The CEAR Education Project curriculum is a helpful pedagogical tool for modeling, reflecting upon, and creating community-engaged, anti-racist pedagogy in our teacher education classes. There are several ways the curriculum can be used:

• As required reading for written reflection or discussions in teacher education courses.
• In micro-teaching activities where teacher candidates practice teaching with peers.
• As suggested curriculum for implementation in student teaching placements.
• As models for curriculum writing projects.

One example of how we have used the curricular units in teacher education comes from the GSE’s Language Education Program. All teacher candidates conduct a linguistic landscape project (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006) during their first year in the program in which they observe and collect data on the way languages are used in public spaces in the communities in which they are teaching. This assignment is designed for teacher candidates to get to know and build relationships with their students as they learn from the community.

In their second year in the program, as part of their Language and Culture course, teacher candidates create a Linguistic Landscape Unit Plan. In preparation for this assignment, we share the kindergarten Our Language Community Unit. Teacher candidates reflect upon the unit using course readings as lenses. The readings include selections from:

Baker-Bell, A. Linguistic justice: Black language, literacy, identity and pedagogy. Routledge. Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2006) Linguistic landscape and minority languages. In D. Gorter (Ed.) Linguistic landscape: A new approach to multilingualism. Multilingual Matters. España, C. and Herrera, L. Y. (2020). En Comunidad: Lessons for Centering the Voices and Experiences of Bilingual Latinx Students. Heinemann. Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.

Teacher candidates are then asked to adapt this unit for secondary level students. Some of the units created by teacher candidates have focused on the following topics:

• The Linguistic Landscape of our School Library
• The Multilingual Landscape of Dance Tiktok Videos
• The Linguistic Landscape of our Music Playlist
• Advocating for a Multilingual Landscape in Our Local Community

Helpful tools for teacher education courses and when creating units and lessons follow:

CEAR Principles and Practices

CEAR Norms and Beliefs 

CEAR Unit Plan Template 

CEAR Lesson Plan Template