Honoring the OG’s: Centering Black Educators as Theorists in Teacher Education

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63997/jct.v41i2.1303

Abstract

The Black Gaze Framework (BGF) is a liberating lens that centers and celebrates the multifacetedness of Blackness for liberation in teacher education. This manuscript interweaves our personal testimonies with Black educators as our OG’s to demonstrate the importance of centering Blackness in teacher education to disrupt anti-Blackness. We provide an overview of anti-Blackness within education, BGF, and apply it to teacher education. BGF has five tenets and we focus specifically on tenet one, Honoring the O.G.’s: Black History & Wisdom to advocate for looking to the wisdom of our O.G’s for guidance to center Blackness as liberation in teacher education. This tenet centers and teaches Black scholars, activists, and theorists as foundational knowledge in teacher education, to prepare preservice teachers to teach Black students. We focus specifically on Alice Dunbar Nelson and Septima Poinsette Clark as educational theorists for centering and celebrating Blackness in ELA Secondary & Social Students Teacher Education for liberation.

Author Biography

Shamaine Bertrand , The College of New Jersey

Shameine Bertrand is an associate professor of elementary education at The College of New Jersey. She is the co-creator/co-host of the Black Gaze Podcast. Dr. Bertrand’s research focuses in three primary areas: Preparing preservice to effectively teach and support Black students; Building school-university

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Published

2026-08-27

Issue

Vol. 41 No. 2 (2026): Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Section

General Themes

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Kisha Porcher, Shamaine Bertrand

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