Teachers as Critical Researchers

• In Event: Teachers as Public Intellectuals and Civic Agents: Toward a Grounded Theory of Transformative Teacher Education

Abstract

Critical pedagogy has emerged as a form of education that challenges social reproduction by using dialogue to effect individual and collective social transformation. Teaching and learning need to be drastically reconceptualized to fulfill the participatory and progressive promise of democracy. This session features the findings of urban high school teachers who take seriously the call of critical theory and translate it into practice with students through engaging in participatory action research.

Paulo Freire (1970) stresses the importance of praxis—the dialectical cycle of action and reflection—as the source of critical consciousness for marginalized students. He argues that when teachers and students engage in critical dialogue together, the traditional power structures of authority that divide them fall away, and “teacher-students” and “student-teachers” are created who are co-intent on unveiling oppression and re-creating knowledge (p. 80). He argues that only through praxis can the traditional, “banking” model of education be replaced by a problem-posing model of education that focuses on collective inquiry for shared empowerment.

These visions of democratic classroom life demand a much different kind of teacher than the one that neoliberal policies promote. In this session, we argue that to produce the “Teacher as Researcher,” teachers need to be engaged in learning that is collective, productive, and active. Urban teachers need to see themselves in a collective endeavor with their students to read the word and the world by engaging in shared inquiry that is embedded in the concerns of local communities. Teachers, in this model, do not teach students; instead, teachers and students educate each other in a dialogic relationship aimed at acting upon society to humanize both the oppressors and the oppressed. They must present themselves as “public intellectuals” who produce knowledge about the practice of teaching, speaking back to the academic research establishment with their own action research (Giroux, 1988).

In light of this theory, the teachers featured in this session will provide a case study of the Council of Youth research, a community of practice that informs this new democratic way forward in teacher learning. The teachers come to this study as participants who have been intimately involved in the practice of the Council. They have engaged in semi-structured interviews. They have also consulted their field notes from participant observation over the 12 years of Council activity, though this session focuses more explicitly on the years 2007 to 2010. Other sources of data include student work products, Council planning documents, and classroom observations.

Findings in two areas of teacher learning will be presented — teacher identity and teacher classroom practice. Participation in this project influences how teachers view themselves as professionals and civic agents, which in turn impacts the way that they conceptualize their classroom instruction. In keeping with the tenets of critical democratic theory, we aim to demonstrate the ways in which teachers come to see themselves and their work in more collective, productive, and engaged ways.

Authors

• Frederick David, Crenshaw High School

• Laurence A. Tan, WattsYouthCollective/122nd Street School/UCLA IDEA

• Katie Rainge-Briggs, Manual Arts High School, Los Angeles

• Eduardo Lopez, Theodore Roosevelt High School

• Maria Isabel Martinez, University of California - Los Angeles