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Article Excerpt
I am a teacher/student who gets to class early. I like to "feel" the room before the excitement of discussion, the chaos of writing, the rigor of questioning overtake the once lightheartedness of the silent, empty chairs. I also am a person who thrives on conversation. On learning through the casualness of easy talking and shared experiences. I love the light chatter of students and teachers finding their spaces, clearing the dust, and deinstitutionalizing the sometimes too stiff classrooms. This space is safe--this is where we share our nonjudged excitement about the incidentals of our lives, commiserate about our too busy schedules, or listen to the fears or triumphs of our diverse classroom field work before our more directed conversations begin. This is where our classroom community begins to form.
Members of the all White and mostly female (the ratio of men to women is 1 to 27) class cluster in small groups, discussing the required texts and how they relate to their own experiences as elementary school students and student teachers. The classroom seems to buzz, and there are occasional outbursts of laughter or exclamations of disbelief. Body language speaks to the passion that this community feels for teaching as students lean into their tables intently and hands punctuate thoughts. The rustling of paper slows a conversation here or there as students search for their previously written words to add to the dialogue.
Sitting in the midst of what I, as the classroom facilitator, hope is impassioned learning and growing around the issues of language arts exploration is Anthony. His laptop is open, and as he stares intently at the screen, he occasionally stabs at the keys before furiously deleting whatever it is that he has just written. When I ask him if he would like to add to his group's discussion, he gruffly answers, "Oh, I didn't read," and turns back to his computer. Students in his group roll their eyes, shake their heads, and awkwardly attempt to invite him into the dialogue with little success. Their history with this classmate, I know from anonymous notes in my mailbox, is full of confrontation. Several students have repeatedly reported that not only does he not complete his assignments, but he makes belittling comments and judgments toward their own work.
My own history with this student spans two semesters. We struggled together through fall semester's children's literature class, and after several unpleasant confrontations and classroom outbursts by Anthony and many conferences--to discuss both his academics and his approach to teaching and learning as it applied to our classroom, me, and other students--he seemed really excited about his learning at the end of the semester. Outside of class, Anthony and I had had several fascinating conversations surrounding the intersection of Judaism (he is Orthodox) and feminism (I am a student of feminist spirituality), multicultural education, and the struggles he faces as a person with learning disabilities who has an intense desire to teach other learning disabled students. I admit, I was slightly apprehensive about another semester of balancing my desire to live my pedagogy in my teaching and the unpredictability of Anthony's response to me as his teacher, but I was hopeful.
WHY A SELF-STUDY? HOW WELL DO MY THEORY AND PRACTICE MIX?
This self-study, in which I examine my own teaching of the same group of undergraduate preservice elementary school teachers over two semesters--in a children's literature and language arts methods course--focuses on how I tried to bring together the goals of my teaching and research, which are guided by Freire's (1970) call for praxis: "reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it" (p. 33). These two semesters were also my first two as a full-time graduate student, fresh from the elementary school classroom. I learned both from this study and from Anthony, the student at the center of the study, that teaching and pedagogical practice is always, as Ellsworth (1997) wrote, a paradox "that can never be settled and resolved once and for all" (p. 8). Although I attempted to teach my students guided by the theories about dialogue of Freire (1970) and hooks (1994) in particular, I stumbled regularly. Anthony pointed out my stumblings, and this study is my attempt to answer hooks's (1994) call to remain engaged with my teaching and students and to examine how I use my power in the classroom: "The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself" (p. 11).
hooks (1994) wrote that "Radical pedagogy must insist that everyone's presence is acknowledged. ... There must be an ongoing recognition that everyone influences the classroom dynamic, that everyone contributes" (p. 8). In classrooms where "radical openness" is a reality rather than an esoteric idea, Shot (1992) wrote that "The learning process is negotiated, requiring leadership by the teacher and mutual teacher-student authority" (p. 16). Because these aims are what I claimed I used to guide my teaching, if I failed to examine that teaching during and after the class, the theory would simply be theory. There would be no praxis.
Part of my praxis is self-reflection and self-study. Each time I enter a classroom community, I grapple with my position as a person steeped in both privilege--through race, class, and education, I am a member of the dominant culture--and oppression--as a lesbian I belong to a socially marginalized and sometimes feared group. Although more sure of my safety and position in the university than I was as an elementary school teacher, I continually debate my own self-disclosure as a lesbian to enhance the discussion of social justice and issues of security and vulnerability to which that very self-disclosure would expose me.
The process of self-reflection is central to critically engaged pedagogy. Edelsky (1999) demanded that teachers and students question "whose interests" (p. 15) are served by status quo classroom practice. Freire (1998) wrote,
It is not possible for the ethical subject to live without being permanently exposed to the risk or even the choice of transgression. One of the biggest difficulties about this ethical grounding is that we have to do everything in our power to sustain a universal human ethic without at the same time falling into a hypocritical moralism. (p. 25)
If I refuse to listen to the critique of students who cannot find a liberatory space within the framework of the class, I privilege my classroom for those who can find accessibility there. As Gore (1993) wrote,
Consider, for instance why it is that, despite our most emancipatory intentions, many of us, as teachers, have found ourselves repeating the very expressions and practices that typified the kinds of teachers we vowed we would never be.... The more aware we are of the practices of self, the greater the space for altering those practices. (p. 155)
My student Anthony provided a critique that not only frustrated and challenged me--he clearly didn't buy into my definition of a liberatory classroom--but required that I engage with my own reflection in meaningful ways so that I didn't constantly reproduce an oppressive classroom.
SETTING THE STAGE: ANTHONY AND CLASSROOM PROCEDURES
Our spring semester together began much as the fall had--Anthony arriving to the language arts methods class late, if at all. When...
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