COVID-19 significantly impacted the delivery of education with widespread disruptions, particularly disadvantaging racialized and low-income families. Our research project explored how community-based programming can be adapted and mobilized to mitigate opportunity and achievement gaps for Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC), and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The project as a case study examined an afternoon and weekend supplementary academic program called the Community School Initiative (CSI), offered from September 2020 to May 2021 to members of the Jane and Finch community in Toronto, Canada at a subsidized cost. CSI is a partnership between the non-profit organization Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) and the for-profit enterprise Spirit of Math. It delivers a structured math curriculum to students in grades two to eight aged 8 to 14 years, old supported by a team of caring adults including parents, coaches, and Ontario certified teachers. The efficacy and outcomes of the CSI was assessed through surveys with parents (n=33), students (n=33), and teachers (n=4), and a focus group with seven teachers delivering the curriculum in the CSI. We also discuss the significance of how the research was conducted in the wake of COVID-19. Hence, this article is about the findings from the data, but just as much about the community-driven approach to how the research was conducted, by the community and for the community.
{"title":"The Community School Initiative in Toronto: Mitigating Opportunity Gaps in the Jane and Finch Community in the Wake of COVID-19","authors":"Ardavan Eizadirad, Sally Abudiab, Brice Baartman","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1080","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 significantly impacted the delivery of education with widespread disruptions, particularly disadvantaging racialized and low-income families. Our research project explored how community-based programming can be adapted and mobilized to mitigate opportunity and achievement gaps for Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC), and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The project as a case study examined an afternoon and weekend supplementary academic program called the Community School Initiative (CSI), offered from September 2020 to May 2021 to members of the Jane and Finch community in Toronto, Canada at a subsidized cost. CSI is a partnership between the non-profit organization Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) and the for-profit enterprise Spirit of Math. It delivers a structured math curriculum to students in grades two to eight aged 8 to 14 years, old supported by a team of caring adults including parents, coaches, and Ontario certified teachers. The efficacy and outcomes of the CSI was assessed through surveys with parents (n=33), students (n=33), and teachers (n=4), and a focus group with seven teachers delivering the curriculum in the CSI. We also discuss the significance of how the research was conducted in the wake of COVID-19. Hence, this article is about the findings from the data, but just as much about the community-driven approach to how the research was conducted, by the community and for the community. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73196931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This Teaching Note reviews a 2001 made-for-TV film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello. Geoffrey Sax's production transposes the action into the streets of London where protests are erupting against racist police brutality, while the London Metropolitan Police struggles to remake its image and reestablish a sense of order. I have found that the film teaches very well alongside the play in my Introduction to Literature survey course at a public community college in New York.
{"title":"No, It Wasn’t About Love: Teaching Geoffrey Sax’s Othello","authors":"Boyda Johnstone","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1077","url":null,"abstract":"This Teaching Note reviews a 2001 made-for-TV film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello. Geoffrey Sax's production transposes the action into the streets of London where protests are erupting against racist police brutality, while the London Metropolitan Police struggles to remake its image and reestablish a sense of order. I have found that the film teaches very well alongside the play in my Introduction to Literature survey course at a public community college in New York. ","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85772762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the ensuing lockdown and political turmoil, ruptured many young people’s experiences and well-being, particularly students who face additional marginalization due to systemic oppression. A national survey conducted by the Trevor Project (2021) found that nearly 70% of LGBTQ youth noted that their health was “poor” most or all of the time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors contributing to this deterioration include LGBTQ youth being isolated from the supportive communities formed at school, lacking access to social services provided by schools, and being quarantined with family members who were unsupportive (Cohen, 2021; Valencia, 2020). These fissures in support and resource structures curtailed potentially affirming and integral education, social, and emotional experiences, particularly for LGBTQ youth who thrived in traditional schooling settings. However, it is also important to note that even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools were not idealized institutions for LGBTQ youth. K-12 schools, situated in the broader socio-political landscape of the United States, are bastions of homo-, trans-, and queerphobia (Mayo, 2014). Still, many LGBTQ young people employed resilience and ingenuity to create affirming and loving social circles, which were thus interrupted by restrictions, trauma, and isolation during the pandemic. As LGBTQ educators we sought to co-create an online community that could reflect the brilliance and joy of LGBTQ youth during the 2020-2021 school year. Through both our own experiences and the research, we know that LGBTQ youth find ways to construct community through online avenues, even when said avenues are limited and flawed, such as Tumblr (Cavalcante, 2019; Haimson, et al., 2021; Wargo, 2017). Building on our experiences as secondary English language arts teachers, we constructed a national online book club dedicated to reading, analyzing, and celebrating LGBTQ young adult literature with LGBTQ youth. After a summer of planning, we launched the online book club that resulted in over 125 secondary students from across the United States (and some international students) joining us for a year to engage in readings of Abdi Nazemian’s Like a Love Story (2019), Dean Atta’s Black Flamingo (2019), Gabby Rivera’s Juliet Takes a Breath (2016), and Mark Oshiro’s Anger is a Gift (2018). This article details how we structured a community of readers who worked to analyze young adult literature through intersectional and anti-oppressive lenses (Blackburn & Smith, 2010; Durand, 2015; Herman-Wilmarth & Ryan, 2015), deepen their critical consciousness relating to contemporary LGBTQ socio-political topics (Kelly & Currie, 2020), and leveraged social media and online avenues to construct community that expanded the boundaries of school hallways (Lucero, 2017; Mayo, 2014). Collectively, we seek to illustrate how LGBTQ+ communities (and queer pedagogies) can flourish and develop outside the limitat
{"title":"The Category Is “Pandemic Queer”: Reading, Connecting, and Reimagining Literacy with LGBTQ+ Youth in the Age of COVID-19","authors":"S. W. Martin, H. Miller","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1094","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the ensuing lockdown and political turmoil, ruptured many young people’s experiences and well-being, particularly students who face additional marginalization due to systemic oppression. A national survey conducted by the Trevor Project (2021) found that nearly 70% of LGBTQ youth noted that their health was “poor” most or all of the time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors contributing to this deterioration include LGBTQ youth being isolated from the supportive communities formed at school, lacking access to social services provided by schools, and being quarantined with family members who were unsupportive (Cohen, 2021; Valencia, 2020). These fissures in support and resource structures curtailed potentially affirming and integral education, social, and emotional experiences, particularly for LGBTQ youth who thrived in traditional schooling settings. However, it is also important to note that even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools were not idealized institutions for LGBTQ youth. K-12 schools, situated in the broader socio-political landscape of the United States, are bastions of homo-, trans-, and queerphobia (Mayo, 2014). Still, many LGBTQ young people employed resilience and ingenuity to create affirming and loving social circles, which were thus interrupted by restrictions, trauma, and isolation during the pandemic. As LGBTQ educators we sought to co-create an online community that could reflect the brilliance and joy of LGBTQ youth during the 2020-2021 school year. Through both our own experiences and the research, we know that LGBTQ youth find ways to construct community through online avenues, even when said avenues are limited and flawed, such as Tumblr (Cavalcante, 2019; Haimson, et al., 2021; Wargo, 2017). Building on our experiences as secondary English language arts teachers, we constructed a national online book club dedicated to reading, analyzing, and celebrating LGBTQ young adult literature with LGBTQ youth. After a summer of planning, we launched the online book club that resulted in over 125 secondary students from across the United States (and some international students) joining us for a year to engage in readings of Abdi Nazemian’s Like a Love Story (2019), Dean Atta’s Black Flamingo (2019), Gabby Rivera’s Juliet Takes a Breath (2016), and Mark Oshiro’s Anger is a Gift (2018). This article details how we structured a community of readers who worked to analyze young adult literature through intersectional and anti-oppressive lenses (Blackburn & Smith, 2010; Durand, 2015; Herman-Wilmarth & Ryan, 2015), deepen their critical consciousness relating to contemporary LGBTQ socio-political topics (Kelly & Currie, 2020), and leveraged social media and online avenues to construct community that expanded the boundaries of school hallways (Lucero, 2017; Mayo, 2014). Collectively, we seek to illustrate how LGBTQ+ communities (and queer pedagogies) can flourish and develop outside the limitat","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82451758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Other Worlds and Educations Are Possible: Lessons from Teaching and Learning During Covid-19","authors":"Neil Meyer, J. Wills","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1114","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction to special issue.","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88133136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Suh, B. Griffiths, Lizbett Tinocco, P. Sullivan, Sarah Synder
In the face of the pandemic, teachers sought to rapidly incorporate new technologies and maintain or expand meaningful relationships with their students. We created a survey to capture the lived experiences of this moment and bear witness to teachers' frustrations and triumphs during this time. In addition to reports of exteme burnout and emotional labor, we discovered possibilities for changes that contributed to teachers' greater resilience. In this article, we share experiences of change saturation and change resilience to illustrate the conditions we hope to foster in order to sustain the radical teaching practices of teaching with compassion.
{"title":"Agents of Change: Modeling Two-Year College English Teachers' Change Resilience and Saturation during COVID and (we hope) Beyond","authors":"E. Suh, B. Griffiths, Lizbett Tinocco, P. Sullivan, Sarah Synder","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1008","url":null,"abstract":"In the face of the pandemic, teachers sought to rapidly incorporate new technologies and maintain or expand meaningful relationships with their students. We created a survey to capture the lived experiences of this moment and bear witness to teachers' frustrations and triumphs during this time. In addition to reports of exteme burnout and emotional labor, we discovered possibilities for changes that contributed to teachers' greater resilience. In this article, we share experiences of change saturation and change resilience to illustrate the conditions we hope to foster in order to sustain the radical teaching practices of teaching with compassion.","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83938183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are signs of these times at non-profits, too: Clarkson University has established scholarships for freshmen entrepreneurs--free tuition, but Clarkson gets a percentage of any profits the start-up companies may later achieve. Washington State has created an Opportunity Scholarship Program, funded partly by the State and partly by corporate donors; Boeing and Microsoft kick-started it with $25million each. Since Reagan's time, federal support for funding of K-12 schools has been ritually linked to the premise that it is good for (a) individual economic success, (b) the competitiveness of U.S. corporations, and (c) an ever-rising GDP. [...] When I did the college tour with my granddaughter two years ago, only one of the expensive and hard-to-get-into schools on her itinerary included in its admissions office pitch any reason for going to X other than, basically, "you can get anything you want, here"--an upscale version of education as a commodity, omitting scary references to the tough world in which good jobs are hard to find, maybe impossible even with a degree from X. One college said it was for peace and justice.
{"title":"College for Dollars?","authors":"Richard Ohmann","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1044","url":null,"abstract":" There are signs of these times at non-profits, too: Clarkson University has established scholarships for freshmen entrepreneurs--free tuition, but Clarkson gets a percentage of any profits the start-up companies may later achieve. Washington State has created an Opportunity Scholarship Program, funded partly by the State and partly by corporate donors; Boeing and Microsoft kick-started it with $25million each. Since Reagan's time, federal support for funding of K-12 schools has been ritually linked to the premise that it is good for (a) individual economic success, (b) the competitiveness of U.S. corporations, and (c) an ever-rising GDP. [...] When I did the college tour with my granddaughter two years ago, only one of the expensive and hard-to-get-into schools on her itinerary included in its admissions office pitch any reason for going to X other than, basically, \"you can get anything you want, here\"--an upscale version of education as a commodity, omitting scary references to the tough world in which good jobs are hard to find, maybe impossible even with a degree from X. One college said it was for peace and justice.","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81378498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Chinn, Joseph Entin, B. Foley, P. Keeton, P. Lauter, S. O'malley, E. Schrecker
Seven friends and colleagues remember Richard Ohmann.
七位朋友和同事都记得理查德·欧曼。
{"title":"Tributes to Dick Ohmann: Special Session, Modern Language Association, January 7, 2022","authors":"S. Chinn, Joseph Entin, B. Foley, P. Keeton, P. Lauter, S. O'malley, E. Schrecker","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1048","url":null,"abstract":"Seven friends and colleagues remember Richard Ohmann.","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88640046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The paradigm of an academic career- doctoral study, then a well charted ascent through the ranks, culminating in 25 or 30 or so years as a full professor, and tapering off with many years on an ample pension-was never guaranteed or anything like universal, but was a reasonable aspiration for a college graduate who loved physics or sociology or art history. Of those teaching in colleges and universities, around 75% are contingent workers: short contracts, no assurance of renewal, low pay, maybe health insurance but probably not, no pension fund, little if any say in faculty governance or in the making of curriculum, maybe no office and no phone, maybe several other jobs off the tenure track.
{"title":"The Decline of the Professions","authors":"Richard Ohmann, E. Schrecker","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1045","url":null,"abstract":"The paradigm of an academic career- doctoral study, then a well charted ascent through the ranks, culminating in 25 or 30 or so years as a full professor, and tapering off with many years on an ample pension-was never guaranteed or anything like universal, but was a reasonable aspiration for a college graduate who loved physics or sociology or art history. Of those teaching in colleges and universities, around 75% are contingent workers: short contracts, no assurance of renewal, low pay, maybe health insurance but probably not, no pension fund, little if any say in faculty governance or in the making of curriculum, maybe no office and no phone, maybe several other jobs off the tenure track.","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78787586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of Talking to the Girls, by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti
《与女孩交谈》书评,作者:埃德维·吉塔和玛丽·安妮·特拉西亚蒂
{"title":"Talking to the Girls","authors":"D. Friedensohn","doi":"10.5195/rt.2022.1066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.1066","url":null,"abstract":"Review of Talking to the Girls, by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti","PeriodicalId":42678,"journal":{"name":"Radical Teacher","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83614026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}