When Saundra (pseudonym) invited me into her literacy classroom to work together, she expressed her desire to prioritize student voice and incorporate their stories into her literacy instruction. Saundra and I discussed a small-scale project, as part of a large ongoing research project, in which I would visit her and spend a week in her classroom, examining how her students told stories. Before this project, I had known Saundra for many years and we were reconnected through a professional development experience.  

For this project, I drew upon a series of interviews with Saundra and a week of observation in Saundra’s classroom. As the week went on, Saundra and I realized there was a disconnect between how deeply she wanted to encourage her students to tell their stories and use their voices. Therefore, the research project shifted into discussing possibilities for empowering more student voice in such a restrictive environment.

Saundra teaches first grade in an urban public school district. Neoliberal, capitalistic, and individualistic pressures often lead schools like Saundra’s to prioritize state standards, high-stakes testing, and restrictive curricula, limiting teacher and student agency. These pressures and their implicit emphasis on power and control within the education system are communicated to teachers and contradict the value of listening to children's voices and students’ stories. Saundra’s experience reflects the realities that many teachers across the United States face when it comes to the delicate balance between the pressures of what they feel they must do and what they know is best practice for their students.

In Saundra’s classroom—similar to many public schools around the U.S.—there are many structures teachers have to consider in their pedagogical decisions. For Saundra, the structure and systems of schooling created hurdles along the path to the expansive, student-centered ways in which Saundra desired to teach literacy. In what follows, I present five hurdles Saundra encountered:

1. The Classroom

In Saundra’s classroom, educational posters covering all four walls emphasized the importance of literacy as specific skills to be taught and measured in systematic ways, focusing on discrete phonemic and phonological awareness as well as district-required data displays for a standardized Readiness Evaluation. The displays visually reinforced the importance of measurable skills in literacy education.

2. Time Constraints

Saundra’s day was neatly organized, but left her little time to infuse the topics or activities that she was passionate about into her instruction. Saundra felt forced to “cram it all in” when she was teaching rather than giving students the time to explore (despite her desire to make the time). Saundra had to balance the knowledge that students could learn literacy skills in multiple ways with the real pressures of time.

3. Curricular Structures

The curriculum for literacy at Gold Elementary (pseudonym) focused heavily on phonological and morphological skill development for students and left no room for creative expression or exploration in non-scripted, non-standardized ways. Due to the tightly bound and mandated literacy curriculum, Saundra was limited from spending curricular time and space on including students’ voices and experiences into classroom literacy practices. 

4. Testing Pressures

Despite her desire to foster expansive, student-centered literacy, Saundra found herself constrained by the requirements of preparing her students for benchmark evaluations. The pressure of having students perform well on the Readiness Evaluation (pseudonym) is openly communicated to teachers, including Saundra, from the school administration. Saundra described how “everything that I do, I try to use as a resource that is going to help my students do better on their diagnostic.” Saundra experienced tension between teaching the memorization of skills for the test or teaching literacy in ways that created space for her students’ voices.

5. Professional Hierarchy

No matter how much Saundra desired to change aspects of literacy to include more of her students’ stories and less time on scripted-lessons, Saundra had to ensure that she was meeting the expectations of her supervisors, who held control over her employment contract and directed her in what must be done and should not be done in her classroom academic plans. Balancing the dynamic of respecting her supervisors and their directives for instruction was at tension with Saundra’s desire to push the boundaries of administrative directives towards more student voice.

Clearing the Hurdles

For educators who value students’ voices and stories in the classroom, small steps can become bigger movements in your school over time and lead to educators clearing these five hurdles in their path.

• Assess the daily schedule to find windows for students’ voices to be central. For example, teachers can assess their morning meeting and closing circle routines to incorporate more time for student sharing or ensure that their literacy block includes student sharing time at the end, before moving onto the next subject of the day.
• Consider when independent student assignments from a guided curriculum could be supplemented to include group or partner work for students.
• Dedicate a portion of reading instructional time for students to talk to their peers about books through sharing circles or book club groups.
• Ensure that writing instructional blocks include free writing time to encourage student voices in print.
• Engage in professional book studies with colleagues to collaboratively learn about expansive, student-centered approaches to literacy instruction.

Saundra’s experience provides insights into the relationship between the public schooling system, teacher pedagogical beliefs, and the negotiation of challenges that arise for educators like Saundra. When facing hurdles, teachers can make space for students’ voices in small ways and can collaborate with their colleagues to find ways to do so.

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