Toward Cooperative Spaces for Learning: Teacher-Led Inquiry to Develop and Support Critical Educators

• In Event: Critical Professional Development as Dialogical Action: Centering Teachers' Social Justice Needs

Abstract

Objectives and Research Questions
Reflecting on the Freirean (1970) notion of conquest, in which people are kept as passive
recipients of knowledge, much current PD provides teachers little say in their professional
growth. Teachers are often left feeling that their PD is a waste of time and not connected to
everyday classroom realities (Wilson & Berne, 1999).
This paper specifically draws from Freire's (2000) dialogical action, with a focus on the tenet of cooperation, to understand the
ways teachers come together as Subjects creating their own space for learning as they work to name their realities in order to transform it. The perceptions of seven teachers involved in creating a grassroots teacher-led inquiry group were explored to understand how a critical professional development can be understood as a process that humanizes participants. This paper will unpack the pedagogical and ideological mediations connected to the development of a teacher-led inquiry group. To capture the utility of teachers coming together to create their own professional development the following research questions were explored: How does a teacher- led inquiry group provide alternative approaches to traditional in-service professional development? What is it that these teachers are doing in this teacher-led inquiry group?
Methods and Data Sources
Data for the People’s Ed teacher inquiry group was collected through ethnographic, participant observations (Carspecken, 1996; Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte, 1999) and formal and informal interviews were conducted over the course of the inquiry group cycle. Observations and interview questions sought to understand the usefulness of the teacher-led inquiry group for participants. The participants were a convenience sampling (Weiss, 1994) of seven educators that voluntarily attended all of the biweekly inquiry group meetings. Participants were teachers that worked in elementary and high school settings, taught across disciplines, and ranged in experience from preservice to thirteen years.
Findings and Significance
Findings from this research examine teachers working together to create spaces for learning that more closely reflect their holistic needs. Developing a cooperative space for learning presented the opportunity for those involved to connect and build community. It was from this community that teachers drew on strengths of the collective to challenge and also be vulnerable to learning together. The teachers exemplified the importance of cooperation in PD that moves beyond the banking methods and technical content of traditional forms of teacher professional development. Providing inquiry group members with an entry to co-create the space moves PD from a banking education to a dialectical relationship. Engaging in a cooperative, dialectical relationship is not simply a means to achieve an end. Instead, the connection between people must be grounded in genuine acts of love that are dialectical and reflective. CPD must include ways to foster dialogue and community amongst participants in both process and content. In this way, CPD creates authentic spaces in which social justice-oriented teachers can develop a liberatory pedagogy.

Author

• Antonio Nieves Martinez, University of Massachusetts - Amherst