Education Commons^™

Walking The Walk: Linking Teaching And Advocacy, Danielle Morrison

Occasional Paper Series

Discusses the author's journey from being a teacher to being a teacher for change.

Beyond The Story-Book Ending: Literature For Young Children About Parental Estrangement And Loss, Megan Mason Matt

Occasional Paper Series

Analyzes over thirty books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce and foster care.

Leading Without Permission, Robin Hummel

Occasional Paper Series

Author Robin Hummel makes an emphatic, persuasive plea for teachers to seize the reins of instructional leadership and take responsibility - even in the face of recalcitrant administrators and increasingly prescriptive curricula - for their own professional learning and growth. She makes the case for action research as a particularly potent professional development tool, and shows how it serves to liberate teachers from inertia and dependency.

Betla Teacher Leaders: An Unselfish Sense Of Purpose, Lillian Hernandez, Christian Solorza

Occasional Paper Series

Recognizing that much of the leadership in resolving the issues of quality and equity for English Language Learners (ELLs) will fall to teachers themselves, Bank Street's Bilingual/ESL Teacher Leadership Academy (BETLA) has taken on the mission of preparing teachers of ELLs for the intense and unique leadership challenges they will face. Our study of the narrative accounts of nine BETLA teacher leaders was designed to give voice to teachers who have often been silenced and to speak to the positive relevance of teacher leaders in today's schools.

Leadership And Agency As A Novice Teacher, Clara E. Lin

Occasional Paper Series

Tells an inspiring tale of a new teacher who refused to accept the dreary status quo to which beginning professionals are so often consigned. Almost in anger at the assumption that she was supposed to be miserable for her whole first year, she struggled mightily to find innovative ways to solve her most intractable classroom problems, and then turned her energies to whole-school reform.

Making Sense Of Distributed Leadership: A Conversation Among Teacher Leaders, Kathleen Dickinson Rockwood

Occasional Paper Series

As graduate students tell their stories through a threaded internet conversation, it becomes evident that the trust, communication, transparency, and support that make distributed leadership workable and satisfying in some places is so visibly and painfully lacking in others. Not surprisingly, it is the former schools that, for the most part, produce the most fulfilled teachers and successful students.

Empowering Teachers: Developing Meaningful Leadership, Jennifer Groves

Occasional Paper Series

Describes how the author created a framework to empower her colleagues, promote adult development, and help build a school culture that mirrored the priorities she set in her classroom, so that adults were encouraged to inspire each other, to keep the cycle of learning going, and to build teacher leadership into a powerful model within the school.

Ask Not What Fhs Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Fhs, Jessica Endlich Winkler

Occasional Paper Series

Jessica Endlich brings the reader into intimate contact with the faculty of a small, urban high school which depends heavily on voluntary teacher leadership, and finds itself straining against the limits of capacity. Her candid interviews show vividly the tensions that exist when there is never enough time, support, appreciation, and equity to turn a wonderful idea into reality. She suggests some baseline, common-sense strategies to enable teachers to lead without sacrificing their students or their own personal lives.

Walking A Hall Of Mirrors, Kami Patrizio

Occasional Paper Series

Mentoring requires careful structuring, thorough preparation, and continual monitoring along with a willingness to look inward to confront the elusive issues of identity, empathy, morality, and emotion.

Becoming A Teacher Leader Within Your Classroom: A Dialogue, Jill Stacy, Nayantara Mhatre

Occasional Paper Series

Describes a spontaneous relationship that has equal measures of mentoring, peer coaching, and teaming.

Introduction: Teacher Leaders - Transforming Schools From The Inside, Gil Schmerler

Occasional Paper Series

Describes the issue's purpose, which is a "modest attempt to restore the issue of teacher leadership to the prominence it deserves and requires" -- author.

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.

Holding Space For Progressive Practice, Abbe Futterman, Dyanthe Spielberg, Cecelia Traugh

Occasional Paper Series

Elementary principals Futterman and Spielberg and Bank Street dean Traugh use a descriptive review process to share their methods for maintaining educational spaces that are grounded in progressive values, in the face of conflicting mandates from the district or the state.

“We All Is Teachers”: Emergent Bilingual Children At The Center Of The Curriculum, Ysaaca D. Axelrod

Occasional Paper Series

Incorporating data from an ethnographic case study of a bilingual (Spanish/English) Head Start program serving the children of Dominican and Mexican immigrants, Axelrod explores the tensions in parents’, teachers’, and administrators’ beliefs about language use and the role of play.

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.

The Center For Inquiry: Anatomy Of A Successful Progressive School, Christine H. Leland, Amy Wackerly, Christine Foxen Collier

Occasional Paper Series

Describes the work of the Center for Inquiry Schools in Indianapolis, Indiana. Authors Leland, Wackerly, and Collier were part of the original cohort of teachers and university faculty who founded a progressive magnet school. Premised on inquiry-based teaching and learning, the Center for Inquiry has grown from one to four schools.

City-As-School: Internship-Based Learning In New York City Public Schools, Rachel Seher, Melissa Birnbaum, Alan Y. Cheng

Occasional Paper Series

Paints a portrait of a high school with experiential learning at its core; at City-As-School in New York City, internships take the place of many classroom-based courses.

Reenvisioning The Classroom: Making Time For Students And Teachers To Play, Jill Leibowtiz, Corinthia Mirasol-Spath

Occasional Paper Series

Explores the benefits of play for students and teachers alike in a New York City elementary school that provides students with time to explore their interests through long-term projects of their choosing.

Now Is The Time, Jonathan Silin, Meredith Moore

Occasional Paper Series

In an era when intense pressure has been brought to bear on educators at all levels to “fix” education, Progressive Practices in Public Schools is designed to shine a light on the programs and pedagogy that are too often hidden from public view. The goal is to highlight what is hopeful by identifying educators who model rich, complex, and compelling alternatives to what is on offer from many contemporary “reformers.”

Leonard Covello: A Study Of Progressive Leadership And Community Empowerment, Lorenzo Krakowsky, Patrick Shannon

Occasional Paper Series

Describes Leonard Covello's progressive work at and around Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem, NY.

Beyond The Lone Hero: Providing Supports For New Teachers In High-Needs Schools, Sarah Elizabeth Barrett, Donna Ford, Carl James

Occasional Paper Series

This essay examines the activities and challenges encountered in a partnership between a faculty of education and a local school board in Toronto, Canada. The goal was to address concerns over a 40% drop-out rate amongst Black students in the Toronto District School Board.

Teachers were to identify areas of concern, and to use university resources to investigate and improve work with students. Initially, findings were disappointing, teachers often felt isolated working on their own, and some administrators perceived the project as disruptive to the overall running of the school.

Faculty came to the realization that to help support their …

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.

Facilitating Student Documentary Projects Toward 21-Century Literacy And Civic Engagement, Steven Goodman

Occasional Paper Series

The author describes how he uses video making as a way to engage students in high-needs schools. Goodman believes video making projects can help counter the ways minority students are made invisible by school curriculum and the culture of testing. More importantly, creating video documentaries allows students to use multiple literacies and does not exclude those who struggle with the written word.

Preparing Teachers For High-Need Schools: A Focus On Thoughtfully Adaptive Teaching, Arlene Mascarenhas, Seth Parsons, Sarah Cohen Burrowbridge

Occasional Paper Series

Differentiated instruction, or thoughtfully adaptive teaching, helps teachers successfully meet the needs of students in under-served schools. Teacher education institutions can do their part by forming partnerships with high-needs schools so teacher candidates can gain experience in a supportive environment. Along with providing a solid grounding in pedagogy, teacher education programs need to help candidates develop their own vision of teaching. Vision is seen as a way for teachers to remain true to their core values, and as a way to stay focused on how to do the best for all of their students.

No Teaching More Fulfilling: An Interview With Pam Jones, Linda Levine

Occasional Paper Series

Teacher educator Linda Levine interviews colleague Pamela Jones on her enduring commitment to quality education for all. Pam shares her thoughts and insight into what it takes to be a successful teacher in high-needs urban schools. Two guiding principles emerge as prerequisites for success: teachers need to be true to themselves and to find teaching assignments in places that resonate with them.

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.

Introduction: High Needs Schools - Preparing Teachers For Today's World, Jonathan Silin

Occasional Paper Series

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.

Commentary, Marjorie Siegel

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.