Learning in Circles: The Power of a Humanizing Dialogic Practice (original) (raw)

The Learning Circle Model: A Vehicle for Exploring Critical Perspectives in Teacher Education

This paper details how a Learning Circle model provided faculty in a multi-program graduate department of education with a vehicle to reflect on their teaching, research practices, and the structure and design of their graduate programs. Through participation in the Learning Circle, faculty met weekly to discuss a common series of readings which explored contemporary issues of social theory and educational practice. The conversations of the Learning Circle provided the impetus for the department to articulate a "pedagogy of possibility," which informed the development of an overarching conceptual framework to guide its newly revised teacher and counselor education programs. The paper highlights the process of the Learning Circle, provides a list of the readings that gave rise to the discussions, and identifies critical perspectives that advanced-level education programs must address in order to meet the needs of teachers and .children in the 21st century. (Author/SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Learning Circle 1

ANN B. VIBERT, JOHN P. PORTELLI, CAROLYN SHIELDS and LINDA LAROCQUE CRITICAL PRACTICE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: VOICE, COMMUNITY, AND A CURRICULUM OF LIFE1

2002

This paper examines the differences and similarities in approaches to community, voice and curriculum among three Canadian elementary schools with respect to their potential to enact central aspects of a critical pedagogy: to extend voice to students and community; foster participatory, democratic education; and to cultivate critical reflection. The three schools offer different conceptions and practices. In one, a deficit model of education seems to dominate; in the second, we found an individual growth model of education; and in the third, a critical practice model of education was the foundation for more democratic educational practices. We argue that not all change initiatives and approaches are equally valuable, and that the latter model provides a more profound and just educational experience for students. This paper examines the differences and similarities in approaches to community, voice and curriculum among three Canadian elementary schools regarding their potential to en...

Collaborating Towards Humanizing Pedagogies: Culture Circles in Teacher Educator Preparation

The New Educator, 2019

This paper describes how we, a group of 7 emerging teacher educators, took up a critical inquiry framework to collaboratively generate knowledge through dialogic reflection on practice across educational contexts. We participated in culture circles and teatro as a practice of teacher education that centers love and humanizing practice. Together throughout the semester, we engaged in problem-posing and dialogue in order to collectively problemsolve around a generative theme: Humanity is non-negotiable in teaching and teacher education. In this paper, we include our reflections on one dilemma of practice to illustrate ways to transform teacher education to include humanizing practices.

Living in circle : an educator’s self-study of curricular experiences with the First Peoples principles of learning

2020

Recently in British Columbia (BC) a redesigned K-12 curriculum plan was introduced (BC Ministry of Education, 2016). Undergirding the plan are The First Peoples Principles of Learning (FNESC, 2008; 2015), a learning philosophy that offers nine descriptions of what learning is, what it supports, involves, recognizes, and embeds (FNESC, 2008; 2014). The rationale for embedding the principles into all aspects of the curricular plan is to prioritize Indigenous perspectives and worldviews in classrooms for all students and at all times (BC Ministry of Education, 2015). As a practicing educator, my self-study research illuminated the FPPL as a vehicle for teacher education through the opportunity to develop my own curricular theory in relationship to my context (Chrona, 2014). A significant body of educational research makes it evident that a teacher's understanding of curriculum is a primary influence with and for their curricular enactment (

Performing Critical Pedagogy Through Fireside Chats

I n this essay, I introduce fireside chats as a critical pedagogical practice, which can strengthen students' compassion and contemplation by enhancing communication practices and opening discussion about students' learning ideas, dreams, reflections, questions, and fears, while changing hierarchical communication patterns between teachers and students.

(Re)imagining a Dialogic Curriculum: Humanizing and Epistemically Liberating Pedagogies

The Journal of Teaching and Learning, 2021

This paper is a call to university leaders across the United Kingdom to stand in solidarity with racialized and racially minoritized students by embracing humanizing and epistemically liberating practices that open up possibilities for authentic dialogue and action. This dialogue should seek to resist the barriers which have resulted in the marginalization, and often systemic discrimination of racially minoritized students within higher education. We seek to illuminate the revolutionary leadership of university students, who have initiated the movement toward racial representation, multiple truths, and a more equitable curriculum that subverts the violence of Western cognitive imperialism. Black feminist thought informs our standpoint in this paper and we reflect upon our experience of the Childhood studies curriculum as both students and staff. We offer recommendations for university leaders to stimulate meaningful, equitable, and socially just change.

Teach Like Lives Depend on It: Agitate, Arouse, and Inspire

This article, recently published in Urban Education, analyzes teaching that begins with the realities, ideologies, and articulations of dispossessed youth of color to shift perceptions of cultural deficits into potential academic strengths that are also critical. Drawing on culturally relevant, critical pedagogical, and critical literacy theories to understand the educational needs of historically dispossessed cultural groups in the United States and propose a humanizing pedagogy, this article offers critical participatory teacher analysis that suggests this can be done by (a) agitating students politically, (b) arousing their critical curiosity, and (c) inspiring self and social transformation.

Listening to teachers - listening to students. Substantive conversations about

Following previous work (Zyngier, 2004b) that examined contemporary research and debates about pedagogies and understandings of engagement, this paper analyses the Keymakers (Zyngier & May, 2004) research into changing the pedagogical practice of a group of teachers in one school through the (sometimes) contesting and resistant voices of teachers and students informed by Haberman’s Pedagogy of Poverty (1991) and hooks’ Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003) that resistance is not the antithesis of engagement but the contradictory act of resistance while accommodation is a self protective negative agency in response to unequal power relations. A key consideration of the previous paper was ‘whether engagement is a key centralising factor in the successful implementation of empowering classroom pedagogies’ (McFadden and Munns, 2002, 359). Three contesting epistemological constructions of student engagement were previously identified (Zyngier, 2004b) and these are examined through the (often but not necessarily) contesting and resisting voices of teachers and students. In conclusion, I ask how might we (re)conceive student engagement in order to achieve the twin goals of social justice and academic achievement (Butler-Kisber and Portelli, 2003) through an empowering and resistant pedagogy.