You Can't Teach Us if You Don't Know Us and Care About Us; Becoming an Ubuntu, Responsive and Responsible Urban Teacher

This book addresses the needs of diverse urban students for a new kind of teacher, classroom learning context, curriculum, and pedagogy in order to effectively learn, perform, and achieve. Drawing on the African concept of Ubuntu as a fundamental framework for enacting a humanizing pedagogy, the text invites teachers, students, and families to enter into an interdependent and interconnected relationship for education. This book is uniquely transformative as it elevates the centrality of student humanity and models the integration of emergent theories and practices, utilizing real-life stories to enlighten and illuminate. Emphasis is placed on Ubuntu pedagogy as a model to emulate, anchored on five ethical dimensions: humanism and Ubuntu competence, relationship and learning community, humanism in the curriculum, pedagogical and instructional excellence, and collaboration and partnership. Particularly valuable for teachers learning to cultivate the spirit of Ubuntu that undergirds their ability to be humane, responsive, socially- just, efficacious, and resilient, this book is a cutting-edge resource for effectively addressing the persistent academic achievement of diverse urban students.

Omiunota N. Ukpokodu received her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Kansas University and is a Professor of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her teaching and research focus on multicultural teacher education, transformative/equity/social justice pedagogy, social studies, and immigrant education. She is the recipient of the 2011 NAME Equity and Social Justice Advocacy Award and the Fulbright-Hays Scholar (South Africa) Award.