Classroom participation: Teachers’ work as listeners

ABSTRACT

This article examines teachers’ work as part of the everyday life of classrooms, schools and communities—as curriculum design, dynamic pedagogies and as an oeuvre which is assembled over time. One of the hardest aspects of the everyday work of teachers, and perhaps one of the most under-rated and under-studied, is listening, really listening. This article firstly explores the dangers of teachers not listening. Secondly, it highlights the contributions of teacher researchers who take students and their worlds seriously. We argue that teachers listening to students in the context of their communities can underpin responsive pedagogies and creative curriculum design, which in turn can allow students to assemble repertoires of complex communication practices for representation, participation and taking action. Finally, we speculate about how, over time, teachers, as artists, assemble an oeuvre—an assemblage of curriculum design and responsive pedagogies which could inform teacher education and research.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers’ work
• classroom discourse
• literacy
• ethnography
• new materialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘Educational leadership and turnaround literacy pedagogies’ was an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (No. LP120100714) and a collaboration between the University of South Australia and the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development in 2012–14. The chief investigators were Robert Hattam (University of South Australia), Barbara Comber (Queensland University of Technology) and Deb Hayes (University of Sydney). The research associate was Lyn Kerkham (University of South Australia).

Additional information

Funding

This study, ‘Educational leadership and turnaround literacy pedagogies’ was an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (No. LP120100714) and a collaboration between the University of South Australia and the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development in 2012–14. The chief investigators were Robert Hattam (University of South Australia), Barbara Comber (Queensland University of Technology) and Deb Hayes (University of Sydney). The research associate was Lyn Kerkham (University of South Australia).

Notes on contributors

Barbara Comber

Barbara Comber is an Adjunct Research Professor in the Centre for Educational and Social Inclusion, in Education Futures, University of South Australia. Her research is concerned with teachers’ work, social justice and critical literacy education.

Debra Hayes

Debra Hayes is a Professor of Education and Equity and Head of the University of Sydney School of Education and Social Work. She researches, writes, and teaches about inequality in education, particularly in relation to the practices of leaders and teachers in school.