ABSTRACT
This chapter documents U.S. pre-service teachers’ noticing as a catalyst for learning in Cape Town, South Africa, schools as part of a program designed to improve their responsive teaching in U.S. schools with diverse populations. It examines how noticing occurred when they entered new cultural territories, what promoted and inhibited noticing and response, and how they changed as noticers through time. The investigation draws on the participants’ formal reflections and semi-structured interviews with them. Findings show that learning how to navigate unfamiliar cultural terrain initially challenged effective noticing and response. However, increased cultural understandings and post-experience reflection promoted more effective noticing that repudiated deficit modes of thinking, helped them notice their local schools and communities in more complex ways and led to their establishment of identities as advocates for social justice and allies of traditionally under-served students in U.S. schools. The study suggests that extended multiple opportunities for noticing, extended formal reflection, and a focus on the cultural systems that influence schooling, can increase the effectiveness of programs with international experiences.
