Teaching & Teacher Education, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 161-178, 1996
Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
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THE DEVELOPMENT
OF EMPOWERMENT
EIGHT ELEMENTARY
IN READING
TEACHERS
INSTRUCTION
IN
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD
University of South Florida, Tampa, U.S.A.
K A R E N F. T H O M A S
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, U.S.A.
Abstract--This paper describes a qualitative study of eight teachers identified as empowered or
having become more empowered. The study focuses upon influences on and the developmental
process of teacher empowerment. Findings demonstrated that gaining empowerment is a spiraling
process in which teachers reach a point at which there is the realization that change is needed,
then seek knowledge through professional training programs and experiences, and apply this new
knowledge in making instructional changes in the classroom. Success in making changes leads to
increased levels of confidence, and often, these changes lead to leadership roles which further
enhance teacher confidence.
Maeroff (1988) identified teacher empowerment
as synonymous with professionalization and an
essential component in the improvement of
teaching and learning. Further, Ayers (1992)
suggests that teacher empowerment is necessary
in successful school restructuring and school
reform efforts. He states:
Empowerment is the heart and soul of teaching and
it cannot be done well by the weak or the faint.
There is no way for passive teachers to produce
active students, for dull teachers to inspire bright
students, for careless teachers to nurture caring
students. Should teachers be empowered?Only if we
want powerful students to emerge from our schools.
(Ayers, 1992, p. 26)
Similarly, Fagan (1989) explains that
teachers must be empowered in order to
empower, rather than disempower children. He
views dependency as an opposite of empowerment and found that because too many teachers
are dependent upon curriculum materials in
teaching reading, children are disempowered as
readers and writers (Fagan, 1989). If teacher
empowerment leads to empowerment in literacy
for children, it is important that educators thoroughly examine the processes involved in the
development of teacher empowerment.
Teacher empowerment has been defined as
confidence in personal knowledge and in the
ability to make decisions and take actions
based on personal knowledge (BarksdaleLadd, 1994; Thomas, Barksdale-Ladd, &
Jones, 1991). According to Lichtenstein,
McLaughlin, and Knudsen (1992), "the 'knowledge' that empowers teachers is not the stuff of
the weekend workshop or the after-school inservice session" (p. 41). Knowledge that
empowers teachers and allows them to engage
in their careers "with confidence, enthusiasm,
and authority is a knowledge of the teaching
profession, in the broadest sense" (Lichtenstein
et al., 1992, p. 41).
There are numerous recommendations in the
literature for strategies intended to lead to the
development of teacher empowerment. Unfortunately, few of these recommendations
161
162
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
provide suggestions for teachers on how they
might become empowered. For instance,
Lichtenstein et al. (1992) advocate establishment of higher standards for beginning teachers
as one approach to the development of teacher
empowerment. Clearly, this suggestion is of
little help to practicing teachers who wish to
become empowered.
Maeroff (1988) delineates a variety of strategies to encourage the development of
empowerment.
These
strategies involve
boosting teacher status, making teachers more
knowledgeable, and allowing teachers access
to power by providing time and opportunities
for collegiality. Likewise, Prawat (1991)
reports
that
collaborative
relationships
between teacher educators and public school
teachers can lead to the development of
empowerment. Kretovics, Farber, and Armaline (1991) suggest that teachers, parents,
community members, and administrators
should collaborate to reform schools, and
through such collaborative work, teachers will
become empowered. In a similar vein, Midgley
and Wood (1993) found that when teachers
collaborated in a site-based management plan
to make changes in school culture, the
teachers became empowered as a result.
However, the recommendations of these
authors focus upon the administrators and
teacher educators who might make such collaboration possible; thus this information is not
very helpful to teachers.
Lightfoot (1986) recommends structuring
schools to give teachers primary authority
and responsibility for school-wide decision
making. The implication is that ownership in
decision making is necessary in developing
empowerment. Again, teachers typically have
little control over the degree to which they
will be given ownership in the decisionmaking processes of their schools, so it is unlikely that these suggestions are helpful to
teachers.
Kincheloe (1991) and Houser (1990) tie the
development of empowerment to knowledge
gained through personal inquiry and suggest
that teachers can gain personal empowerment
through engaging in action research. Traditionally, teachers do not enter the profession with
an understanding, the attendant skills, and an
inclination to conduct action research. Further,
in order to pursue this path to empowerment,
teachers who are so inclined are likely to feel
that they must seek training from experts.
Situations which force teachers to seek knowledge from experts may to be disempowering
situations, at least initially.
Houston and Clift (1990) propose that
empowerment and freedom are closely related
to reflection, stating, "To reflect, an individual must not only be free to think, but also
feel empowered to think" (p. 213). They
state that legislative and administrative
mandates limit teacher empowerment and
reflection, implying that until teachers are
given freedom to make decisions based solely
upon professional judgment, it is unlikely
that teachers will become empowered or
reflective. Gitlin and Bullough (1989) examined empowerment in teacher evaluation,
suggesting that horizontal, rather than hierarchal strategies for evaluation are needed to
foster collegial relationships. In turn, these
relationships are expected to lead to developing empowerment. Again, the recommendations of Houston and Clift (1990) and Gitlin
and Bullough (1989) involve matters which
are not controlled by teachers, therefore,
these recommendations do not necessarily
provide assistance to teachers.
This body of literature leaves many questions unanswered. What if supportive
contexts were established in schools where
teachers had opportunities for ownership,
collegiality and collaboration, responsibility
for school-wide decision making, the ability
to conduct action research, and horizontal
evaluation methods? Would all the teachers
become empowered? If not, who would? Who
wouldn't? What factors would influence
levels of development in the area of empowerment for different individuals?
It is also important to point out that, in
developing a wealth of recommended strategies
and contexts to support the development of
teacher empowerment, researchers have
ignored an essential characteristic of empowerment. Empowerment is a characteristic which
individual teachers must want; it cannot be
given. In order to become empowered, teachers
must first want to gain a power in the classroom which is embodied in confidence in the
ability to make the most effective decisions for
Empowerment in Reading
their students' education and carry out the
implementation of these decisions (Ayers,
1992; Barksdale-Ladd, 1994). To understand
fully the process in which teachers develop
empowerment, it is important that we look to
those teachers considered to be empowered. It
may be that empowered teachers can inform
researchers, policy makers, administrators, and
teachers themselves in more meaningful ways
than can researchers who manipulate contexts
for the purpose of supporting the development
of empowerment. To address this issue, our
study was designed to investigate the developing characteristics of attaining empowerment
in elementary teachers. Because literacy instruction is a primary goal of elementary teaching,
our study was directed at reading instruction.
Our guiding inquiry, what does it mean to
become empowered in teaching reading?,
addressed the following specific questions: (a)
How do empowered teachers become empowered?; (b) What do empowered teachers believe
about reading and reading instruction?; and (c)
How do empowered teachers teach reading?
Design
Participants
A comparative design using empowered and
unempowered teachers was rejected due to the
implications and
ethical
considerations
inherent in identification of unempowered
teachers. Thus, we elected to identify more
empowered teachers through a process based
upon Chapter 1 teachers' (i.e., reading specialists who work with children in need of
reading skills) nominations of classroom
teachers. Because Chapter 1 teachers in a
nearby school district were involved in a
"push-in" rather than a "pull-out" reading
program (i.e., Chapter 1 teachers work "in"
the classroom with children in need of reading
skills rather than pulling them "out") and
worked daily in the classrooms with the
teachers, we reasoned that they had the
greatest awareness of teachers empowered, or
becoming more empowered in the delivery of
reading instruction. We expected that their
daily interactions with the teachers and their
observations of instruction and instructional
changes over time would provide a solid foun-
163
dation for identification of the development of
empowerment. We drafted a letter explaining
the study and providing the definition of
empowerment as "confidence in personal
knowledge and the ability to make decisions
and take actions based upon that knowledge."
We sent this letter and the accompanying
nomination form to all Chapter 1 reading
teachers, a total of 16, in a rural school
districts located in an eastern state. We asked
them to nominate classroom teachers who
matched the definition of empowerment,
particularly in terms of reading instruction.
Our letter specified that we would like nominations of teachers who were considered to
"be empowered," as well as teachers who had
"gained or grown in the area of empowerment." Each teacher was supplied with five
nomination forms, however none returned
more than one form, and no teacher was
nominated more than one time.
The teachers, representing 26 schools, nominated a total of eight teachers from eight
different schools. Their nominations provided
a one page description of ways in which nominees /fiatched the definition. If teachers felt
that no teachers in their schools matched the
definition of empowerment, they were asked to
write "none" and return the form. They were
not able to nominate themselves or other
Chapter 1 teachers. Five teachers did return
the form marked "none." Three of the teachers
did not return a nomination form.
We examined the information contained in
the nomination forms as a method of considering whether or not the eight nominated
teachers were "empowered or becoming more
empowered in the delivery of reading instruction." In each case, the Chapter 1 teachers
described teachers who had made instructional
changes in the delivery of reading instruction.
The nomination forms identified eight teachers
who had gained new knowledge and applied
their newly gained knowledge to changing
their methods of reading instruction. However,
the degree to which the teachers felt confident
in their new knowledge was unclear from the
nomination forms. All eight teachers identified
as empowered agreed to participate in this
study and we provided each a code name for
each teacher to protect participant confidentiality.
164
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
Procedure
In order to triangulate our data sources, we
conducted interviews, engaged in participant
observation in each teachers' classroom, and
kept reflective journals. We used the nomination forms completed by the Chapter 1 teachers
as a supplemental data source. Our informal,
semi-structured interviews lasting from 1 to 2
hours in length served as the primary data
source. T h e interview formats, based on the
research questions, focused on: (a) how
teachers viewed themselves as teachers and as
individuals; (b) descriptions of the process of
their development as teachers and as empowered teachers; (c) descriptions of teacher beliefs
about readers, reading, and the reading process;
and (d) approaches to reading instruction and
relationships between reading instruction and
empowerment. The interview format is included
in the Appendix. Probe questions allowed for
complete explanations and rich descriptions.
We then observed each teacher conducting
reading and language arts instruction on two
separate days after the interviews. During the
observations, we recorded field notes on
instructional practices and descriptions of
activities in which the children engaged. In a
pilot study, we found that empowerment did
not appear to be a quality directly observable
through a few short hours of participant observation; thus, we did not make empowerment a
primary focus of the observation design.
Rather, we observed for the purposes of: (a)
getting a sense of how each teacher worked
with children and (b) examining the relationship
between
how
teachers
described
conducting reading instruction and their actual
classroom practices. We conducted brief postobservation interviews to give teachers the
opportunity to discuss our observations and to
ask specific questions about lessons observed.
Interviewers recorded journal entries of
teacher perceptions and the interview process
following each interview and classroom observation. We also recorded our personal perceptions about the interviews and observations.
Journal entries helped to formalize a process
for identifying our own biases and recording
them on a regular basis during the data collection phase of the study. Additionally, journal
entries served to record events which were not
necessarily evident in the audiotaped interviews
or field notes. For example, one participant
cried during an interview and asked that the
tape recorder be turned off during this time.
The participant later stated that she was
comfortable with our reporting her emotions
and her reason for crying. The interviewer
made a written record of what she said (while
the tape recorder was off) and described the
event in a journal entry written following the
interview.
Analysis
We followed the phenomenological approach
of Hycner (1985) to the analysis of the interviews.
Written field notes, journal entries regarding
perceptions of interviews and observations, and
interview tra~,scripts comprised our data for
analysis. After the tapes were transcribed, we
began the analysis process by listening to each of
the audiotaped interviews several times while
reading the transcripts to understand the contexts
in which teachers provided information. After
reviewing transcripts in this holistic manner, we
segmented idea units into units of general
meaning. Units of general meaning were clustered around common themes or natural groupings, and we calculated intercoder reliability on
the clustering of themes. Intercoder reliability on
placement of ideas units within themes came out
at .91 on a sampling of 1000 idea units (Yin,
1987). We compiled a detailed and extensive
summary of the information gathered for each
theme, then drafted the research report based
upon both the'summaries for each individual
and the categories identified during the analysis.
As recommended by Hycner (1985), as a further
method of triangulation we shared this draft
with the teachers to assure that no misrepresentations were present. Teachers read the draft to
examine (a) the accuracy of the information and
(b) the logic of the interpretation (Whitford,
1981). Six of the teachers responded to the
summary, however they identified no inaccuracies or illogical interpretations.
Limitations
The eight teachers in this study were
caucasian and taught in a rural school
district (see Table 1 for teacher details). The
degree to which these results may be general-
Empowerment in Reading
165
Table 1
Information on Participating Teachers
Code n a m e
Years teaching
experience
Current
grade level
Degree
Gender
Karen
Nancy
Katie
Dottie
Marilyn
Anne
Jean
Joe
9
5
8
17
23
14
19
11
2
2
4
5
K
1
2
4
M.A.
M.A.
B.A.
M.Ed.
M.A.
M.A.
M.Ed.
M.A.
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
M
ized to differing populations in other settings
m a y be limited. Additionally, in previous
studies of empowerment, researchers have
manipulated teaching situations or environments in different ways in order to provide
settings which would encourage the development of empowerment. There were no such
manipulations in this study, thus the degree
to which these results are c o m p a r a b l e to
those of manipulated e m p o w e r m e n t studies
is limited.
Results
The
following eight c o m m o n
topics
followed from our interview questions and
form the basis for our data analysis: (a)
teacher perceptions a b o u t empowerment; (b)
teacher approaches to reading instruction; (c)
teacher beliefs about reading and children;
(d) childhood influences on the development
of empowerment;
(e) educational
and
teaching experience influences on the development of empowerment; (f) influences of other
professionals upon the development of
empowerment; (g) influences of inservice
training and other professional workshops
and experiences upon the development of
empowerment; and (h) the influence of
critical times in teaching upon the development of empowerment. We discuss each
theme separately, using numerous and corroborative quotes from the participants to
provide rich description. Wherever possible,
we have preserved the actual language used
in interviews in order to provide an accurate
sense of the data and to allow the voices of
the teachers.
Perceptions About Empowerment
Clearly, all teachers were genuinely pleased
by their nominations and the accompanying
reasoning provided by their colleagues. The
teachers indicated that they "were honored" to
be included in the study and impressed that
others noticed their work and viewed them as
empowered, or becoming more empowered.
Anne's response was representative. She said,
"Gosh, I didn't even know .that anyone paid
that much attention to what I do, I mean,
nobody ever tells you. It makes me feel real
good...and it feels good that someone from the
university thinks they can learn something
from me, too."
All teachers shared similar perceptions of
themselves as "empowered teachers." That is,
none of the eight teachers thought that they
"were empowered." Rather, they indicated that
they viewed themselves as engaging in the
process of becoming empowered.
They
suggested that they were more empowered
than they used to be, but they wanted to
become more empowered than they currently
were. Nancy expressed this when she said:
I'm glad that I got nominated, but I'm not really
sure that you want to interview me because I'm not
sure whether I'm empowered or not. I do a lot of
things really differently from how I used to, and I
think that I'm getting empowered, quite a bit in
fact, but I don't think I'm empowered yet. I want to
be more empowered than I am, and I think I will be
someday.
Approaches to Reading Instruction
A m o n g these eight empowered teachers,
three , approaches to reading instruction
prevailed: (a) Karen and Marilyn used a whole
166
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
language approach; (b) Nancy, Anne, Jean, and
Joe used what we term an eclectic approach;
and (c) Katie and Dottie used C I R C (Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition
Program). For a description of CIRC, see the
description of cooperative learning approaches
to reading instruction by Slavin (1987). In the
following sections, we describe each approach.
Whole language. Karen and Marilyn rejected
commercially prepared materials entirely and
centered classroom instruction on literacy activities designed to match children's interests and
needs. Karen, a second-grade teacher, discussed
how she changed her approach to reading
instruction and made it clear that her current
primary focus centered on the needs of the her
students. She said:
For too many years, | followed those [teacher's]
guides and worried and worried about the children
because they didn't enjoy reading and many of
them did so poorly and I couldn't help them....It
was really frustrating....Now, I try to constantly
pay attention to what they need at a given time.
When I can see, like through their writing, that
knowing a particular skill would help them and
make things easier for them, that's when I introduce the skill. This never happened the way I used
to teach.
Karen addressed her children's needs
through individual and cooperative readings of
authentic literature, children's journal writing
and the writing process, applications of art and
music to literacy instruction, and integration of
mathematics, science, and social studies within
literacy instruction.
Marilyn, a kindergarten teacher, had great
difficulty answering questions about "reading"
and "reading instruction," since she felt she
didn't teach reading. She said:
Well, it isn't like I stand up in front of them and
teach them how to read. I read stories to them and
we talk about them, and they write their news each
week and we read and write that, and they write
their own stories and books and we read those, but
I wouldn't say that I teach reading....I just provide
a lot of interesting opportunities to be involved in
reading and writing and the children make their
own choices about the activities they want to take
part in.
Marilyn's description closely matched our
observations. Children engaged daily in a brief
teacher-guided activity including discussions of
the date, weather, and the weekly news dictated
and read by the children. Then, the children
chose from a variety of activities, moving
freely from activity to activity. Children
selected from a daily array of reading, listening,
mathematics, manipulative, and writing activities. At the end of the half-day kindergarten
sessions, a second teacher-guided activity
engaged all children in acting out stories
written by children using puppets and other
props.
Eclectic. Nancy, Anne, Jean, and Joe took
an eclectic approach to reading instruction.
The term "eclectic," refers to instruction in
which teachers drew from a variety of sources
and methods in designing and delivering
reading instruction. All four used basal
reading program materials to some extent,
but they engaged in careful decision-making
processes regarding which basal materials
they would use and how they used them. All
used some activities which could be considered
reflective of holistic approaches to literacy
instruction,
Joe was very systematic and methodical in
his approach, and considered himself to be a
whole language teacher. Before the start of the
school year, Joe identified the skills in the
reading, language arts, spelling, mathematics,
social studies, and science teacher's guides
which he considered "essential for fourthgraders to learn." He then designed a series of
month-long themes, determining how he would
teach all of the identified essential skills across
the year using his theme-guided plan. For
example, one of the themes, "research,"
involved Joe identifying skills from each
content area which he felt could be related to
research and designing an instructional plan to
teach all of the skills. We hesitated to consider
Joe's instruction as a whole language approach
given the following: (a) he had a strong focus
on teaching individual skills in an isolated
manner, and (b) he segmented each day into
separate blocks of time for reading, spelling,
handwriting,
language arts, mathematics,
science, and social studies. On the other hand,
Joe designed m a n y creative, holistic, and integrated activities which were not skills focused.
For example, Joe involved his fourth-graders
in a book writing and publishing project in
which they interviewed first-graders to discover
Empowerment in Reading
t h e i r interests, t h e n r e s e a r c h e d these a r e a s o f
i n t e r e s t to w r i t e b o o k s f o r the first-graders.
N a n c y c a r e f u l l y selected b a s a l m a t e r i a l s a n d
employed many whole language kinds of activities. S h e said:
I'm coming closer and closer to whole language, but
I know that I'm not quite there yet. Next year I
think I'll be able to let go of the workbook entirely
and not make them do any of those workbook
pages at all .... but it's been hard to let go of them
all together because I know that the tests are
coming up and the kids will look bad if they can't
pass the tests.
Nancy combined the basal with a variety of
h o l i s t i c strategies. She d e v e l o p e d u n i t s integrating content areas with reading, writing,
a n d c h i l d r e n ' s l i t e r a t u r e f o c u s i n g u p o n child r e n ' s needs.
These children have very limited knowledge....They've never been to a big city. Pittsburgh [the
nearby city] might as well be San Francisco, or
Paris, as far as they're concerned. So I try to focus
on the things they know and build from there, like
almost all of them know about mountains and
woods and we start with reading about those things
in the early units.
W h e n we o b s e r v e d N a n c y , the l a n g u a g e arts
time block was evenly divided between basalb a s e d a n d w r i t i n g - b a s e d activities.
W h e n a s k e d a b o u t h e r a p p r o a c h to r e a d i n g
i n s t r u c t i o n , A n n e said:
I use the basal a lot, but I also use language experience a lot. At the beginning of the year, we do a
group dictated story every day, and we read these
stories together over and over. They love them! As
we progress through the year, we do less dictated
group stories and more individual dictated stories,
and then we move further and further toward
having them write their own stories.
A n n e filled h e r c l a s s r o o m w i t h stories t h a t
children had written and published. Additionally, A n n e u s e d s u s t a i n e d silent r e a d i n g e a c h
day.
A n n e also s e p a r a t e d the c h i l d r e n i n t o abilityb a s e d b a s a l r e a d i n g g r o u p s . She m e t w i t h e a c h
r e a d i n g g r o u p f o r 30 m i n u t e s e a c h d a y , t a k i n g
the children through the basal program. Anne
d i d n o t use all the r e c o m m e n d e d b a s a l activities, b u t she u s e d all the stories a n d m a n y o f
t h e skills c h a r t s a n d w o r k b o o k pages. She said:
I feel guilty about that....My principal really pressures us to use the basal and give the basal tests,
and have the children successful on the basal tests,
167
and I want my job. He checks our lesson plans and
comes by a lot and I'm not going to buck him! I had
the children in the whole group at first...but it
wasn't working because the better kids were bored
and frustrated and they caused trouble, the lower
kids were frustrated on the other end....I had these
two kids who kept crying every day in reading
and...it was reaching the point where all I had to do
was say that it was time to get the reading books
out, and, well, they would start up crying right
then...I just ended up splitting the kids up into three
reading groups. I'm embarrassed by that because I
read the magazines, like The Reading Teacher, and
they say that you shouldn't group, but it was
amazing that when I grouped them, the crying and
the frustration stopped....I guess I'm really confused
about this, more confused than I thought.
A n n e was a f r a i d t h a t h e r u n c e r t a i n t y a b o u t
u s i n g the b a s a l a n d ability g r o u p i n g d i d n o t
" r e a l l y q u a l i f y [her] as e m p o w e r e d . "
She
b e c a m e so e m o t i o n a l d u r i n g this p a r t o f the
i n t e r v i e w t h a t she s t a r t e d cry. A t this p o i n t ,
the i n t e r v i e w e r o f f e r e d h e r r e a s s u r a n c e o f the
i n t e g r i t y o f h e r feelings.
J e a n d e s c r i b e d h e r a p p r o a c h to r e a d i n g
i n s t r u c t i o n as " i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y . " She said:
My primary approach to teaching reading is the
basal, but I am very careful with it, a lot more
careful than I used to be. I decide what I will use
and what I won't use, and there is a lot that I don't
use.
J e a n p o i n t e d o u t several t i m e s t h a t m o v i n g
f r o m ability g r o u p s to w h o l e g r o u p i n s t r u c t i o n
(a r e c o m m e n d a t i o n in a r e c e n t l y a d o p t e d b a s a l
r e a d i n g p r o g r a m ) w a s a m a j o r c h a n g e for her,
a n d it was n e c e s s a r y b o t h to b e c o m e v e r y selective in c h o o s i n g basal m a t e r i a l s a n d to " s u p p l e m e n t the b a s a l w i t h m e a n i n g f u l a c t i v i t i e s . " I n
d e s c r i b i n g h o w she s u p p l e m e n t e d t h e basal,
J e a n said:
Oh, I do hundreds of things. 1 have lots of cooking
and baking activities and we write recipes and
stories, like we make gingerbread houses at
Christmas and we write our own gingerbread stories,
and we go on lots of field trips, some being just
walks through the neighborhood, and some being
more academic, like to a museum, and we do lots of
arts and crafts that use both reading and writing
and we do letter writing to different people and
companies and we write our own stories, and we
read lots of children's books. I read to them at least
once every day...and I think they're all learning to
really love reading and writing, and I get terribly
excited about that.
W h e n we o b s e r v e d J e a n , she c h o s e n o t to use
the basal, e x p l a i n i n g
168
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
I guess I felt like I had to prove to you that I really
was empowered, and I didn't think that for you to
see me doing the basal, that would show that I was
empowered. I wanted you to see the good stuff.
Jean's classroom appeared to be as m u c h a
whole language classroom as did M a r i l y n ' s
a n d K a r e n ' s classrooms. However, because she
typically used the basal p r o g r a m each day, we
identified Jean as eclectic in her approach.
CIRC. Katie a n d Dottie used the C I R C
cooperative learning a p p r o a c h for reading
instruction. C I R C is a cooperative learning
m e t h o d designed to be used with the basal
reading program. Dottie taught in a departmentalized c u r r i c u l u m structure, a n d she was
responsible for teaching reading a n d language
arts to all fifth-graders in her school in 90m i n u t e blocks. She used the C I R C a p p r o a c h
t h r o u g h o u t the day in her reading a n d language
arts instruction. Dottie said:
I love the CIRC program. I think it really keeps the
kids motivated in reading. We follow it to the
letter, so we learn all of the vocabulary and we do
all of the skills. The children read the stories to
each other in pairs, so every child reads every
story in its entirety to another child, and this is
much better than the old round robin reading
because they get so much more practice....I also
supplement. I have training in library science, and
I love children's literature, so we also read stories
which are not in the basal, and I can apply the
CIRC to that, too. We do the Junior Great Books
Series, so we get involved in a lot of reading besides
the basal
W h e n we observed Dottie, she was n o t using
the basal, b u t instead was applying C I R C to an
adolescent novel.
Similarly, Katie centered reading i n s t r u c t i o n
a r o u n d the basal using the C I R C reading
program. Katie said:
I got trained in the CIRC program last year, so this
is my second year of using it, but I've been very
pleased. The kids enjoy it much more than straight
basal reading instruction, and they like being active
and involved with others and 1 think they learn a
lot more.... I make a lot of changes in materials,
and in what 1 decide to do, based on the kids themselves. I try hard to really pay attention to them, to
what they know and what they do, and what they
need and I change a lot of things to match their
needs.
K a t i e ' s classroom reading i n s t r u c t i o n accurately m a t c h e d her description of how she
c o n d u c t e d instruction.
Summary. Teachers identified as eclectic a n d
C I R C in their reading a p p r o a c h used b o t h
basal a n d n o n b a s a l materials a n d activities,
whereas the whole language teachers used no
basal materials. However, we viewed whole
language, eclectic, a n d C I R C teachers as
similar in three f u n d a m e n t a l ways. First, they
all indicated that they paid careful a t t e n t i o n to
student needs a n d student responses to instruction a n d m a d e decisions a b o u t reading instruction based u p o n their perceptions of student
needs. Second, all of the teachers were d y n a m i c
in their approaches to reading instruction, indicating that they had m a d e m a n y changes in
their approaches to reading i n s t r u c t i o n a n d
c o n t i n u a l l y m a d e a d d i t i o n a l changes. Third, all
of the teachers were very enthusiastic a b o u t
reading instruction.
Beliefs About Reading and Children
All b u t one of the teachers responded similarly to the questions regarding beliefs a b o u t
children a n d reading. Their similar responses
fell into the following subcategory beliefs: (a)
m a k i n g reading i n s t r u c t i o n exciting a n d m e a n ingful for children will produce children who
love reading a n d become readers; (b) p o o r
readers generally have h a d less experience with
literacy than good readers, a n d with appropriate experience they can become c o m p e t e n t
readers; (c) teachers' attitudes a b o u t reading
a n d e n t h u s i a s m toward reading instruction
have a powerful effect on children's developm e n t as readers; a n d (d) all children should be
read to regularly a n d should be provided with
m a n y o p p o r t u n i t i e s to read good children's
literature. Teacher responses d u r i n g the interviews closely m a t c h e d the i n s t r u c t i o n which we
observed in the classroom.
Jean's response, both descriptive a n d representative, was:
Give me a child, and I'll teach 'em how to read. It
doesn't matter if he is rich or poor, on the free
lunch program or off, in special ed. or out, in
Chapter 1 or out, it just doesn't matter, because
they all can learn to read. They might not all turn
out to be Einsteins, but they all can learn to read. I
work as much at building good attitudes about
reading as I work at anything....I have all kinds of
exciting reading and writing experiences, and as
long as I do that, I can't imagine a child not being
able to learn to read or improve in reading.
Empowerment in Reading
Another interesting grouping within this
theme involved self-reported changes in teacher
beliefs over time. Five of the eight teachers indicated that when they began teaching, they
thought that "some kids would learn to read
well, and others wouldn't and it was just kind
of like the result of intellect and it didn't have
much to do with teaching," as Joe put it. After
the teachers began to make significant changes
in their instructional practices, they became
aware of the tremendous impact that teaching
has on the learner, and their beliefs about children and the teaching of reading began to
change. Katie said:
Before I started using CIRC, I just didn't know how
powerful different types of instruction are, and when
I saw the difference in the children, I started to see
m y job as the teacher in a whole different light....It
showed me for the first time that all of the kids
really can be successful.
Dottie's responses to these questions differed
somewhat from the other teachers. While she
stated that teachers must make reading interesting and exciting for children, and that
teacher attitudes toward reading affect children's development, she did not think that all
children could learn to read well. She said:
No, I don't think so. ! wish I could believe that all
children could become good readers, but I have had
too m u c h experience to say that I think that's true.
There are too m a n y factors that affect whether they
will read or not which are out of the teacher's
hands. The kids that we get here, most of them
don't come from homes where the parents read. I've
been to the homes, and there's not a magazine or a
newspaper or a book anywhere in the house, but
there's always the T.V. They come to expect to be
entertained the way a T.V. program entertains, and
reading is too much work, and besides, reading is
just a school thing to them. It's something that you
have to do in school, but nowhere else, and they
don't ever get to see their parents read, and their
brothers and sisters only read to do homework for
school, and they tend to hang around with other
kids like themselves, so there just isn't anything to
get these kids going with reading....I'm not
convinced that all kids can learn to read unless
there is something away from the school that means
something to them that encourages them to become
good readers.
When we observed Dottie, her differing
beliefs about reading acquisition were not
apparent in her instruction. She appeared to be
quite inspired about teaching the novel selected
for the children, and we witnessed numerous
169
instances of her modeling positive attitudes
about reading.
Childhood Influences
In examining childhood influences on
reading instruction and empowerment, we
found similarities among these teachers. No
teachers felt that aspects of their childhood
had led toward the development of empowerment, but all of the teachers felt that childhood
influences affected the way that they currently
taught reading. For example, Karen attended a
one-room school, and she felt that whole
language was similar to classroom life in a
one-room school. She loved the one-room
school and had flourished as a reader in this
environment, and she felt that she could set up
a similar environment for her students through
whole language. Nancy was a poor reader as a
child, consequently she was "put in all of these
programs to get help in reading." She felt that
she had a special affinity for children who had
difficulty learning to read, and that this affected
her ability and desire to design reading instruction which would be meaningful for these children. Similarly, each teacher told of readingrelated childhood experiences associated with
their current instructional practices.
Influences of Educational and Teaching
Experiences
All but one of the teachers, Katie, had a
master's level degree in education. Dottie,
Marilyn, and Anne had taken between 15 and
45 credit hours of graduate level coursework
beyond their master's degrees. All eight
teachers stated that their undergraduate
programs had little effect on how they
conducted reading instruction at any time in
their professional careers, and that similarly,
their undergraduate programs had not had an
effect on their development as empowered
teachers. They were able to remember very
little of what they had been taught about
reading instruction in their undergraduate
programs. For example, Joe said, "Well, they
made us learn a lot of phonics and write lesson
plans, but I don't really remember anything
about it. I don't even know who taught it.""
In discussing the effects of graduate level
training in education, two teachers, Nancy and
170
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
Marilyn, said that they had taken reading
courses in which they had learned some
methods and techniques which they had applied
in their classroom teaching. However, neither
teacher was able to specify a strategy currently
used which they learned during graduate-level
training. The remaining five teachers with graduate level degrees stated that they made no
changes in reading instruction as a result of
their graduate training. These five teachers
remembered very little about reading instruction in their graduate studies although each
had taken at least one graduate-level reading
course. These teachers also indicated that graduate-level training had no impact on their
development as empowered teachers.
Influence of Other Professionals
Responses to questions on meaningful colleagial relationship did not verify the importance
of colleagial support in developing a sense of
empowerment. Of the eight teachers, Dottie
and Nancy noted supportive colleague relationships. The other six teachers did not feel that
relationships with colleagues contributed to the
development of empowerment.
Dottie noted that one of her friends who
taught at another school at the same grade
level attended C I R C training with her and they
talked on the phone frequently. However,
teaching was not the major conversational
topic for them. Dottie said that if she ever felt
like she "was really having a problem, or was
very frustrated with a child," she might call
this friend to talk about it, but "since they
didn't teach in the same school," she would
"only call to vent her frustration."
Nancy indicated that she talked frequently
about instruction with the first-grade teacher
and the Chapter 1 teacher in her school,
because they provided support for one another.
Nancy said, "because all three of us are interested in whole language and are working to
implement as much whole language as we can,
we talk after school sometimes about what we
are doing and we share ideas." However,
Nancy did not feel that this colleagial relationship influenced her development of empowerment.
Anne indicated that her relationship with her
spouse influenced her development of empow-
erment while relationships with other teachers
had not been important. She said:
Really, it has been my husband, not them. He loves
children, and he loves it that I am a teacher, and he
always tells me that I am the teacher, and that I know
those kids better than anyone else, and that I should
do what is right for the kids. That support has a lot
more effectthan the talking with other teachers.
Influences of Professional Workshops and Other
Professional Experiences
We found involvement in programs and
workshops c o m m o n to all eight teachers in the
development of empowerment. This involvement led to three empowering aspects: confidence, changes in instructional practices, and
leadership within their schools. The following
programs were instrumental in the empowerment process: (a) C I R C training for Dottie
and Katie; (b) TESA training for Anne; (c) the
state Teachers' Academy for Jean and Joe; (d)
a week-long Whole Language Workshop for
Karen; (e) a Fulbright Exchange for Marilyn;
and (f) a series of different inservices and workshops for Nancy.
As a direct result of C I R C training, Dottie
and Katie indicated they gained a great deal of
confidence in their ability to do "new" things
in the classroom successfully. After success
with CIRC, they began to experiment with
other new methods of instruction and applications of cooperative learning. For example,
Dottle was applying C I R C to reading an
adolescent novel. Additionally, Dottie and
Katie had become "leaders" in their schools as
a result of CIRC. They had"been given opportunities to share cooperative learning methods
in their schools and other schools. The
combined effects of their success in implementing new strategies for reading instruction
and becoming school leaders led to high levels
of confidence.
Katie explained:
I think that when I first started using CIRC, I started
to becomeempoweredfor the first time because all of
the sudden I found out that I could completely
change how I taught and do it with success....I was
changing, and it was very exciting, and then I got to
go to some schools and talk to other teachers, train
them about using CIRC, and that is when I really got
more empowered.Not only was I able to change what
I did in the classroom, but I was able to teach other
teachers how they could change.
Empowerment in Reading
Anne's involvement in TESA was instrumental in the development of empowerment
for her. In this program, teachers trained in
effective teaching strategies observed other
teachers and were observed regularly by
teachers. The purpose of the observations was
to assist and provide support for incorporating
the effective teaching strategies. Through involvement in TESA, Anne learned for the first
time that what she was doing was "normal"
and that much of what she was doing was
"quite good." As a result, her confidence in
herself as a teacher increased and she felt that
she could successfully implement innovations
in the classroom. Anne said:
It seems strange now, but before I did TESA, I was
never sure, never sure about what I was doing....I
got to see that they [other TESA teachers] did the
same things I did and had the same problems, and
sometimes they really liked things I did, and they
were going to go back to their own classrooms and
try them. It was really rewarding and empowering
for me.
Anne noted that other teachers in her school
had gained respect for her saying, "That sort
of empowers you, too, when other people have
confidence in you."
Jean and Joe were selected for the state
Teachers' Academy, and their "stories" were
quite similar. Both felt that being chosen for
the Teachers' Academy had been an honor.
They said that upon arriving for the week-long
summer program, they were told that they
were among the "best and the brightest" of the
state's teachers. Like Anne, before their involvement in this program, Joe and Jean had
never been sure that they were good teachers.
Jean said:
When I was picked for the Teachers' Academy, I
thought that probably no one else in our county
had applied, and that was the only reason 1 was
chosen, but while 1 was there, I really got convinced
that I was pretty good.
Joe said:
Before the Teachers' Academy, I think I was pretty
m u c h a run of the mill, follow the book, follow the
curriculum, do what the other teachers do kind of
teacher, but after, when I came back to school the
next year, I really felt different, like I could do
whatever I wanted to do to help the kids, and
that I could do it well....I think that the Teachers'
Academy was the push that I needed to start
becoming empowered.
171
Karen had been involved in a week-long whole
language workshop which had given her the
inspiration and confidence to implement whole
language in her own classroom. She said:
I saw this pamphlet lying in the teacher's lounge
about a whole language workshop....I didn't really
even know what whole language was, but...I went
off to Boston by myself to this workshop and,
Wow! W h a t an experience! It was like they were
telling me that all of my instincts about teaching
reading were right, and everything I had been
taught and had been doing was not wrong, but not
as good as it could be, and I listened like crazy and
asked questions in meetings whenever I didn't understand, and stayed after the meetings to talk to the
presenters, and I spent lots of money on materials
and books, and I came home a n e w p e r s o n . I knew
exactly what I wanted to do.
When Karen announced in her school that
she would not be following the basal and
would be using whole language, several other
teachers felt that they should learn about
whole language and try some whole language
activities in their classrooms. Karen became a
leader in her school because she met regularly
with other teachers, informing and assisting
them in whole language.
The empowering experience for Marilyn
involved her teaching for a year in the Fulbright Exchange Program in England. She
reported that this experience led to developing
a high level of confidence in her own ability to
design and implement appropriate instruction
for young children. Since that time, she has
found herself in leadership positions often.
Marilyn said:
The Fulbright is what did it for me. It was a
wonderful experience, and it was one of those
things where you just go off and figure it out as you
go along. I was a lead teacher over there and I got
to do a lot of things, and this had a big impact, and
I came back here with a lot more confidence than I
ever had before....It's really important to read the
journals, because they keep you up to date, and it's
great when you read something, and you think,
"Gee, that's not new. I've been doing that for a
long time." Probably my Fulbright, and my reading
and keeping up with things and doing what I believe
is best for the children, that got me started and keeps
me moving in being empowered.
Nancy was somewhat different from the
other teachers in that she did not specify one
particular program, workshop, or experience
which had an impact on her developing
empowerment. Nancy said:
172
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
I think that the workshops have been the thing. I
finished my Master's in reading last year, and I
knew that...l had to change what I was doing in
reading. Getting my Master's was great...but it
didn't teach me how to change what I was doing
and make it better....l started going to these workshops, mostly whole language workshops because 1
heard a lot about whole language in my Master's,
but I never heard h o w you do it, and the workshops
started making a difference. Like, I would pick up a
few ideas in a workshop and I would ask questions
about how to use them, and then 1 would come
back to the classroom and try them....I think I feel
a lot more comfortable in workshops [than classes].
They teach you something new to do to change
your instruction, and they are willing to make it
specific and a lot of them, they care whether you do
it or not...care enough that they'll say "you can
call," or they'll come back if there are questions....The more workshops I've gone to, and the
more new things I've been able to do, the more
empowered I've started to be.
Nancy indicated that other teachers in her
school knew that she had made a variety of
changes in her instruction, and they had begun
to come to her for help in solving problems
and creating ideas. Although she assumed no
"formal" leadership role, Nancy viewed herself
as a leader in her school.
In summary, all teachers participated in
programs or workshops resulting in new knowledge and strategies for changing classroom
instruction.
These
programs/workshops
inspired confidence and the teachers found
themselves successfully applying new knowledge and making changes. This success led to
higher levels of confidence, which in turn led
to more changes. As a result, all of the teachers
became leaders or began to perceive themselves
as leaders after their involvement in these
professional learning experiences.
The Influence of Critical Times in Teaching
Another common empowering event for all
eight teachers occurred when they reached
points in their careers impelling them to
change. Using Karen's words, we termed these
points "critical" times in teaching. She said:
It was that I had reached a point, a really important
and critical point for me, where I really simply
could not go on doing what I was doing. For year
after year I had been dealing with discipline
problems which I knew were the result of the fact
that the instruction was so boring and meaningless
for the children, but I just kept doing the same
thing each year. 1 think I knew that if 1 didn't
change what I was doing I couldn't stay in teaching
in the long run....I needed some vehicle, something
to show me h o w to make those changes. It was just
critical that I change at that point.
Similarly, Joe stated, "I was really frustrated....It was an odd time for me because it
seemed that nothing was right in my life, but
at the same time nothing was wrong. I needed
to be able to change, to make things different."
When these teachers reached their personal
critical times, they sought professional learning
experiences in the form of workshops and
programs designed to assist teachers in making
changes. They embraced new information.
Jean discussed embracing new information
received in her program and questioned the
relationship between critical times in teaching
and workshops/programs which empower. She
said:
You know, I have been teaching forever, it seems
like, and I have been to hundreds, maybe a thousand
workshops....They sure didn't make me empowered.
But I think I was different. I had become uncomfortable....l can say that the Teachers' Academy
empowered me, but l ' m still not sure that it was the
Teachers' Academy because I was so different, that
I probably should say it was the time I was going
through as much as the academy that helped me
start to change and start to get more empowered.
Discussion
In the study, we sought to examine what is
involved in the process of becoming empowered
in teaching reading. Specifically, we sought to
inquire into the: (a) influences on the development of empowerment in the teaching of
reading; (b) the beliefs about children, reading,
and reading instruction held by empowered
teachers; and (c) the approaches used by
empowered teachers in the design and delivery
of reading instruction.
Most recommendations for increasing levels
of teacher empowerment in the past have not
contained suggestions to teachers who might
wish to become more empowered. Our results
indicate that gaining empowerment is a spiraling process. First, a teacher reaches a point
at which there is the realization that change is
needed. Then, this teacher seeks knowledge,
through professional training programs and
experiences. Next, the teacher applies this new
knowledge and makes -instructional changes in
Empowerment in Reading
the classroom. Success in making these changes
leads to increased levels of confidence. Often,
these changes lead to leadership roles and
responsibilities which enhance teacher confidence. The process spirals in that teachers
continue to seek new knowledge and new classroom changes over time. Understanding this
process may provide teachers who wish to
become more empowered a framework for
getting started.
In our study, some of the teachers' experiences fell outside existing descriptions of
supportive influences upon the development of
empowerment reviewed at the outset of this
study, and other experiences
fit the
descriptions. Maeroff (1988) suggested that
boosting teacher status and making teachers
more knowledgeable aid in the development of
empowerment.
Similarly, Harris-Sharpies,
Kearns, and Miller (1989), Kretovics et al.
(1991), and Midgley and Wood (1993), found
that teachers began to feel empowered through
programs which valued teachers and involved
them in school leadership. Clearly, through the
professional programs they selected to be
involved in, these teachers gained knowledge
allowing them to take risks and make instructional changes. Consequently, their status
changed as they assumed leadership roles.
Kincheloe (1991) and Houser (1990) advocate that empowerment is gained through
personal inquiry and recommend that teachers
engage in action research. Although not
engaged in "formal" action research, we found
that these teachers were informally engaged in
developing personal knowledge through their
personal inquiry. They successfully changed
their classroom practices through personal
inquiry thereby benefiting both themselves and
their students. Successful change played an
important role in their development of empowerment because their success led to confidence.
These eight teachers did not corroborate the
assertion from the work of Lightfoot (1986)
that ownership in school-wide decision-making
processes is necessary in the development of
empowerment. The empowered teachers in this
study never discussed decision making from a
school-wide perspective, however, we found
their decision making reflective of their
students' needs and interests through the selection of appropriate instructional practices and
173
materials. So, taking ownership over decisionmaking processes in individual classrooms did
appear to be related to the development of
empowerment.
Likewise, these teachers did not back up
Houston and Clift's (1990) suggestions that
empowerment calls for teachers being freed
from administrative and legislative mandates
to make decisions based upon professional and
reflective judgment if they are to become
empowered or reflective. These eight teachers
were quite reflective in their decision-making
processes about instruction even though they
had not been freed from the constraints of legislative or administrative mandates. In fact, most
demonstrated that they had reflected seriously
upon legislative and administrative mandates.
For example, Joe talked at length about the
reflective process in which he had engaged. He
explained:
I am always, and I mean always, constantly,
thinking about that, figuring out, exactly how far I
could go in ignoring what is expected by the state
and the county to make sure I meet the needs of the
kids, while still making sure that I don't make
anyone around here too mad at me. It's like walking
a tightrope every day, but it has been worth it for
the kids, and for me, too.
Based on the responses of these teachers, we
take the position that complete freedom from
administrative and legislative mandates may
not be necessary in the development of empowerment. A t the same time, we noted that
freedom from such mandates would have
allowed the teachers to reflect more upon the
needs of their students, thereby spending less
time pondering the degrees to which they
could ignore or circumvent compliance with
mandates.
Maeroff (1988) and Winograd (1989) suggest
that opportunities must be provided for
teachers to establish supportive colleague relationships in order for empowerment to develop.
Based on teacher responses regarding colleagial
relationships, we found that collaborative relationships did not play a significant role in the
development of empowerment for these
teachers. Because these teachers participated in
professional development programs with other
teachers, we submit they did not develop
empowerment in isolation. However, they did
not cite supportive colleague relationships as
174
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
empowering, despite an extensive line of questioning regarding such relationships.
The lack of supportive collegial relationships
could be a rural school phenomenon. The
rural schools in which these teachers worked
offered few opportunities for collaboration.
Planning periods typically did not occur at
times when other teachers had planning
periods. For example, in Jean's school, there
were four teachers. Jean taught second-grade
and there was a first-second combination,
third fourth combination, and a fifth-sixth
combination classroom. Art, music, and P.E.
teachers came to the school once a week, so
Jean had three planning periods, but no other
teachers had planning periods at the same
time. In small schools where teachers do not
have opportunities to meet and talk with one
another, it may be particularly difficult to
establish collaborative teaching relationships.
Another teacher, Marilyn, taught in a Professional Development School which was
currently engaged in a restructuring process in
collaboration with the university. It might be
expected that a teacher in a school involved in
restructuring would have developed some collaborative and supportive relationships. As
Marilyn described her school, this did not
appear to be the case. Marilyn's critical time,
when she began to become empowered as a
result of a Fulbright Exchange program, was
in the early 1980s. Marilyn indicated that she
had been engaged in a process of becoming
more and more empowered for over 10 years.
According to Marilyn, she had moved far
beyond her peers in terms of professional development. She did not feel that they were interested in what she had to offer, nor was she
interested in what they had to offer. It is
reasonable that teachers in situations like
Jean's and Marilyn's might not have developed
close and supportive colleague relationships.
Thus, we do not take the position that supportive colleague relationships are necessary for
empowerment to develop. Based on the results
of this study, we question both the role and
the significance of colleague relationships in
developing empowerment and recommend
further research in examining empowerment in
a variety of educational settings.
Our second inquiry examined empowered
teachers' beliefs about children, reading, and
reading instruction. All eight teachers believed
that teachers' attitudes and enthusiasm toward
reading had a powerful impact on children's
development as readers, and that reading to
children and providing opportunities for
reading literature at school were imperatives in
a sound reading program. All but one of these
teachers believed that making reading instruction exciting and meaningful for children will
motivate children to learn to love reading.
Allington (1991) argued that teacher beliefs
drive reading instruction. Based upon both
interviews and observations, our findings
suggest that development of empowerment
paralleled the development of positive teacher
beliefs about how children learn to read.
Teachers appeared to go through a process in
which they viewed all learning to take place
outside the student and teacher working
together. Rather, teachers viewed the materials
and the accomplishment of some curriculum
on the part of students as literacy instruction.
Teachers covered the curriculum and students'
abilities either helped them through or failed
them. Teacher descriptions of their own
change processes indicated that they moved
from being teachers who were dependent,
compliant, and teacher/materials centered, to
becoming teachers who were more empowered
and child centered. This process then meant
making decisions based upon perceived
students' needs and matching these needs with
interactions among teacher instruction, methodology, and materials. Simultaneously, changes
in beliefs and practices accompanied the move
to child-centered instruction and empowerment.
Our third area of inquiry focused upon
teacher approaches to reading instruction.
These empowered teachers used a variety of
approaches in their design and delivery of
reading instruction including whole language,
eclectic, and cooperative learning approaches.
The whole language teachers rejected the use
of commercially prepared materials while the
other six selectively used these materials in
conducting reading instruction. Of the teachers
who used the basal programs, none followed
the recommendations in a technical, step-bystep manner. These teachers carefully made
decisions about what materials to use and not
use based upon the needs of the children.
Empowerment in Reading
According to Duffy (1991), when teachers are
becoming empowered, they use conceptual
selectivity by controlling instruction in selecting
the materials to be used, organizing the curriculum, and designing the instruction. All eight
teachers actively engaged in making decisions
which led to literacy instruction enriched
beyond technical basal-based instruction.
Through the study, we concluded that
empowerment could be most meaningfully
understood when placed on a continuum.
These teachers made it clear that empowerment
is a process, not an outcome, as has been
pointed out by Brown (1992) and Ayers
(1992). We found that the use of the isolated
terms "teacher empowerment" and "empowered teachers," inherently included an implication that empowerment is an outcome. In
many ways, the perception of empowerment as
an outcome is a way of perpetuating a system
in which researchers and teacher educators are
at the top, in the "cult of the expert" (Kincheloe, 1991, p. 20) and teachers are at the
bottom. Much has been written about the need
for teachers to become empowered, but these
teachers had no way of knowing when or
whether they have reached that goal. At any
stage in this process they were likely to view
themselves as becoming empowered--more
empowered than they used to be, but not as
empowered as they wanted to be. They
concluded that they must not have yet reached
the goal of becoming empowered, since they
desired to be more empowered than they were.
As a result of this perception, these teachers
placed themselves in a subservient role to
researchers and teacher educators.
It is essential that teacher educators and
researchers send teachers the message that
empowerment is a process. Empowerment is
not a characteristic of which persons can be
devoid, in the same way that self-esteem is not
a characteristic of which persons can be
devoid. Rather, both empowerment and selfesteem are attributes that all people possess in
some degree. Dependency or compliancy may
be viewed at one end of the continuum and
empowerment at the other, as suggested by
Fagan (1989) and Barksdale-Ladd (1994).
Further, we must emphasize a related point,
that becoming more empowered does not
mean losing the sense of uncertainty. Uncer-
175
tainty is clearly a fact of teaching. Fraatz
(1987) discusses this concept as "professional
uncertainty" in teaching. Duffy (1991) discusses
it in terms of the ability of teachers who are
becoming empowered to tolerate "ambiguity."
The teachers in this study were disturbed when
they discussed the fact that they were often
uncertain about how they taught reading, and
sure that they needed to make changes. Their
perception was that, as teachers who had been
identified as being empowered, they ought to
have a lot more answers than they had. Anne
most notably demonstrated this when she cried
over her concerns about using basal materials
and ability groups. Anne's perception was
that, as university reading instructors
conducting research, we would not view a
person who used the basal and separated the
class into ability groups as being empowered.
She said, "I was almost afraid that you would
decide that I wasn't empowered and not even
finish the interview." Similarly, Jean was apologetic about her use of a basal program and
would not use the basal to conduct reading
instruction ix;' the usual manner when we
observed her. Jean felt that using the basal in
conducting reading instruction would not
enhance our perceptions of her level of empowerment. In order to dispel perceptions that
empowerment means the loss of uncertainty, it
is important that researchers and teacher
educators make clear that all educators (themselves included) live with uncertainty regarding
their teaching. This uncertainty may be used as
a tool to lead us continually toward seeking
solutions and improving instruction.
Two related perceptions held by the teachers
in this study surfaced: (a) closely following
basal programs is not the best practice in
teaching reading and (b) empowered teachers
are examples of those using the best of practices
in teaching. Because they held these perceptions, the teachers who used basals were embarrassed and felt that they might not actually be
empowered. It may be important for
researchers to work at sending the message
that a teacher's choice of materials to be
utilized in the delivery of instruction is not
necessarily a significant issue in empowerment.
More crucial issues in empowerment should
address changing instructional practices and
developing increasing levels of conceptual selec-
176
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
tivity in making decisions about instruction and
materials.
The results of this study lead to further
questions about developing empowerment.
First, what is it about the professional experiences in which these teachers engaged that led
to the development of empowerment?
Secondly, how important are these professional experiences in the development of
empowerment? Involvement in professional
experiences provided the impetus for these
teachers, but these experiences were not the
key to the development of empowerment.
When sharing this study with a group of
teachers, one responded to the results with
great surprise. She said,
Well, I've taken CIRC (Cooperative Integrated
Reading and Composition), and TESA, and I've
been to plenty of other workshops, and they sure
didn't have that effect on me. I want to be empowered, and I've taken all of those programs, but I'm
not empowered.
Surely, there are many hundreds of other
teachers who have been involved in these and
similar programs but who did not find themselves progressing in the process of becoming
empowered as a result. We maintain that the
key involves teachers reaching a critical time in
their professional careers at which they want
and need to make changes in their approaches
to teaching, and in finding success in making
changes. Supporting teachers in reaching
critical points and finding success in the
change process may be important roles for
teacher educators.
How did these teachers reach their critical
times, and can teacher educators play a role
in encouraging teachers to reach a critical
time? We discovered the descriptions of critical
times in teaching during data analysis procedures; thus it was too late for an examination
of this issue. Further research is needed. One
teacher, Nancy, indicated that her Master's
degree program in reading raised many questions for her, and that she graduated from the
program knowing that she needed to change,
but not knowing how to change. This was
Nancy's critical time, and it led her to seek
professional experiences to assist her in finding
ways of actually making changes. It may be
that teacher education programs can lead
teachers to reach critical times. Also, some
teachers may be much more likely to reach
critical times than others.
A burning question for teacher educators to
grapple with is: Why is it that teacher education
programs at both undergraduate and graduate
levels appear to have virtually no influence upon
the development of empowerment? Duffy (1991)
finds that through the expectations set by reading
researchers and educators, teachers are disempowered rather than empowered. When reading
educators place themselves above teachers with
expectations about what teachers need to know
and what teachers need to do in courses and
other interactions, they imply possession of valuable knowledge to be sparingly passed down to
teachers. As we "pass this knowledge down" in
our classes, we also send the message that it is
important that we evaluate the degree to which
teachers have learned and can use the knowledge
we share. When we consider the development of
empowerment, it is particularly important, as
Duffy (1991) pointed out, to let teachers know
that we dofi't know all the answers and that
appropriate answers in teaching are largely
dependent upon circumstances. If we are to play
a role in the development of teacher empowerment, it is essential that researchers and teacher
educators begin to move toward partnerships
and collaboratives to learn with teachers rather
than assume roles as superiors who pass knowledge down.
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178
MARY ALICE BARKSDALE-LADD and KAREN F. THOMAS
empowered teacher? (If so, tell me
about those experiences.)
• Master's
Degree--Where--When-Memories of training in area of reading
instruction
• Do you think that there were experiences during your Master's program
which led to your development as an
empowered teacher? (If so, tell me
about those experiences.)
• Any other formal education experiences
which had an impact on your development in becoming empowered? (If so,
tell me about those experiences.)
• Are there any informal educational
experiences which have had an impact
on your development in becoming
empowered? (If so, tell me about those
experiences.)
6. Teaching
• Number of years experience
• What experiences during your life as a
classroom teacher have led you toward
empowerment?
• Have there been particular individuals-individuals you have taught
with, individuals you have taken
courses from, individuals away from
the school 'setting, or authors whose
work you have appreciated, who have
had a big impact on your development
as a teacher? Tell me about your
relationships with these people, or how
they had this impact on you.
Do you have colleagues who have been
particularly supportive of you as a
teacher and who may have supported
your development as a teacher? Tell me
about your relationships with these
people.
To what degree do you think that these
supportive relationships have had an
impact on the development of empowerment for you?
I've asked a lot of questions about
experiences that may have supported
the development of empowerment for
you. Are there areas in which you feel
that you are not empowered? How do
you feel about this? Are there experiences or aspects of your life which have
tended to keep you from becoming
empowered? (If so, what were they,
and describe them for me.)
Submitted 16 November 1994
Accepted 8 June 1995