Teacher Educators as Critical Storytellers: Effective Teachers as Windows and Mirrors

Summary

Breaking away from the historically dominant narrative that White females make the best teachers, this book contends that effective teachers can be both "windows" and "mirrors" for students. Teachers should reflect the student population in racial and cultural terms while also serving as windows for students to see opportunities that lie outside of their immediate circumstances. Employing a critical storytelling framework, respected scholars share the teaching practices of influential teachers that they learned from. Chapter authors are diverse teacher educators from the fields of education, educational psychology, administration, policy, and curriculum and instruction. Each storyteller identifies key concepts and principles that explain why the selected teacher was so memorably effective. This inspirational volume provides a series of templates that help pinpoint the attitudes and behaviors of those teachers who make a positive difference in the lives of their students.