Walking the Road

In this skillfully written and incisive book, Marilyn Cochran-Smith guides the reader through the conflicting visions and ideologies surrounding the education of teachers for a diverse democratic society. Mapping the way to reconceptualizing teacher education today, this volume:

• Spells out, in detail, the problem of teacher preparation and why it needs to be understood as both a learning and a political problem.
• Explores an urban teaching program and how its participants came to understand race, diversity, and multicultural issues as part of the larger process of learning to teach.
• Explains why “unlearning” is an unavoidable part of the journey to teaching and teacher education for social justice.
• Uncovers political agendas and their serious implications for the teaching profession itself.
• Offers a much-needed framework for understanding and sorting out the multiple meanings of concepts related to multicultural issues and social justice in teacher education policy.

Marilyn Cochran-Smith is Professor of Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College and President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for 2004–05.

“Our profession is at a critical crossroad….We must accept Cochran-Smith’s challenge to speak loudly and articulately for social justice and democracy. Could our society face a more urgent or compelling issue?”
—From the Foreword by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine

"This volume represents not only the best of Cochran-Smith, it represents the best of teacher education. These essays are hard-hitting yet lyrical, provocative yet poetic, theoretically sophisticated yet practically useful. Teacher education is in good hands.”
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Cochran-Smith invites us to follow her courageous path of conceptualizing and practicing social justice in teacher education. Wisely framing her work as solving both a "learning problem" and a "political problem," she makes brilliantly clear why today's intense struggle over the definition of teacher quality is no less than a struggle over the soul of public education.”
Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor and Director, UCLA's Institute for Democracy Education and Access

Table of Contents

Series Foreword by James A. Banks 

Foreword by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine 

Acknowledgments 

Preface 

Chapter 1. Teacher Education for Social Justice: A Learning Problem and a Political Problem 
   Working the Dialectic 
   The Demographic Imperative 
   Conceptualizing Teacher Education: The Tensions Underlying Reform 
   Teacher Education for Social Justice as a Learning Problem 
   Teacher Education for Social Justice as a Political Problem 
   Teacher Education: A Learning Problem and a Political Problem 

Chapter 2. Against the Grain
   Critical Dissonance and Collaborative Resonance 
   Teaching Against the Grain 
   Collaboration, Intellectual Work, and the Culture of Reform 
   Student Teachers as Reformers 

Chapter 3. Color Blindness and Basket Making 
   Learning the Discourse of Teaching: Contrasting Approaches 
   Constructing and Confronting Dilemmas 
   Beyond Color Blindness and Basket Making 

Chapter 4. Teaching for Social Justice 
   Teaching for Social Justice: Six Principles of Pedagogy  
   One Student Teacher's Experience: Inquiring into Social Justice 
   Conclusion: Learning to Teach for Social Justice 

Chapter 5. Blind Vision 
   Blind Vision: A Story from a Teacher Educator 
   Reading Teacher Education as Racial Text 
   Conclusion: Lessons Learned and Unlearned 

Chapter 6. The Outcomes Question in Teacher Education 
   Sorting Out the Outcomes Question 
   Long-Term Impact as Outcome 
   Teacher Test Scores as Outcome 
   Professional Performance as Outcome 
   The Outcomes Question: Grounds and Groundwork 

Chapter 7. Sticks, Stones and Ideology 
   Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Mary Kim Fries 
   Professionalization and Deregulation: Unpacking the Discourse 
   Common Sense About Teacher Education Reform: Three Warrants for Action
   Conclusion: The High Ground of Common Sense 

Chapter 8. Multiple Meanings of Multicultural Teacher Education 
   Understanding the Multiple Meanings of Multicultural Teacher Education: A Conceptual Framework 
   Multicultural Teacher Education: Eight Key Questions 
   Multicultural Teacher Education: External Forces 
   Conclusion:  Sorting Out the Multiple Meanings 

Chapter 9. Teacher Education at the Crossroads: A Call to Action 
   Producing "Highly Qualified Teachers":  The Need for Public Policy Critique 
   Strengthening the Social Justice Research Base in Teacher Education 
   Building on What We Have 
   Beyond the Crossroads 

References

Index

About the Author

Marilyn Cochran-Smith won the 2018 AERA Division K Legacy Award