Maximizing the Possibilities

Fecho, Bob; Coombs, Dawan; Stewart, Trevor Thomas; Hawley, Todd S.

doi:10.4324/9780429356162-6

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Scholarship often positions early career teachers (ECTs), or those teachers who are in their first three years of teaching in K-12 contexts, on the precipice of leaving the profession (Gallant and Riley, 2014; Schaefer et al , 2020) and as deficient and underdeveloped in their knowledge and enactment (Buchanan et al , 2013; Schuck et al , 2018). However, we refuse to accept this deficit-laden notion and instead inquire into how ECTs in English Language Arts (ELA) teaching contexts can embrace the “wobble” (Fecho et al , 2020) of their new positions as ELA educators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiencing the cycles of love in teaching: the praxis of an early career Asian American ELA teacher

Rushek,

Vlach,

Phan

2023

ETPC

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Purpose Early career teachers (ECTs) of Color are key in making change, resisting racism and pushing back against white supremacy in K-12 education, specifically in English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms. Through a narrative telling inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) of Nora, an Asian American ELA ECT in the Midwest, and by drawing on Fisher’s (2011) Critical Integral Pedagogy of Fearlessness, this study aims to recognize the narrative power within teaching praxis as Nora stories herself toward becoming a critical pedagogue. Design/methodology/approach Using narrative inquiry methodology and methods (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000), the authors simultaneously considered the commonplace tenets of narrative inquiry – temporality, sociality and place – of the intertwined relationships of the participants and observers. The field texts included in the corpus of data include myriad tellings of Nora’s experiences in her initial years of teaching ELA. Data were analyzed in stages of parsing out narrative blocks and structures. Findings The findings indicate that Nora, as an ECT, went through recursive cycles of fear as conceptualized by Fisher (2011) – bravery, courageousness and being fear-less – of working toward radical love (Hooks, 2000) within her ELA instruction. The authors argue that Nora confronted her personal and professional fears as she strove to become a critical pedagogue in her ELA classroom. Originality/value Current scholarship portrays ECTs as lacking agency in their development and/or effectiveness in the classroom and little is said about Asian American ELA ECTs and critical instruction. The authors present Nora’s counter-narrative to make visible what is right with ELA ECTs, specifically teachers of Color, as they transform their fear into courage to fight for educational equity.

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