The Marathon Continues: Black Faculty Awakened & Inspired by Neighborhood Nip to Redesign Community-Engaged Teacher Education Courses

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this conceptual article is to illustrate how our awakening after Nipsey Hussle’s death, our visit to his memorial, his music and life, and our lived experiences influenced a redesign of our community-engaged courses. We realized we had bought into respectability politics and prioritized making our white colleagues and preservice teachers comfortable, leaving behind our hoods. Experiencing the outpouring of love for his work and life made us realize that we didn’t have to let go of our hoods to be a part of academia. Through a Self-Study in Teacher Education, a type of practitioner inquiry undertaken by teacher educators, we shared our stories growing up in our hoods, explored our Hip-Hop identities, and the awakening we experienced to redesign and inform our community-engaged curricular decisions. This article is a “Blackprint”. It’s an offering to teacher educators to explore and interrogate their identities and personal experiences as a springboard to centering Blackness in their courses. It stems from our childhoods in the hood, our careers as scholars, and the call to action inspired by Nipsey’s death. This is a call to elevate the hood in teacher education.