What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Always Stay in Vegas: Negotiating the Curriculum Leads to Agency

• In Event: 63.082 - Transforming Self Through Culturally Relevant Lenses

Abstract

Through self-study, six doctoral students and a professor examine how our class became a transformative space for all. We examine how we constructed a powerful learning community which led to a re-visioning of ourselves as women and teacher educators. Feminist pedagogy and positioning theory provide a framework for both the class and our research. Findings show how negotiating the curriculum can disrupt power, classrooms can be safe spaces, and blurring the personal and the professional allows us as teachers and teacher educators to become change agents. This work is significant due to the importance of fostering classroom and school cultures where knowledge production is facilitated through democratized practices and all learners have shared power, privilege, and voice.

Authors

• Brenna Bohny, Montclair State University

• Sa-Qwona S Clark, NYC Department of Education

• Susan D'Elia, Montclair State University

• Graziela Lobato Creekmur, Montclair State University

• Stephanie Tarnowski, Montclair State University

• Monica Taylor, Montclair State University

• Sara Wasserman, Montclair State University