Jane S. Townsend

Representations of Teachers’ and Students’ Inquiry in 1950s Television and Film

Today in American classrooms, teachers are asked to guide diverse learners through differentiated, hands-on, cooperative approaches personalized to students’ interests and individual progress, yet teachers also are directed to transmit decontextualized skills and knowledge that are quantitatively measured through high-stakes tests. These scores are then interpreted to rank, competitively, teacher effectiveness and student mastery of externally imposed curriculum standards. The search for educational accountability that leads to conflicts between teachercentered and student-centered instruction, however, is not new in American education. In the 1950s, United States’ educational policy shifted from endorsing a progressive, student-centered paradigm to favoring a more essentialist, transmission model of instruction.1 In the immediate postwar era, Bernard Bell’s Crisis in Education (1949), Mortimer Smith’s And Madly Teach (1949), Albert Lynd’s Quackery in the Public Schools (1950), and Arthur Bestor’s Educational Wastelands (1953) were among the texts negatively assessing American public schools (Von Schlichten 1958; Cremin 1961). The 1955 White House Conference on Education aroused further public awareness about problems with schools, and that same year the Progressive Education Association disbanded (J. E. Russell 1957; Ravitch 1983). With the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, progressivism and life

Examining booktalks to shed light on authentic classroom discussion

In this qualitative case study, we examine the texture of talk in the booktalks of a fifth-grade classroom where authentic classroom discussions were common. The discourse analysis of classroom transcripts yielded 13 overlapping move categories describing the talk of the teacher, and nine the talk of the students. A comparison between authentic discussion and ‘other’ episodes indicated that move categories and their usage differed substantially for both the teacher and the students. In authentic discussions, the teacher decreased her attempts to provide information and to set themes. At the same time the students increased their moves used to provide information, connect with written text, reflect and express opinion.

‘Hay que seguir luchando’: struggles that shaped English language learning of four Cuban immigrant women

Newly arrived from Cuba, Angelica, Dora, Marina, and Damaris attempted to negotiate new surroundings and immigrant identities, building a sense of home for themselves and their families. Data from qualitative interviews, classroom observations, and focus group conversations revealed hopes that by acquiring English language skills, they would improve their quality of life in their new country. Struggles included personal factors situated in their pasts in Cuba and their new surrounds in the Miami Cuban exile enclave, contexts that were further complicated by uncertain expectations of new lives in Miami and the overwhelming task of learning a new language at a local adult education center. The women negotiated pressure from spouses, assisted children in Cuba, pondered uncertainties of crossing cultural and linguistic borders, and anticipated eventual acceptance within the greater English‐speaking society. The women’s individual luchas (struggles) and English language learning efforts were tempered by their dreams for their children and themselves.

Mercury in a Sieve: a Search for Meaning in the Responses of Prospective Teachers

Investigative, inquiry projects are frequently used in teacher education programs to help prospective teachers develop as critically responsive practitioners who respond to diversity. In this article we examine our effort to explore the influence of these projects. As we trace our exploration of data gathered from respondents, 90% of whom were white women, we disclose how relational priorities surfaced in the data, how these priorities complicated our readings, and how they led us to consider gender and relationship in the lives of the participants. We raise questions about the process that might be used to understand what preservice teachers are learning as they engage in inquiry projects and how we might determine the effectiveness of these projects in teacher education classes.