Teachable Moments

In the readings for this week Dr. August chronicles her experiences in a kindergarten classroom, specifically during Morning Meeting/circle time.  She focuses on one student, Cody, in particular who was adopted by lesbian mothers in order to study her research question of, “What happens when a child with lesbian parents and children from other non-dominant family structures share their family stories (via oral narrative, artwork, or writing) in a classroom that is led by a teacher committed to democratic pedagogy?”  In addition to observing Cody, August also shares conversations with his mothers and his teacher Zeke, as well as transcribes full classroom conversations, in order to fully detail her research.

From the beginning, August points out that, “some children fare better on this platform than others.”  I think that this is an important point to make, because what she found was that Cody actually didn’t discuss his two moms at all during circle time.  When he did, he spoke vaguely of interactions or activities with “my mom”.  August points out that it was Cody’s lack of narrative that was telling in her research and she used that fact in her interpretation of events.

I also think it’s important that August is sensitive to the fact that, “We teach in real time with real distractions, and real pressures. Unintended consequences are inevitable.” (174)  During the reading I thought many times about how I would respond to the events that happened in Zeke’s classroom and even how I respond to things in my own classroom.  I often glad that there isn’t someone transcribing the events and conversations when I am teaching!  I do understand the importance of it for this research though, and was actually better able to relate to the readings in chapters 5 and 6 due to these conversations.

Implementing Morning Meeting was a big push in the 5^th grade classroom where I completed my student teaching.  The entire school was required to hold Morning Meeting every morning, but teachers could decide exactly how they wanted to do it.  I really enjoyed using this technique, and if I taught in an elementary school I believe I would continue to use it in some way.  While I knew that I saw value in MM, I never really considered the full social implications and teachable moments that this structure provided.  As I mentioned above, In Making Room for One Another, Dr. August highlights many of these teachable moments in a thorough discussion of her research.  

For my outside source this week I would like to highlight Zach Wahls, who gave a speech to the Iowa House of Representatives on January 31, 2011 in support of gay marriage.  At the time he was 19 and in this video he shares a bit of his family's story and states, “my family really isn't that different from yours.”  While Cody didn't offer a narrative about his family during Dr. August's observations (not that anyone would expect to see something like this in a kindergarten classroom), I thought this was a fantastic representation of a narrative from Zach who, like Cody, was raised by two mothers.