Learning to teach science in urban schools

Teaching in urban schools, with their problems of violence, lack of resourc es, and inadequate funding, is difficult. It is even more difficult to lear n to teach in urban schools. Yet learning in those locations where one will subsequently be working has been shown to be the best preparation for teac hing. In this article we propose coteaching as a viable model for teacher p reparation and the professional development of urban science teachers. Cote aching-working at the elbow of someone else-allows new teachers to experien ce appropriate and timely action by providing them with shared experiences that become the topic of their professional conversations with other coteac hers (including peers, the cooperating teacher, university supervisors, and high school students), This article also includes an ethnography describin g the experiences of a new teacher who had been assigned to an urban high s chool as field experience, during which she enacted a curriculum that was c ulturally relevant to her African American students, acknowledged their min ority status with respect to science, and enabled them to pursue the school district standards. Even though coteaching enables learning to teach and c urricula reform, we raise doubts about whether our approaches to teacher ed ucation and enacting science curricula are hegemonic and oppressive to the students we seek to emancipate through education. (C) 2001 John Wiley Sons, Inc.