Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Ambivalent Legacies: A Response To Harper Keenan, Jen Gilbert

Occasional Paper Series

Harper Keenan’s generous letter to beginning queer/trans teachers hinges on the question: How do we stand in that impossible moment when we are welcoming newcomers while still acknowledging our debts to those who’ve come before? Jonathan Silin, whose work this issue celebrates, grapples with these questions of legacy in an essay that reflects on his contributions as an early childhood educator and researcher and a gay rights and HIV/AIDS activist. Silin (2020) asks:

Is it possible to leave behind traditional ideas about legacy, weighted down as they are with commitments to social and biological reproduction, and reimagine it as something …

Keep Yourself Alive: Welcoming The Next Generation Of Queer And Trans Educators, Harper Keenan

Occasional Paper Series

Dear new queer/trans educator,

Welcome to the work of education. I am glad that you are here to take part in the wonderfully challenging task of supporting young people to learn more about how we might be together. I often think of classrooms and other educational spaces as something like a dance floor, where people who may not know one another gather together and learn how to interact and relate to one another in shared space.

What Can We Not Leave Behind? Storying Family Photographs, Unlocking Emotional Memories, And Welcoming Complex Conversations On Being Human, Esther Ohito

Occasional Paper Series

Everyone was startled by the flood that burst forth from my previously dry tear ducts, even me. What was supposed to be an ordinary oral presentation of a culminating assignment for Wendy Luttrell’s popular graduate school course on visual methodologies, Doing Visual Research with Children and Youth, had morphed into a strange waterworks festival starring me as the headlining performer. In addition to Wendy, a professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, the audience included Tran Templeton and several other peers who were also my fellow doctoral students at Teachers College, Columbia University.1 The course drew on …

What Grown-Ups Aren’T Thinking About: A Response To Tran Nguyen Templeton, Wendy Luttrell

Occasional Paper Series

Tran Templeton opens her article “Whose Story Is It?: Thinking Through Early Childhood with Young Children’s Photographs” with a compelling adult-child encounter. Tran and 6-year-old Saloma are viewing photographs taken of Saloma by early childhood teachers in the preschool classroom where Tran taught and conducted her research. Saloma offers a piercing analysis of “grown-ups” who neglect to consider children’s own wishes. “Maybe the people [children] don’t want you to take a picture of them when they’re like that,” Saloma cautions. But it isn’t just that adults are taking pictures that may be unwanted; what bothers Saloma is how we as …

What Stories, Like Water, Hold: A Response To Fikile Nxumalo, Debbie Sonu

Occasional Paper Series

The stories we tell carry our beliefs, our histories, and our relationships. They orient us toward particular ways of living and being, both with each other and with the natural world, and guide us into our sense of self and our encounters with difference. They describe what is made alive and what is rendered in service.

Witnessing Encounters: A Response To Nicole Ineese- Nash’S “Ontologies Of Welcoming”, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw

Occasional Paper Series

Responding to Nicole Ineese-Nash’s beautiful offerings is exhilarating and humbling. “Ontologies of Welcoming” invites us to create openings that those of us who have been educated within a Western tradition are unequipped to do. Before writing, I read Nicole’s contribution more than 10 times, unsure how to respond to it as a non-Indigenous scholar in Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and Lenapewak and Attawandaron territory. Reluctant to appropriate knowledge that isn’t mine, I was aware that not responding for fear of implicating myself in ongoing colonization would be yet another way to enact my privilege.

Ontologies Of Welcoming: Anishinaabe Narratives Of Relationality And Practices For Educators, Nicole Ineese-Nash

Occasional Paper Series

No matter which culture you belong to, or where on the planet you call home, each of us has an ethical responsibility to our first mother, the Earth. I would like to demonstrate what I have come to understand about relational ethics through Anishinaabe storywork and land-based knowledge systems as they may invite us to think differently about our relations to one another and the non-human world. Indigenous storywork is not merely fictional. Rather these stories exemplify our cultural teachings, understandings, and ways of living so that they may be carried through generations (Archibald, 2008).

Relationships At The Core: A Story Of Jonathan Silin, Lisa Farley, Gail Boldt

Occasional Paper Series

Issue 45 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series was conceived to pay tribute to Jonathan Silin for his 17 years as Editor-in-Chief, for his contributions to education through his research and publications in early childhood education, curriculum, and gender/sexuality studies, and for the remarkably generous and caring mentor, teacher, and friend he has been and continues to be to so many.

Welcoming Narratives In Education: A Tribute To The Life Work Of Jonathan Silin, Lisa Farley, Gail Boldt

Occasional Paper Series

Issue 45 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series is a labor of love. It testifies to our love for Jonathan Silin, who for 17 years served as Editor-in-Chief of the Occasional Papers. The issue is also a testament to our respect for the things that matter to him. We have designed Issue 45 to exemplify two commitments that have shaped the decades of Jonathan’s career and that we believe will resonate with readers of the Occasional Papers.

Welcoming Narratives In Education: A Tribute To The Life Work Of Jonathan Silin

Occasional Paper Series

Issue 45 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series is a labor of love. It testifies to our love for Jonathan Silin, who for 17 years served as Editor-in-Chief. The issue is also a testament to our respect for the things that matter to him. We have designed Issue 45 to exemplify two commitments that have shaped the decades of Jonathan’s career and that we believe will resonate with readers of the Occasional Paper Series.

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.

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.

New York Early Care And Education Survey: Understanding The Impact Of Covid-19 On New York Early Childhood System, Kate Tarrant, Mark Nagasawa

Straus Institute for Thriving Children & Families

This is the first in a series of reports based upon a survey conducted with 3355 early childhood educators across New York City and New York State, which sought to understand how they were faring during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020). Among the key findings were: (1) at that time the emotional stress of the pandemic was affecting respondents more than health and financial stressors; (2) Educators’ need for mental health supports exceed other areas of support requested; (3) approximately 70% were engaged in remote instruction in New York City and half were providing remote instruction …

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.

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.

Promise In Infant-Toddler Care And Education

Occasional Paper Series

This special themed issue of the Occasional Paper Series seeks to highlight and challenge assumptions about infant-toddler care and education. In the Call for Papers, we specifically asked for critical analyses of the state of the field; for contributions from practitioners, policy researchers and policymakers, teacher educators, and colleagues from international contexts to interrogate the status quo. We were not surprised, however, when the papers submitted, with one exception, came from university researchers or faculty working with students. Caregivers and teachers of the youngest children are overwhelmingly women, often with families of their own, with limited time, support, or incentives …

Introduction To The Guttman Articles, Virginia Casper

Occasional Paper Series

The Guttman Center for Early Care and Education came about through a 2016 grant from the Guttman Foundation to provide a quality professional development and support system to child care providers and practitioners in East New York, Brooklyn. The program paired coaching with Saturday workshops delivered in the community to address local community needs. Following participants’ graduation, the program initiated a learning network to promote continued peer learning (see the articles in this issue by Robin Hancock and Marjorie Brickley). Although the project has ended, the learning network—and thousands of interactions from the many relationships that were formed—remain and continue …

Preparing Infant-Toddler Professionals: A Community College’S Perspective, Jennifer M. Longley, Jennifer M. Gilken

Occasional Paper Series

Preparing professionals to work with infants/ toddlers is complex and unique because of the age group. Community colleges have an integral role in the preparation of infant/ toddler professionals, The Borough of Manhattan Community College infant/ toddler preservice program identified the following four elements to prepare professionals to deliver high-quality, relationship-based practices: (1) relationship-based program, (2) fieldwork opportunities, (3) curriculum, and (4) faculty.