Abstract
AbstractThe study examines the impact of professional development on the topic of poverty in one high poverty school community located in a small city in southern Ontario, Canada. It considers narrative-based experiences of teachers’ collaborative inquiry on literacy practices after a significant amount of professional development was provided to reinterpret teachers’ stereotypical conceptualizations of students and families living in poverty. Findings illuminate how professional development on poverty and education resulted in the enactment of literacy teaching practices from the vantage point of teachers’ reformed narratives of student poverty, with literacy themes including: global citizenship, inferencing, and social justice literacy.
Highlights
It considers narrative-based experiences of teachers in a high poverty school community and how they began anew to inquire further into their own literacy practices to better understand the contexts in which students live, how they learn, and what their families contribute to literacy and schooling
: (1) The professional development series (PDS) (3 half days): The PDS which the five teachers and the administrator from Fallsview attended on three separate occasions over two terms, provided the school team with collaborative inquiry-based knowledge about school planning for communities affected by poverty as well as extensive professional development on poverty and schooling, deficit conceptualizations, and reforming mindset and practice
The overarching question was asked: how has the professional development on poverty your school team received impacted your work/practices in school? Other examples of focus group questions that generated responses, which illuminated the discussion of reformation of mindset about children and families living in poverty through collaborative inquiry, social justice literacy practices, and narratives shared included: How did/do teachers teach differently because of the professional development program on poverty and education?
Summary
Zeroing in on one school site, this article presents data not previously reported on, in order to capture poverty and schooling as it relates to literacy practices, narrative reformation of mindset, and collaborative inquiry of one high poverty school community In this manner, the study seeks to move to the step, to take action, for teachers like Patrick and for practicing educators, who struggle with understanding what it means to teach literacy in high poverty school contexts and possibly how to begin to disrupt deficit conceptualizations of students and families living in poverty. This article, supports progressive literacy advancements that seek to disrupt the tradition of the deficit (Gee, 2004; Miller et al, 2005) It considers narrative-based experiences of teachers in a high poverty school community and how they began anew to inquire further into their own literacy practices to better understand the contexts in which students live, how they learn, and what their families contribute to literacy and schooling. The professional development was not top down scripted or mandated curricula for teachers’ literacy skill set training but, rather, professional development that was based on: (a) awareness, understanding, and action; (b) addressing stereotypes and how to move forward as a teaching community, and; (c) changing mindsets of deficit-based notions of what poverty entails, and using literacy to do so
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