A Portrait of Hope: A Beginning Teacher Learns about Community

A question listed in the call for this issue was: What are the sources and examples of hope for teachers, school leaders, and students as experienced and gained through learning,. , [and] community connections? This portrait of a beginning teacher’s experiences learning about community as she navigates her first year of teaching provides a way for readers to think about how to develop community within a classroom and school, the roles members of a school community play in community development, and how mentoring may influence community building. Through portraiture methodology (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) the reader will glimpse a deeper view of Maria in her first year of teaching and as a veteran teacher. Maria’s approach to the tragic death of several parents in her school community helped both children and adults experience a sense of community, renewal, and hope in a very difficult time. HOPE: A BEGINNING TEACHER LEARNS ABOUT COMMUNITY 3 A Portrait of Hope: A Beginning Teacher Learns about Community Introduction I will tell the story of a beginning teacher who, through her experiences in a time of death and loss, was able to create hope for herself, her students, and her school community. This portrait of Maria, interwoven with examples of mentorship by her supportive principal and mentor teacher, may offer insights into how one teacher created a community in her classroom and school during a difficult time, and how her mentors helped her integrate into the school community during her first year of teaching. This portrait also explores how relationships developed within the context of community helped create a supportive and learning-filled community to help both children and adults make sense of the happenings of their lives. Portraiture Methodology Overview Portraiture methodology (Lightfoot, 1983; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) was used to create this view of Maria (a pseudonym) and a series of events that occurred during her first year as a teacher. The portrait presented here is excerpted from a longer portrait due to its length. A word portrait is shaped by a dialogue between the researcher (portraitist) and the participant (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 3). As the portraitist of this study, I used the essential elements of portraiture: context, voice, and relationship as lenses through which the emergent themes came into view. The aesthetic whole, the portrait that is written, gives the participant and the reader of the research an opportunity to step into the story of the participant as well as the researcher. In portraiture the researcher’s voice is present through her or his own understanding of the setting. Producing “a full picture of an event or person that tells as much about the subject as it does the researcher, or portraitist” (Chapman, 2007, p. 157) and makes the research presented through portraiture applicable to those from a variety of areas of interest – not only HOPE: A BEGINNING TEACHER LEARNS ABOUT COMMUNITY 4 practitioners and scholars. Portraiture is a methodology that seeks to “combine systematic, empirical description with aesthetic expression, blending art and science, humanistic sensibilities and scientific rigor” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 3). The search for what Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) call “goodness” (p. 9) is in contrast to research methodologies documenting failures that can often evoke a feeling of hopelessness. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis explain goodness in portraiture in this way: Portraiture resists this tradition-laden effort to document failure. It is an intentionally generous and eclectic process that begins by searching for what is good and healthy and assumes that the expression of goodness will always be laced with imperfections. The researcher who asks first “what is good here? ” is likely to absorb a very different reality than the one who is on a mission to discover the sources of failure. But it is also important to say that portraits are not designed to be documents of idealization or celebration. In examining the dimensionality and complexity of goodness there will, of course, be ample evidence of vulnerability and weakness. (p. 9) Critiques of portraiture (English, 2000; Hackmann, 2002) may offer points for further dialogue in the exploration of paradox in the methodology in such themes as truth-seeking, goodness, or stance of the researcher. These themes are important considerations in learning more about the methodology and are welcomed dialogue by this researcher. Hackmann (2002) makes the point in his critique, citing the work of Fullan and Miles (1992), that “reform initiatives fail when educators act on incomplete information, misunderstand the change process, or simply refuse to change” (p. 58). The challenge that Hackmann offers in his critique of portraiture is for practitioners to “see themselves” in the research, otherwise change is unlikely and the research “will merely sit on a shelf, collecting dust” (p. 58). I invite practitioners and HOPE: A BEGINNING TEACHER LEARNS ABOUT COMMUNITY 5 researchers alike into a view, through this portrait, of many educational issues. Each one viewing the portrait may come away with different ideas but this is what I believe portraiture can do: invite the dialogue about our views. Portraiture Process This portrait was taken from a larger study of 10 candidates who participated in a study about their beginning mentoring and teaching experiences. I interviewed Maria several times based on prepared questions and follow-up probes. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed by the researcher. Participant checks were conducted to ensure the accuracy of the data. I also conducted site visits to Maria’s classroom and school. Each time I interacted with Maria in her classroom and school, I made notes in what Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) call the “Impressionistic Record” (p.188). I recorded my ongoing observations and reflections from my interviews and interactions as they were happening, and as I transcribed and listened to the tape recordings, on multiple occasions. Often, as I observed or listened to the tape recordings I would note a tone of voice, or repeated phrase, or a question to follow-up on at a future meeting. The reflections made in my recording of my Impressionistic Record would often help me plan for future visits with Maria and highlight additional themes to review in greater detail. Listening to the tape recordings of the interviews while making the transcription of the tape recorded interviews, rereading the transcriptions as I listened to the tape recordings, and referring to my notes in my Impressionistic Record and from site visits, I began to construct the word portrait of Maria. I used multiple interchanging aspects of each of the lenses – context, voice and relationship – allowing for an initial shaping of the emergent themes of Maria’s portrait. After multiple readings and editing of Maria’s portrait, I sent the portrait to Maria for her review and then scheduled a meeting to discuss her feedback. Her feedback and our dialogue HOPE: A BEGINNING TEACHER LEARNS ABOUT COMMUNITY 6 was noted and used in shaping the final portrait. It is through the layering of all these components that triangulation occurs in portraiture. In the next section I will discuss the definition of “community” as used in this article, and present related literature. Definitions of Community and Supporting Literature The definition of classroom and/or school based community used in this article is based on a developmental model. Schaps and Solomon, writing in 1990, described the first step in promoting community as taking into consideration the “prosocial development” of and among children, focusing on interpersonal awareness and the ability to balance one’s own needs with the needs of others as well as on kindness and consideration for others (p. 39). I echo this developmental approach in my own definition of community, stressing as a primary value the ethic of care for everyone, and extending this ethic of care approach to taking responsibility for our actions and how our actions affect not only ourselves but others and the environment of the classroom and school. The type of community described in this article is not just a group of children and adults banded together by proximity or purpose alone. It is also demonstrated in how the children and adults treat each other and how they think and feel about each other. This is the type of community I have always strived to form in my classrooms or the schools I have led. Combining an ethic of care with personal responsibility can create an opening for a reciprocal type of care to begin to flourish. From this type of reciprocal care for each other and our environment, I have found that the value of respect can grow and be experienced. Caring and respect, present in action and observable among a group of people in relation to one another this defines community for me. HOPE: A BEGINNING TEACHER LEARNS ABOUT COMMUNITY 7 A definition of community can also be shaped by what it is not. Lewis, Schaps and Watson (1996), citing the work of Palmer (1986), define caring in the classroom as: A learning space needs to be hospitable, not to make learning painless but to make the painful things possible . things like exposing ignorance, testing tentative hypotheses, challenging false or partial information, and mutual criticism of thought. [None of these] can happen in an atmosphere where people feel threatened or judged. (p. 21) An environment in which caring and respect is not present can make it difficult to maintain the vulnerability which is needed to learn. Another definition by Schaps and Lewis (1999) in a study of The Child Development Project, defines community “as a student’s experience of being a valued, influential member of a group committed to everyone’s growth and welfare” (p. 216). The concepts of being committed to n