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Article Excerpt
Several years ago, I was presented with an incredible opportunity for an educator interested in utilizing service learning as a tool to prepare teachers for work with diverse communities. Based on my prior service work with a community center, I was invited to facilitate an effort that fit perfectly with my aims to practice multicultural service learning. The proposed initiative, The Banneker History Project (BHP), sought to reconstruct the history of a segregated local school. It seemed full of potential to build community, affirm diversity, and address inequality. Without hesitation, I agreed to participate.
In this article, I focus on the ways that one group of participants, 24 preservice teachers of color, experienced and interpreted the BHP. I respond to three questions that arose from the data: (a) Whose community does service learning serve? (b) What meanings do preservice teachers make for culturally responsive teaching? and (c) Does a community orientation count in teacher education? I then reflect on and draw insights from these data. Finally, I consider implications of this effort for community-oriented teacher education.
THE BANNEKER HISTORY PROJECT
The Benjamin Banneker School was named for an historically important African American (ca. 1731-1806). It operated as a segregated school for African Americans from 1915 to 1951. It was just a mile from a major research university in a Midwestern town. In the early 1950s, the school closed due to declining enrollment and to the repeal of a state law that supported school segregation. The school then became a community center, which functions to this day.
In 2001, the director of the Banneker Community Center and the president of the local chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) proposed the BHP as part of an effort to foster campus-community partnerships. These leaders wanted to tell the story of the Banneker School through the eyes of surviving alumni (also called elders). They hoped to develop pride in the historic value of the Banneker neighborhood among local youth. In 2002, a school-community-university partnership formed to bring the BHP to life. I was part of this group. Three service learning tasks were set: (a) the collection of oral histories from alumni of the Banneker School, (b) the creation of biographies about Benjamin Banneker, and (c) the investigation of the transition of the school to a community center. The BHP became a 2-year effort that culminated in a public exhibit of the history of the Banneker School and the Banneker Community Center.
THE HONORS SEMINAR
In the spring of 2003, I utilized the BHP as the centerpiece of an Honors Seminar for preservice teachers from Project TEAM--a scholarship program for future teachers of color focused on social justice (Bennett, 2002). Preservice teachers meet for a 1- to 3-credit Honors Seminar each semester to learn to teach in ways that further social justice. When I taught the seminar, I focused on building bridges to communities from which students come. I considered the BHP a perfect opportunity to develop local connections, acknowledge local wisdom, and comprehend culturally responsive teaching.
During class sessions, we discussed readings about culturally responsive teaching, funds of knowledge, and asset-based community development. We also studied the life of Benjamin Banneker and the history of the local African American community. Several class periods were set aside for reflection on field experiences. Preservice teachers spent about 15 hours in the field, assisting with one of the three tasks for the BHP. They completed three reflective essays in which they considered their learning about course topics. They earned extra credit for participation in two public events at the Banneker Community Center focused on sharing information about BHP tasks.
DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY ORIENTATION FOR TEACHING
The BHP was an effort in multicultural service learning. It was utilized as a venue to assist preservice teachers in developing a community orientation for their future teaching. Several ideas and perspectives underpinned class discussions and organized fieldwork: culturally responsive teaching, funds of knowledge, and asset-based community development. In the following section, I describe a community orientation to teaching, consider multicultural service learning as a community-oriented pedagogy, and discuss core notions for the course.
Community-Oriented Teacher Education
The preparation of teachers who are attuned to the communities they serve has been discussed for years in teacher education (e.g., Corwin, 1973; Flowers, Patterson, Stratemeyer, & Lindsay, 1948; Mahan, Fortney, & Garcia, 1983) but rarely actualized (Zeichner & Melnick, 1996). Recently, Peter Murrell (2001) proposed a framework for "community-dedicated" urban teacher education (p. 3). As part of this model, teachers develop "community-teacher knowledge" (p. 54): a working knowledge of the cultural backgrounds, personal identities, and local contexts of their students. Service learning is a potential pedagogy for community-oriented teacher preparation, but Murrell finds fault with the "old service learning model" (p. 119) in which faculty are remotely involved, preparation for service is minimal, and service learners fail to build local relationships. He calls for stronger collaborations that help teacher candidates cull the rich resources of culturally diverse communities.
Multicultural Service Learning
Multicultural service learning potentially responds to Murrell's call. Multicultural service learning aims to affirm diversity, critique inequity, and build community (Boyle-Baise, 2002). Multicultural service learning should offer opportunities for preservice teachers to become better acquainted with culturally diverse and/ or lower-income communities, particularly to learn about local needs and to link to local wisdom. Multicultural service learning can help teacher candidates to identify assets in culturally diverse and/or lower-income neighborhoods (e.g., Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993) and gain cultural knowledge about groups other than their own (e.g., Coles, 1999; Nieto, 2000). The BHP provided a chance to learn from service that was locally derived, culturally affirmative, and socially just.
There is some evidence, however, that service learning is viewed cautiously by preservice teachers of color. In college courses focused on issues of race and ethnicity, students of color chose conventional paper assignments more often than service learning options (Coles, 1999). They reported that they were too busy with work or family responsibilities; service learning seemed like a White, charitable program; they had other outlets for service (such as their churches); or, as first-generation college students, they needed to invest their time in making good grades (Coles, 1999). Moreover, conversations in class and on site were perceived as more complicated and difficult to maneuver when race was an explicit focus. However, service is perceived as a traditional, core value within some communities of color (e.g., Jones, 2000; Stevens, 2003; Wokie & Simmons, 2000) and this regard can legitimate service learning.
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Funds of Knowledge
Murrell's notion of community teacher knowledge correlates with culturally responsive teaching. Arguably, culturally responsive teaching draws on community teacher knowledge. Teachers who practice culturally responsive teaching validate student's life experiences. They teach to the whole child as a student, family, and community member. They utilize the cultures and histories of minority group students as teaching resources and they question universal versions of truth (Gay, 2000; Nieto, 2000; Villegas & Lucas, 2002).
Although culturally responsive teaching seems compelling to preservice teachers, there is some evidence that they find the concept abstract and theoretical (Seidl, 2003). Kidd, Sanchez, and Thorp (2003) found...
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