Sheri Leafgren | Miami University (original) (raw)

Papers by Sheri Leafgren

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018

Global Studies of Childhood, 2016

In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that d... more In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that distorts the bodied humanity of schoolchildren. The intent of this article is to make more visible and so, more actionable, the school structures that devalue and oppress the spirited needs and desires of schoolchildren. This article is directed toward examining the nature of schooling as manifested in the day-to-day lives of children while looking askance at the under-challenged state of those school-lives. Relevant to every aspect of our lives, the potential conflict between rule-following and morally/humanly motivated disobedience is a major theme in this work, leading us to consider the spiritual aspects of childhood—such as wonder, joy, and being in the moment—and how they can be repressed, even denied, by the often arbitrary exercises of power and control inherent in schoolrooms. In this article, classroom-based narratives will rhizomatically meander and intersect with/in a diverse range of texts (including George Leonard’s discussion of the rogue, Hesse’s poetry, Batman Begins, and lyrics of Tupac Shakur) in ways that resist the structures of schooling that serve to assimilate us into a collective consciousness of docility.

Here is a challenge to the "rage for order" in elementary schools and classrooms as a C... more Here is a challenge to the "rage for order" in elementary schools and classrooms as a Cartesian mind/body duality is translated in school-actions designed to control the child's body and separate it from the day-to-day school life. While the urgent ordering might be well-intentioned"”to focus on academics, to keep property and people safe"”it overlooks a fundamental element of human teaching and learning: that contact is vital to body, mind and spirit. While the practices seeking to sever mind from body involve all of the senses, it is the sense of touch that is most impacted by schooling's obsession to coerce, bribe, and threaten children to "keep hands, feet, and other objects to your self." And because ultimately, the severance of body separates "I and thou""”it is the spirit that suffers.

Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 2004

Global Studies of Childhood, 2013

This article presents an examination of the classroom milieu as a means to engage with children&#... more This article presents an examination of the classroom milieu as a means to engage with children's [nomads’] becomings in alliance with associated milieus of others – objects and persons. In the milieu of the classroom the child is becoming student/nomad, and the adult is becoming teacher/State. As the child is nomad in this milieu, it follows that s/he would resist the restrictive implications of shifting identity from child to student (especially the ‘good’ student), manifesting a nomadic penchant for creating lines of flight and resisting the restrictive techniques of power that the school-State serves to impose. The child co-creates and then resists a dynamic milieu especially via situated and moving objects/markers: the school desk/seat, the carpet, and especially the pencil. The classroom as a Deleuzoguattarian place concept is always changing and mutating, and this article is a sort of nomadography revealing and constructing alternative lines of flight that will provoke us...

Over forty years ago, Howard Zinn identified the problem as not one of civil disobedience, but of... more Over forty years ago, Howard Zinn identified the problem as not one of civil disobedience, but of civil obedience. He confronted the problem of remaining obedient to laws and rules even "in the face of the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty." Framed in an early childhood context, this article explores the value of events of young children's classroom disobediences (civil and not), layered upon elements of Zinn's body of work that examines the role disobedience plays in the human potential to contribute to the common good. It is apparent that children find ways to function as "good"-as in kind, generous, contributing, skeptical, thoughtful, and courageous members of society even in the face of narrow, stingy, and mindless schooled notions of goodness as compliance to prevailing rules of order. In the spirit of the hopefulness that Zinn never abandoned-the lens on these children's moments of disobedience is directed away f...

Educating the Young Child

This chapter recognizes and challenges a dominant narrative that children’s academic/school stori... more This chapter recognizes and challenges a dominant narrative that children’s academic/school stories are limited to what can be calculated, charted, and ranked. It suggests that we instead attend to children’s testimonies and counterstorytelling of their own academic/school stories in order to disrupt the essentializing and deficit narratives that children are taught to believe and name as their own. In this project, counter-storytelling frames the testimonies of children as curriculum. Counterstorytelling is a methodological component of Critical Race Theory (CRT) that challenges dominant narratives and truths by centering the voices and lived experiences of marginalized groups—in this case, children—whose stories of how they experience and co-create their school lives have been suppressed. From the children’s counternarratives emerge qualities of experience that reflect social patterns of what Marx terms “estranged labor” in the context of schooled/capitalist modes of production. The chapter concludes with examples of lived/living curriculum emerging from rich counternarratives that represent children’s knowledges and wonderings and deep intelligences.

Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Oct 1, 2011

Framing this Perspectives question was itself a passionate, inspiring, and engaging process. We... more Framing this Perspectives question was itself a passionate, inspiring, and engaging process. We turned toward the spiritual, moral, and theological dimensions of human experience with vibrant interest in the depth of wisdom available in such discourses, and ...

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018

"Professionalism was basically a ton of petty shit, nothing ever to do with standing up for child... more "Professionalism was basically a ton of petty shit, nothing ever to do with standing up for children in the face of harmful rules, curriculum, other teachers, administrators, etc. It was basically how to comply." As the student quoted here makes clear, a "professional" teacher must learn to comply, even when doing so does harm to children. This article serves to disrupt the narrow and striated notions of professionalism promoted in many teacher education programs-notions that beg clarity on what is really believed about teaching, children, and what really matters. In school(ed) places, accepting-even welcoming-constraints and blinders that serve to sustain the broader injustices, inequities, and ignorance that infect society is common practice and is often shrouded in the cloak of professionalism. In examining the consequences of compliance disguised as professionalism, it becomes clear that what is necessary to reimagine school places is a nomadic and radical non-compliance. Radicalizing a teacher's professional life requires deep inquiry, skepticism, integrity, and a nomad's willingness to challenge and disrupt. Included in this article are examples of critique in the context of reimagining school spaces as spaces of joy, generosity, and justice; of creative maladjustments in the face of mundane mandates; and of the ways in which teachers can radically and nomadically non-comply in order smooth the striations of school(ed) spaces.

Global Studies in Early Childhood, 2016

In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that d... more In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that
distorts the bodied humanity of schoolchildren. The intent of this article is to make more visible
and so, more actionable, the school structures that devalue and oppress the spirited needs and
desires of schoolchildren. This article is directed toward examining the nature of schooling as
manifested in the day-to-day lives of children while looking askance at the under-challenged state
of those school-lives. Relevant to every aspect of our lives, the potential conflict between rulefollowing
and morally/humanly motivated disobedience is a major theme in this work, leading us to
consider the spiritual aspects of childhood—such as wonder, joy, and being in the moment—and
how they can be repressed, even denied, by the often arbitrary exercises of power and control
inherent in schoolrooms. In this article, classroom-based narratives will rhizomatically meander
and intersect with/in a diverse range of texts (including George Leonard’s discussion of the rogue,
Hesse’s poetry, Batman Begins, and lyrics of Tupac Shakur) in ways that resist the structures of
schooling that serve to assimilate us into a collective consciousness of docility.

Rethinking Readiness in Early Childhood Education, 2015

Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies, 2010

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018

Global Studies of Childhood, 2016

Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 2004

Global Studies of Childhood, 2013

Educating the Young Child

Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Oct 1, 2011

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2018

Global Studies in Early Childhood, 2016

In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that d... more In many primary school classrooms, there exists a casual tyranny of control and separation that
distorts the bodied humanity of schoolchildren. The intent of this article is to make more visible
and so, more actionable, the school structures that devalue and oppress the spirited needs and
desires of schoolchildren. This article is directed toward examining the nature of schooling as
manifested in the day-to-day lives of children while looking askance at the under-challenged state
of those school-lives. Relevant to every aspect of our lives, the potential conflict between rulefollowing
and morally/humanly motivated disobedience is a major theme in this work, leading us to
consider the spiritual aspects of childhood—such as wonder, joy, and being in the moment—and
how they can be repressed, even denied, by the often arbitrary exercises of power and control
inherent in schoolrooms. In this article, classroom-based narratives will rhizomatically meander
and intersect with/in a diverse range of texts (including George Leonard’s discussion of the rogue,
Hesse’s poetry, Batman Begins, and lyrics of Tupac Shakur) in ways that resist the structures of
schooling that serve to assimilate us into a collective consciousness of docility.

Rethinking Readiness in Early Childhood Education, 2015

Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies, 2010

STEM of Desire Queer Theories and Science Education, 2019

STEM of Desire: Queer Theories and Science Education locates, creates, and investigates intersect... more STEM of Desire: Queer Theories and Science Education locates, creates, and investigates intersections of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and queer theorizing. Manifold desires—personal, political, cultural—produce and animate STEM education. Queer theories instigate and explore (im)possibilities for knowing and being through desires normal and strange. The provocative original manuscripts in this collection draw on queer theories and allied perspectives to trace entanglements of STEM education, sex, sexuality, gender, and desire and to advance constructive critique, creative world-making, and (com)passionate advocacy. Not just another call for inclusion, this volume turns to what and how STEM education and diverse, desiring subjects might be(come) in relation to each other and the world.

STEM of Desire is the first book-length project on queering STEM education. Eighteen chapters and two poems by 27 contributors consider STEM education in schools and universities, museums and other informal learning environments, and everyday life. Subject areas include physical and life sciences, engineering, mathematics, nursing and medicine, environmental education, early childhood education, teacher education, and education standards. These queering orientations to theory, research, and practice will interest STEM teacher educators, teachers and professors, undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, policy makers, and academic libraries.

Contributors are: Jesse Bazzul, Charlotte Boulay, Francis S. Broadway, Erin A. Cech, Steve Fifield, blake m. r. flessas, Andrew Gilbert, Helene Götschel, Emily M. Gray, Kristin L. Gunckel, Joe E. Heimlich, Tommye Hutson, Kathryn L. Kirchgasler, Michelle L. Knaier, Sheri Leafgren, Will Letts, Anna MacDermut, Michael J. Reiss, Donna M. Riley, Cecilia Rodéhn, Scott Sander, Nicholas Santavicca, James Sheldon, Amy E. Slaton, Stephen Witzig, Timothy D. Zimmerman, and Adrian Zongrone.

This book offers a lens on two kindergarten classrooms, examining moments of disobedience as chil... more This book offers a lens on two kindergarten classrooms, examining moments of disobedience as children interact with children, their teachers, and the space and time elements of the classroom environments. Through Eisner’s educational criticism, author Sheri Leafgren also examines the elements of school, kindergarten and teachers within the spaces of their intersections with the children. While past research has directed our attention to addressing the problem of classroom disobedience, Leafgren provides an opportunity and means to view these familiar actions through fresh lenses of possibilities. Predicated by an event in the researcher’s teaching life, she utilizes Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizoanalysis to openly seek lateral paths of understanding by linking and folding the findings with texts other than those that would be normally used toward developing new understandings and questions regarding children’s disobediences. An earlier version of this book was awarded the distinguished dissertation award from the International Institute for Qualitative Methods, indicating innovativeness of method, cross-disciplinary appeal, rigour of method, and significance of results in terms of contribution to knowledge and methods; an Outstanding Dissertation Award, sponsored by the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators and Merrill/Prentice Hall, indicating excellence in meeting scholarly standards, potential positive impact on or relevance to early childhood teacher education philosophy, policy, and/or practice, and overall quality; and an Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Curriculum & Pedagogy Group, indicating quality scholarship that advances the field of Curriculum Studies and offers a significant contribution to the body of educational research.