Classroom Caffeine

A Conversation with Jerome "Jerry" C. Harste

February 28, 2023 Lindsay Persohn Season 3 Episode 19
Classroom Caffeine
A Conversation with Jerome "Jerry" C. Harste
Show Notes Transcript

Dr. Jerome Harste talks to us about writing in early childhood, the inherent social risks in writing, Sketch to Stretch writing, arts-based ways of communicating, kids as curricular informants, teachers as intellectuals and philosophers, and schools as spaces of possibility. Dr. Harste is best known for his work exploring young children’s written language literacy learning, connecting arts and literacies, and critical literacies. As a literacy educator his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy and more generally semiotics. Jerry is also a celebrated artist, working mainly in watercolors. He has published over 200 articles in refereed journals and won many awards for his research and teaching. Notably, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire “Paradigm Shifters'' Award (National Council of Teachers of English), the Oscar Causey Reading Research Award (Literacy Research Association) and the David Russell Research Award for his work in the Language Arts (NCTE). He also earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Before retirement, he was an elementary teacher in Monticello, Minnesota and the Peace Corps, a college professor for nearly 50 years at Indiana University, and an educational researcher. Dr. Jerome C. Harste retired from Indiana University as a Distinguished Professor where he held the Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada. You can connect with Jerry on Facebook at “Harste as Artist”or online at jeromeharste.com.

Resource PPT to accompany this episode: Harste Podcast PPT

To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Feb. 28). A conversation with Jerome “Jerry” C. Harste. (Season 3, No. 19) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/DD6E-8C6E-272E-1073-EB2E-U

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Lindsay Persohn:

Education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. In each episode I talk with a top education researcher or an expert educator about what they have learned from years of research and experiences. In this episode, Dr. Jerome Harste talks to us about writing in early childhood, the inherent social risks in writing sketch to stretch writing, arts based ways of communicating kids as curricular informants, teachers as intellectuals and philosophers and schools as spaces of possibility. Dr. Harste is best known for his work exploring young children's written language literacy, learning, connecting arts and literacies and critical literacies. As a literacy educator, his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy, and more generally, semiotics. Jerry is also a celebrated artist working mainly in watercolors. He's published over 200 articles in refereed journals, and won many awards for his research and teaching. Notably, he was inducted into the reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire paradigm shifters award from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Oscar Causey reading research award from the literacy Research Association and the David Russell Research Award for his work in the language arts from the National Council teachers of English. He also earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Before retirement, he was an elementary teacher in Monticello, Minnesota and the Peace Corps, a college professor for nearly 50 years at Indiana University and an educational researcher, Dr. Jerome C. Harste retired from Indiana University as a distinguished professor, where he held the Armstrong chair and teacher education. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada, you can connect with Jerry on Facebook at RST as artists or online at Jerome hartse.com. That's J EROMEHA r s t e.com. For more information about our guests, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite drink. And join me your host Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Jerry, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Jerome Harste:

Well, thank you. It's great to be here.

Lindsay Persohn:

So from your own experiences in education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Jerome Harste:

Oh, It'd be my pleasure. One of the most formidable experiences that I had was a research project, looking at what young children ages 345. And six knew about reading and writing prior to going to school. And I must say that study went over a 10 year period. But it was really mind blowing. For me, I learned so much. What causes it was I had kids of my own. And I was very surprised with my son's language development. I mean, I had studied language development in college, but that my son was doing things that look way ahead of when the kids were normally supposed to do things. Plus he was doing really interesting things that I had never even read about. So when I had my second child, my wife and I decided that we would use her as a case study. So we began to collect data from the very moment that she was born essentially, until she went to first grade. And meanwhile, we had gotten funded from the federal government to look at little kids are language development. And I always remember we were looking at four year olds. In one study, and we had a preschool that was international that is there was a lot of students that had come to IU from different countries. And we had collected the writing data from the kids. We've given them a sheet of paper, and then we took a sheet of paper and we said we want you to write so story and you write on your sheet of paper, and we'll write on our sheet of paper, and then we'll share our stories. And the little four year olds, of course, didn't really produce a story, but they produced markings of what their stories look like. And the Dawn was a little four year old from the United States. And her scribbles, you know, look like scribbles. But they really look like American scribbles when you compare to to najiba, who was from Saudi Arabia, and had written her scribbles sort of in Arabic, and her scribbles look sort of Arabic, she gave me the sheet of paper, and she said, Here's my writing, but you can't read it, because I wrote it in Arabic. And in Arabic, we use a lot more dots than we do in English. And then we had a little guy from Israel. And his grandmother was there when we were collecting the writing sample. And his grandmother watched him create this text. And it looked sort of Hebrew ish. And he wrote it backwards. And she said, I see it looks, he wrote, but it's written in the wrong direction. And uncertainty was very interesting, because when you compare those three writing samples, they really look like the cultures from which the kids came from. And that was very mind blowing, because we had always before thought that children learned oral language, but they had to be taught written language. And this data really suggested that long before schooling, kids were very actively attune to language. And by the time they got to be six years old, they knew quite a bit about written language, without having any direct formal instruction. So that really, that study led us to looking at what three year olds knew, four year olds knew, five year olds knew, and six year olds knew. And it was sort of incredible. I'm going to include as sort of notes along with this podcast, some pictures that show you the three writing samples that we got from those children. Another kid that really sort of amazed me was another four year old, and her name was Michelle. And we asked her to write her name and anything else that she could write. And she wrote down, sort of my shell sort of making in am that look like an M Y, I don't know, then an A and then E. Then below that, she sort of kept going, she wrote a sort of an upside down J, another y a. And then she kept after that, in her third line, she wrote n a n n. And so when she was done with that, we said, Oh, can you read what you written, and she wrote, michelle that's my name. She said, Jay, that's my father's name. And Nancy, that's my mother's name. And then she picked up the pen. And she drew a sort of a rough circle around it, and said, and together, they say, Meijer, which was her family name. And again, we were just sort of blown away with the fact that not only did she have some letter sound correspondence, but you already sort of understood set theory that together, those formed sort of their surnames, and I'll also include a little writing example of Michelle in the notes, so that you can see, as kids, a five year old, and a six year old, of course, were much more sophisticated. And one of the things that amazed us and got us interested, was as kids got older, they use more and more inventive spelling. And we in actual fact, could read their writing, even though it wasn't necessarily parsed in a conventional sort of way. But I remember this little girl wrote once upon a time, and she wrote it sort of as one conceptual unit. And it was very interesting, because once upon a time sort of signals to you that this is not a statement about reality, but it's a imaginary world. And in some ways, the once upon a time, while the words function as words, they really together is how they function in stories to really indicate to the listener that this is make believe story. And it's interesting that there are languages like German that do include long sorts of phrases that put together and function In a very different way than English. So kids seem to almost be redeveloping rediscovering how language works for themselves. And then as they interact with their own culture, they begin to sort of limit the hypothesis that are operating and are much more active than you would think. So at any rate, those experiences were extremely influential in terms of my thinking, as they were writing, they would oftentimes work hard into their writing, they would sort of move freely from written language to art without sort of a break in terms of what they were trying to communicate. Another example that really influenced me that I collected from my daughter, she had had a telephone conversation with a friend, and they were going to get together after church to play ballerina. And when she hung up the phone, she went to her room, and she grabbed a sheet of paper, and she drew a little bow ribbon for hair a little tutu, and little ballet slippers, and then her dresser, and then she put a plus sign, and then she drew sort of gear ribbons, and the tutu and slippers, plus a bag, indicating that her friend Jennifer was going to be bringing her ballet material in a bag and she had her stuff in a dresser. And after church, they're gonna play ballerina then she put her initials up A H for Alison Harste and J. T for Jennifer Tucker. And I always looked at that sheet of paper that she had drawn and when gal we would do well, to be able to summarize our experiences as succinctly as she did, even though she was only five years old. And her freedom to move between art and language was something we had seen with other children. But I think it really sort of called attention to how arbitrary we are, in terms of talking about language as if it's the only communication system that is used when liddle kids very freely, we're moving between art and language and mathematics to represent the world and doing so very effectively. So it was those experiences with young children that really, I mean, forced me to rethink what I thought I knew about children's language development. I always remember one of the teachers once one after I had been talking about what little kids could do, sent me this picture that a little kindergartener had drawn, and she had drawn a book. And then she had drawn a little finger inside the book, and she wrote on there, I'm into books, once I get into them, I can't get out. And it was just such a wonderful little illustration, because it's sort of I think the message was extremely powerful. And that with the little drawing of herself inside a book, it really had a visual impact. And I thought, well, how clever these kids are, in terms of their ability to communicate what they're thinking about by being able to freely move across different science systems, from language, to art, to almost drama. With little three year olds, we were giving them different pieces of objects, like spools of thread, sometimes we give them little blocks, and we ask them to pick out things that they want to do. They were all sort of nondescript things, and tell us a story. And then we asked them to write their story down. And it was fascinating to me, because the the three year old, they use the thing, the the block is a rabbit, for example. And then they would say, and the rabbit went hopping across the meadow, and on the piece of paper, they just sort of made little tiny marks that you wouldn't know what the story was from the marks that they made. But underneath they actually, when you listen to the story, they actually had a character they actually the character had some sort of problem. There was a resolution they really sort of had an understanding of the basic structure of a story even though the surface structure that was produced didn't look like it Anything traditional, So at any rate, it was those kinds of experiences that really influenced I think my thinking.

Lindsay Persohn:

So Jerry, as you're telling those stories, I'm really struck by how limiting writing is in so many schools. You know, your examples showcase the fact that young children before they are brought into formalized school settings, are able to move between different types of symbols and different ways of conveying the meaning that is in their minds. And I'm just really struck by the way that I think in schools, we teach writing in a way that limits their ability to communicate and limits their ability to convey a story. It's almost as if we take away some of those inherent or seemingly inherent tools that young children bring to the writing experience. Do you think that's fair to say?

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, I really do. I think, in fact, you put your finger on lots of things. One of my favorite little stories really happened in Vivian Vasquez's classroom, this little kid came up, and she, they were supposed to have a writing period. And, you know, sometimes I think as teachers, we look at the kid's drawing as sort of deviation or strategy that the kid is using to sort of avoid the curriculum that we want them to engage in. And this little kids said to Vivian, but Miss Vasquez, if I can draw, I can't write. And I think there's something really powerful about that. There's lots of ways to get into writing. And I think by providing a variety of resources for the kid, the key can choose his or her own path into writing. And for lots of kids, I think they have to draw in order to be able to write, and I think we're so keen on sort of cutting off that dimension of their knowing that we do them a disservice. You know, one of the things that I kept dealing with is, what does all of this mean, in terms of our teaching, and working with kids? And how will we create curriculum? And I think one of the things I would say is that you need to really use the child as your curricular informant, I think, so often, we get sort of curriculum push down on us from some administrator or some government agency. And the assumption seems to be that we're supposed to somehow blindly carry that curriculum out in the classroom. Well, for example, when I when we finished our work with these studies of what young kids knew, it seemed to me that the whole primary curriculum was rather ridiculous. We were teaching kids letter A and letter B day and letter C day. And our data really suggested that kids knew all of that stuff already. I mean, we were teaching them things that kids already knew. I mean, kids knew the names of colors, they could write the names of colors and invented spelling. They knew squares and rectangles and triangles, they knew circles. It seemed like everything about the whole kindergarten curriculum was really built on the assumption that kids came into school, not knowing a bloody thing, and that we had to teach them everything. And I think, what we learned or one of the things we learned there, as we have to build our curriculum with kids from what kids already know, rather than just teach things, because it's something that we logically thought we should need to teach. I think before we teach, we really need to have some evidence that the kid needs this kind of information. I'm a

Lindsay Persohn:

former kindergarten teacher. And now this was close to 20 years ago that I started on that adventure, but I can definitely see what you're saying, playing out in a classroom, the tools that we attempt to or purport to give to young children to help them communicate. It seems to me that in so many ways, we're actually limiting what they already know or telling them that their their inherent ways of communicating aren't right or aren't standard enough. As you were talking, I kept thinking about the child as a curricular informant and also thinking about, you know how some curricular programs might feel very ridiculous to young children. If their way of communicating is actually much more effective than what we are trying to teach them.

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, one of the things we did is we started this, this notion of moving to art was very fascinating. And so one of the things we develop with a strategy called sketched a stretch, where we read a book to the kids, and then we asked them to sketch what they thought the book meant to draw a little picture. And just having them move to art was very informative, because they often were able to capture elements of what the story meant better than if you just asked them to retell it in their own words. And part of that made me do because they you heard the story because you read it, but they know you've heard it too. So I think some of what they know, they don't tell you because of the context in which we retold it. Well, I one of my favorite little examples we were reading, I read sleeps over, it's the story about two little boys. And they they decide to have a sleepover and the bigger sister just harasses the little one was saying what's he going to say when you get to sleep with a teddy bear and, and then when he goes over for the sleepover, they're telling ghost stories. And the friend says stop, and he goes to his dresser and he pulls out his teddy bear to take with him to bed. And it's a great little story. And we have a fourth grader, we had read that book in a fourth grade class. And we asked him to do a sketch to strech and draw a sketch of what the story meant to him. And he drew sort of the two kids in the bedroom, telling stories, but then up in the corner, he drew a little boy plus a teddy bear plus, and then he had another little boy plus a teddy bear. And then he had equals and two little boys. And we asked him what did that say. And he said, It says a little boy plus his teddy bear plus another boy plus his teddy bear equals two good friends. And in somehow, that little sketch, he captured more about what that story was about. And its significance. That was sort of just beyond anything that he could have said about that story. In terms of language, it was very interesting. But I'll send different little drawings to people's see some of these illustrations themselves and take a closer look at that.

Lindsay Persohn:

Great, thank you for that, Jerry, that little portrait you paint for us around Iris leaps over, you know, I think if we asked fourth graders to write a story about friendship for us, it would actually be much more difficult to write in that that effective kind of way, if we did just limit to words. And so you've got me reconsidering kind of everything we do around how we ask kids to convey meaning. And particularly, I think whenever we ask them to convey these complex ideas, you know, writing I think is challenging writing is challenging for me as an adult. And I think part of it is because you have to be mindful of things like word choice and sentence construction, and that linear format of writing, where I must lay out these ideas in a way that I believe convey what what I want to say, but also something that's going to make sense to someone else. And so this idea of thinking flexibly in how we tell or how we share our ideas,

Jerome Harste:

or you know, I think one of the other problems with writing and oral reading is that in both instances, the language user is very vulnerable, because you can see every mistake that they made or hear every mistake. And I think one of the things that you got to really be very careful about is glomming on to all those mistakes, because you've been, it's much easier to intimidate a language learner than it is to support one. And I think you need to be very careful about how you go about responding to children. Because I think you can, you can set yourself back very rapidly, by just the wrong saying the wrong thing too. In order to learn language, you really have to take a lot of risk. And it's kids a bit willingness to take those risks. That is why we get surprised with what they're able to do when we actually take the time to look carefully at what it is they are doing. They are constantly taking risk. If you do start playing it too safely. You can't. You can't continue to grow. You need be in an environment where you feel free to take those kinds of risks. I guess in some ways, I should say a little bit more about curriculum, I think most of us think about curriculum, that document that gets handed down to us from some authority, either it's an administrator, or it could be from a State Department, or it could be from a book company in terms of how to use materials. But it's this written statement of what kids are supposed to accomplish. And unfortunately, most of those documents are written by people who rarely come in contact with children. And I think that's a problem right there. But then I think the second part of curriculum to understand is this curriculum that gets enacted, that is, after you've read those documents, and you've set up your context, you as a teacher, try to implement that in your classroom. And that curriculum could be very different from the first curriculum or from that paper curriculum that you got, because it's going to get implemented very differently in the hands of different teachers. That third curriculum is the curriculum that happens in the head of the language learner as these engage. And I think of all of those curriculums, it is what's happening in the head of the language learner. That really is what you need to keep your eye on as a teacher, that mental trip that kids are taking, is the real curriculum. And it's what you need to keep your eye on to in terms of deciding what next to do well, how next to support somebody in their language learning. One of the things about this sketch to stretch also, that was very informative. I had a student about mural, I suppose five years ago, who worked with special ed children, and she got interested in sketch to stretch. And so in terms of her reading program, rather than having them do retailing, she had them do sketch to stretches. And it was interesting because the written retellings or the oral retellings, were very weak for these students. In fact, you would say they flunked. But when they did sketch the stretches, almost every one of them was able to capture the essence of what the story was really about. So I think we've got to start exploring different kinds of alternatives. I mean, that's very good evidence that what's going on in the mind is a lot more than what we thought they were if we only look at one sort of measurement of what's going on. It's why I think you need to use the child is your curricular informant. But it's also why I think you really have to build your curriculum. Based on that information from the child.

Lindsay Persohn:

Jerry, there just a couple of I what I think are really critical points that I want to just draw attention to here, you mentioned that risk and language learning. And I think it's so important to acknowledge that, but as you were describing it, I was also thinking back to what you said earlier with supports, and you know, how we help to maybe minimize that risk while children are learning language. And it seems to me that in so many instances, we immediately take away really crucial supports. And by way of doing that we're actually increasing that risk for learners. So rather than giving them ways to convey meaning, that are not only maybe more comfortable for them, and potentially contain more meaning than written word, we immediately say, no, no, we don't, we don't want you to use that you can only use words on a page, which as I said, I think just inherently increases the risk and learning language. The other the other connection, I made it, this idea of curriculum in the head. And I think that so often, that is a concept that's really underutilized in classrooms, we are always so concerned with the products of what children produce, we often overlook the actual process of getting there. And again, I think those supports we talked about drawing, you knows sketch to stretch, even, you know, sometimes talking about ideas before we write them. When we take those away. We are actually taking away some of our windows into that curriculum in the head, at least in my mind, and in my experience, that sort of what that amounts to.

Jerome Harste:

I think you're absolutely right. One of the things that I find quite frustrating These days is background experience, you know, you can talk about background experience, but teachers will say, Well, I take into account background, you know, every teacher says they take into account background experience, that concept has become what what in semiotics would be called over coded, it's just sort of a term now, that doesn't have any real teeth to it anymore. And I think background and knowledge is really, in some ways, as a result of kid watching, and I, you know, and I think we miss the bigger picture. So I agree with you, 100%, I think we'd start limiting what resources the kid has available. I mean, gets the sketch to stretch also with that whole process is of taking one from what you know, in one area and, and producing it in another area is called Trans mediation. And trans mediation really works, you know, you could have kids read a story and then represent what it means in playdough, you could have them make a drama, you could add them relate to music, but I think your what you what you're getting at is some deeper kind of understanding of what it means. And I think that, you know, I often try to work with kids and get them to understand that they haven't really read something until they've had a conversation with someone about it. I think too often, in our schools, and in reading, in particular, we're dealing and writing, we're dealing with the surface structure, rather than the deep structure. I mean, I think, you know, kids have got to have a lots of opportunities to write that, you know, if you're going to be a writer, you have to have said something different than what other writers have said. I mean, what makes you a writer is saying something in your own voice in a way that hasn't been said before. And I think we've, we get so hung up with the spelling and the grammar, that we fail to really use writing as a vehicle for organizing our thinking, and for expressing our deepest sorts of thoughts. I just think we work too much on the surface structure, rather than the deep structure of, of both reading and writing.

Lindsay Persohn:

Well, I think in my experience, I, I believe that part of the reason why we've turned to the more superficial structures, is because it's really difficult to measure and assess and grade those deeper structures, particularly without a lot of deep training, and, you know, knowledge of the subject as well as some experience.

Jerome Harste:

It's also I think, the case that a lot of the people developing those administrative curriculums, they they reduce everything into those simple little terms. Do you know what I mean? They break

Lindsay Persohn:

check boxes and, and grading scales. Yes, yes. Agreed. I totally agree with you, Jerry.

Jerome Harste:

So in some ways teachers, You know, this is the probably the hardest concept to get across. But you got to be a philosopher, before you can be a teacher, you really have to think about what kind of world do I want to create? And what kind of people do I want to have populated? Now, once you decided what kind of people you want to create, and what kind of people the world would do well to have, then I think it's a matter of setting up your classroom to support those kids living that particular experience. But you do have to be a father, a bit of a philosopher, you do have to take responsibility for looking at the bigger picture. And that's what really bothers me about the way senators and people talk about the teaching profession. I mean, teachers need to really be intellectual professionals, in a sense, they really do have a huge responsibility to think about what kind of people do we want to create? And how can we get about creating those in our classroom? I think, you know, it's living that model with the kids on a daily basis that keeps you growing. I mean, you will find yourself all of a sudden saying things like, Oh, God, I don't really want to be that kind of person. Why did I say that? Well, that's wonderful, because that forces you to rethink how you're going to do something and how you're going to interact. And it's having a sense of this bigger picture. Sure, I think that's extremely important did not sort of lose sight of by focusing on all the minutia and the details that are often what specified by people.

Lindsay Persohn:

Yeah, I think you're so right. I think you're right on with that, Jerry. And we're, we're a little off script here. But I want to be sure to give you an opportunity to answer directly to the second question. What do you want listeners to know about your work? Or maybe more appropriately? At this point? What else do you want listeners to know about your work?

Jerome Harste:

Well I'd say, use the child as your curricular informant, I think somehow that relationship that you have with children, and that understanding, I also think you have to constantly realize that those kids that aren't performing and you got to keep asking yourself, why the kids who aren't performing aren't meeting the standards that have been set up. And sometimes I think it's helpful to say to yourself, what would school have to be like in order for this kid to be success? And then I think what that leads to is you begin to see, what does that child currently know and what currently interests them? And how could you build from that particular point, I've worked with a group of teachers up in Indianapolis, and we started a Center for Inquiry as a school, we got permission from the board, I was based around inquiry based learning. And we took our best ideas, and that was going to be the curriculum for the school. Yet we got kids in there who weren't doing well. And we would use those kids as our professional development, we each would try to make an observation of what the kid was doing in particular locations. And then we talked about that. And then we hypothesized, well, what could we do to make him successful, that was some of the best professional development that I've ever been involved in. Since we were testing our best hypotheses. And they weren't working, it was really an opportunity to sort of outgrow ourselves. And not only were we able to create a curriculum where those kids started to achieve, but we really became much smarter about the whole process of education. But I think it again, leads to paying really close attention to your learner. And then understanding that somebody has set up the standards that we're supposed to be reaching. And those standards aren't given by God, they're given by humans, and they're going to reward certain people, and they're going to jeopardize other people. And if you change those, somebody else might look better. But you're also going to jeopardize another set. There's no, there's no right answer to that. But I think we do have to question what it is that we value and and what are we teaching for? And who does that eliminate in that process? I mean, I think we need to be much more cognizant about and not just accept that, what this what the government wants us to teach. If there is a non debatable entity, I think we really have to question what it is we're about up and down the line. And I think that's part of being a professional to it isn't just toeing the line all the time.

Lindsay Persohn:

What incredible words of wisdom and I think advice for for anyone who might be feeling a little bit stuck. You know, I think that teachers also often feel very boxed in by curriculum by the standards. But I think taking this critical mindset and also this question you give us is, what would school have to be like for the student to be successful? To me, that just fills me with a lot of hope for what things could be those kind of imagined futures or imagining a circumstances that we could design in order to help students be successful, rather than them hearing that these standards set by someone you don't know who's never met you before who's decided that this is the thing we're going to value there. I think there's just a lot of empowerment in thinking differently about how we can support students to really discover their strengths, to find their voice in the world and to exercise that kind of power to help them become who they want to be and to really live up to their potential. So I so appreciate that question. And that kind of frame for thinking about possibilities in schools, particularly I think, would we live in a day and age when schools are unfortunately filled with a lot of impossibility?

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, I agree. I, you know, your third question that you given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message? Do you want teachers to hear? God, I thought about that a long time I tell you here is what I think I often think, God, if I were teaching these days, how long would it be before I got fired? It's a very difficult environment as for teachers at the current time, but here's what I advise the teachers I work with up in, I'm working with a group of teachers right now in Canada. And while Canada, it doesn't have all of the constraints that the US system has, for the most part, they have the benchmarks, but teachers are still sort of permitted to reach those bench marks in any way that they professionally think, is the best way. Now that's changing a little is getting more restrictive. But here's what I tell teachers, I think it's important for you to understand very thoroughly what it is the state is expecting of you. And be very articulate about that. So that if somebody questions you, you know, bloody well what it is that's being asked of you to teach. And then I think the second part of that is you need to know, and be very articulate about how you want to go about teaching that, and how that's going to more than meet the particular standards that the curriculum has laid out how you're going to go not only reach those standards, but why that's so much more important in terms of the students you're teaching, and how that's going to get them to go far beyond what even was expected of them. I think if you're articulate, about both of those fronts, then you've got a chance at being able to make the kind of curricular decisions I think you have to make in order to be effective. I would also add one other thing. I think teachers should practice that with each other practice as if somebody is an administrator asking them, why are you doing this and, and then practice responding. I think if they're prepared, it's much more likely that you're going to get to do what you want to do.

Lindsay Persohn:

That's great advice. And I think that idea of rehearsing responses to critical questions, it does have the potential to put teachers in a different position when it comes to being questioned about their decisions in their classroom. And, you know, I truly believe I want to believe that everyone who has a stake in education really has children's best interests at heart. And I think that quite often the way to achieve those goals is misunderstood, or perhaps the picture is incomplete. But I would like to believe that everyone wants what's best for children. But I think this concept of you know, and this sort of tangible idea of talking with our colleagues about how we explain or in some instances, even defend our professional decision making, there's so much power in that, right. I think that that that's a really critical conversation. It also I think, has the potential to help us to grow in not just those skills of our own personal or professional advocacy, but also to hear what are others doing that's really working well for them? Or how are they thinking about giving those gifts back to students, those gifts of things like conveying your ideas through drawing or through claymation, or through dramatization or perhaps even music? Any kind of flexible thinking, I think once once we have conversations about those things with colleagues, it continues to open up possibilities for us, and hopefully, can sort of stop that, that sort of stealing of possibilities that I think is happening in all too many spaces. And maybe that's a simplistic way to think about it. But I think that in kind of an immediate sense. That's one way that we can exercise that personal and professional power.

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, and I think here its also what keeps teaching alive and why we're teachers. I mean, we keep growing as as we try new things. I think we find that, you know, it keeps an edge on learning. I think one of the things when you ask kids to use art to respond. I think it's different than what normally has been going on. And there's something about the provocative-ness of an invitation that allows kids to sort of reach for the stars in a way. I think, oftentimes when you ask kids to draw something in older grades, okay, like, oh, I can't draw, do the very best you can. But I think there's something about provocative in that invitation that really, oftentimes you get much more than you expected. And I think it puts an edge to learning, but it puts a heads on the kids learning, like your own learning, too. And I think that's equally important as a professional to keep reflecting on what's happening and to continue to grow.

Lindsay Persohn:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that so often in schools, we talk about meeting expectations, whereas what I think you and I are talking about here is really exceeding expectations, right, and I to be there, there's a lot of hope, for possibility and for a brighter future of education, if we can keep those ideas in mind if we can avoid the limiting thoughts, the limiting behaviors, and instead identify opportunities and our challenges. And so I just, I really appreciate that message. And I appreciate you also giving us some really tangible ways to get started on imagining possibilities.

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, and I would say, make it fun. I mean, learning is fun.

Lindsay Persohn:

It should be right. I mean, I think that's how we maximize again, that's how we exceed expectations is whenever learning is an enjoyable experience.

Jerome Harste:

You know, bring in books that you really love and share with them. Make sure that kids are having fun, and you don't need to apologize for kids having fun. I think we just need to make schooling a joyous activity for everybody.

Lindsay Persohn:

What a different world we might live in huh Jerry.

Jerome Harste:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Lindsay Persohn:

Is there anything else you'd like to share with listeners today?

Jerome Harste:

No, I'm just wishing I hope. I hope what I said makes some sense. And

Lindsay Persohn:

what you've said, We'll stick with me forever, I think that this is such an important conversation. And I think it's such an important moment in education for teachers to hear a message of hope and possibility because I think that in so many places, you know, education really is a kind of a dreary space, but it doesn't have to be like that.

Jerome Harste:

No, I know, I'm gonna send you this little PowerPoint of these illustrations that I talked about in the beginning. I'm hoping that will help sorted by that if that sort of got too muddled.

Lindsay Persohn:

Absolutely. And we will post that to your guests page, so listeners can find it there. Jerry, I just want to thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your ideas. So thank you, and thank you for your tremendous contributions to the world of education.

Jerome Harste:

It has been my pleasure. So nice meeting you. And good luck with your podcasting.

Lindsay Persohn:

Thank you so much. Dr. Jerome C. Harste, he is best known for his work exploring young children's written language literacy, learning, connecting arts and literacies and critical literacies. As the educational researcher he studied what young children knew about reading and writing prior to going to school, the status of reading comprehension instruction in the United States, and how reading, writing and art support the learning process. together with a group of teachers from Indianapolis, he started a public school called the Center for Inquiry. The curriculum of that school features process reading and writing children's literature, multiple ways of knowing, inquiry based education and critical literacy. The Center for Inquiry is now in its 30th year of operation in Indianapolis now hosts for such schools covering kindergarten to eighth grade with plans to open a high school in the future. For an overview of his professional writings See, researching literate lives the Select writings of Jerome Harste which was published by Rutledge in 2021. The third edition of teaching children's literature, it's critical, co authored with doctors Christine Leland and Mitzi Lewisohn was just released by Rutledge publishers in 2023. As a literacy educator, his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy and more generally semiotics or the study of how cultural groups learn to mean for his research and work in schools. He was inducted into the reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire paradigm shifters award from the National Council of Teachers of English the Oscar Causey reading research award from the literacy Research Association and the David Russell research Award for his work in the language arts from the National Council for Teachers of English. He served in leadership roles for the National Council of Teachers of English international Reading Association, American Educational Research Association, literacy Research Association, United Kingdom Reading Association, whole language umbrella center for the expansion of language and thinking and the National Conference on reading in language and literacy. He's earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Dr. Harste retired from Indiana University as a distinguished professor, where he held the Armstrong chair in teacher education. He is currently a member of the alliance of distinguished professors at IU. Since his retirement in 2006. He has pursued art a lifelong passion by taking workshops and courses from some of the best watercolor artists in the nation. From these artists, he learned how to take risks, push boundaries and understand the importance of composition, color, pattern and design. More and more. He's become a firm advocate of Jacob John's advice to artists do something then do something to that something and soon you'll have something. Dr. Harste is currently a signature member of the Bloomington watercolor society, the watercolor Society of Indiana, the Hoosier salon and the Missouri watercolor society. He regularly shows his work at the emeritus house on Iuse campus, the William H Miller Fine Art Studio in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and has had solo shows at Meadow wood retirement home and the Walter and Art Center in Bloomington, Indiana. Because his paintings deal with the issue of literacy. His work has been featured on the covers of seven professional books, as well as several professional journals, including language arts, Journal of language and literacy, education, literacy practice and research and California English. He was a featured watercolor artist in January 2019 and December 2020, and blue magazine. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada. You can connect with Jerry on Facebook at Harste as artist or online at Jerome harste.com. That's JEROMEH A R S T E dot c o FM. For the good of all students classroom caffeine aims to energize education research and practice. If this show provides you with things to think about, don't keep it a secret. Subscribe, like and review this podcast through your preferred podcast provider. I also invite you to connect with the show through our website at WWW dot classroom caffeine.com where you can learn more about each guest. Find transcripts for many episodes, explore episode topics using our tagging feature, support podcast research through our survey, request an episode topic or a potential guest or share your own questions that we might respond to through the show. You could also leave us a voice message or a text message at 1-941-212-0949. We would love to hear from you. As always, I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me