Beyond Silos: Justice-Minded Conversations and Collaborations Across Contexts and Spaces - 1

• In Event: Beyond Silos: Justice-Minded Conversations and Collaborations Across Contexts and Spaces

Abstract

Panelist1 is an associate professor of literacy in the College of Education at a university in North Carolina. Throughout Panelist1’s 12 years in K-12 education, she served the field as a music teacher, high school reading teacher, literacy coach/interventionist, and district secondary reading curriculum specialist. Most of the schools she supported were classified as urban, Title 1 schools with linguistically, socioeconomically, and racially diverse populations. Panelist1 quickly learned the importance of building strong teacher-student relationships and using pedagogy that valued and related to students’ lived experiences and identities.

Panelist1 experienced professional learning occurring in silos, and the necessary time and resources were not provided by their school to learn and grow with others through collaborative learning (Dobbs et al., 2016; Di Domenico et al., 2018) based on teachers’ unique needs (Main & Pendergast, 2017). Panelist1 values learning alongside colleagues and noting each person’s expertise to co-construct knowledge and empower one another (Gonçalves et al., 2022; Lave & Wenger, 1991) instead of serving as a sage on a stage. Panelist1 prioritizes teachers’ voices within any professional learning setting and situates their work connected to the professional learning of adults and educators: professional learning, andragogy, and communities of practice, framing professional learning as collaborative and more than superficial knowledge acquisition leads to creating a learning community where people interact with one another and share their experiences and expertise in social contexts (Robertson et al., 2020).

Panelist1’s scholarship centers on culturally sustaining, trauma-sensitive literacy practices across secondary settings, sharing teachers’ voices and experiences to connect research and theory to practice. Panelist1 has been on various literacy boards and has extensive experience building communities of practice across schools, contexts, and disciplines. Panelist1 has written books and other forms of scholarship alongside teachers intending to share their experiences and practices, connecting research to practice. Panelist1 works alongside schools and classroom spaces to foster environments where students can engage with texts that reflect their identities and experiences. Panelist1 will share about these collaborations, offering insights on forming partnerships that integrate diverse texts into curricula and promote critical literacy practices. Additionally, Panelist1 will share a recent collaboration with other higher education faculty where the intent was to support teachers’ formation of these communities of practice. Panelist1’s role as a former reading specialist and current literacy teacher educator is to advocate for equitable access to diverse literature in educational and public settings amidst ongoing challenges of book banning and censorship. (401 words)

Author

• Rachelle S. Savitz, East Carolina University