ABSTRACT
This chapter, “Resistance, Persistence, and a Whole Lot of Wobble: Two Teacher Educators Compare their Critical, Project-Based Clinical Experiences,” presents two projects developed by authors Meghan E. Barnes and Lindy L. Johnson for their respective university-based teacher education programs. Barnes’s Community Partnership Project was a semester-long partnership between preservice teachers (PSTs) and high school students in the USA South. Partners blogged with one another to consider the relevancy of writing. Johnson’s Letters to the Next President project was a partnership between high school students and PSTs in the mid-Atlantic. These PSTs mentored high school students as they created videos about topics of interest to them and their communities. Each project was designed to help PSTs develop culturally proactive, student-centered approaches to teaching. Through vignettes, the authors illustrate three primary tensions they experienced during the development and implementation of the projects, related to beliefs about the purpose, expectations, and format of teacher education. The authors draw on these vignettes to consider the potential of critical project-based clinical experiences to support PSTs in developing culturally proactive and student-centered approaches to teaching and to make recommendations for future iterations of their respective projects.
