Situated Learning: Aligning Beliefs, Thoughts, and Actions During Freedom Summer

• In Event: 69.057 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 69.057-19 - "Boundary Crossings" and Critical Community Engagements: Learning Environments as Promisors of Equitable Educational Opportunity

Abstract

Purpose
        The Freedom Schools of 1964 were a direct reflection of the aims of the Civil Rights Movement. They marked a significant moment in the struggle for economic and social justice in the United States as interracial, interfaith, and intergenerational coalitions of people came together to ensure human rights for all people. Not unlike this very moment, the coalitions were focused on the lives of Black and Brown citizens who had been lawfully prohibited from participating in social, economic and civic institutions in the United States.   
Over half a century later, Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) has translated the goals and spirit of Freedom Summer into a six-week summer literacy program.  In addition to the supporting K-12 students, the program also attempts to cultivate leadership skills among servant leader interns (SLIs) who serve as the teachers. As of 2015, over 16,000 college students and young adults have worked for the program, and while the organization has extensive data on the scholars, less is known about the SLIs.  In a review of relevant literature, we located four studies that investigated the learning experiences of SLIs in the Freedom Schools program (Coffey, 2010; Dunkerly-Bean, 2013; Jackson 2009 & 2009). We build on the existing literature by exploring what motivates college interns to participate in Freedom Schools and what kind of learning happens in these spaces.
Theoretical framework
        The CDF Freedom Schools model is an intergenerational approach to learning that challenges the normative view that knowledge trickles down from the older teacher to the younger student.  In this model, learning happens through encounter and experience in context.  In order to explore the motivations and the learning experiences of SLIs, we drew on Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice, which describes a “set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice.”  We used constructs from this theory to make sense of themes that emerged from the data.
Methods/Data Sources        
We conducted a multisite, multiyear qualitative interpretative study of the learning experiences of SLIs working in the context of a CDF Freedom Schools program in an urban and a rural community. For this paper, we analyzed transcripts and field notes of 10 SLIs at the two different sites. We coded the data for themes independently and met to discuss and address inconsistencies.
Scholarly Significance
As faculty in departments of education at small, liberal arts colleges whose students pursue a range of educational positions working with children (including CDF Freedom Schools), we want to consider how we, as researchers and teachers, can direct our scholarly gaze toward “unregulated” spaces (e.g., without syllabi, assignments) where students learn and act upon their espoused values and beliefs.  We will share findings that suggest CDF Freedom Schools are spaces where our undergraduate students can work toward reconciling contradictions in their praxis and hone skills and strategies in working with children that promote social and economic justice.

Authors

• Emily Annette Nemeth, Denison University

• Heather Hill, The Ohio State University