University of Washington, College of Education, Spring 2007



University of Washington, College of Education, Winter 2008

EdLPS 549: Special Topics in Educational Studies:

Teaching Foundations in Teacher Education

Miller 320

M: 4:30-6:50

Dr. Nancy Beadie Dr. Joy Williamson

Office: Miller 303D Office: Miller 315E

Phone: 221-3428 Phone: 685-7749

E-Mail: nbeadie@u.washington.edu Email: joyann@u.washington.edu

Office Hours: T, W (by appointment) Office Hours: M, Th (by appointment)

Course website: .

(Note: the links to our email addresses on the course website do not work; to send us messages please type our addresses as listed above.)

I. Objectives: Re-framing the Teaching of Foundations in Teacher Education

This course is a hands-on pedagogical seminar for developing new approaches to teaching foundations in teacher education. Building on the tradition of historical and philosophical foundations dating back at least to the 1920s and 30s, we take up the challenge of teaching teachers for democracy and social justice in a demonstrably unequal and unjust world.

Specifically, the course has five objectives: 1) to confront the multiple challenges to education for democratic citizenship that are presented by the ongoing history of racism, racial injustice, and class inequality in the United States; 2) to revise our ways of thinking about what it means to educate for democratic citizenship and teach for social justice in light of that history; 3) to explore examples of community-based approaches to doing this work; 4) to develop pedagogical philosophies and strategies that effectively bridge the multiple scales of citizenship and culture a teacher must negotiate—from home to community to classroom, and from school to district to polity; and 5) to produce a useable syllabus, a bibliography, and a lesson plan for teaching foundations in teacher education.

II. Content: Recognizing Sacrifice, Cultivating Trust, Redistributing Goods

In 1932, George Counts criticized the “sublime faith” that Americans had in education. Americans, he complained, seem to believe that education “is the one unfailing remedy for every ill to which man is subject.” Writing in the midst of the Great Depression, Counts questioned this faith and at the same time challenged educators to consider what it would really take to be agents of social change. A leading foundations educator himself, Counts argued that “teachers must abandon much of their easy optimism, subject the concept of education to the most rigorous scrutiny, and be prepared to deal much more fundamentally, realistically and positively with the American social situation than has been their habit in the past.”

Similar calls to realism are issued by critics of teaching and teacher education today. This criticism comes from more than one direction. Some point to the failure of schools to achieve even a minimum standard of basic education for significant numbers of students. They ask whether in such circumstances teachers or teacher educators can afford to devote energy to anything other than teaching basic skills. Others, meanwhile, highlight the injustice and inequity of resources, teacher quality, recognition and attention on the part of schools for these same students. They ask how in the face of these contradictions, teachers and teacher educators can continue to perpetuate the “myth” of education for democratic citizenship in the United States.

This course aims at reframing the teaching of foundations in teacher education in light of these challenges and contradictions. To do that we first confront the implications of an enduring history of racial injustice for how we conceive of citizenship and democratic education. In her book, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education, philosopher Danielle Allen juxtaposes the pledge of allegiance against photographs of violent white opposition to racial integration in Little Rock in 1957. She uses this juxtaposition to call into question the pledge’s language of “one nation, indivisible,” and to highlight the enduring racial divide in the experience of citizenship in the U.S. In particular, Allen highlights the significance of “sacrifice” in the historical experience of citizenship, and the reality of unequal sacrifice. She argues that failure to recognize such sacrifice is an obstacle to the political trust necessary for democracy and goes on to imagine the political habits necessary for trust to form.

Allen’s project is fundamentally educational, but it is not one that she developed specifically in relation to schools. Using the logic of her analysis as a template, how can we prepare teachers who have the knowledge, courage, skill, and disposition necessary to recognize and effectively address issues of race and social justice in their work? More broadly, how can we prepare teachers to cultivate such political habits and skills in their students?

To address these questions we draw on two studies of how race shapes the work of teachers. In her classic book White Teacher, Vivian Paley reflects on the significance of race in her efforts to foster trust with and among elementary students, as well as with their families. In her ethnographic study Colormute, Mica Pollock analyzes the often unspoken but nonetheless significant racial dimensions of teacher authority in high school, and of student responses to that authority. Both studies provide rich cases for analyzing how foundations knowledge and thinking can help teachers address real-life dilemmas of their work.

Next, we look at two pedagogical experiments with cultivating the social and civic capacities of students in local schools and communities. The Jackson Street Project was an experiment in place-based education that engaged elementary students in investigating the social and cultural history of the area around their school. In the process they both explored evidence of other people’s agency in history and imagined themselves as historical agents in that place. The Cleveland High School project meanwhile casts students as radical agents of change by engaging them directly in identifying, studying and acting upon local educational issues.

Cultivating a sense of agency is an important educational objective for teachers as well as for students. It is the final focus of the course. “Society is never redeemed without effort, struggle, and sacrifice,” Counts warned, and teachers must be able and willing to assume power and leadership toward that end. “To refuse to face the task of creating a vision of a future America immeasurably more just and noble and beautiful than the America of today,” Counts concluded in 1932, “ is to evade the most crucial, difficult, and important educational task.”

III. Readings

Three assigned books are available for purchase in the University Bookstore:

Danielle S. Allen, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education (Chicago, 2004).

Mica Pollock, Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (Princeton, 2004).

Vivian Paley, White Teacher (Harvard, 2000 [1979]).

Additional readings are available through the course web-site: .

For a complete list see the bibliography at the end of this syllabus.

IV. Written Assignments

Written assignments for this course include: three 1-2 page reader responses; a mini course session description; a syllabus; a bibliography; and a detailed plan for one class session. For more information on written assignments, see section IX of this syllabus.

V. Oral Presentation

Students will take turns presenting their perspectives on the issues of course by initiating discussion of the readings and/or exploring a particular pedagogical approach to teaching foundations. For more information on the oral presentation see section IX of this syllabus.

VI. Course expectations

This course will be run as a seminar. That means that students are expected to come to class prepared to share their interpretations of readings assigned for that class, as well as to share their work on their own areas of study and research in education. Final grades will be based on three reader responses (30%); one oral presentation (10%); one mini class session description (20%) and a course proposal: bibliography (10%), syllabus (20%), and detailed class session (10%).

VII. Schedule of Classes

1. January 7 Introductions: Teaching Foundations

A. From problems of democratic deliberation to...

B. Problems of trust and domination

Questions: What does teaching for social justice look like?

How do we teach teachers for social justice?

2. January 14 Historic Purposes of Foundations in Teacher Education

A. Democracy by imposition

B. Existential agency

C. Identifying and negotiating conflicts of value

Readings: Counts, “Dare the School Build a New Social Order?”

Greene, “Doing philosophy..." (from Teacher as Stranger)

Beadie, “From Teacher as Decision-Maker to…”

Syllabi for EdTEP 511 and 571

Grossman, McDonald, et. al., “Dismantling Dichotomies”

3. January 21 No Class—Martin Luther King Day

4. January 28 Re-framing the Purpose of Foundations in Teacher Education

A. Citizenship and Race--Historical Perspectives

B. Citizenship and Sacrifice—Philosophical Perspectives

C. Citizenship and Knowledge—Pedagogical Perspectives

Readings: Allen, Talking to Strangers, Prologue and Part I, xiii-xxii and 3-49

Anderson, “Race-Conscious Educational Policies”

Stanley, “Victoria Chinese Students’ Strike of 1922-3 Revisited”

Wineburg, et. al., “Common Belief and the Cultural Curriculum”

Due: Reader Response #1 + one historical photo

5. February 4 Problems of Civic Culture—Issues from Elementary Education

A. Developing Trust and Reciprocity in the Polity

B. Naming Race and Recognizing Identity in the Classroom

C. Negotiating Issues of Class and Culture with Parents

Readings: Allen, Talking to Strangers, Part II, pp. 53-98

Paley, White Teacher

Valdes, excerpt from Con Respeto, pp. 1-29 and 168-189

Due: Reader Response #2

6. February 11 Problems of Civic Culture—Issues from Secondary Education

A. Beyond Domination and Acquiescence B. Acknowledging Racial Dimensions of Teacher Authority

C. Talking Race and Recovering the Possibilities of Public Speech

Readings: Allen, Talking to Strangers, Part III, pp. 101-186

Pollock, excerpts from Colormute, 44-73 and conclusion, 210-225

Green, "Public Speech"

Due: Reader Response #3

7. February 18 No Class—Presidents’ Day

8. February 25 Pedagogical Experiments and Opportunities

A. Jackson Street Project—Place-Based Education

B. Cleveland High School Project—Students as Change Agents

Readings: Gruenewald, “Foundations of Place”

Hayden, excerpts from The Power of Place

Fielding, "Students as Radical Agents of Change"

Due: Mini Class Session Description

9. March 3 Education and Social Justice

A. Recognizing sacrifice

B. Redistributing goods

Readings: Williamson, "A Selected History of Social Justice in Education"

Dumas, “How do we get Dictionaries at Cleveland?”

Green, "Policy Questions"

10. March 10 Teachers as Agents of Social Justice

A. Cultivating agency

B. Public intellectuals

Readings: Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers”

Giroux, “Teachers, Public Life and Curriculum Reform"

Greene, “Excellence: Meaning and Multiplicity”

Due: Foundations Syllabus

Detailed Plan for One Class Session

Foundations Bibliography

IX. Assignments

A. Three Reader Responses + one historical photo

Participants in the course are asked to write a short (1-2 page) reader response for each of the three sessions in which we discuss Danielle Allen’s book Talking to Strangers, i.e., January 28, February 4, and February 11. This is because Allen’s ideas are both complex and central to the course. Each response paper should wrestle with a key idea in the section of Allen’s book assigned for that day. A good strategy is to select a particularly rich or puzzling passage from the book and then address the question of “what she means by that.” In addition, for the January 28th session, each participant should find and present one historical photo that poses issues of social justice in education (a la Danielle Allen or Sam Wineburg). Credit/no credit.

B. One Oral Presentation

Each student will be assigned to take the lead in presenting material for one of the class sessions. This material can be the common course readings assigned for that day, an example of a lesson or pedagogical approach appropriate to teaching foundations in teacher education, or some other outside material that connects with the purposes of the course. Topics, dates and objectives for presentations will be negotiated individually with the instructors. Graded.

C. One Mini Class Session Description—February 25

Choose two to three readings you plan to assign on one day of your own syllabus and discuss them. You are expected to demonstrate that you have thought deliberately about your selections as well as their use in a foundations course in a teacher education program. The assignment, which can be in the form of a short paper (about 3-4 pages), is intended to help you move toward your final syllabus and detailed class description (see below for details on the final assignment). We realize this is your first chance to brainstorm and to receive feedback, therefore, you will not be expected to keep these readings on your final syllabus, elaborate on the same day in your final assignment, or include a description of the class activities you would assign on the day you have chosen for your mini assignment. Graded.

D. One Course Proposal for Teaching Foundations in Teacher Education—March 10

The final project for this course is the creation of a working syllabus for teaching foundations in a teacher education program. Feel free to use this syllabus as a guide.

In your syllabus we expect that you will:

• Outline ten weeks of class work (in other words, your course should be one quarter long and meet once a week)

• Write out the course objectives (what you intend; your purpose for teaching the course) and your teaching philosophy (how you approach the content and why you believe it is important).

• For each day of the course, choose a theme that unites the readings you selected and use it as a title for that particular day. This gives students clues to what they should be getting out of that day’s readings.

• Include a list of assignments and reasons for those particular assignments. Here we expect you to think deeply about the nature of evaluation since the method you choose reveals what you believe about teaching and learning. For instance, will you have some assignments graded and others un-graded and why? Will you have students do individual work and/or group work and why?

• Include a bibliography of the readings you selected.

• Elaborate on one day of your course. Here we expect you to discuss what you want students to get out of the course on that day, explain why the readings you chose do that better than others and how they relate to one another, and discuss what kinds of activities and/or questions you would use to motivate your students and why.

• In short, the final assignment is made up of three distinct parts: the syllabus, the detailed description of one day, and the course bibliography. Each part will be graded.

X. Bibliography of Assigned Course Readings

Historic Purposes of Foundations in Teacher Education

Beadie, N. (1995). "From 'Teacher as Decision Maker' to 'Teacher as Participant in Shared Decision-Making,' Reframing the Purpose of Social Foundations in Teacher Education," Teachers College Record 98:1 (Fall): 77-103.

Counts, G. (1978 [1932]). Dare the School Build a New Social Order? Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois University Press.

Greene, M. (1973). “Doing Philosophy and Building a World,” from Teacher as Stranger: Educational Philosophy for the Modern Age. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 3-25.

Grossman, P., McDonald, M., Hammerness, K., & Ronfeldt, M. (In press.) Dismantling dichotomies in teacher education. In M. Cochran-Smith (Ed.), The Handbook of Teacher Education: A Project of the Association of Teacher Education (3rd Edition) New York, NY MacMillan. 

Reframing the Purpose of Foundations in Teacher Education

Anderson, J. (2007). “Race-Conscious Educational Policies Versus a ‘Color-Blind Constitution’: A Historical Perspective. Educational Researcher 36:5, 249-57.

Stanley, T. (2002). "Bringing Anti-racism into Historical Explanation: The Victoria Chinese Students' Strike of 1922-3 Revisited," Journal of the Canadian History Association 13, 141-165.

Wineburg, S. et. al. (2007). “Common Belief and the Cultural Curriculum: An Intergenerational Study of Historical Consciousness,” American Educational Research Journal 44:1, 40-76.

Problems of Civic Culture--Issues from Elementary Education

Valdes, G. (1996). Con respeto : bridging the distances between culturally diverse families and schools : an ethnographic portrait. New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 1-29 and 168-189.

Problems of Civic Culture--Issues from Secondary Education

Green, T. F. (1993). Public Speech. San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press for The Society of Professors of Education.

Pollock, M. (2004). “Race Doesn’t/Does Matter” and conclusion in Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School Princeton: Princeton University Press, 44-73 and 210-225.

Pedagogical Experiments and Opportunities

Fielding, M. (2001). "Students as Radical Agents of Change," Journal of Educational Change 2: 123-41.

Gruenewald, D. (2003). Foundations of Place: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Place-Conscious Education. American Educational Research Journal 40:1, 619-544.

Hayden, D. (1995). “Contested Terrain,” and “The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space,” The power of place: Urban landscapes as public history. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2-13 and 14-43.

Education and Social Justice

Dumas, M.J. (2008, forthcoming). 'How do we get dictionaries at Cleveland?': Theorizing redistribution and recognition in urban education research. In J. Anyon, ed. Theorizing educational research: Toward critical social explanation. New York: Routledge.

Green, T. “Policy Questions,” Educational Policy Analysis Archives 2:7 (April 15, 1994): 975 lines.

Williamson, J., L. Rhodes, and M. Dunson (2007). A Selected History of Social Justice in Education, Review of Research in Education (American Educational Research Association).

Teachers as Agents of Social Justice

Baldwin, J. (1998). “A Talk to Teachers,” Collected Essays. NY: Library of America, 678-86.

Giroux, H. (1994). Teachers, Public Life and Curriculum Reform. Peabody Journal of Education 69:3, 35-47.

Greene, M. (1984). “Excellence”; Meanings, and Multiplicity. Teachers College Record. 86 (2), 283-97.

XI. Foundations knowledge and outcomes for Teacher Education—working document:

1. understanding of roles and responsibilities as a teacher

a. able to identify and critically engage the public purposes of schooling and his or her public responsibilities as a teacher

b. recognizes the multiple and often competing purposes of schools in society

2. social and historical knowledge and understanding

a. is aware that different students, families and communities have different social and historical relationships to schools

b. recognizes that schools are sites of social and historical struggle for many

c. is able to recognize what’s at stake in an educational issue from more than one perspective

3. philosophical knowledge and understanding

a. knows and understands how social values and public purposes are often in tension in education and with each other

b. does not expect to find easy resolutions of such tensions, but is inclined to wrestle with them and look for ways to balance or manage them in practice

c. has experience recognizing issues of equity and evidence of other social values in practice

4. self-understanding

a. understands that he or she is implicated in ongoing struggles over education, equity, and purposes of schools by virtue of his or her formal roles as a teacher

b. has capacity to critically examine his or her relationship to such struggles as well as to power and privilege

Summary Statement: TEP graduates know and understand how they are implicated in ongoing struggles over education, equity, and the purposes of schooling by virtue of their formal roles as teachers. They seek and recognize evidence of those values and struggles in practice; they critically examine their own and others' performance of them in their work.

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