Becoming Critical Educators Through Co-Constructing an Early Childhood Critical Literacy Junk Art

• In Event: Dispatches From the Field: Five Models of Collaborations for Teacher Agency and Social Justice

Abstract

This qualitative study sought to answer the following question: What happens when an early childhood teacher educator scaffolds the teaching of critical literacy with three preservice teachers as they facilitate a junk art club (JAC) with kindergarten, first, and second graders?

Critical literacy is an integral part of a social justice curriculum and demands that the reader interrogates the text and reads the word and the world (Freire, 1970) and understands that all texts are embedded with political power (Janks, 2013) and are never neutral (Freire, 1970). It is a process of deconstructing and reframing (Janks, 2013) as well as central to empowerment, the unpacking of privilege, and social responsibility (Fennimore, 2000).

This study was conducted at a northeast urban community college. The study’s participants included 3 undergraduate education students and a teacher educator.

The JAC was a six-week club for kindergarten, first, and second graders which the preservice teachers and the teacher educator planned together. The central activity of each of the six sessions was designing an art piece. The JAC started with a group meeting where the concept was shared and ended with the students sharing their art.


Data consisted of participants’ journals, teacher educators journal, artifacts from the JAC sessions, transcripts of JAC planning meetings, club sessions, and debriefing meetings, and the teacher educator’s field notes. Data were coded through using the constant comparative method of analysis (Merriam, 2009).


Through a systematic inquiry (Berry, 2007) and collaboration with a critical friend (Whitehead, 1989), the study was able to generate a new understanding of the process of facilitating preservice teachers as they work to become critical literacy educators. The lived experience (Dewey, 1916) was central. After unpacking their relationship with literacy and power in a previous workshop, the preservice teachers began their journey to become critical literacy educators through enacting critical literacy in JAC. Planning and enacting the JAC with the teacher educator were essential to their process. Through engaging in the lived experience, it was apparent that becoming a critical literacy educator is an individualized and ongoing process which required the preservice teachers and the teacher educator use emotions as a learning tool, were vulnerable, engaged in collaborative reflection, and were able to participate and learn at their own pace.

This study was significant. It offered a framework of a pedagogy of critical vulnerability which described some necessary components for preparing preservice teachers to become critical literacy educators. These components included inviting preservice and teacher vulnerability, using emotions as a learning and healing tool, and co-constructing and co-teaching critical literacy curriculum for students. This study demonstrated the importance of embedding critical literacy into teacher education programs. Preservice teachers need the opportunity to experience developing a critically literate lens within a collaborative context where they can work together, and support each other as they engage in the process. Through engaging in the lived experience, the preservice teachers were provided the opportunity to begin to develop the skills needed to be agents of change in the classroom.

Author

• Angela Pack, Hudson County Community College