9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Room 106
The Curriculum of Literature and Storytelling
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/87924131235
Chair: John A. Weaver. Georgia Southern University
Kelly Bare, Molloy College
Back to School: YA Literature and a Researcher’s Coming of Age
I am a former journalist who entered the Molloy Ed.D. program in my 40s to better understand and better tell the story of the racially and socioeconomically diverse elementary school community that has been a transformative influence in my life and a defining influence in my kids’. In using a Young Adult fantasy novel to pilot a culturally responsive, place-based, arts-centric YA fiction book club for adults within that school community, I found an intriguing template: a way to explore community experiences both as my research focus, and, in the traditions of indigenous and participatory research, my emerging method. Of course, as in any good coming-of-age story, I took a roundabout way to recognizing the power that was within reach all along. This paper, which describes my first scholarly exploration of both YA literature and the existing boundaries of qualitative research methodology, shares that story in the hope of inspiring other educators and researchers to revisit adolescence (in any number of ways) and see what possibilities for growth and joy emerge. I am currently finishing my last semester of coursework and working on a dissertation design informed by the experience described here.
John A. Weaver, Georgia Southern University
Paul Eaton, Sam Houston State University
Reading Richard Powers at the Intersection of Science, the Arts, and the University
We are interested in science, technology, and the university because of its potential to create a Will to Art and an arena to play with our imaginations and creative muses. As Richard Powers’ literary vita intersects with science, technology, the university, and the humanities, we also are pulling up into this busy and fruitful intersection in our electric cars, public transportation, and other forms of technology to claim our own small and humble piece of this valuable “real estate” in order to riff off of Powers’ powerful vision to construct our own art. We are interested in the possibilities Powers’ literary imagination creates for us to rethink the connections between the sciences and arts and academic work and the university and reclaim the role of the arts in society and higher learning. To do this we will have to delve into some philosophy and theory. Literary theory helps us explain what it is we wish to create from Richard Powers’ fiction. It allows us to invent our own real worlds from the fictional worlds invented by a creative mind in a way that pays artistic respects to Powers but allows us to stake our own creative claims.
Frank Bird, Georgia Southern University
Stirring up Foxfire: Rekindling Personal Passion for Teaching through Storytelling.
Engaging students in their curriculum can be a challenge. Great educators have searched for the holy grail of learning and engagement for many years. Teachers’ and students’ needs often run counter to each other in a learning environment (Glasser, 1998). Students' engagement can be as simple as clapping your hands to get the students’ attention. The more complicated process is finding something of interest to the students. Educator and teacher Andrea Turner uses the technology of Podcasts to spread her ideas on education. She started her Podcast, The Power of Storytelling in Teaching, with these words, "Tell me a fact I will learn. Tell me a truth I will believe. Tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever. (Turner, 2016) This idea of a story taking residence in permanent memory is attributed to a Native American Proverb in multiple research sources (Garret, 1998). Walking into a classroom, the teacher is partly a distributor of information, partly a catalyst for the learning to come, and another critical part, an entertainer. Over my years of Teaching, I have found significant power in the story as a teaching tool. Storytelling provides a window into strengthening learning and subsequent retention of that learning (Egan, 1986). Over the years, as I taught students in college, high school, and even one of my favorite groups to work with, four-year-old children in early childhood development classes, storytelling has always met with success. This paper aims to share storytelling to engage students in the curriculum and help teachers tell stories to give context to the content. This idea is not a cure-all, as many packaged educational tools claim, but a tool in a teacher's toolbox that is immensely powerful when used appropriately and with other lines of learning (Egan, 2008).
Kelly Bare, Molloy College
Back to School: YA Literature and a Researcher’s Coming of Age
I am a former journalist who entered the Molloy Ed.D. program in my 40s to better understand and better tell the story of the racially and socioeconomically diverse elementary school community that has been a transformative influence in my life and a defining influence in my kids’. In using a Young Adult fantasy novel to pilot a culturally responsive, place-based, arts-centric YA fiction book club for adults within that school community, I found an intriguing template: a way to explore community experiences both as my research focus, and, in the traditions of indigenous and participatory research, my emerging method. Of course, as in any good coming-of-age story, I took a roundabout way to recognizing the power that was within reach all along. This paper, which describes my first scholarly exploration of both YA literature and the existing boundaries of qualitative research methodology, shares that story in the hope of inspiring other educators and researchers to revisit adolescence (in any number of ways) and see what possibilities for growth and joy emerge. I am currently finishing my last semester of coursework and working on a dissertation design informed by the experience described here.
John A. Weaver, Georgia Southern University
Paul Eaton, Sam Houston State University
Reading Richard Powers at the Intersection of Science, the Arts, and the University
We are interested in science, technology, and the university because of its potential to create a Will to Art and an arena to play with our imaginations and creative muses. As Richard Powers’ literary vita intersects with science, technology, the university, and the humanities, we also are pulling up into this busy and fruitful intersection in our electric cars, public transportation, and other forms of technology to claim our own small and humble piece of this valuable “real estate” in order to riff off of Powers’ powerful vision to construct our own art. We are interested in the possibilities Powers’ literary imagination creates for us to rethink the connections between the sciences and arts and academic work and the university and reclaim the role of the arts in society and higher learning. To do this we will have to delve into some philosophy and theory. Literary theory helps us explain what it is we wish to create from Richard Powers’ fiction. It allows us to invent our own real worlds from the fictional worlds invented by a creative mind in a way that pays artistic respects to Powers but allows us to stake our own creative claims.
Frank Bird, Georgia Southern University
Stirring up Foxfire: Rekindling Personal Passion for Teaching through Storytelling.
Engaging students in their curriculum can be a challenge. Great educators have searched for the holy grail of learning and engagement for many years. Teachers’ and students’ needs often run counter to each other in a learning environment (Glasser, 1998). Students' engagement can be as simple as clapping your hands to get the students’ attention. The more complicated process is finding something of interest to the students. Educator and teacher Andrea Turner uses the technology of Podcasts to spread her ideas on education. She started her Podcast, The Power of Storytelling in Teaching, with these words, "Tell me a fact I will learn. Tell me a truth I will believe. Tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever. (Turner, 2016) This idea of a story taking residence in permanent memory is attributed to a Native American Proverb in multiple research sources (Garret, 1998). Walking into a classroom, the teacher is partly a distributor of information, partly a catalyst for the learning to come, and another critical part, an entertainer. Over my years of Teaching, I have found significant power in the story as a teaching tool. Storytelling provides a window into strengthening learning and subsequent retention of that learning (Egan, 1986). Over the years, as I taught students in college, high school, and even one of my favorite groups to work with, four-year-old children in early childhood development classes, storytelling has always met with success. This paper aims to share storytelling to engage students in the curriculum and help teachers tell stories to give context to the content. This idea is not a cure-all, as many packaged educational tools claim, but a tool in a teacher's toolbox that is immensely powerful when used appropriately and with other lines of learning (Egan, 2008).
Room 107
Locations, Places, and Spaces: Curriculum and Geography
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/83029483228
Chair: Laura Rychly, Augusta University
Laura Rychly, Augusta University
Toni Bailey, Piedmont University
Absolute vs. Relative Location
Abstract:
An expression with which many educators are familiar sounds something like “we have to meet our students where they are.” This is in reference to ongoing, and increasing, pressure on classroom teachers to differentiate their instruction so that all learners can have equal access to academic success. This pressure, in turn, is a result of more and more evidence that students in classrooms do not all interact with information in the same ways. Evidence of this spans from neuroscientific research to scholarship on the role of culture in ways of learning and knowing. All point to the same conclusion: it cannot be taken for granted that a group of students will reach the same learning goals by being taught the same information in the same ways. Hence the impetus felt by classroom teachers to “meet” their students wherever they happen to be relative to a given learning goal. This paper troubles the notion of “meeting students where they are,” and challenges the philosophical beliefs and practices of teacher educators around this sentiment. The topic will be addressed in the format of an individual paper presentation that compares the outcomes of using relative and absolute locations to describe students and weaves together suggestions for ways to truly “meet students where they are.”
Chinyere Harris, Teachers College, Columbia University
Connecting to Place
Abstract:
Over the past two years, I have attempted to document the changes that have occurred in our shared spaces. As a global community we have experienced a pandemic which has called attention to cracks and slippages in multiple systems in our world and the resulting affects on the human and non-human. Now, the world watches the emergence of a new multipolar world. With all change there are negative and positive outcomes. One of the positive outcomes is the opportunity to diffract on the old and create new. Arturo Escobar (2018) discusses design theorists Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s (2013) argument for speculative design which are “design practices that enable collective discussion about how things could be”. According to Escobar, Dunne and Raby state that “‘design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining your relationship to reality’ by encouraging - for instance, through what-if-scenarios---the imagination of alternative ways of being”. Escobar describes their idea of critical design and “how critical design is critical thought translated into materiality” (Dunne and Raby 2013, as cited by Escobar, 2018). I am pulled toward exploring our connection to place and towards thinking collectively, affectively, and speculatively about what place can be and how we can intentionally build to place that connects to us in meaningful ways to the everyday. References Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century.
Hannah Edber, Mercer University
Questions at the Intersections of Critical Geography, Busing, and Racialized Student Discipline
Abstract:
This paper will explore questions, ideas, and ethical considerations for a future study I am imagining as an emerging scholar. Analyzed through a critical geography lens (Morrison, Annamma, & Jackson, 2017; Helfenbein, 2021), this narrative study will aim to understand how students at D High School tell stories and make meaning of experiences at the intersections of busing, race, class, and discipline. DHS is located in a wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood north of Atlanta, but nearly 45% of the student population are young People of Color who travel via district bus from low-income POC communities with high concentrations of immigrant families. Following national trends (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Losen, Hodsen, Keith, Morrison, & Bellway, 2015; Riddle & Sinclair, 2019), the school’s publicly available discipline data indicates that students of Color are disproportionately involved in the school’s discipline systems. In addition, because many of the students who are bused (and who are engaged with the school discipline system) are Spanish speaking, I am curious how linguistic and cultural border-crossing may also be at play in their experiences. I am looking forward to feedback about bringing together racialized discipline policies and racialized geographies of education without a priori assumptions that they two are related, how to frame my research questions, and how to conduct this research ethically from my own positionality.
Toni Bailey, Piedmont University
Absolute vs. Relative Location
Abstract:
An expression with which many educators are familiar sounds something like “we have to meet our students where they are.” This is in reference to ongoing, and increasing, pressure on classroom teachers to differentiate their instruction so that all learners can have equal access to academic success. This pressure, in turn, is a result of more and more evidence that students in classrooms do not all interact with information in the same ways. Evidence of this spans from neuroscientific research to scholarship on the role of culture in ways of learning and knowing. All point to the same conclusion: it cannot be taken for granted that a group of students will reach the same learning goals by being taught the same information in the same ways. Hence the impetus felt by classroom teachers to “meet” their students wherever they happen to be relative to a given learning goal. This paper troubles the notion of “meeting students where they are,” and challenges the philosophical beliefs and practices of teacher educators around this sentiment. The topic will be addressed in the format of an individual paper presentation that compares the outcomes of using relative and absolute locations to describe students and weaves together suggestions for ways to truly “meet students where they are.”
Chinyere Harris, Teachers College, Columbia University
Connecting to Place
Abstract:
Over the past two years, I have attempted to document the changes that have occurred in our shared spaces. As a global community we have experienced a pandemic which has called attention to cracks and slippages in multiple systems in our world and the resulting affects on the human and non-human. Now, the world watches the emergence of a new multipolar world. With all change there are negative and positive outcomes. One of the positive outcomes is the opportunity to diffract on the old and create new. Arturo Escobar (2018) discusses design theorists Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s (2013) argument for speculative design which are “design practices that enable collective discussion about how things could be”. According to Escobar, Dunne and Raby state that “‘design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining your relationship to reality’ by encouraging - for instance, through what-if-scenarios---the imagination of alternative ways of being”. Escobar describes their idea of critical design and “how critical design is critical thought translated into materiality” (Dunne and Raby 2013, as cited by Escobar, 2018). I am pulled toward exploring our connection to place and towards thinking collectively, affectively, and speculatively about what place can be and how we can intentionally build to place that connects to us in meaningful ways to the everyday. References Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century.
Hannah Edber, Mercer University
Questions at the Intersections of Critical Geography, Busing, and Racialized Student Discipline
Abstract:
This paper will explore questions, ideas, and ethical considerations for a future study I am imagining as an emerging scholar. Analyzed through a critical geography lens (Morrison, Annamma, & Jackson, 2017; Helfenbein, 2021), this narrative study will aim to understand how students at D High School tell stories and make meaning of experiences at the intersections of busing, race, class, and discipline. DHS is located in a wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood north of Atlanta, but nearly 45% of the student population are young People of Color who travel via district bus from low-income POC communities with high concentrations of immigrant families. Following national trends (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Losen, Hodsen, Keith, Morrison, & Bellway, 2015; Riddle & Sinclair, 2019), the school’s publicly available discipline data indicates that students of Color are disproportionately involved in the school’s discipline systems. In addition, because many of the students who are bused (and who are engaged with the school discipline system) are Spanish speaking, I am curious how linguistic and cultural border-crossing may also be at play in their experiences. I am looking forward to feedback about bringing together racialized discipline policies and racialized geographies of education without a priori assumptions that they two are related, how to frame my research questions, and how to conduct this research ethically from my own positionality.
Room 109
Composite Counterstories~Memoir~Oral Histories~Ethnography with Young Children
(Works in Progress)
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/82652856627
Composite Counterstories~Memoir~Oral Histories~Ethnography with Young Children
(Works in Progress)
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/82652856627
Chair: Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University
Discussants:
William Schubert, U of Illinois at Chicago
Peggy Shannon-Baker, Georgia Southern University
Christopher Crowley, Wayne State University
Dinny Risri Aletheiani, Yale University
Suniti Sharma, Saint Joseph’s University
Min Yu, Wayne State University
Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University
Presenters:
Black Skin, Darkened Curriculum: The Black Children’s Experience of Mainstream Schooling in Racialized Systems in the U. S. South
Chanda Hardiman, Georgia Southern University
A Memoir: Being Mixed, Black and Filipino, and Multiracial in the U. S. South Georgia Middle School
Nicole Moss, Georgia Southern University
“Their Highest Potential”: Oral Histories of Willow Hill Elementary--A Historically Black School in Georgia
LaQuanda Love, Georgia Southern University
Hyphenated Identity and Negotiated Intersectionality: A Memoir of a First-Generation Nigerian-American Male Teacher in An Inner City Title I Elementary School in Georgia
Gerald Nwachukwu, Georgia Southern University
Educating Black Males in Black-Lives-Matter Movement Space
Kimberly Hollis, Georgia Southern University
Counterstories: Black Male Teachers in Rural Georgia
Brittany Jones-Turman, Georgia Southern University
Hearing Silent Voices: Counternarratives of African American Students Overrepresented in Special Education Programs in Urban Schools in Georgia
Janet Cooks, Georgia Southern University
Developing the Culturally Responsive/Relevant/Sustaining Third-Grade Social Studies Curriculum: An Ethnographic Inquiry
Lucia Benzor, Georgia Southern University
Doing Ethnographic Research with Young Children Through Multicultural Children Literature
Marianna Louise Anderson, Georgia Southern University
Abstract
This is a continuation of dialogue on pushing methodological boundaries as we continue to research on the counternarratives of curriculum of schools, neighborhoods, and communities in the U. S. South. In this session, a group of researchers present their dissertation works-in-progress. These researchers use composite counterstories (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso, 2006; also, He & Ross, 2012; He, Ross, & Seay, 2015), memoir (Barrington, 1997; Birkerts, 2008; Ledoux, 1993; Roorbach, 2008; Zinsser, 1995, 2004), oral histories (Brown, 1988; Leavy, 2011; Ritchie, 2003) and ethnography (Clifford, 1977, 1988, 1997; Clifford & Marcus, 1986/2010; Madison, 2020; Marcus, 1998; Spradley, 1979, 1980; Van Maanen, 1988, 1995; Wolcott, 1999/2008) with young children as forms of curriculum inquiry into a wide array of topics such as Black skin, darkened curriculum: the Black children’s experience of mainstream schooling in racialized systems in the U. S. South; a memoir: being mixed, Black and Filipino, and multiracial in the U. S. South Georgia middle school; oral histories of Willow Hill Elementary--a historically Black school in Georgia; hyphenated identity and negotiated intersectionality: a memoir of a first-generation Nigerian-American male teacher in an inner city Title I elementary school in Georgia; educating Black males in Black-lives-matter movement space; counterstories: Back male teachers in rural Georgia; hearing silent voices: counternarratives of African American students overrepresented in special education programs in urban schools in Georgia; developing the culturally responsive/relevant/sustaining third-grade social studies curriculum: an ethnographic inquiry; doing ethnographic research with young children through multicultural children literature. These researchers explore creative ways to push methodological boundaries, perform dissertation writing and liberate academic writing by diving into life, writing into contradictions, and living against oppressions in schools, families, and communities in the U. S. South. Theoretical traditions and modes of expression are particularly explored. Innovative writings engendered from the inquiries will be demonstrated. Potentials, challenges, and future directions of creative inquiries and representations will be discussed.
Discussants:
William Schubert, U of Illinois at Chicago
Peggy Shannon-Baker, Georgia Southern University
Christopher Crowley, Wayne State University
Dinny Risri Aletheiani, Yale University
Suniti Sharma, Saint Joseph’s University
Min Yu, Wayne State University
Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University
Presenters:
Black Skin, Darkened Curriculum: The Black Children’s Experience of Mainstream Schooling in Racialized Systems in the U. S. South
Chanda Hardiman, Georgia Southern University
A Memoir: Being Mixed, Black and Filipino, and Multiracial in the U. S. South Georgia Middle School
Nicole Moss, Georgia Southern University
“Their Highest Potential”: Oral Histories of Willow Hill Elementary--A Historically Black School in Georgia
LaQuanda Love, Georgia Southern University
Hyphenated Identity and Negotiated Intersectionality: A Memoir of a First-Generation Nigerian-American Male Teacher in An Inner City Title I Elementary School in Georgia
Gerald Nwachukwu, Georgia Southern University
Educating Black Males in Black-Lives-Matter Movement Space
Kimberly Hollis, Georgia Southern University
Counterstories: Black Male Teachers in Rural Georgia
Brittany Jones-Turman, Georgia Southern University
Hearing Silent Voices: Counternarratives of African American Students Overrepresented in Special Education Programs in Urban Schools in Georgia
Janet Cooks, Georgia Southern University
Developing the Culturally Responsive/Relevant/Sustaining Third-Grade Social Studies Curriculum: An Ethnographic Inquiry
Lucia Benzor, Georgia Southern University
Doing Ethnographic Research with Young Children Through Multicultural Children Literature
Marianna Louise Anderson, Georgia Southern University
Abstract
This is a continuation of dialogue on pushing methodological boundaries as we continue to research on the counternarratives of curriculum of schools, neighborhoods, and communities in the U. S. South. In this session, a group of researchers present their dissertation works-in-progress. These researchers use composite counterstories (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso, 2006; also, He & Ross, 2012; He, Ross, & Seay, 2015), memoir (Barrington, 1997; Birkerts, 2008; Ledoux, 1993; Roorbach, 2008; Zinsser, 1995, 2004), oral histories (Brown, 1988; Leavy, 2011; Ritchie, 2003) and ethnography (Clifford, 1977, 1988, 1997; Clifford & Marcus, 1986/2010; Madison, 2020; Marcus, 1998; Spradley, 1979, 1980; Van Maanen, 1988, 1995; Wolcott, 1999/2008) with young children as forms of curriculum inquiry into a wide array of topics such as Black skin, darkened curriculum: the Black children’s experience of mainstream schooling in racialized systems in the U. S. South; a memoir: being mixed, Black and Filipino, and multiracial in the U. S. South Georgia middle school; oral histories of Willow Hill Elementary--a historically Black school in Georgia; hyphenated identity and negotiated intersectionality: a memoir of a first-generation Nigerian-American male teacher in an inner city Title I elementary school in Georgia; educating Black males in Black-lives-matter movement space; counterstories: Back male teachers in rural Georgia; hearing silent voices: counternarratives of African American students overrepresented in special education programs in urban schools in Georgia; developing the culturally responsive/relevant/sustaining third-grade social studies curriculum: an ethnographic inquiry; doing ethnographic research with young children through multicultural children literature. These researchers explore creative ways to push methodological boundaries, perform dissertation writing and liberate academic writing by diving into life, writing into contradictions, and living against oppressions in schools, families, and communities in the U. S. South. Theoretical traditions and modes of expression are particularly explored. Innovative writings engendered from the inquiries will be demonstrated. Potentials, challenges, and future directions of creative inquiries and representations will be discussed.
10:30 a.m. -11:45 p.m.
Room 106
Why Do Our Critical Curricular-Pedagogical Praxes Feel Empowering? A Broad Array of Decolonial Criticalities in Aztlán, Gran México.
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/87924131235
Chair: Caroline Whitcomb, Georgia Southern University
Jim Jupp, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Amy Montoya, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Cecile Caddel, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Raul Garza, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Pauli Badenhorst, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Laura Jewett, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Abstract:
The purpose of our panel on critical curriculum theory is to answer the question: Why do our collective critical pedagogies feel empowering? Acknowledging the multivariegated development of critical and curriculum theory, this essay documents the emergence of a specific, US-based and Anglophone instantiation of critical curriculum theory in the late 1970s that became one notable alternative to hegemonic curriculum management in the 1980s. Narrativizing its horizon of intelligibily within the new left intellectual style, we trace US-based and Anglophone critical curriculum theory’s precursors of the 1960s and 80s, review critical curriculum theory’s ascendence and proliferation, and emphasize its necessary shattering via Liz Ellsworth’s postructuralist feminist critique. Emphasizing the Ellsworthian critique and critical curriculum theory’s shattered fragments, we seek to re-articulate a broad array of critical curricular-pedagogical praxes the conjugate with dispossessed curriculum development knowledge for new work in situ. Specifically not an “origins” tied to critical and curriculum theory, we review three examples critical curricular-pedagogical praxes situated in Gran México, Aztlán theorized via Gloria Anzaldúa, among others. In our discussion and conclusion, we seek to outline a de-centered, deterritorialized, and pluriversal notion of critical-pedagogical praxes that seeks to re-invent the “critical” in critical curriculum theory while recognizing contributions of the US field.
Amy Montoya, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Cecile Caddel, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Raul Garza, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Pauli Badenhorst, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Laura Jewett, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Abstract:
The purpose of our panel on critical curriculum theory is to answer the question: Why do our collective critical pedagogies feel empowering? Acknowledging the multivariegated development of critical and curriculum theory, this essay documents the emergence of a specific, US-based and Anglophone instantiation of critical curriculum theory in the late 1970s that became one notable alternative to hegemonic curriculum management in the 1980s. Narrativizing its horizon of intelligibily within the new left intellectual style, we trace US-based and Anglophone critical curriculum theory’s precursors of the 1960s and 80s, review critical curriculum theory’s ascendence and proliferation, and emphasize its necessary shattering via Liz Ellsworth’s postructuralist feminist critique. Emphasizing the Ellsworthian critique and critical curriculum theory’s shattered fragments, we seek to re-articulate a broad array of critical curricular-pedagogical praxes the conjugate with dispossessed curriculum development knowledge for new work in situ. Specifically not an “origins” tied to critical and curriculum theory, we review three examples critical curricular-pedagogical praxes situated in Gran México, Aztlán theorized via Gloria Anzaldúa, among others. In our discussion and conclusion, we seek to outline a de-centered, deterritorialized, and pluriversal notion of critical-pedagogical praxes that seeks to re-invent the “critical” in critical curriculum theory while recognizing contributions of the US field.
Room 107
Imagining Schools Otherwise: Considerations from Pre-service and In-service Teachers and School Leaders
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/83029483228
Chair: Laura Rychly, Augusta University
William Waychunas, University of Michigan
Through the Eyes of Novice Teachers: Experiences with Professional Cultures Within and Outside of Neoliberal ‘No-Excuses' Charter Schools
Carolyne Ali-Khan, University of North Florida
“Why don’t I know this?!” – Student Reactions to Social Justice Pedagogy in Florida
Derek Markides, Principal, Foothills School Division, Alberta, Canada
Revisioning Educational Leadership Through Love and the Ancillary: A Critical Self-Study
Abstract:
While the conversation around the purpose of education has been forever ongoing, the need to rethink the purpose of education through the eyes of current and future educators has become more acute over the past decade. Populist movements, fake-news, increasing wealth disparities and disastrous effects of multiple pandemics on historically marginalized communities ,and the ongoing assault of the teaching profession underscore the urgency of reframing the purpose of education. Neoliberal, centralized education has more than proved its destructive power. The papers in this session offer possibilities for moving forward with different visions of what education might be—students learn how to think rather than what to think, teachers are engaged and valued for the knowledge they bring to their work-places, and leadership can be a loving praxis that demonstrates care for teachers and learners. Paper #1 reconsiders professional culture through the eyes of new teachers who work in “no-excuses” charter schools. The author highlights the contradictions of bureaucratic structures as being both oppressive and supportive for new teachers and offers suggestions for change to prevent teacher turnover. Paper #2 explores the epistemological layering and emotional reactions of graduate education students in Florida as they begin to bring “controversial knowledge” about the history and oppression of diverse groups into their pedagogical consciousness. Paper #3 describes how through a bricolage self-study, one school principal has begun to envision leadership as affording relational pedagogies of love that blend care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust.
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/83029483228
Chair: Laura Rychly, Augusta University
William Waychunas, University of Michigan
Through the Eyes of Novice Teachers: Experiences with Professional Cultures Within and Outside of Neoliberal ‘No-Excuses' Charter Schools
Carolyne Ali-Khan, University of North Florida
“Why don’t I know this?!” – Student Reactions to Social Justice Pedagogy in Florida
Derek Markides, Principal, Foothills School Division, Alberta, Canada
Revisioning Educational Leadership Through Love and the Ancillary: A Critical Self-Study
Abstract:
While the conversation around the purpose of education has been forever ongoing, the need to rethink the purpose of education through the eyes of current and future educators has become more acute over the past decade. Populist movements, fake-news, increasing wealth disparities and disastrous effects of multiple pandemics on historically marginalized communities ,and the ongoing assault of the teaching profession underscore the urgency of reframing the purpose of education. Neoliberal, centralized education has more than proved its destructive power. The papers in this session offer possibilities for moving forward with different visions of what education might be—students learn how to think rather than what to think, teachers are engaged and valued for the knowledge they bring to their work-places, and leadership can be a loving praxis that demonstrates care for teachers and learners. Paper #1 reconsiders professional culture through the eyes of new teachers who work in “no-excuses” charter schools. The author highlights the contradictions of bureaucratic structures as being both oppressive and supportive for new teachers and offers suggestions for change to prevent teacher turnover. Paper #2 explores the epistemological layering and emotional reactions of graduate education students in Florida as they begin to bring “controversial knowledge” about the history and oppression of diverse groups into their pedagogical consciousness. Paper #3 describes how through a bricolage self-study, one school principal has begun to envision leadership as affording relational pedagogies of love that blend care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust.
Room 109
Power and Schooling (Part Two)
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/82652856627
Chair: Daniel Chapman, Georgia Southern University
Amber Colechin, Georgia Southern University
The Myth of Liberatory Education: Using Schools to Maintain the Dominant Culture
Jennifer Lawson, Georgia Southern University
The Classroom as a Microcosm: A Discussion on Power, Gender, and Social Expectations
Abstract:
Power is all around us. It transforms every relationship, it impacts every decision, and yet it is impossible to predict, define, and capture. We can point to the way power moves and influences, but we cannot codify it in any permanent way. In this session, we discuss several different ways that power seeps into the classrooms. Social expectations, standardized testing, and the narratives around schooling represent some of the levers that assert a set of assumptions and priorities in educational spaces. These ideas seep into the social body and the individual bodies and minds, as well. Impulsive resistance is pathologized or criminalized. But, in naming the power structures, they become observable, knowable and a more organized counterstory becomes possible.
The Myth of Liberatory Education: Using Schools to Maintain the Dominant Culture
Jennifer Lawson, Georgia Southern University
The Classroom as a Microcosm: A Discussion on Power, Gender, and Social Expectations
Abstract:
Power is all around us. It transforms every relationship, it impacts every decision, and yet it is impossible to predict, define, and capture. We can point to the way power moves and influences, but we cannot codify it in any permanent way. In this session, we discuss several different ways that power seeps into the classrooms. Social expectations, standardized testing, and the narratives around schooling represent some of the levers that assert a set of assumptions and priorities in educational spaces. These ideas seep into the social body and the individual bodies and minds, as well. Impulsive resistance is pathologized or criminalized. But, in naming the power structures, they become observable, knowable and a more organized counterstory becomes possible.
12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Special Session (Program begins at 12:45)
Lunch Provided in Room 140
https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/j/81725491091
Teaching-Learning Explorations From Educators In Deep Writing Project Curriculum
Chair: Megan Ave'Lallemant (she), Deep Center
Megan Ave'Lallemant (she), Deep Center
Peggy Shannon-Baker (they/them), Georgia Southern University
Anthonella Alvarez (they/them), Deep Center
DeAnna Majors (she/her), SCCPSS educator
Joanna Dickinson (she/her), SCCPSS educator
Sara Bocanegra (she/her), former SCCPSS educator/current SCDS educator
Educators from Deep Center's Writing Project summer 2021 institute developed teaching-learning explorations based on the most pressing issues in their classrooms. On our panel, our cohort will discuss their experiences and findings on topics such as: 1. "Nothing can be changed until it is faced": Building capacity to support LGBTQ+ people in Southeast Georgia. This presentation shares the work of one educator to build capacity in a local university community to better support LGBTQ+ students and educators through two recent professional development workshops. 2. "Justicia del Lenguaje": Language justice and strategies for incorporating its principles into daily practice 3. "Rapport Gets Results": Building effective relationships with students to encourage academic performance 4. "Mantras For Teachers and Students": Mantras as writing practice (ongoing and regenerative) and daily exploration in thinking, writing, and surviving to help with focus / centering / mental health challenges 5. "Building and Sustaining Safe Spaces": Creating spaces for diversity and equity work within a conservative private middle school Our goals at Deep Writing Project are simple: Connect teachers who are committed to justice, equity, and transforming school culture Strengthen our educational practice through curiosity, self-reflection, and collaboration Develop teachers’ capacity to lead, write, and advocate We call our members “Collaborators” on purpose. We know each teacher is the expert of their own experience and brings unique funds of knowledge to our cohort, which is why our site is open not just to local K-12 teachers but to university and community-based educators, too. Through writing and Deep’s arts and culture approach, we remember how to imagine and play, get inspired, and become equipped to act as change agents within our own contexts. Collaborators tap into a group of supportive and resilient colleagues, and Deep serves as a solidarity conduit to lift their voices through our channels of advocacy. Our schools and community gain strong, mindful teachers who take initiative, value and uplift students’ and teachers’ voices, and use writing to lead and teach powerfully across all content areas. To learn more about joining Deep’s Writing Project, email megan@deepcenter.org.
Megan Ave'Lallemant (she), Deep Center
Peggy Shannon-Baker (they/them), Georgia Southern University
Anthonella Alvarez (they/them), Deep Center
DeAnna Majors (she/her), SCCPSS educator
Joanna Dickinson (she/her), SCCPSS educator
Sara Bocanegra (she/her), former SCCPSS educator/current SCDS educator
Educators from Deep Center's Writing Project summer 2021 institute developed teaching-learning explorations based on the most pressing issues in their classrooms. On our panel, our cohort will discuss their experiences and findings on topics such as: 1. "Nothing can be changed until it is faced": Building capacity to support LGBTQ+ people in Southeast Georgia. This presentation shares the work of one educator to build capacity in a local university community to better support LGBTQ+ students and educators through two recent professional development workshops. 2. "Justicia del Lenguaje": Language justice and strategies for incorporating its principles into daily practice 3. "Rapport Gets Results": Building effective relationships with students to encourage academic performance 4. "Mantras For Teachers and Students": Mantras as writing practice (ongoing and regenerative) and daily exploration in thinking, writing, and surviving to help with focus / centering / mental health challenges 5. "Building and Sustaining Safe Spaces": Creating spaces for diversity and equity work within a conservative private middle school Our goals at Deep Writing Project are simple: Connect teachers who are committed to justice, equity, and transforming school culture Strengthen our educational practice through curiosity, self-reflection, and collaboration Develop teachers’ capacity to lead, write, and advocate We call our members “Collaborators” on purpose. We know each teacher is the expert of their own experience and brings unique funds of knowledge to our cohort, which is why our site is open not just to local K-12 teachers but to university and community-based educators, too. Through writing and Deep’s arts and culture approach, we remember how to imagine and play, get inspired, and become equipped to act as change agents within our own contexts. Collaborators tap into a group of supportive and resilient colleagues, and Deep serves as a solidarity conduit to lift their voices through our channels of advocacy. Our schools and community gain strong, mindful teachers who take initiative, value and uplift students’ and teachers’ voices, and use writing to lead and teach powerfully across all content areas. To learn more about joining Deep’s Writing Project, email megan@deepcenter.org.