Most practitioners and scholars agree that critical and reflective early childhood and elementary teachers are foundational for children's holistic growth and development. Yet current policies focused on elevating testing and performativity are contributing to student and teacher anxiety and alienation. This book offers a counternarrative to neoliberal standardized preservice teacher development and assessment processes. The author examines how a cohort of teacher educators worked alongside their preservice teachers—both groups predominately White and female—to redesign their teacher education program. Sherfinski reveals how the narrative portfolio, an inquiry-based alternative to accreditation and standards-based assessments, was designed to locally document, resist, and disrupt the status quo. The narrative portfolio speaks back to standardized preservice teacher assessments by providing spaces for teacher candidates to demonstrate their knowledge of theory and practice as enacted in the natural settings of school and community. Rooted in Belonging shows why humanizing, democratic, place-based practices should be at the forefront of teacher education. Book Features: Provides a rare portrait of equity-based teacher education at the confluence of place-based approaches, student diversity, and teacher education. Grapples with tough issues such as how the shared Whiteness of preservice teachers and children and their families play out alongside their differences. Explores how educators negotiate deep ideological differences while still preparing teachers for critical work. Examines how the current political climate around Black Lives Matters, the 2020 presidential election, and the COVID-19 pandemic contribute to the challenges of working in communities. Discusses how race, space, time, and settler colonialism shape the work of preservice teachers and their teacher educators. Shares action research and teacher leadership assignments, critical thinking and planning exercises, personal reflections, and preservice teachers' narrative portfolio artifacts.

Table of Contents:
Contents (Tentative) Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction "The Bubble" Place-Based Education and Its Potential A Dynamic Charge for Teacher Education 1.  The Need for Place-Based Teacher Education Contexts for the Book Three Challenges Connecting the Places Why We Needed Place-Based Teacher Education Neoliberal Challenges to Place-Based Teacher Education Reclaiming Accountability Challenges of Reclaiming Accountability What's Next? 2.  Theoretical Framework The Nature of Meaning-Making Three Approaches to Place-Based Education Humanizing Place-Based Education in School Classrooms Place-Based Teacher Education Negotiation: Sensing and Resisting Neoliberal Policies Questions for Reflection and Discussion What's Next? 3.  The Narrative Portfolio Project Context of the Teacher Education Program The Narrative Portfolio as a Counter-Narrative to Failure Questions for Reflection and Discussion What's Next? 4.  Resisting Neoliberalism Through Place-Based Narrative Portfolio Work Getting Lost in Places Vignette 1. Critical Reflection on Place Vignette 2. Dialogue With Place in Mind Vignette 3. Transforming I-It to I-You Vignette 4. Diffraction: Bending Around Barriers Conclusion Questions for Reflection and Discussion What's Next? 5.  Pairing Our Place-Based Approach With Racial Justice Anti-Racist Education COVID-19 and Anti-Racist Teaching Place-Based Education Post-Graduation Conclusion Questions for Reflection and Discussion What's Next? 6.  Practice and Policy Implications Teacher Education Program Assessment in the "Cluster" Transforming Teacher Education Assessment The Change Process Suggestions for Practice Conclusion Questions for Reflection and Discussion What's Next? Methodology Appendix. Capturing Meanings of Place-Based Education and Assessment Background for the Study Method Appendix A. Lenses of Teacher Education and Revised "10 Characteristics of the Novice Teacher" for PDS Mentors and Faculty Professional Development Appendix B. A Portrait of Becoming: The Stories of a Teacher and Their Learners Our Places Learners and Teachers Beginning the Year . . . Looking and Seeing as an Ethnographer Exploring the Literature: Disrupting the Commonplaces Our Journey Our Learning A Reflective Pause With an Eye to the Future Final Thoughts Appendix C. Destiny's Stamped by Reynolds & Kendi (2020) Community Book Club Plan (Abbreviated Version) Endnotes References Index