Education Commons^™

Facilitating Conversations On Difficult Topics In The Classroom: Teachers’ Stories Of Opening Spaces Using Children’S Literature

Occasional Paper Series

For this edition of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we invited educators to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children’s literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world.

Conversations About Death That Are Provoked By Literature, Cara E. Furman

Occasional Paper Series

How do teachers have conversations about death with young children? In this paper, I focus specifically on how teachers might support unplanned conversations that were provoked by children’s literature. In analyzing a series of events in which such conversations occurred, I argue that to do so required going against three conventions in literacy education: close reading, staying on task, and appropriate school talk. I then speak to how teacher educators might prepare teachers for these unexpected but important digressions.

If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, I reflect on my practices as a teacher educator and respond to the following questions: How do I foster the capacity of pre-service teachers to use children’s literature to promote expansive and critical conversations in the classroom? How do pre-service teachers report their stances and sense of preparedness when reflecting on the course? To address these questions, I share two strategies I employed in my undergraduate course for elementary education majors: 1) emphasizing children's literature as windows and mirrors and 2) considering stakeholder responses. For each strategy, I include preservice teachers’ (PTs’) statements that reflect how the …

Discussing Race, Policing, And Privilege In A High School Classroom, Arianna Banack

Occasional Paper Series

This article describes a unit implemented in a ninth-grade English classroom using the young adult novel, All American Boys (Reynolds & Keily, 2015) to explore issues of police brutality, privilege, and racism. Pedagogical activities are offered alongside a critical reflection of the unit as the author explores difficult moments while teaching. Implications for English educators and currently practicing ELA teachers are provided with suggestions on how to revise the unit to center on exploring the systematic oppression of people of color.

Choosing Difficult, Choosing Important In Fifth-Grade Read-Aloud, Chiara Dilello

Occasional Paper Series

In this essay, I share my critical reflections and pedagogical choices (some more successful than others) while using a whole-class chapter book read-aloud to engage my students in conversation about complex topics, including racism and gender, which we might not have discussed otherwise. It is my hope to model one small way I as a White teacher have tried to disrupt Whiteness in my classroom as part of a larger commitment to anti-racist teaching, and help teachers feel more prepared to undertake similar work in their own settings.

Gender-Inclusive Children’S Literature As A Preventative Measure: Moving Beyond A Reactive Approach To Lgbtq+ Topics In The Classroom, Shelby Brody

Occasional Paper Series

This article addresses the common perception of gender non-conforming and gender-expansive identities as difficult classroom topics. The lack of gender-inclusive curricula in American schools results in a reactive approach to teaching about queerness, specifically about people who identify as transgender and/or gender non-conforming. Teachers need to adopt a proactive approach to teaching about queerness in order to prevent gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence in schools and in the world. Trans-inclusive children’s literature has become more available in recent years. However, teachers need to be conscious of popular narratives that offer a limited perspective on people who identify as transgender and …

Taking A Journey To The Land Of All: Using Children’S Literature To Explore Gender Identity And Expression With Young Children, Kerry Elson, Kindel Nash

Occasional Paper Series

Children’s literature is a powerful tool that helps shape young children’s understandings of themselves and the world. As such, children’s literature can help young children develop deeper and more nuanced understandings about gender, gender identity, and gender expression. This article shares how teacher Kerry Elson planned and implemented a curriculum with first-grade students that focused on gender identity and expression. In this curriculum, she carefully selected children’s literature to explore gender identity and expression with young children.

Storytime Is A Sunrise: Employing Children’S Literature To Mediate Socio-Emotional Challenges In The Life Of A Young Child, Carolina Soto Bonds

Occasional Paper Series

This piece explores the trials and victories of a teacher's literary therapy for Will* a student faced with the ravages of mental health struggles and instability in his home life. The purpose here is to divulge the vulnerabilities of a personal story in the hopes of generating support for other educators who might be battling similar conflicts. Along the way, as varying children's books like My Happy Sad Mummy, by Michelle Vasiliu, and The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, play integral parts in emotional healing, the teacher confronts her own internal unrests as Will's obstacles inch too close to home. …

Introduction: Facilitating Conversations On Difficult Topics In The Classroom: Teachers’ Stories Of Opening Spaces Using Children’S Literature, Mollie Welsh Kruger, Susie Rolander, Susan Stires

Occasional Paper Series

For this edition of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we invited educators to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children’s literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world.

A Guide For Teacher Sensitivity Of The Homeless Preschooler, Barbara Abdella

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper is intended to exhibit the effects of homelessness on preschool children and to provide anecdotes for the child’s social emotional growth and well-being. This paper provides a statistical analysis of the steady growth of homelessness among preschool children and families residing in New York City, lists some of the causes of homelessness, and identifies barriers that homeless children and their families must face daily, affecting their education and stability. Additionally, it is hoped that this paper will allow the reader to comprehend their ability to utilize their empathic reasoning skills and impartial reasoning in their association with homeless …

Metamorphic Journey Of A Single Story: Becoming A Globally Competent Teacher, Shareefah Pereira

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The purpose of this thesis is to dissect my lived experiences and transform them into knowledge that can be shared with other educators. This project explores transformative teaching by investigating my teaching experience in South Eastern Thailand through a critical autoethnographic lens as a way to reflect on transformative teaching in a global context. As a candidate in the Dual Language/Bilingual Childhood Special Education program I will be using theoretical frameworks and coursework to guide my critical, decolonial, and global approach to education.

As the world is becoming increasingly interconnected teachers are tasked with looking at the identity, cultural, enthic, …

Asian American: A Personal Exploration Of My Identities And Some Possible Implications For Teachers, Seung Youn (Danielle) Kim

Graduate Student Independent Studies

As the population of Asian Americans in the United States grows fast, so does the incidence of racist attacks on Asian Americans. The urgency for anti-racist educators to commit to learning how to best serve Asian American children, their families, and their communities in accordance with antiracist, counter hegemonic linguistic practices, and culturally sustaining principles grows exponentially. Through a deep reflection on my personal and often painful experience as a Korean immigrant in the United States, I use an interdisciplinary approach including Socio- and Racio-linguistics, Social Psychology, Anthropology, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, to analyze some of the challenges that I …

Good Things: An Original Picture Book, Maryah Greene

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The research collected in this study aims to support students, teachers and parents on their journey of building a relationship with houseplants. Whether in a classroom, at home or in a work space, a relationship with a houseplant should be one that is intentional, personal and provides an opportunity for growth both physically and mentally. The following research aims to support this belief while also supporting students, teachers and parents through the creation of the original book material, Good Things.

Barrington Bunny: Case Of The Curious Clouds A Narrative Picture Book For Symbolic Play And Stem Curriculum, Claudia Chung

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Adults constantly use their imagination to help them visualize, problem-solve, enjoy a book, empathize, and think creatively. Therefore, using one's imagination is a critical cognitive skill that can be used throughout life. And it is crucial for educators to encourage imagination, creativity and original ideas in childhood through pretend play, story, picture books, and narrative make-believe if we want our students to be mindful and functioning adults in society. Pretend play is also known as "symbolic play" because it involves the use of symbols. This type of symbolic thought is also needed for language and reading, as our words are …

Technology In Education: The Ongoing Debate Of Access, Adequacy And Equity, Kristiana Roth

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Technology is intertwined in all aspects of our lives. Technology has evolved in ways that were once considered unimaginable. Yet, access to these advancements in technology are not adequate, especially throughout our education system. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the significance technology can have on our education system today. This paper will reflect research which supports the integration of technology beginning in early childhood classrooms. This paper will also reflect on the injustices that exist in how educational technology is unequally distributed between socio-economic status. More is available to wealthy, white students. While people from …

Possibilities And Problems In Trauma-Based And Social Emotional Learning Programs

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Creating Classroom Community To Welcome Children Experiencing Trauma, Katherina A. Payne, Jennifer Keys Adair, Shubhi Sachdeva

Occasional Paper Series

How elementary and early childhood classrooms engage with socio-emotional learning is deeply connected to creating a classroom community. Yet, much of socio-emotional learning curricula focuses on the individual child, rather than on the everyday interactions that build and sustain community. During the Civic Action and Young Children study, we spent a year in a Head Start preschool in Texas, where we noticed that although many children in the class struggled with varied difficult circumstances including poverty, homelessness, discrimination and threat of deportation, the teachers did not label them as homeless, illegal immigrants or poor. Additionally, children seemed to help one …

Threading The Needle: On Balancing Trauma And Critical Teaching, Brian Gibbs, Kristin Papoi

Occasional Paper Series

This essay describes and takes up the task of what the authors call threading the needle—teaching difficult content with a critical lens while simultaneously teaching with a trauma-informed pedagogy. Drawing data from three qualitative studies, one focused on teachers teaching for social justice in unjust school spaces, another looking at how teachers teach war to the children of soldiers, and a third how teachers teach lynching in schools near historic lynching sites, this manuscript argues that threading the needle is made more difficult by a too generalized definition of trauma informed teaching, shortsighted professional development on the topic, and too …

Emotionally Responsive Practice As Trauma Informed Care: Parallel Process To Support Teacher Capacity To Hold Children With Traumatic History, Lesley Koplow, Noelle Dean, Margaret Blachly

Occasional Paper Series

This article features an adult-focused trauma informed approach that is an integral part of Bank Street’s Emotionally Responsive Practice work in schools. The authors share stories of parallel process work with teachers and administrators in various school settings, giving the reader insight into an approach that supports integration of the teacher’s past and present, and promotes empathy for the children they once were, as well as the children who fill their classrooms. The work is situated within the context of the high prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences that impact our communities of both children and adults, and leave them vulnerable …

All I Want To Say Is That They Don’T Really Care About Us: Creating And Maintaining Healing-Centered Collective Care In Hostile Times, Asif Wilson, Wytress Richardson

Occasional Paper Series

Too often educators (care-givers) are left to navigate toxic work environments without proper support to combat the systemic issues they face daily. Institutions of higher education have neglected to make the health and well-being of care-givers a priority. This failure continues to maintain and perpetuate the oppressive conditions that mirror trauma, pain and stress. The authors of this study extend Ginwright’s (2018) healing centered engagement to conceptualize what they call healing centered collective care—a fugitive framework of care for the care-givers. Data was collected through two case studies and those generative themes are presented using testimonios from the authors.

The Importance Of Narrative: Moving Towards Sociocultural Understandings Of Trauma-Informed Praxis, Noah Golden

Occasional Paper Series

Dominant framings of trauma-informed pedagogy are currently grounded in a purely biomedical understanding of trauma, often locating ‘problems’ to be solved in individual students or communities, and engendering ‘solutions’ that focus on discourses of self-regulation and control. While these framings are slowly giving way to broader environmental understandings of trauma and marginalized youth, a deeper understanding of ecologies of privilege, disposession, and relationships to/with trauma is needed to understand the role(s) that schooling might play in mitigating traumatic experiences and their effects on young people. In particular, many students of color who are working-class or experiencing poverty must navigate racialized, …

Why Trouble Sel? The Need For Cultural Relevance In Sel, Julia Mahfouz, Vanessa Anthony-Stevens

Occasional Paper Series

With regards to efforts to imagine more equitable spaces of learning for all students, we are compelled to ask: How can SEL programs address the needs of marginalized, minoritized, and/or historically under-resourced students without deeply considering the cultured context of social interaction and school learning? Although evidence shows SEL programs yield benefits in multiple domains, most programs are based on monolithic approaches that often do not consider dynamics of power and oppression in the context of schooling. In this paper, we discuss the crucial role of culture in SEL frameworks. We propose adopting an interdisciplinary lens to integrate culturally relevant …

Trauma By Numbers: Warnings Against The Use Of Ace Scores In Trauma-Informed Schools, Alex Winninghoff

Occasional Paper Series

The school trauma-informed movement is grounded in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) research, which has informed professional development, philosophies, understandings of students’ lives, and school interventions. In recent years, there has been growing advocacy for ACE screenings and the use of “ACE score” data to inform individual and school interventions. This application of the ACE framework raises a number of ethical concerns for K-12 school professionals, particularly since high ACE scores are associated with dismal life trajectories for students who are not “resilient” enough to overcome their hardships. This article challenges the frequent claim that the trauma-informed frameworks move school professional …

Let Them Get Mad: Using The Psychoanalytic Frame To Rethink Sel And Trauma Infomed Practice, Clio Stearns

Occasional Paper Series

This article draws on the concept of the psychoanalytic frame to argue that SEL and trauma-informed practices, as codified constructs, might be excessively rigid when it comes to making sense of children's and teacher's emotional worlds. Drawing on vignettes from observations in a third-grade classroom where there is not yet a mandate for SEL, the author shows how sometimes, the very absence of a codified approach to children's difficult behaviors and emotions can lead to an increase in their sense that they are seen and heard by their teacher and by one another.

Issue 43: Possibilities And Problems In Trauma-Based And Social Emotional Learning Programs, Tracey Pyscher, Anne Crampton

Occasional Paper Series

Social, emotional, and affective experiences are impossible to separate from thinking, doing, and being in the world. Increasingly, schools and community-based organizations are recognizing this truth through the adoption of programs that focus on the emotional lives of children and youth, especially when emotions are fraught, and lives have been difficult. Programs such as social emotional learning (SEL) frameworks and trauma-informed practices (TIP) are not only popular, they are deemed “essential” in almost every corner of the social services sector.

The Adverse Effects Of Stereotyping And Bias On Health In Low Socioeconomic Communities, Stephanie Jurado

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Studies have shown that low socioeconomic status negatively affects health due to factors such as unstable access to secure environments, full-coverage healthcare, and quality of education. Members of these communities face further health adversities when confronting healthcare staff who are blind to these challenges, and more, that they experience. Several studies examined in this paper looked specifically at the intersects of low socioeconomic status and how they negatively affected the healthcare experience of individuals of these communities. Others demonstrate how having healthcare staff be knowledgeable of these adverse effects can lead to positive changes in the health of these community …