Finding, Using, and Losing(?) Voice: A Preservice Teacher's Experiences in an Urban Educative Practicum

Teacher education faces the dual challenges of preparing preservice teachers for an increasingly diverse student body and recruiting, retaining, and graduating greater numbers of culturally diverse teachers (Zeichner, 1993, 1996). The dramatic mismatch in diversity between preservice teachers and students in schools in the United States complicates the task. Although most preservice teachers are White, female, middle-class monolingual speakers of English with few experiences with people different from themselves (Howey & Zimpher, 1996), the students in America's classrooms increasingly are children of color, many of whom are poor or speak primary languages other than English (Children's Defense Fund, 1991; National Center for Education Statistics, 1992). Efforts to address this discontinuity are few (Grant & Secada, 1990; Ladson-Billings, 1995), but reports of potential best practices (Grant, 1994, p. 1) in teacher education are emerging. Because many consider experience the best teacher--especially for learning to teach--the call for more field experience in diverse settings is not surprising. Yet, not all experience is educative (Dewey, 1938; Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985); some early field experiences (EFEs) in diverse settings teach harmful, unintended lessons by socializing preservice teachers into existing school cultures or cementing preconceived, stereotypical notions about others. For EFES to function as a best practice for diversity, Gomez (1996) argues that they must be reconceptualized so that all prospective teachers have the opportunity to develop meaningful, long-term relationships with people different from themselves in carefully placed and carefully supervised practicums (p. 126). Zeichner (1996) recommends educative practicums that move beyond individual classroom placements and focus on the full scope of teachers' complex roles within schools and communities, stress that all students from all backgrounds can learn, and prepare teacher candidates for the process of lifelong learning and professional development (p. 218). The data reported in this article come from a larger study in which I examined the experiences of four preservice teachers in an EFE situated in an urban elementary-middle school complex in a large city in the southwestern United States. Designed with Zeichner's (1996) notion of an educative practicum in mind, the EFE combined a foundations of education course, a general methods course, and a classroom, school, and community-focused field experience within a conceptual framework of reflective practice (Dewey, 1933/1964; Schon, 1987) and education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist (Sleeter, 1996, p. 7). By focusing on the experiences of preservice teachers in this specific context, I sought to highlight the ecology of the field experience (Zeichner, 1987) and to understand the pedagogical process itself, what happen[ed] as the pedagogies [were] being carried out (Carter & Anders, 1996, p. 575). Since there is still a paucity of research on those whose voices have been silent (Lincoln, 1993, p. 29), I sought to hear the voices of preservice teachers of color in this research, particularly because the college of education where this study took place actively seeks to enroll a more culturally diverse preservice teacher population. This article highlights the experiences of Monica, a working class, Mexican-American preservice teacher, as she engaged in this EFE. The Context This study took place in an elementary and middle school complex within the boundaries of a rapidly changing urban public school district in a large southwestern city. The material context, as well as the related social conditions, the schools' population and curriculum shifts, and the intellectual context of the reconceptualized EFE, contribute to understanding Monica's experiences. The Neighborhood The schools associated with this EFE sit in the middle of a rapidly changing urban neighborhood. …