Are you an English educator, teaching undergraduate methods courses and/or graduate classes for practicing teachers?  If so, Everyday Advocacy can be integrated into the courses you teach.

 

Why is advocacy important for teachers? Because the notion of teacher professionalism has changed. While it was once enough for teachers to know their content (the what of teaching) and their pedagogy (the how of teaching), they now need to be able to help parents, administrators, community members and legislators understand why they teach in the ways they do. Beyond the traditional content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, teachers now also need advocacy knowledge.

 

Some strategies to help preservice teachers explore Everyday Advocacy practices include:

• Introduce students to ways that teacher professionalism is linked to advocacy: to help others understand why we teach in the ways we do.

• Ask students to read the Getting Started section and try some of the writing invitations.

• As students learn about what and how to teach, ask them to articulate why they might teach in a certain way.  Then invite them to think about whom they would need to inform (parents, administrator, colleagues) and what strategies and tactics they might use to inform different groups. (Learn and Act).  You might invite them to fill out a chart like this over the course of a semester: