Finding Identity: Using the Literary and Visual Arts as Reflexive Tools / Lettres de possibilités et d’évolution pédagogique : réflexions personnelles issues de mon projet « Quête d’identité »

This paper addresses reflections from my research when using letter-writing as an arts-based method for exploring curriculum implications within an alternative educational program in a Montreal inner-city high school. The participants, comprised of the program’s students as well as its administrators and teachers, informed the research by shedding light on their experiences of the teaching and learning that occurs in such setting. By combining the literary and visual arts, the study participants explored the theme of identity through the creation of letters, and visual arts responses. As a result of this work, I employ letter-writing in this paper to address the critical and pedagogic discourses experienced and support for a call to shift educational paradigms.Keywords: Pedagogy; Letters; Narratives; Education; Discourse.Résumé : Cet article porte sur les réflexions issues de mes recherches axées sur la rédaction de lettres comme méthode artistique d’analyse des répercussions des programmes, dans le cadre d’un programme éducatif alternatif au sein d’une école secondaire « anonyme » d’un centre-ville. Ces recherches sont basées sur les différents participants, à savoir étudiants, administrateurs et enseignants, qui ont bien voulu partager leurs expériences d’enseignement et d’apprentissage dans le contexte précité. En regroupant arts littéraires et visuels, les participants à l’étude ont exploré la thématique de l’identité par la rédaction de lettres et de créations en arts visuels. J’utilise donc ici, par le fruit de ces travaux, la rédaction de lettres pour traiter des discours critiques et pédagogiques reçus et promouvoir une évolution des paradigmes éducatifs.Mots-clés : Pédagogie, lettres, récits, éducation, discours.

The Devolution of the Inner-City High School

Over the past century, the inner-city high school has devolved from a place that was indicative of progress and social betterment to an institution that is severely challenged by structural poverty and racial inequality. Exploring the connections between education and the process of demographic, economic, and political change in Philadelphia, this article considers white resistance to the presence of black people in white neighborhoods and black students in their public schools and, ultimately, the white workplace itself. The typical inner-city high school is no longer widely perceived as a “cathedral of learning,” an engine of upward mobility, and a center of civic pride; it now symbolizes many of the ills of the ghetto. As black and increasingly impoverished students replaced those who were white and middle and working class, public investment in the school declined; it lost the moral authority, political power, and finances so vital to fulfilling its educational mission.

Technology Paved the Road for Students in a High-School Dropout Recovery Program to an Online College Class

Although there are Federal programs that are intended to assist a wide range of people with getting a college education, the educational attainment statistics confirm that these programs are not reaching the students who are the least apt to go to college. This chapter describes how technology enabled 52 inner-city high school students, 49% of whom had cumulative high school grade point averages (GPA) that were between 1.0 and 1.9 points, to be dually enrolled in an online college class and their online high school classes. The class average for the quizzes the students completed was 88% and the students who took the final exam scored, on average, 86%. There were some unexpected delays and difficulties along the way, but the students performed at a college level in a difficult class.

Exercising Autonomous Learning Approaches through Interactive Notebooks: A Qualitative Case Study

Grounded in the theoretical framework of interpretivism, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences of a teacher from an inner city high school in South Texas when using interactive notebooks to inform students’ understanding of physics concepts. The participant for the study was purposefully selected with an intention to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences. Data collection incorporated multiple methods such as interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. Descriptive, In-vivo, process, and Labovian six-part model of narrative coding were used to reduce and manage data. The codes were grouped into eight categories. Two major themes were identified from the data analysis: Interactive Notebook - A Testimony of Constructive Learning and Interactive Notebook- A Pioneering Approach to Instruction. The findings of this study intersect science education and qualitative inquiry and create space for openended, autonomous, constructivist learning of scientific principles. Additionally, the findings raise implications for transferable aspects of individualized learning processes for any areas of education where concepts are challenging for students to grasp.

Teaching Core French Through the Arts.

This study is concerned with Grade nine applied level students’ attitudes toward learning French. The following paper provides an in-depth case study of one group of 18 students from a Core French class in a South-Western Ontario inner city high school. Specifically students’ attitudes toward learning French through the Arts were examined. Guided by the tenets of Constructivism and Arts-based research, with the collaboration of the classroom teacher, French/Arts lesson plans were prepared through which I examined students’ motivation, attitudes, and enthusiasm to speak French whilst in the process of creating art. Students’ comments of learning French through Art were compared with their stories of past experiences within Core French programme. Grounded theory, an emerging theme design using qualitative methods of data collection and analysis was used to address the research concerns of this study. Observational data, questionnaires, and focus group interviews were conducted in order to triangulate the data collection for analysis. Students’ attitudes toward learning French via Arts-based activities found that students learned French in meaningful ways in the Arts (visual art, music, movement, and drama) and their enjoyment, motivation to learn, and spoken French in the classroom increased.