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Developing cultural critical consciousness and self-reflection in preservice teacher education

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2003 by Geneva Gay, Kipchoge Kirkland

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During the reflective debriefing aspect of the teaching exchange, we name the different types of communication and information used; reveal where within the discussion we were expressing personal feelings and biases; share our own introspective thoughts, questions, and insights provoked by the discussion; and assess the adequacy and completeness of our instructional delivery. In subsequent debriefings students are first assisted through the process by being asked to answer a series of critical and reflective questions that approximate the debriefing we modeled. Eventually, they are expected to do their own nondirective reflective analyses of the instructor's, their own, and each other's pedagogical conversations. In other words, our class discourse patterns become the subject of analyses on two important levels of developing critical consciousness: first, in the act of their construction and delivery, and second, in the analytical critique of them.

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We also provide frequent and genuine opportunities for students to practice being multiculturally reflective and critically conscious. Projects are designed to allow students to bring to consciousness cultural values and beliefs embedded in U.S. schools and society that are taken for granted, or assumed to be universal; to understand how cultural hegemony and racism are manifested in school programs and practices; and to practice modifying curriculum content, instructional strategies, and learning climates to make them more responsive to ethnic and cultural diversity. We begin with discussions about the core values of mainstream U.S. society and different ethnic groups. Our intent is to help preservice teachers understand that what they may consider "just the way things are" or "the right way to behave" are, in fact, culturally determined standards of behavior, and that students from different cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds may ascribe to very different ones.

One technique that has been very effective for us is using poetry as pedagogy (Kirkland, 2001) to examine critical social and educational issues from the perspectives of different ethnic groups. We also have our students spend selected periods of time doing guided observations of "ethnic others" in their daily routines. These experiences are designed to help European American students dispel the myth that culture is only specialized artifacts and events, and to deconstruct the claim that "they (ethnically and racially diverse groups) are just like us." We teach them how to look at the interactions of ethnic group members, and what to do with what they find.

We also provide numerous opportunities for preservice teachers to have guided practice in translating the conceptual principles of multicultural critical consciousness into instructional possibility ties for use in K-12 classrooms. These activities are organized around cooperative learning projects; are based on the philosophy of learning by doing; involve realistic situations, issues, and events; and require students to use knowledge they have learned about ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity in creating their instructional strategies.

Developing cultural critical consciousness and self-reflection in preservice teacher education

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2003 by Geneva Gay, Kipchoge Kirkland

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