Walking the talk - The importance of community involvement in preservice urban teacher education

As we prepare teachers for a society that will be increasingly urban and diverse, we must carefully plan and require field-based experiences that will put prospective teachers in direct contact with the students and communities with whom they will work. Although most teacher educators agree that an understanding of the sociocultural context of learning is imperative for effective urban teaching, there is a paucity of examples of urban teacher preparation programs that provide preservice teachers with the opportunities to explore the school environs and to learn about the community and its citizens through firsthand experiences. This article will describe one urban education program that provides student teachers with firsthand experiences in urban settings and the observations and lessons learned by the participants.