms of recursive reappropriation – they take on and use (or sample) the phrases, signs and images of others for their use in their own expressive and reflective repertoire.

Peter C. Murrell, Jr.