The Journeys of Life: A Curricular Case Study in Resilience

• In Event: 31.083 - International Perspectives on Occupational Stress, Coping, and Resilience in the Helping Professions

Abstract

Purpose
This paper takes the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting theme, "Leveraging Education Research in a ‘Post-Truth’ Era: Multimodal Narratives to Democratize Evidence" as a catalyst for examining how a classroom culture orientated toward resilience, participation, and literacy can create a positive culture for struggling high school students. The classroom described in this paper is a rejection of ‘…teacher-proofing, fast-tracking of pedagogy, or inattention to adolescent and child development” (AERA, 2018). What is described is an interdisciplinary curriculum combining the efforts of a higher education researcher and two classroom teachers (Social Studies and English) working together with the researcher on a curricular theme that resonates with young people labeled “at-risk,” “struggling,” or disengaged. Key emphases are holistic –attendance, student health and resilience in the face of academic demands, preparation for academic and professional literacy, and engagement in higher-order cognitive inquiry.
Research Framework
Good teaching and learning may be envisioned as including academic resilience or stamina (Tough, 2013). Effort is a key component of human capability, and thus academic tasks that involve persistent effort have value (Resnick & Hall, 2003). Academic writing incorporates these facets, as authentic writing includes the development of content, rhetorical strategies, and robust exploration of personal identity (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1985; Fitzgerald, 2013; Danielewicz, 2001).
This study is an intrinsic case study (Stake, 1995), wherein the primary aim is a rich description of a bounded context – one classroom and annual instruction and learning. The researcher spends significant time in this classroom, participating in classroom interactions and decision-making. Participatory action research is a methodological thrust (Hubbard & Power, 2012; Yin, 2014). In a curriculum designed to engage students in their extant literacies and prior knowledge, the teachers envisioned study integrating understandings of ‘life’s journeys’ through inquiry into novels, history, and film. Two major questions drove researcher inquiry:
How do classroom teachers implement a year-long language arts and social studies curriculum that integrates resilience, transitions into young adulthood, and literacy?
What affordances do ‘life hacks’ e.g., guidance on nutrition, cognition, digital media, and sleep, have in promoting a healthy classroom culture?
Emerging Themes
The session will provide an opportunity to present findings after multiple years of instruction, data gathering, analysis of data:
Academic Stamina. Sustained inquiry and research anchored this classroom culture. Despite opportunities to move quickly from one topic to another, the teachers remained committed to the holistic development of student well-being and the varieties of personal and cognitive resilience that facilitate academic engagement, including literacy processes such as editing, re-reading, and inquiry into social justice topics.
Mental Health Realities. The professionals on this project witness the distressing effects of adolescent mental health challenges, including teen parenting. The health crises of numerous students affected student learning, curricular decisions, and academic interventions in ways that are unfortunately common for secondary school teachers, but may also represent an unavoidable dynamic in contemporary American society, and a challenge to democratic, inclusive education.

Author

• Christopher William Johnson, University of Minnesota - Duluth