One Hundred Little Fires: How Oakland’s Cultural-Historical Landscape Shapes a Special Educator’s Pedagogy

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Saturday 11:45 am
  In Poster Session: Foundations of Teaching and Teacher Education for Socio-Cultural, Racial, and Intersecting Minoritized Identities

Abstract

This study examines how a community special education teacher uses his unique cultural-historical landscape to design and implement instruction for students classified as having an emotional or behavioral disability. Through interviews with the teacher, students, and coworkers, this study highlights a teacher’s engagement with students with cultural and linguistic repertoires found in the local community. Findings provide further examples of how teachers from racialized working-class communities can leverage the connections that schooling has with broad and unique contemporary and historic contexts when designing lessons anchored by a thorough examination and attunement of the complex social-emotional needs shown through the design of daily lessons, clear curricular arcs, and feedback loops that nurture student development.

Author

• Chris Emanuel Plantinos, Stanford University