"From the Ground in the Trenches": Teacher Knowledge and the COVID Leadership Void

• In Event: COVID Lessons: What the Pandemic Is Teaching Us About Teacher Innovation, Collaboration, and Leadership

Abstract

Purposes
In March of 2020 schools across the United States closed their physical spaces and migrated all their instructional activities to digital environments. For some teachers this process involved advance notice and for others there was school one day, and no school the next. What most of these transitions had in common, however, was the mandates for school closure were not accompanied by clear plans for how offer instruction equitably through digital media (Ishimaru, 2020). As a result, the task of adapting curriculum and pedagogy to the new circumstances and ensuring its inclusiveness ultimately feel to teachers.
This paper presents the findings of an interview-based study of teachers’ experiences during the pandemic. Specifically, it focuses on a case study of a school on the West side of Chicago. Teachers at this school, which served a predominantly Black and low-income student population, felt district policies were not addressing many of the challenges their students would be facing. They filled this leadership void by initiating a “think tank” that meets independently to develop teaching methods and techniques that one teacher called “from the ground in the trenches,” techniques they thought would better serve their students and their school community.

Theoretical Framework
This study is grounded in the literature on teacher knowledge that frames teachers as intellectuals, critical decision makers, and cultural activists (e.g. Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2010; 2015; Clandinin, Caine, & Lessard, 2018; Clandinin, 2019; Craig, 2018; Elbaz, 2018) and in the critical race theory literature on counterstory telling in teacher education (Graham, et al, 2019; Sleeter, 2017). The study looks at the knowledge that teachers in the “think tank” developed in response to pandemic intensified racial and class inequities through their own “society of teachers” (Ziechner & Gore, 1989). Building on this scholarship, the study asks: (1) what are teachers learning about mitigating the intensification of educational inequality during the pandemic, 2) how are teachers organizing to share these insights and put them into action in the absence of viable district and state directives?

Data Sources and Methods
The larger study of which this study is a part involved over 100 interviews with teachers from all over the world. Continual thematic analysis was conducted throughout the interview process to identify common themes. One theme that emerged as consistent throughout was a relative absence of administrative instructional leadership on issues of equity and how teachers felt a need to fill that void either formally or informally. The aforementioned “think tank” example was chosen for follow up interviews, further analysis, and is the subject of this paper.

Results and Scholarly Significance
When faced with the end of in-person schooling, the “society of teachers” within this school came together to share their knowledge and produce innovative teaching practice. The specific insights they developed are significant and will be shared. More importantly, the process through which the teachers came together, the challenges they faced, and their response to those challenges provide valuable insight into how teacher leadership and inquiry functions in a crisis and generally.

Author

• Alexander B Pratt, University of Oregon