Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Small Schools And The Issue Of Race, Linda C. Powell

Occasional Paper Series

Bank Street College of Education, in conjunction with the Consortium on Chicago School Research did a study of small schools in Chicago. This paper examines one element of the findings in depth - the interaction of race and school size. Powell argues that small schools are by their very nature an anti-racist intervention.

Black Girls Are More Than Magic, Gloria J. Ladson-Billings

Occasional Paper Series

Despite the current interest in "Black Girl Magic" this essay argues that what Black women have accomplished and endured is more than mere magic. Instead, they reflect a dogged determinism to work toward liberation of all people. That determination has been in the forefront of human liberation for centuries.

Untying The Knot, Charisse Jones

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Where Our Girls At? The Misrecognition Of Black And Brown Girls In Schools, Amanda E. Lewis, Deana G. Lewis

Occasional Paper Series

Black and brown girls remain too often at the margins not only in society at large and in our schools but also in our research and writing about schools. Herein we argue for careful consideration of the specific ways that their raced and gendered identities render these girls vulnerable and put them in jeopardy so that educators and scholars do not become complicit in their marginalization. We focus on dynamics of invisibility and hypervisibility. While these dynamics may seem to be diametrically opposite, both involve the process of what scholar Nancy Fraser (2000) calls “misrecognition” (p. 113).

Not Only A Pipeline: Schools As Carceral Sites, Connie Wun

Occasional Paper Series

Conversations surrounding school discipline have largely focused on the ways that schools and their punitive policies have funneled students into the criminal justice system through the school to prison pipeline. Recently, there has been an increase in scholarship from scholars who argue that schools are not only funneling students into prisons, but that schools and prisons operate as a nexus – the two working symbiotically to discipline and punish students of color, predominantly Black male students (Meiners, 2010; Sojoyner, 2013). Drawing from these analyses, I argue that schools are characterized by multi-layered disciplinary landscapes that operate as carceral sites onto …

Introduction: Reading And Writing The T/Terror Narratives Of Black And Brown Girls And Women: Storying Lived Experiences To Inform And Advance Early Childhood Through Higher Education, Jeannine Staples, Uma M. Jayakumar

Occasional Paper Series

Staples and Jayakumar introduce this issue of the Occasional Paper Series that speaks to the #SayHerName social justice initiative. The movement aims to expose the experiences of Black and Brown girls and women who are subject to police violence in society and various violences in schools. In response to this movement, this issue includes stories of Black and Brown women from early childhood education through higher education.

Kids Make Sense... And They Vote: The Importance Of Child Study In Learning To Teach Responsively, Frederick Erickson

Occasional Paper Series

A lecture that discusses the "developmental-interaction" perspective and practice that has become the hallmark of Bank Street. Erickson builds upon the relations of mutual influence among students, teachers, and learning environments, and taking account of the relations between local practice within the small-scale "here and now" interactional ecosystems of immediate learning environments and the workings of culture, language, and society across more distal connections in social space and time.

Steady Work, Tom Roderick

Occasional Paper Series

Roderick's remarks made on the occasion of receiving an honorary doctorate from Bank Street College of Education in 1999. He speaks about his steady work in conflict resolution programs, because there is always a need for conflict resolution in a world where conflict is natural but violence is taught.

Introduction: Steady Work And "Noise Level Zero", Frank Pignatelli

Occasional Paper Series

Pignatelli introduces two narratives by Tom Roderick and John Wolfe that test our belief in public education as a special space where American society holds fast to its promise to vanquish inequity, to assure equal opportunity, and to nurture a kinder, more just citizenry.

It Should Not Be Left To Chance: Ensuring A Good Education For All Our Children, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

Occasional Paper Series

This essay suggests that progressive education is equivalent to good education. Condliffe Lagemann poses the question: What do we need to do to ensure that good education becomes more universally available than it is today? The answer lies in developing a new science of education, one that better integrates research, practice, and policy, and does a better job of educating the public about education.

The Arizona Kith And Kin Project, Sarah Ocampo-Schlesinger, Vicki Mccarty

Occasional Paper Series

In 1999, soon after the federal welfare reform was enacted, many people in Pheonix, Arizona were transitioning off of welfare and into the workforce. When considering job development in any any community, the focus shifts to child care needs. A study of child care needs in the area revealed that most parents were relying on family, friends, and neighbors for care. The Association for Supportive Child Care (ASCC) became committed to reaching out to the underserved population of kith and kin caregivers in their communities to provide training and support.

Ways Of Caring: How Relative Caregivers Support Children And Parents, Juliet Bromer

Occasional Paper Series

Reports on a subset of findings from a study that explored the support roles of African American child care providers in poor Chicago neighborhoods. Based on ten in-depth interviews with relative caregivers, Bromer discusses five themes: caregiver's adult-focused and child-focused motivations for caring, daily work with children, childrearing advice to parents, and caregiver-parent conflict. Caregivers’ motivations to provide child care and the meanings they ascribe to this daily work suggest new ways of defining a child-focused approach to caregiving.

The Plight Of The Gifted Student: A Call To Action, Krista M. Shilvock

Empowering Research for Educators

With so many needs in today’s public education classroom, we cannot forget the needs of those who excel in the classroom, too. Gifted students face severe neglect in class due to the appearance of their competence and maturity. However, we quickly face losing the contributions of a major group of students as this neglect causes them to lose interest in their own education. As teachers, we must challenge ourselves to help gifted students reach their potential just as we attempt to do for all subgroups of students. A poll of 22 gifted students confirms these frustrations and needs of students. …

Growth Mindset In The Classroom, Luther L. Kiger

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how Mindset can effect a students educational and social life.

Emphasis On Test Scores In Education, Lindsay Olson

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how too much emphasis on standardized testing can affect student learning as well as teaching in the classroom. It includes a personal interview with a high school teacher as well as an article from the Washington Post regarding a study that was completed involving testing students.

Immigrant Parental Involvement In Student Academics, Charles Tebben

Empowering Research for Educators

Abstract

This study is meant to focus discussions about the importance of the involvement of immigrant parents in respect to student academics. In this study I intend to make evident a relationship between parental involvement and student academics, after which I will draw in a conclusion of the resources utilized by my community at the elementary and middle schools. I’m conducting my research study starting at elementary school and running through middle school. I’m eliminating the high school period because of their unique parental involvement complexities which share little constraints and outcomes with the lower levels. To build my study, …

The Language Of Learning In Family And Consumer Sciences: English Language Learners In Career Technical Education, Kali S. Lenhoff

Empowering Research for Educators

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) content and English as a Second Language (ESL) strategies can be organically incorporated to create a successful education for an English Language Learner (ELL). The first objective of this research project is to discover how prepared Family and Consumer Sciences teachers feel to work with English Language Learners in the classroom. The second objective is to identify practical and effective methods and strategies that are useful for Family and Consumer Sciences teachers instructing English Language Learners. The rationale for this project is that by identifying the challenges faced by English Language Learners in education, teachers …

Stayers, Leavers, Lovers, And Dreamers: Why People Teach And Why They Stay - 2004 Barbara Biber Lecture, Marilyn Cochran-Smith

Occasional Paper Series

Marilyn Cochran-Smith delivers the Barbara Biber Lecture at Bank Street College in memorial of her legacy as a researcher, scholar, and leader in progressive education. Cochran-Smith focuses on what lies at the heart of teaching and learning on an individual level as well as what it will take to improve the current state of urban schools. Her main points address teacher retention and differences among generations of teachers.

Introduction: Welcoming The Stranger, Jonathan Silin

Occasional Paper Series

Jonathan G. Silin introduces the 17th issue of Occasional Papers with the concept of "strangers" - people of all ages who perceive themselves or have been perceived by others as outsiders. The ability to welcome the stranger - or groups of strangers - into the classroom is essential to building a productive, caring community of learners. This philosophy sets the tone for the following essays that illustrate the importance of creating a healthy learning environment for immigrants.

Of Lizards And Language, Bernadette Gongora

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

A Progressive Approach To The Education Of Teachers: Some Principles From Bank Street College Of Education, Nancy Nager, Edna Shapiro

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper we present Bank Street’s approach as represented in a set of five inter-related principles. We begin by briefly describing the origins and rationale of teacher education at Bank Street. From this description we generate principles that emerge from Bank Street’s history and practice, linking each principle to classroom images of teaching and learning. Enactment of these principles can and must vary in response to changing circumstances, needs, and mandates. In our view, this necessary variation highlights the guiding function of an explicit set of principles to govern and ensure the consonance, validity, and legitimacy of new practices.

An Evaluation Of The Relationships Between Collegiate Aviation Safety Management System Initiative, Self-Efficacy, Transformational Safety Leadership And Safety Behavior Mediated By Safety Motivation, Daniel Kwasi Adjekum

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The study conceptualized Safety Management System (SMS) initiative, self-efficacy, and transformational safety leadership as constructs that relates to safety behavior (measured by safety compliance and safety participation) when mediated by safety motivation using a quantitative approach. Structural equation modeling techniques was used to derive a final measurement model that fit the empirical data and was used to test the study hypotheses. Utilizing a sample of 282 collegiate flight students and instructors from a large public university in the US, a 46-item survey was used to measure respondent’s perceptions on the study variables. The results indicate that perceptions of SMS policy …

Ideas: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Project-Based Learning, James G. Laprad, Andrea M. Hyde

The Qualitative Report

As waves of the Global Educational Reform Movement, what Sahlberg (2015) identifies as GERM, still ripple around the world pushing for competition, standardization, the focus on the core subjects, and test-based accountability some schools like IDEAS choose what Hargreaves and Shirley (2012) call The Forth Way towards inspiration and innovation with their project-based learning pedagogy. IDEAS is a small public high school in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and a member of Ted Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools (CES). Our qualitative inquiry explores the implications of project-based learning on IDEAS’ students, teachers, academic program and school community. Data came from direct observation, interviews, …

"I Hope This Will Be A Good Year For Me..." : A Career-Changer Stumbles On The Fast Track To Teaching, Miranda Barry

Occasional Paper Series

Describes the very difficult experience of a new teacher who was inadequately prepared to manage her classroom of 35 students.

Engaging Student Disengagement, Emily E. Calvert

Exigence

Student disengagement is pervasive in community colleges. The Virginia Community College System serves a varied demographic that includes single parents, the disabled, minorities, and the impoverished. These unique qualities present unique challenges to keeping these students involved. Students at community college may have low self-esteem, lack purpose and encouragement, or have negative peer influences. While many students may not acknowledge this problem, VCCS takes many steps to combat it. This papers delves into the core of disengagement and examines the personal aspects of student disengagement.

Reimagining The Stacks: Classroom Technology And Library Collaboration For Writing In The Disciplines, Jossalyn Larson, Daniel C. Reardon

The Journal of Student Success in Writing

This article details the process by which one university redesigned a first year writing course to better promote discipline-specific and best-practice research techniques. The program offers experiential learning activities through scholarly collaboration, using library staff as mentors, producing an open-access peer-reviewed student journal, and emphasizing face-to-face interaction of peer research communities. It has the potential to establish for students in high school, community colleges and universities that research writing is fundamentally about joining and contributing to a conversation.

Fostering Creative Ecologies In Australasian Secondary Schools, Leon R. De Bruin, Anne Harris

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study investigates and compares elements of creativity in secondary schools and classrooms in Australia and Singapore. Statistical analysis and qualitative investigation of teacher, student and leadership perceptions of the emergence, fostering and absence of creativity in school learning environments is explored. This large-scale international study (n=717) reveals the impact of teacher behaviours, teaching environments and school leadership approaches that promote and impede the enhancement of creative, critical, and innovative thinking, organisation, and curriculum structures. Implications for Australian schools and teaching urge for secondary education to challenge current, practices, pedagogies and environments, arguing for school-based strategies and considerations that enhance …