A Meeting of the Minds: A Needed Transformation in Teacher Education

The transformation of teacher education programs is needed. To be authentic and sustainable, efforts at transformation need to be grounded in shifting power and policy making away from just the university to shared decision making among stakeholders. This paper examines what are seen as first steps towards this objective. The effort described here involves a teacher preparation program and a neighboring school district. The university program is largely composed of white middle class students, and the school district is largely African American. This paper focuses on a project to support the voices of those who are being taught (referred to as scholars), and those planning to teacher (referred to as candidates). Both groups frame conversation around James Baldwin's "A talk to Teachers" and explore what has changed, what has not changed, and what needs to change. Teachers and administrators joined over twenty-five classes from the school district with the sophomore class cohort at the university.