From Theory to Practice: An Atlanta-Based Aspiring Abolitionist Teacher Residency
摘要
Recognizing that schools are often sites of suffering, we – an Atlanta-based teacher residency team – have attempted to take a critical turn in teacher residency work by moving from traditional teacher preparation toward a way of knowing/being/doing that centers abolition via (1) attunement to geo-socio-historical and political situatedness, (2) democratic/participatory structures, (3) commitments to onto-epistemological orientations rooted in critical theories and abolition, and (4) an emphasis on learning as liberation. In this article, we explore the affordances/possibilities, constraints, and challenges of moving toward actualizing an abolitionist teacher residency and illustrate the complicated and sometimes contrasting perspectives of our teams as we negotiated this work. Overall, findings illustrate the complexities of anti-Blackness in education, tensions of labor inequalities and striving towards more democratic possibilities, and the challenges/constraints of abolitionist aspirations within our current policy context.