WATCH: Preparing asset-based equity oriented teachers

UW College of Education

Apr 23 2019

Teacher educators from the University of Washington College of Education and Antioch University Seattle discussed their work to transform teacher preparation during a recent YouTube Live chat.

Manka Varghese, associate professor of education at the UW, and UW College of Education alumni and Antioch faculty members Caryn Park (PhD '10) and Julia Daniels (PhD ‘18) are co-authors of a new article on preparing asset-based, equity oriented teachers in a special issue of Teachers College Record.

During the chat, Varghese, Park and Daniels discussed “Structuring Disruption Within University-Based Teacher Education Programs: Possibilities and Challenges of Race-Based Caucuses,” which draws from their work over the last several years in the UW’s elementary teacher education program. The three also commented on their vision of identity-based and place-based teacher education as well as opportunities for preparing justice-oriented teachers.

Varghese is principal investigator for UW’s Project Bilingual Educator CApacity (BECA), a U.S. Department of Education-funded effort to address the shortage of dual language certified teachers. Her teaching and research focuses on improving the schooling experiences and, ultimately, the lives of linguistic minority youth.

Park has taught in early childhood classrooms in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington state and her research centers on children’s understandings about race and ethnicity, and extends into multicultural curriculum and instruction, English language learning and teacher professional development for equity.

Daniels is program coordinator for Antioch’s Alternative Route to Teacher Certification and recently received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) for “White Women Teachers and the Possibilities of Harm Reduction.”