CALL for submissions: Becoming and Being a Teacher (Peter Lang USA)

Becoming and Being a Teacher:

Confronting Traditional Norms to Create New Democratic Realities

Editor, P. L. Thomas

Education

Furman University

3300 Poinsett Hwy

Greenville SC 29369

864-294-3368 (o)

864-590-5458 (c)

paul.thomas@furman.edu

Critical Studies in Democracy and Political Literacy series (Peter Lang USA)

Paul Carr, Editor

Becoming and Being a Teacher: Confronting Traditional Norms to Create New Democratic Realities

P. L. Thomas, editor

Author(s)	Title
P. L. Thomas	Introduction
	Part I
Thomas Robertine	Chapter 1 “Continuous Becoming: Fieldwork as a Mutually Transformative Experience” (3000)
Ana L. Cruz	Chapter 2 “Becoming A Teacher: Fostering a Democratically Conscious Citizenry Through Critical Pedagogy” (3000-4000)
Katy Crawford-Garrett	Chapter 3 “Teach for America, Urban Reform and the New Taylorism in Public Education” (5000)
Lisa William-White	Chapter 4 “Becoming a Teacher in an Era of Curricular Standardization and Reductionist Learning Outcomes: A Poetic Interpretation” (5000)
Anthony Cody	Chapter 5 “Learning to Teach: Values in Action”  (3500-5000)
Brad Porfilio Lauren Hoffman	Chapter 6 “The Corporate Takeover of Teacher Education: Exposing and Challenging NCTQ’s Neoliberal Agenda” (5000)
John L. Hoben	Chapter 7 “Right Thinking People: Becoming a Teacher Educator in The Age of Austerity” (5000)
John Elmore	Chapter 8 “Neo-Liberalism and Teacher Preparation: Systematic Barriers to Critical Democratic Education” (4000)
Julie A. Gorlewski David A.  Gorlewski	Chapter 9 “Too Late for Public Education? Becoming a Teacher in a Neoliberal Era” (5000)
	Part II
Lawrence Baines	Chapter 10 “Ignorance is Strength: Teaching in the Shadow of Big Brother” (5000)
Ann G. Winfield Alan S. Canestrari	Chapter 11 “Beware Reformers Bearing Gifts: How the Right Uses the Language of Social Justice to Reinforce Inequity” (4000)
Gord Bambrick	Chapter 12 “Spotlight on Failure: The Mythology of Corporate Education Reform” (4000)
Amy Flint Eliza Allen Tara Campbell Amy Fraser Danielle Hilaski Linda James Sanjuana Rodriguez Natasha Thornton	Chapter 13 “More than graphs and policy mandates: Teachers working against the grain” (5000)
Dana Stachowiak	Chapter 14 “Not Bound by Stupid Binaries: Dismantling Gender in Public Schools through a New Consciousness and Claiming of Agency” (?)
Galen Leonhardy	Chapter 15 “So This Is America: A Narrative of Living Realizations and Democratic Non-Realities” (3000)
Regletto Aldrich Imbong	Chapter 16 “Neoliberalism and the Filipino Teacher: Shaking the Standards For a Genuine Democracy” (3000-4000)
Katie Stover Crystal Glover	Chapter 17 “Mandated Scripted Curriculum: A Benefit or Barrier to Democratic Teaching and Learning?” (3000-4000)
A. Scott Henderson	Chapter 18 “Schools as Battlegrounds: The Authoritarian Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas” (3500)
Rainiel Guzman	Chapter 19 “School Reformers’ Common Enemy: Teachers and Their Unions. A Historical Perspective” (3000-4000)
Melissa Winchell Patricia Chouinard	Chapter 20 “Troubling Traditional Notions of ‘Prepared’: Two Urban Teachers Ignite the Boundaries of Progressive and Critical Theories” (3000-4000)
Dawn Mitchell	Chapter 21 “Why Accountability Measures Fail…  Practitioner Perspectives on the Role of Teacher Efficacy”
Michael Svec	Chapter 22 “Empowerment through classroom cultural inquiries” (3000-3500)
	Conclusion
	Author Biographies

Focus:

This volume will seek to examine the tensions among economic, political, and educational goals and dynamics, specifically related to U.S. universal public education broadly and becoming and being a teacher narrowly, in the context of critical and postformal paradigms (Freire, Giroux, Kincheloe), confronting the assumptions driving capitalism, Western norms, partisan politics, consumerism/materialism, and corporatism in order to establish a more robust, critical and meaningful form of democracy that honors human dignity and agency.

Essays should present a wide variety of genres, including personal narrative, critical analysis, commentary, scholarship, and research. Essay lengths may vary from about 3000-5000 words, depending on the focus of the author(s). Please frame each proposal within the current climate attacking both teaching as a profession and teacher preparation—highlighting political literacy, teaching, and the state of the empire.

Please submit essay proposals that address the following, or suggest a focus you believe will enhance the project:

• Explore founding principles and justifications for public education in the U.S. (Jefferson), progressive tradition (Dewey), and critical alternative (Freire) as silenced and marginalized possibilities within a corporate paradigm for education, teaching, and teacher preparation. Unpack the contradictions and masking inherent in claims of normative democratic ideals as they flourish in public and political discourse. The question will not be how does universal public education contribute to a thriving democracy, but why do we maintain the traditional (normative democratic) workings of public education (Kohn) if education is primarily designed to perpetuate critical democracy for human agency?

• Examine and confront traditional norms of schooling and teacher preparation that maintain a stated allegiance to normative democracy (masking a deeper commitment to neoliberalism) as an avenue to recognizing and advocating for a commitment to critical democracy that honors student and teacher agency as essential for universal public education fulfilling its promise as central to a free people.

• Challenge the value of both traditional/authoritarian paradigms and normative democratic values as suitable for the justification or goals of universal public education. Argue that individual empowerment and agency are more suitable justifications and goals than neoliberalism masked by traditional normative democracy. Critical democracy may be discussed in the context of the problems posed by expertise within the simplistic claim that everyone deserves an equal voice (for example, does it benefit a culture or a field if the voice of laypeople has the same weight in the evolution debate as biologists and evolutionary scientists?) and the pedagogical norm that teachers must be unbiased, objective, and non-political.

• Establish the failures public education as enculturation and consider critical reforms for schooling and becoming/being a teacher, confronting the preparation and careers of teachers by examining the corrosive impact of certification and accreditation on teachers as well as students with a particular focus on NCATE and NCQT/ U.S. News and World Report. In short, certification and accreditation processes reinforce neoliberal norms by centralizing authority in bureaucratic organizations and by reducing learning to mere compliance and teaching to mere transmission (for example, in traditional schooling, U.S. history and history teachers are characterized as factual and objective even though U.S. history courses perpetuate a skewed advocacy for U.S. mythologies, policies, and norms).

• Present either personal narratives of experiences in teacher certification (as certifier or as teacher educator) and being a teacher—and placing those experiences in any or all of the contexts discussed above.

• Frame becoming and being a teacher in the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality as they all remain marginalized and normalized within corporate and neoliberal norms masked by narratives endorsing democracy and personal freedom.

• Explore and present specific alternatives to traditional and “new reformer” (Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan) calls for education reform and teacher preparation.

Important Dates:

(1) Essay proposals due to P. L. Thomas (paul.thomas@furman.edu) December 9, 2011 (earlier encouraged).

(2) Full draft of invited essays due to P. L. Thomas (paul.thomas@furman.edu)—attached as Word file—April 15, 2012.

Please submit invited essays in APA format using the provided sample as a guide.

(3) Editing/revision process: April 15-May 31, 2012.

(4) Final manuscript due to Lang June 1, 2012.

INVITATION TO SUBMIT

Editor, P. L. Thomas

Education

Furman University

3300 Poinsett Hwy

Greenville SC 29369

864-294-3368 (o)

864-590-5458 (c)

paul.thomas@furman.edu

Critical Studies in Democracy and Political Literacy series (Peter Lang USA)

Paul Carr, Editor

Re: Invitation to submit essay

I am extending an invitation based on your proposal for a full submission to be considered for Becoming and Being a Teacher; this submission is due April 15, 2012, attached as a Word file following APA citation format (see a sample essay attached for consistency of submissions).

Currently, I have 26 proposals that I believe are all potentially suitable for an excellent collection. However, once I have all submissions, due to word-count limits, focus of the submitted works, and variety of voices and perspectives, I will likely limit the final selection to about 18-22 pieces. This invitation, then, is not a guarantee of inclusion in the volume—although I will work to include as many of the authors who commit to this project as possible.

I need you to accept or reject this invitation by December 16, 2011, so I can confirm for all the needed word count for each piece. I am attaching an inclusive document of all proposals FYI; each proposal has a suggested word length based on what you proposed and/or my own assessment of what would best fit the volume. Ultimately, the word count of your submission is your choice, but I ask that we all stay within 3000-5000 words (I will consider a few longer pieces if requested, and within the context of how many invited authors choose to submit a full piece).

Please review the call (attached to email) that explains the focus of the volume. It is essential that each piece maintains a focus on the failure of corporate mandates for education as that impacts becoming and being a teacher committed to democratic and critical goals.

I will send a confirmation email after December 16, 2011, and I am eager and willing to view and respond to submission drafts throughout the coming months if you want.

See attached to the email:

• Invitation letter

• Compiled proposals

• Original call revised

• Sample essay (for formatting guide only, not content)

Do not hesitate to contact me at any time with questions or clarifications.

I am excited about this project, which I believe is needed and highly relevant in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

I hope that each of you will consider and share, as well, the call for another volume on de-testing and de-grading schools (proposals due January 15, 2012): http://wrestlingwithwriting.blogspot.com/2011/11/call-for-proposals-de-testing-and-de.html

Hope you all have a peaceful and fulfilling end of the fall semester (for those of us in academia) and the best of holiday seasons.

Thank you,

Paul Thomas

Timeline:

(1) Essay proposals due to P. L. Thomas (paul.thomas@furman.edu) December 9, 2011 (earlier encouraged).

(2) Invitation acceptance due December 16, 2011.

(3) Full draft of invited essays due to P. L. Thomas (paul.thomas@furman.edu)—attached as Word file—April 15, 2012.

Please submit invited essays in APA format using the provided sample as a guide.

(4) Editing/revision process: April 15-May 31, 2012.

(5) Final manuscript due to Lang June 1, 2012.