the shaping of ms. nicholi: the discursive fashioning of teacher identities

The shaping of Ms. Nicholi: the discursivefashioning of teacher identities

MONICA MILLER MARSHState University of New York at Binghamton

This article examines how teacher thinking is socially negotiated yet individually enacted.Through a case study approach, the author explores how the identities of a ®rst-year kinder-garten teacher were fashioned linguistically as she moved through the contexts of her teachereducation program, the elementary school in which she taught and the personal aspects of herlife. Using ethnographic techniques, multiple layers of data were gathered in nested contexts. Atheoretical framework was developed by juxtaposing the work of the Russian theorists ValentinVolosinov on the concept of ideologies and M.M. Bakhtin on his notions of language to guidethe analysis of data. Findings indicate that by providing prospective teachers with the tools forconceptualizing teacher thinking as social, teacher educators can provide future educators withalternative ways to author their identities and help them to understand that they can createpossibilities for all children.

Introduction

Conceptualizing teacher thought as social in nature is a relatively recent phenomenon(Britzman, 1991; Casey, 1993; Gomez, in press). Traditionally, research on teacherthinking has focused on the individual (Clandinin & Connelly, 1987; McCutcheon,1980; Zahorik, 1970). However, a growing body of literature has shown that schoolsand families are shaped by the historical, cultural, social, and political forces thatsurround a given community (Graue, 1993; Graue & Miller Marsh, 1996; Heath,1983; Lareau, 1989). The juxtaposition of this research with that of the research onteacher thinking would suggest that the nature of teacher thought is dialogic (Bakhtin,1981), in the sense that it is an ongoing dialogue between one’s personal history,present conditions, beliefs, values, and the social, cultural, historical, and politicalforces that surround groups of individuals in a given time and place. From thisperspective, teacher thought is socially constructed yet individually enacted.

In this paper, I draw upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) and ValentinVolosinov (1973), two Russian scholars, in order to understand better the socialnature of teacher thinking. The merging of Volosinov’s work on the concept of ideol-ogies with that of Bakhtin’s notion of language creates a theoretical framework whichexplains how ideologies are social constructions that both shape and are shaped byindividual and collective thought. I begin by revealing the relevant theoretical con-tributions of Bakhtin and Volosinov. Using data drawn from a larger research project,I illustrate how the thought and ultimately the identities of Ms. Nicholi1, a ®rst-yearteacher, were discursively fashioned as she moved through the contexts of her teachereducation program, the elementary school in which she taught and personal aspects ofher life. I then examine how the social identities of the children in Ms. Nicholi’s carewere fashioned by and in relation to their teacher. Finally, I share implications forteacher education by conceptualizing teacher thinking from this perspective.

QUALITATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 2002, VOL. 15, NO. 3, 333±347

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education ISSN 0951±8398 print/ISSN 1366±5898 online # 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/09518390210122809

Theoretical constructs

Most prospective teachers enter a teacher education program because they desire tolearn how to teach. They are seeking knowledge about how children learn, strategiesfor planning and carrying out various types of instruction, and techniques for mana-ging behavior. Upon entrance into a teacher education program, prospective teachersare immersed in speci®c ways of thinking, speaking, and acting as teachers that aresanctioned by the community of educators to which they aspire to belong. Thesediscourses, or frameworks for thought and action, in which particular notions aboutteaching and learning are embedded, are appropriated by prospective teachers as theyread, discuss, student teach, and are evaluated with and by those who are alreadymembers of the teaching profession. As Bakhtin (1981) explains, `Òne’s own discourseis gradually and slowly wrought out of others’ words that have been acknowledgedand assimilated, and the boundaries between the two are at ®rst scarcely perceptible’’(p. 345).

As individuals appropriate fragments of particular discourses they absorb theideologies inherent in them. Ideologies structure how we visualize the world whilesimultaneously locating us within it. As we are introduced to di� erent ways of seeing,thinking, and acting through our interactions with others, various ideologies enter intoour consciousnes s and come into contact with those things that we already hold as``true’’. An ideological struggle ensues as we try to make sense of these multiple``representations of reality’’ (Shapiro, 1988) in the context of our daily lives. AsBakhtin (1981) explains, `Òur ideological development is [just such] an intensestruggle within us for hegemony among various available verbal and ideologicalpoints of view, approaches, directions and values’’ (p. 346). This struggle is ongoing.We are constantly in a state of ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981).

The ideological discourses that enter into an individual consciousnes s are nego-tiated on interindividual territory. According to Volosinov, this is the space where theconsciousness of self and other converge. Ideologies are di� used among individuals asthey encounter one another socially. Volosinov (1973) writes, ``This ideological chainstretches from individual consciousness to individual consciousness, connecting themtogether . . . . Consciousness becomes consciousness only once it has been ®lled withideological (semiotic) content, consequently, only in the process of social interaction(p. 11).

Ideologies enter into an individual consciousness that is already replete with mean-ing. This internal ideology or individual consciousness is created in the context of anindividual’s particular life. It is the whole aggregate of conditions of life and society inwhich that organism has been set’’ (Volosinov, 1973, p. 35). According to Volosinov(1973) the individual consciousness is the space where biology, biography, and ideol-ogy intersect. It is here that individuals process their understanding of experiences andput their `ìndividual imprint’’ on their thoughts, actions, and ways of being in theworld.

This process of socially negotiating various ideological representations of the selfis the act of constructing identities. Identities are created through dialogue on inter-individual territory. As Kondo (1990) explains, ``Rather than universal essences,selves are rhetorical assertions produced by our linguistic conventions, which wenarrate and perform for each other’’ (p. 307).

As individuals piece together identities from the discourses that are made availableto them, they simultaneously create possibilities and constraints for the identities of

334 monica miller marsh

those with whom they are in relationship. Conceptualizing the construction of the selfas relational means that choosing to author one’s self-identities in particular waysdirectly impacts the social identities that can be formed by others. This would seemto be especially signi®cant in a ®eld where adults and children have the power toconstruct identities with and for one another.

The study

This article is based on part of a larger investigation into the social nature of teacherthinking. The larger research design comprised two in-depth case studies which ex-amined the identity formation of two ®rst-year teachers. Teachers who were consid-ered for the study had attended and been graduated from one of the teacher educationprograms o� ered at Midwestern University, a large research institution. They werealso currently teaching in the May®eld City School District, the large racially, ethni-cally and economically diverse community in which the university was located. Ms.Nicholi, the focal teacher of this article, had been enrolled in the Early EducationProgram (EEP) at Midwestern and was teaching in a magnet kindergarten classroomat Woodlawn Elementary School. Ms. Nicholi was recommended to me by an instruc-tor in the EEP as a conscientious and concerned teacher interested in providing eachof the children in her care with the best education possible. She was also highlyregarded by her colleagues at Woodlawn.

Conceptualizing teacher thought and action as socially negotiated and individu-ally enacted meant that research had to be carried out on multiple levels in order to``capture’’ both the social and the individual aspects of each teacher’s identities. At thesocial level, I attempted to make visible the discourses that surrounded the EEP andWoodlawn Elementary by examining historical documents, curriculum guidelines andsyllabi as well as by conducting interviews with faculty and sta� at Midwestern andWoodlawn. In addition, I attended sta� meetings at Woodlawn. I took on the role ofparticipant observer in Ms. Nicholi’s classroom and visited the kindergarten one half-day per week from January 1997 through May 1997 for a total of 14 visits. Duringthese observations I took extensive ®eldnotes and returned them to Ms. Nicholi so thatshe could make additional comments, which were then included as data. Documentssuch as classroom communications, worksheets, and copies of report cards were alsocollected and analyzed.

At the individual level, I gathered personal data from Ms. Nicholi using a lifehistory approach. She shared her life story in conversations with me that were tapedand transcribed over a period of 4 hours. I analyzed these stories in order to identifyand illuminate the discourses that Ms. Nicholi drew upon to make meaning in herpersonal and professional life. I then shared my analysis with Ms. Nicholi and wediscussed the ®ndings.

The discursive fashioning of Ms. Nicholi

The identities of Ms. Nicholi were positioned and repositioned as they were situatedwithin the di� erent discourses that swirled around her teacher education program,Woodlawn Elementary School, her kindergarten classroom, and the personal aspects

the shaping of ms. nicholi 335

of her life. While identifying the most prominent discourses in each context, I want tostress that discourses have meaning only in relation to one another (Gee, 1996) andthat none of the discourses in a given context is mutually exclusive. I am arti®ciallyisolating each discourse in order to make it visible for the purposes of portraying howMs. Nicholi discursively fashions her identities by drawing on the discourses that wereavailable to her.

Exploring the personal aspects of a life

Ms. Anne Nicholi is a 28-year-old, second-generation Italian-American woman. Shegrew up in what she described as a ``middle to upper class neighborhood with niceyards. Real plain. Real white.’’ Ms. Nicholi’s father owned a plumbing business andshe described her mother as a ``traditional homemaker.’ ’ Catholicism played a largerole in Ms. Nicholi’s life and she attended a parochial elementary school and highschool. Ms. Nicholi and her younger brother lived with both of her parents until theydivorced when she was in high school.

Ms. Nicholi described herself as being a ``people person’’ who ``was always rootingfor the underdog.’ ’ She explained, `Ì think people need help and they need chances. Ithink you should [help people] for the good of society because if you don’t things willbe worse instead of better.’’ One of the ways that Ms. Nicholi thought that she mighthelp those who were less fortunate than she was to pursue a degree in juvenile law atMidwestern. As an intern, it was her job to take statements from juveniles who hadbeen involved in misdemeanor cases. It was at this time that she began to think abouta career in early childhood education. She explained, `Ìf I could have only talked tothem earlier, I could have helped. If they had someone in their life who had showedthem, like their mom or someone who cared about them . . . they were just so hard andreally lost.’’ Ms. Nicholi made the decision to leave law and enter the ®eld of educa-tion. She said:

I wanted to teach kids at risk. I wanted to make a di� erence in kids’ lives. Iwanted a job that was important, that you go to and you’re doing good. You’rehelping, even if it’s in a small way you’re doing something.

As Ms. Nicholi spoke about the experiences that had led her into teaching she spokewithin a discourse of ``children at risk.’’2 Within this discourse children who are poor,of color, reside in single-parent families, and/or are native speakers of languages otherthan English are constructed as being `àt risk’’ based on the assumption that they arelacking the cultural and moral resources for success in a dominant white middle-classsociety (Swadener & Lubeck, 1995). This discourse emerged in the 1980s as part ofthe conservative backlash against the historically oppressed groups that had madepolitical and economic gains in the 1960s and 1970s (Sleeter, 1995). As Sleeterexplains, ``the discourse of children at risk de¯ects attention away from injusticesperpetrated and institutionalized by the dominant society and again frames oppressedcommunities and homes as lacking in the cultural and moral resources for advance-ment’’ (Sleeter, 1995, p. x).

This discourse permeated Ms. Nicholi’s speech as she shared her reasons forbecoming a teacher and as she spoke about her current struggles. For example,Ms. Nicholi and a neighboring teacher switched classes so that they could experience


teaching one another’s kindergarten class for an afternoon. Later, when I askedMs. Nicholi about her teaching experience with the other class, she said that `ìtwas a good class much di� erent from mine. It was really fun.’’ I asked why shethought that this class was so di� erent from hers to which she replied, ``because herkids have Moms and Dads and mine don’t.’’ Within the discourse of `àt risk’’ Ms.Nicholi perceives the children in her care, the majority of whom are poor, of color, andreside in female-headed households, as de®cient based on their family circumstances.A further example of how this discourse works in relation with other discourses toposition two boys of color as in need of special education is presented in a later sectionof this article.

Discourses surrounding the teacher education program

At Midwestern the EEP is o� ered jointly by the Department of Child and FamilyStudies (CFS), housed within the School of Family Resources and Consumer Studies,and the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (C&I), housed within the Schoolof Education. While faculty in the Department of CFS were involved in researchingtheories of child development and models of pedagogy for young children, theDepartment of C&I became renowned for its critical perspectives on curriculumtheorizing at the elementary and secondary level. Struggling to work across twodepartments with very di� erent orientations, it is not surprising that faculty andsta� members from both schools described the EEP as ``disparate,’’ ``con¯icting’’and ``polyvocal.’’

Within the discourse of child-centeredness that permeates the Department of CFS,the child is conceptualized as a unique individual possessing an inner potential that isrooted in biology (Burman, 1994). The concept of development, which is conceived ofas always happening in advance of learning, refers to the cognitive, social, emotional,physical, and linguistic stages that each individual child experiences as she/he growsand changes. It is the role of the early childhood teacher to determine each child’slevel of development in order to present curriculum and instruction appropriate forthat child’s level of learning. As the Chair of the Department of CFS explained, `Ìfyou don’t look at each child exactly where they are in their cognitive and languagedevelopment and where they are in their social and emotional development andexactly where they are today, you’re never going to teach them.’’ Once a teacherhas identi®ed a child’s level of development it is her responsibility to facilitate thatchild’s learning. In the words of one faculty member, ``You know, none of us reallyteach anybody. We facilitate their learning . . . we don’t teach them and we don’tmotivate them, they motivate themselves.’’

Within a child-centered discourse, di� erences in ability, race, class, and gender arebelieved to be situated within children, families, and communities (Burman, 1994).Commented one faculty member, ``diversity is just another unique individual trait. Ifyou just teach individuals . . . [y]ou don’t need Chinese or Asian or any of that; youjust need children.’’ Through this discourse, if the teacher is meeting the needs of herindividual students, she will automatically be addressing the issues of diversity that area part of that child as well.

Within the sociocultural discourse that permeates the department of C&I,relations among children, teachers, and families are con®gured much di� erently.


When described within this discourse, the child is conceptualized as being a product ofthe social, cultural, political, and historical forces that are present in any given timeand place. Through this discourse, development is conceptualized as being social aswell as individual (Berk & Winsler, 1995). As one faculty member said:

You can be so intent on knowing what that [developmental] map is that youdon’t pay attention to the scenery in front of you . . . . Those kids aren’t just thatlittle body there they’re bringing with them a history and a set of connectionswith their family.

From this perspective, caregivers take into account both the biological and thesocial aspects of development. Development and learning are conceived of as beingrecursive and learning is believed to happen through social interaction (Berk &Winsler, 1995). It is the role of the caregiver to structure collaborative learningsituations in which children are assisted, by either a more capable peer or an adult,to reach ever more advanced levels of development (Berk & Winsler, 1995). Thisapproach to learning is modeled by the faculty and sta� as they assign projects inwhich students are required to assist and participate in the development and learningof one another.

The juxtaposition of a sociocultural and a critical discourse carries with it a strongcritique of capitalism and American society. Within this discourse, knowledge isviewed as being socially constructed and tied to the economic interests of those whoare the most privileged in society. Schools are viewed as institutions that perpetuatethe status quo by shaping the social identities of children which reproduce inequities(McLaren, 1989). Within a critical, sociocultural discourse, legitimizing the experi-ences of all children rather than simply the ones who are members of the dominantculture and teaching children to question the social order are important goals of theearly childhood educator.

Prospective teachers in the EEP are positioned and repositioned within thesecompeting discourses as they are placed in student and teaching relationships,have their course work assessed, and are evaluated on their teaching techniqueswithin either one or the other at any given time. As prospective teachers slip inand out of these linguistic creations that are provided by the faculty of the EEP,they piece together di� erent identities for themselves while simultaneously creatingpossibilities and constraints for the social identities of the young children with whomthey work.

The discourse that envelops the elementary school

Unlike the EEP, in which there were two distinct competing discourses, Woodlawnelementary was enveloped by one coherent discourse: a discourse of normalization(Popkewitz, 1993). Embedded within this discourse is a white, middle-class standard,based on a set of ``appropriate behaviors,’’ sanctioned by the school, against whicheveryone is measured. The discourse of normalization grew out of Woodlawn’s historyas the Wonago neighborhood school that, prior to 1988, catered exclusively to white,middle-, and upper middle-class children and families. Owing to the implementationof several redistricting plans, the demographics of the school had ¯uctuated wildlyover the past 10 years. At the time of the study there were about 500 students


attending Woodlawn. The racial/ethnic breakdown was as follows: 0.2% AmericanIndian, 14.02% Asian or Paci®c Islander, 33.75% Black, 4.26% Hispanic, and47.77% white. Forty-six percent of the students received free or reduced lunch. Thestudent population was drawn from ®ve di� erent neighborhoods , yet the sta� spoke asif there were only two, referring continually to the ``Wonago children’’ and the`Àrcher Avenue children.’’

Archer Avenue comprised a number of heavily populated low-income apartmentcomplexes in which resided a number of poor children of color. In addition to theArcher Avenue children, Woodlawn had been designated as one of the schools in thedistrict to house an English as Second Language program, which also drew in anumber of children from other attendance areas in the city who were low incomeand in need of special services. It was for this reason the kindergarten magnet programin which Ms. Nicholi taught was designed. The four magnet kindergartens are inten-sive full-day programs. Between 70 and 75% of those attending are Archer Avenuechildren.

Within the discourse of normalization that permeated Woodlawn, the ArcherAvenue children were referred to by the sta� as high needs children in relation to theWonago children, while the white, middle-class children bused in from other areaswere referred to as role models. In fact, Ms. Nicholi shared that when several newchildren had moved into the area and were going to be assigned to kindergartenclassrooms she was asked by the administration if she ``wanted one Archer Avenuechild or two role models.’’

Children of non-dominant cultures could become role models once they becameinculcated with the norms that surrounded the school. To support this inculcation,Woodlawn had adopted a ``progressive developmental multicultural program.’’3 Theprogram consisted of multiage classrooms that were developed ®rst and foremost todeal with behavioral issues. Children who were socialized to the norms at Woodlawncould become the role models for those who supposedly were not. `Àppropriatebehaviors’’ were de®ned on both a social and an individual level. On an individuallevel `àppropriate behaviors’ ’ were exhibited by children who could regulate theirown actions (e.g., sit on rug without touching those nearby, follow directions, raisehands, etc.) On a social level `àppropriate behaviors’’ were those actions carried outby children that showed they were able to cooperate with others (e.g., share materials,solve problems through discussion rather than force, etc.). Most of the children were,indeed, polite and well behaved; however, the children who couldn’t always maintainsuch behaviors were constructed as de®cient.

The academic curriculum was described as being developmental in the sense thatit was individualized for each child. At the beginning of the year each child wasassessed in order to identify her/ his developmental level. Once a child’s developmen-tal needs had been identi®ed, ideally, the parents would meet with the teacher todiscuss the goal for that child’s progress over the course of the academic year. Yet,although the goal of the multiage classrooms was to provide teachers with the ¯ex-ibility to move away from strict grade-level compliances, ability and achievementwere always discussed in terms of grade level.

Within the discourse of normalization at Woodlawn, the standards are de®ned interms of the white, middle-class children who formerly populated Wonago. The skills,values, and behaviors associated with dominant cultural norms continue to be upheldfor all children. The expectation that children should speak, think, and act as white


middle-class children created a hierarchy of de®cits at the school which were repli-cated in the classroom of Ms. Nicholi.

The discourses that permeate Ms. Nicholi’s classroom

Ms. Nicholi’s classroom is warm, colorful, and inviting. Individually or in smallgroups, 18 children circulate among the dramatic play area, block area, book corner,water table, invention center, computer, and two easels. Demographically the classconsists of six African-American children (four boys and two girls), ®ve SoutheastAsian children (four girls and one boy), one East Asian boy, and six white children(three girls and three boys). The ®ve Southeast Asian children, who speak primarilyHmong and are enrolled in the English as Second Language Program, spend most oftheir free choice time together. I am told by Ms. Nicholi that 12 of the 18 kinder-gartners reside in the Archer Avenue area and that this class contains ``some of theneediest kids you’ve ever seen.’’

While the physical appearance of the classroom is organized with the children’sinterests in mind, the pedagogical strategies that Ms. Nicholi draws upon are almostexclusively teacher directed with the heaviest emphasis placed on reading and writing.In the following section, I use a vignette to portray a typical lesson as presented byMs. Nicholi.

A vignette, is a short, thickly described, recounted version of an event, person, orsetting which is used to convey an interpretive theme (Erickson, 1986; Graue &Walsh, 1997). The interactions that occur between and among the children andMs. Nicholi in this vignette took place in the kindergarten classroom over the periodof about an hour. I have also supplemented the vignette with phrases used and actionscarried out by Ms. Nicholi and the children which were repeatedly recorded in my®eldnotes over time but did not occur on this particular day.

``The Five Little Carrots’’

The children are sitting in a semi-circle on the large square of gray carpet in the middle of the room.Ms. Nicholi is leading the kindergartners in a chant of ``The Five Little Carrots,’’ which is writtenon chart paper and hanging on the easel in the front of the room. After they ®nish the chant, Ms.Nicholi passes out the books in which they have been copying and illustrating the chant. She remindsthem not to open their books until she is through passing them out to everyone. Using her book as aguide, she opens up the cover and directs the children to do so as well. ``I want you to open to pageone, two, three, four, ®ve, six,’’ counts Ms. Nicholi as she slowly turns each page. The childrenfollow her lead. Ms. Nicholi picks up the pencils that are in front of her and passes one to each childas she says, ``When I give you your pencil put it right on the spot in the book where you are going tostart writing.’’

The children stretch out on their stomachs as they position themselves to write. Most of themhave their pencils pointed to the spot where they are going to begin to print. Ms. Nicholi walksaround to each child, repositioning the pencils of those who don’t seem to have it quite right. Ms.Nicholi then walks back up to the front of the room, points to the sixth line in the chant, and reads,``Do you like to eat carrots?’’ She then speci®es, ``This is the sentence that we are working on.’’

The children are asked to sound out the letters in each word. Ms. Nicholi exaggerates themovement of her mouth as she sounds out the ®rst word, which begins with the letter ``d.’’ She asks


the children to sound it out. A few of the children make the ``d’’ sound, but many other sounds arevoiced as well. ``Did you hear that?’’ asks Ms. Nicholi. She writes the letter ``d’’ on the dry eraseboard and directs the children to copy the letter down on their papers. ``What’s the letter we’rewriting?’’ she asks. Some children shout out, ``d.’’ Ms. Nicholi nods her head indicating that ``d’’ iscorrect. Referring to herself in the third person she says, ``Look how Ms. Nicholi made her `d.’ Is itsloppy?’’ The children answer, ``No.’’ Ms. Nicholi reminds the children, ``Do your best work.’’

If you just made a ``d’’ put your hands on your head,’’ directs Ms. Nicholi. Letter by letter theyspell out the word ``you.’’ If you wrote Y-O-U, make a U in the air with your hands so that I knowyou’re done,’’ directs Ms. Nicholi. `Ì’m done!’’ shouts Wayne as he throws his arms into the air.

Wayne’s `Ì’m done!’’ has caught on. As the children write the next letter several of the childrenshout `Ì’m done!’’ Ms. Nicholi asks if anyone wants to write the sentence, `Ì will not shout whenI’m done writing a letter.’’ Maureen says, `Òoh, that’s 10 words!’’ No one shouts after they ®nishwriting the next letter although there are some very softly whispered `Ì’m dones.’’

Wayne begins to squirm around on the ¯oor and his foot touches the girl next to him as he waitsfor Ms. Nicholi to direct him to print the next letter. ``Wayne’s kicking me!’’ yells Maureen. `Ì’mnot kicking you girl!’’ Ms. Nicholi walks over to look at Wayne’s paper and points out that hisletters are not printed on the line. She turns his pencil over and begins to erase his work as she says,``This is not your best work. You’re ®nishing so quickly because you are not printing neatly. Waynestarts to protest, `Ì ain’t gonna be doin’ this over!’’ As he sits up he begins kicking some books thatare on the ¯oor across the room as he shouts, `Ì hate this stupid old school!’’ Miss Nicholi says,``Think about your attitude. Do it over or stay in for recess. It’s your choice.’’

The above vignette illustrates that, although children are provided the oppor-tunity to play and make some choices about the activities that they engage in duringtheir free time, the majority of the class is teacher directed and skill oriented. WhileMs. Nicholi does not speci®cally refer to her curriculum as one that promotes ``basicskills,’’ she does emphasize the fact that she is a ``traditional teacher.’’ In her words:

Being a teacher and the traditional view is a big part, especially of the kinder-garten years. I’m here to teach them things. I want them to learn. I want themto learn what they need to progress in school. I want them to learn theirnumbers, their letters and their sounds. I want them to learn work habits, totake pride in their work. I want them to learn how to share, how to be friends,how to be independent. The things that are important to function in society tomove on; the rules to live by.

The class is teacher directed in the sense that activities are directed almost exclusivelyby Ms. Nicholi. I observed this type of lesson being presented to the kindergartners 12of the 14 times that I visited Ms. Nicholi’s classroom. Children rarely have the oppor-tunity, outside of their free choice time, to discover or create on their own. Yet Ms.Nicholi made it clear that she was con¯icted by the way that she felt she had to teach.She explained that this highly structured classroom was not how she had originallyenvisioned her teaching. Drawing on the meaning of development as it was concep-tualized within the discourse of child-centeredness, Ms. Nicholi explained how she hadturned to a traditionally structured classroom when she found that, as a group, thechildren in her class were not ``developmentally ready’’ for the types of learningopportunities that she was presenting to them. She explained, `Ì had manipulativeson the tables; I didn’t have journal writing and I didn’t have them sit in assignedseats. I gave them choices but they weren’t ready for that and it led to a lot of socialproblems.’’


Ms. Nicholi’s conception of biological readiness was woven through her speech andactions. Issues of development shaped the way that she perceived the individualchildren who comprised her class and in turn de®ned the curriculum and instructionthat she presented to them. This conception of development that was embeddedwithin the discourse of child-centeredness was strengthened and supported by thediscourse of normalization that enveloped Woodlawn. When intertwined, these dis-courses positioned the kindergartners , the majority of whom are poor children of color,as needing a more structured environment because they did not exhibit the `àppro-priate behaviors’’ that are sanctioned by the school and reinforced in their classroom.Developmentally, these children were diagnosed as being socially and emotionallyunready to make the choices that Ms. Nicholi initially provided for them. This ledher to basic skills-oriented and teacher-directed curriculum and instruction. Certainlypedagogy that is basic-skills oriented and teacher directed can lead to positive learningexperiences for children (see e.g. Delpit, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1994). However, Ms.Nicholi was lowering her expectations and promoting conformity rather than workingtowards the acquisition of higher level thinking skills.

In addition to the discourse of child-centeredness and the discourse of normal-ization that were visible in Ms. Nicholi’s talk and action, a variant of the discourse ofbehaviorism was present as well. Within a discourse of behaviorism, knowledge isbelieved to be formed as children make associations between situations and responses(Byrnes, 1996). The actions of children are regulated externally by the teacher ratherthan being self-regulated.

As is evident from the vignette, Ms. Nicholi asked the children to imitate preciselythe way that she shaped the letters with her hand as she wrote and the shape of hermouth as she sounded out each letter. In virtually every activity that I observed,children were asked to duplicate products that Ms. Nicholi had made. When childrenwere asked to complete an activity, Ms. Nicholi gave explicit directions, which sherepeated an average of three times. Children were then asked to complete their workby repeating the exact sequence of steps that Ms. Nicholi had articulated. Conformityand work habits were praised as Ms. Nicholi circulated around the room compliment-ing individual children for such things as ``remembering to use pencil ®rst then pen’’or ``following directions nicely.’’

This ability to conform to `àppropriate behaviors’’ was recognized and reinforcedby two reward systems that Ms. Nicholi had developed. Short-term rewards for beha-vior usually consisted of snacks such as crackers, cookies, or fruit. These rewards werenot immediate, but rather were contingent upon the behaviors of children that wereexhibited over a short period of time. Long-term rewards consisted of badges for ``bestlistener,’’ ``best hall walker’’ and ``best friend.’’ These were awarded to the children inan elaborate ``badge ceremony’’ at the end of each day.

While presenting children with rewards for appropriate behaviors was a commonpractice, so also was the use of punishments for `ìnappropriate behaviors.’’Punishments included writing sentences, being given a time out, and missing the®rst 5 to 10 minutes of recess or free choice time, or in extreme cases being physicallyremoved from the classroom. The punishment that Ms. Nicholi used most frequentlywas assigning the kindergartners sentences to write pertaining to their misbehavior.This was a fairly e� ective technique because children did not like to take the timeto write the sentences and often, as with the case of Wayne in the vignette, the`ìnappropriate behavior’’ immediately subsided with the threat to write havingbeen made.


Through a discourse of normalization, Ms. Nicholi worked towards constructingher vision of an ideal kindergartner: one who is between the ages of 60 and 71 months,is well-versed in basic skills and is socialized to the white, middle-class ways of actingthat are sanctioned by the faculty and sta� at Woodlawn. Variants of the discourses ofchild-centeredness and behaviorism intermingled in her speech and action as sheworked towards realizing this vision.

Fashioning the identities of children

Ideologies de®ne the nature of the relationships that are possible within any discourse.The ideology embedded in the discourse of normalization constitutes a ``representa-tion of reality’’ for Ms. Nicholi and the children that de®nes children relationally ±those who were white and middle class were perceived as ``normal’’ while their peerswho are members of non-dominant cultures are considered ``not normal.’’ Thosechildren (and families) who have di� culty conforming to the norms of the dominantculture are pathologized.

Recall that initially Ms. Nicholi had attempted to position herself as a learner-centered teacher who valued freedom and choice for the children in her care. As sheworked with the children, however, she found that they did not possess the ways ofthinking, speaking, and acting that would be considered ``normal’’ within the dis-course of normalization and deemed them ``developmentally unready’’ to handle thetype of teaching that she o� ered. In response to the children, Ms. Nicholi’s identityshifted as she became a much more teacher-directed authoritarian force in the class-room. Since none of the children met the criteria of the `ìdeal kindergartner,’ ’ ahierarchy of de®cits emerged as children’s identities were shaped in relation to Ms.Nicholi and one another.

Take for example, the case of Tim, a white male, whose birthday fell at the end ofAugust. Cognitively, Tim was at the top of the class. He utilized an extensive voca-bulary and was extremely knowledgeable about animal and marine life. While Ms.Nicholi acknowledged his intellectual abilities, she continually referred to the fact thathe was a ``young ®ve’’ and pointed out his shortcomings, such as his coloring, whichshe referred to as ``scribbles,’’ and his `ìnappropriate’’ social interactions with hispeers. She explained, `Ìntellectually he knows a lot, but his birthday is August22nd. He’s a young ®ve. His ®ne motor and social skills are so behind. I just don’tknow what to do with him.’’ By February, Ms. Nicholi had spoken with Tim’s parentsabout the possibility of retention.

Lack of appropriate social skills was a concern voiced by Ms. Nicholi pertaining toother children in the class as well. This was especially true of two African-Americanmales, Shawn and Wayne, who lived in households headed by single females. Thesetwo boys frequently exhibited angry outbursts in the classroom. The intensity of theoutbursts ranged from a loud ``No!’’ when asked to complete a task, to the lessfrequent kicking and knocking over of furniture. Over the course of my visits toWoodlawn, both boys had been suspended from school more than once.

It is interesting to note that these outbursts were often in response to academicactivities in which the children were engaged. As illustrated in the vignette, Wayne,who often began a task with enthusiasm, would become frustrated and then agitatedwhen he was not able to duplicate the model that Ms. Nicholi had provided for thechildren. Ms. Nicholi did not view her teaching methods or strategies as having any-


thing to do with the actions of the boys. Instead, she described the boys as havingneeds beyond those of the average kindergartner:

They get so angry, and it has nothing to do with what you’re asking them to do.Nothing with the project that they are working on. I don’t feel like I have a lot ofstrategies on how to help kids overcome all that anger and to feel successful andto deal with their frustration and to help them with their own problems. I meanclassroom management, behavior management, and those kinds of issues.

The discourse of normalization becomes braided with the discourses of child-centered-ness and children at risk to locate the anger and frustration within individual childrensuch as Shawn and Wayne. Rather than assuming that Shawn and Wayne need moretime to mature, as she assumed with Tim, she perceived their behavioral problems asstemming from their family situations and conceptualized these problems as residingwithin the children themselves. She saw her responsibility in this situation as buildingup her repertoire of behavior management techniques and when her strategiesremained ine� ective she shifted the responsibility for educating Shawn and Wayneto special education services. She explained, `Ì think they are either LD or ED and Ithink there’s been abuse too. It was hard to make a case, but once I did and talked tothe team I realized that this was not like other classes.’’

One must wonder about the correlation between Wayne’s emotional outbursts andthe way in which he was forced to complete his work. In her attempt to shape thechildren into `ìdeal’’ kindergartners , Ms. Nicholi provided no space for children toperform comfortably the identities that they brought with them from home intoschool.

While the identities of the Southeast Asian children and the East Asian child wereconstructed much di� erently than those of the ``young ®ves’’ or the African-Americanchildren within a discourse of normalization, the ability to fashion positive socialidentities was limited for this group of kindergartners as well. The `Àsian’’ childrenoften seemed as if they were invisible. They were not reprimanded for `ìnappropriatebehaviors’’ because the behaviors that they exhibited generally fell within the boundsof what was considered ``normal’’ in the kindergarten. Although Ms. Nicholi did helpthe children with their work in a limited manner, and rewarded them for their workhabits and other `àppropriate behaviors,’’ there was little interaction between the`Àsian’’ students and their teacher. The ®ve Southeast Asian children made dailytrips to the English as Second Language Program for instruction and a Hmonginterpreter traveled in and out of the classroom. Because of this external support, itwas possible for Ms. Nicholi to assume that she needed to take no further steps toincorporate culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994). In her mind, shewas not experiencing any behavioral problems with this group of children so she justleft them to themselves.

Acknowledging discourses across multiple contexts

Ms. Nicholi’s approach to teaching is a meÂ lange of discourses that work together incomplex and often contradictory ways. Through a discourse of child-centeredness, Ms.Nicholi conceptualizes development as being rooted in the individual child. Thepractice of diagnosing the development of each child, to which Ms. Nicholi wasintroduced as a prospective teacher, is nurtured at Woodlawn and supported by


her personal philosophy. It is understandable that Ms. Nicholi has appropriated thispractice and enacted it in her pedagogy.

As a ®rst-year teacher, her desire to ®t into the school and the teaching professionmay account for her readily appropriating the discourse of normalization that envel-ops Woodlawn. In addition, the discourse of normalization is consistent with Ms.Nicholi’s personal philosophy of teaching. Ms. Nicholi continues to appropriate avariant of the discourse of child-centeredness, perhaps because it ®ts with the ideasof normalization practiced at Woodlawn elementary and is recognized and supportedby her colleagues. A critical, sociocultural discourse, on the other hand, was notevident at the school and most likely would not have been recognized by theWoodlawn sta� .

Like the discourse of normalization, the discourse of ``at risk’’ locates problemswithin individuals, families, and communities rather than in institutions, such asschools, that produce and maintain inequities. Perhaps this discourse is also comfor-table to Ms. Nicholi because it is congruent with her position as a member of thedominant culture. Ms. Nicholi’s personal history resonates with the discourse of nor-malization at the school so there is no need to question it.

Conclusions

As teacher educators we are in the business of promoting ideologies through thediscourses that we choose to use as we work with prospective teachers. According toBakhtin it would seem that it is in the process of struggling with shaping an identity asteacher that prospective teachers are the most open to being in¯uenced by the dis-courses of educators at the university as well as at the elementary school level. AsBakhtin (1981) explains:

The tendency to assimilate others’ discourse takes on an even deeper and morebasic signi®cance in an individual’s ideological becoming, in the most funda-mental sense. Another’s discourse performs here no longer as information,directions, rules, models and so forth ± but strives rather to determine thevery bases of our ideological interrelations with the world, the very basis ofour behavior . . . . (p. 342)

This openness could be capitalized upon by explicitly discussing the concept of dis-course and by introducing the possibility of functioning e� ectively within multiplediscourses.

As teacher educators we can help prospective teachers develop an awareness ofhow the discourses of particular ®elds of education have been, and continue to be,socially, culturally, historically, and politically constructed. Teacher educators need towork with prospective teachers to identify and articulate the ideologies that are alivein discourses. We can do so by providing information that allows prospective teachersto compare how teachers, children, and families are positioned within particulardiscourses and how these positionings make a material di� erence in the lives of speci®cgroups of individuals. For example, we could ask prospective teachers to read severalpersonal accounts of classroom teaching with the objective of identifying the discoursesthrough which the authors are thinking, speaking, and acting.4 Prospective teacherscould then analyze how speci®c discourses limit or create possibilities for children andfamilies. This activity could be carried a step further by asking prospective teachers to


explore how identities would shift in each classroom if di� erent discourses wereemployed.

Prospective teachers also need to be provided with opportunitie s to examine theirown personal biographies in order to scrutinize how discourses of race, class, gender,religion, and sexuality have shaped and continue to shape their lived experiences andworld-views. However, as Britzman (1991) contends, this biographical work cannot bereduced to the ``nostalgia of the personal or the rhapsody of the unique’’ (p. 233).Rather, Britzman argues that teacher educators need to help prospective teacherscontextualize their life histories by encouraging them to make connections betweentheir biographies and social structures. Such biographical work provides opportunitiesfor prospective teachers to examine consciously how particular ideologies have workedin their own lives to de®ne their past, present, and future identities.

By providing teachers with the tools for conceptualizing teacher thinking as socialwe o� er them alternative ways to author their identities. Preparing teachers who arewell versed in multiple discourses does not ensure that particular discourses will beaccepted or rejected. What it does ensure is that prospective teachers will recognizethat the discursive choices they make as they construct their identities have rami®ca-tions for the social identities of the children and families with whom they work.

Acknowledgments

I thank Ms. Nicholi for her willingness to engage in this research and for her permis-sion to use the stories that are woven throughout this article. I would also like to thankmy colleagues Tamara Lindsey, Don Reynolds, Jean Schmittau, Ken Teitelbaum,and Margot Vagliardo for reading and sharing their helpful comments throughout theevolution of this article.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms.2. The discourse of ``at risk’’ has been written about by numerous educational researchers, for example

see Cuban (1989), Fine (1990), Polakow (1993), and Swadener & Lubeck (1995).3. Multicultural education was discussed by the administrators and support sta� but was nearly absent in

my discussions with classroom teachers. As the principal stated, Woodlawn ``had a long way to go’’ in termsof moving towards a multicultural perspective.

4. Examples would include works by Pat Conroy, Vivian Gussin Paley, Sylvia Ashton Warner, and JuliaWeber Gordon.

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