Testimonios of teaching from four latina first-year teachers

Abstract

In 2020, first year teachers entered a school system that continued to emphasize policies, measures, and curriculum that support racism and social injustice. But first year teachers also entered at a time when there was renewed interest in openly pushing issues of race, oppression and violence into the forefront. I write about the lived experiences of four Latina teachers that were co-constructed as testimonios through dialogue and conversation. This work centers their voices as their tellings are fundamental to our understanding of the challenges in schools. For these teachers, blaring inconsistencies between their social justice endeavors and what they experienced were made clear and their classrooms became sites of contestation towards realizing teaching as it should be. Their work is situated in schools as focal places that reflect inequitable macro spaces and, at the same time, serve as places to resist subjugation and generate openings of alternate possibilities.