A Conversation with Amy Vetter and Melissa Schieble

Drs. Amy Vetter and Melissa Schieble talk to us about teacher agency, community, and critical conversations. A third scholar, Kahdeidra Monét Martin, is also involved in their recent research. Amy is known for her work in understanding how classroom interactions impact developing reader and writer identities as well as teacher identities, the role of critical conversations in educational settings, and the impotence of learning from the writing identities of young people. Melissa is known for her work on analyses of power, privilege and oppression in fiction for youth and in classroom discourse. Together, with Kahdeidra, they have published multiple research articles on the topic of critical classroom conversations as well as the book Classroom Talk for Social Change: Critical Conversations in English Language Arts, published in 2020 by Teachers College Press.

Resources mentioned in this episode: NCTE Intellectual Freedom Center

To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Apr. 11). A conversation with Amy Vetter and Melissa Schieble (Season 3, No. 22) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/26D8-D7C3-D4B1-E9FF-DB33-R

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

Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:10

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, doctors Amy Vetter, and Melissa Shible talk to us about teacher agency, community and critical conversations. A third scholar Kahdeidre Monet Martin, who will be an assistant professor at Vassar College next year is also involved in their recent research. Amy is known for her work and understanding how classroom interactions impact developing reader and writer identities, as well as teacher identities, the role of critical conversations and educational settings, and the importance of learning from the writing identities of young people. Melissa is known for her work on analyses of power, privilege and oppression in fiction for youth and in classroom discourse. Together with Kahdeidre they have published multiple research articles on the topic of critical classroom conversations, as well as the book classroom talk for social change critical conversations in English language arts, published in 2020 by teachers college press. 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. Amy and Melissa, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Unknown: 1:58

Thanks for having us.

Lindsay Persohn: 2:01

So Melissa, we'll start with you for this first question. From your own experiences and education. Will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Melissa Schieble: 2:12

Yeah, thanks, Lindsay. I think this is a really important question for considering the importance of this work. And I wouldn't say I have one or two isolated moments or experiences, but really a sort of lifespan of experiences that have accumulated and have led me to our research. And I think that really starts with my own experiences as a young person. I'm from a small, primarily white, middle class town in the Midwest, United States. And I attended a very traditional school, my teachers looked like me, my classmates looked like me, the way I spoke in my home, match the language expectations of my school. And so because of that, I didn't have a lot of tools as a young person to really understand my power and positioning and my social world, I didn't have a lot of tools to help me unpack some of the privileges that I had in relationship to my my whiteness and relationship to my class. And I also over time, as a young person, especially moving into young adulthood, really internalized a lot of sexism, a lot of the messages about gender that were present in my social world as a child, and because of that, you know, as a as an English major in college, and, you know, moving into being an ELA teacher, and a teacher, educator and researcher, I find that literature is really important catalyst for providing those tools. And I'm so grateful that I learned those tools through my college and educational experiences and consistently try to learn and continuously learn and unlearn and continuously learn and, you know, strive for that humility, with my knowledge. And it really has shaped the trajectory of my research of my scholarship in not only supporting educators to develop curriculum, make book selections and develop questions to talk with kids about in classrooms that really help critically unpack students, social identities, privileges, areas where they feel they are marked marginalized or oppressed in society, and then also to provide spaces in ELA classrooms, for the ways that those conversations are also liberating the ways that they can provide pathways to solidarity and in help students enact their own agency in their social worlds. And so I would say that, that sort of lifespan experience is really what has led me to this work.

Lindsay Persohn: 4:59

Thank you. For that, Melissa, and I'll I'll throw the same question over to Amy, from your own experiences and education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Amy Vetter: 5:10

Thanks, Lindsay, that was listening to you talk, Melissa was thinking about these dinner table conversations and why they're so important. And I grew up in Louisiana, and we had a lot of dinner table conversations about like politics and, you know, questioning these things. But that mainly happened at the dinner table, unlike when we went outside of sort of that place, those conversations were different because I was in a community where people believed very differently from the values and beliefs of my family. And so that probably is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in these critical conversations, because I wanted to learn more about how can you have dialogue that you know, is, you know, productive? That's the right word or not, you know, with people who believe very differently from you. How do you get into that? And how can you help others get into that? But you know, in thinking about a specific educational experience, you know, Melissa, and I really started working together we met at LRA had, I don't know, over 10 years ago, I think, and we were very interested and using discourse analysis as a tool with our pre service teachers. And so we were both, you know, teaching methods classes, and we were both doing some kind of like video analysis, where we would ask our students to video record some of the lessons that they were doing, and then we would ask them to transcribe it. And then we turn this into a research project, we were asking them, like, what kind of teacher do you want to be? Now let's look at these transcripts across time and see if you've actually been able to enact this facilitator identity or whatever it is that they said. And we found that to be a very useful reflective tool for pre service teachers over time, they can really figure out alright, I need to learn how to enact this and get better at it. Super useful. But then we discovered that we were also asking them questions about okay, well, how how does your race? How does your class how does your sexual orientation and so on? How does all of those things shaped what you were doing in your classroom and the kind of teacher you want to be? And we were getting silence a lot of the times or very surface level answers, and both Melissa and I, you know, had conversations and we thought, okay, well, what can we do as teachers to better support our students to engage in these critical conversations. And what that meant for us, was really figuring out we had to do a lot of work, we had to do a lot of, oh, wow, we need to do our own reflection, we need to practice this ourselves in order to become better at it. And so I think for me, you know, that that was sort of the beginning of this journey, and to studying critical conversations and classrooms, all levels of classrooms. So

Lindsay Persohn: 7:51

I think something you just said, Amy, is such an important part of reflective practice. And I think it's important to show that that's something that never leaves us, even if we leave classroom practice, right, that idea of when our students have difficulty, how do we in fact, support them and guide them? Through that process? Sometimes it is doing it ourselves, right, and reflecting on what that actually sounds like, what that looks like? It's a great reminder. Thank you. And so Amy, I'm also going to throw this second question to you, what do you want listeners to know about your work?

Amy Vetter: 8:22

Yeah, so I mean, it's pretty much connected with what I was just talking about that Melissa And I, you know, worked really hard for many years, we had a pilot study, and then another two years study with an inquiry group of teachers that were focused on critical conversations. And so we met once a month, we recorded the conversations, they would transcribe conversations and what we mean the way we define critical conversations are conversations about power and privilege within a classroom. And because we're literacy teachers, that's what we focus on. And a lot of those conversations are around pieces of literature. Because, you know, that makes sense. We're middle high school English teachers. So but yeah, we met monthly, we had them transcribe those conversations. And then we asked, you know, questions to help them dig in into those transcripts. We had them read articles to help them unpack what was going on. And, you know, we did a pilot study, and then I said, two years, and I was like, wow, after you analyzing all that data, we were like, oh, there are so many things we could have done even better. As all as all research goes. And we're continuing down pack that. But one of the things from the book that I think would be useful for teachers, all educators, really, you know, in K through 12, classrooms, teacher, educators, administrators, is if you really want to engage in this work of fostering critical conversations, I came up with five things. One of them is having knowledge about power and privilege. You know, that idea of what what is critical and what does that mean? And so that means doing a lot of reading and talking about it. Understanding what critical pedagogies are so having knowledge about it, but then also having some practice, you know, like some, you know, past practice and trying it out in the classroom, taking on this critical learner stance, and that is very much connected with reflecting critically. But it also really just means being open to things that you don't know being open to hearing other perspectives. So on vulnerability, we really found that we all needed to make ourselves really vulnerable and tell stories about maybe when we weren't doing things well or something in the past, you know, things like that. And we tried to model that as much as we could with the teachers. And then finally, critical talking was because we are at in our hearts, we are discourse analysts, we love looking, that's why Melissa and I love doing work together because we love digging into these local moments of language and then making connections to, you know, what does that mean for the macro and understanding these bigger questions about the world. And so we broke down some critical talk moves that teachers might be able to enact that might help students disrupt some assumptions that they're making about something or help them become vulnerable or so on. We don't like to think of them as like conversation starters, like everyone needs to start their sentence with that. But it's more like, you know, how can you disrupt a student who is saying something, but do it and maybe a form of a question or do it in the form of a story or something that can really open up more perspectives or invite other people into the mix. So that's what I hope that people will take away from from the work that we have been doing.

Melissa Schieble: 11:34

Yeah, I can add on to that. Thank you, Amy. That was a really good sort of summary of some of that work we've been doing together. And and I think, in addition to what we wrote about in the book are some places that we really felt still intrigued us, or were surprising about the work. So for me, something in particular is when we began the project, we really focused on the talk, what was said, how the questions were formed, what the dialogue looked like. And I think having, you know, engaged in this project now, for many years, something I learned was that so much of the messaging that happens in what we might call critical conversations, or difficult conversations, or courageous conversations, oftentimes takes place through body language, through nonverbal interactions through moments where students choose not to say anything. And that really was powerful for me. And we have written some, you know, we have an article in the English journal on critical listening. And you know, the importance as ELA teachers that we, we don't just assume that students are only thinking of what is said, but to try to use different strategies such as journaling, or, you know, maybe smaller group conversations to provide brave spaces for students to engage in critical conversations. And so that is something I think, in terms of what we would want listeners to know about our work is the importance of all of what's not said and what is communicated through the body. I also think something that has become more interesting to me, given some shifts in the field, with a focus on mindfulness and healing centered education, and healing centered pedagogy is to also think about the ways that we can unpack experiences and talk about critical and difficult issues in the classroom, and then also provide space for students to heal. And, you know, I'm learning a little bit more about that right now, through some of the work by some of my colleagues and people whose work I greatly admire, such as Dr. Yolanda Celia Ruiz, Dr. Angel Acosta, some of the healing centered education work. And so I'm really looking forward to learning more from that work and thinking about how it plays a part in the work of critical conversations in ELA classrooms.

Lindsay Persohn: 14:14

Thank you both. For that, I think you've hit on some really important points here. And Amy, I appreciate that list, to help us to attend to these types of topics, and I think really get started on something that is so big and so important, right? I think that that often knowing where to begin is a really, really challenging topic. So I appreciate you know, knowledge, understanding critical pedagogies having that stance of a critical learner being vulnerable, which I think can often be really hard. And also those local moments of language, the critical moves and talk. So thank you so much for that kind of concrete list to help us get started. And Melissa, I think that that what you've added here, which in some spaces, we might think of it as so Social emotional learning or, you know, those that thread of thinking, I think is, it's just so helpful in thinking about what we do with these conversations, right? That they're, they're not necessarily an end in themselves, right? They are a means to creating more supportive environments are classrooms, where all students feel that they belong, and that their ideas and their perspectives are valued. And, you know, I think anyone who is in education knows that that's when the real learning happens, right? When we have those relationships with students, and without that, in fact, one of my students was very recently reflecting on this, that, you know, without those relationships, without students feeling that they are valued in their classrooms, the learning really doesn't occur. And so I wanted to ask you all, if you have any advice for teachers who may be working in spaces, where these kinds of conversations are, seriously and even sometimes legally discouraged, How can teachers continue to not only work to understand who their students are and what they bring to their classrooms, but how do we work to create a supportive and an open community so that every student feels that they have value and a place in our classrooms,

Amy Vetter: 16:20

I can start us off, I think, first of all, we have to recognize the current context that we're in and you know, taking note of the many different bills and laws that are being passed that are censoring the curriculum, you know, what we can and cannot teach, and so on. So there, there is a lot to think about. So I'm in North Carolina, and one of the things that my students are experiencing this more and more, even though, you know, not as many bills have been passed quite yet as far as what we can and can't teach. But we have been currently experiencing more book bannings, which I think a lot of people have been experiencing within their school districts. And I had a student two years ago, our past Student Two years ago, she had been a teacher, maybe five, six years. And, you know, she was teaching a book, I can't remember the name of the book right now. But some parents did not want it to be taught in the class, because it did have some explicit language in it that they didn't agree with. And so one of the things that this particular teacher did in order to organize so you know, and thinking about, okay, so you're in this situation, as a teacher, you believe that this kind of curriculum is very important, and you want to keep doing it, you don't want to stop, what are some things that you can do to organize within your school in your community, to have support and a push back against it. And so one of the things that she did was get both parents, students, and faculty staff support, right. And so she ended up you know, in our district, I'm sure this is similar to most people's district, but she had to do a presentation at the school board. And community members were allowed to come into the room where she was doing this presentation. And her presentation, basically, was a justification for why she should be able to teach this curriculum, of course, it was aligned with standards, it was aligned with the current, you know, students that she teaches, she also did an interview with the author of the book, who helped kind of, you know, help her speak to why this book is important, why this topic is important. So she put together a very knowledgeable and compassionate and intelligent presentation together. And she showed that she sent it out to people beforehand to say, you've got to come, come support me, this is what I'm talking about. And so she does great job of networking, bringing people so there were so many people there that I couldn't like I got there a little bit after it started. Because, you know, I couldn't get there on time. And I couldn't even get in the room because there were so many people there and support, which was great. In the end, they voted to not ban in the book, and you know, that she luckily was in a space where she had enough support. Right. So that was a success. I will say this, though, you know, on top of her teaching and doing her job, she then had to take on this huge amount of work and stress to justify you know why she should be able to teach something, which I think is a lot on teachers right now. We just have to recognize it. And I don't necessarily have answers, you know, to that. And right now, she has decided to take a break from teaching because it was so stressful. So I think that is something to recognize.

Melissa Schieble: 19:25

Yeah, I think to add on to that, you know, this is a extraordinarily difficult time, in education. And with the intersection of, you know, local and national politics and school boards and the classroom and it's a difficult terrain to navigate. And, you know, as Amy and I were talking earlier, it's really important, I think, for teachers to understand and think through individuals can't take on this work alone. Now how do you join a community or form a community or engage in some form of local activism so that you are supported. And again, not alone in this work because it is very overwhelming, it is very stressful, it does lead to teacher burnout as kind of Amy's story exemplified. And so we've been doing some work some really early work right now with looking at how communities of teachers and parents and community members and organizations are engaging in what micropolitan her work refers to as local backup. And so we think some of that work is really important and local backup can be anything from, you know, small subversive acts and classroom space, if you are in a really constrained environment, to maybe more organizing, that's happening in a community, oftentimes, this is taking place through social media, as we know, a lot of the organizing related to push back and to silencing through curriculum is taking place through social media. So there's a lot of interesting and important dynamics happening there. So you know, number one, to seek support, and not to face this alone. But then also, you know, and this is where I'm speaking from my lens, as a parent, you know, really engaging, you know, how might we as community members, whether or not have professional relationships with teachers in the schools? Or maybe we have our own children in the schools? How are we supporting educators and people in the schools, either to do this work? Or when maybe there isn't a lot of disruption happening in a community? How might we play a role. And as a parent, for example, something that any parent can do is to call the schools call the school principal, or go to a board meeting or write a letter arguing in for support of, you know, the need for teaching history, from the perspective of truth for including our LGBTQ plus community members in terms of representation in the curriculum, for talking about race for talking about class for, you know, for having difficult or critical conversations in the classroom? And so how might we also think about ways beyond putting the onus on teachers? How might we engage in some local activism to support teachers, and I think that is an area that is really important.

Lindsay Persohn: 22:32

Those are some really great tangible, possible solutions. Thank you for that, Melissa. And the work that I do here in Florida is really across several school districts. And one thing that we hear from from those who either school board members or who work in school leadership, is that yes, come to our board meetings, I think there may be some folks who don't know that those are public, and that you can actually attend those and your presence is welcome. Right. Particularly, I think, in a time when school boards are getting a lot of pushback, really strong conservative viewpoints, that are often exclusive of, you know, so many of the families that our schools serve. So I think that's a great tip, a great idea for anyone who might be listening. And Amy, you know, your your story about your student, your teacher who was successful in pushing back against a potential book ban, to me, it really does have kind of a heartbreaking ending, right, that this was such a stressful fight, that that teachers decided to take a break from teaching. And I'm afraid that's happening more and more often, right? Because this is such a heavy lift, because it is such a stressful situation. These conversations can become very public, and very high stakes, I think very, very quickly. And I think that is part of the difficulty. That's part of the challenge, because as you said, Being a teacher is already such a challenging opportunity for folks that whenever you add these sorts of high pressure, high stakes, public conversations to that workload, sometimes it does become just too much. So I really appreciate those ways that Melissa, you pointed out how members of our communities can also become that local backup. So really appreciate the the kind of tangible ways that we can continue to support teachers and again, support every student in our schools.

Amy Vetter: 24:29

And from our work, we would encourage teachers to like the teacher inquiry groups are amazing. It doesn't even have to be teachers within your school, you know, you could, you know, meet via zoom with teachers, you know, across the nation, honestly, that's a great way to validate what you're doing to talk about what can you do to get support, you know, coordinate with somebody at a university that might be able to help so I would encourage teachers to do that as well.

Lindsay Persohn: 24:56

That's a great tip. Thank you for that, Amy. And you're right. I mean, you know, so At least over these last several years, teachers have become really adept at doing so many things online. And while we know that was also a very stressful situation, dealing with COVID, and sudden shutdowns and online teaching, I think it does afford us opportunities to connect across geographical space. So that is a great suggestion and a great way that teachers can find support, um, not only in their local communities, but also in a potentially national or even global kind of teacher group. So appreciate that. So we've touched on a few challenges of today's educational climate, but I want to give you all a chance to respond to this last question directly. So Amy, we'll start with you, given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?

Amy Vetter: 25:45

Well, I want teachers to hear that their work is important, that we validate what they are doing, and that we are here to support you. You know, I mean, we were doing this work, because we believe in education, specifically public education, and we want to do what we can do to support what teachers know is best for the students within that particular community. Because it's so dependent on context. And so reach out to us, you know, ask us questions, if you need support, feel free to do that in any way. That's our job. You know, it's it takes a community to do this work. And so don't hesitate to ask for the help that you need. Because, you know, we can help with research projects, we can help develop curriculum, we can help put you through inquiry groups and things like that. So you're doing the best that you can do. And I have two kids in public school, and they, they like going to school every day, you know, they do. So we see the good things that are happening in our classrooms, even though there's a lot of negativity on the news, you know, but when the teachers are in there, you know, they are able to listen to the students as much as they can. And they are trying to reach those needs. My my two girls go to a school up the road, and it is a performing arts school. And they just put on performance, and we got to go see it. You know, it's like a 15 minute show with like singing and stuff. But I think one of the things that struck me about it was that I got to walk in, I got to talk with the teacher, I got to talk with the parents. And then when they when the kids did the performance, you could see how they were working together to get this thing done. And in the best way possible, which was really cool, because some of the kids were struggling and the others were like right there helping them. And then when they got done with the performance, they got to come out, we got you give them flowers and like to take pictures, and they were hugging each other and you know, good job or whatever, you know, which was really simple stuff. But it's just, you could see the community, you could see the things that were bringing the kids together and how they were cheering each other on you can see the pride in the teachers eyes and all of that. And so, I don't know, to me, that's what it's all about. And so yeah, we're all in this together. So anything we can do to support, we're here.

Melissa Schieble: 28:08

Yeah, I can add to that. And I agree with everything that Amy shared. And, and I think also, just to share a little bit of some of what I've been doing with pre service teachers, and in my program, is really thinking about preparing and supporting all teachers how to have professional conversations, in support of their students and supported their students lives and supporting their lives, in support of democracy in support of the work that they believe in, and, you know, as educators and really starting small, taking some agency some power back in terms of having a professional conversation, when you believe something is happening, that's not right, even a totally illegal level of something very heavy, that's happening in your context. And so, you know, finding small ways to take back some of that power to have some agency, as I've said, and kind of continuing to, to network with people who are in support of the work that you're doing. And also, I think in addition to that, is we talked earlier about not doing this work alone or not feeling alone. There are a lot of resources through the National Council of Teachers of English, for example, the intellectual freedom area of their website. And so just really educating oneself also in terms of how do I go about this, and not feel alone or maybe I feel hopeless, or maybe I feel burdened by these pressures at my, you know, in my community and also perhaps at the state level, and that there are resources out there that can help teachers sort of navigate the different contexts that that they're in. You know, when we assert our agency, I think that makes us feel it empowered, it makes us feel hopeful, it makes us feel like at least we have spoken out. Right. And so I think there's something very empowering about that. And even feeling that if I, if I can only do that on a very micro level, at least it's making a contribution. So that, you know, that's something that I, I really try to have very purposeful conversations with the pre service teachers that I am working with and at my college, about, you know, how do you have those conversations, you know, how do you make your voice heard,

Lindsay Persohn: 30:32

I think that that makes a tense climate that much more tense when we do feel like we are on our own. And so I appreciate you mentioning the NCTE resources, Melissa, and we will link that on your guests page and in the show notes as well for this episode, so that listeners will have direct access to it. So I just want to thank you both for the work that you're doing for your support of teacher communities and these critical conversations that really can help us to support every young person in our classrooms. So I really appreciate your time. And I thank you both for sharing your ideas. And I thank you for your contributions to the field of education.

Amy Vetter: 31:12

Thanks so much for having us, Lindsay. We appreciate it.

Melissa Schieble: 31:15

Yes, thank you, Lindsay.

Lindsay Persohn: 31:16

Dr. Amy Vetter has developed a scholarly record that underscores the significance of classroom interactions for impacting the development of reader and writing identities and teacher identities, the role Critical Conversations play in educational settings and the importance of learning from youths writing identities. She teaches undergraduate courses in teaching practices and curriculum of English and literacy in the content area, in graduate courses and youth literacies teacher research and qualitative research design. She also co directs a young writers camp at University of North Carolina, Greensboro in the summer. Before her career in higher education, she taught all levels of 10th and 12th Grade English in Austin, Texas. Dr. Amy Vetter is now a professor of English education in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Dr. Melissa Schieble's research focuses on analyses of power, privilege and oppression in fiction for youth and into classroom discourse. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in literacy, young adult literature, diversity and qualitative research methodologies. In addition to her work with Amy and a third scholar Kahdeidra Monet Martin, she has published several articles and book chapters that promote laboratory practices in English language arts and literacy through teaching of literature. Dr. Schieble was formerly an English teacher at the middle and high school level. Melissa recently served as a Hunter College racial equity fellow. Dr. Melissa Shibley is a professor of English education at Hunter College and urban education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. To continue this conversation. You can contact Amy Vetter at a m vetter@gmail.com. That's a m vetter@gmail.com. And you can contact Melissa Scheible at scheible.melissa@gmail.com That's SCHIEBL e dot m e l i s sa@gmail.com. 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 and 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