Content area
Full text
Learning from Latino Teachers by Gilda L. Ochoa San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007
As a former assistant superintendent and currently as an administrator in a university's teacher preparation program who interviews each candidate seeking admission, I attempt to discern not only a candidate's potential for becoming an effective teacher, but also the extent to which the candidate's values, perspectives, and goals are congruent with those of the institution. In other words, I try to determine, is there a fit? Significant criteria for admitting candidates to my institution's teacher preparation program are their understanding of social justice as well as their potential for effectively teaching a diverse student population. For California and the Southwest, a major segment of the diverse student population is comprised of Latinos, many of whom are English learners.
It is the nature of Latinos' cultural and political histories that have drawn the attention of author Gilda Ochoa, an associate professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pomona College in Southern California. Learning from Latino Teachers is a careful examination of the challenges many Latino students face in schools. According to Ochoa, one's understanding of the challenges Latino students encounter is an important first step toward the attainment of her ambitious goal to accelerate the movement "toward a radical restructuring of schools and society" (p. xiii).
Ochoa indicates her writing has been influenced by her role as a Latina feminist and by research that not only has a social justice orientation, but also values experience as a form of knowledge, yet she does not allude to a specific conceptual framework in which her research is grounded. Identifying Ochoa's specific conceptual framework should not be inconsequential to K-12 educators who face the daily challenges of educating children, because her lens of Latino/Latina critical theory helps the reader understand how the history, culture, language, and experiences of Latinos have been devalued and omitted from the public school curriculum (Bernal, 2002).
Learning from Latino Teachers is organized in three major sections: "Background," "Family and School," and "Improving Outcomes for Latina/ o Students." Each section consists of three or four chapters. The first section, "Background," provides the historical and socio-political context for Ochoa's research and findings. In "Background," Ochoa describes how the educational system has exacerbated the...