I'm teaching a graduate seminar. We're working to find core themes and tensions in the field of professional development "for diversity." (PD "for diversity" typically means PD designed to assist preservice or inservice teachers to teach in diverse classrooms -- and, more broadly, to teach in a diverse and unequal society.)

We're asking how various people in the field DEFINE a teacher optimally "prepared for diversity"; TRY TO PREPARE a teacher "for diversity," in real time; and MEASURE whether a teacher has in fact been "prepared."

I'll post my own running thoughts here. Here's one: I'm noting that above all, many well-read calls for PD "for diversity" (in books and articles) urge teachers to keep inquiring into dynamics of difference and inequality in their work, and to keep asking how they might improve student service (EAR is particularly focused on sparking such inquiry). This is very different from the provision-of-static-information-on-"groups" that characterizes much ACTUAL "PD for diversity," according to teachers' reports.

Here's another core tension I've been thinking about. Are the teachers who are "best" at serving students in diverse classrooms those who actually already want to inquire into how best to do that, regardless of formal PD?