Seeing Disrupt/ion as a Culturally Sustaining Approach to Early Childhood Classroom Management

• In Event: Expansion(s): Critical and Relational Pedagogies in Classrooms

Abstract

In this paper, the author advocates for early educators to embrace disrupt/ion in their approaches to classroom management. Disrupt/ion is theorized as congruent with culturally sustaining pedagogies to challenge traditional approaches to classroom management that tend towards social control. The author describes and discusses a first-grade classroom where the teacher made pedagogical moves to recognize and value young children’s culturally grounded ways of being in the classroom. While at first the reaction was surprise, it led to productive tension in (re)thinking classroom management. As a result, disrupt/ion was seen as a valuable part of classroom learning and life. Contributions highlight how educators can resist controlling classroom management practices, welcoming disruptive yet culturally sustaining ways of developing relationships with students.

Author

• Oona Fontanella-Nothom, California State University, Los Angeles