The Journey of an Urban Educator: Growing the Soul with Hope, Love, and Liberation

The purpose of the study is to better understand the complexity in learning and meaning making. By investigating how the attributes of hope, love, and liberation are intertwined in the practices of educators and activists, this research documents my quest to rethink how to prepare educators to teach in urban schools. The research seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What can we learn about preparing teachers for urban spaces from the experiences of urban educators and activists? How would they describe their processes of learning? What do they value as sacred knowledge? What are their expectations of students and how do they ‘teach’? 2. How do we redefine the profession of teaching urban students? How do we compare the wisdom of experienced educators and activists to the expected outcomes of today’s public school system? How can we design teacher education programs to inspire creative, innovative, and transformative intellectualism in prospective teachers? And how can the practice of teaching change the world as we know it? In order to address the inquiry, this study was designed by qualitative research methods in which the stories of educators and activists were gathered and used to enhance my understanding of experiences as an urban educator. I chose to speak to educators and activists age 18 and over who identify their work with social justice, liberation, and transformation. Candidates were diverse in age, race, gender, religion, and profession. I conducted 8 interviews with educators and activists and interviews lasted between 1-3 hours. The project aims to provide a better understanding of the importance of why and how our processes of self-reflection in our personal growth may inform a new model for schools for love.