Transformative Teaching:

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Transformative Teaching Learning from Caring and
Critical Teachers
Sonia Nieto Institute for Transformative
Education Tucson, AZ July 2009
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Becoming caring mentors and critical advocates
for all students
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We are dealing, it would seem, not so much with
culturally deprived children as with culturally
depriving schools. And the task to be
accomplished is not to revise, amend, and repair
deficient children, but to alter and transform
the atmosphere and operations of the schools to
which we commit these children. William Ryan,
Blaming the Victim (1972)
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Understanding the sociopolitical context
Who has power? How is it used? Who benefits? Who
loses?

• Accountability, standardization,
  bureaucratization, surveillance, and the
  constricting of the curriculum
• The rapid turnover of new teachers
• The changing demographics in U.S. classrooms
• The so-called achievement gap
• The physical and emotional condition of public
  schools
• Segregated schools
• Structural and social inequality

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Other factors and conditions
Lack of resources in home and school
Poor infrastructure
Poverty And attendant ills (poor health care,
housing, Opportunities)
Unfair bureaucratic policies and practices
Racism and other biases
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Good teaching can help
what teachers know and do is one of the most
important influences on what students learn
(National Commission on Teaching and Americas
Future, 1996)
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Learning from teachers
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What NCLB says is needed

• certification in their field

• a broad knowledge of their subject matter

• a masters degree or higher

• strong communication skills

• effective organizational skills

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Qualities, Sensibilities, Values of Caring
mentors and Committed Advocates
A sense of mission
Solidarity with, and empathy for, their students
The courage to question mainstream knowledge and
conventional wisdom
Improvisation
A passion for social justice
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A Sense of Mission
Jennifer Welborn I teach in public school
because I still believe in public education. I
believe that the purpose of public school,
whether it delivers or not, is to give a quality
education to all kids who come through the doors.
I want to be part of that lofty mission.
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Solidarity with, and empathy for, students

• caring
• mentoring
• advocacy
• admiration
• high expectations

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Solidarity with, and empathy for, students
Sandra Jenoure I know its easy to sit back and
listen to the gossip in schools. These kids
cant learn, is what you hear. The truth is they
can and do. We have to see and believe.
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A Sense of Mission Mary Cowhey
Blue Jay Valentine
Because you remind me to slow down and just
breathe I am stopped short by the fluttering
blue in the bare branches of a small tree between
snowy ground and looming hemlocks. Then falling
like blue meteors more jays streak down from the
hemlocks to fill the fragile branches like
animated ornaments
Above the sky aches to be as blue as just one
feather
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The courage to question mainstream knowledge and
conventional wisdom
To develop the courage to confront regimes of
truth
To develop more nuanced understandings of complex
issues
To learn to confront and learn from different
perspectives
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Improvisation
According to Dr. Terry Jenoure, improvisation is
a way of thinking and behaving, a metaphor for
creativity within structure.
Judith Baker too many schools are in template
heaven, viewing templates as the end rather than
the means to effective instruction.
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Improvisation
taking advantage of the moment, going beyond the
template, questioning the template
Ayla Gavins Teaching is like being on a moving
train, because on any given day, teachers make
hundreds, even thousands of decisions to keep a
balance of fairness and equity.
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Social Justice
Patty Bode my skin color art lesson tells me
so much about my students, but more important, it
tells my students why I teach to create a
classroom that is deliberately anti-racist, where
respectful dialogue, critical thinking, and lots
of messy art making are required.
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Social Justice and Power
Ambrizeth Lima Teaching is always about power.
That is why it must also be about social justice.
Is it morally right for me, as a teacher, to
witness injustice toward students and remain
quiet?
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Social Justice and Activism
Melinda Pellerin-Duck While teaching at Duggan
Middle School in Springfield, students enrolled
in my Law-Related Education class became actively
involved in a campaign to reopen our local public
library branches
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SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ADVOCACY
Bill Dunn So why do I teach? I teach because
someone has to tell my students that they are not
the ones who are dumb. They need to know that
only the blissfully ignorant and profoundly evil
make up tests to prove that they and people like
them are smart
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New Roles for New Times

• Critically affirm students identities
• Create a sense of belonging
• Expect the best from students
• Teach students to be critical
• Understand and use their power

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Ambrizeth Lima My students, many times, are
urged to forget who they are, or told that they
must become American, as if they could. The
message that they get many times is that they
must discard themselves of their own racial,
ethnic, or linguistic identity.
Critically affirm students identities
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Create a sense of belonging
Yahaira Márquez Since I want my students to
gain confidence in themselves and realize that
they are just as important in my classroom as I
am, I dont ever conduct a class in which Im the
only person speaking, or in which students dont
work equally as hard as I do
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Expect the best from students
I hope to become the kind of teacher whose trust
and faith in his students translate into
unwavering expectations I used to believe it was
enough for my students to discover and trust
their own voice, to write at a level and style
that pleased them. Seth Peterson
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Teach students to be critical
I want my students to realize that science is not
the objective pursuit of knowledge that it is
professed to be. I want them to understand that
data may support a hypothesis that is not valid
to begin with. I want them to know that
correlation does not imply causality. I want them
to know there are hidden variables that may
affect an experiment. I want them to know about
researcher bias. I want them to know all this so
that when they read in the newspaper that
minority SAT scores are down, they know that
these data must be due to social, economic, and
political inequities in our society. They are
not due to genetic inferiority.
Jennifer Welborn
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Junia Yearwood Do our words, positive or
negative, affect our students? What do our
gestures and actions say? Do the things we say
affect our students academic performance and
their sense of self?
Understand and use their power
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Mary Cowhey I teach because I agree with
Gandhi If we are to achieve real peace, we
shall have to begin with the children.