Co-Creating Constellations: Professional Learning Around Education Activism as a Relational Space

• In Event: Relational Spaces of Educational Transformation

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of a professional learning experience (PLE) for NYC-based educators that focused on local histories of educational activism. Employing ethnographic methods, we explore the implementation of a PLE held at a NYC university. Participants included NYC teachers, non-profit educators, and graduate students. Through collaboratively investigating histories of education justice movements in NYC schools, the PLE was designed around the following objectives: foster educator-activist identities; advance social-justice pedagogies centered in local histories of educational activism; construct a sustainable, multi-stakeholder community of mutual support; and build institutional bridges between local K-12 educators, university scholars, and education activists. These goals are important given the legacy of educator-activists in NYC and contemporary efforts to combat persistent inequities faced by students.

Authors

• Allyson V. Compton, Iona University

• Jose L. Vilson, Bank Street College of Education

• Ivelisse Ramos, Harvard University

• Anuraag Sensharma, Teachers College, Columbia University