“No Time for Messin’ Around!” Understanding Black Educator Urgency: Implications for the Preparation of Urban Educators

Abstract

Studies of effective Black educators describe the teacher's sense of urgency as the guiding perspective that manifests in their authoritative, insistent manner. Although the bulk of this work offers snapshots of insistence in practice, less is known about the perspectives that undergird Black educator urgency. Using collaborative inquiry methodology framed within an emancipatory theoretical perspective, this article describes the sociocultural factors that give rise to the sense of urgency perceived by Black educators. Findings revealed that the factors that contributed to Black educator urgency were rooted in the educators' culture-specific perspectives. Discussion and implications for teacher educators conclude the article.

The Meritocratic Mystique and Mathematical Mediocrity in Hard-to-Staff Schools: A Critique of the Best and Brightest Teacher Agenda

“…This article connects with scholarship on teacher preparation programs that recruit "the best and brightest" (Howard & Milner, 2014;Kavanagh & Dunn, 2013), on the politics of school reform (Au, 2016;Klein, 2010;Ravitch, 2013), on urban teacher preparation (Acosta, 2018;Hammerness & Craig, 2016), and on mathematics education in urban schools (Brown et al, 2019;Chazan et al, 2013;Martin & Larnell, 2013). Consistent with much of this literature, in this article, the terms "urban" and "urban education" refer to schooling in large cities as programs like the Teaching Fellows operate in big city districts (TNTP, 2019).…”

Pushed to Teach: Pedagogies and Policies for a Black Women Educator Pipeline

“…Ramsey (2012) discussed Black women educators as striving to ensure group survival while pushing for institutional change through caring activism and learning to maneuver through multiple intersections of oppression. In a more contemporary example, Acosta (2015) described a sense of urgency articulated by four Black women educators (e.g., liberatory realities of education, concern about the miseducation of Black children, rejection of western constructions of “Blackness”) and being compelled to push their students toward academic excellence. Delpit (1986) noted Black women’s distinctiveness is at times contrasted with their White female teaching counterparts and critiqued for being “too formal, strict, directive, teacher centered” (as cited in Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 95).…”

“…Black women educators’ practices as warm demanders (Ware, 2006) are connected to intergenerational (i.e., across significant sociopolitical timespans) and othermothering (Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Henry, 1992) communal values of caring (Acosta, 2015; Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002). Dixon (2003) described the politics and pedagogy of Black women as centering teaching as a lifestyle and a public service that encompasses relationship building and othermothering.…”

“EDG 6931 Writes Back!” Black Studies as Emancipatory Resistance to Neoliberal Tyranny in Teacher Education

“…Oppositional consciousness reflects a posture of resistance to dehumanizing educational practices, such as academic tracking, zero tolerance discipline policies, and alienating curriculum. Educators with this outlook position their instruction as tools of resistance,, and it is largely this disposition that fuels their effective instructional approaches (Acosta, 2015). The ability to read and interpret social phenomenon from a different perspective supported some students' shift from awareness of the social inequities faced by others, to emerging consciousness of the complex systemic forces that make such inequities possible.…”