Children teaching future teachers: A civic literacy project on the Border Wall during the Trump regime

Abstract

The Civic Literacy Project (CLP) was created, by colleagues and me, out of a concern for how future teachers learn to teach in field-based experiences. In this article I describe the CLP curriculum-making experiences of two future teachers, one Somali-American and one white, with a small group of 5th graders who wanted to learn about the Border Wall during the Trump Regime. I examine how the future teachers’ conception of teaching and curriculum was crucially informed by listening to and working with their young students. Too often, as teacher educators, we create and sanction field experiences for future teachers that teach compliance to failing systems where children are seen as passive recipients of prepackaged curriculum. CLP was grounded in pedagogies of progressive, critical, and inquiry learning traditions which take children’s topics of concern as the basis of curriculum making. I argue for transformative change in teacher education’s approach to field experiences for future teachers—including collaboration instead of surveillance and co-inquiry instead of allegiance to scripted curriculum.