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Full-Text Articles in Education

The Rights Of The Learner: A Framework For Promoting Equity Through Formative Assessment In Mathematics Education, Crystal A. Kalinec-Craig Dec 2017

The Rights Of The Learner: A Framework For Promoting Equity Through Formative Assessment In Mathematics Education, Crystal A. Kalinec-Craig

Democracy and Education

An elementary mathematics teacher once argued that she and her students held four Rights of the Learner in the classroom: (1) the right to be confused; (2) the right to claim a mistake; (3) the right to speak, listen and be heard; and (4) the right to write, do, and represent only what makes sense. Written as an emerging framework to promote equity in the mathematics classroom through divergent formative assessment, the RotL assumes that students can take more explicit ownership of their learning, both in writing and in oral communication. Foregrounded in the literature, this paper discusses how the …


Countering The Neos: Dewey And A Democratic Ethos In Teacher Education, Jamie C. Atkinson Dec 2017

Countering The Neos: Dewey And A Democratic Ethos In Teacher Education, Jamie C. Atkinson

Democracy and Education

Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two ideologies that currently plague education. The individualistic free-market ideology of neoliberalism and the unbridled nationalistic exceptionalism associated with neoconservatism often breed a narrowed, overstandardized curriculum and a hyper-testing environment that discourage critical intellectual practice and democratic ideas. Dewey’s philosophy of education indicates that he understood that education is political and can be undemocratic. Dewey’s holistic pragmatism, combined with aspects of social reconstructionism, called for a philosophical movement that favors democratic schooling. This paper defines neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies and makes a case for including more critique within teacher preparation programs, what Dewey and other educationists …


In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett May 2017

In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett

Democracy and Education

This article offers a positive review of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality, a readable and refreshing account of the ambiguities and possibilities relating to gender and sexuality in education today. The review argues that, with a focus on public school experiences, this collection of vignettes, lessons, and critical essays, amounts to a resource that is of great value to teachers, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and citizens as they navigate the ever-changing winds of gender and sexuality, particularly as they diverge and multiply along categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and class. This book offers hope and excitement for those of us …


Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Enough? Toward Culturally “Real”-Evant Curriculum. A Response To "Democratic Foundations For Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy", James A. Gambrell May 2017

Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Enough? Toward Culturally “Real”-Evant Curriculum. A Response To "Democratic Foundations For Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy", James A. Gambrell

Democracy and Education

In this response to Lingley's (2016) article "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," the author invites the framework of (a)spiritually responsive curriculum to include a more direct engagement with a culturally relevant curriculum as well. The author agrees with Lingley's postulation that (a)spirituality is deeply embedded within the worldview of many students in K–12 classrooms, whether educators include this important aspect of their epistemology or not. Similar to the problems that come when we ignore identities of race, gender, (a)sexuality, (dis)ability, and social class, ignoring these important characteristics of students’ lived experiences is detrimental to learning outcomes and reinforces dominating …


What Kind Of Teacher For Our Citizens? A Book Review Of What Kind Of Citizen? Educating Our Children For The Common Good, Tony Decesare Nov 2016

What Kind Of Teacher For Our Citizens? A Book Review Of What Kind Of Citizen? Educating Our Children For The Common Good, Tony Decesare

Democracy and Education

Westheimer’s central argument in What Kind of Citizen? Educating our Children for the Common Good is that the current climate around public education—marked, in general, by standardization in our schools—is not conducive to the development of thoughtful and critically engaged public citizens. Westheimer demonstrated convincingly that schools—in response to recent education reform and, in some cases, pressure from parents and other education stakeholders—have increasingly emphasized individual goals at the expense of educating children for the common good. Furthermore and related, in this age of standardized testing, school curricula have become more narrowly focused on achievement in math and literacy at …


Band-Aids Don’T Fix Bullet Holes. A Response To “We Were There Too: Learning From Black Male Teachers In Mississippi About Successful Teaching Of Black Students”, Melinda Jackson, Dari Green, Lori Latrice Martin, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner Nov 2016

Band-Aids Don’T Fix Bullet Holes. A Response To “We Were There Too: Learning From Black Male Teachers In Mississippi About Successful Teaching Of Black Students”, Melinda Jackson, Dari Green, Lori Latrice Martin, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner

Democracy and Education

Hayes, Juarez, and Escoffery-Runnels (2014) analyzed the educational philosophies and pedagogical practices of two educators to understand how personal and professional experiences individually and collectively influenced their approach to teaching. Using oral histories, they presented an argument of why culturally relevant and social justice–oriented teaching has historically been an effective tool in educating students of color, and why it is necessary for teacher preparation in today’s so-called post-racial climate. We suggest that that the education system is merely a microcosm of society, and consequently, we must consider structures larger than individual best practices when discussing culturally relevant teaching. Bridges to …


Sam And Cristina: A Critical Dialogue Between A Teacher And Student About The Commoditization Of People Of Color By Schools, Samuel J. Tanner, Cristina Corrie Nov 2016

Sam And Cristina: A Critical Dialogue Between A Teacher And Student About The Commoditization Of People Of Color By Schools, Samuel J. Tanner, Cristina Corrie

Democracy and Education

This article was written by a white high school teacher (Sam) and a high school student of color (Cristina) in order to consider the harmful potential for schools in the United States to commoditize students of color at the expense of critical, antiracist work. It was written out of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study and uses a critical whiteness framework in order to examine how Cristina, in dialogue with Sam, came to theorize that her racial identity was commoditized as a cultural asset of their high school in exploitative ways. Her thinking, juxtaposed with Sam’s consideration of his …


Critical Pedagogy And Participatory Democracy: Creating Classroom Contexts That Challenge "Common Sense." A Response To "The Political Nuances Of Narratives And An Urban Educator's Response", Lilia D. Monzó, P. Zitlali Morales May 2016

Critical Pedagogy And Participatory Democracy: Creating Classroom Contexts That Challenge "Common Sense." A Response To "The Political Nuances Of Narratives And An Urban Educator's Response", Lilia D. Monzó, P. Zitlali Morales

Democracy and Education

In this response to “The Political Nuances of Narratives and an Urban Educator’s Response,” the authors applaud Pearman’s critical approach to deconstructing and challenging narratives of heroic figures who single-handedly change the world and agree with him that these narratives restrict the sense of agency that may propel citizens to become actively involved in social change efforts. We argue that it is important to question why these narratives exist and to understand them in light of the hegemonic capitalist structure that exploits the masses in service to the capitalist class. Although we agree with Pearman that democracy is best served …


Problematizing Assumptions, Examining Dilemmas, And Exploring Promising Possibilities In Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. A Response To “'I Didn’T See It As A Cultural Thing': Supervisors Of Student Teachers Define And Describe Culturally Responsive Supervision", Maria Dantas-Whitney, R. Dana Ulveland May 2016

Problematizing Assumptions, Examining Dilemmas, And Exploring Promising Possibilities In Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. A Response To “'I Didn’T See It As A Cultural Thing': Supervisors Of Student Teachers Define And Describe Culturally Responsive Supervision", Maria Dantas-Whitney, R. Dana Ulveland

Democracy and Education

In response to the study and recommendations presented in the article “'I Didn’t See it as a Cultural Thing,'” written by Linda Griffin, Dyan Watson and Tonda Liggett, we explore three interrelated topics. First, we seek to problematize some of the assumptions in the study. We review some of the authors’ approaches and assertions that seem to reflect a hierarchical power structure and a deficit model. Second, we examine our own dilemmas and struggles in enacting culturally relevant practices within our teacher education program. Our reflections derive from our recent experience preparing for a reaccreditation site visit by NCATE. Third, …


“I Didn’T See It As A Cultural Thing”: Supervisors Of Student Teachers Define And Describe Culturally Responsive Supervision, Linda B. Griffin, Dyan Watson, Tonda Liggett May 2016

“I Didn’T See It As A Cultural Thing”: Supervisors Of Student Teachers Define And Describe Culturally Responsive Supervision, Linda B. Griffin, Dyan Watson, Tonda Liggett

Democracy and Education

Student teaching supervisors can play an integral role in teacher candidates’ ability to understand and enact culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). However, supervisors may lack the awareness, knowledge, skill, or willingness to serve as culturally responsive supervisors. This paper reports the findings from a qualitative study to find out how supervisors described and supported CRP. We found that supervisors hold unsophisticated views of CRP and face the following challenges enacting culturally responsive supervision: feelings of inadequacy, difficulty talking about race, color-blind orientations, and a tendency to purposefully avoid race talk. We provide recommendations for professional development to address these challenges and …


The Ethics Of Teaching For Social Justice: A Framework For Exploring The Intellectual And Moral Virtues Of Social Justice Educators. A Response To "Ethics In Teaching For Democracy And Social Justice", Rebecca M. Taylor Nov 2015

The Ethics Of Teaching For Social Justice: A Framework For Exploring The Intellectual And Moral Virtues Of Social Justice Educators. A Response To "Ethics In Teaching For Democracy And Social Justice", Rebecca M. Taylor

Democracy and Education

Pursuing social justice in education raises ethical questions about teaching practice that have not been fully addressed in the social justice literature. Hytten (2015) initiated a valuable way forward in developing an ethics of social justice educators, drawing on virtue ethics.

In this paper, I provide additional support to this effort by arguing that a virtue approach to ethics of teaching is in fact compatible with responsiveness to social context in teaching. I then propose a refined framework for considering the virtues of teachers, one which asks us to identify virtues relevant to teaching within the broad categories of intellectual …


The Value Of Student Choice In Reading. A Book Review Of Keep Them Reading: An Anti-Censorship Handbook For Educators, Christi R. Keelen Apr 2015

The Value Of Student Choice In Reading. A Book Review Of Keep Them Reading: An Anti-Censorship Handbook For Educators, Christi R. Keelen

Democracy and Education

Keep Them Reading: An Anti-Censorship Handbooks for Educators is a must-have for elementary and secondary English and reading teachers, administrators, and librarians or media specialists. While the focus for this text is how to handle and avoid challenges on books, how to create an environment where reading is important and the students' ability to choose what they want to read is part of the classroom culture is also addressed.


Media And Democracy. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Lance E. Mason Apr 2015

Media And Democracy. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Lance E. Mason

Democracy and Education

This response supports Stoddard’s (2014) assertion that media education should be considered a crucial factor of democratic education and offers both extensions and cautions related to that end. Extensions include practical suggestions for studying the non-neutrality of technology. The author also cautions educators that if media education and democratic education are to be productively merged, a more substantive consideration of the relationship between digital technologies and dispositional factors is warranted.


“If You Cannot Live By Our Rules, If You Cannot Adapt To This Place, I Can Show You The Back Door.” A Response To "New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches", Barrett A. Smith Apr 2015

“If You Cannot Live By Our Rules, If You Cannot Adapt To This Place, I Can Show You The Back Door.” A Response To "New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches", Barrett A. Smith

Democracy and Education

Stitzlein and West (2014) are primarily concerned with how Relay and Match risk failing to prepare their residents to practice democratic education. My aim is to provide a more thorough account of specific practices employed by Match and their no-excuses approach in order to illustrate and support points made by Stitzlein and West. It is my hope that this deeper examination will substantiate the concerns of Stitzlein and West while further problematizing the practices employed by and advocated for throughout Match.


Becoming A Social Justice Educator: Emerging From The Pits Of Whiteness Into The Light Of Love. A Response To "Respect The Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education, Kay F. Fujiyoshi Apr 2015

Becoming A Social Justice Educator: Emerging From The Pits Of Whiteness Into The Light Of Love. A Response To "Respect The Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education, Kay F. Fujiyoshi

Democracy and Education

This paper addresses the limitations of social justice in institutional spaces and in rhetoric. I write in the form of a quest narrative to describe the lessons I learned from a brief sojourn in a temporary position in an urban teacher education program with a social justice focus and at a nonprofit organization with other social justice workers. My quest entails a retelling of encounters with Whiteness, the challenges of engaging social justice as a process that pushes beyond conversation, and the lessons I took away from my own sense-making of the contradictions in social justice work.


Limiting Student Speech: A Narrow Path Toward Success. A Response To "Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Marissa C A Minnick Apr 2015

Limiting Student Speech: A Narrow Path Toward Success. A Response To "Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Marissa C A Minnick

Democracy and Education

In this response, Minnick asserts that unequal representation of students' voices, an idea presented in Sensoy and DiAngelo’s “Challenging the Common Guidelines in Social Justice Education,” presents multiple negative classroom implications. Foremost, Minnick argues that Sensoy and DiAngelo’s lack of clarity regarding when a teacher should limit student speech (either before the student begins to talk or midcomment) has a large effect on the success of their strategy. Second, Sensoy and DiAngelo’s discussion strategy may result in the targeting of minority students and the judging of students. These concerns are driven by considerations of how teachers’ relationships with students influence …


Recognizing The Intellectual Complexity Of Teaching. A Response To “Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description”, Alisa J. Bates Sep 2014

Recognizing The Intellectual Complexity Of Teaching. A Response To “Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description”, Alisa J. Bates

Democracy and Education

This response to “Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description” explores the intellectual work that teachers must do to achieve the goal of preparing citizens for a flourishing democracy. This piece analyzes the rigor of such a teaching task and asks questions about what it means to engage in the intellectual work of teaching for democracy. Public perceptions of teaching as an intellectual practice and the impact this has on teaching as both a profession and element of fostering democracy are explored.


Flying Sandwiches And Broken Glasses. A Response To "New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches", Sigal R. Ben-Porath Sep 2014

Flying Sandwiches And Broken Glasses. A Response To "New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches", Sigal R. Ben-Porath

Democracy and Education

The authors of the feature article provide a sound analysis of the shortcomings of the new teacher training model in preparing professional teachers rather than technicians, in getting them ready to teach in varied environments, and in helping teachers and students develop their skills of participation in a democratic society. In this response I outline an additional key issue related to apprenticeship-based teacher training models of the type that Match and Relay represent, namely, the matter of accountability.


Critical Discomfort And Deep Engagement Needed For Transformation. A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Rick Ayers Sep 2014

Critical Discomfort And Deep Engagement Needed For Transformation. A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Rick Ayers

Democracy and Education

This essay seeks to engage the discussion about how to successfully conduct social justice and critical pedagogy classes for teacher candidates. Because the identity and consciousness of teachers is such a crucial factor in equity education, teacher-educators seek to challenge and transform hegemonic assumptions. The essay seeks to engage some of the main points of Sensoy and DiAngelo and to extend the conversation to other considerations and issues that arise in the work to develop educators committed to equity and justice.


Hold That Thought! A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Barbara Applebaum Sep 2014

Hold That Thought! A Response To "Respect Differences? Challenging The Common Guidelines In Social Justice Education", Barbara Applebaum

Democracy and Education

This is a response to Sensoy and DiAngelo's (2014) critique of common guidelines used in social justice education and their justification for the use of silencing the voice of systemically privileged students. I expand their argument by posing some questions about the risks of silencing and also suggesting an alternative strategy to the one Sensoy and DiAngelo recommend.


Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description, Rachel Bradshaw Sep 2014

Democratic Teaching: An Incomplete Job Description, Rachel Bradshaw

Democracy and Education

The importance of public education in democratic states is almost beyond dispute. Too often, though, discussions of democratic education focus solely on policies and systems, forgetting the individual teachers who are ultimately responsible for educating future citizens. This paper attempts to illustrate just how complex and significant the role of teachers in a democratic republic can be.


New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches, Sarah Marie Stitzlein, Craig K. West Sep 2014

New Forms Of Teacher Education: Connections To Charter Schools And Their Approaches, Sarah Marie Stitzlein, Craig K. West

Democracy and Education

This article critically analyzes the application of charter school techniques in teacher education, especially in two noteworthy programs: the newly developed Relay Graduate School of Education and Match Teacher Residency. We describe how their approaches to teacher preparation differ from traditional teacher education programs. We also raise concern regarding the ways charter-inspired teacher preparation programs overlook the contributions of theory to good teaching, jeopardize teacher flexibility, alter understandings of the professional practice of teaching, and threaten the overarching purpose of educating for democracy that is integral to traditional teacher colleges. We emphasize educationally worthwhile approaches from this new domain of …


The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education, Jeremy Stoddard Apr 2014

The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education, Jeremy Stoddard

Democracy and Education

Despite the potential for media and technology to act as a democratizing force and the challenges to democracy posed by partisanship and the explosion of political media spending, media education and the preparation of active citizens in schools is virtually nonexistent. This essay presents the case for revitalizing media education for the age of digital media as a tenet of democratic education and outlines an agenda for teacher education, curriculum integration, student engagement, and research.


Toward Resonant, Imaginative Experiences In Ecological And Democratic Education. A Response To "Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework", Michael Derby, Sean Blenkinsop, John Telford, Laura Piersol, Michael Caulkins Oct 2013

Toward Resonant, Imaginative Experiences In Ecological And Democratic Education. A Response To "Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework", Michael Derby, Sean Blenkinsop, John Telford, Laura Piersol, Michael Caulkins

Democracy and Education

In this response to Fettes's "Imagination and Experience," the authors further consider the varieties of educational experience that inspire ecological flourishing and a living democracy. The essential interconnectedness of encounter-driven and language-driven ways of knowing are explored with particular reference to the authors' involvement in a research project at an innovative elementary school in British Columbia, Canada.


A Call To Action: Why We Need More Practitioner Research. A Response To "A Teacher Educator Uses Action Research To Develop Culturally Conscious Curriculum Planners", Kimberly H. Campbell Oct 2013

A Call To Action: Why We Need More Practitioner Research. A Response To "A Teacher Educator Uses Action Research To Develop Culturally Conscious Curriculum Planners", Kimberly H. Campbell

Democracy and Education

As teacher-educators we need to embrace practitioner (action) research of our own classroom practice. Such research serves to improve our practice, inform the teaching profession, and serve as modeling for future teachers to become practitioner researchers in support of their efforts to meet the learning needs of the students with whom they work as well as have a voice in policy decisions that impact their professional lives.


A Teacher-Educator Uses Action Research To Develop Culturally Conscious Curriculum Planners, Muriel Simms Oct 2013

A Teacher-Educator Uses Action Research To Develop Culturally Conscious Curriculum Planners, Muriel Simms

Democracy and Education

Experienced teachers need to have opportunities to discuss and plan curriculum in ways that meet the academic needs of a demographically changing student population. According to the experienced teachers in this study, these opportunities did not occur in their teaching environments or in their teacher preparation courses. Moreover, the literature on multicultural education supported the experienced teachers’ claims. To address the problem of the lack of opportunities to discuss and plan a multicultural curriculum, this teacher-educator used a self-study approach to experiment with action research as a way to change her own curriculum to be multiculturally based.


Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools, Cory A. Buxton, Shakhnoza Kayumova, Martha Allexsaht-Snider Oct 2013

Teacher, Researcher, And Accountability Discourses: Creating Space For Democratic Science Teaching Practices In Middle Schools, Cory A. Buxton, Shakhnoza Kayumova, Martha Allexsaht-Snider

Democracy and Education

This study explores the role of competing discourses that shape current practices in U.S. schools and how professional development efforts can support teachers and researchers in finding ways to reinsert more democratic processes into their collaborative work. We examine the case of one research and professional development project with the goal of supporting middle school science and ESOL teachers in fostering more meaningful science learning for all their students but especially their English language learners. Using Gee’s notion of big-D discourses and Fairclough’s notion of interdiscursivity, we trace how the Discourse of accountability, the Discourse of science teaching, and the …


Resisting The Neoliberal Ambush Of Public Education. A Book Review Of Educational Courage: Resisting The Ambush Of Public Education, Brandy S. Wilson May 2013

Resisting The Neoliberal Ambush Of Public Education. A Book Review Of Educational Courage: Resisting The Ambush Of Public Education, Brandy S. Wilson

Democracy and Education

This is a review of the book Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education.


Appropriate Urban Teaching Philosophies. A Book Review Of Sketches In Democracy: Notes From An Urban Classroom, Kirstin C. Busch Mar 2013

Appropriate Urban Teaching Philosophies. A Book Review Of Sketches In Democracy: Notes From An Urban Classroom, Kirstin C. Busch

Democracy and Education

This is a book review for Sketches in Democracy: Notes from an Urban Classroom written by Lisa DeLorenzo, a professor of music education at Montclair State University. DeLorenzo took an extraordinary leap of faith by using her sabbatical year to teach for the very first time within an urban school setting. Her recognition of her limitations in preparing preservice teachers for an urban school environment without herself having had that experience speaks volumes of her reflective capabilities, which she also employed in writing this thought-provoking analytical narrative of her experience teaching in a newly fledged charter conceived as a democratic …


Let’S Produce Culturally Responsive Pedagogues On Deck. A Response To "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective", Christopher C. Jett Nov 2012

Let’S Produce Culturally Responsive Pedagogues On Deck. A Response To "There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here: A Critical Race Perspective", Christopher C. Jett

Democracy and Education

In this response, I extend the conversation started by Hayes and Juárez (2012) by highlighting how culturally responsive teaching is spoken in one teacher education program where I worked and served in the preparation of middle-level teachers. I also share my reflections concerning this idea and pose questions for critical thought, dialogue, and action. Finally, I challenge teacher-educators to speak, enact, and work to produce culturally responsive teaching/teachers in their teacher preparation programs.