A Pedagogy of Promise

This chapter details an innovative teacher education paradigm that privileges community-engagement and critical service-learning in the development of culturally responsive teachers. Candidates are removed from campus and immersed in a low-income, African-American neighborhood for an entire semester's coursework, where they participate in critical service-learning alongside community mentors and members of the neighborhood community council. Differentiated from more traditional models of university service learning characterized by “doing for,” and which tend to favor those who serve over those being served, candidates participate with and alongside residents in projects identified by members of the neighborhood as integral to community vitality. The chapter details examples of critical service-learning that have been co-enacted in the eight-year history in the neighborhood. Candidate and community member reflections on their co-participation are privileged in the rich description of how this partnership is instrumental in the development of culturally responsive teachers.