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

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.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Throughout this article, we utilize the word hood from a positive connotation; highlighting the beauty and complexities of the Black community we grew up in, along with other Black communities throughout the country.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kisha Porcher

Kisha Porcher is an assistant professor of English at the University of Delaware. She is the co-creator/co-host of the Black Gaze Podcast. Her research focuses on three interrelated topics: centering Blackness in English education; best practices for being, learning and teaching focused equity and social justice; and community-engaged teacher education.

Shamaine Bertrand

Shamaine Bertrand is assistant professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education and Co-coordinator for the Urban Education program at the College of New Jersey. She is the co-creator/co-host of the Black Gaze Podcast. Dr. Bertrand’s research focuses in three primary areas: Preparing preservice to effectively teach and support Black students; Building school-university partnerships that center equity and antiracism; and Centering Blackness in Elementary Education.