Education Commons^™

Taking Flight: Giving Up The Things That Weigh Me Down, Karina Malik

Occasional Paper Series

From the perspective of a Latinx, dual-language, special education, public school teacher, I explore and detail what an equitable and just education could look like in our future. I begin by envisioning a future that:

• Values collaboration in teaching and learning

• Allows for spaces of ongoing teacher learning where we teachers decide where we want to grow and how we want to learn.

• Invests in our growth and development as educators.

• Consists of a solid understanding that there is more expertise across communities than in any one person.

I continue by explaining that in order for this to be a …

Remote Portals: Enacting Black Feminisms And Humanization To Disrupt Isolation In Teacher Education, Mildred Boveda, Keisha M. Allen

Occasional Paper Series

As two Black women teacher educators who contend with the neoliberal expectations of the westernized academy and the material realities of preparing teachers for P-12 contexts, we face the pressures of performing productivity while attempting to ameliorate injustices for multiply-marginalized students (e.g., Black students with disabilities facing economic hardships). Working within predominantly white spaces, we were already socially and intellectually isolated prior to the 2020 pandemic. In this collaborative essay, we articulate how COVID-19 exasperated existing educational and social inequities, yet served as a portal to collective sense-making of our heightened intersectional consciousness, sense of duty to community, and enactments …

Including Autism: Confronting Inequitable Practices In A Toddler Classroom, Emmanuelle N. Fincham, Amanda R. Fellner

Occasional Paper Series

As co-teachers in a toddler room, we share a personal narrative about our experiences working with a child diagnosed with autism while in our care. Framed within the competing discourses of the medicalized perspective on disability and the individual, child-centered philosophies of early childhood education, we investigate the inequities we felt in the classroom and make connections to the field of early childhood inclusive education at large.

High-Needs Schools: Preparing Teachers For Today's World

Occasional Paper Series

In the second decade of the 21st century, some schools are in trouble and some schools are not. The subject of this Occasional Paper is the preparation of teachers for schools that--lacking sufficient resources, effective leadership, or vocal advocates--are failing to educate their students by any reasonable measures. The teachers and teacher educator contributors to this volume offer a more variegated set of responses grounded in a diversity of local experiences. Their approaches to researching and understanding the immediacy of becoming a teacher are based on decades of working in hard-pressed urban schools and the institutions that supply them with …

Inclusive Classrooms: From Access To Engagement

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Life In Inclusive Classrooms: Storytelling With Disability Studies In Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Supporting Young Children Of Immigrants In Prek-3

Occasional Paper Series

This special issue of the Occasional Paper Series describes practices and policies that can positively impact the early schooling of children of immigrants in the United States. We consider the intersectionality of young children’s lives and what needs to change in order to ensure that race, class, immigration status, gender, and dis/ability can effectively contribute to children’s experiences at school and in other instructional contexts, rather than prevent them from getting the learning experiences they need and deserve.

Queering Education: Pedagogy, Curriculum, Policy

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Introduction: A Vision For Transforming Early Childhood Research And Practice For Young Children Of Immigrants And Their Families, Fabienne Doucet, Jennifer Adair

Occasional Paper Series

This special issue of the Occasional Paper Series describes practices and policies that can positively impact the early schooling of children of immigrants in the United States. We consider the intersectionality of young children’s lives and what needs to change in order to ensure that race, class, immigration status, gender, and dis/ability can effectively contribute to children’s experiences at school and in other instructional contexts, rather than prevent them from getting the learning experiences they need and deserve.

Introduction: Queering Education, Darla Linville

Occasional Paper Series

What might it mean to make education more queer? Queerness is not a unitary identity (as is no identity) and queer is not a single way of thinking or being. Sometimes queer is opposition to outness, or resistance to acceptance, and exists in order to disrupt and discomfit. This, too, is queer. How might educators work to make schools more welcoming of queer bodies and identifications, queer the binary categories that define social life, and disrupt the differential privileging of those who claim normative identities?

A Circle With Edges: How Story Time Privileges The Abled Learner, Melissa Tsuei

Occasional Paper Series

Takes a critical look at one of the commonplace features of early childhood classrooms—story time. In her essay, Melissa considers the ways in which story time reinforces unequal power dynamics for diverse learners by privileging the able-bodied learner. In response, Melissa creates and presents the SPHERE model, which promotes active engagement and shared dialogue through collaborative storytelling and nurtures an inclusive literacy-learning environment.

Lunch Detention: Learning From Students In Our Little Barred Room, Lisa A. Johnson

Occasional Paper Series

Pulls back the “facades of inclusion” to reveal emotional violence and deep-seated discriminatory practices against special education students. Lisa, herself blind, describes how she was approached by an administrator to take over the role of lunch detention supervisor for the “little barred room.” In a short time, the “little barred room” becomes a place of refuge for Lisa and the other students, who share stories of friendship and create an inclusive space that empowers them to challenge a culture of oppression.

I [Don’T] Belong Here: Narrating Inclusion At The Exclusion Of Others, Emily Clark

Occasional Paper Series

Borrowing from narrative research and Disability Studies in Education, Emily tells the story of her adoptive siblings Maria and Isaac, who were orphaned by AIDS. She explores the paradox of inclusion which is that it sometimes, if not oftentimes, fails and results in exclusion. A chief reason for the failure of inclusion, Emily argues, is that children with real and perceived differences challenge the “grammar” of schooling—that is, they stand out for their differences.

Hitting The Switch: ¡Sí Se Puede!, Stephanie Alberto, Andrea Fonseca, Sandra J. Stein

Occasional Paper Series

Takes us into the lifeworld of first-grader Jason at Castle Bridge Elementary School, a public, dual-language school in New York City. Written by Jason’s teachers Stephanie and Andrea in conjunction with his mother Sandra, this essay puts forward the ethos ¡Sí se puede! (Yes, you can!), which relies on children’s empathy and calls for a collective response to inclusion. “Hitting the Switch” concludes with practical suggestions for creating an inclusive space for children who use assistive communicative devices so that they can become meaningful participants in the classroom community.

Talking Tolerance Inside The “Inclusive” Early Childhood Classroom, Karen Watson

Occasional Paper Series

Provides an inside look into what the Australian government calls “inclusive learning communities.” This term emerges from a national early-years learning framework that highlights ability and disability as diversity. Following the course of a six-month period in three “inclusive” early childhood classrooms, Karen offers an account of the transformative potential of inclusion in contrast to the harmful effects of teaching tolerance. Tolerance, as Karen’s study reveals, preserves the dualism of normal versus abnormal (or Other) and hinders critical reflection about ableist assumptions.

The Unfolding Of Lucas’S Story In An Inclusive Classroom: Living, Playing, And Becoming In The Social World Of Kindergarten, Haeny S. Yoon, Carmen Llerena, Emma Brooks

Occasional Paper Series

Tells stories about a vibrant kindergartner named Lucas through the viewpoints of his mother (Emma), teacher (Carmen), and teacher-educator (Haeny). In this multi-voiced story, the narrative centers on Lucas and shifts outward toward those orbiting Lucas’s wondrously playful universe. The magic of Lucas’s unfolding story is in the ways it disrupts conventional discourses about labels, interventions, and imposed meanings of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Rethinking "Those Kids" : Lessons Learned From A Novice Teacher's Induction Into In/Exclusion, Louis Olander

Occasional Paper Series

Argues for reframing inclusionary practices as pedagogies for equity that attend to the intersectional dynamics of race, class, and disability. He also encourages more local control over the implementation of inclusionary classroom practices.

Teaching Stories: Inclusion/Exclusion And Disability Studies, Linda Ware, Natalie Hatz

Occasional Paper Series

This research considers the journey of a public school teacher (Natalie) in partnership with her former undergraduate professor (Linda) to teach disability studies to her colleagues and to her fifth grade students. Our research involved multiple components and contexts that we characterize as “Teaching Stories” to consider disability, diversity, and exclusion across settings.

Eclipsing Expectations: How A Third Grader Set His Own Goals (And Taught Us All How To Listen), Diane L. Berman, David J. Connor

Occasional Paper Series

A description of an illuminating journey through the eyes of a parent, Diane, who wanted a more inclusive experience for her son Benny. For Diane and Benny, this meant becoming meaningful participants not only in Benny’s own classroom community but in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings that determined his educational goals. David uses a DSE framework to analyze and highlight the importance of context, as opposed to focusing on the disability condition, in enacting inclusionary practices. The authors argue for an “adhocratic” model of education that views children, educators, and parents as allies.

Disability Studies In Education: Storying Our Way To Inclusion, Joseph M. Valente, Scot Danforth

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Across Classrooms: School Quality Reviews As A Progressive Educational Policy, Doug Knecht, Nancy Gannon, Carolyn Yaffe

Occasional Paper Series

Knecht, Gannon, and Yaffe, former New York Department of Education administrators, describe their work adding a quality review process to the accountability system for city schools. Positing that the quality review is itself a progressive process, they argue that it can help schools to focus more on the lived experiences of their students and less on high stakes moments.

A Humanizing Approach To Improving School Disciplinary Culture, Darrick Smith

Occasional Paper Series

Smith summarizes efforts to transform the negative and disrespectful culture at a small California high school with a racially diverse student population. Here a humanizing approach to discipline, rooted in an affirmation of students and their families, and entailing an alignment of school and family values with the school’s mission, has been successful.

Say That The River Turns: Social Justice Intentions In Progressive Public School Classrooms, Beatrice Fennimore

Occasional Paper Series

Fennimore confronts the deficit-based talk prevalent in many schools serving marginalized students in “Say that the River Turns.” She argues that teaching for social justice begins by replacing deficit-based talk with clearly articulated intentions that subsequently transform into actions.

Beyond Child-Centered Constructivism: A Call For Culturally Sustaining Progressive Pedagogy, Alisa Algava

Occasional Paper Series

Algava argues that twentieth-century constructivist pedagogies are not sufficient to fulfill progressive education's inherently political, activist and democratic potential. She calls for a culturally sustaining progressive pedagogy that critically engages questions of power with both children and teachers.

No Shortcuts On The Journey To Learning For Students Or Teachers, Alison Coviello, Susan Stires

Occasional Paper Series

Despite the generally held view that children in low-performing, under-served schools have "deficits" teachers in such schools often have very different experiences. Students can succeed in all areas of schooling and beyond. But for this to happen, teacher education institutions need to provide teacher candidates with background information and knowledge about instruction, so they can see and support the strengths of students in high-needs schools.

The Right To Learn: Preparing Early Childhood Teachers To Work In High-Need Schools, Julie Diamond, Fretta Reitzes, Betsy Grob

Occasional Paper Series

Three teacher educators trained in the 1960's reflect on how to ensure educational equity in high-needs schools of today. The article starts with a description of the education the writers want for all children, and outline the processes and practices needed to sustain it. This is followed by a discussion on how schools of education can equip teachers with the values, understandings, and strategies they will need to achieve these goals.

Coda, Gail M. Boldt

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Flip The Script, Kevin K. Kumashiro, Erica Meiners

Occasional Paper Series

"Each one of us must understand education reform as inseparable from our concurrent struggles in other sectors, including labor and healthcare, and the movements to secure full human and civil rights for all." --Authors.

A Glass Half Full, Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade

Occasional Paper Series

Presents a vision for remaking ourselves as a society by addressing the basic needs of all children and defining, assessing, and developing high quality teaching.

Creating The Schools We Need, Pedro Noguera

Occasional Paper Series

The struggle for education remains vital to the struggle for democracy, equality and justice. The only question is who will align themselves with those who must be integral to making this possibility a reality.