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Canaries in the Coal Mine: Urban Rookies Learning to Teach Language Arts in "High Priority" Schools.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Costigan, Arthur T. |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | You know, we're really just canaries in the coal mine for the whole No Child Left Behind experiment. (Rob, second-year teacher) Negotiating Teaching Rob, like many new teachers in urban settings, understands that the ways in which he is required to teach stem from local implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), entitled No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (US Congress, 2001). Unfortunately, like many new teachers, he finds "the legislation confusing, the implementations baffling, and the effect on the practicing and pre-service teachers disheartening" (Fleischer & Fox, 2004, p. 99). Furthermore, Rob teaches in a poor urban district, in an underfunded, underresourced, overcrowded, and under-maintained school. It is located in a low-income community of predominately non-White, non-native speakers of English who are frequently disengaged from formal schooling. Researchers term such a school as "high priority" (Quantz, et al., 2004, p. 2), and New York City's Department of Education (DOE) has labeled such schools as "hard to staff " and "Under Registration Review" (SURR). Like Rob, most of his colleagues are struggling novices, and they are likely to either migrate to better-funded districts or even leave the profession after only a few years of teaching (Ingersoll, 2003a, 2003b). Rob, and the other participants in this study, experience what Hargreaves (2000) terms the "intensification" of teaching; reform is implemented by mandating externally imposed pedagogies and prepackaged curricula that neither addresses the inadequate conditions present nor assists new teachers in finding a personally meaningful teaching style (Hargreaves, 2000, p. 119). The participants in this study are mandated to use various forms of "systematic phonics instruction," combined with student-centered approaches that are not only confusing, but are at odds with the theories and reading instruction practices learned in university coursework and advocated by The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) (Altwerger, et al., 2004; Smith, 1988). Additionally, these participants' job performance ratings and tenures are based not only on students' test scores, but on the teacher's ability to conform daily to standardized teaching practices that severely reduce a sense of autonomy and professionalism (Hargreaves, 2000). This study is based on prior research which has come to understand that these scripted lessons contain some best practices as defined by NCTE publications, but are implemented in highly varied and even idiosyncratic ways which differ from school to school and among different classrooms in the same school (Costigan, 2005a). The net result is that new Language Arts teachers are inhibited in developing their own professional and autobiographical understandings of best practices as these practices are imposed behaviors and not organically developed understandings (Costigan, 2005b). This study is part of ongoing research that postulates that new urban teachers must negotiate their way among four primary, overlapping and frequently conflicting demands (Costigan, 2004; Costigan & Crocco, 2004). The first demand, contrary to negative stereotypes portrayed by the media, is that new teachers are not naive. They enter urban teaching knowing the challenges, and, as one participant put it, are "empowered by knowing that I don't know" (Costigan, 2004, 2005b). Having enough autonomy to grow in the teaching craft, to develop relationships with students, and to be in a supportive environment are the chief factors for whether or not these urban rookies thrive (Costigan & Crocco, 2004; Huberman, 1993; Levin, 2003). Second, because of an accountability- and testing-based educational reform movement, autonomy has been severely reduced. This may be a chief cause for teachers who move to better-funded districts or leave the profession entirely (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). Third, the new teachers in this study are educated in NCTE-based programs which reflect student-centered constructivist theories and practices that conflict with the test- and accountability-driven "skills and drills" curriculum frequently found in local schools (Smagorinski, et al. … |
| Starting Page | 85 |
| Ending Page | 103 |
| Page Count | 19 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 35 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ817312.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
