Culturally sustaining practices for middle level teacher educators

Abstract

The dual pandemics of social unrest and COVID-19 during the summer of 2020 in the United States has produced a renewed sense of urgency and agency for the interrogation of curriculum in K-12 education and the development of culturally sustaining practices. This urgency has encouraged more teacher preparation programs and middle school leaders to be intentional in developing culturally sustaining teachers. This paper offers two tools for professors to use to develop the skill of decentering whiteness/self in classroom practices. These practices are for teacher educators to integrate holistically and support middle level teachers’ development of their culturally sustaining practices. Decentering whiteness/self is the act of interrogating curriculum and classroom experiences to uncover places where professors can decenter whiteness and incorporate perspectives from historically marginalized populations. There is agency and need for strong experiential learning opportunities to develop culturally responsive middle school teachers.