ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the discomfort preservice teachers experience in a critical project-based clinical experience while working with middle school youth in a month-long summer camp. As part of the community-based inquiry curriculum, preservice teachers worked with small groups of youth to define, create, and explore concepts of community. The small groupings and loose curricular structure of the experience allowed preservice teachers to come to know youth in different ways than they did in school settings, an opportunity that caused preservice teachers to express both surprise and discomfort as the experience pushed against prevalent conceptions of what successful teaching and engaging literacy practices might be. Teacher educators have an important role in supporting preservice teachers’ discomfort in clinical experiences by providing opportunities for shared self-reflection and by modeling interactions with youth that are informed by youth-centered theoretical and practical frameworks.
