”EVERYBODY AT THE SCIENCE TABLE!”
Caroline and I have been gifted with two great children, David and Susan. They have moved in different directions vocationally, with David teaching science education at Michigan State and Susan teaching theater at UMBC and doing theater in Baltimore. There is more overlap, however, than one might imagine. David prefers the acronym “STEAM” to “STEM” (“Science, technology, engineering, ART and math” instead of “Science, technology, engineering, and math), and Susan is quite the engineer!
Today I’m featuring David’s new book of essays on teacher preparation for science educators. He was the main editor for the book “Preparing Science Teachers Through Practice-Based Teacher Education.” It will be published by Harvard Education Press on November 10. When I asked him what he would like me to say about it, he replied: “If we want teachers to enact equitable instruction, we can’t just hope they will figure it out. We know what will happen if White teachers are not disrupted in how they think about Black and Brown students, as well as the purpose of school.
As people who help teachers learn, we have to provide opportunities for them to rehearse equitable teaching, and to receive support as they keep learning. The book is an example of the community effort needed to do good work. America is a place that emphasizes individual competition, but that’s not how we will improve teaching and learning. All of the chapter authors talk to each other, learn from each other, and try out teaching together.”
David learned these great ideas from us (modesty aside), from the Oakhurst Presbyterian community, and from his own development. He began his career as a teacher of middle school science in a very diverse school in Houston, and he was greatly angered and discouraged by the total lack of science equipment and the lack of commitment of the school and the school system to teaching the marginalized kids about the gifts and possibilities of science. During that first year, he made a commitment to himself and to the world that he would find a way to ensure that all kids, no matter their racial or class or gender classification, would have access to a high quality public school education. That has been his life work ever since, whether it was in getting his master’s degree at University of Houston or his doctorate degree at University of Washington, or his getting tenure at Michigan State.
He and a colleague (Niral Shah) were recently on a panel on STEM inequity for diverse students, sponsored by the US Department of Education (yes, that one, headed up by Betsy DeVos). Despite "The Leader’s" recent order to not discuss crucial race theories or other justice-oriented work, David and Niral found ways around that order to talk about teacher education practices to excite students of all racial classifications, but especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students about STEM and about all of learning.
In typical David style, this book grew out of a proposal that was rejected for a workshop at a conference. David and his colleagues were determined to get these ideas before the pubic, so they went to a higher and broader authority. The authors of the essays are all colleagues and friends, so it truly is a village-based work. It calls leaders in education, but indeed all of us, to make a commitment that we have never really made in the history of our country: to show our intentionality to provide high quality education to all of our children. We are so proud of David and his great work – we look forward to reading his new book, and you can do so too. Here’s the link to ordering it
https://www.hepg.org/.../preparing-science-teachers....
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