Becoming Readers of Children:
Promoting Powerful Learning Communities
for all Students
Sonia Nieto
Literacies of Teaching
American University
March 2010
Framework for understanding quality education
for all students
Sociopolitical
context of schools
and society
(ideological/institutional)
Personal values
and commitments
Comprehensive
school reform
Sociopolitical context
• Societal level:
– Who counts?
• Who has access to education? health care? employment?
housing?
• Who can speak their native language in the community? at work?
– What counts?
• Whose language is “standard”?
• Whose lifestyle is “normal”?
• School level:
– How do school policies and practices benefit some students
over others? (curriculum, pedagogy, disciplinary policies, hiring
practices, parent outreach, etc.)
– Ex, Curriculum: Whose knowledge counts?
• What knowledge does the curriculum reflect?
• Whose perspective is represented?
• Who benefits? Who loses?
Becoming anti-racist
teacher leaders
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Asking “profoundly multicultural questions”
Redefining quality education for all students
Becoming anti-racist educators
Promoting powerful learning communities
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Teaching as solidarity
Teaching as advocacy
Teaching as sociocultural mediation
Teaching as political work
• Challenging conventions
• Becoming readers of students
Asking “profoundly
“profoundly multicultural
multicultural questions”:
questions”
Asking
• Who’s taking calculus? physics? Are there enough
labs for all students?
• Is the bilingual (ESL, ELL, or special education)
program in the basement? (hall closet?under the
stairway? next to the boiler?)
• What are our children worth?
• Who’s teaching the children?
Becoming advocates:
defining quality education
Access
Equity
Anti-racist, anti-bias education
Not simply celebratory
Changes the “canon” to be more inclusive,
truthful, and representative
Inclusive of biases other than racial (gender,
language, social class, sexual orientation, etc.)
Anti-racist, anti-bias education
Confronts racism and other biases directly
through content, approaches, and pedagogy:
Welcomes “dangerous discourse”
Teaches young people skills in combating bias
Pays attention to how some students benefit over others
in school policies and practices
Anti-racist education is for all students
• Not just for “urban,”
“minority,” “at risk,”
“disadvantaged”
students
• All students have
been miseducated,
although in different
ways
Pervasive
o Not a specific subject matter, unit, class, or teacher
o Not just ethnic tidbits, holidays, festivals, or fairs
A philosophy;
a way of thinking
about the world
Anti-racist education and
critical pedagogy
• Recognizes that
knowledge is neither
neutral nor apolitical
and that every
educational decision is
a political decision
• Teaches students to
question, explore, and
critique
• Helps teachers and
students understand
different perspectives
• Helps students and
teachers move beyond
their partial (and
therefore) limited
experiences
• Not about “political
correctness,” but about
affirmation and respect
for all students of all
backgrounds
becoming readers of students
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Through solidarity
Through advocacy
Through sociocultural mediation
Through political work
becoming readers of students through
Solidarity
At my undergraduate college, I
was in the majority. That was
mostly who was in the program:
White women who were native
speakers of English. But in the
BEM Summer Program, out of
30 students, there were a
handful of native English
speakers…
Mary Cowhey
Becoming readers of students
through solidarity: bill dunn
Coming out of the closet as a
Spanish speaker
In my work, I often act as a bridge
between different cultures. Part of
my evolution as a teacher has been
in self defense: I have learned to
make my life easier by making life
easier for my students; but another,
greater part of my experience has
been a deep curiosity and yearning to understand the
lives of my students. In my struggle to understand, I
have learned not only a great deal about my students,
but also about myself…
becoming readers of students through
advocacy
I teach because I believe that
young people have rights,
including the right to their
identities and their languages…
This has meant that I’ve had to
engage in many struggles to
retain bilingual education {a
right that was eradicated in
2002 when the voters of
Massachusetts supported the
elimination of bilingual
education through a ballot
initiative)…
Ambrizeth Lima:
Teaching is about
power. That is why it
must also be about
social justice.
becoming readers of students through
sociocultural mediation
I'm a White, middle-class woman
who grew up in a White, middleclass neighborhood and went to
a White middle-class college. I
know if I was really going to
teach today’s kids, I had a lot to
learn…
Mary Ginley
Defining Sociocultural Mediation
Our responsibility is to meet
them where they are and
take them someplace else,
and have them carry who
they are along with them.
Mary Ginley
becoming readers of students by
challenging conventions
“When did a certain form of
grammar become ‘correct’? Who
named the language of the elite as
‘correct’, as the standard?
They did, of course. But why not
call it ‘Upper-class Dominating
English’ instead of ‘Standard
English’? That authentic naming
would reveal, instead of obscure,
the politics of power and language
in society.”
Paulo Freire
Shor & Freire, 1987
becoming readers by learning from
students
Only as learners
recognize themselves
democratically and see
that their right to say “I
be” is respected, will they
become able to learn the
dominant grammatical
reasons why they should
say “I am.”
Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers:
Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, 1998
Reading the class
“You write about ‘reading the class.’
I guess I jump the gun. Part of how I
address my fear about the first day of
school is to face it, as you suggest. I
spend the week before the first day of
school visiting my students’ homes,
meeting with the students and their
families…”
Mary Cowhey
be anti-racist teacher leaders and
readers of students
•
•
•
•
Ask “profoundly multicultural questions”
Redefine quality education for all students
Become anti-racist educators
Promote powerful learning communities
– Through solidarity
– Through advocacy
– Through sociocultural mediation
• Recognize that teaching is always political work
• Become readers of students by recognizing,
appreciating, and using their talents and strengths