"Education, Faculty of"@en . "Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of"@en . "DSpace"@en . "UBCV"@en . "Hasebe-Ludt, Erika Luise"@en . "2009-04-16T17:36:58Z"@en . "1994"@en . "Doctor of Philosophy - PhD"@en . "University of British Columbia"@en . "At this fin de si\u00C3\u00A8cle, when educators are pressed with finding curricular alternatives to\r\nthe sociocultural canon of literacy, this case study explored the intertextual nature of\r\ndiscourse communities in a culturally diverse elementary school in Vancouver, Canada,\r\nover the course of two school years. Through hermeneutic inquiry and critical action\r\nresearch, by means of video and audio recording, field notes, researcher narratives, and\r\nethnographic interviews, the study documented how children between the ages of six and\r\nnine from a variety of sociocultural and sociolinguistic backgrounds engaged with texts\r\nwithin a literature reading program.\r\nThe following interconnected questions undergirded the study: How did students and\r\nteachers work with different kinds of texts within a curriculum that is multicultural by\r\nmandate? Were these texts, in the form of print and other communicative occurrences,\r\ninclusive, relevant and meaningful with respect to the participants\u00E2\u0080\u0099 backgrounds? How did\r\nlanguage and culture influence this process, and was it possible for teachers to foster\r\ncommunity-building and responsible social attitudes and actions in a world which, despite\r\nthe mandate of multiculturalism, is increasingly fragmented by racism and nationalism?\r\nWhen teachers engaged in the complex and at times difficult processes of becoming\r\ndeeply connected with their student& lived experiences as well as their own personal and\r\npedagogical praxis through meaningful multicultural language and texts, opportunities for\r\ncommunity-building and responsible social action were created through the curriculum.\r\nIndeed, it seemed vital in this process that the participants engaged with texts that\r\nreflected the cultural diversity within this local setting but also issues of cultural pluralism\r\nand heterogeneity within the larger societal and global context -- in all the universe, in one\r\nof the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words."@en . "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/7229?expand=metadata"@en . "4942459 bytes"@en . "application/pdf"@en . "IN ALL THE UNIVERSE:PLACING THE TEXTS OF CULTURE AND COMMUNITYI1 ONLY ONE SCHOOLbyERIKA LUISE HASEBE-LUDTB.A., Universit\u00C3\u00A4t des Saarlandes, 1973M.A., Freie Universit\u00C3\u00A4t Berlin, 1977B.Ed., University of British Columbia, 1990A THESIS SUBMITTED I1 PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIESCentre for the Study of Curriculum and InstructionDepartment of Language EducationWe accept this thesis as conformingto the required standardTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIAJuly 1995\u00C2\u00A9 Erika Luise Hasebe-Ludt, 1995In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanceddegree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make itfreely available for reference and study. 1 further agree that permission for extensivecopying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of mydepartment or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying orpublication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission.(Signature)Department of Ca cucui iUCToi/ UGa-rE icOtJThe University of British ColumbiaVancouver, CanadaDate Od\u00C3\u00B46r 06 flciDE-6 (2/88)AbstractAt thisjin de si\u00C3\u00A8cle, when educators are pressed with finding curricular alternatives tothe sociocultural canon of literacy, this case study explored the intertextual nature ofdiscourse communities in a culturally diverse elementary school in Vancouver, Canada,over the course of two school years. Through hermeneutic inquiry and critical actionresearch, by means of video and audio recording, field notes, researcher narratives, andethnographic interviews, the study documented how children between the ages of six andnine from a variety of sociocultural and sociolinguistic backgrounds engaged with textswithin a literature reading program.The following interconnected questions undergirded the study: How did students andteachers work with different kinds of texts within a curriculum that is multicultural bymandate? Were these texts, in the form of print and other communicative occurrences,inclusive, relevant and meaningful with respect to the participants\u00E2\u0080\u0099 backgrounds? How didlanguage and culture influence this process, and was it possible for teachers to fostercommunity-building and responsible social attitudes and actions in a world which, despitethe mandate of multiculturalism, is increasingly fragmented by racism and nationalism?When teachers engaged in the complex and at times difficult processes of becomingdeeply connected with their student& lived experiences as well as their own personal andpedagogical praxis through meaningful multicultural language and texts, opportunities forcommunity-building and responsible social action were created through the curriculum.Indeed, it seemed vital in this process that the participants engaged with texts thatreflected the cultural diversity within this local setting but also issues of cultural pluralismand heterogeneity within the larger societal and global context -- in all the universe, in oneof the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words.11Through texts that celebrated the joys, the differences as well as the difficulties ofcommunal belonging within both local and universal intertextual frames, they came tolocate multiple communities in diversity. In this curricular turn, hermeneutic inquiryopened up spaces for textual dialogues between teachers, students and the multiplediscourse communities they created withlin a caring and coherent curriculum.111Table of ContentsTitle Page.Abstract iiTable of Contents iiiList of Tables VAcknowledgments viEpigraph viiDedication viiiChapter 1 Und so Welter...: In Lieu of an Introduction 1Naming and Placing the Text: Thinking in Between Language and Culture 2Inter/textualldisciplinary Reflection 4The Language of Curricular Kehre 12Chapter 2 What we Care About: Communities of Inquiry in Postmodern Times 15The Methodological, Pedagogical, and Philosophical Frameworks 28Action and Reflection as Pedagogical Praxis 31The Cogency of Community education 39Propositions on Literacy 56Chapter 3 Living Ethnography: Cultures of Learning/Learning about Cultures 65Out of Place: Reading Between Cultures and Continents 68Into the City: Mapping Landscapes of Linguistic and Cultural Variables 75Into the Neighbourhood: Changing Community 86Into the School: Mixed Blessings of Diversity and Place 94Into the Classroom: It Rude to Interrupt 107Chapter 4 Intercultural Connections of Literacy in Action: Entgrenzungen 122The ABCs of Intertextual Discourses: Interpreting Cultural Literacy 125Constructing and Negotiating Knowledge: Passports to Understanding 137The Power of Our Stories: Literature as Texts for Reading the World 143The Many Webs of Charlotte Revisited 172Chapter 5 Re-tracing the Paths and Places of Community in Languaging 176The Tensionality Within Textual Communities 178Dff\u00C3\u00A9rance and Kehre: A Turn Toward Coherent Curriculum 186Chapter 6 Con-fusion: The Difficult Pleasure of the Text 193Reading Weather/Weathering Reading 194Connection and Obligation: What Indeed is a Bridge? 199Notes 210References 214Appendix 1 Letters of Permission and Interview Questions 254ivList of TablesTABLE 1 Methods of Data Collection .116TABLE 2 Criteria for Selecting Multicultural Literature 163TABLE 3 A Sampling of Multicultural Children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Literature: In All The Universe.. 171VAcknowledgmentsThroughout the researching and writing of this dissertation, the relations with manydiverse communities have sustained me in precious ways:I am deeply indebted to the community of scholars who came together to form mysupervisory committee: to my advisor and research supervisor, Dr. Ken Reeder, for hisexemplary supervision and guidance and for being the most encouraging and supportiveDokton\u00E2\u0080\u0099ater any candidate could wish for; to Dr. Marilyn Chapman, for her much-neededcompassionate advocacy and belief in the values of praxis-oriented research; to Dr. JerryCoombs, for his cogent advice on philosophical matters and his global vision of socialjustice and responsible action; to Dr. Lee Gunderson, for bearing with me from thebeginning of my pedagogical journey and for all the thoughtful and challengingconversations and texts over the years; to Dr. Wendy Sutton, for her caring advocacy ofwriting in a new key and her capacity for celebrating the richness of relating throughliterature.I have been fortunate indeed to have Dr. Patricia Duff and Dr. Carl Leggocollaborating with me in creating a caring community of intradisciplinary scholarship.For deepening my understanding of what goes on in language and for bringing forthmy own language in multidimensional and multilingual ways I owe much to Dr. Ted Aoki.I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the staff, students, parents, and neighbours atFranklin Community School, especially to my team teaching partners Anne Brodie, LoriDavies, Brenda Dyer, Tina Gill, and Brigitte Woodham, and to Sheri Duckles and RonRumak, as well as Kimberley Toye and Pierre Welbedagt, for their continued collegialfriendship, enthusiastic support and collaboration. I thank my action research colleagueswithin the Vancouver School Board, Andrea Hawkes, A. I. Miller, Judy Ann Nishi, andDr. Sharon Reid, for their support, trust and confidence in me when exploring our jointpedagogical practice.My warmest gratitude and appreciation go to Joanne and Patrick Harrington, AlannahIreland, and Gaelan de Wolf for helping me not only cope with but feel enriched by livingamidst the vibrant tensionalities of being a teacher, a writer, and a friend.I am most thankful to my family across continents: to Ken, Charlotte, Luise, Gerhard,and Winfried, without whose love and patient support I would not have journeyed this far.I gratefully acknowledge the support of this study by The Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council of Canada in the form of a Doctoral Fellowship.Thank you, Jeffrey, for the title.Thank you, Carl, Leigh, Renee, and Ron, for the poems.vi1earthonly 12 polesonly 23 climate zonesonly 34 oceansonly 45 islandsand many more6 desertsand many more7 continentsonly 77 seasand many more6 mountainsand many more5 lakesand many more4 windsonly 43 riversand many more2 hemispheresand 2 more1 earthonly 1Mother Earth Counting BookviiDedicationLes grandespersonnes ne comprennentjamais rien toutes seules, et c\u00E2\u0080\u0099estfatigant,pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explicatEons.Toutes les grandespersonnes oft dzbord \u00C3\u00A9t\u00C3\u00A9 des enfants.Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00C3\u00A9ryTo Charlotte(only one)viiiChapter 1Und so Weiter...: In Lieu of an IntroductionTo try to move the force in language from the noun/verb centre. To de/centralizethe force inside the utterancefrom the noun/verb, say, to the preposition. Evenfor a moment. To break the vertical hold To empower the preposition to signifyand utter motion, the motion of the utterance, and thereby NameIt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s the way people use language makes me furious. The ones who reject thecolloquial & common culture. The ones who laud on the other hand the commonand denigrate the intellect, as ifwe are not thinking. The ones who play betweenthe two, as fculture is a strong wind blowing in the path of honour. It takes usnowhere & makes me furious, that\u00E2\u0080\u0099c all.Erin Mour\u00C3\u00A9, FuriousSous la demande generate de reldchement et d\u00E2\u0080\u0099apaisement, nous entendonsmarmonner le d\u00C3\u00A9sir de recommencer la terreut d\u00E2\u0080\u0099accompiir le fantasmed\u00E2\u0080\u0099\u00C3\u00A9treindre la r\u00C3\u00A9alit\u00C3\u00A9. La r\u00C3\u00A9ponse est: guerre au tou4 t\u00C3\u00A9moignons dePimpr\u00C3\u00A9sentable, activons les diff\u00C3\u00A9rends, sauvons l\u00E2\u0080\u0099honneur du nom.Jean-Francois Lyotard, Le posimoderne expliqu\u00C3\u00A9 aux etifantsMan kann Sprache nur verstehen, wenn man mehr ais Sprache versteht.Hans HOrmann, Meinen mid Verstehen1Naming and Placing the Text: Thinking in Between Language and CultureIn a collection of writings by Jean-Francois Lyotard, the French philosopher statesthat any writer is his or her first reader and that no-one indeed can write without rereading (Benjamin, 1989). In this sense, the following text does not present an entirelynew opus but rather proposes a re-reading of texts, my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099, and of discoursesand dialogues that have shaped my reading and research during the past few years.Similarly, it also resists a conventional introduction to its readers and instead can beperceived as und so welter, 1 as a continuation of re-constituted meanings and insights:The work ... can be described as centering around the possibility of a philosophythat takes place in and after -- though not simply in and after -- the refusal of boththe complacency of tradition and the complacency in advance of meta-narratives(or grand-narratives). ... Part of the difficulty here is thinking the \u00E2\u0080\u0098in\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and the \u00E2\u0080\u0098after\u00E2\u0080\u0099as not designating simple temporal locations within an unfolding sequentialcontinuity. Rather they need to be understood, at least initially, as moods or to useLyotard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own expression as states of mind. These simple observations are anadequate preparation for prereading. They are because they are not. The deferralbefore -- in front of-- is pointless. There is no way in but the way itself(Benjamin, 1989, p. xvi)I therefore invite my readers to take up Lyotard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s challenge of thinking the \u00E2\u0080\u0098in\u00E2\u0080\u0099 andthe \u00E2\u0080\u0098after, \u00E2\u0080\u0098to enter this text without a \u00E2\u0080\u0098before\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- and to take seriously that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cour role asthinkers is to deepen our understanding of what goes on in language, to critique the vapididea of information, to reveal an irremediable opacity at the very core of language\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Lyotard, 1986/7, p. 218). In this sense, my own text is situated within the questioning ofestablished meta-narratives and a critique of language, which, in Roland Barthes\u00E2\u0080\u0099understanding, create a new perspective on reflection:Literature and language are in the process of recognizing each other. The factorsof this rapprochement are various and complex. ... Hence, there exists today a newperspective on reflection-- common, I insist, to literature and to linguistics, to thecreator and the critic, whose tasks, hitherto absolutely self-contained, arebeginning to communicate, perhaps even to converge, at least on the level of thewriter, whose action can increasingly be defined as critique of language.(Barthes, 1986, p. 11)2Together, reflection and critique with a view toward language, literature, and culturecreate an opening of the spaces in between for re-thinking, re-writing, and re-readingresearch. Placing this text in a context that transcends strict temporal and spatiallimitations yet at the same time claims a geographically distinctive locus may seemcontradictory per Se. However, this apparent dichotomy indeed characterizes many sociocultural and educational phenomena in these postmodern times where contradictorynotions and values about society, culture, and curriculum struggle to co-exist and, ideally,flourish without negating each other entirely within the parameters of place and time. Inthis way, for instance, it is possible to enter a dialogue about the many-facetedrelationships between language and culture, about diversity with/out unity, aboutindividual rights versus communal needs, about local realities in the face of global truths.We must honestly and honourably face these issues by not giving in to the generaldemand for reldchement et apaisement (too often synonymous with the kind of backlashmentality that seems to dominate much of the media and popular educational discourse)and by actively questioning false assumptions and attitudes about language that centre onwholeness and representation. Lyotard (1986) challenges us: activons les dffe\u00E2\u0080\u0099rends;Mour\u00C3\u00A9 (1988) demands that we break the vertical hold, that we name and honourlanguage and its multivocity in many different forms and meanings. Perhaps, eventually,we thus will be able to see that we can only understand language when we understandmore than language (HOrmann, 1976).From this context and perspective, the shaping, framing and naming of thisdissertation reflect the process of hermeneutic inquiry and thinking about ways oflanguaging and culture in which I have placed myself throughout my teaching practice andgraduate studies.I have come to believe in the sanity of living amidst contradictions, in therichness of being immersed in seemingly contrasting frames. Action andreflection, local truths and global significance, individualism and community:opposites that, like the proverbial saying, attract and complement each other,3blend together in idealistic visions of unity -- or notions that are statically definedby their irreconcilable differences between part and whole?Along this continuum of polarization in established educational framesemerge the constructs of self in the face of institutionalism, of many diversehome cultures clashing with only one school culture, of mosaic contrasting withmelting pot, of multicultural versus anti-racist curricula, of East in conflict withWest, of Pacific vis-\u00C3\u00A0-vis Atlantic, of quantitative research projects as opposedto qualitative case studies.The list of such often-cited dichotomies seems indeed endless. Someeducators, in order to avoid the contentious overtones of conflicting models,ideologies, and methodologies, would rather choose the politically correct, yetoften vaguely defined and superficially applied \u00E2\u0080\u0098paradigm shift\u00E2\u0080\u0099 phrase todescribe the current pedagogical landscape -- without, however, addressingessential questions about the deconstruction of assumed realities and thenotion of being in this postmodern pedagogical world.(Researcher Narrative, 01/05/94)Inter/textual/disciplinary ReflectionImmersed in this context, my questions and reflections took on an intertextual naturewith respect to this present text and its relations with prior and future texts, all of themsocially constructed within a conceptual framework that recognizes intertextuality as asignificant force in literary, linguistic, educational, and philosophical discourses (Bloome& Egan-Robertson, 1993; Derrida, 1967; Plett, 1991; Schemer, 1984). As a teacher andas a learner, by being part of a world in which sociolinguistic and sociocultural differencesinteract with other complex factors to affect both children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and adults\u00E2\u0080\u0099 educationalprogress, I have experienced these relationships between language, culture, and educationas truly rhizomean in nature:Drawn into deeper consideration, I found myself in the midst of a multiplicity ofmeanings, interwoven and in constant motion. Meanings relate as rhizomes grow,intertwine, new shoots springing forth from the humus formed by the old. Eachshoot its own yet inseparably intertwine with others [j\u00C3\u00A7]. (Richter, 1993, p. 58)Out of this continuous search for meanings, amidst this at times overwhelmingcomplexity of influences at work, I have come to contemplate and re-think the followingconnections and questions in an interdisciplinary and intertextual fashion:4How do students and teachers with vastly divergent sociocultural and sociolinguisticbackgrounds come to live/life within a pedagogical community based on a curriculum thatis multicultural by mandate? How do language and culture influence this community-building process? The provincial curriculum reform initiative in British Columbia, knownas the Year 2000, was mandated to \u00E2\u0080\u009Cenable learners to reach their potential\u00E2\u0080\u009D (BritishColumbia Ministry of Education, 1989, p. 3) and states that \u00E2\u0080\u009CCurriculum and programswill respond to the growing cultural diversity of learners. Cultural understanding andrespect among students will be promoted. All students will understand the values of theircultural heritage and be prepared to contribute to Canadian society\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 42). What does itmean for children from diverse backgrounds to become literate in today\u00E2\u0080\u0099s \u00E2\u0080\u0098cultural mosaic\u00E2\u0080\u0099of a society? This seems particularly poignant in a province and country that declarethemselves committed through legislation to multiculturalism as a progressive political andideological force (Moodley, 1992; British Columbia Ministry of Social Services, 1992)How do children come to understand to know their place in this cultural multiplicity andhow do they relate to their heritage?The guiding principles expressed in The Year 2000 curriculum reform initiatives, inturn, are based on the findings of the Sullivan Royal Commission, entitled A legacyforlearners (British Columbia Royal Commission on Education, 1989). Both documentsundergird this thesis throughout and will be referred to in subsequent chapters in furtherdetail, for instance in chapters three and four, with regard to reading instruction andcommunity building. The Year 2000 document, and especially its subsequent PrimaryProgram Foundation Document (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1990)2 stronglyexpress educational beliefs and positions that are based on current understandings andfindings about children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s development. These are well documented with both researchand field-based resources and place children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s educational progress in a comprehensiveframework of socio-psychological, socio-cognitive, aesthetic and physical variables. Inparticular, the section entitled Philosophy of the Primary Program recognizes5that children are individuals and every child is unique. The Programaccommodates the broad range of childrens needs, their learning rates and styles,and their knowledge, experiences and interests to facilitate continuous learning. Itachieves this through an integrated curriculum incorporating a variety ofinstructional models, strategies and resources.The Program honours the development of the whole child. It reflects anunderstanding that children learn through active involvement and play and thatchildren represent their knowledge in a variety of ways. It recognizes the socialnature of learning and the essential role of language in mediating thought,communication and learning. (p. 15)In connection with this focus on language and being responsive to individual needs,the language arts curriculum is recommended to be literature-based (British ColumbiaMinistry of Education, 1991), a term that is not without controversial overtones and haslately been critically examined with respect to the authenticity of materials used (Freeman& Goodman, 1993). How exactly do students and teachers engage with literature, withdifferent kinds of texts within the curriculum, and are these texts, in the form of print orother communicative occurrences, inclusive, relevant and meaningful to them with respectto their socio-cultural backgrounds? In its section on Multicultural and Race RelationsEducation, the Primary Program Foundation Document (1990b) states:In acknowledging individual differences among children, the Primary Programemphasizes that all children enrich the culture of the classroom through thediversity of their many origins, beliefs, values and first languages. The PrimaryProgram affirms the cultural pluralism that is the essence of our society.A recent aim, in British Columbia as in other parts of the world, is to developanti-racist policies to address prejudice and discrimination built into the educationsystem and to focus on changes in attitudes and practices. (p. 362)How then, for instance, do children relate through language to being part of aconflict-ridden world that is in the midst of redefining the very nature and scope ofliteracy? Finally, how is it possible for students -- and in particular the children in myclassroom and school -- to engage in building community and for teachers to fosterresponsible social action in a world which despite -- or perhaps because of-6multiculturalism \u00E2\u0080\u009Cshows every sign of being increasingly torn by struggles rooted in racismand nationalism\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Willinsky, 1994, P. 2)?Much writing on issues connected with these questions, in various pedagogicalcontexts and places, has come forth during recent years. My own understanding of thetheory and practice of teaching has certainly profited from the discourses these texts haveengendered -- texts that speak to the multiple challenges of curriculum and languageteaching in our postmodern multicultural communities, such as Aoki (1993a, 1993b),Caputo (1993), Corlett (1989), Gunderson (in press-a, in press-b), Jardine (1994), and theMiami Theory Collective (1991), to name only a few recent thought-provoking readings.Nevertheless, more than anything else, it is the ongoing reading of and listening to mystudents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 languaging embedded and framed in this contemporary pedagogical landscapethat has given me the motivation and the curiosity to pose questions and to paint anintertextual and multi-layered picture of language and culture at work, in action.This dissertation, therefore, does not present a finished product or a report on asequential, linear plan of research that one might expect to lead to definitive answers orconclusions. Instead, it constitutes a re-posing of questions about practice and a posing ofyet more new ones -- new shoots of multiple meanings embedded in layers of re-visitedintertext -- informing each other much in the way that. The paint on this portrait of onespecial community of inquiry is still wet, new colours are being created, new shades ofunderstanding are emerging as I write and re-read Und so weiterThis rhizomean nature of de-centred, constantly emerging meanings relates toKristeva\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1967, 1974) notion of intertextualit\u00C3\u00A9 which in turn is based on Bakhtine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s [jc](1978) literary theory and confirms that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cany text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations;any text is the absorption and transformation of another. The notion of intertextualityreplaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic language is read as at least double\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Kristeva,1980, p. 66). As part of this intertextuality, writings and references that have beeninfluential in shaping my thinking and questioning are interwoven between the layers of the7paligraphic text and transposed into the textual systems of narrative journal entries,documentations and samples from the classroom observations.3At the same time that this text refuses a one-dimensional centredness with respect toexploring issues about language, literature, and culture, it demands a focusing on therespective understanding of several crucial terms and themes that undergird thisexploration. I begin this process here and will continue with it in a recurring fashion as itapplies contextually throughout the following chapters.inter-text. Using and repeating my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 earlier texts. Pulling the oldpoems thru the new, making the old lines a thread through the eyes of the words Iam sewing. Sound & sense. The eeriness. (Mour\u00C3\u00A9, 1988, p. 85)Interdisciplinary studies, of which we hear so much, do not merely confrontalready constituted disciplines (none of which, as a matter of fact, consents toleave off). In order to do interdisciplinary work, it is not enough to take a\u00E2\u0080\u009Csubject\u00E2\u0080\u009D (a theme) and to arrange two or three sciences around it.Interdisciplinary study consists in creating a new object, which belongs to noone. The Text is, I believe, one such object. (Barthes, 1986, p. 72)These thoughts seem highly appropriate and eerily poignant almost a decade afterthey were written, continents apart, in Europe and North America, in light of the evermore urgent need for creating new understandings about language, culture, and theirsurrounding contexts, at the same time that we must come to terms with the legacies ofour own and other\u00E2\u0080\u0099s \u00E2\u0080\u0098old texts\u00E2\u0080\u0099. Interdisciplinary study, in this sense, presents a challengingnotion for me on a personal and professional level when thinking about old and new texts.In a paper I wrote on Reflections on teaching ESL in the context of Canadianmulticultural education (Hasebe-Ludt, 1991) at the very beginning of my graduate studiesin curriculum and language education at a North American university, I recalled myprevious experiences with interdisciplinary studies in North American language, literature,and culture at a European university. I found it ironic and disheartening that my differentcultural and educational background hardly seemed to fit the mode of the narrowly definedfield of study I encountered when I first arrived in Canada to continue my previous studies8with a research scholarship in Canadian English. I commented on feeling disconnectedand outside the mainstream of the academic canon whenever I tried to explain my programof interdisciplinary graduate studies at the Freie Universitat Berlin which focused oncritical examination of linguistic, sociocultural, and historical factors related to literaryproduction. There was hardly anybody here at any academic institution that could relateto such a course of studies or tell me which program I would fit in. I also wrote about theimpact of place, of the experience of moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, from theformer West Berlin in the late 70s:When I was able to obtain a scholarship to the University of British Columbia tostudy sociolinguistics in the context of Canadian English for one year, I felt bothexhilarated and skeptical, wondering whether I would be able to adjust to acultural environment I had not much in common with through my upbringing. Iwanted to get a better understanding of how to define Canada\u00E2\u0080\u0099s linguistic andcultural diversity in terms of a \u00E2\u0080\u0098multicultural mosaic\u00E2\u0080\u0099.No letters, friendly visits or university studies could have prepared me forthe reality of actually living in this Canadian urban environment.4 I had to seewith my own eyes the reality of the not always harmonious coexistence ofdifferent races, make my own judgments about racial prejudice in the media,among people I met at the university and in other places. Above all, I had tofeel for myself the isolation and homesickness of the first few months of living ina foreign country and speaking in a language that was not my mother tongue.Although I was able to stay in close contact with friends and family backhome, I began to witness and understand the implications of this \u00E2\u0080\u009Cculture shock\u00E2\u0080\u009Dfor immigrants from places to which no lines of communication could bemaintained -- which often happens to refugees from war-torn countries.(Researcher Narrative, 1O/1O/91)\u00E2\u0080\u0098Old lines and new ones\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- mark my journalizing and journeyinginto culture, my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099. They document the disruptive force, \u00E2\u0080\u0098the strong wind\u00E2\u0080\u0099that culture can turn into, as Mour\u00C3\u00A9 feels, blowing in the path of human lives.I suspect my interest in approaching questions of pedagogy as questions of culturearises inevitably from the long after-effects of the culture shock I experienced as ayoung person coming to Canada in the early sixties. ... Feeling strange or alien isthe first prerequisite to a life of interpretation, as Wilhelm Dilthey once suggested,so after many years of suffering through the typical immigrant agonistics of tryingto fit into the patterns and codes of dominant culture, years of self-abnegation andreclusiveness, eventually I began to realize that a life of difference, or a differentlife, is what makes possible a refraction of normalcy into \u00E2\u0080\u0098strangeness\u00E2\u0080\u0099, and that9such work may be precisely what is necessary to the enormous contemporary taskof mediating differences across cultures, that is to the hermeneutic task of makingthe world less fearful, more ecumenical. (Smith, 1994a, pp. iiiii)6During the same time, in a journal reflection on a research article (Wallace &Goodman, 1989) during one of the courses in my own teacher training in multicultural andlanguage education, I also wrote:The authors \u00E2\u0080\u009Cview the knowledge and use of more than one language as aremarkable resource\u00E2\u0080\u009D and equate multicultural education in this sense with\u00E2\u0080\u009Cgood education\u00E2\u0080\u009D as it increases our understanding not only of languages butalso of ourselves and others as language learners and members of multiculturalcommunities. This, to me, brings back memories of my schooling in a Europeansetting where I was always told that \u00E2\u0080\u009Clanguages are good for the brain!\u00E2\u0080\u009DAlthough it seems to me only natural and logical to regardmultilingual/multicultural education for ourselves and for our children asthoroughly positive and enriching, until very recently the overall trend in literacyeducation has achieved the opposite: Educating children towards mastering thelinguistic \u00E2\u0080\u0098standard\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of a White, English speaking, middle class majority hasresulted in more or less open discrimination of language variables and speakersthat do not fit into that category. (Researcher Narrative, O3I29/9O)With this thesis, I am re-connecting, at last, going back to what feels like acomfortable, sensible, and enriching way of academic research through interpretiveinquiry. At the same time I am attempting to find new ways and methods of connectingthrough intertextual and interdisciplinary work with a new world order, a new way \u00E2\u0080\u009Cinwhich we come to think about the world\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Willinsky, 1994, p. 15). The world, in thisframe of an interpretive system of textual hermeneutics, can be seen as a text itself(Rogers, 1994), a text in which philosophical, educational, literary, and socio-linguistic aswell as eco-linguistic concepts come together to re-interpret \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwhat is thinking\u00E2\u0080\u009D, fourdecades after Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1954) attempt to interpret this fundamental human facility thatgives us the capacity for survival and, ultimately, improvement of the conditions for livingon this planet.I will give my world peace. I think we should stop wars.(Roddie. age 7, My Wish List for the World 12/07/94)810Only quite recently, the mode of interpretive critical inquiry has come to the attentionof a larger circle of scholars here in North America as part of a shift toward a postmodernhermeneutic perspective (Smith, 1 994c); yet, in light of the increasing complexity ofpostcolonial developments in all areas of academic and other educational endeavors, thereis an urgent need to explore this concept much further and more fully. Within the\u00E2\u0080\u0098hermeneutic circle\u00E2\u0080\u0099, it seems fitting that the three inter-connected themes are \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe inherentcreativity of interpretation, the pivotal role of language in human understanding, and theinterplay of part and whole in the process of interpretation\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Smith, 1994c, p. 104). Theseare indeed the themes that undergird my own thinking in the context of language, culture,and community in my students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 classroom. The interplay ofpart and whole: This, onceagain, re-connects me with the question of where in this world we situate ourselves, thequestion of our engagement with place:The question of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cplace\u00E2\u0080\u009D is curiously cogent to our present political, social, andenvironmental condition. Economically we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re in misery, politically we arehopelessly stagnant, economically we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re a disgrace, and socially we are watchingthe emergence of a multi-racial multi-ethnic population that will radically shape thefuture direction of the culture of our country. We are also seeing the reemergenceof a crude racism and chauvinism that may destroy us all.(Snyder, 1993, pp. 261-262)These words, spoken in reference to the Californian landscape and watershed, aregion of the United States strikingly close and similar in many ways to the Canadian WestCoast where my own life and work are taking place at present, only ring too true for otherparts of this continent and the world. Indeed, the author continues to warn us: \u00E2\u0080\u009CAlthoughframed in terms of California, the same points may be made for the whole country\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Snyder, 1993, p. 261).In much the same way that Snyder sees the possibility of one local paradigmbecoming a building block for continent-wide governance and therefore for having abroader relevance, the following case study of a local educational setting must be seen as11an effort to contribute to a better, more informed understanding of a system in change. Italso is a documentation of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cour need for community and the ways we struggle to find it\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Walker, 1993, P. xiii) and the urgency for improving the quality of the lives of peoplewithin their communities.This book is about black and white elephants, some of the good elephants didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099tfight.(Jimmy, age 5, Reading Response to Tusk. Tusk by David McKee; 11/15/94)I like the part when the Elephant use there tunks as guns.this is about a war.and peace.(Naomi, age 7, Reading Response to Tusk Tusk; 11/24/94)I would try to help the Animals from being endangered and trying to help otherpeople from not polluting. and maybe helping other from getting in a fight. Iwould help plant trees and be peaceful. I will Help countries work together.(Bethany, age 7, My Wish Listfor the World, 12/07/94)The Language of Curricular KehreLes hommes, dit le petit prince, us s\u00E2\u0080\u0099enfournent dans les rapides, mais us ne saventplus ce qu\u00E2\u0080\u0099ils cherchent. Alors ils s\u00E2\u0080\u0099agitent et tournent en ronde(De Saint-Exup\u00C3\u00A9ry, 1943, p. 78)In recent years, increasingly, curriculum scholars have opened themselves to therealm of language, linguistics, discourse and narratives to understand their ownfield. Within this curricular turn [emphasis added], language is understood not somuch as a disembodied tool of communication caught up in an instrumental viewof language, but more so language understood in an embodied way -- a way thatallows us to say, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwe are the language we speak\u00E2\u0080\u009D or \u00E2\u0080\u009Clanguage is the house ofbeing.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Aoki, 1993a, p. 88)I re-examined Heidegger and his thoughts on language; his notion of Kehre (astrangely formal and solemn word) being a fascinating and powerful one to me:not only does it mean a turn or turning point, it also implies, especially in itsverbal mode, kehren, a sweeping, cleansing motion (neue Besen kehren gut:new brooms sweep clean; das Oberste zuunterst kehren: to turn things upsidedown); at the same time, Kehre and kehren imply the notion of care and caring(sich urn etwas kehren: to care about something), of turning inward, insideoneself, reflecting. I can somehow identify with this semantic complexity more12than ever before -- it seems to fittingly describe some of the processes, pastand present, in my own research, thinking, and reflecting. Actionresearch/inquiry research certainly has all those elements of Kehre. (ResearcherNarrative, 07/10/94)The notion ofKehre/turn frames this dissertation in multi-faceted ways. On one level,it implies a turn in the sense of turning around and looking back (um-kehren), a searchingfor roots, for a hold so as not to get swept away by the fast rapids of change, bothprogressive and regressive, in the currents of postmodern pedagogy. It is easy to lose ourway, as de Saint-Exup\u00C3\u00A9ry (1943) warned us haifa decade ago, and to forget what we arelooking for in human and global relations. Turning back, though, we need to re-think andre-flect why we have come on this dangerous journey in the beginning. Re-readingHeidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s thoughts on the term ofKehre, it emerges as intricately linked to thinking:\u00E2\u0080\u009CDiese Kehre bedeutet: Die Analytik des Daseins \u00E2\u0080\u0098entdeckt\u00E2\u0080\u0099 zuerst die Zeit, kehrt sich dannaber zuruck aufdas eigene Denken ...\u00E2\u0080\u009C (Safranski, 1994, p. 205). We eventuallyovercome our fixation on time and turn back to our own thinking when trying to analyzeour being.On another level, yet semantically and etymologically linked, there is Kehren in thesense of a cleansing and caring action. This dissertation marks my own Kehre in theunderstanding of pedagogy and culture. Through both synchronic and diachronic analysisand presentation of thoughts and texts on this theme, I have created the scaffolding, theGestell in Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s language, that frames the work ahead. This has been attemptedthrough the three-fold intertextuality of a personal and pedagogical narrative that hasevolved from these texts, in the form of reflections on readings in language, pedagogy, andculture, observations and interpretations of my classroom practice, and thirdly, thepresence of the voices of others, such as those of the children, their parents and teachers.Finally, this work moves toward a Kehre in the representation of the researchedmaterial. As a transitional text and a creative action in writing, it aims at a turn, abreaking away from the straightforward path in the display of ethnographic discourse and13documentation of data. Instead of presenting a mere window on reality through a separatedisplay of the entire body of the collected materials, this thesis weaves a mosaic of texts byrefracting the realities of lived experiences in a different optical and scholarly densitythrough the lens of critical hermeneutics. By constructing an architecture of intertexts thatrecursively act upon each other and in the world, it transcends methodological andepistemological borders and creates a new embodied language of research and curriculum.Rather than separating the body of empirical realities from their textual interpretative representation, it proposes an epistemological development toward a composite, de-centredview of data as a constitutive part of this propositional intertext and new paradigm.It has occurred to me that putting these interconnected and multi-layered themes intoa conventional chapter format might be a difficult and perhaps unrewarding task.However, as long my readers bear with me and bear in mind the intertextual nature andinterwovenness of my topics -- which can be likened to the complex web of living amongstchildren -- they might, so I hope, feel inclined to read between the chapters, lines, andwords.\u00E2\u0080\u009CRight now she wants to put her ear to the ground, listen to the squirrel\u00E2\u0080\u0099s heart beat,as George Eliot put it, and prowl among the webs of little things.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Belenky, McVicker,Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986, p. 199)Naomi: Me, Felicia, Tawnya, Frankie, Lee.We are playing Squirrel Family. We Will have fun.Teacher: Who will be the mother squirrel?Naomi: Me(Journal, 10/25/94)Right now I want to begin elaborating this intertextual frame by introducing the\u00E2\u0080\u0098reading relations\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Sharratt, 1992) with whom I have become familiar and by starting toconnect some of the theoretical models of thinking, learning, and research with thechildren, the little ones who have spun their webs around me.14Chapter 2What we Care About: Communities of Inquiry in Postmodern TimesThe status of theory could not be anything but a challenge to the real. Or rather,their relation is one ofa respective challenge. For the real itseif is without doubtonly a challenge to theoiy. It is not an objective state of things, but a radicallimit ofanalysis beyond which nothing any longer obeys the real or about whichnothing more can be said But theory is also made to disobey the real ofwhich itis the inaccessible limit. The impossibility ofreconciling theory with the real is aconsequence of the impossibility ofreconciling the subject with its own ends.Jean Baudrillard, The ecstasy of communicationEt c \u00E2\u0080\u0098est bEen cela l\u00E2\u0080\u0099inter-texte: l\u00E2\u0080\u0099impossibilit\u00C3\u00A9 de vivre hors du texte iiy\u00E2\u0080\u0099ini -- que cetexte sUit Proust, ou lejournal quotidien, ou l\u00E2\u0080\u0099\u00C3\u00A9cran t\u00C3\u00A9l\u00C3\u00A9visuel: le iivre fait Ic seiis,le sensfait la vie.Roland Barthes, Le plaisir dii texteWhereas in the past the philosophicalframe ofmind had always been linked tothe attainment ofa single viewpoint upon lfe and its events in general Nietzschesuggests in Human, all too Human a dfferentpath to the enrichment ofknowledge: rather than attempting to make themselves unform, philosophersshould listen \u00E2\u0080\u009Cto the soft voice ofdfferent hfe-siluations.\u00E2\u0080\u009D This insistence uponthe value ofplurality is one ofNietzsche\u00E2\u0080\u0099s enduring commitments. Accordingly,the philosophers of the future will shun any pretension to universality. ... As such,this is a paradoxical teaching.Paul Patton, Nietzsche and the body of the philosopher15Within the last few decades of educational theory and practice, we have experiencedprofound changes with respect to the understanding of key concepts in the philosophy ofeducation. Immersed in the postcolonial and postmodern debates about the Eurocentrichegemony of values, texts, as well as philosophical and curricular paradigms, we areforced to reflect on the notions and concepts of the canon of textuality thatpostmodernism has challenged and deconstructed, in particular with reference to cultureand \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe currents that flow between its multiple terminals\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Adair, 1992, p. 25).In this context of the current questioning and deconstructing of the \u00E2\u0080\u0098great narratives\u00E2\u0080\u0099of the social, cultural, political, and educational status quo, this inquiry has led to furtherprobing into the definitions of knowledge in a society that seems to be so fond ofcontrasting information and \u00E2\u0080\u0098savoir faire\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe hard facts\u00E2\u0080\u009D -- with the ambiguity of ourexperiences of dwelling among others on this earth. This tensionality is further expressedbetween what Lyotard names the inhuman and the human in his volume on Reflections ontime (1991). Through a unique and startlingly powerful as well as provocative body ofliterature, this \u00E2\u0080\u0098postmodern habit of thought\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Klinkowitz, 1988) reaches into manypedagogical fields.Within the area of language education, for instance, a fundamental shift has occurredthrough this new mode of thinking; perhaps this was made possible because languageitself in its various forms, is being re-affirmed as a vital driving force and change agentamongst postcolonial, post-structural and postmodern thinkers. The titles of some ofthese seminal discourses bear witness to this: Roland Barthes\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Le bruissement de la langue[The rustle of language] (1984/1986) and Leplaisir du texte [The pleasure of the text](1973/1975), Derrida\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1967/1978) L\u00E2\u0080\u0099\u00C3\u00A9criture et la dff\u00C3\u00ABrence [Writing and difference],Lyotard: Writing the event (Bennington, 1988), The ecstasy of communication(Baudrillard, 1988), and Jardine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1988) Speaking with a boneless tongue.16Postmodernism is about language. About how it controls, how it determinesmeaning, and how we try to exert through language. About how languagerestricts, closes down, insists that it stands for some thing. Postmodernism is abouthow \u00E2\u0080\u0098we\u00E2\u0080\u0099 are defined within that language, and within specific historical, social,cultural matrices. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s about race, class, gender, erotic identity and practice,nationality, age, ethnicity. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s about power and powerlessness, aboutempowerment, and about all the stages in between and beyond and unthought of.(Marshall, 1992, p. 4)In this chapter I therefore want to dwell on the languaging and the conceptualfoundations this dissertation builds on. These include a hermeneutic approach topedagogical inquiry, together with a critical interpretive approach to ethnographicresearch. From this perspective, aspects of postcolonial and post-structural literarycriticism, as well as phenomenological and postmodern philosophical propositions onlanguage, literature, and community will be explored. With/in this ethnographicexploration of \u00E2\u0080\u0098reading the word and reading the world\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Freire & Macedo, 1987), Ipresent a longitudinal case study, conducted over the course of approximately two yearsof becoming a teacher researcher in a multi-age, multi-ethnic primary open area classroomin a community school in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In this context of actionresearch, an exploration of holistic approaches to text and reading undergirds thedissertation.It seems that the amount of controversy generated by the discussions about \u00E2\u0080\u0098literature-based\u00E2\u0080\u0099 programs in connection with whole language approaches has only been surpassedby the number of books, articles, presentations, and discussions generated and recorded onthis subject. I now will give a brief overview of the important literature, salientcharacteristics, and recent developments in whole language. Although the whole languagemovement is certainly not a new one and is firmly rooted in much earlier pedagogicalconcepts, the discussion around its application in contemporary school systems hasdominated professional academic and pedagogical circles during the last decade inparticular. Gunderson (1989), for instance, states that17thousands of teachers across North America have adopted and adapted somethingcalled whole language as a philosophical base ... to support the particular form ofliteracy environment ... they have chosen to create in their classrooms. No otherapproach to teaching has produced such dedicated disciples and advocates. (p. 3)Lehr (1990), in an overview of theory and research on whole language as applied tothe classroom context, characterizes these \u00E2\u0080\u009Cdisciples\u00E2\u0080\u009D as follows:Teachers who are risktakers, who respect the child as an active learner capable ofcritical thought, thought worth hearing, who set up a challenging environment withsolid content at its core where children can query and learn from each other, arewhole language teachers in whole language classrooms. (p. 13)Gunderson (in press-b) questions whether one can indeed consider whole language aphilosophically-based concept within the western philosophical tradition since \u00E2\u0080\u009Cit does notseek to formulate meta-narratives\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 11). Rather, whole language has evolved as a textin the postmodern sense of text in that it attempts to communicate the multiplicity andintertextuality ofvoices within complex discourse communities. In this sense it can beviewed as a \u00E2\u0080\u009Ctheory of voice that operates on the premise that all students must be heard\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Harste, 1989, p. 245; as quoted in Gunderson, in press-b, p. 10). Following from thistheoretical conceptualization, Gunderson suggests thatA propositional intertext may contain philosophical, educational, sociological,perceptual, and literary propositions generated by an individual teacher in responseto the multiple sources that inform her. In this respect a propositional intertext isan individual view of teaching and learning, one that varies from teacher toteacher, from school to school, from region to region. In this sense it does notrepresent universals, it represents local belief the interpretive voice of the teacher.This is an advantage in that intertexts evolve over time as new propositions areadded or existing ones are altered or eliminated. Individual teachers develop theirliteracy programs on the basis of a propositional intertext that is complex, one thatevolves. (p. 13)In contrast to these beliefs stand the models and methods traditionally used inclassrooms in North America and some other post-industrialized countries with highlydeveloped school systems. These typically rely heavily on basal readers that focus on18skills in isolation, without context, and sight-word vocabulary that may not be culturally orindividually meaningful to the students. They are aptly summarized by Mickelson (1987):Traditionally in North America, reading and language have been taught as separate\u00E2\u0080\u009Csubjects\u00E2\u0080\u009D and even these have been broken down into constituent parts such asoral reading, silent reading, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, skills or, in thecase of language, into spelling, grammar, usage, writing and punctuation. Stateddifferently, this approach was called a \u00E2\u0080\u009Cbottom-up\u00E2\u0080\u009D one focusing on sequential skilldevelopment (albeit arbitrarily determined) and was consolidated through the useof basal materials which presented programs in a controlled, linear and hierarchicalfashion. (p. 2)When whole language advocates started to question the effectiveness andappropriateness of such an approach and -- with it the use of the basal reader as thecornerstone of reading material selection-- a fierce controversy began among readingresearchers, applied linguistics, curriculum planners, classroom practitioners, and, last notleast, parents. In a conversation with one of the Open Area parents, for example, Jodi,expresses her exasperation and frustration with this debate. Starting with a big sigh, she istrying to make sense of all the different opinions and conflicting information from varioussources parents are faced with:Well -- I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve, I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve struggled to learn what whole language is. I find it a veryabstract concept, and I find it very hard to really get a handle on it. What myunderstanding of it is is looking at words in context, okay, and and I can see thatthis is very important, and I know that that I have done that with Hilary as well,but I also see a very strong role for phonics, in my mind they have to gotogether, and especially with the English language the way it is where there arewords that, you know, have many, multiple meanings, there are words that spellsimilarly that sound completely different when they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re sounded out. Tounderstand the phonetics and the phonics or workings of the phonics, the waythey are working in the English language is really important, I can see that asvery very important with ESL students. So, in my mind, you know, I would havea hard time with a teacher who is focusing on whole language, and I know thatthe way I was teaching Hilary to read, it was more on the phonetic side than onthe whole language side. But I also thought: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWell, I teach the phonetic part,and then, you know, in school she can get more of the contextual side.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (ParentInterview, Jodi, 05/95)19I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know if I succeeded in pointing out to her that this dichotomy is notnecessarily accurate and that whole language does not exclude phonics instruction per se,but she is aware thatThat\u00E2\u0080\u0099s part of the problem too, that that whole language thing has had bad P.R.I think that a lot of parents are walking around with a completely differentconcept of what whole language is, and every time I try to read on that topic, Ifind it very very hard to figure out what it is. (Parent Interview, Jodi, 05/95)Typical of this kind of debate is also the argument for structure and \u00E2\u0080\u009Cscope andsequence\u00E2\u0080\u009D that basal believers see as necessary prerequisites for learning (Baumann,1992). On the other side, we find the rejection of this static sequential view by wholelanguage supporters who see it predominantly as a \u00E2\u0080\u009Cdeskilling\u00E2\u0080\u009D device used to renderteachers powerless with regard to choosing their own reading materials (Goodman,Shannon, Freeman, & Murphy, 1988; Shannon, 1989, 1993). Most recently, this debatehas focused on the continuous and renewed basalization of children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature andespecially of picture books:There\u00E2\u0080\u0099s good news and bad news in the newer versions of basal readers. The goodnews is that newer basal readers are including more literature in their currentversions. Some go so far as to call themselves literature-based and even use theterm whole language in their promotional materials and manuals. ... The bad newsis that the literature is being basalized. As part of a second look at basals we\u00E2\u0080\u0099vebegun a careful examination of their use of literature. Part of the good news is thata lot of picture books are being used in the early levels of basals. The bad news isthat in order to fit them into the format and structure of the basals they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re beingchanged from picture books to illustrated stories. And that makes them lessauthentic, harder to read, and less enjoyable. (Goodman, Maras, & Birdseye,1994, p. 1)In response to this kind of accusation, some authors rise to the defence of the newbasals by declaring that they have much improved in quality compared to the ones from adecade ago (Greenlaw, M. J., 1994). Since there has been a sanctioned shift away frombasals and toward a \u00E2\u0080\u0098literature-based\u00E2\u0080\u0099 curriculum, publishing companies have been eager tobring out new materials that fit into that mold, such as \u00E2\u0080\u0098literature-based anthologies\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and20\u00E2\u0080\u0098whole language classroom libraries.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 However, these materials, as pointed out above, areoften very different in content and appearance from the original story or book and can byno means meet the variety of needs and interests of students in any classroom (Short &Pierce, 1990). Hade (1994) goes as far as to stress that these new, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmore attractive\u00E2\u0080\u009Dmaterials are still conveying the same message of rationalization born out of a capitalistsystem, and that only too often children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature scholars have been accomplices in thisprocess. There is no substitution for authentic literature jointly selected by teachers andstudents for the creation of a multitude of real literacy experiences (Harste, Short, &Burke, 1988). As can be seen from this ongoing debate, the controversy surroundingholistic literacy instruction is far from over. Against this colourful background, and withan awareness of the constant changes in perception of this literacy paradigm shift inprogress, I will attempt a brief historical overview of the principles of whole languagebefore further exploring specific characteristics and aspects of its implementation.Despite being frequently labeled a new insubstantial and short-lasting \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfad\u00E2\u0080\u009D byskeptics and opponents, the origins of whole language go back to earlier 20th centuryeducational beliefs and practices and are based on evidence from investigations into thenature of language and from as yet sparse, but convincing classroom research data(Freeman & Freeman, 1992, 1994; Gunderson & Shapiro, 1988; Shapiro, 1988; Wells &Chang-Wells, 1992). While some do not hesitate to call whole language a philosophy inits own right, it is most commonly described as a world view, a stance, or a perspective onlanguage and language teaching (Blake, 1990; Gunderson, 1989, 1991; Manning &Manning, 1989).The roots of whole language can be found in a synthesis of such varied sources as theeducational philosophy of Dewey (1938), the cognitive socio-psychological models ofBruner (1960) and Vygotsky (1962), the writings and teachings of Ashton-Warner (1963)and, as well as research in psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, reading and writing byCazden (1972), Clay (1975), Goodman (1962), Graves (1983), Halliday (1978), Loban21(1976), Read (1971), and Smith (1978), to name only a few key influences. Thus, it is notone doctrine or model that has initiated this movement; rather, it is truly multi-dimensionaland holistic in origin and nature, not only in name, making it at the same time harder todefine and easier to attack. However, while whole language incorporates elements ofDewey\u00E2\u0080\u0099s progressive education, Ashton-Warner\u00E2\u0080\u0099s language experience approach, theBritish open education system, Freire\u00E2\u0080\u0099s critical pedagogy, and of transactive andinteractionist perspective on reading (Mickelson, 1987), it is nevertheless a movement inits own right, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cone of many attempts in recent history to alter education\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Edeisky,Aitwerger, & Flores, 1991).Based on the above theories, research, and practices, whole language teachers believethat the acquisition and development of literacy are an interactive and non-linear processin which the individual areas of reading, writing, listening, and speaking are not separate,as used to be claimed by the traditional \u00E2\u0080\u009Cscope and sequence\u00E2\u0080\u009D reading programs(Rumeihart, 1984). Instead, these areas are seen as integral parts of languagedevelopment at any point in time and are therefore consistently integrated across thecurriculum, each informing and reinforcing the others. This is a definite departure fromteaching skills in isolation or predominantly focusing on the \u00E2\u0080\u0098bottom-up,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lower-level skills,such as phonics instruction (Froese, 1994; Mickelson, 1987). Being child-centred innature, it focuses on the individual, fostering each student\u00E2\u0080\u0099s learning in developmentallyappropriate ways through meaningful materials that incorporate prior knowledge and reallife experiences and that are conducive to stimulating the students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 interests (Kostelnik,1992; Maria, 1989). At the same time, the social nature of learning is acknowledged bycreating classroom communities that foster positive cooperative learning experiencesthrough authentic language across the curriculum in content area studies such as socialstudies, science, and history (Altwerger, Edeisky, & Flores, 1987; Lim & Watson, 1993;Tunnel & Ammon, 1993).22In connection with this focus on authenticity, whole language attempts to connect thechild\u00E2\u0080\u0099s real life environment, at home and in the community, with the classroom, makingparents and community members an essential and welcome part of the learning process(Forrester & Reinhard, 1989; Hanson, 1989; Langer, 1992). In this sense, literacy is setwithin a social framework that recognizes the importance of cognitive and sociopsychological processes in order to develop new knowledge, comprehension and criticalthinking (Manning, Manning, & Long, 1989; Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, &Hemphill, 1991; Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992). By providing an encouraging andnurturing environment and by involving learners in critically assessing and evaluating theirown progress, children begin to look at learning as an empowering process for themselvesas well as a shared responsibility (Chow, Dobson, Hurst, & Nucich, 1991; Goodman, D.,1989). In this way, whole language empowers both learners and teachers by replacingtraditional methods of evaluation, such as work sheets and tests, with personalized,growth-oriented documentation through portfolios, a \u00E2\u0080\u009Ckid-watching\u00E2\u0080\u009D kind of observationand negotiated reporting (Anthony, Johnson, Mickelson, & Preece, 1991; Goodman, Y.,1989).Finally, whole language, in asserting the learners\u00E2\u0080\u0099 ultimate right to their own,individual successful ways of \u00E2\u0080\u009Creading the word and the world\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Freire & Macedo, 1987),it is in tune with the critical pedagogy tenet of questioning the status quo and replacing itwith a culturally responsive and socially just curriculum (Dressman, 1993; Shannon,1991). When attempting to \u00E2\u0080\u009Cread the word\u00E2\u0080\u009D in a holistic sense, the words of the text needto connect with and reflect \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe world,\u00E2\u0080\u009D as opposed to representing the decontextualizedlanguage of traditional mainstream reading programs (Cummins, 1986).A key component of whole language is the rejection of this decontextualized, artificiallanguage of basal readers. Instead, whole language promotes the use of authenticmaterials, such as environmental print, the learners\u00E2\u0080\u0099 own stories, and high-qualityliterature, selected with the criteria of relevance and interest with the learner\u00E2\u0080\u0099s point-of23view in mind (Cameron & Mickelson, 1989; Harlin, Lipa, & Lonberger, 1991; Laughlin &Swisher, 1990). However, the use of literature in the teaching of reading is not a uniquefeature of whole language, by any means; literature has been recognized as an importantfoundation of language arts curricula in various historical and cultural settings andcontexts (Marckwardt, 1978; Sawyer, 1987). Nevertheless, in the past, and particularly inNorth America, education systems have only been too eager to replace literature withbasal readers especially designed and manufactured to cater to skills-based, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cteacher-proof\u00E2\u0080\u0099 reading programs and a flourishing textbook industry (Goodman, 1993; Shannon,1989b, 1993).In contrast to these commercial interests have stood the attempts of educators whobelieve in the power of real stories and literature to enable learners to experience languageas a meaningful tool for communication and to perceive reading as an enriching andenjoyable act. Matthew Arnold, F. R. Leavis, Louise Rosenblatt, and Northrop Frye, forexample, are earlier examples of literary theorists and critics who have stressed theimportance of literature as an essential part of a liberal and progressive education(Willinsky, 1991). More recently, numerous other educators and researchers have writtenon various aspects of literature as a basis and tool for holistic literacy instruction (Asselin,Pelland, & Shapiro, 1991; Cox & Zarrillo, 1993; Miller, 1984; Phelan, 1990; Purves et al.,1990; Ralston & Sutton, 1994; Routman, 1988; Short & Pierce, 1990; Wason-Ellam,1991). In particular, these vary from studies on the enhancement of students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 imaginationand aesthetic appreciation of literature (Egan, 1988; Degenhardt & McKay, 1988) throughevidence on the benefits of cooperative groupings, as opposed to ability groupings, in theform of literature circles (Neamen & Strong, 1992; Short & Burke, 1991), to thedocumentation of the collaboration of teachers with librarians in setting up classroomlibraries (Fractor, Woodruff Martinez, & Teale, 1993). Other areas covered range fromthe study of content areas (Short & Armstrong, 1993; Tunnel & Ammon, 1993) to the24teaching of moral values through literature (Dodson, 1993; Lamme, Krogh, & Yachmetz,1992; Suhor & Suhor, 1992).In ascertaining the aesthetic, social, political, and philosophical dimensions ofliterature in the classroom, the links to literary theorists and philosophers of theexistentialist, modernist, phenomenological, and post-structuralist schools of the 20thcentury are strongly reinforced in a postmodern context (Fuhrmann, 1985; Hutcheon,1988; Knight, 1957; Pinar, 1988). The profound and seminal thinking on text andnarrative as genre by scholars and philosophers such as Bakhtin (1978, 1986), Barthes(1973, 1984; Sontag, 1982), Derrida (1967; Attridge, 1992), Foucault (1972; Gore,1992), Kristeva (1974, 1980; Eagleton, 1983), and others, has become visibly reflected inthe argumentation for a curriculum based on and permeated by literature that reflectsfundamental human experiences:The world of literature is human in shape, a world where the sun rises in the eastand sets in the west over the edge of a flat earth in three dimensions, where theprimary realities are not atoms or electrons but bodies, and the primary forces notenergy or gravitation but love and death and passion and joy. (Frye, 1964, p. 28)From the modernist literary criticism of Northrop Frye to the postmodern reflectionsof Richard Rorty on Lyotard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s rejection of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmetanarratives\u00E2\u0080\u009D in favour of the kind ofnarratives that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cdefine what has the right to be said and done in the culture in question,and since they are themselves a part of that culture, they are legitimated by the simple factthat they do what they do\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Rorty, 1985), the arguments that are brought forth in defenceof literature and narrative as salient components of culture and society are continuouslyreaffirmed.In this universal way, literature opens the door for students to live through and reflecton shared human experiences, to identify with characters in stories and poems, and toexpress their own personality, ideas, and feelings by responding to the respective contentof the narrative. This corresponds with Rosenblatt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s theory of reader-response that sees25literature as the basis for \u00E2\u0080\u009Cgrowth toward more and more balanced, self-critical,knowledgeable interpretation\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Rosenblatt, 1990, p. 100) and at the same time \u00E2\u0080\u009Cprovidestudents with frameworks for thinking about the social, psychological, and aestheticassumptions implied by the literary work and by their own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 responses\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 100).It has been said ... that the only two things we can give our children are roots andwings. Properly conceived and implemented, whole language programs do just this-- provide children with roots that reach to the essence of being human expressedthrough the power of shared language, be it written or spoken, and with wings thatallow them to soar beyond the bounds of their perceived limitations, so many ofwhich, incidentally, appear to have found their genesis in our schools. (Mickelson,1987, p. 13)Mickelson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s claim expresses a strong belief in the power of a holistic approach tolanguage and language teaching, together with a skeptical outlook toward a \u00E2\u0080\u0098status quo\u00E2\u0080\u0099curriculum that limits students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 potential. In much the same way, the following case studyoriginated from my own view toward language and literacy, one that encompasses sociocultural and socio-political realities as important factors of language acquisition anddevelopment. However, the premise of a holistic approach to instruction that can reachthe essence of being human requires further exploration and questioning in the context ofthe diversities and differences of cultural and literate geographies.I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m re-thinking about whole languagea whole that is not a wholebut frames of composite propositional intertexta re-reading and re-writingof partial truths:no global truths but local truthof layers of intertextuality.It is and it is not.(Researcher Narrative, 08/08/94)With this study, I want to engage in just such a probing based on the documentationof my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lived experiences. Starting from the description of scenes ofclassroom events through ethnographic narrative inquiry in a local setting, this indeedincludes and extends to the questioning of approaches that are centred around a canon of26texts in the sense of the \u00E2\u0080\u0098grand narratives\u00E2\u0080\u0099 that, for so long, have been exclusive withrespect to racial, cultural, and linguistic minorities. In particular, the study draws on theworks of scholars and researchers who have been instrumental in laying the groundworkfor bringing such discriminatory practices to the attention of the education community,such as Cummins (1986), Cazden (1991), Edelsky (1991), Fillmore (1991), Heath (1983),and numerous others.Schools, and in particular their curricular mandates, have been the channels throughwhich exclusion has been accomplished too often by far through political, cultural, andlinguistic hegemony, leading, in Freir&s (1972) words, to apedagogy of the oppressed.Curriculum in the broadest sense involves not only the programmatic contents ofthe school system, but also the scheduling, discipline, and day-to-day tasksrequired from students in schools. In this curriculum, then, there is a quality that ishidden and that gradually incites rebelliousness on the part of children andadolescents. Their defiance corresponds to the aggressive elements in thecurriculum that work against the students and their interests.School authorities who repress these students might argue that they are onlyresponding to the students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 aggressiveness. In fact, students are reacting to acurriculum and other material conditions in schools that negate their histories,cultures and day-to-day experiences. School values work counter to the interestsof these students and tend to precipitate their expulsion from school. It is as if thesystem were put in place to ensure that these students pass through school andleave it as illiterates. (Freire & Macedo, 1987, p. 121)By challenging the world view of these dominant groups as oppressive anddiscriminatory, proponents of critical pedagogy had taken the first necessary steps towardemancipatory action. For many of them, the tireless work and inspiring teaching of PauloFreire confirmed the social construction of reality as the foundation of their beliefs andtheoretical reasoning (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1990). Freire, in devoting his life to the causeof literacy and working with students and educators from all over the world, has had a farreaching impact on the transformation of curricular thinking on a global scale. For NorthAmerican progressive educators in particular, the powerful pedagogical implications of27Freire\u00E2\u0080\u0099s model of a radical critical and emancipatory literacy seemed to present a solutionto the sanctioned racism and elitism within public schools (McLaren, 1991).By creating, instead, different spaces where teachers and students can do the work ofcurriculum together and by describing these spaces at the level of local paradigms, ofpartial truths (Clifford, 1986), I am at the same time opening up a possibility forconsidering the voice of the other, one that is not normally heard, and for acknowledgingthe part of the other in the self. This, according to Derrida (1978), is what writing isabout, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cit is one and the other simultaneously\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 13).The Methodological. Pedagogical, and Philosophical FrameworksThe role of schools as the places where curriculum is implemented has undergone aprofound change within the last few decades of this century. Notions of a prescribedsyllabus as \u00E2\u0080\u0098transmitted\u00E2\u0080\u0099 to students via an instrumentalist mode of teaching have beenexchanged for an approach to curriculum in which teachers and students \u00E2\u0080\u0098negotiate\u00E2\u0080\u0099learning within a student-centred model (Aoki, 1988; Weis, Cornbleth, Zeichner, & Apple,1990). With this, the role of the teacher is also undergoing a profound change. It ismoving away from a one-dimensional authoritarian model that focuses on direct,systematic instruction toward more democratically oriented, facilitating approaches thatencourage students to construct their own knowledge and empower teachers to reflectcritically on their own practice (Britzman, 1991; Throne, 1994). Indeed, the wholequestion of what constitutes knowledge in relation to literacy and schooling is beingredefined from critical socio-cognitive and constructivist perspectives (Anyon, 1981;Goodlad, 1983a; Spencer, 1986; Von Glasersfeld, 1989; Wells, 1986; Wells & ChangWells, 1992). It seems, however, that despite the recognition of the un-soundness of theformer autocratic models that defined knowledge in an absolute, non-negotiable way,there is a noticeable recent backlash. It consists of a call \u00E2\u0080\u0098back to the basics\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of a teacher28driven, skills-based schooling -- most evident in the media and publications such asNikiforuk\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993) attack on holistic learning approaches and Hirsch\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1987) warningabout the failure of school systems with respect to \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccultural literacy.\u00E2\u0080\u009DAs teachers, apart from these pressures from the public, we are faced with yet anotheropposition in pedagogical being, with what Ted Aoki refers to as the \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-planned\u00E2\u0080\u0099 as opposed to the \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-lived\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Aoki, 1993b; Hinds, 1994). It seems thatfor too long we have only concentrated on the former and neglected the latter.I have suggested that what seems urgent for us at this time in understanding whatteaching more truly is, is to undertake to reorient ourselves so that we overcomemere correctness so that we can see and hear our doings as teachers harboredwithin pedagogical being, so we can see and hear who we are as teachers.(Aoki, 1989, p. 27)Together with the call for authenticity in curriculum and learning, there is a strongdemand for entering a discourse about curriculum in the form of an active participationand engagement with content and context on the part of teachers and learners alike (Pinar,1988; Pinar & Reynolds, 1992). This discourse, over the last two decades, hasencompassed phenomenological, feminist, constructivist, and deconstructivist texts invarious combinations of historical, socio-political, aesthetic, and critical theory and praxis(Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985; Cherryholmes, 1993; Grumet, 1988a; Lather, 1991; VanManen, 1982). Common to all these late 20th century pedagogical studies is therecognition of the cultural and social aspects of curriculum and schooling in a time oftremendous change characterized as the age of information, electronics, and globalcommunications (Jones & Maloy, 1993). Educators are challenged more than ever beforeto provide their students with the knowledge and skills for a new century of rapidlyincreasing information, intercultural connections, and technological expertise.Knowledge in context is an essential component of efforts to improve practice.Too often the examination of teaching and learning has been stripped of the manyreal life variables that affect children. Because many educational studies haveexamined discrete elements of a problem at the expense of the ever-changing29context of the classroom, teachers often find research meaningless and irrelevant.Without a regard for context, action is uninformed. With a respect for the realitiesof the classroom, action becomes relevant and meaningful.(Miller & Pine, 1990, p. 56)The realities of the classroom, my own classroom, have provided me with themotivation and, at times, desperate urgency to question assumptions about curriculum andthe soundness of educational decisions that are not thoroughly informed by the context ofplace and students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lived realities.A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of thestudents are an integral part of the curriculum. Children, of course, talk abouttheir lives constantly. The challenge is for teachers to make connections betweenwhat the students talk about and the curriculum and broader society.(Peterson, 1994, p. 30)Tomorrow is Saturday and on Saturday I always get to eat noodles but not justnoodles chinse noodles because everybody likes to be nice to me andeverybody in the world and universe.(Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, 12/16/94)On every Saturday i go to Chinatown School because i am a Chinese girl.On Mon. to Fri. in Franklin school no one will play with me.Ever day I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sad and longly except today because today I play with Wendy andRuthie and Mitcho and Sera and mewe had a gret time. THAT\u00E2\u0080\u0099S WHY(Amy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, age 6, 10/25/94; 01/11/95; 01/12/95)In my classroom, children indeed constantly express the joys and difficulties ofmaking meaningful connections between what they experience in the different places oftheir lives, both at home and at school. As teachers, we continuously experience the joysand difficulties of becoming part of their world and of trying to understand and supporttheir voices. In my own classroom, situated in the heart of this West Coast Canadian innercity, I sense many sociocultural and sociopolitical variables at work; they deeply affect mystudents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives on a daily basis. In order to be able to make educational decisions informedby this context, I believe that it is imperative for me as a teacher to make sense of this30situatedness and to describe it in a way that does justice to its complexity, its uniqueness,and its connectedness.Action and Reflection as Pedagogical PraxisThe self-reflective community established in action research is not only concernedwith the transformation of its own situation. It is also forced to confront the non-educational constraints of education. ... It invites the group to consider educationas a whole, and thus the general need for educational reform in society. It is notonly a process which reflects or responds to history; it envisages a profession madeup of educational action researchers who see themselves as agents of history whomust express their practical judgments about needed changes in education in theirown considered action -- in praxis. (Carr & Kemmis, 1986, p. 208)The kind of preoccupation with methodology so typical of the research dogma thatlooks for absolute \u00E2\u0080\u0098truth\u00E2\u0080\u0099 can no longer be relevant in a post-structuralist context where\u00E2\u0080\u009Cour values are suspended in the air and cannot be deduced from descriptions\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Lyotard,1979). In order to stand on firm ground with regard to research methodology and itsinherent values, we must commit ourselves to building more inclusive frameworks.Through this, it is the collaborative, negotiated and informed process of knowing, doing,and understanding that can guide us towards the kind of reconceptualized praxis andmethodology that best suits this purpose regardless of any preconceived labels.In this respect, action research has the potential for overcoming some of theseimposed categorizations and for reaching beyond the localized action of an individualteacher researcher (Kirby & McKenna, 1989). In forming a community of investigativepractitioners, truly transformative and emancipatory action can occur:Teachers and other educators in British Columbia today are involved in thecontinuing processes of change and reflection. An increasing emphasis on learners-- both students and teachers -- has led quite naturally to an increased interest inteacher research. As the Year 2000 programs develop in B.C. classrooms,researching teachers explore a wide range of critical issues .(Jeroski, 1992, p. 1)31The realization that teachers must play a crucial role in this process in order forpositive changes in teaching practices to happen in a meaningful way seems to makecommon sense. However, although the concept of teachers as researchers is certainly nota new one, reaching back to Stenhous&s (1975) ideas about curriculum reform in the 60sand 70s in Britain (Elliott, 1992) and SchOn\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1983) concept of the teacher as reflectivepractitioner, it has not been widely accepted into the canon of educational researchmethods and approaches until quite recently (Belanger, 1992; Fullan, 1993; Winter, 1987).Not only was classroom research traditionally carried out exclusively by trained scholarly\u00E2\u0080\u0098experts\u00E2\u0080\u0099 with impressive institutional affiliations, it also was -- and undoubtedly still is --conducted from a particular point-of-view of political and economic interest. This agendacan be characterized as that of the status quo of the educational hegemony of powerpositions (Giroux, 1992; Pennycook, 1989; Phelan & Lalik, 1993).Despite the recent controversy about the above mentioned Year 2000 curriculumreform and an alarming number of \u00E2\u0080\u0098back to basics\u00E2\u0080\u0099 voices coming from various academic,bureaucratic and other public sources (Baumann, 1992; Bloom, 1987; Kline, 1993), thevoices of teachers who are involved in critically and reflectively researching their own andtheir students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 classroom realities are heard more frequently and in different places ofpraxis (Aoki, 1990, 1991b, 1993c). This new mode of investigating praxis implies aparadigm shift in the sense of Kuhn\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1970) notion of a fundamental change in the beliefs,values, and problem-solving techniques of an established scientific community from anabstract construct of shared scientific rules and practices toward a new, more matureworld view that allows \u00E2\u0080\u009Can even greater precision of fit between existing paradigms and\u00E2\u0080\u0098empirical reality\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Brown, 1988, p. 19).The phenomenological focus on the concept of pedagogical reality and being -- orrather becoming, acknowledging the evolving, non-static nature of our praxis -- alsostrikes a new key in writing and researching about language through language. In Barthes\u00E2\u0080\u0099understanding of this new rapprochement between language, linguistics, and literature, this32involves both a reflective and a critical action on the part of the writer with respect tolanguage (Barthes, 1986). This new kind of\u00E2\u0080\u0099action writing\u00E2\u0080\u0099 is one in which the action ofwriting itself is understood as a powerful act:It would be interesting to know at what moment the verb to write began to be usedintransitively, the writer no longer being the one who writes something, but theone who writes -- absolutely: this shift is certainly the sign of an important changein mentality ... it is paradoxically at the moment when to write seems to becomeintransitive that its object, under the name book or tex, assumes a specialimportance. (Barthes, 1986, p. 18)This turn fits well within the conceptual and methodological framework of actionresearch and reflective, interpretive inquiry as part of a new theory of pedagogical practice(Van Lier, 1994). The discovery of an approach and a methodology rooted in practicedirectly responds to the many tensionalities that are inherent in the multi-layered realitiesof teaching, studying, and learning. It was designed to give practitioners tools with whichto identify questions or problems that are crucial to the successful learning of theirstudents and to address the challenges of everyday teaching in classrooms composed ofstudents with a wide variety of backgrounds and futures ahead of them (Patterson, Santa,Short, & Smith, 1993; Wong, 1994).Two years ago, together with a group of colleagues from the Vancouver SchoolBoard,9 I began to look more closely and systematically at my own teaching situation as amember of a primary open area classroom in which a team of five teachers andapproximately 65 children aged five to nine were engaged in living amidst differentlinguistic and cultural communities.This search for understanding of pedagogical living directly relates to therealities of the children in my classroom. Their experiences of being both intheir world \u00E2\u0080\u0098at home\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and the world of \u00E2\u0080\u0098the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- two communities that areoften very different from each other -- are also part of living amidst tensionality.(Researcher Narrative, 05/25/94)33Action research, situated within a qualitative methodological approach, can becharacterized as a \u00E2\u0080\u0098messy\u00E2\u0080\u0099 concept of research; It does not apply, for the most part, \u00E2\u0080\u0098neat\u00E2\u0080\u0099statistical procedures nor does it rely heavily on other quantitative measurement butinstead uses ethnographically-based techniques such as observation and anecdotal notetaking, video and audio recording, informal interviewing, and reflective journal writing(Carroll, 1994; Duff 1994; Oberg, 1990; Peterat & Vaines, 1992; Van Lier, 1988, 1994).Often, this can result in a vast amount of potentially rich data on students\u00E2\u0080\u0099, teachers\u00E2\u0080\u0099, andother participants\u00E2\u0080\u0099 interactions over extended periods of time; its analysis can present manychallenges and tensions in terms of the time it takes to categorize, analyze, interpret, andsummarize the information (Hubbard & Power, 1993).In many ways, the above frames have shaped my own being as a member of avariety of communities, belonging -- as a student, educator, scholar, parent,woman, and daughter. As part of a community of teachers, students, andcolleagues that has engaged in a year-long discovery process about teacherresearch, I have come to celebrate the tensionality in the co-existence of manyof these apparent dichotomies. (Researcher Narrative, 06/15/94)Entering into these spaces of tension, we are never certain what will come to be;each time we invite the lived world of students into the dwelling places of ourclassrooms, we place ourselves in a position of uncertainty. In the midst ofuncertainty, we have come to experience our responsibilities as leaders to involve awithdrawing from the authoritative stance of the know-it-all. Here, we findourselves drawn to a questioning of our responsibilities as educational leaders. Inthe space of tension amidst differences, we have found ourselves drawn into aquestioning which calls into play a multiplicity of possibilities. Such multiplicitybrings ambiguity and uncertainty in its offering forth a vibrancy of pedagogicpossibilities. (Chamberlain, McGrath, Richter, Stevens, & Timmins, 1994, p. 6)As a result of this tension, I have never felt more inspired to continue living amongst a\u00E2\u0080\u0098community without unity,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 which, in William Corlett\u00E2\u0080\u0099s postmodern vision, affirms thenotion of community in which togetherness does not sacrifice individuality and difference:\u00E2\u0080\u009CBringing unity seems always to require silencing the so-called parts that do not fit theholistic vision, and I want no part of that\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Corlett, 1988, p. 6).34In this group of reflective practitioners, I wanted us to celebrate the individual parts,especially those that might be seen as not fitting in with a certain concept of unity definedby the status quo of educational power structures, which equates unity with notions ofhomogeneity and monoculturalism (Christensen, 1992; Fyfe & Figuera, 1993). Eachteacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s voice needed to be heard between the layers of a communal voice that couldemerge through our coming together and belonging together in this community of inquirybased on common beliefs and values. Two of teachers, for example, commented on thevalue of being involved with this action research group in this way:The knowledge of the others involved in the network helped me to NOT becometoo single-minded or \u00E2\u0080\u0098tunnel-vision oriented.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 My understandings and\u00E2\u0080\u0098knowledge\u00E2\u0080\u0099 became decentred. This process helped me to remain open to newideas and new understandings and not become \u00E2\u0080\u0098caught-up\u00E2\u0080\u0099 in my research.Group problem solving of individuals\u00E2\u0080\u0099 questions and research dilemmas broughtforth solutions that may not have occurred outside the network.(Teacher Narrative, as quoted in Hasebe-Ludt, et al., 1995, p. 13)Identifying and communicating to others how one perceives situations can beelucidating in itself. Listening without judgment to the views of others andreining in our assumptions are not always easy to do, but may be a prerequisiteto widening our perceptual lenses. I have come to feel that many examinationsof teaching and learning experiences are participatory and would benefit fromcollaborative processes among teachers, students and other members of theschool community related to the question at hand. Strategies to guide andsupport teachers in an exploration of classroom processes and outcomes havethe potential to help focus on many important questions. They enable schoolmembers to respond thoughtfully to change and diversity, resulting inmeaningful steps towards our educational goals. (Teacher Narrative, as quoted inHasebe-Ludt, et al., 1995, pp. 16-17)In Aoki\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1991a) interpretation of Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1954, 1968; Schulz, 1969)phenomenologically perceived notion of belonging together (Zusammengehorigkeit), thisinvolves the event of appropriation of both identity and difference through becomingthoughtful, c/as zu Denkende (POggeler, 1969).Action research has prompted me, first and foremost, to question established ways ofknowing perpetuated through the hegemony of the educational decision-making hierarchy35(Pennycook, 1989; Schulman, 1991). This exercise in deconstruction fits the postmodernframe of questioning the grand narratives in the Lyotardian and Derridian sense (Lyotard,1991; Wood, 1993), as well as of the master narratives through feminist readings of text(Belenky et a!., 1986; Clark & Hulley, 1990/91; Eagleton, 1986; Greene, 1986). Inaffirming the notion of intertextuality amidst multiple readings of text through holisticinterpretations of language learning and teaching (Gunderson, in press-b), we came toacknowledge that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cintertextuality invites us to use multiple texts, splicing them,interweaving them with each other, with our commentaries, with our questions. ... Thereare no sacred texts\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Grumet, 1988b, p. 469).Through our shared pedagogical journey of weaving such webs of meaningthrough language and by reflecting on our own practice while at the same timecelebrating our individual interests and differences, we came to validate thesemultiple and intertextual processes of inquiry. Our questions were testimony, informs ranging from oral discussions and presentations to both individual andcollaborative narratives, to the numerous trials we felt faced with: Misgivings,doubts, and confusion were indeed part of the scenario and forced us to revisitand reshape our questions. Gradually, our discussions became more groundedand centred around the notion of change for improving practice, firmly anchoredin our individual classrooms, shared school and district environment, and aconcern with larger nation-wide and global implications of praxis in culturallydiverse societies. (Researcher Narrative, 05/06/94)Always, as we took yet another step toward linking and sharing our local practicewith a wider audience of educators, we continued to probe, to assure each other of thenecessity to validate the concept of the self-reflective community of action researchers(Aoki, 1992; Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Carson & Sumara, 1992). At the same time, throughthis continuous oral and written dialogue with each other, we were finding our own voicesas well as articulating a message of \u00E2\u0080\u0098belonging together\u00E2\u0080\u0099 that included both affirmation andnew discovery, unresolved dilemmas and unanswered questions, as well as a good portionof laughter and celebration.In this joint process of searching and researching for the roots of and remediesfor the disintegration that educational institutions have created for our children,the concept of unity emerged as an artificial construct and an undesirable goal36to aim for in the context of a critical postmodern education. Affirming individualrights and differences in principle, yet sacrificing them for the totality of \u00E2\u0080\u0098thecommon good\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of a present and future sustainable economy constitutes ahypocritical lip service we must critically examine and expose. In this sense, thequest for change cannot merely involve a change in strategy, a shift in the waywe arrange the pieces of the educational puzzle. Instead, we have to commitourselves to truly transforming the nature of the game by exchanging the pieceswith new ones. (Researcher Narrative, 06/12/94)In my individual understanding of pedagogical praxis, which has become moreinformed yet also more challenged than ever before by postmodern philosophical andcurricular theory and practice (Bennington & Derrida, 1991; Pinar, 1988), these frames ofintertextual thinking are expanding once again. At the same time that the notions ofemancipatory and critical action research were emerging as central aspects of my inquiryinto the complexity of literacy processes in connection with cultural pluralism in theclassroom, some of the problems connected with postmodern approaches needed to beaddressed. As Jardine (1994) points out, there is an inherent danger in taking for grantedthat the replacement of an old paradigm with a new one will inevitably result in a betterway of reading the world, in a kind of essential or perfect knowledge:[The post-modern love of novelty-items: the desire to unanchor the sign altogetherand simply have our way with it is the licentiousness that comes from the firstadrenalin rush of the fall of the old foundations. Post-modernism too easilyconfuses a critique of foundationalism with a proof that nothing sustains us. Ourculture is easily confused between the loosening of signifier and signified and theirseverance.][Consider: post-modernism as the cultural and linguistic and philosophical andliterary versions of our current ecological crisisRe-reading post-modernism: it is the portal through this crisis].(Jardine, 1994, pp. xxx-xxxi)Throughout these ambivalent and often contradictory notions of reading the world ofpostmodern educational languaging, of writing and speaking in a new, different languagemyself I have felt supported and enriched by the reflections and actions that our group hasendeavored on this topic. I have been affirmed in my own research and inspired by that of37others, by the many ways we were able to articulate and collaborate through focusedworking cases. In this way, we started to build bridges between people, educationalorganizations, institutions, and venues (Hasebe-Ludt, Dufi & Leggo, 1995; Hasebe-Ludt,Hawkes, Miller, & Nishi, 1994; Hasebe-Ludt et a!., 1994). As a result we felt supported,individually and as a community, and celebrated in our endeavors to become moreknowledgeable about \u00E2\u0080\u0098what we care about.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 For me, this has truly become an experienceof \u00E2\u0080\u0098authentic dwelling\u00E2\u0080\u0099 amongst that special and precious community of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cbeings whobelong together in this neighbourhood\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Aoki, 1992, p. 28).As Louise Berman and her colleagues discovered in their journey \u00E2\u0080\u0098toward curriculumfor being\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Berman et al., 1991), we also found that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cas we reached out to others, soothers reached out to us. ... Perhaps as we have attempted to dwell in the largercommunity we have tried to establish contexts in which enlivenment, support, and couragecan flourish\u00E2\u0080\u009D (pp. 186, 187).In this way, action research presents a particular attitude on the part of thepractitioner who, according to Richards & Nunan (1990), \u00E2\u0080\u009Cis engaged in critical reflectionon ideas, the informed application and experimentation of ideas in practice, and the criticalevaluation of the outcomes of such application\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 63). In perceiving the need for atheoretically grounded rationale for a pragmatic concept, Carr & Kemmis (1986) base thiscritical action research model on the theoretical foundations of Habermas\u00E2\u0080\u0099 critical socialscience (Habermas, 1968/1972, 1990), the critical, action-oriented pedagogy of Freire(Freire & Macedo, 1987) and Gramsci (1959) which was aimed at the emancipation ofunderprivileged groups in society (Lather, 1986). Furthermore, an understanding of theschool culture as part of the larger sociopolitical context is reflected in elements of apractical, change-oriented democratic philosophy in Dewey\u00E2\u0080\u0099s tradition (Dewey, 1938;Dewey & Dewey, 1915).The key notions in this critical framework are those of interested knowledge,reflection, understanding, as well as communicative action and competence (Carson, 1990;38Habermas, 1990; Schrag, 1986). Thus, critical action research has the potential to reachbeyond some of the pitfalls of postmodern nihilistic tendencies and to effect changethrough emancipatory action that reverses discriminatory practices related to race, class,gender, and other related parameters. This needs to be achieved by advocating socialjustice for all students based on the values of informed moral and ethical decision-makingGauthier, 1992; Smith, P. L., 1986) within a humanizingpedagogy (Bartolome, 1994) andwithin a multicultural educational framework (Coombs, 1986).With the increased focus on active participation and critical thinking in recenteducational curricular reforms such as the Year 2000 document, the teacher as a reflectivepractitioner and action researcher has indeed become a key concept for modeling this rolethrough classroom-based research. In addition to endeavors in which individual teacherresearchers investigate issues in their own classrooms, the possibilities for collaborativework, such as with academic institutions and/or boards of education seem a naturalextension of such an approach (Barnsley & Ellis, 1992; Carson & Sumara, 1992; Burton& Mickan, 1994)10But what if we were to commit ourselves to work on our common aspects ofcommunity while together engaging in various kinds of enquiry? John Dewey, forone, would be happy. After all, he wrote with tremendous persuasiveness aboutschools as communities of inquiry. Community-mindedness, he thought, wasessential for human bonding and therefore, education. Education, being in largepart about inquiry, means initiating students into finding out, assessing, agreeing,disagreeing, balancing \u00E2\u0080\u009Cevidences,\u00E2\u0080\u009D drawing evidenced conclusions ... but doing allof this in an atmosphere of trust, mutual respect and cooperation. This is what hewanted schools and institutions that prepare teachers to be like.(Bruneau, 1993, p. 1)The Cogency of Community EducationLearning to look through multiple perspectives, young people may be helped tobuild bridges among themselves; attending to a range of human stories, they maybe provoked to heal and transform. Of course there will be difficulties and, atonce, working to create community. (Greene, 1993, p. 18)39Maxine Greene, in this quotation that poignantly sets the theme to my multi-layeredjourneying and journalizing with/in this community school, expresses the kind ofpedagogical reaching that will be necessary to truly transform the lived experiences of theyoung people whom we as teachers treasure. Over and over I come back to the questionof how this community-building is carried out in the reality of the \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-lived\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of adesignated community school with a large number of ethnic, linguistic, and culturalgroups. It constitutes a difficult question that seemed to constantly confront me in mydaily teaching praxis. How do the sociocultural backgrounds of the teachers, the stafl thestudents, and the parents impact on the difficult everyday decisions about living in themidst of the communities that are situated within the classroom, the school, theneighbourhood? Typically, as Dean (1989) points out, in many of the multiculturaleducational settings in North America, the teachers are of White European racial andethnic origin. The five teachers in this Open Area as well as the majority of the staff in theschool are no exception to this.My year of living reflectively in the pedagogical landscape has created manybeginnings. It has marked a Kehre, a turn -- but also a renewed understandingof kehren in the sense of caring and the recognition of difficulty as an essentialand not necessarily negative component of learning. (Researcher Narrative,07/15/94)The notion of difficulty in researching and teaching within such communities ofinquiry and learning is embedded in a larger context in which difficulty must beacknowledged as a necessary and beneficial component of thinking and learning, and,consequently, of reading as an activity intimately connected with thought. HelenReguerio Elam observes that this idea of difliculty is not easily accepted in contemporary(North)American society:Our penchant is for one-step, one-stop solutions to problems, and we demand it inall areas of life, including reading, an ease of achievement that is antithetical tothought The quest for solutions is synonymous with a reductiveness thatleaves aside the problematic movement of thought Students often tackle40\u00E2\u0080\u009Ceducation\u00E2\u0080\u009D as if it were a puzzle to be considered solved when every piece is inplace. But an education -- or reading -- worthy of its name will recognize thatwhen the puzzle is finally put together into a perfect whole, there is always onepiece left over which forces us to rethink the edifice we have erected.(Elam, 1991, p. 4)Our \u00E2\u0080\u009Cagenda\u00E2\u0080\u009D (whose agenda, overt or hidden)? for the two CommunityInteraction Days the Education Ministry has designated for all schools in theprovince is centred around multiculturalism, anti-racism, and conflict resolution.Together with Templeton Secondary, Kathy and I help organize a day of paneldiscussion, workshops, and information sessions for all the feeder schools inthe area. Yvonne Brown\u00E2\u0080\u0099s keynote address on the very real consequences ofracism evoked a heated discussion in the staff room the next day. Mostteachers, with the exception of a few, find her too radical, too controversial, andtoo preoccupied with a personal agenda. Once again, the experience of racismis devalued on both a personal and an institutional level; it becomes somethingon somebody else\u00E2\u0080\u0099s agenda. Once again, there is the complacency of themajority of people who feel good when they engage with these issues as longas they do not get too controversial. (Researcher Narrative, 04/30/94)To start our day, focused on professional development planning for next year,we are watching \u00E2\u0080\u009CListen with your heart\u00E2\u0080\u009D which documents the experiences ofyoung immigrant students to Canada through a play directed by Carol Tarlingtonwith the Vancouver Youth Theatre. After the mixed reactions to our communityday focus on multicultural and anti-racist issues, I am extremely skeptical aboutthe staff\u00E2\u0080\u0099s willingness to commit themselves to this focus. All through the video, Ikeep thinking about my experiences with teachers in the \u00E2\u0080\u009CEducation ofimmigrant students\u00E2\u0080\u009D course I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m teaching at UBC: the engaged discussions,thoughtful questions, impassioned and emotional reactions to issues oflanguage and culture. Is this staff going to open up to the lived experiences ofstudents who \u00E2\u0080\u009Cspeak from the heart\u00E2\u0080\u009D? Are they going to listen with their hearts?I am succinctly aware of my own position in between, as both part of thiscommunity of teachers and at the same time representing an outsider, a teacherof teachers -- I feel on shaky ground, not certain whether I can find a safe placeto stand in this going back and forth between different communities of inquiry.How can I be sure that my goal of opening up spaces for communicationbetween communities, between cultures will not create more tensions andbarriers?In reflecting on the discussion that followed the video I realize that I stillhave not found a safe place, a space above struggle and tensionality -- but I amalso becoming more accepting of living on this shaking, quivering ground. I feltvery much alive and inspired by the discussion about racism that followed thevideo. Three teachers from whom I least expected it engaged, in very personalways, with the topic of discrimination toward speakers whose first language isother than English. They spoke of memories about relatives, friends, andstudents they had made connections with; they spoke from their heart. One ofthem asked me about my own experiences about having a different mother41tongue and living in a world dominated by English. I talk about the difficulties Iremember so well when first coming to Canada but also about the privileges Ifeel I have compared to others: of being able to maintain connections, oftraveling to my country of birth, Germany, to see my family and to maintain mymother tongue -- an impossibility for so many immigrants and refugees. We areable to enter into a dialogue; we are creating an opening for thinking, forthoughtfulness, for in between. (Researcher Narrative, 06/15/94)Wiederum geht es also dern denkenden Vorblick Heideggers urn jenes Zwischen,das sich als Differenz in ems rnit der Identit\u00C3\u00A4t ins Spiel bringt \u00E2\u0080\u009CDieZusammengehorigkeit von Identit\u00C3\u00A4t und Differenz wird ... als das zu Denkendegezeigt. Inwiefern die Differenz dem Wesen der Identitat entstammt, soll derLeser selber finden, indem er auf den Einklang hOfl, der zwischen Ereignis undAustrag waltet.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Franz, 1969, pp. 198-199)Once again, Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s foresightful thinking is concerned with the in betweenwhich comes into play as difference in unison with identity. ... \u00E2\u0080\u009C The belongingtogether of identity and difference is shown as the becoming of thinking. Ileave it up to the reader to find out to what extent difference originates from theessence of identity by listening to the harmony which dwells between the eventand the action.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (E. Hasebe-Ludt, Trans.; emphases added)The names, faces, indeed the entire make-up of what we have come to call\u00E2\u0080\u0098community\u00E2\u0080\u0099 are changing rapidly in this age of electronic communication. Thepossibilities of connecting through interactive multimedia networks are seemingly endlessand often beyond our imagination which still seems to be centred around traditionalnotions of physical or spiritual communities of past experiences. Through the creation of\u00E2\u0080\u0098virtual villages\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and on-line communities \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthat are beginning to redefine personalrelationships, political organizing, even democracy itself\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Catalfo, 1993, p. 164), all levelsof society will eventually be influenced by the technological capacities of the computerage.Whether we agree with the positive, exhilarating potential of these new virtualcommunities or reject them as negative, inadequate surrogates for the real human sharingexperiences that community entails, we need to reflect on the undeniable existence of42these new forms of interactions as expressions of the need to come to terms with ourchanging world.All my life I have pursued a romantic involvement, even a textual affair withwords. But I must confess that I am still ill-literate.With confession comes not absolution but more confession, a flood of self-revelation that reveals the ubiquity of my ill-literacy. I suffer from technical,historical, geographical, cultural, linguistic, political, legal, medical, industrial andcommercial ill-literacy.I am at best literate in some aspects in one language; yet I live in a countrythat is officially bilingual, in a world that is solidly founded on words.(Leggo, 1995, p. D2)Since the complex interactions required for such daunting literate ways with wordsare dependent on people being able to access text in various ways, through writing,reading, and interpreting, it is crucial that we place these interactions in the context ofeducation as potential pedagogical paradigms. As Long (1993) points out, it is a curiouslychallenging thought that with regard to the practice of reading, for example, electronicaccess to texts through computers and on-line communication has both elements of areturn to the historically established notion of reading as solitary, isolated activity as wellas of emerging new forms of sociocultural identity.The rebels Have distroed the Deth Star and notist The empier is BiLDing annthrone (Erin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, age 6, 09/16/94)I have a computer. It has lots of games on it. Lots of good games on it! One ofthem is called Rescue (Leo\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, age 7, 11/30/94)At recess Erin me and Marcus and Curtis and Hugh played Power Ranger tag.And then Erin and me and Howard played Power Rangers.Yesterday when I was in bed I had a dream about a new Ranger, and his namewas Rechy his zord was cool, and he was good, and he was figting goldare.(Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, 10/13/94; 10/14/94)This implies far-reaching consequences in the context of \u00E2\u0080\u009Creading the word and theworld\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Freire & Macedo, 1987) with respect to an egalitarian group process which, in43Habermas\u00E2\u0080\u0099 language, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cenables people to mobilize communicative rationality in ordercritically to reflect on the presuppositions undergirding the instrumental reason that, in hisview, has deformed the life world\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Long, 1993, p. 205).We have arrived at the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmidpoint of the \u00E2\u0080\u009890s, the last lap, the final act before weall hit the big 2-0-0-0, ... \u00E2\u0080\u009CI am reminded by a newspaper article I am reading. Ialso watched and listened to David Suzuki this morning on a TV. program aboutthe World Council of Canadians, and I am struck by the coincidence or maybethe not-so-coincidental but curiously appropriate and well-timed coming togetherof messages from such varied sources as the above to reflect about the past,present, and future configuration of landscape/ecology/biosystem we situateourselves in. The emphasis on ecology, the urgent need for paying attention tothe ecological model in nature as a base for human relations, the even morepressing urgency for change that begins at the grassroots level in ourcommunities, the interconnectedness of everything, the importance of children,the insignificance and at the same time crucial role of the individual humanbeing, the re-searching and re-creation of community). \u00E2\u0080\u009CWe are creatingsolitude, a place where we don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t have to have social skills, ..., computervoyeurism; living through rather than actually living(Researcher Narrative, 12/29/94). 11As the chasm widens between the haves and the have-nots, dual careers will beessential, not an option, and the resulting fallout will be essential: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhere\u00E2\u0080\u0099s thediscipline and accountability for the kids? Where\u00E2\u0080\u0099s the solid base?\u00E2\u0080\u009D Her questionsare rhetorical, the answers unknown. She predicts that, hammered by crime andfreed by technology, more and more of us will head for the hills. If the first part ofthis century was the slow, ratchety climb to the major peak on the roller coaster,are we now perched at the summit, techno-wrapped and fearful, aware that anysecond we\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll be speeding downward out of control? Coombs doesn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think so.\u00E2\u0080\u009CThis is a part of history. We are crafting a new course. I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m extremely optimistic.I have utter faith in human values, worth, and potential.\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Murrills, 1994/1995, p. 15)These words attest to the growing complexity and, with it, difficulty of life on the eveof the 21St century. Even without the highly specialized know-how of a traveler incyberspace and virtual reality, one can easily imagine the literacy challenges students willface in just a few years from now. The difficulties and possibilities of building communityand to find a common language will be very different from the challenges societies have44historically encountered with forms of print as either solitary or collective practices (Long,1992) and with nature rather than technology as a powerful force.On kindred relations in the Waswanipi Cree universe:No longer disturbing, alien, or aloof all of nature is revealed as a community in thefullest sense of the word. It is a vast, scintillating web of social memories,conversations, and relationships -- each potentially replete with the samedimensions of pleasure and sorrow, misunderstandings and mysteries as areordinary human ties of blood kinship, love, and camaraderie.(Suzuki & Knudtson, 1993, p. 204)On kindred relations in the Waldo universe:Erin: This is my Waldo book. and I brout it for Sharing today.[Picture: Book with title \u00E2\u0080\u0098Ware\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Waldo in Starwars, sign with writing\u00E2\u0080\u0098NO Parking on my Woldo book\u00E2\u0080\u0099]Erin: Today I am definitly share my Waldo book! Ok?Cr1 will faint !!!!!!!!!!HH OK?Teacher: OK! I will give you some time to share.(Journal, 10/13/94; 10/17/94)On kindred relations with/in the community of little misses, men and sort qf animals:Someone from our home area has discovered the little books from RogerHargreaves\u00E2\u0080\u0099 collection of the Mr. Men, Little Miss, and Timbuctoo stories in theOpen Area book nook. I think it must have been Leo, Erin, or Jimmy, knowinghow they appreciate all kinds of funny stories and thinking that this particularkind of British humour and language would be exactly their cup of tea.(Researcher Narrative, 12/17/94)Little lVIiss Scatterbrain was just a little bit forgetful.You can say that again!Little Miss Scatterbrain was just a little bit forgetful.She met Mr. Funny.\u00E2\u0080\u009CHello, Miss Scatterbrain,\u00E2\u0080\u009D he said.\u00E2\u0080\u009CHello, Mr. Bump,\u00E2\u0080\u009D she replied.She met Mr. Tickle.\u00E2\u0080\u009CHello, Miss Scatterbrain,\u00E2\u0080\u009D he said.45\u00E2\u0080\u009CHello, Mr. Strong,\u00E2\u0080\u009D she replied.She met Mr. Happy.\u00E2\u0080\u009CWhere are you off to?\u00E2\u0080\u009D he asked her.She thought.And thought.\u00E2\u0080\u009CI bet you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve forgotten, haven\u00E2\u0080\u0099t you?\u00E2\u0080\u009D laughed Mr. Happy.Little Miss Scatterbrain looked at him.\u00E2\u0080\u009CForgotten what?\u00E2\u0080\u009D she said. (Hargreaves, 1981, unnumbered pages).LittLe Miss TROUBLEThis story is abuot a girl who loved to make trouble she said that little Mr. smallwass saying names so Mr. small sed that Miss trouble was saying names andshe got in trouble![Picture of Little Miss Trouble and Mr. Small with speech bubble \u00E2\u0080\u009CHERE COMESTROUBLE\u00E2\u0080\u009D](Felicity\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Log, age 7, 12/14/94)Suddenly, there is a craze in our classroom for these stories. The childrenchoose them for shared reading in the morning; they seem to really enjoy talkingabout them, about the silly, funny, and mischievous mishaps in which thecharacters are involved. They choose them for silent reading, too, literallystacks of them, and they write about them in their reading logs and drawdelightful pictures of Mr. Clever; Little Miss Late, and Snap, a so, of crocodile.(Researcher Narrative, 12/17/94)Late for this.Late for that.Little Miss Late was late for everything!For instance.Do you know where she spent last Christmas?At home.Earlybird Cottage!But, do you know when she spent Christmas?January 25th!One month late!For example.Do you know when she did her spring cleaning at Earlybird Cottage?In the summer\u00E2\u0080\u0099Three months late!For instance.Do you know when she went on her summer holiday last year?In December!Six months late! (Hargreaves, 198 1, unnumbered pages).46LITTLE MISS LATEThis story is about a girl who is late so shy cowd not get a Job. But one day shysaw Mr. Lazzy. He was lazzy so shy cleand his plase and shy was good at that.Mr. Lazzy gets up at Lunch. and Miss Late got ther at Lunch and shy wasHappy.[Picture of Little Miss Late and Mr. Uppity with speech bubble \u00E2\u0080\u009CLATE AGAIN!]Mr. FussYThis story is about a man who was fussy. if there is a spek of dirt he gets allfussy. One day his cusin Mr. Clumsy came to visit, it was his long lost cusinfrom Australia. Mr. Clumsy made a big mess. when he went home Mr. Fussygot all fussy and then clened up. Then Mr. Bump came.(Fe1icitys Reading Logs, 01/09/95; 01/31/95)Bronwen and I are having fun responding to this flurry of character studies,commenting between us on how the particular whimsical languaging by thisBritish author, along with the at times different vocabulary, fascinates and worksso well for our students. (Researcher Narrative, 12/17/94)Leo: Mr. BumpThis is a funny story. I think that you should read it.Teacher: This sounds interesting -- I like funny stories, so I will read it!Thanks for the tip!Leo: LITTLE MISS GIGGLESThis is weried. I think you should read it.Teacher: Why is it a weird story? Maybe we will read some of the Mr. or Misscollection of books next week.Leo: CHIRPCRASH! Poor Chirp. This is a good book. I think you should read it.Teacher: O.K. What happens to Chirp?Leo: BuzzHe helps a lot. he\u00E2\u0080\u0099s fast too. I wonder how he takes so many walks?Teacher: Yes, I wonder how he does it! Did you find out?(Reading Responses, 01/11/95; 01/12/94; 01/13/95; 01/16/95)47We prepare a special bin for the collection, and Felicity and Franny design aspecial label, beautifully and brightly coloured, portraying a grinning Little MissTrouble and a mischievous-looking Mr. Tickle. For days, Jimmy, Erin and Hughare preoccupied, with the help of Leo and some of the girls, collecting, sorting,counting and making a list of them all (it turns out we have 12 Timbuctoo books,18 of the Little Miss ones, and 34 Mr. Men stories)! Then the children proceedto list all the ones we don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t have in the classroom or in the school library andneed to get from either the public library or the book store (Croak is a definitemust!) We prominently display the list on our bulletin board. We are the luckyowners of this collection thanks to Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s generous donation of her dearchildhood reading relations. I remember countless times of reading and rereading and talking about the adventures of these characters with Charlotte andthe fun we had predicting and talking about their mishaps. There is always asurprise ending, one that really isn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t an ending at all but opens up spaces fornew speculations, interpretations, conversations, and questions. It seems that Iam now re-living these conversations with my students, discussing favouritetitles (Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Scatterbrain feature high on that list), ones thatwe absolutely need to get (\u00E2\u0080\u009CRemember, Ms. H., Little Miss Magic and Mr.Messy??\u00E2\u0080\u009D) and how to go about it (\u00E2\u0080\u009CMaybe we could do fundraising?\u00E2\u0080\u009D someonesuggests), then we try to figure out how much it would cost, and so on, and soon ... und so weiterThere is so much to learn from the world of these little characters: They arealways faced with some problem, they are different from the norm, strugglingand scheming, often in hilariously funny ways, to swim against the stream, toovercome the odds. They are always learning from their mistakes (well, most ofthe time), and I have no trouble seeing how the children relate to theoutrageously silly and suspenseful scenarios and that Mr. Tickle, for instance,invites them to come along with him.(Researcher Narrative, 11/17/94)It was a warm, sunny morning.In his small house at the other end of the woods Mr. Tickle was asleep.You didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know that there was such a thing as a Tickle, did you?Well, there is!Tickles are small and round and they have arms that stretch and stretch andstretch.Extraordinarily long arms!So later that morning, after Mr. Tickle had made his bed and eaten his breakfast,he set off through the woods.As he walked along, he kept his eyes wide open, looking for somebody to tickle.Looking for anybody to tickle!Eventually Mr. Tickle came to a school.There was nobody around, so reaching up his extraordinarily long arms to a highwindow ledge, Mr. Tickle pulled himself up and peeped through the open window.Inside he could see a classroom.There were children sitting at their desks and a teacher writing on the blackboard.Mr. Tickle waited a minute and then reached through the window.Mr. Tickle\u00E2\u0080\u0099s extraordinarily long arm went right up to the teacher, paused, and48then tickled him!The teacher jumped in the air and turned around very quickly to see who wasthere.But nobody was there!Mr. Tickle was enjoying himself so much, he tickled the teacher again.The children in the classroom laughed and laughed and laughed.(Hargreaves, 1971, unnumbered pages).Erin: Mr. Noisy!I liked this book because Mr. Noisy was so loud!Teacher: Did he learn to quiet down?Erin: Yes!Erin: Mr. ClumsyI liked the part were Mr. Clumsy triped on the rock and fell into thewater.Teacher: Oh dear! Poor Mr. Clumsy ... He is not very coordinated.Erin: Mr. Dizzy!I liked this book because Mr. Dizzy was\u00E2\u0080\u0099ent clever at all! until theend!(Reading Responses, 12/13/94; 12/15/94; 01/11/95)I like these stories a lot -- because the unexpected happens, leaving lots ofspaces for questions, lots of room for wonderful words, everyday words yetmetaphorical and idiomatic so that children can predict and wonder about whatis happening with the story and about the languaging in it. When the childrenask me which one is my favourite, I have a hard time deciding. Meow isdefinitely one of them, about a very literate cat who learns about the fine art ofreading the world through the word on the page and that it takes more than justthe printed word to understand language. (Researcher Narrative, 12/17/94)Meow was a sort of cat.A Timbuctoo cat.He lived in Marmalade Cottage.In Timbuctoo.He woke up one morning.\u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat a nice day,\u00E2\u0080\u009D he cried, leaping out of bed.\u00E2\u0080\u009CHow shall I spend it?\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CI know,\u00E2\u0080\u009D he thought. \u00E2\u0080\u009CI\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll go fishing!\u00E2\u0080\u009DMeow had never been fishing before, and because he didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know anything about ithe went out and bought himself a book.49All about it.And off he set down to the river.He sat himself down under a tree and opened the book.\u00E2\u0080\u009CFishing, \u00E2\u0080\u009C said the book, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cis easy!\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CGood, \u00E2\u0080\u009Csaid Meow.\u00E2\u0080\u009CFirst,\u00E2\u0080\u009D said the book, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfind a river.\u00E2\u0080\u009DMeow looked up.\u00E2\u0080\u009COne river,\u00E2\u0080\u009D he said. (Hargreaves, 1978, unnumbered pages).Meow faithfully follows instructions step by step, and just about everything thatcould go wrong with his fishing lesson does indeed happen through hilariouslyfunny misinterpretations. The cat never manages to catch a fish; he catches acold instead and learns a lesson about going by the book too much.Erin liked Mr. Impossible \u00E2\u0080\u009Cbecause he could do everything,\u00E2\u0080\u009D Hiss \u00E2\u0080\u009CbecauseHiss didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t crawl at all\u00E2\u0080\u009D the way a sott of snake is supposed to, and Mr.Grumpy\u00E2\u0080\u009Cbecause he \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwas SO grumpy! until the end!\u00E2\u0080\u009D Leo delighted in Moo becausehe didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t mind trying new things, such as the taste of honey, and approved thatMr. Happy and Mr. Tickle taught Mr. Grumpy a lesson \u00E2\u0080\u009Cabout being \u00E2\u0080\u009Cnot quite sobad-tempered quite so often.\u00E2\u0080\u009D He was relieved when Hiss \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfinnaly finds out away to get around.\u00E2\u0080\u009D And Jimmy thought Snap was \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe greatest\u00E2\u0080\u009D because hecould make magic by snapping his fingers, not his teeth!Roddie is getting all these character studies and survival lessons first-handfrom his friends\u00E2\u0080\u0099 conversations about them, then finally gets really hooked onthese delighifully whimsical reading relations himself. I am delighted when theyfinally stimulate him to respond beyond the previous one-sentence literalrepeating of the title, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthis story is about Mr. ...\u00E2\u0080\u009C For days in a row, he isresponding to the antics of Mr. Bounce, Mr. Clumsy, Mr. Silly, Mr. Dizzy, Mr.Daydream, Mr. Bump, and Mr. Snow, writing more complex sentences and,finally, expressing his opinion. (Researcher Narrative, 11/17/94)Roddie: MR. DIZZY.This book is about a character Mr. DIZZY who lives in CleverLandbut he wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t clever. But one day he went in the woods and hefound a well and he didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t no what kind of well it was. It was awishing well and he took a wish and it came true!Teacher: How lucky! So, was he clever after all?Roddie: Yes!Roddie: MR. SNOWThis book is about Mr. Snow. I like the part when he helps SantaClaus. It is a good story!50These personal responses to literature by children with very diverse ethnicbackgrounds (all the way from Eastern and Southern Europe to South-East Asia) share anappreciation of common fundamental human experiences through storying. In their paperentitled The cogency ofmulticultural education, Ian Wright and Jerrold Coombs state that\u00E2\u0080\u009Cmulticultural education is often defined in terms of knowing about the whats, hows, andwhys of human experiences\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Wright & Coombs, 1981, p. 5). The characters in thesestories modeled such experiences in a way that appealed to the students and let them livevicariously through their adventures. In the same way, culturally sensitive education aboutthe multiple communities we live in includes the knowing about people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s experiences andthe relations between them. With the expanding cultural composition of thesecommunities, the socio-cultural elements of human relationships become increasinglyimportant, with variants more refined and inter-related than ever before through thepossibilities of establishing communication and creating audiences on both local and globalplanes (Greene, 1993; Rosen, 1985; Said, 1982). John Caputo (1987) perceives thesepossibilities as a truly hermeneutic task in thinking about change. According to him, it isthe radical thinking of \u00E2\u0080\u009Crestoring life to its original difficulty\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 1) which will make adifference in the future. Luke (1993) further speculates on some of the future challengesfor societies:\u00E2\u0080\u0098Thinking locally\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and \u00E2\u0080\u0098acting globally\u00E2\u0080\u0099 means making several radical shifts towardssome social forms conventionally regarded as \u00E2\u0080\u0098dead and gone.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Such a societywould cultivate a new subjectivity grounded in new kinds of empowerment --technological, economic, political, and cultural. Since the \u00E2\u0080\u0098good life\u00E2\u0080\u0099 would nolonger be the endless consumption obsession of contemporary permissiveindividualism, it could be redefined in more demanding moral codes of hard work,frugality, ecological responsibility, humility, and skill perfection. This, in turn, willgenerate new community institutions suited to the new context. Here the realadvances of secular rational civilization might counterbalance potential regressionsto a reactionary irrational culture. Racism, provincialism, xenophobia, sexism, andclass hatreds need not be part of any populist society. Indeed, loyalty tocommunity, ecoregion or place need not become lines of cultural conflict or groupwarfare. (pp. 217-218)51Within the framework of current educational and societal change in progress, theabove quote, along with an encouraging amount of writing on this subject evoke the senseof an urgency to re-think the meaning and configuration of community for present andfuture sociocultural contexts. Titles such as Communal crisis (Conley, 1993), Communitywithout unity: A politics ofDerridian extravagance (Corlett, 1993), Linking home,schooi and community literacy events (Early & Gunderson, 1993), Lost in the Land ofOz. The searchfor identity and community in American lfe (Kolbenschlag, 1988), Schooland community: Embracing diversity (Naylor, 1994), The soul of the community (Shore,1993), Recalling a community at loose ends (Singer, 1993), as well as an entire issue ofthe TESOL Journal, Bringing culture into the classroom and students into the community(Judd, 1993), speak to the widespread attention to this topic in a variety of disciplines andgenres.Constructs of community and in particular historical and curricular concepts ofcommunity education in the Western world (Poster & Kruger, 1990) therefore needfurther probing and will be explored in more detail against a background of racial andcultural complexity with particular reference to the local realities of the communitiesdepicted in my study. One of these concepts, that of the community school, is based onthe principles of community education that advocate life-long learning, theinterrelationship of home, school, and community, and the empowerment of the involvedstakeholders through community-based decision making (Decker & Romney, 1992; Ozar,1993).In British Columbia, in order to become a designated community school, the schooland community have to initiate a needs-based assessment process which, together with thesupport of the school district, the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s staff and other community organizations, canlead to the establishment of a joint school and community association. These localassociations are members of the provincial and national community educationorganizations, ACEbc (Association for Community Education of British Columbia) and52CACE (Canadian Association for Community Association), respectively. The school-based organization functions in a similar way to traditional parent teacher associations;however, it has a larger community base as well as the additional benefit of a communityoffice staff (a coordinator, programmer, and secretary). The community coordinator inparticular is responsible for establishing links with teachers through regular co-planningwith them, bringing in resources, arranging field studies in the community, and recruitingvolunteer individuals and organizations to participate in curricular activities in and outsidethe classrooms.In addition to giving the community\u00E2\u0080\u0099s stakeholders a voice and an opportunity toinfluence future educational directions at a local level, the principles of communityeducation open the doors for teachers and their students to connect curricular goals andpractices directly with the environment they live in, thereby tying the curriculum directlyto students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and their families\u00E2\u0080\u0099 life experiences and, on a larger scale, to the ecologicalissues of a larger global community. By providing the organizational and conceptualstructure and support through the integrated delivery of services to the community,community-serving schools indeed facilitate the implementation of such curricular goalsfor teachers. In their article Linking home, school and community literacy events, Earlyand Gunderson (1993) show how for students of any age and cultural or linguisticbackground, the exploration of issues and involvement with people in their community canopen their minds and hearts to the many different faces of our multi-ethnic communities inan authentic, meaningful way. In addition, this inclusive curricular practice gives students,their parents and families an opportunity to connect with their own background andheritage.By offering programs after regular school hours and on weekends, students andcommunity members benefit from the direct delivery of services in their neighbourhood.In combining the resources of the school and the community, community schools, forexample, can initiate essential skills training and social planning and assist in carrying out53community projects that are relevant to local residents (Association for CommunityEducation in B.C., 1988). Within this new vision of a society that honours the vital role ofschools in the context of their surrounding constituents and environments, the provincialgovernment, in conjunction with its \u00E2\u0080\u009CKids-at-risk\u00E2\u0080\u009D initiative, recently recognized the valueand promise of existing and developing models of community education, be they in theform of community schools all over British Columbia or other institutions at various levelsof educational delivery in line with the aims and goals of community-based decision-making. Indeed, for the first time after a long budgetary drought in funding, communityschools are being financially rewarded through governmental monetary support. TheAssociation of Community Education for British Columbia, ACEbc, together withrepresentatives from the Ministry of Education\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Social Equity Branch and various schooldistricts\u00E2\u0080\u0099 organizations, has recently developed a set of criteria for recognizing schools asdesignated community schools (Charbonneau, 1995; Domaas, 1995). They include, forexample, the existence of an association that involves parents, teachers, administrators aswell as community groups\u00E2\u0080\u0099 representatives or individual residents in decision-makingrelevant to their community\u00E2\u0080\u0099s issues.My own involvement in this teaching environment has been shapedconsiderably by the community school aspect. I have come to increasinglyappreciate the holistic and contextualized approach to teaching and learningthat seems to thrive in community schools -- so much so that I am now amember of the Board of Directors of ACEbc. Throughout this involvement andlargely due to experiencing community education first hand as a resident andparent, my beliefs in the need to become more knowledgeable about students\u00E2\u0080\u0099backgrounds and in the importance of a meaningful connection between home,school, and community have been reinforced. Moreover, my dealings withstudents from such diverse sociocultural backgrounds, often very different fromthose of their teachers, have made me realize that the school system as well asindividuals in charge of educational delivery need to be much more aware ofand in support of making these connections. There seems to be an emergingrecognition of the importance of community building in the pedagogical field aswell as a reconceptualization of the notion of community in postmodernsociological and philosophical writing. (Researcher Narrative, 04/12/94)54Responsible, to a large part, for this rapid change in the conceptualization of whatcommunity education at the end of the 20th century may mean have been socio-political,socio-economic and socio-ecological forces of far greater global impact than ever before.Through these, we have witnessed such paradoxical phenomena, exhilarating anddisturbing at the same time, as the disappearance of nation-states (Hannerz & LOfgren,1994; Walker, 1993), the increasing urbanization and ghettoization of many living areasthroughout the global landscape (Gundara & Jones, 1993) along with the rise ofinnovative ecological models (Berry, 1993), and political re-formations based on culture,race and ethnicity (Moodley, 1992). As one author demonstrates in the case of one urbanlandscape, we witness how it all comes together in Los Angeles (Soja, 1989a) at the sametime that we are taking Los Angeles apart (Soja, 1989b).Public institutions such as schools have traditionally been charged with establishingcommunal values and establishing links with their surrounding communities (Ashworth,1985). By accepting the legitimacy of the social constructivist perspective to learning andliteracy, governments, school boards, and educators themselves must also accept thechallenges that a global rearranging of societal values and roles can bring. In particularwith respect to literacy in a multicultural education system, this paradigm shift might haveconsequences that we can only speculate on from our present perspective (Asselin et al.,1993). The discussions about the re-defining of literacy have never been so complex andcontroversial; they include, among others, the incorporation of multiple forms of literacies(Froese, 1990; Sarris, 1992; Scarcella & Chin, 1993), the reconceptualization of genres(Chapman, 1994; Reid, 1987) and the revitalization of the teaching of reading and writingthrough literature that is multicultural (Early & Gunderson, 1994; Harris, 1992; Jobe &Sutton, 1990).My life has gotten just a little more complicated than my ability to describe it.That used to be the definition of madness, now it!s just discontinuous overload.My project is a little more complicated.Bharati Mukherjee, The holder of the world (1993)55Propositions on LiteracyWriting is a kind of magic. It allows you to share your thoughts with anyonewho can read. Maybe your ideas will be read by people hundreds of years fromnow1 Reading other people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s writing lets you travel to other places and othertimes. And when you read writing you can learn things -- how to make achocolate cake, raise a rabbit or build a glider. Knowledge that is written down isthere for everyone to use. (Lewis, 1992, p. 5)Renata: I like to nt sorybooks. I am woking on a new sorybook.do you like to nt sorys_____Teacher: Yes! [in provided blank underlined space]Renata: I like to nt poms to. do you uk to nt poms_____?Teacher: Yes!Renata: It is fun to nt sorybooksTeacher: What kind of story are you writing this time?(Journal, age 7, 10/04/94)Erin: A Few days ago I finiht Mario is Mising!Teacher: Was this a story you were reading or writing?Maybe you could tell us about it?Erin: No! Way!(Journal, 10/20/94)Everyone reads life and the world like a book. Even the so-called \u00E2\u0080\u0098illiterate.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Theworld actually writes itself with the many-leveled, unfixable intricacy and opennessof a work of literature. 1f through our study of literature, we can ourselves learnand teach others to read the world in the \u00E2\u0080\u0098proper\u00E2\u0080\u0099 risky way, and to act upon thatlesson, perhaps we literary people would not forever be such helpless victims.Mere literary studies cannot accomplish this. One must fill the vision of literaryform with its connections to what is being read: history, political economy -- theworld. And it is not merely a question of disciplinary formation. It is a questionalso of questioning the separation between the world of action and the world of thedisciplines. There is a great deal in the way. (Spivak, 1988, p. 95)We no longer partake of the drama of alienation, but are in the ecstasy ofcommunication. (Baudrillard, 1988, p. 22)56The above texts strongly advocate literacy as a socially constructed phenomenon. Myown experiential perspective also speaks to the cogency of this approach in many of myjournal entries and through my observations and readings of the texts and speech of thechildren in my classroom:In the same way, in my particular home area of twenty-two grade threes, thedegree of acceptance of others, the willingness to work with others regardlessof personal preference, and the need to be recognized individually areconstantly negotiated, evaluated, and celebrated in different ways. This processis certainly not easy for many children: Learning to get along with others,regardless of age, gender, and race is often difficult and challenging, but it isalways a learning experience that requires growth towards acceptance of othersfrom students and teachers alike. Perhaps, this living and learning throughdifficulty needs to be recognized as an integral, necessary part of thesociocultural construction of literacy. The unfolding of this literacy as a socialand cultural process through which students negotiate learning through multiplelayers of texts needs to be further documented. With my own research I hopeto contribute to filling this gap. (Researcher Narrative, 06/14/94)Following the work of Bakhtin and his colleagues, no text -- either conversationalor written -- exists in isolation; every text exists in relation to previous andforthcoming texts. But which texts are and will be related is not a given; it is asocial construction. People, interacting with each other, construct intertextualrelationships by the ways they act and react to each other.(Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993, p. 311)However, the way we communicate as literate and literary people, through literatureand other language-related means, has traditionally been defined through a transmissionmodel of literacy acquisition and development (Anderson & Reeder, in press) and, with it,a canon of texts that has indeed alienated a large percentage of our schools\u00E2\u0080\u0099 populations(Au, 1993; Banks & Banks, 1993). In this particular North American context, as in othercontinents, it has resulted in the marginalization of students from backgrounds outside thecultural and linguistic mainstream, those living on the borders, the margins (Giroux, 1992;Villegas, 1991). As numerous research studies show, the Eurocentric bias of the schoolcurriculum and of literacy and literature programs in particular is as pervasive as everdespite the emergence of apparently progressive new approaches such as \u00E2\u0080\u0098literature-based\u00E2\u0080\u009957or \u00E2\u0080\u0098multicultural\u00E2\u0080\u0099 reading programs (Freeman & Goodman, 1993; Greenlaw, M. J., 1994,Willinsky, 1990).In contrast, we are beginning to see that the multiple authentic literacies that do existin our classrooms, whether teachers acknowledge them or not, are fundamentally differentfrom the kind of contrived texts that have been taught in schools for so long under themantle of being both instructionally sound as well as liberating (Cairney & Langbien,1989; Myers, 1992). This officially sanctioned literacy has in fact achieved the oppositethrough a hidden curriculum aimed at conformity to the standard of cultural hegemonyand \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe cultural romantics\u00E2\u0080\u009D of dominant methodologies, such as in the case of the currentmainstream practice of the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cworkshop\u00E2\u0080\u009D approach, in particular that of the \u00E2\u0080\u0098Writers\u00E2\u0080\u0099Workshop\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Dressman, 1993). In the reality of these institutionalized forms of literacy,\u00E2\u0080\u009Cplus \u00C3\u00A7a change, plus c\u00E2\u0080\u0099est la m\u00C3\u00AAme chose\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Edelsky, 1991, p. 59). In order to escape thisirony and instead truly affect change, authentic narratives need to be heard and told overand over again, in many linguistic and semiotic systems. The memories that are with us,that frame us in our presence, need to be holistically integrated into our literary andliterate endeavors, much like the visual images of a scene that leave a lasting impression:Stepping out of the carriage, Werther sees Charlotte for the first time (and falls inlove with her), framed by the door of her house (cutting bread-and-butter for thechildren: a famous scene, often discussed): the first thing we love is a scene. Is thescene always visual? It can be aural, the frame can be linguistic: I can fall in lovewith a sentence spoken to me: and not only because it says something whichmanages to touch my desire, but because of its syntactical turn (framing), whichwill inhabit me like a memory. (Barthes, 1978a, p. 192)Barthes\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and other contemporary probes into both the apparent and underlyingpsychological, cognitive, emotional and sociocultural phenomena very much reveal thelens of the ethnographer. Ethnography has indeed become a favoured mode ofinvestigating language and culture: from Bauman & Scherzer\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1974) Explorations in theethnography ofspeaking, which includes Hymes\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Ways ofspeaking and Basso\u00E2\u0080\u0099s The58ethnography ofwriting, through Heath\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Ways with words (1983) and Clifford\u00E2\u0080\u0099s & Marcus\u00E2\u0080\u0099(1986) Writing culture, to Boyarin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1992) The ethnography ofreading, containingFabian\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Keep listening: The ethnography ofreading (1992). These works all focus onthe relations between the various language skills and their functions as socioculturalmanifestations of a society or community. With my own study, I hope to contribute toexpanding the body of memories and manfestations of literacy communities in thispostmodern era. Throughout this documentation, however, I am succinctly reminded that,as valuable as these descriptions are, we need to keep in mind thatwe are living in this web of interrelations and these interrelations are alwaysalready at work before the task of writing about those relations has begun.Ecology tells us that there is no center or foundation to this web of livinginterconnections, just small, lateral, interlacing relations of this to this to this,splayed in moving patterns of kinship and kind (wonderful terms for pedagogy toconsider). (Jardine, 1994, p. v)I am re-thinking about the de-centred subject theme, \u00E2\u0080\u0098subjects without selves,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 inGabrielle Schwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s term, about the transitional nature of texts: a poignant andpowerful metaphor that is difficult to define, however. It refers to the \u00E2\u0080\u0098dynamicchange within an ongoing process\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and in this way relates to the kind oflanguaging/theming in David Jardine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s work about writing and pedagogy inconnection with ecology. And I am re-thinking, once again, back to thoughtsabout the kind of \u00E2\u0080\u0098composite propositional intertexts,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 in Lee Gunderson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s wordsand examples, which students and teachers create and negotiate in wholelanguage classrooms. Texts that stand out by themselves, insist on theirsubjectivity, are composed in different spaces, yet come together in thiscomposition -- connectedness, rhizomean in nature: seeing Chinese lanterns,reading about the Californian watershed, walking across Japanese Canadianbridges on the Pacific, listening and responding to musical scores from the hillsand valleys of Troldhaugen, receiving poetry and languaging via e-mail acrosscontinents and time zones, longing for/lingering with German and Frenchphonemes over phone lines, forever part of me, strangely and yet comfortablydistant. Entgrenzungen ... beyond borders, yet bordering on the other. Thememories of two intense years of influences and interpretations, thinkingwith/in/(ab)out cultural differences and pedagogical and emotional strugglesDiff\u00C3\u00A9rance and difficulty go hand in hand.(Researcher Narrative, 11/30/94)I am re-thinking about the past few weeks with the children, re-living scenes ofpreparing for our concert with the ecological theming of peace around Christmasand other Festivals of Light: the children listening to music, writing and singingabout \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat can I give my world for Christmas,\u00E2\u0080\u009D thinking such awe-inspiring59thoughts about kindness to others \u00E2\u0080\u009Cin all the universe,\u00E2\u0080\u009D in Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s favouriteexpression, and about making the world a better, cleaner, more caring, healthierplace to grow up in. Am I starting to grasp a sense of their lives, of whatmatters to them, the future generation in charge of this planet?(Researcher Narrative, 12/26/94)Rapphel is fiting Shreder.I migt go to Naila\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Cirsmas party insted of waching Ninja turtles.(Leo\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, 11/14/94)What can I give my worldfor Christmas?How can I show I really care?For all the many gfls to me,All the blessings that we share?What can I give my world?\u00E2\u0080\u00992I would like to help people in other parts of the world to give them lots of Foodand Water toys and Homes Reds and schools and no Wars. Thats what I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll givemy world for christmas.(Naomi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Wish Listfor the World, 12/07/94)What can Igive my worldfor Christmas?How can I show my gratitude?For all her beauty and her manyjoys,Sunlight, water, air, andfood?What can I give my world?I can help my world to keep the world clean and help the children from otherparts of the world and care for the animals.(Rita\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Wish Listfor the World, 12/07/94)What can I give my worldfor Christmas?The season message is veiy clear.Peace and goodwill and kindlinessThat lasts through all the year.That\u00E2\u0080\u0099c what I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll give my worldI\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll give my world healthy food so people won\u00E2\u0080\u0099t get sick. and make sureeveryone is healthy even animals. That is what I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll give my world.(Sara\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Wish List jr the World, 12/07/94)We must believe in the inherent goodness of human beings, and \u00E2\u0080\u0098theseason\u00E2\u0080\u0099s message is loud and clear\u00E2\u0080\u0099 at the end of this year of reading/writingwithin this tangled web of interdependent teaching, learning, and living: Aspedagogues, we have a constant, serious responsibility to open our students\u00E2\u0080\u009960minds/heads and hearts to facing the challenge of learning and practicingecologically sound living in a world that is troubled by too many mis-guidedpractices. The notion of difficulty once again enters into this thinking aboutopening heads and hearts, making me remember Robert Graves\u00E2\u0080\u0099 poem and hismetaphor of \u00E2\u0080\u0098walking on hills\u00E2\u0080\u0099(Researcher Narrative, 12/29/94)To walk on hills is to employ legsAs porters of the head and heartTo walk on hills is to see sightsAnd hear sounds unfamiliar.Heart records thatjourneyAs memorable indeed;Head reserves opinion,Confused by the wind. (Graves, 1959, p. 133)It will be difficult at times to decide which is the main trail and which is the aside,for all of the threads do wind together in an interweaving web ofinterdependencies. It wifi depend, in part, on where you want to go and on whereyou have been. But it won\u00E2\u0080\u0099t only depend on this. Sometimes the trails will lead toplaces that are connected to where you want to go or where you have been, butthat are more difficult or more complicated and convoluted and dangerous thanany of us might want to admit .... (Jardine, 1993, p. vii)I can relate to this need of making a difference through my teaching and to thedfJIculty of it in connection with the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s many-numbered needs and theirmanifestations in literacy events. It is, in David Jardine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words,indicative of an urgent necessity to speak and write differently than so much of ourinheritance has allowed. It aspires to the ways of the voice and the hand and theheart that embody the generativity and wildness and interdependence andambiguous kind-ness that is also its topic. (p. ix)The eeriness of connecting to these words, recognizing them in my own texts,and in others\u00E2\u0080\u0099, creating inter-text, evoking thoughts/emotions often toouncomfortable to consider, yet knowing they are necessary, inevitable, perhapsultimately beneficial for my personal/professional development and for what Ibelieve to be the task and meaning of pedagogical endeavor. And, once again,re-connecting with meaning and place.(Researcher Narrative, 12/30/94)It may be that the meaning and place of children in our lives is the most importantconsideration to be taken up in education today, not just because of the voice of61the young has been translated out of any meaningful involvement with the powersthat be, but also because of the question of the young (their conception, care, andnurturance) devolves precisely on so many of the defining issues of our time suchas the meaning of power, gender relations, and the matter of how we might learnto live more responsibly within the earthly web of our planetary home.(Smith, 1994c, p. 102)But again, ecology is reminding us that there is nothing easy, clear and simple aboutthe Earth\u00E2\u0080\u0099s textures and the ways we are culpable for and implicated in this \u00E2\u0080\u009Ctext\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Jardine,1993, ix). Once again, the theming of the dfJIculty of living within a global consciousnessis struck, a recurring notion in many of the texts about embodied language and text.We have traveled a long way down the road of literary expeditions into the culturalworld -- from the journeys of the past that delighted the reader with colourful, exotic, andoften dangerously naive accounts of native and foreign ethnicity at the cost of pejorativeand prejudiced speculations about others. Examples such as The Five Chinese Brothers(Bishop & Wiese, 1938) or The Indian in the Cupboard (Banks, 1980) are painfulreminders of this kind of literature. They stand in sharp contrast to George Littlechild\u00E2\u0080\u0099s(1993) authentic autobiographical narratives and art in This landis my land, the poignantand compassionate portrayal of the Japanese Canadian experience of deportation inNaomi Road by Joy Kogawa (1986), Paul Yee\u00E2\u0080\u0099s tales of the Chinese immigrants\u00E2\u0080\u0099exploitation in Talesfrom GoldMountain (Yee, 1989), or the beautiful bilingual edition ofthe ancient Chinese folk tale A Letter to the King (Va, 1991).The recent celebration of these narratives is a promising beginning in theacknowledgment of a new humanism that needs to be further documented and criticallyevaluated with respect to the significance of these experiences for the development of bothpersonal and socially constructed realities. If stories and narratives have indeed the powerto communicate common concerns and to teach universal human values such as tolerance,respect, and the belief in the principles of freedom, social justice, equality, andcommitment to human rights, we need to let them speak much louder to positively62overcome the limitations of race and class and other factors that remind us of the\u00E2\u0080\u0098monstrous lessons\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of imperialism (Willinsky, 1994). The latter are still the predominantcauses for the breakdown in communication among those who really hold the power andthose whose powerlessness is perpetuated within our educational institutions (Coombs,1994).Only if more and more persons incarnate such principles, we might say, and chooseto live by them and engage in dialogue in accord with them, are we likely to bringabout a democratic pluralism and not fly apart in violence and disorder.(Greene, 1993, p. 18)Alice Walker believes in the power of the writer who can transcend these boundariesthrough language that speaks authentically and universally about the suffering and pain butalso about the beauty, wholeness, and joy our ancestors experienced (Winchell, 1992).Through reliving and learning from the life histories of people who have been subjected tohorrific injustices and discrimination and yet have lived on through the words of thewriters and artists of this present world, we can gain a deeper understanding of the powerof our own stories and those of our parents, grandparents, and elders in a global narrative.With reference to In Search of Our Mothers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Gardens, Alice Walker places herself in thecontext of an embodied literacy that transcends time and culture, yet affirms it at the sametime:In that story I gathered up the historical and psychological threads of the life myancestors lived, and in the writing of it I felt joy and strength and my owncontinuity. I had that wonderful feeling writers get sometimes, not very often, ofbeing with a great many people, ancient spirits, all very happy to see my consultingand acknowledging them, and eager to let me know, through the joy of theirpresence, that indeed, I am not alone. ... It is, in the end, the saving of lives that wewriters are about. Whether we are \u00E2\u0080\u0098minority\u00E2\u0080\u0099 writers or \u00E2\u0080\u0098majority.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 It is simply inour power to do this. (Walker, 1983; as quoted in Eagleton, 1986, p. 31)63In the following chapter, I want to dwell more deeply on the languaging that speaksof the presence of the children in my classroom and of the cultural connections that arewith them, that are part of their heritage behind them, and that, perhaps, lie ahead of themin their future. This is also the time and place to portray the specific site of this study indetail, to explain the situatedness of my questioning against the background ofwhere ittakes place and who the stakeholders are in this process of learning and teaching.I live in three time zones simultaneously, and I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t mean Eastern, Central andPacific. I mean the past, the present and the future.(Mukherjee, 1993, p. 5)64Chapter 3Living Ethnography: Cultures of Learning/Learning About CulturesThe aim is to urge the engagement across social and cultural edges, to breakframe.s disciplinary rules, received notions, and the conventions offieith\u00E2\u0080\u0099ork withits repetitious intellectual labors. My purpose in reading the poetic ofcultures incontact is the result offinding there a nonhierarchical approach to knowledge, arefreshing directness ofexperience between one segment ofhumanity andanother.Dan Rose, Living the ethnographic lifewas wurdest du tun?kulturelle unterschiede sind die st\u00C3\u00A4rke der menschheitEsprit Advertisement, In Brigitte: Das Magazin /uir FrauenI went to school at Strathcona School which was a conglomeration of everybodyand everyone, and we knew each other swear words very, very well. That the,fIrst thing you learn in aforeign language.Benny Pastinsky, In Opening Doors: Vancouver East EndYet women have always surviveddans une autre langueNicole Brossard, Installations (avec et sans pronoms)65Many notions about place in relation to culture and the language we use to describe itundergird our representations and interpretations of \u00E2\u0080\u0098the real world\u00E2\u0080\u0099 we live in. In thereadings I have engaged in throughout this dissertation, those from the field of culturalgeography have presented many insightful and thought-provoking connections with theeducational and linguistic dimensions I set out to describe. If there is one discipline whichhas indeed begun to embark on an interdisciplinary dialogue in ways that are meaningfulfor the understanding of human lives with/in their environments, it is that of culturalgeography. Many of the maps ofmeaning (Jackson, 1989) that scholars in this disciplineare sketching speak of the inter-connectedness of our human lives with where we aresituated and with who, in the past, present, and future, we align ourselves. Titles ofmonographs such as Writing worlds (Barnes & Duncan, 1992), Geography and socialjustice (Smith, 1994), and place/culture/representation (Duncan & Ley, 1993) open up alandscape of interconnected variables between local and global sociocultural sites. Inarticles such as Sites of representation: Place, time, and the discourse of the other(Duncan, 1993), Multiculturalism: Representing a Canadian institution (Kobayashi,1993), Reading, community and a sense ofplace (Stock, 1993), and The politics ofdiversity in Monterey Par/c Calfornia (Horton, 1992), the authors draw maps ofintercultural processes in progress and give us yet another perspective on how we mightcome to understand the complexity of the factors at work in the construction ofpostmodern landscapes. Key phrases that use language such as the moral landscape, thepolitics of language, restructuring, and reading the texts ofNiagara Falls, for example,establish contextual and semantic relations to a variety of social sciences fields, amongthem sociology, political science, anthropology, ethnography, philology, linguistics, andeducation. These are all linked by elements of cultures at work and play, of people livingwithin and outside of cultural boundaries in these postmodern times. Derek Gregory,from the University of British Columbia, in a foreword to a series of texts on cultural66geography entitled Contours (Gregory, 1989), outlines this decidedly interdisciplinarycontext of these writings:The ideas with which we are concerned in these books are of vital importance foranyone standing on the threshold of the twenty-first century. Living in multicultural societies in an interdependent world, in which events in one place arecaught up in rapidly extending chains of events that span the globe; dependingupon an increasingly fragile and volatile physical environment whose complexinteractions require sophisticated analysis and sensitive management; recognizingthat the human impact on the face of the earth has become ever more insistent --we have no choice but to enlarge the geographical imagination. (p. x)Enlarging the geographical imagination, in this postmodern framework of reference,involves a process of deconstructing the notion of the centredness of our geographical andcultural world to include \u00E2\u0080\u009Cplaces on the margin\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Shields, 1991) as alternatives tomodernity\u00E2\u0080\u0099s maps. Much of the postmodern perception of the world is concerned with thismarginality that stretches beyond a purely geographical space but reaches otherdimensions that touch human lives:To be on the margin has implied exclusion from \u00E2\u0080\u0098the centre.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 But social, political,and economic relations which bind peripheries to centres, keep them together in aseries of binary relationships, rather than allowing complete disconnection. In thisway, \u00E2\u0080\u0098margins\u00E2\u0080\u0099 become signiflers of everything \u00E2\u0080\u0098centres\u00E2\u0080\u0099 deny or repress; margins as\u00E2\u0080\u0098the Other,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 become the condition of possibility of all social and cultural entities.(p. 276)Communities are social and cultural entities that are affected by these binaryrelationships and by their placement relative to the two locations: whether they are in orclose to the \u00E2\u0080\u0098centre\u00E2\u0080\u0099 or are identified with the margin. The geographical dimensions thatdefine certain communities can be a powerful force pulling in either direction; however,the where itself in turn is shaped by an increasingly complex web of factors thatencompass historical, sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and other variables. Above all,communities are shaped by the people who belong to them. Whereas in earlier times, theearth was considered a vast and mysterious unexplored space, we now imagine our world67as a \u00E2\u0080\u0098global village;\u00E2\u0080\u0099 as a result of the expansion of our geographical reality andimagination, our communities are more divergent and heterogeneous than ever before,making it increasingly difficult for some of us to find our individual place within thesecommunal spaces.Out of Place: Reading Between Cultures and ContinentsSeveral months ago, when traveling to Germany, I found myself experiencingpersonally the impact of this phenomenon of enlarging the geographical imaginationthrough the peculiar displacement in between geo-cultural identities that had also markedthe beginning of my life in Canada. In the airport, on the plane, by myself without atraveling companion, self- consciously, (oh so slightly) un-comfortable with the label ofwoman traveling alone in this oh so emancipated western world, my thinking aboutcultural and linguistic identities came into focus once again through my immediateenvironment. As I was shifting back and forth from one linguistic mode to another,English to German and vice versa, I was also shifting through different comfort levels. Ihad brought along two texts, a novel, in English, The Lost Language of Cranes, the bookthe women in my reading group had chosen for next month\u00E2\u0080\u0099s meeting, as part of ourongoing discussion about issues of gender, language, and culture (remembering Bill Pinar\u00E2\u0080\u0099sinspirited lecture with that title, constituting treasured conversations of reading relationsthat have become dear to me in my personal and professional life) -- and, also in English,Reading Ethnography, a book that came recommended via another academic and readingrelation (a title passed on passing in the street: fleeting, yet significant encounters withinsites littered with literacy). These two texts firmly displayed my present immersion inthinking about reading life as a teacher, a scholar, and a woman, my groundedness inissues of living pedagogy. Somewhere along the journey, in between continents, I pickedup one of the German magazines provided by Lufthansa, the German airline, and started68reading about current women\u00E2\u0080\u0099s issues, social and political commentary, relationships, andfashion trends in Brigitte: Das Magazinf\u00C3\u00BCr Frauen. I shifted between feelings ofcuriosity, comparing the writing with Canadian and American magazines I occasionallyglance through at the orthodontist when waiting for my daughter, and feelings of slightpanic, recognizing my strangeness, my unfamiliarity with many of the issues and events. Ifound myself challenged, almost exhausted by the mental -- not the purely linguistic effortsof reading the world of relationships, German style: I was out of touch with the cogentand casual outspokenness with which women, young and old, publicly discuss anythingfrom sexual preferences to career decisions to styles in clothes and art. In between, I wascarrying on a conversation, in German, with the man in the seat next to me, who had justspent a dream holiday in a fishing lodge in Northern B.C. and still could not believe thephenomenal amount and size of salmon he and his group of male friends now had stashedaway in our plane\u00E2\u0080\u0099s cargo, neatly packaged and frozen for admiring friends and relatives athome in a small town in Germany. I felt thoroughly Canadian when speaking with him,wanting to substitute salmon for Lachs, float plane coming much easier to the tip of mytongue than Wasserflugzeug, resenting the familiar gendered tone of voice of assertivemale bonding experiences and adventuring in foreign lands. I found myself wanting tospeak English with the flight attendants who politely went about serving meals and drinksin German, not for lack of linguistic knowledge but for reasons much more deeplyconnected with cultural identity crossing over into the linguistic realm. Even through Iwas very much looking forward to seeing my family, being with friends and colleaguesagain, I found myself resenting leaving behind the linguistic and cultural comfort zones inwhich I have placed myself for the past few years. What used to be my home, my mothertongue, for close to three decades of my life, does not feel entirely natural any more -- it isdifficult to re-connect, it takes work to open myself up again to a world of German, beingGerman myself despite the outward ease with which I am able to cross time zones and69continents and despite the oh so politically correct sounding Esprit ad: culturaldfferences are the strength ofhumankind (Esprit, 1993, pp. 40-4 1).On the trip back from Germany, when talking to a high school student who wassitting next to me on the plane, headed for a year\u00E2\u0080\u0099s English immersion experience in aVancouver public school, translating for her the puzzling lexical details of the CanadaCustoms form, I was struck by the memory of how, just a few years back, that comfortzone for me too resided in the other language and culture, and of how the feeling ofdisplacement had occupied my being almost entirely when I first came to Canada. Now, Iam fondly collecting postcards of the type of airplane I am traveling on to bring back tomy students, and I am composing the message I am going to write to them on the card,translating cultures and connecting places somewhere between the coasts of Scotland andGreenland, living ethnography.I recalled Gabrielle Schwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s experience of moving back and forth between Germanyand California while translating her dissertation, Entgrenzungen undEntgrenzungsmythen:\u00E2\u0080\u009CI often found myself an ethnographer in two foreign cultures. Some of the stages of thistravel are reflected in the folds and fissures created by the contact between two verydifferent cultures and historical moments\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Schwab, 1994, p. vii). Curiously, Schwabfinds the title of her dissertation \u00E2\u0080\u009Cvirtually untranslatable,\u00E2\u0080\u009D an experience that I can easilyrecreate within my own life circumstances, forever trying, for example, to translate NorthAmerican English pedagogical jargon into German in discussions with family, friends, andcolleagues.Entgrenzung is a word whose connections run from the action of the liftingboundaries -- their transgression, transformation, or expansion -- to the syncretisticexperience in which details and structures are grasped holistically. Moreover,Entgrenzungen also recalls the fragmentations and dissolutions of form andstructure prominent in modernism and post-modernism. It is a word that calls upsuch different realms of discourse as geography and geopolitics, morphology,psychoanalysis and aesthetics. To my knowledge, no English word combines all ofthese connotations and resonances. (pp. vii-viii)70Where we are from, where we are now, where we place ourselves in the landscapes ofcultural and linguistic identities constitutes an ongoing, changing process of connotations,of meaning making, of making sense of our lives and work. This chapter opens the doorsto the ethnographic exploration of the cultural encounters at work in my present place ofliving and working. For over a decade now, I have called this neighbourhood my home,my foreign home, on the second continent that I have come to (dis)place myself For thepast four-and-a-half years, I have also called this place called school in Goodlad\u00E2\u0080\u0099s(1983b) well-known phrase, in this neighbourhood my place of work, a place where mypedagogical experiences were and still are developing. In between, the school, as acommunity school, was the place where the community ties formed slowly that became alifeline of support when trying to survive as a new parent in a foreign cultural space sodifferent from my own childhood environment.My first involvement with this small community school, tucked away in the farthestnorth-east corner of the city, was through a parent group that met regularly once a weekto discuss issues of a wide and bewildering variety: They ranged from health care to childcare, from children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature to women\u00E2\u0080\u0099s rights, from compiling recipes to coordinating acultural awareness celebration. I distinctly remember feeling strange and not at all athome in this parent culture and in my role as a new community resident -- until the doorsof the schools literally opened to a whole world of complex and challenging educational,social, and cultural experiences and opportunities. Gradually, my family and I grew morefamiliar with the neighbourhood and the school, with the neighbourhood through theschool. My daughter started going to the pre-school attached and run jointly by theparents and the community school association, then to the school itself from Kindergartento grade seven. By the time she was in grade five, I was both a parent and a teacher at theschool. My own grade three class loved saying hello to Charlotte in the hallway andwelcomed her in our classroom; she became a well-known and well-liked member of our71classroom community both through my stories and by being a member of the larger schoolcommunity.I perceive my role as a teacher in much the same way as the above life/livedexperience. It constitutes the processes involved in coming to know my students as partof my world, of my cultural experience in this connected web of human relations. Fromthe beginning, I have conceived this as an ethnographic exploration in the sense of buildingbridges, of being part of the engineering, the constructing, the meaning making. As Rose\u00E2\u0080\u0099s(1990) volume on Living the ethnographic lfe expresses in its very title, we therefore canno longer subscribe to a methodology that surrenders to the current backlash mentalitythat pervades the general public, media and administrative and political decision-makingbodies. This conservative and at times reactionary attitude is anathema to a newethnographic action research paradigm. Instead, we need to engage in case studies ofparticipatory and reflective educational action. These documentations are needed, Ibelieve, in order to ward off and render ineffective the trends to take educational researchback to a passive and inert state of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cresting on the verandah.\u00E2\u0080\u009DIn a panel presentation on classroom-centred research at a recent internationalTESOL (Teachers of English as a Second or Other Language) conference, a number ofresearchers and teachers discussed various research approaches and methodologies thathave emerged within the last few years as part of the reawakened interest in \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwhat is reallygoing on in the classroom.\u00E2\u0080\u009D3 The participants stressed the importance of ethnographicaction research as a means for redefining and obtaining answers to questions arising fromday-to-day teaching and learning practices in order to create a more positive andsuccessful learning environment for all children. This questioning of practice applies toboth the critical examination of teaching and to the critical reconceptualization of researchpractices prevalent in education and other social sciences. This hegemony of educationalpower structures has often been transferred to curriculum implementation practices.However, although the descriptive, qualitative nature of ethnographic inquiry has provided72a starting point for action research approaches, especially in the methodological domainsof field observation (Clifford & Marcus, 1986), data collection (Wolcott, 1990) andautobiographical method (Pinar, 1988), its objectives have not remained entirelycompatible with more recent developments in the field of teacher research. Richard Blot,for example, in the TESOL forum mentioned earlier, accused the more traditional schoolof classroom ethnography of remaining \u00E2\u0080\u009Cat rest on the verandah,\u00E2\u0080\u009D implying that theresearcher was typically cast in the role of the participant observer, which was in fact theempathetic outsider, wanting to portray the subjects\u00E2\u0080\u0099 point-of-view and experiences, but inreality being a passive observer, removed from actually living the situation as part of hisor her professional involvement.\u00E2\u0080\u00994If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the seayou can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the sea.The waves are so big,the sand is so hard to dig.The water is so cold,but the sea is bold.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the sea.(Jordan, age 8, 05/94)For me, living the situation in multiple ways, seeing this pedagogical landscape with avariety of different eyes, those of a teacher, parent, community resident, and an immigrantwith English as a second language, has been a necessary part of the research process inorder to arrive at my present pedagogical stance. It provided the motivation, the curiosity,the sense for undertaking this endeavour in making sense of my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 livedcultural realities-- as well as the making, the act of shaping and re-shaping my identity inrelation to others. I have often questioned the sanity and the cogency of this endeavourduring the past two years of intense (pre)occupation with the students, staff andcommunity members of what has become, technically, my research site.73This process has been difficult at times. I often wondered: What about the so-calledprofessional neutrality and detachment that supposedly makes for sound and objectivejudgment? What about the comments I was warned to expect from staff and parents alongthe line of \u00E2\u0080\u009Ctoo close for comfort,\u00E2\u0080\u009D meaning that living in the neighbourhood and being ateacher researcher would create conflicts rather than encourage confidence and trust in meas a professional?Despite these perceived problems with situating myself in this complex web ofrelations, I carried on living these different roles, and I received much support along theway. I needed the challenges of stepping into new territory and re-defining pedagogicalpractice for my own environment. I have not stopped yet to do this re-(de)fining; and Iknow that every time I walk into the doors of my school and my classroom, I feel thesame kind of excited curiosity and suspense as when I first became a member of thiscommunity of inquiry; only now, it goes together with a sense of belonging, ownership,and responsibility for being part of this cultural and pedagogical landscape. With thisresponsibility in mind, I am succinctly aware of the problems related to identity in a placeof cultural pluralism:We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are: our identityresides in action and struggle. Therefore, the revelation of what we are implies thedenunciation of those who stop us from being what we can become. In definingourselves our point of departure is challenge, and struggle against obstacles.(Galeano, 1988, p. 121)This theming of identity, my own and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099, in relation to the cultural geography Iam describing and with reference to other maps -- of places and people within cultures --that have been documented in ethnographic studies, is re-occurring throughout this andthe other chapters. It is interwoven into textual layers of community, neighbourhood,school, and classroom and reflected in the folds andfissures, in Schwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words, createdby the contact of these different textual, geographical, cultural, and human relations.Through this, I hope to be able to contribute to what Ted Aoki calls74the opening up of spaces where teachers really dwell, where they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re doing theirwork, where they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re struggling. What the teachers constitute in these spaces, asthey struggle through making sense simultaneously of the curriculum-as-plannedand of the kids\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives in the classroom, is a tough game. Living in the spaces iswhat teaching is. (Hinds, 1994, p. 10)We start with the tangible, the geographical where, to find our place. We follow theplan of the curriculum oniy to discover much more than a map of topographical andcurricular variables. We discover geo-cultural and global human relationships, maps ofthe human heart (Ward, 1993) that transcend local and individual cultures of learning.Into the City: Mapping Landscapes of Linguistic and Cultural VariablesSomewhere deep within the Chinese psyche exists a highly stylized image ofparadise. It is depicted in Chinese watercolor landscapes and given life in thegardens that peaked as an art form during the Ming dynasty. The characters thatmake up the Chinese word for \u00E2\u0080\u009Clandscape\u00E2\u0080\u009D include the symbols for \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmountains\u00E2\u0080\u009Dand \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwater.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Vancouver consists of mountains and water. Vancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s typicalmood is exactly as depicted in those landscapes: watery blue grays, edged onlywhere rocks meet water.There are many people who find Vancouver pretty otherworldly. But nobodyinvests Vancouver with the mystique the Chinese bring to it. Their contributiondates from Day 1, but it is barely under way. (Rossiter, 1995, p. 70)VancouverIn Spring it sprinkles,In Summer too.In Fall it poursBuckets on you.In Winter it rainsCats and dogsFrom heavy cloudsThrough soupy fogs.All year longRain drops and dropsIn VancouverIt never stops.(Heidbreder, 1985)Across the UniverseWords are flying out like endless rainInto a paper cup,They slither wildly as they slip awayAcross the universe.Pools of sorrow, waves ofjoyAre drifting through my opened mind,Possessing and caressing me.Nothing\u00E2\u0080\u0099s gonna change my worldNothing\u00E2\u0080\u0099s gonna change my world.(Lennon & McCartney, 1970)75The two citations that deliver messages about Vancouver, one from a recentmagazine, Canadian Living, and the other a poem by local poet and teacher RobertHeidbreder, from his book Don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t eat spiders (1985), define Vancouver through its climate,through its weather. The Beatles song next to it points to the simultaneous fascination weexperience with a larger cosmic context. Many of the students in our Open Area, andespecially Jimmy, with his favourite expressions in all the universe, and \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe hole entereworld and hole universe,\u00E2\u0080\u009D frequently referred to these cosmic parameters, along with theearth and the sky as reference points when comparing and measuring objects, makingjudgments about likes and dislikes close to home, their home, Vancouver.Throughout the past two years of documenting the curriculum materials my studentshave been working with in our Open Area, landscapes with references to climaticconditions have been a frequent source of integrated input and output, initiated by bothteachers and students. The Vancouver poem, for example, served as an excellent startingpoint to discuss weather and rainy day things around town at the beginning of fall.The students were eager to participate in an art display in the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mainhallway. Centred around the poem by Robert Heidbreder, they showed off theircreativity in reproducing the Vancouver landscape featuring mountains, water,buildings, and skyline by using a technique of layering strokes of paraffin wax,gray and blue water colour washes, torn construction paper for the mountains,magazine cut-outs for the buildings, and silver tin foil pieces for raindrops.Looking at these variable landscapes all together resulted in stunning images ofchildren\u00E2\u0080\u0099s diverse perceptions of their environment. Ranging from toweringmountain-scapes to ocean-dominated views sprinkled with varying degrees ofhuman habitation, the children have created vital interpretative scenes of theinterplay between climate, nature and urban living in this local landscape.I am struck by the force of the lines in the paintings, both vertical andhorizontal but especially the horizontal ones, reminding me once again of thepostmodern image of the city on the edge, of the border mythology that comeswith this location, and of the simultaneous promise of freedom and newbeginnings it evokes: The gateway to the Pacific ... Art serves as a delightfuland effective way to represent who we are in relation to where we are,regardless of linguistic or cultural background.(Researcher Narrative, 11/05/94)76Vancouver, the largest urban centre on the Canadian West Coast, has played asignificant role in the development of Canada\u00E2\u0080\u0099s sociocultural and educational mosaic. Thetensions that have developed from the mixed streams of relationships in this urban cultureare just as visibly and vibrantly reflected in today\u00E2\u0080\u0099s human and pedagogical landscape as acentury or two ago. From very early on, the city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s climate, location, and openness firstfrom sea and then from land, through the building of the Transcontinental CanadianRailway, have made it a desirable place for immigrants from all over the world (Davis &Hutton, 1989; Robson & Breems, 1985). In a 1994 collection of essays on Vancouver:Representing the postmodern city, Paul Delany (1 994a) speaks to this distinctivegeographical situatedness with particular reference to the present cultural landscape:The rapid change and growth of this city have always been the product of externalforces: Vancouver has been discovered, developed -- colonized, some would say --by global migrations and shifts of capital. If these global powers are identified withpostmodernism, then Vancouver has become postmodern through its excessiveopenness to movements that originated elsewhere. (p. 1)Vancouver is, in multiple ways, defined by its geography as a city on and of the edge,like San Francisco, Hong Kong, or Amsterdam, illustratingthe ecological principle that the greatest variety of life-forms will be found at theboundary between different habitats. ... It is not a bullseye or spiderweb city thatextends uniformly to all points of compass, like Paris or Berlin, but a city wherefault lines pile up against each other. (p. 19)Located \u00E2\u0080\u009Cabout halfway between Europe and Asia\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Rossiter, 1995, p. 70),Vancouver is one of North America\u00E2\u0080\u0099s fastest growing cities \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwith proportionally thelargest single ethnic community of any Canadian city\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 70). It is the place where themajority of Canada\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Asian immigrants come ashore and create or join communities withcomplex ethnic and cultural patterns, settling in the inner core of the urban metropolis andin the surrounding suburbs on the road to a better life and more prosperous future. In anarticle entitled The lessons of Vancouver (Wood, 1994) in the popular Maclean\u00E2\u0080\u0099s77magazine, the author depicts the changing tide of immigration within urban educationalsettings:Because they accept 60 per cent of all immigrants, the country\u00E2\u0080\u0099s three biggest cities-- Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver -- are being most profoundly reshaped by thenewcomers from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. But if Canada has alaboratory in which its new ethnic chemistry is being most acutely tested, it issurely Vancouver. The city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s position as a magnet for Asian immigrants meansthat change there has been most far-reaching. In typically Canadian fashion,established (mainly white) Vancouverites have for the most part expressed theirconcerns only in guarded fashion. But the changes are so profound that even manywho regard themselves as liberal are bound to ask themselves: Is it all going tooquickly? Is the city I knew being transformed into something alien? Will mychildren be well served by schools increasingly geared to serving youngsters whosegreatest need is simply to learn English? (p. 27)Rossiter (1995) predicts that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe Chinese will soon make up one-quarter of thepopulation of Greater Vancouver and they have created a cultural stir that reverberatesthroughout the city\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 70). It seems ironic to this author that the Chinese contributionsto building this city and province are being recognized only now:Chinese capital is building the Vancouver of tomorrow on the old Canadian PacificRailway (CPR) yards along the north shore of False Creek. Chinese laborextended the CPR to the site of Vancouver, giving the city its reason to be. Theworkers, many of whom died for the project that united this country, areConfederation\u00E2\u0080\u0099s unsung heroes. Their reward? To be exiles, voteless until 1947and unrepresented until 1982 when Bill Yee stormed city council. (p. 70)Max Wyman, in Vancouverforum: Oldpowers, newforces (1992b) elaborates on thistheme of the changing image and reality of this city by assigning this present decade of the90s a crucial role in the process of redefining and reorienting the city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s directions:We are witnessing what appears to be the radical disintegration of an establishedcultural order, with all the social chaos such disintegration can bring. ... On oneside are the old powers and anchors -- the Eurocentric thrust that, in the form oftwo colonizing cultures, helped construct modern Canada; the residual isolationism(even in an era of international communications of unprecedented speed and ease)of a city on the far side of the mountains from the centre of national politicalcontrol; the lingering reluctance to embrace change in a city that is still without asure sense of itself, and the reawakening powers of the region\u00E2\u0080\u0099s first people. On78the other are the new tugs and forces-- a burgeoning immigrant population,primarily from the Pacific Rim; the siren call of the new Pacific as the panacea forour economic ills; a new awareness of the importance of that rising indigenousvoice; and that old wish-myth, the dream -- surely, we tell ourselves, as close as ithas ever been -- of Vancouver finally taking its rightful place as a player on theworld stage (Wyman, 1994a, pp. 10-1 1).This \u00E2\u0080\u009Cold wish-myth\u00E2\u0080\u009D of becoming a \u00E2\u0080\u009Cplayer on the world stage\u00E2\u0080\u009D evokes images of theHollywood North reputation that Vancouver is fast acquiring as a place where reality isbeing redefined by the movie industry from Southern California (Miller, 1994). Thisexpression, once again, conjures up the curious Canadian dualism of north and south andreminds us of the other myth associated with this northern place, that of The True NorthStrong and Free and the associations of political, economic, and sociocultural power inrelation with people (Shields, 1991). Today, more even than in earlier times ofcolonization and immigration, the northern part of the map faces strong competition fromthe pull of the South with its \u00E2\u0080\u009Cadvanced\u00E2\u0080\u009D patterns of urban civilization. Scenes such as theone from the film Map of the Human Heart (Ward, 1993), which draws a portrait of thehopeless struggle of the Innuit against the inevitable White conquest of the CanadianNorth by tracing the pervasive imprint of the map maker from Montreal, are hard toimagine in this laid-back West Coast temperate climate. Yet, images such as the oneMargaret Atwood evokes, proclaiming that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe north is at the back of our minds, always.There\u00E2\u0080\u0099s something, not someone, looking over our shoulders; there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a chill at the nape ofthe neck. The north focuses our anxieties.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Atwood, 1987, p. 143; as quoted in Shields,1991, p. 167). Instead, to escape this cold northern place, Canadians today cast theirglance toward the South and the East; to the fare of the Southwest and Mexico, to theexotic flavours of the oriental Pacific Rim that spice up the menus of trendy restaurantsand businesses. The dualistic nature of this geomancy is expressed in the contrast between\u00E2\u0080\u009CThe Canadian Tradition,\u00E2\u0080\u009D an established image of northern landscape and human dwelling79therein, and the postmodern plurality of chiasmatic influences and traditions that denies thevalidity of one single tradition:\u00E2\u0080\u009CThe Canadian Tradition\u00E2\u0080\u009D involved enduring snow and fearing wolves, and leanedtoward Frye\u00E2\u0080\u0099s picture of Protestant enclaves in the landscape deep freeze. Fromthe west edge, at least, it is not hard to see that such unitary myth-making isexclusionary. What did it say to a person such as Roy Kiyooka, whose father stoodon whales in the winter rain of the Northern B.C. coast.(Bowering, 1994, p. 135)If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the P.N.E.,you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the P.N.E.The rides are so long,they will go to Hong Kong.The candy is so yummy,it feels good in my tummy.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the P.N.E.(Roy, age 7, 5/94)Yet, this chiasmatic dichotomy is a defining characteristic of the landscapes thatsurround us. No longer can we claim this city, Vancouver, as a homogenous or separateentity. It has become a divergent and heterogeneous set of references to diverse groups ofpeople. Shields (1991) reminds us thatplaces or regions only mean something only in relation to other places as aconstellation of meanings, that is, the North makes sense only with reference toother regions: the \u00E2\u0080\u0098urban jungle,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 the southern agricultural fringe, or thecommodified consumer landscape of Toronto\u00E2\u0080\u0099s suburban strip developments. Theimages are oriented towards each other in a mutually supporting dialogicalexchange. (Bakhtin, 1984, pp. 10-12; as quoted in Shields, 1991, p. 199)It is indeed telling of the interrelatedness and interdisciplinary approach which culturalgeographers have started to pursue that the author here likens this phenomenon in culturalgeography and geomancy to the literary and linguistic processes described in Bakhtin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s(1981) work on The dialogic imagination. I am reminded of the dialogue my studentsspontaneously created in response to the poetry of Dave Bouchard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Ifyou\u00E2\u0080\u0099re notfrom the80prairie (1993), such as Jordan\u00E2\u0080\u0099s poem about B.C.\u00E2\u0080\u0099s oceanic landscape or Zelda\u00E2\u0080\u0099s responseto the book\u00E2\u0080\u0099s prairie images with memories from her own childhood experience,remembering the prairies as a cold, wintry place:If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from the prairiesyou don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the sunyou can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the sunDiamonds that bounce off crisp winter snow,Warm waters in dugouts and lakes that we know.The sun is our friend from when we are young,A child of the prairie is part of the sun.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from the prairie,You don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the sun.(Bouchard, 1993, p. 6)If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from Winnipegyou don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the snow,you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the snow.The snow is so cold,you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll wear gloves when you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re told.You wouldn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t go without your hat,it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s very hard to get fat.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from Winnipegyou don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the snow.(Zelda, age 8, 5/94)These comparisons and the tensionality surfacing in these descriptions also strike apersonal note. Mapping Vancouver indeed brings back memories of prior experiences:documenting, collecting variables of speech through interviews with people who grew upin Vancouver, genuine Vancouverites, writing research papers on the English spoken herein this Northern place, influenced by its large Southern neighbour, the United States, withits American English, and its overseas British and French linguistic heritage (Hasebe-Ludt,1981, 1986a, 1986b). In this context of Canadian English, a socio-dialectal mixture ofBritish and American English and a linguistic variety in its own right (Gregg, 1984;81DeWolf 1992; McConnell, 1978), I was also analyzing historical, sociocultural, andsociopolitical influences that shaped the unique idiolect of this city. Vancouver: a city onthe edge, on the rim, the Pacific Rim, influenced by the mixtures of cultures and languagesbrought to its shore from distant continents. East Vancouver in particular, loosely definedas east of Main Street, demonstrates, in the words of residents of this part of town whoput together a book on Families ofEast Vancouver: Our multicultural neighbourhood(Tse, Olgui, & Klassen, 1988) a great diversity of culture and \u00E2\u0080\u009Coffers us a wonderfulopportunity to see the world\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. v).Vancouver, British Columbia, plays a central role as the largest city of this Canadianprovince. Naming Vancouver: an English captain from a country that continues to have astronghold in many of the names of places in this city and province: British Columbia,make no mistake ... What does it mean for someone of German linguistic and ethnic originand citizenship (now with a European Community passport) to be writing a dissertation atthe University of British Columbia, in English (mostly -- with a spattering of other TndoEuropean variables represented) on the mixed cultural influences of the children sheteaches in Vancouver (mostly of Asian heritage) while at the same time raising a daughterwhose first language is English and whose heritage, through her father\u00E2\u0080\u0099s family, isJapanese-Canadian (fourth generation Canadian, yonsei, make no mistake), Germanthrough her mother\u00E2\u0080\u0099s.Make no mistake...? In many ways, my own daughter is a representative of thestudents in our schools -- of the present, past, and future generations of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmixed-up hybridkids,\u00E2\u0080\u009D in Ted Aoki\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words, positioned in the midst of continents, homelands, languages,cultures, and histories (Aoki, 1995). In grade two, she learned about how people in otherparts of the world live through a letter exchange her teacher had set up with a twin class inthe Philippines. Together with a friend, she was interviewed and, showing the photoalbum with pictures the class received from their pen pals, told how \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthey make housesout of strong bamboo and wood, and they move them from place to place with sticks.\u00E2\u0080\u009D82Watching herself on video almost ten years later, she remembers this learning experiencewell. Laughing, she comments: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWell, I sure knew what I was talking about!\u00E2\u0080\u009DCHORUS OF NISEIS:Home, we discover, is where life is:Not Manitoba\u00E2\u0080\u0099s wheatOntario\u00E2\u0080\u0099s walled citiesnor a B.C. fishing fleet.Home is something more than harbour --than father, mother, sons;Home is the white face leaning over your shoulderAs well as the darker ones.Home is labour, with the hand and heart,The hard doing, and the rest when done;A wider sea than we knew, a deeper earth,A more enduring sun.(Livesay, 1993, p. 78)In an essay entitled The future of Vancouver education (Kilian, 1992), the authorrefers to the images of geography and climate, to glaciers and weather, in particular, todescribe this city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s pedagogical landscape. He describes our local schools as part of achanging landscape, locally responding, like a glacier, to general climatic conditions:education in Vancouver depends largely on influences far beyond the boundariesof School District 39. Political decisions made in Ottawa or Beijing may trigger acrisis at Magee Secondary. Falling stumpage revenues may doom a new artsprogram in inner-city elementary schools. Birthrates in Quebec in the 1 960s maymake French-immersion teachers for L\u00E2\u0080\u0099Ecole Bilingue hard to find in the 1990s.(Kilian, 1992, p. 125)With both the increasing accessibility and emphasis on connections to the Pacific Rim,Vancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s schools indeed visibly display the influence of immigration from this geopolitical domain. At present, over half of Vancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s students speak English as a secondor other language, and of that number, the majority are from Pacific Rim countries(Farrow, 1994). Since Vancouver is still the largest urban school district in the province83of British Columbia, and \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwith almost ten percent of the province\u00E2\u0080\u0099s children living in thisone district, Vancouver does indeed create much of B.C. \u00E2\u0080\u0098s educational weather.\u00E2\u0080\u009D15Linked with the challenges of a multicultural student population are sociopolitical andsocioeconomic factors that in turn influence the attitudes of those who are in the businessof educating these children from many cultures. We have seen many valid attempts todocument and condemn historical incidents of prejudice and racism, overt or disguised,that have occurred in the past, and we have been eager to bring discriminatory practicesinto the light of day through factual accounts, such as Mary Ashworth\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1988) poignantportraits of immigrant children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s plight in the British Columbia school system, KenAdachi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s book on the Japanese Canadian experience (1976), Robson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and Breems\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (1985)study of racism toward Indo-Canadians in South Vancouver, entitled Ethnic conflict inVancouver, to name only a few. Among the various fictional portraits that have arisen outof these cultures at work, there is SKY Lee\u00E2\u0080\u0099s powerful novel about four generations ofChinese Canadian women, Disappearing Moon Cafe (1990), as well as many shortstories, essays, and autobiographical pieces such as Keepfighting by Shyrose Jaffer inHome and Homeland (Fanning & Goh, 1993), and Anne Jew\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Everyone talked loudly inChinatown (1994). And we like to congratulate ourselves, in this age of politicalcorrectness, for having overcome these barriers of race through policies ofmulticulturalism and anti-racist action plans. Yet, when scrutinized carefully, many ofthese policies in fact reveal either a superficial treatment or a pervasive \u00E2\u0080\u0098band aid\u00E2\u0080\u0099 approachto solving the problems that occur in our schools in connection with racism (Fisher &Echols, 1989; Department of Social Planning, 1987). In addition, as revealed by the manypowerful personal narratives of minority students, such as the elaborate published ones byGeorge Littlechild (1993) or Joy Kogawa (1986), or the not-so polished yet equallyhonest and painful ones by students in everyday classrooms, racism is not a phenomenonof the past at all but rather a part of some of our students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and teachers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 daily lifeexperiences in this very city and province. A recent article by a student teacher, entitled84Racism, in spite ofmulticulturalism and published in the B.C. Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s FederationTeacher magazine, includes the following comment:1Go back to Hong Kong where you came from!\u00E2\u0080\u009D This has been said to me severaltimes in my 24 years of life. Ironically, I am not even Chinese -- I am Japanese.But this fact does not matter, because \u00E2\u0080\u009Call Orientals look alike anyway.\u00E2\u0080\u009D I still feelthe sting of these words just as much as if I were Chinese, because of the obvioushatred with which these words are spoken. Am I bitter? Yes and no. I hold nogrudges toward these people; I feel sorry for them because I realize that theirwords are spoken out of ignorance of human equality. What I am bitter about isthat I live in a country with an unprecedented multiculturalism policy, a countrythat is proud of its efforts to combat racism, yet a country where racism isrampant. (Yamashiro, 1994, p. 11)In this city that claims the second largest Chinatown on the North American continentnext to San Francisco and whose suburban areas, such as Richmond, Surrey, andCoquitlam, are experiencing an unprecedented influx of Asian immigrants, racism toward\u00E2\u0080\u009COrientals\u00E2\u0080\u009D is indeed on the rise. The wealthy Hong Kong Chinese buyers, in particular,who are significant players on the real estate market are facing resentment from thegeneral public through the popular press:In contrast to newcomers in previous decades, most of whom arrived with littlemoney and a humble willingness to accept whatever work was offered, many ofthose who now come to the city, particularly the roughly one-fifth of them whoarrive from Hong Kong, possess both wealth and high expectations. Both asinvestors and consumers, their presence has profoundly visible consequences.(Wood, 1994, p. 28)Overseas money, for instance, is changing the looks of urban and suburban streetsthrough the construction of new condominiums, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmonster houses,\u00E2\u0080\u009D Asian supermarketsand shopping malls.Vancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s condominium boom not only buffered the city from recession, it mayin time save farmland and mountains from being paved. That many of the units ithas produced are owned by people overseas strikes many as worrisome. Thenagain, who else is willing to shell out the highest prices in the country to keep openthe possibility of someday living on these blessed shores? Some Chinese areproperty-tax payers years before they ever arrive in Canada. (Rossiter, 1995, p.70)85Educational institutions are also visibly changing with the increasing presence ofAsian faces around the school yards, being dropped off in expensive Mercedes, BMWsand Volvos, especially in suburban areas such as Richmond but even in areas that wereoriginally part of the urban immigrant \u00E2\u0080\u009Cghetto,\u00E2\u0080\u009D such as Strathcona, or in previously solidworking class neighbourhoods, such as Mount Pleasant and Vancouver Heights (Marlatt& Itter, 1979). The changes in each one of these neighbourhoods reflect the varyingdegrees of ethnic clustering that have always been a part of the consecutive waves ofVancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s immigration history.Into the neighbourhood: Changing CommunityThe twentieth century\u00E2\u0080\u0099s technological miracles produced an incredibly shrinkingworld that has made us all one neighborhood, separated only by a phone call, a fewhours\u00E2\u0080\u0099 flight, or a tv screen. Even in the most far-flung areas of our neighborhood,people wear the same adver-t-shirts, the same running shoes, and hear the samestories told around the televised campfire. (Walker, 1990, p. vii)Erin: This is Jeffrey\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Green-Ranger toy. That he took out for reces!Teacher: Yes, I saw Jeffrey\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Green Ranger toy toy at recess! You drew itwell! (Erin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journal, 10/12/94).Erin: For the next few days I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m going to draw Power Rangers!Teacher: You\u00E2\u0080\u0099re good at drawing Power Rangers! (01/13/95)Erin: This is the white-Ranger. Gues how many you think are left!Teacher: I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m going to guess: three? (10/16/95)Erin: This is the Pink Ranger. how many are left?Teacher: Well, how about two? (01/17/95)Erin: This is the Blue Ranger. Guess how many are left?Teacher: Two?Erin: No!86Teacher: Do you watch Power Rangers very often? (01/18/95)Erin: Today I am doing two Power Rangers.Teacher: Your yellow Power Ranger is impressive! (01/19/95)Erin: Guess how many are left?Teacher: Is this the last Power Ranger for the last page of your journal?Erin: Yes! (01/25/95)During the past few years, an increasing number of authors, educators, politicians,sociologists, and of other creeds, have expressed their growing concerns with the rapidand unprecedented changes in social structures that keep accumulating on the world\u00E2\u0080\u0099sshoulders -- and with it, the world\u00E2\u0080\u0099s children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s bodies and souls-- at the end of this century(Kolbenschlag, 1988). Along with a renewed interest in understanding what seems to be afundamental need for forming and affirming community, we are witnessing a surge ofwritings about alternative ways of creating communities that reflect these differentemerging sociocultural patterns and point toward possible new contexts and constructs ofcommunities of the future (Laclau, 1991; Wiggington, 1989). Notions of communities ashomogeneous entities, united by common backgrounds and characteristics of their groupmembers, apply in few instances only to today\u00E2\u0080\u0099s culturally and ethnically diverse societies(Hasebe-Ludt, Dufl & Leggo, 1995).Just as in the larger societal context, local exemplars of communities are undergoingrapid changes, experiencing crises and, perhaps, attempting to redefine their constitutingelements, their goals, and memberships. The community surrounding Franklin CommunitySchool is but one of these: It has changed demographically within the last few decades andis currently in the process of re-shaping with respect to the people and places that form itssubstance. In previous decades, from early in this century on, this east endneighbourhood, Vancouver Heights, named after its elevated hill-top location at the verynorth-eastern periphery of the city, close to the Second Narrows Bridge, overlooking the87North Shore Mountains and the downtown harbourside, was predominantly a workingclass area with many immigrant families of European ethnic origin, such as Italian,Scandinavian, and British, together with a few Asian single men, especially Japanese andChinese, working on the waterfront in the fishing industry, canneries and sawmills (TheWorking Lives Collective, 1985). Gradually, the area became more of an extension of thefirst truly multicultural neighbourhood around Strathcona, which developed into the centreof Chinese and Japanese community activity (Marlatt & Itter, 1979). As more Asianimmigrants and second-generation Oriental families settled in the Vancouver Heights areaand contributed to the multicultural character of the neighbourhood delineated by CassiarStreet and the Pacific National Enterprises (P.N.E.) grounds to the west, Boundary Roadto the east, Adanac Street to the south, and the waterfront to the north, a shift to a moresolid residential character occurred. In the following decades, a distinctly moremulticultural character ofEast Vancouver, and of its far north-east corner respectively,developed, still with a European racial pattern, but with fewer Anglo-Saxon names on theschool register. Instead, the communities and neighbourhoods became more ethnicallydiverse with more Italian, Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian names in the city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s directoriesand school records:Some of the earliest immigrant children were from European countries. I hadstudents from Norway and Sweden. No one had heard of English as a secondlanguage programs. All I did was speak slowly and repeat and enunciate words.And I made sure the children didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t gang up on the new students.(Gosbee & Dyson, 1988, p. 97)One of the present teachers at Franklin School who actually grew up in thisneighbourhood and went to the school during the 60s, remembers the neighbourhood aspredominantly occupied by people from a mixed European Caucasian heritage. A lot ofItalian first generation immigrant families made up the core group of this working classresidential area. Her family was one of them, with strong connections to the neighbouringfamilies. She recollects that she can remember only one friend from a different, non88Caucasian background, namely Japanese, and remembers being fascinated by the customsand objects in her friend\u00E2\u0080\u0099s home when she was invited over. \u00E2\u0080\u009CI wanted my own mother todo things like that toou (Teacher Interview, Bella, 06/95). All her other friends wereItalian like herself or at least from Caucasian homes.Other interviews with community residents also revealed a strong sense ofneighbourhood that seems to run like a continuous stream through generations. Theschool secretary grew up in this neighbourhood and raised her own children here. Someof the present Franklin parents also grew up in the neighbourhood or at least hadgrandparents whom they remember visiting.At the same time, there was conflict between home and school culture. For Bella, themessage that everybody in her peer group read very clearly was that her home culture wasnot valued at school. Often, the Italian immigrant children had to repeat a grade becausethey were not \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccatching up\u00E2\u0080\u009D fast enough with their English. The Anglo-Saxon English-speaking children and the curriculum that was catering to their background only was thestandard everybody else had to aspire to. She remembers, when coming back to Franklinas a teacher, how the memory of her own schooling was a vivid picture in her mind:Looking at the school ... when I walked up those front steps, when I got this jobhere in 1989, I still remember the feeling of it being a big cold school. And whenI walked into the principal\u00E2\u0080\u0099s office, I remembered that you never went into thegym unless you were allowed to. When you were allowed to go in there, it wasa big, big event, and they had a film, and the whole gym would be full ofchildren, and it was foreboding. And I was on the top floor here, and Iremember everything about it being big. This was when I was in grade one.(Teacher Interview, Bella, 06/95)Bella also remembers this place, Vancouver Heights, as a safe place to grow up in, aneighbourhood where children would play freely in the street together for long hours,where there was a community of families who helped each other through the manyhardships that immigration brought with it. Especially the women, who often had to workoutside the home for a living, experienced the complex stresses of working and raising a89family in a foreign culture but also within the constraints of the traditional Europeanpatriarchal family structure. Bella remembers that her mother made a special effort tospeak English rather than Italian to her children.My parents, just like a lot of other parents, worked; they worked very hard,because they all .... Now, you have both parents working; well, then, I think, insome ways it was harder, years ago, because the mother was working, but alsothey had the stress of all the factors that were prevalent at that time, you know,trying to find a job because you just immigrated, the language, for instance,trying to help your children because you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t have the knowledge that theyneed. So that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s why everybody depended on children in the neighbourhood.And there was a lot more interaction in the family.(Teacher Interview, Bella, 06/95)Despite the discontinuity between school and home, it seems that there was alwaysthe security of community in the neighbourhood, of parents helping each other out,children having a secure home and being welcomed in each others\u00E2\u0080\u0099 homes, and thereassuring knowledge that within this ethnic community, you could always rely on others.In contrast, the picture at school was different, and there was no connection betweenthose two worlds. Immigrant parents wanted their children to do well at all costs in theestablished school system but, as Bella remembers, there was no involvement by her orother parents in the school:My parents couldn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t ... you know ... When it came to the teacher: \u00E2\u0080\u009CIs she doingwell? If not, well, we\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll make sure she does, make her study at home.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Thatwas the way it was, and the teacher, you listened, no matter what. There wereno questions, nobody went in to question anything.(Teacher Interview, Bella, 06/95)Similarly, one of the present Franklin parents, who is also of Italian background,remembers her experiences as an immigrant child and reflects on how these memories haveshaped her own parenting:Immigrant children are different than kids that are raised here with anunderstanding of the system. Immigrant kids are the bridge for their parents.You may, as an immigrant child, have a lot of responsibility because yourparents telling: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWe have sacrificed to come over here so you have a bettereducation,\u00E2\u0080\u009D and I recall some of the times when I had to figure out things that90were way beyond my years, right, like \u00E2\u0080\u009CFind Jimmy Jones in the phone book\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CWell, Dad, there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a million ...\u00E2\u0080\u009C \u00E2\u0080\u009CWell, what do I send you to school for?\u00E2\u0080\u009D A lotof immigrant kids, they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re supported, but it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s also, you get thrust into thisresponsibility a lot sooner because you are the bridge for them. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s not a veryhappy ... it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s too sad.I made a big mistake, and that was not to speak Italian at home, bigmistake, my husband and I. And the reason I did that -- because I rememberthinking: \u00E2\u0080\u009CI want her to excel in understanding the English words.\u00E2\u0080\u009D That was abig mistake, and so I enhanced ... I mean I made ... she\u00E2\u0080\u0099d always ask for biggerwords, right, because when I was a child, I walked around with a dictionary ingrade five, I bought myself a Webster\u00E2\u0080\u0099s dictionary, I still have it, this big thickthing, because my parents could never explain to me words that were ... wordsthat for other people were common, everyday, but not for me, I didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t use themin my home, it was only at the school, so I didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t understand a lot of things, right,it wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t explained to me. So I swore that ... the confusion inside of me, thinkingmy child would never have that problem, she would understand these words,perhaps even more words than she really should at her age. That was amistake. If I could go back now, I would enhance, I would still, you know, keepup with the reading and teach her bigger words, but I would certainly havespoken to her in Italian. She understands all of Italian, however, because mymother speaks Italian, but she will not speak it: \u00E2\u0080\u009CI\u00E2\u0080\u0099m Canadian. Yes, I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m Italian,but I am Canadian first.\u00E2\u0080\u009D I wanted her also to have that pride of beingCanadian, that she\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Canadian-born, but I made a big mistake. And now I dorealize, no, I should have spoken in Italian at home with my husband. Butbecause we all, when we grow older, try to patch up what happened to us aslittle children, right, we make a mistake, we always are healing that inner childthat\u00E2\u0080\u0099s always there. (Parent Interview, Elena, 04/95)This story reminds us of the power of our past experiences, of how present realitiesand actions are informed and constructed by prior histories, both personal andsociocultural and sociopolitical. This place, Vancouver Heights, has been and still is aplace of such histories and of contrasts, a place on the margin, as Shields (1991) wouldsay, socio-geographically constructed, bordered by major thoroughfares and bodies ofwater. Yet it also is a place of openness to the next shore, with its closeness to the TransCanada Highway and a major bridge, connecting it to the rest of the country in all fourdirections:Drifting, he thought of driving through Vancouver\u00E2\u0080\u0099s East End, all the way throughto the Second Narrow\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Bridge, which killed eighteen men in its making andthrows itself so gracefully on to the further shore. Charlie thought of the northernabutment of the bridge, where roads incline east and west and north. Here thetraveler could choose, could even choose to describe a loop and turn back again.(Flood, 1992, p. 104)91However, far from being able to turn back the time to a more cohesive type ofneighbourhood, the marginality of and within the neighbourhood began to manifest itselfin different ways. Starting from the 70s, when the transiency rate of the populationseemed to climb as a general result of a new immigration wave, the Vancouver Heightsarea also experienced a higher rate of new immigrants and, with it, short-term occupantsand transients. As documentation by Fillipoff (1978) shows, the many problems surfacingat that time in the Hastings-Sunrise school board administrative sector (together withGrandview-Woodlands part of the former so-called North East Sector), were mostlyrelated to socioeconomic and sociocultural factors.The teachers from the North East section of Vancouver had identified a number ofsocial, economic and political problems existing in the areas served by theirschools. They linked these problems directly to the educational problems of thechildren in these schools. The paramount problem as they perceived it was thatmany of the children did not speak English. The problem was compounded by thefact that the children also came from a variety of cultural backgroundscharacterized by values and mores not fully understood by the teachers. Theteachers also felt that the children in the public schools of the North East Sector ofVancouver were not receiving equal educational opportunities despite the fact thatthere was the same pupil-teacher ratio for all students in Vancouver.The problem was one of reducing or eliminating differences in schools in theVancouver School District. The social concern with group inequalities arose froman interest in social justice and the need to make up for differences in environments(Fillipofl 1978, pp. 1-2).Franklin School, established in 1912, was an example of these east side schools thatare described here.\u00E2\u0080\u00996 Some of the problems that Fillipoff and others (Barman,Sutherland, & Wilson, 1995) list as typical facing education in the first half of this centuryin this area were poverty and, along with it, poor health and hygiene standards in thehomes of those children attending schools. Often, economic necessity overruled schoolattendance, with the result that many children in this part of town had to work rather thanget an education or at least have part-time jobs while still at primary school age. Eventhough this latter problem seems to exist to a much lesser degree, the other factors listed92are still as real today as they were half a century ago. In addition, a pattern of racism andovert discrimination that emerged in the early decades of immigration still haunts today\u00E2\u0080\u0099seducation system:For children of non-Anglo-Saxon background, school life could be particularlystressful. Not only did different groups not socialize outside of school, in somecases they were openly hostile in school A Chinese Canadian pupil of the mid-twenties remembers always walking to school in a group of protection againstwhite children. Moreover, many immigrant children were expected to go to schooltwice each day, the second time for two or three hours in the late afternoon orevening to study their native language and culture. Thus, not surprisingly, it wasnot until the late twenties that virtually all Vancouver children were completing aprimary education. (Barman, 1985, p. 119)Nowadays, the Vancouver Heights area is becoming less affordable for low incomefamilies; the steadily climbing real estate market is attracting a more affluent group ofyoung families as first-time home buyers. Next to the existing subsidized cooperativehousing development, referred to as \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe co-op\u00E2\u0080\u009D by everybody, a more upscalecondominium development with two- and three-bedroom units is just starting to beconstructed and will impact on the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s future numbers. The area on the southern sideof Hastings Street, as well as the few blocks immediately surrounding this maj orthoroughfare differ considerably from their northern counterpart in that they have a muchmore transient character, with more rental housing and basement suites, particularlycatering to students from nearby Simon Fraser University for whom the nearby major busloop provides convenient transportation access in all directions.Along the northern expanse, between the school and the harbour front, stretch blocksof residences along streets with solidly British names such as Oxford, Cambridge, andTrinity. There, a mixture of charming old wooden frame houses exists rather comfortablyalong with a spattering of upscale, newly renovated or newly constructed residences builtwith large window and deck spaces to take advantage of the view of mountains and waterthat the Heights offers. More young families that can afford this investment are moving93into the neighbourhood and are planning to stay here to raise their children. Planned forthe near future, with construction already started, is a new condominium project, next tothe subsidized housing co-op. with three-bedroom complexes catering to a more upscalemarket of young families, professional couples or single residents. However, once again,as one of the parents notices, there is another change visible right next to this moreaffluent trend:But I noticed lately that the neighbourhood has got more transients, I see a lot ofit, you know, I get around in the neighbourhood, and I notice a big difference.(Parent Interview, Dan, 05/95)Another couple, parents and community residents, who grew up in the Prairies ofCaucasian heritage, commented on the benefits for their children of living in aneighbourhood with a mixed socioeconomic and sociocultural grouping. They believe itgives them a much richer exposure to the reality of our multicultural society.In the midst of these demographic changes, we find the school, perched on a slightlyinclined slope just one block from the major traffic zones, yet somehow remote andserenely unaffected by its noise, with a breathtaking view from the western classroomwindows to the ocean, the mountains, the downtown business core, and the vast greenexpanse of Stanley Park.Into the School: Mixed Blessings of Diversity and PlaceIt is a lazy Saturday morning and Charlotte Hasebe-Ludt, an engaging 8-year-oldwith an infectious, toothy grin, is playing hopscotch with a couple of friends. Thegirls are skipping about the grounds at Sir John Franklin community school, atypical 1929 brick structure in a quiet, working class corner of Vancouver. Whatdo they think of Franklin? \u00E2\u0080\u009CIt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a cool school,\u00E2\u0080\u009D says one girl. \u00E2\u0080\u009CAnd they\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve gotgood teachers here\u00E2\u0080\u009D Charlotte adds. (Knickerbocker, 1989, p. 52e)Before I became one of those teachers in this school, I experienced it from a parent\u00E2\u0080\u0099sperspective. In an interview on parental choices of schooling for a local magazine, Nancy94Knickerbocker, the writer of the above excerpt, spent some time with my family andconcluded thatErika and her husband Ken, a Japanese Canadian, reviewed their priorities: bothfelt strongly that Charlotte should attend a school with a broad racial and linguisticmix; philosophically, they were drawn to the Waldorf schools, which are based onthe work of Rudolf Steiner They both wanted a school fairly close to theirhome (\u00E2\u0080\u009CIt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really important for children to have their friends close by,\u00E2\u0080\u009D says Erika).The nearest Waldorf school was too far. So they settled on Franklin, which has agood variety of ethnic groups and is close to their home. \u00E2\u0080\u009CI don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t expect it to beperfect, but I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t see a better alternative than the public schools at the moment.\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Knickerbocker, 1989, p. 52e)Only after re-reading the account of this interview from several years ago, I realizedhow important the schooling experience of my daughter was for my own choices inprofessional development. When my daughter was in grade one, I started thinking aboutswitching from research in linguistics to teaching in the public school system with a focuson multicultural education. My experiences as a parent volunteer in my daughter\u00E2\u0080\u0099sclassroom gave me a first glimpse into the reality of multicultural education. I rememberbeing fascinated by the multi-ethnic diversity in this little neighbourhood school, and I wasimpressed by the enthusiasm with which my daughter\u00E2\u0080\u0099s grade two teacher promoted andput into action a curriculum that encouraged respect and cooperation of students frommany different cultural backgrounds as well as learning about other cultures around theglobe. When I started looking at the possibilities of working within a school system thatpromotes and practices multicultural and multilingual education, this very teacher, myconversations with her, in which she shared her knowledge and involvement with anti-racist curricular development, influenced my choice in my own future pedagogicaldevelopment.I was extremely excited when I discovered that the University of British Columbiaoffered an education degree with a specific focus on multicultural and minority education.I felt that my background in linguistics and my love of languages could benefit my future95teaching in such an environment. I had no idea then how much I had to learn, not onlyabout educational practice, but also about the political dimensions of school systems andpedagogical power struggles. Years later, reading the following comment on the historicalrole of schools in Vancouver, I realized that not quite as much I had naively presumed haschanged in the pedagogical landscape since the early days of this urban settlement, otherthan perhaps with regard to the Lord\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Prayer -- and that only fairly recently (Norman,1995).Schools were a focus of community life for many residents. Those built beforeWorld War I were usually impressive brick monuments to the formality andhierarchy of both education and society; the single-storey sprawling structures of alater period testified not only to concerns about fire hazards but to a moreprogressive and liberal spirit abroad among educators. Children in any case oftenfound their curriculum foreign to their experience. The Lord\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Prayer with whichfor so many years the day commenced could speak little, if at all, to many students.Elementary school texts, which ignored the contributions of Indians, the workingclass and women, likewise failed to help students understand their lives. Yet forsome, education did open doors beyond the cramped world of the city, andconsiderable sacrifices were often made in return for that knowledge.(Strong-Boag, 1985, p. 95)This latter statement was particularly and painfully true for the families of immigrantchildren who had come to this city with the hope for a better future, a better education forthe next generation. Instead, as has been documented widely, overt racism anddiscrimination were a daily item on the menu of Vancouver public education (Ashworth,1979, Gosbee & Dyson, 1988; Marlatt & Itter, 1979).Despite free public education, the experience of schooling has not been the samefor all Vancouver children. Only at the very first school at Hastings Mill did all theyoung come together in a single classroom: Indian and Kanaka with white, thechildren of mill employees beside those of its manager. But with the arrival of therailroad, Vancouver became a city of neighbourhoods differentiated by socioeconomic status. The children of working people congregated together in theirown schools in the city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s east side. (Barman, 1985, p. 119)96If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the schools,you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the schools.The schools are so big,but I can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t bring my pig.They are full of great kidswho often flip their lids.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B. C.you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the schools.(Carry, age 8, 05/94)East Vancouver Schools, traditionally magnets for immigrant children of the lowersocioeconomic groups, vary from so-called inner city schools that deal with poverty andchildren at risk in many other ways on a daily basis to schools almost solidly attended bystudents from one particular ethnic group, such as some schools in the south east sectorwith predominantly Indo-Canadian ethnic profiles.The school I describe more closely in the following pages is only one of theapproximately fifty schools on the city\u00E2\u0080\u0099s east-side. It is, within the various perimetersoutlined in the previous sections, situated within a socio-geographical context that meansmany things to many people from many cultures -- yet, it is at the same time unique in itsown situatedness and place within the geo-cultural and socio-historical parameters thathave shaped just one school (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 1989).Located in what has come to be, once again, one of the more stable residential pockets inthe east side of this city, it has been influenced by local, national, and global developmentsof a demographic, economic, and sociopolitical nature that I have attempted to sketchabove.The approximately 280 students from Kindergarten to grade seven who call thisschool their school come from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, making this learningenvironment an example of the ever-expanding multicultural nature of Canadian society, ademographic trend that is becoming more typical for countries all around the world(Moodley, 1992). Since its beginning, Franklin School\u00E2\u0080\u0099s student population as well as the97neighbourhood it is nestled in have always been a true \u00E2\u0080\u0098cultural mosaic,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 representing a mixof Canada\u00E2\u0080\u0099s many ethnic minorities as well as a good proportion of the English-speakingWhite Anglo-Saxon majority group. Within approximately the last decade, the generalshift from European to Asian immigrant children as representatives of the minorities hasbeen remarkably visible in the yearly school pictures proudly displayed in the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099sentrance way.What has changed hardly at all, however, in over fifty years, is the teaching staff inthis multi-ethnic community school: The faces of the teachers and other staff steadilyremain White Anglo-Saxon. This contrast, which can be witnessed over and over again inthe majority of North American schools (Dean, 1989), bears powerful testimony to theracial dominance of the colonial education system derived from British Empire standards.In accordance with this norm, the five teachers who share the teaching responsibilities inthis open area are of White European racial and ethnic origin. Three of them learnedEnglish as their first language, two have Italian ethnic backgrounds, the others are ofEnglish (Irish, British, and Scotch), and German origin. I am the only teacher in thisschool who came to this country as an adult immigrant and who is functionally bilingual.Furthermore, despite an officially sanctioned policy of multiculturalism on both federal andprovincial levels, the resurgence of racist and back-to-basics attitudes is as pervasive inthis particular school as in many others across Canada and North America (Aronowitz,1993; Shannon, 1989a; Willinsky, 1991).I know it is early in the year, and I have to give the children time to formfriendships that are not entirely gender- and culture-based by working togethercooperatively. But on a day like today, I feel like stepping in, like breaking thepatterns that seem to have established themselves after only a few weeks ofbeing in this class together. Even though the Open Area facilitates grouping inmany flexible ways, I am noticing that when given free choice, there is inevitablya group of grade three girls, with Karen, Fiona, Ellen (blond, blue-eyed) as theirleaders who separate themselves from the Chinese boys, Sung, Daniel, Martin,Chung (black hair, brown-eyed). I am also noticing the friction between them,the resistance to work together in partner activities, the obvious resentmentwhen the boys, engaged in a game of cards, speak Chinese amongthemselves. I know I have some work to do with these children when Fiona98writes in her journal: \u00E2\u0080\u009CI am so glad I am not Chinese.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Shades of A ClassDivided, thinking of Jane Elliott\u00E2\u0080\u0099s lessons about discrimination way back in Iowa,with her brown-eyed and blue-eyed grade threes. Wondering what to doWho should be in charge, whose agenda should control the classroom?(Researcher Narrative, 10/05/94)Franklin School traces its beginnings to approximately this time, the early decades ofthis century when, in 1912, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe population in the extreme east of Hastings Townsitehaving grown sufficiently to justify the erection of a school, the Vancouver School Boardacquired Block 44 in 1912\u00E2\u0080\u009D (History of Sir John Franklin School, undated, unnumberedpages). In a history of the school that was written in 1952, by an anonymous committee,reference is made to the names of the principals (all male) and teachers (mostly female) ofthe school, all of British, Irish and Scottish origins, such as Finlayson, Riley, and Shine.The pupils of those early days, who bore names such as Grant, Ross, and Simon, namesthat resonated of more of the same Anglo-Saxon heritage, were proudly mentioned: \u00E2\u0080\u009CAllturned out to be first-class citizens.\u00E2\u0080\u009D The only exception was of somewhat lower rank,albeit of important duties: \u00E2\u0080\u009CThe janitor was old Fritz Schneider, a German by birth, but aCanadian by thirty years residence here. ... One of the duties of the janitor was to arriveearly on cold winter mornings, and thaw out all the plumbing with a blow torch before thearrival of the students.\u00E2\u0080\u009D This particular part of Vancouver was still considered to be onthe outskirts, very sparsely populated, and the total number of students attending whatwas initially called \u00E2\u0080\u009CBlock 44\u00E2\u0080\u009D School, was 40 children from grades one to four. In 1913,the school was officially designated as \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe Franklin School\u00E2\u0080\u009D and grew in numbers to 130in 1914-1915.The pupils came from homes that were widely scattered. Most of the blocksaround the school were only roughly cleared and one seldom saw more than twohouses in a block. The section of land from McGill to the Inlet was still in virgintimer [sic]. It was cleared by the Government in 1913 and only four houses werebuilt in the whole section during 1914-15. ... Hastings Street from Renfrew toCassiar was well timbered on both sides. In 1913 the children reported seeing abear and her two cubs near Rupert and Union, and the last cougar in this area was99shot on the land above the C.P.R. tracks a few blocks east of Boundary Road.(History of Sir John Franklin School, undated, unnumbered pages)Judging from the multicultural character of the east Vancouver of that time that wasdocumented in most other historical sources, it seems unlikely that the demographicrealities of the area were reflected in the early days of Franidin School, but rather that theprivilege of schooling belonged only to a certain sector of the population. In the followingdecades, when the school grew to an average of between 300 and 400 students, the sparsedocumentation of the actual names of the students, and particularly those of the parentsinvolved with the \u00E2\u0080\u009CFranklin Parent-Teacher Association\u00E2\u0080\u009D still resound of an overwhelmingBritish heritage, except of the exception of Mrs. Sang, who was in charge of the CountryStore at regular flindraising teas.Only from approximately the middle of the century on, an ethnically more variedschool population reflected the neighbourhood\u00E2\u0080\u0099s growing multicultural demographicmake-up. Earlier, we heard about the Italian and other Caucasian ethnic backgrounds thatwere prevalent in the 50s and 60s. In the 60s, this pattern continued, and theneighbourhood seemed to establish itself into a rather quiet residential working class area,with the children of the first generation immigrants first struggling to learn English, thenmost of them succeeding to acquire English as a second language and losing their firstlanguage at a rapid rate (Ashworth, 1979, 1988).Starting in the 70s and even more drastically in the 80s, the school population beganto reflect the overall new immigration trend in Canada. Whereas in 1966, for example, 87percent of Canada\u00E2\u0080\u0099s immigrants were of European descent, \u00E2\u0080\u009Conly four years later, 50percent came from new regions: The West Indies, Guyana, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, thePhilippines, and Indochina\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Knowles, 1992, p. 161). This is substantiated for theFranklin neighbourhood by one of the teachers who has been teaching in the school sincethe late 70s and recollects:100When I first came here, there was a lot of English as a second language; thatwas 16 years ago. We had quite a few, and we also had an ESL resourceperson at that point. And then we had a lot of boat people, really recentimmigrants; there was quite an influx at that point. So we had quite a fewchildren, and we had quite a bit of support which was that the teacher wouldtake small groups out, working on vocabulary development and things like that.And that kind of dissipated for a while, there wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t as much movement in thecommunity, it seemed, in between, maybe after about five years, and we didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099thave a lot of children who didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t speak any English, hardly any compared towhat we used to have, so we lost our ESL support.And then in the last few years we seem to be getting more children that arefrom different countries. But as far as the population, I think, of children fromanother culture or whose parents were born in another country, I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099sremained pretty well stable. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s just that the proportion of children who don\u00E2\u0080\u0099tspeak English now is a bit higher than it was about five years ago or six yearsago. So it seems to in waves like this, but as far as the general population ofthe school, I think it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s remained of fairly mixed cultures and races.(Teacher Interview, Angela, 5/95)Today, the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s student population once more reflects the changing demographicprofile of this Vancouver east side urban community, with a predominantly Asian first andsecond generation immigrant profile (Tse, Olgui, & Kiassen, 1988). The communityschool coordinator who interacts with community residents and agencies on a daily basis,reflects on the changing background of Franklin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s clientele:Things have changed here over the past ten, fifteen years from thepredominantly Italian background to becoming more and more Asian and moreand more mixed, actually, with different kinds of cultures coming in, Venezuelaand wherever, South America too. (Staff interview, Peter, 05/95)Franklin, according to a survey conducted a few years ago (Franklin Survey Team,1990) as well as the official School Profile document (Franklin Community School, 1994-95), has a multicultural student population, with mostly second generation English-as-a-second language families. The School Profile mentions English as the prevalent ethnicbackground, followed by Chinese, Japanese, Indo-Canadian, First Nations, and Fijian.The breakdown by linguistic background for the present school year at Franklin, accordingto the 1994 Vancouver School Board\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Home Language Report by School,\u00E2\u0080\u00997 is asfollows:101\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 English (61% or 165 students)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Chinese (29% or 78 students; not specified whether Cantonese or Mandarin)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Vietnamese (4% or 12 students)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Spanish (3 % or 7 students).Information from the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own demographic screening profile also identifiesBulgarian (1), Italian (1), Serbo-Croatian (1), Tagalog (2), and Yugoslavian (1) as homelanguages present at Franklin, with one or two speakers for each of these languages. Ofthe 271 students at Franklin, 240 were born in Canada. Sixteen students participate in anAboriginal Cultural Awareness Program and receive Aboriginal Support Services. Sixty-five students have been identified as requiring program modification for ESL (English as asecond language). However, there is no ESL teaching position at the school since,compared with some other schools in the district, Franklin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s ESL population is not highenough to warrant any officially designated ESL support according to the VancouverSchool board quota system. As a designated Neighbourhood School, Franklin provideslearning assistance support for 14 students with identified special needs through a team ofNeighbourhood and Learning Resource Teachers and Special Education Assistants.Another distinguishing feature of this small neighbourhood school is its status as acommunity school. As part of a larger network of community schools, the school staff hasa commitment to building and maintaining close connections between the classroomcurriculum and the texture of the surrounding neighbourhood (Association for CommunityEducation in British Columbia, 1992; Vancouver School Board, undated-a). Since theearly 70s, a smaller network of these schools exists in the Vancouver District, some jointlyfunded by education as well as recreation dollars, such as Champlain Heights andBritannia Schools, some solely supported by the local and provincial school boards andgovernments, as well as funding agencies (Vancouver School Board, undated-b). AcrossBritish Columbia, approximately 20 community schools exist under the umbrellaorganization of ACEbc (Association for Community Education in British Columbia) and,102on a national and international level, CACE, the Canadian Association for CommunityEducation and the International Organization for Community Education, TOCE (Staples,1992; Stevens & Grieve, 1986).In a joint ethnographic study by the Vancouver School Board and the University ofBritish Columbia Child Study Centre entitled The whole world in our schools, teachersfrom three Vancouver community schools, including Franklin, shared and demonstratedtheir interests and perceptions of multicultural education in their school and communities.Community schools are charged with the mandate for meeting the expressed needsof neighbourhood families they serve. They are sensitive too, and cognizant ofboth the delights and dilemmas of providing quality programs for a multiculturalsociety.Community schools use their mandate to create opportunities for parents andchildren to learn together, both during and after school hours. (The Whole Worldin Our Schools [video recording], 1988)Franklin became a community school in 1975 when the school staff together with theparent and community association, applied to the Vancouver School Board to berecognized and funded in this special way. It seemed that, with an increasinglymulticultural student and community population, it was felt that the school needed toexpand its mandate in ways that were more inclusive and community-based.The 1970\u00E2\u0080\u0099s [sic] saw a dramatic change in the life of Franklin. Because of theisolated nature of the school and the lack of park and recreation facilities, Franklinwas designated by the Vancouver School Board as a Community School. Thefocus now for Franklin was broadened not only to serve elementary school agechildren, but also an attempt to provide services for all members of the community[j\u00C3\u00A7]. (Franklin Community School, 1986, unnumbered pages)Since that time, the community-based administration of the school has been anintegral part of the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s overall philosophy and is reiterated in its Mission Statement ona yearly basis:We believe that education is a lifelong active process for all members of society.Our Community School interacts with the community to best meet the needs of itsmembers through programs that address social, cultural, and recreational needs by103integrating community issues and resources into the curriculum. (FranklinCommunity School, 1994, unnumbered pages)On a daily basis, the community school office connects with a large variety ofindividuals and groups, providing a place and programs for adults and parents with veryyoung children in the morning, school-aged children in the afternoon, and youths as wellas seniors in the evening.One of the things that community schools do well is that children learn not justfrom their school, from what they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re doing in the school but also from theirenvironment because they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re involved more in what\u00E2\u0080\u0099s going on, in issues in thecommunity. In the community school we have volunteers coming into theschool, we have parents coming into the school, so the two of them comingtogether, they learn more from each other, whether it be culture, whether it belanguage -- we have a Cantonese course going on here every Thursday allyear. We had other courses like Italian before, but of course now that\u00E2\u0080\u0099schanged, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s more of an Asian community, we seem to have more of an Asianinfluence here from the kids at the school. I see it changing, becoming, youknow, a greater population every year. What I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m also noticing is that we\u00E2\u0080\u0099regetting more of a population from South America coming into the school.When it comes to curriculum, we in a community school have an advantagebecause we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re open beyond three o\u00E2\u0080\u0099clock. So it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s not just in the classroom thatthings are going on. I noticed there are other initiatives going on now wherethey are trying to see what the demographics are in the community to seewhether a certain language is going to be taught with that particular population,as opposed to French as a second language being taught. So districts havebeen looking at the population of their area to see what language might betaught. But the advantage that we have here is that after school hours we canhave instructors come in to teach children how to speak the language as well,so that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a real advantage, being open until nine o\u00E2\u0080\u0099clock at night, we can alsoenhance the curriculum. Whether it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s in the classroom or not, we can also do itin the evening as well.I think it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really important that we all know where our heritage comes from. Iknow, myself, I got a Dutch and Swiss heritage, I know you have a Germanheritage, and because of this, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s nice to know where our roots are and to knowthose cultures as well. And not only that, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s good to have, to know otherlanguages and that we recognize each others\u00E2\u0080\u0099, especially this being a globalmarket now, it helps so much more. I know English seems to be thepredominant language around the world for people to have learned, but thatwas because it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s been so strong here economically for so many years thatbusiness seemed to be English-based.. However now, with the common marketin Europe and everything, things are changing drastically, and perhaps we needto know more than one language in this world. And I think it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s important that wetry to do that -- especially if a little boy comes here from China and he can\u00E2\u0080\u0099tspeak any English, it would be nice to have other kids speak that language, sowhy not go to a Cantonese class and have them learn that second language.104We have a few children who are not Asian who are in the Cantonese class, theyare trying to learn the language as well, which I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s just super, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s reallyneat, so they can learn again from the other people and their culture because,well, we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re all here together, this is a community -- what better way to learn,learning first hand from them. (Staff Interview, Peter, 05/95)Many of the principles of community education, such as fostering the well-being of allcitizens within a given community, strengthening an inclusive, culturally diversecurriculum, and increasing the involvement and leadership of local community members,make good sense within our overall educational framework. There are, however, somefairly recent trends in community and parental involvement that need to be taken intoconsideration and looked at seriously if one wants to escape the dangers of a superficialapproach to these issues. One of the parents commented on what he sees as acounterproductive trend of people expecting to be provided with services as opposed toparticipating and actively engaging in the educational process:There\u00E2\u0080\u0099s an expectation that the government has to solve this. We have becomea nation of dependency, letting someone else take care of any of the problemsthat are out there. To me, that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s the same fundamental basis, that you\u00E2\u0080\u0099reexpecting someone else to raise your kids, provide the discipline, and teachthem reading and writing and arithmetic, and lick them if they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re bad.(Parent Interview, Gregg, 0 5/95)I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know all the answers, but I just know that there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a lot of really intelligentpeople who don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t spend any time with their children, and the children suffer as aresult of this, and they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not learning. And there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a lot of people who are reallyignorant who spent a lot of time with their children, and the children seem tolearn well, they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re just there, you know, they go with the kids, they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re gung-ho.And then there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a lot of people in between who just expect the teachers to doit. (Parent Interview, Michelle, 05/95)Invariably, when talking about such issues of control and dependency, attitudes aboutcultural expectations and preferences come into the conversation. Fueled by theconsiderable attention multicultural and ethnicity get in the popular media, people seem toinvariably be able to relate to some real-life incident that demonstrates the difficulties105arising when cultures come in contact. Michelle, a family doctor by profession, hererecounts her experience as a parent with another mother\u00E2\u0080\u0099s culture shock:Well, I just remember in pre-school, there was a very nice woman ... fromVietnam ... I just really liked her, and she was always smiling at me. And Iremember Miss N. and another teacher going out ..., they went out and theywere going to get this kid .... He was all over the place, all over the place,completely disruptive, all over the place in the classroom. He was completelyhyperactive, you would have called him attention deficit disordered 100 percent,and nobody could get him down, he was often in the corner, nobody could doanything with him. And they were trying to work with the situation, so they wentand did a home assessment, and they had very little furniture, and he wascorralled off in a section of the living room by a made fence, in front of thetelevision. And this is all he had, and all his behaviours mimicked PowerRangers, no, not Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, it was Ninja Turtles at that timeit was just phenomenal. They went to her home, very sparse, very nice lady,but obviously needed, definitely needed to go to school with her child. And shewas a very nice lady, and very smart, and she would have learned by beingcorralled in there with the kids, you know what I mean. She needed to be, andshe wanted to be ... she wanted to keep her culture, she was a positive woman;she didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know what to do with this child, so she stuck him in front of the tv,there were no toys, only a tv. I mean, you\u00E2\u0080\u0099d call it social deprivation, the socialworkers would go into that situation, but I would look at that woman, no, no,she\u00E2\u0080\u0099s not a bad person, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s just culture shock, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s coming to this country and nothaving your community. Nowadays, women are isolated, very much so,mothers are isolated, the mothers who stay at home, they don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t go for coffeebreak with everybody else and learn what everybody else is doing. ... So they\u00E2\u0080\u0099reat home, and they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re extremely isolated in our culture, because what did theyuse to do? They used to make pickles, and they used to make jam, and theyused to make quilts, and they used to get together, and they had a communityto relate to, and they talked it out. There was a lot of emotional support there.(Parent Interview, Michelle, 05/95)In addition, recent research in local educational settings points to some of thosedifficulties surfacing within a culturally inclusive or holistic curriculum that states:educational programs that promote multiculturalism and anti-racism through avariety of means, are essential at Franklin School.Our programs support cultural diversity. We support the concept that culturaldiversity reinforces heritage thus providing cultural ties. Multicultural programsseek to provide a knowledge base and promote cultural understanding betweencultures. Empathy and tolerance are increased which lend to a broader globalview. This broader cultural base provides the benefit of many cultures and thepossibility of many choices, i.e., medicine, celebration, religion, education,106language, philosophy. Multiculturalism helps us define our Canadian character.(Franklin Community School, 1994, unnumbered pages)Gunderson (in press-a) found that parents from different cultural backgrounds do notnecessarily subscribe to the all-inclusiveness of this kind of curriculum. He points out thatThose of us who encourage students to be curious, interested, critical,communicative, to hold a plurality of points of view, and a desire to question andmake sense of it all, need to be acutely aware that we are teaching a value system.Moreover, it is a value system potentially in opposition to that held by the familiesof many of our students. (p. 11)Gunderson illustrates some of these difficulties with case studies from three differentschools and classrooms where differing cultural values and belief systems have causeddiscomfort, miscommunication, and eventual cultural conflict and a widening of the gapbetween the home and school within, ironically, curricular models that attempt to bridgeexactly that gap.Into the Classroom: It Rude to InterruptIn the culturally inclusive classroom community, multicultural students are givencontinuous opportunities to apply their cultural knowledge and their previouslanguage and literacy experiences to their learning of new concepts and languageand literacy skills. When you integrate students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 home lives and languages andprevious experiences into the curriculum at this deep level, you are taking the firststep towards realigning your students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 school context with their home contexts andtowards creating a new compact between the school and the home. (Enright,1989, pp. 183-184)The concentrated influx of non-English speaking students into the Lower Mainlandschool districts has both resulted in some innovative policy initiatives as well as somedisturbing trends in educational decision-making, affecting classroom teaching directlythrough allocation of funding for services such as ESL and material resources forcurricular innovations, such as literature-based reading approaches.Starting in the 60s and more so in the 70s, the Vancouver School Board, for example,like many other neighbouring districts, faced this reality by implementing multicultural and107English-as-a-Second-Language programs for both elementary and secondary classrooms.By the 80s, there existed an explicit race relations policy and the position of a racerelations officer had been created (Fisher & Echols, 1989). This policy has made parentsof non-ESL students speak out against funding for ESL students that, in their opinion,takes away the moneys that should be spent rightfully on \u00E2\u0080\u009Cregular,\u00E2\u0080\u009D English-speakingchildren (Phillips, 1994).Franklin School experiences the same kind of tensions as other schools in the sameand neighbouring school districts. In conversations with some of the parents and teachers,statements about the unfair spending of tax dollars on ESL students by the school boardwere reiterated, expressing the frustration of parents who think their own children arebeing disadvantaged and kept from reaching their true learning potential.Against this background of pedagogical, sociocultural, and sociopolitical powerstructures at work, we must ask how community building is carried out in the realities ofboth the \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-planned\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and the \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-lived\u00E2\u0080\u0099 in the classrooms of thismulticultural community school (Aoki, 1993c). What kind of bridges are students andteachers constructing and walking across to connect the culture of the school and thedifferent cultures that dwell in the surrounding community? In Other solitudes, ananthology of voices speaking to \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe lived experience and the literary expression ofmulticulturalism in Canada,\u00E2\u0080\u009D Linda Hutcheon (1990) reflects on a peculiar Canadianphenomenon:the historical settlement patterns -- island by island, across the country --created socially and culturally disparate groupings that were internally linked bynetworks of local and kinship traditions. Our country, in other words, was set up -- historically and demographically -- in such a way that the eventual formulation ofsomething like multiculturalism might seem to have been inevitable. (p. 10)In the following section, I revisit the questions surrounding community building andlanguage learning by describing more closely the actual classroom environment in whichthis diverse community of students dwells. As children and learners, they are actively108engaged in the process of becoming actors in the multiple plays of language for thepurpose of both local and global communications. As future adults they are, together withtheir teachers, negotiating their roles in this linguistic staging of making sense of andthinking about the world they live in. As teachers and researchers, we must ask whatparticular kind of languaging comes into play in this process and how are realitiesnegotiated and understood in the context of socioculturally constructed literacy practices.The setting of this dramatic play, in Barthes\u00E2\u0080\u0099 sense of a reflexive negotiation ofknowledge through language (Sontag, 1982), is an \u00E2\u0080\u0098open area\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of three multi-age, multiethnic classrooms in this small elementary school in the Vancouver Heightsneighbourhood. The 65 students in the Primary Open Area who take the centre stage inthis descriptive production represent the truly mixed sociocultual spectrum that wasdescribed previously: Apart from English, Chinese, both Cantonese and Mandarin,Tagalog, Spanish, Norwegian, German, Pun] abi, Japanese, feature in the linguisticbackgrounds of the students; First Nations cultures of the Pacific North West as well asAustralian and Arabic ethnic heritages are represented in addition to Italian, Dutch, andother European origins. Most of the children with the latter backgrounds represent thesecond generation of immigration, whereas most of the Asian and other racial groupsexcept the First Nations children belong to the first generation of immigrants.We have been mapping our heritage. Outside the Primary Open Area, on thebig bulletin board, Bethany has helped me start the \u00E2\u0080\u0098P.O.A. Connections\u00E2\u0080\u0099 map.She is quite excited about being the first one to put her picture on a spot aroundthe periphery of the world map that forms the centre of the display, connecting itwith a colourful string to Norway and proudly attaching underneath her picture:\u00E2\u0080\u009CBethany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s grandfather came from Holland. Her step-grandpa came fromNorway.\u00E2\u0080\u009D \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat do you think I could write for underneath my picture, Bethany?\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CHow about: Ms. Hasebe-Ludt grew up in Germany and she went to schoolthere?\u00E2\u0080\u009DWe both stand back and contemplate the look of the unfinished work: Itlooks bare, still, but I think we both are feeling the anticipation of constructingthis map piece by piece, picture by picture, string by string. This afternoon,during our student-led conferences, the parents, grandparents, or other familymembers will get a chance to add to the display together with the children. Allthe materials are carefully arranged beside the bulletin board, a chart stand109explaining our project and inviting the families to participate, together withinstructions, are ready. Bethany thinks it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s set to go. She can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t wait to show herdad and step-mom. The pictures we took of the students engaged in one or theother classroom activities are adorable. I can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t wait for our visitors to see and,together with their children, compose a sentence or two about their family\u00E2\u0080\u0099sgeographical origin. (Researcher Narrative, 11/28/94)The teaching situation in the Primary Open Area is characterized by a team of fiveteachers who share three classes of primary children aged six to nine (grades one to three)in a spacious area that allows the sixty children to move among the three \u00E2\u0080\u0098home areas\u00E2\u0080\u0099 andaccommodates easy interaction between teachers and students through physical andorganizational arrangements. There is a meeting space where the whole P.O.A. groupmeets three times during the week on a regular basis, for sharing, story time, or otherwhole group projects and events, such as when special guests are invited.18 In addition,the physical set-up includes numerous centres, usually about ten to twelve, where thestudents are involved in learning activities related to the curricular areas, such as mathwith manipulatives, water and sand tables, a book nook and listening centre, or art andcraft areas. Students from mixed age and classroom groupings gather at the centres andcooperatively play and work, doing, for example, bubble experiments at the science tableor feeding and taking care of the P.O.A. guinea pig, Kiwi, The children are devoted totheir pet, and on a rotating basis the \u00E2\u0080\u009CKiwi Keepers\u00E2\u0080\u009D are responsible for his well-being.They care about him through their actions and their thoughts, and the spontaneouswritings they post on the wall around his cage show how much he is one beloved pet.\u00E2\u0080\u00999What if there was a fire at the school and everyone was out except Kiwi. I stilllove him. I like Kiwi because he is so cute. (Martha, age 7).What would you do if ther was a fire or an earthquake and Kiwi was still in thecage. I would take Kiwi and somone will take the cage. Then Kiwi will be happyand so will I. (Tara, age 7).I wish Kiwi had a play mate. They would play. they would eat and drink. I likeKiwi. I like Kiwi Kiwi. I like Kiwi. Kiwi is nice. (Naomi)110I wish I could have an animal like Kiwi. I like Kiwi and Kiwi likes me. (Jan, age 8).Last year my teacher took home our guinea pig. This year she brought himback to The Open Area. He likes to hide under his little house. Kiwi is so so soso so cccute. I like Kiwi. Kiwi is so furry. I love Kiwi. (Bethany).Kiwi eat carrots and I wish Kiwi would win the Kiwi race and I wish I could getKiwi home. (Hugh, age 8)I wish Kiwi won first Place in the Kiwi race. Kiwi eats Howard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s carrots, andEric\u00E2\u0080\u0099s. I am going to Take Kiwi home. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. (Erin)Throughout the day, the children work with other students as partners, either ingroups of two, in small cooperative groups, or as a whole group. They also work with allthe teachers in the P.O.A., in addition to their home room teacher. They know, forexample, which teacher to turn to when needing help at the games centre or who isresponsible for the current painting or craft project if advice is needed. The commonP.O.A. day plan consists of a steady routine that is flexible enough to accommodatespecial events, individual projects by the home area groups, or whole school assemblies.Generally, scheduling of regular and special events are planned cooperatively by the teamof teachers in weekly meetings. Toward the second half of the school year, with thestudents being very comfortable and familiar with the routines and cooperativeinteractions, the children have quite a bit of input into the planning through brainstormingideas for celebrations, themes, and activities. At the beginning of the observations andjournalized reflections, for example, the children were getting ready to decide on a newtopic of study within the broad area of the environment; according to the graph generatedfrom their votes, the interests ranged from pets and wild animals to the human body andspace. When I was winding up the collection of data in the Open area, the students andteachers were moving from a theme of Communication into that of Space, voted mostpopular among the themes.111In order to capture these lived experiences, I felt that it was most suitable to continueworking within a qualitative methodological framework, focusing on ethnographic,interpretive inquiry within a hermeneutic framework (Caputo, 1987, 1993; Chambers,Oberg, Dodd, & Moore, 1993). I thus began to sketch a research plan for collecting dataover a three- to four-month period, from December/January to March/April 1994. Onlythen, close to half-way through the school year, had the school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s organizational rollercoaster ride slowed down enough to allow for a chance to get to the field work withouttoo many distractions for the students and staffFull of enthusiasm, I had naively thought that it would not be very hard to set asidethree to four periods per week in which I would collect data in the following ways:observation and anecdotal note taking together with reflections on the former, video andaudio recording of classroom activities, as well as interviews.20 I very soon realized thatmy expectations were unrealistic. It wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t as easy as I had imagined to set aside time forthe planned periods. Admittedly, I was by now quite familiar with all the usual last-minutechanges in schedules (of teachers, including myself and students), whole-school and staffactivities one needs to be involved in (frustrations about endless committee meetings seemto figure prominently in my journal entries), and the generally busy, bubbly daily routine ofan open area classroom. There never seems to be enough time for planning, for teachersgetting together to assess the success or failure of a strategy or session, and for catering toindividual children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s needs. Thus, it was extremely hard to deal with the difficulty inherentin \u00E2\u0080\u009Cgetting down to business\u00E2\u0080\u009D and of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cjust\u00E2\u0080\u009D sitting down to observe or operate the videocamera, or worse, finding the time to reflect on the observations sometime betweenteaching, graduate work, and family.I did manage, nevertheless, after my initial frustration, to collect a sufficient amountof data during that time period for this preliminary look into classroom life. The focus ofthe observations was four children who were randomly selected by computer out of thesixty to seventy P.O.A. students.2\u00E2\u0080\u0099 They turned out to be all grade three students, two112males and two females, three from Chinese-speaking families (two boys, one girl) and onegirl from an English-speaking Caucasian background. In addition to the classroomobservations -- roughly equivalent to two thirty-minute periods per week over eight weeks-- I collected data from Informal Reading Inventories that were conducted to assess thestudents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 reading levels, reading response logs, writing portfolios, and readingconferences. These methods of data collection were initially chosen since they seemed tobe the most common ones among those used within qualitative research frameworks andparticularly in action research. In particular, the step-by-step articulating and focusing ofindividual and specific questions in connection with procedures in our action researchgroup meetings was invaluable in becoming familiar with the options and methods for datacollection with the help of field-based research guides (Hubbard & Power, 1993; Jeroski,1992).I began the initial data collection by documenting various activities the students wereinvolved in with respect to reading and writing materials through this rather broadspectrum of methods (see Table 1). Apart from the pre-planned video and audiorecording involving the four randomly selected students, I also found that I kept observingand reflecting on literacy events by other students, choosing interactions that struck me assignificant in terms of the ways the students interacted with literature and text. It seemednatural to observe in this more holistic way, and I finally realized that the random selectionprocedure was actually distracting and therefore not that useful in the first place.It seems that, just like teaching, qualitative research requires flexibility andreadiness for those special moments when literacy practices are acted out -- inthe same way as the \u00E2\u0080\u0098teachable moment,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 they cannot just be arbitrarily plannedor projected onto specific actors: \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum-as-lived\u00E2\u0080\u0099 as opposed to \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculumas-planned,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 literacy as socially constructed by the participants themselvesrather than teacher-driven. (Researcher Narrative, 04/04/94)After having learned those lessons from the pilot investigation, my methodologicalconcerns became less preoccupied with rigid scheduling. Instead I started to place greater113emphasis on selecting from the vast amount of data I had at my disposal in a way thatmade sense to myself the other participants in my study, and my varied audience. Ineeded to and wanted to be selective, sensing that it was ultimately a much morechallenging task than including all that could possibly fit into the pages of this dissertation.The criteria for selection ultimately were created by my own writing evolving from actionresearch, by this particular kind of action writing which involves a creative act: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat I dowithin myself is philosophize, reflect on my experience\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Barthes, 1985, p. 307). At thesame time, the layers of text I working with, my own, the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s, and others\u00E2\u0080\u0099, createdan interwoven picture of writing and reading in which a personal, an emotionalinvolvement and engagement emerged and became part of the criteria for the selection ofdifferent texts:Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comesfrom culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice ofreading. Text of bliss [jouissanceJ: the text that imposes a state of loss, the textthat discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain boredom), unsettles the reader\u00E2\u0080\u0099shistorical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values,memories, brings to a crisis his relation with language. (Barthes, 1975, p. 14)In the process of this method in process, I discovered that, indeed, research from themargins (Kirby & McKenna, 1989) meant that it was continually unfolding, always inprocess, changing as I was changing in the way I read and wrote research.Doing research on the margins in this city on the margin, on the edgeThinking back to when we started to plan teaching cooperatively in this openarea, I remember the almost endless discussing and sorting out of each others\u00E2\u0080\u0099ideas about teaching and learning. Into the second year of working together, itstill is a constant process of balancing individual needs and common goals forboth teachers and students. It is both exhilarating and frustrating -- as well asextremely time-consuming. In the same way, in my particular home area oftwenty-two grade threes, the degree of acceptance of others, the willingness towork with others regardless of personal preference, and the need to berecognized individually is constantly negotiated, evaluated, and celebrated indifferent ways. This process is certainly not easy for many children: Learning toget along with others, regardless of age, gender, and race is often difficult and114challenging, but it is always a learning experience that requires growth towardsacceptance of others from students and teachers alike.Perhaps, this living and learning through difficulty needs to be recognizedas an integral, necessary part of the sociocultural construction of literacy. Theunfolding of this literacy as a social and cultural process through which studentsnegotiate learning through multiple layers of texts needs to be furtherdocumented. With my own research I hope to contribute to filling this gap.(Researcher Narrative, 06/06/94)115TABLE 1Methods of Data CollectionDescription Example MethodInformal Reading Teacher assesses reading Student orally readsInventory level of student through teacher-selected passage(Johns, 1978) miscue analysis (e.g. The world ofplants)and orally answersquestions on contentRecording of students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Regular individual A student reads areading/writing student-teacher meetings selection from a story sheconferences about student\u00E2\u0080\u0099s wrote and discusses it in areading/writing in dialogue with the teacher.progress in student\u00E2\u0080\u0099s JogCollection of students\u00E2\u0080\u0099. Reading logs A student responds to awork samples. Writing portfolios story with multicultural. Special integrated content, such as Tree oftheme projects (art, Cranes (Say, 1994) asscience, social studies) part of a theme on Peace.Classroom observations Anecdotal descriptions of A student orally reads. field notes reading and writing with a partner during. video and audio activities through buddy reading time andtaping teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s notes, video discusses the book; thecamera and tape recorder teacher observes andmakes notes during theinteraction.Reflective journal notes Teacher researcher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s log After video taping ofreflections in narrative group story time, theform on impressions from teacher writes reflectiveobservations notes about the materialselection.Teacher, staff and parent Open-ended \u00E2\u0080\u009CTell me about your/yourinterviews ethnographic interviews child\u00E2\u0080\u0099s/your student\u00E2\u0080\u0099sof volunteer participants experience with the home(See Appendix 1) reading program.\u00E2\u0080\u009D116In the three classrooms that comprise this Open Area, there has been and still persistsdifficulty in dealing with perceived notions of classroom organization and control. Intothe third year of co-planning and collaborative teaching, it has almost become a ritual togo through explaining to parents the benefits of this teaching approach and emphasizingthat a cooperative learning experience for the students does not mean lack of organizationor control; instead it involves active, healthy (sometimes noisy) interaction that is notsynonymous with chaos -- the latter a notion that, alas, many parents and educatorsinstantly call up in their minds when \u00E2\u0080\u009Copen areas\u00E2\u0080\u009D are mentioned. Many times, especiallyat the beginning of the year, the team explains the above, in letters home to the parents, atthe school\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Open House, through presentations at the Community Council meetings.Still, there is resistance to this approach of child-centred, collaborative teaching andcooperative teaching and learning, more than the teachers at times feel they can handlealong all the other pressures of daily classroom life.The paradoxes of post-modernism become real, ironically, when, in the OpenHouse at the beginning of the year, the Open Area is once again considered \u00E2\u0080\u009Cadeep dark mystery,\u00E2\u0080\u009D in the words of the chairperson of the communityassociation -- and in the opinion of some very vocal parents (and maybe someother teachers), despite year-long efforts by the teachers to have parents comein and observe, spend time with the children and teachers can it be that theyreally haven\u00E2\u0080\u0099t noticed that the doors are always wide open, indeed?So what else to do but preserve our sense of humour and present atongue-in-cheek slide show, an invitation to a Magical Mystery Tour at anotherassembly? It is just a glimpse of the varied activities in our classrooms,featuring the children and the few parents who do volunteer -- to the lively tuneand verses of the Beatles song:The magical mystery tour is hoping to take you away, coming to take youaway, dying to take you away ... It was a great success; endearing, inspiringimages of children engaged in sharing books, smiling, grinning, absorbed faces,negotiating their work with one another and explaining to their parents and otherfamily members at the student-led conferences. Colourful art, inspired by ourliterary train journey across Canada, print-rich environments, littered withliteracy, in David Jardine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words. The children want to see and hear it all overagain, watch themselves and their friends, their work imprinted on the celluloid,hearing the tunes:Lend me your ears and I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll sing you a song, and I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll try not to sing out of key,I get by with a little help from my friends117I am convinced that they are the best advocates of this Open Area, holdingthe key to convincing those who are reluctant readers of successful learningand teaching in a new key.(Researcher Narrative, 10/31/94)There are, however, parents who do support the approach we have taken. One of themothers whose daughter had been in the Open Area for a couple of years and then movedon to the intermediate program, felt this strongly about it: \u00E2\u0080\u009CIt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s sad how our schools arestill structured. I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sad that the Primary Open Area hasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t continued. I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sad thatthere\u00E2\u0080\u0099s closed classrooms, I am.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Parent Interview, Elena, 04/95)These examples show that communication and interaction with parents is animportant factor in any teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s successful teaching; however, it becomes especiallycrucial when the cultural background of parents influences either their educational valuesor their ability to communicate with the educational institution their child is attending. Asmentioned earlier, in a community school the teachers have a distinctly expressed mandate\u00E2\u0080\u009Cto be familiar with not only the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s home background but also the composition andcustoms of the community which affect their daily lives\u00E2\u0080\u009D (The Whole World in Our Hands[video recording], 1988). However, when the values, customs, and beliefs of parts of thiscommunity are distinctly different from the those promoted in the classroom, conflict isnot easily avoided. How and what is being taught becomes a controversial issue and,depending on various power structures, can result in situations like those Gunderson (inpress-a) describes in local classrooms where interaction patterns ranged fromconfrontation to avoidance and, at best, uncomfortable co-existence. One of the Franklinparents, having witnessed some of these signs of conflict in her own practice as a familydoctor and as a parent, when dealing with a neighbouring family\u00E2\u0080\u0099s differing cultural viewsof what constitutes significant classroom content, reflects:This is something that we as a family and parents in the community are notgoing to change overnight. We\u00E2\u0080\u0099re going to change it by examples, we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re goingto change it gradually by example. I mean, I work in a field where I see, liketeachers, probably even more so, I see the very very insides of peoples\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives. Ithink you see the very insides of peoples\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives, but not as I see ... I know, I look118at somebody, and I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve been in practice long enough that I look at somebody andI see patterns, and the cultural patterns are phenomenal. And in the world it\u00E2\u0080\u0099sgoing to take probably two or three more generations, or maybe more, toactually ... because the male-female problem is huge, I mean, in Africa it is sobad, Africa, India, and China I do not see as critical as Africa and India, just theactual male domination of women, the extreme male domination of womenYou know that Jasmine, you know that there are some Chinese people sheis close too who ... their parents ... she brings home their work, their art work, alot of their art, their journals, any of their stories, particularly their art work,because they throw it in the garbage. Their parents are not interested in that,only in math. But Jasmine thinks pictures are alive, so she can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t throw it out,she\u00E2\u0080\u0099s so sensitive, so we have them all down in our basement, all their art workbecause the parents are only interested in math, their parents only want tosee their math.(Parent Interview, Michelle, 05/95)As a teacher, as a parent, as a woman, as a mother, I am deeply disturbed bythe conversation with Gregg and Michelle. This interview had happened aroundthe same time that I was reading about Lee Gunderson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s observations ofcultural views on whole language. I feel \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfurious,\u00E2\u0080\u009D in Erin Mour\u00C3\u00A9\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words, aboutthe way we use language, about the power of discriminatory practices with/inlanguage, more doubtful about my ability to effect change, less sure about myright to impose my value system onto the children in my classroom, yet,paradoxically, more than ever aware of the difficulty of interpreting what is rightand wrong with respect to cultural beliefs. All my good intentions of thoughtfullynegotiating change are flying in my face, mocking me through the voices heardon the tapes and the words written on the pages. Nothings gonna change myworld ... (Researcher Narrative, 05/15/95)Sylvia Ashton-Warner, in her pioneering work with the language experienceapproach, teaching children from a Maori background in New Zealand (Ashton-Warner,1963) told us that it rude to interrupt, that we must respect where our students arecoming from and not impose our own value systems onto their cultural traditions andheritage but rather affirm their self-expression in a natural, stimulating environment. Still,how is it possible to build communities where both literacy and harmony flourish in thecontext of diversity that creates exclusion instead of inclusion on so many levels, on thelevel of the cultural and curricular canon as well as the beliefs of some cultural minoritygroups? When and where is it indeed rude to interrupt? In her reflections on her ownteaching practice, local teacher Corey Denos comments on the tensionality between theteacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s control of the curriculum,119When I was very young, being a teacher meant being perfect and perfectly incontrol of a perfect world. Later on, being a teacher meant saving the world or atleast some of its children by giving them knowledge, by giving them what I hadand they lacked. Because of these views of my world, I used to spend hours andhours of planning, I planned all of the time. The resulting plans conceived anddefined, away from them, were then imposed on them. Within the classroom,there was a constant sense of tension as I tried to make my plans work, to get thechildren to want to do what I had so carefully planned for them. My view is sodifferent now. Now I feel much less distinction between myself and the children.It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s not that I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m not always an adult with a special responsibility, but I have a senseof being part of a community in which I am working in harmony with the otherparts. (Denos & Rotheisler [video recording], 1993)Anne Haas Dyson (1986) at one time referred to this changed attitude as stayingfreeto dance with the children, bringing to my mind once again scenes from Sylvia AshtonWarner\u00E2\u0080\u0099s classroom where she indeed danced with the Maori children (Ashton-Warner,1958; 1963).It just happened one bright spring morning when I was playing some Schubert toplease no one but myself that a child stood up from his work and began composinga dance, then another, then another, and there it all was. And here it all still is.Although most of the interpretations come from them, I indulge myself byproviding them with a further selection of movements to use as they choose, tosupplement their own movements. But I haven\u00E2\u0080\u0099t noticed much of it being usedvoluntarily in their interpretation of new music. The old story of imposition again.(Ashton-Warner, 1963, pp. 91-92)How do you dance with children and with parents whose culture and upbringing donot allow the playful steps of musical exchange to enter into classrooms meant fordifferent skills, for computing rather than composing, for decoding rather than dancing?In this time of sociocultural complexity, there is no longer a simple sequence of steps forthe partners -- children, parents, teachers -- to learn. The moves become difficult ratherthan dynamic; mastering the mechanics of the skill overrides the harmonious movingtogether. The results echo the jarring notes of dis-comfort, dis-harmony, dis-ease.When is it rude to interrupt? The uncomfortable coexistence of cultures is nothingnew in our classrooms and schools, in our neighbourhoods and in our city, and the120language we learn from cultures in contact is often laden with stereotypes and racism.The language of children on the playground of our schools, in particular, as we have heardat the beginning of this chapter, and as Gunderson (1983) and Hasebe-Ludt (1992a,1 992b) affirm from observations several decades later, is often rude and decidedlydifferent from the academic discourse of the classroom, whether the geo-culturallandscapes are named San Francisco, California or Vancouver, British Columbia. Theyseem linguistic worlds apart, separating the curriculum-as-planned and the curriculum-aslived. We must ask ourselves where in this chiasmatic languaging we can find a new key,a turn in how we come to speak and dance with the children.121Chapter 4Intercultural Connections of Literacy in Action: EntgrenzungenLiterature, I argue, creates a cultural space whose primaryfunction consists in acontinual shaping and reshaping of the boundaries of language and subjectivityon both an individual and a collective level.Gabrielle Schwab, Subjects without selvesThe text is a tissue ofquotations drawnfrom the innumerable centres ofculture.Roland Barthes, Image, music, textI do not mean to suggest that simply overhearing a foreign tongue adds to one\u00E2\u0080\u0099sunderstanding of that language. I do know, however, that being exposed to theexistence of other languages increases the perception that the world is populatedby people who not only speak differently from oneself but whose cultures andphilosophies are other than one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own.Maya Angelou, Wouldn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t take nothingfor myjourney now122In an article entitled \u00E2\u0080\u009CCultural literacy, national curriculum: What (and how) doesevery Canadian student really need to know?\u00E2\u0080\u009D Patrick Dias (1993) responds to E. D.Hirsch\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1987) canon of cultural literacy on \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat every American needs to know\u00E2\u0080\u009D and adictionary of cultural literacy that complemented it (Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 1988). Dias, incontrast, questions the validity and legitimacy of establishing such a list from a revisionistEurocentric perspective and research agenda.Cultural literacy, like language, must live and develop in use. ... For one, we donot trivialize the use of language and literature in schools by reducing usinglanguage and reading books in school to mere means and mere preparation forusing language and literature elsewhere, like real people. We need to put awaythose taxonomies, those hierarchical scaffolds which mean to promote autonomybut more often than not cultivate dependency, by saying generally one cannotmove to D unless one has gone through A, B, and C. (p. 18)We live in a world where the cultural boundaries of language, literacy, and literatureare rapidly expanding through global connections made possible by the technologicaladvances of the infonnation age (Dollahite, 1993; Jones & Maloy, 1993). In addition, inthis \u00E2\u0080\u0098ftn de si\u00C3\u00A8cle questioning of the foundations of theory building\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Carson, 1992, p. v),on the threshold of the 21St century, the issues surrounding culture, cultural literacy, andliterary theory are becoming increasingly complex, controversial, and seminal (Langer,1992; De Castell, Luke, & Egan, 1986). These include \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe issue of current curriculartheories and their definitions of text and reader and writer, and the issue of what literatureand literature study is\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Purves, Rogers, & Soter, 1990, p. 35). Together with thisquestioning and redefining, one can also perceive a paradigm shift in the definition ofgenre and an ensuing debate on the meaning and significance of literature and narratives inparticular within a post\u00E2\u0080\u0094structuralist framework (Bernstein, 1991, Carter, 1993).More specifically, in the heated discussions about what constitute \u00E2\u0080\u009Creal\u00E2\u0080\u009D literacypractices in the \u00E2\u0080\u009Creal world,\u00E2\u0080\u009D the reading debate has recently achieved considerableattention among reading researchers. Taylor, for instance, in her 1994 commentary on123West\u00E2\u0080\u0099s, Stanovich\u00E2\u0080\u0099s, and Mitchell\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993) article Reading in the real world and itscorrelates calls for the need to establish different critical sites for inquiry and literacyresearch \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthat could provide us with new understandings and significant insights into theways in which personal understandings of literacy are socially, culturally, economically,and politically constructed, and also individually situated in the practical accomplishmentsof people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s everyday lives\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 279). Gregory (1994), in her work with children ofBangladeshi origin in a community school in East London, England, found that a differentview of reading exists in the homes, warning us that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cif the teacher rejects thisinterpretation as inappropriate, then the child may well experience school readingdifficulty\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 120). In a recent edition of The Reading Teacher with a focus on familyliteracy, several authors explored different sites and situations of literacy in school andhome contexts in the United States (Unwin, 1995; Shanahan, Muihern, & Rodriguez-Brown). Hudson-Ross and Dong (1990) compare language learning in the People\u00E2\u0080\u0099sRepublic of China with that in elementary schools in the United States. Within theCanadian context, Anderson (1994), Anderson & Matthews (1995), Early and Gunderson(1994), and Gunderson (in press-b), provide us with insights about diverse literacypractices and processes within our local multicultural communities and classrooms.Against this background, the following chapter sets out to explore the connectionsbetween such practices, innovative models of literacy instruction, and current trends insocietal attitudes toward back to the basics, such as the question on the cover page of apopular magazine: \u00E2\u0080\u009CAre we cheating our kids?\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Dwyer, IVling, & DeMont, 1994) Withinthe context of the Canadian education system, and, when applicable, from a widerperspective of North American schooling or global educational trends, I examine therationale for these models in light of recent research and practices in reading and writingacross the curriculum and against the background of recent understandings about thesociocultural dimensions of language and literacy. By describing features of a literatureprogram in this multicultural classroom setting within the Canadian public school system, I124point to the benefits as well as the difficulties of such an approach in light of currentsocietal and cultural attitudes and beliefs.The ABCs of Intertextual Discourses: Interpreting cultural literacyLob des Lernens In Praise of LearningLerne das Einfachste! F\u00C3\u00BCr die Learn the simplest things! For thoseDeren Zeit gekommen ist whose time has come1st es nie zu spat! it is never too late!Lerne das Abc! Es genugt nicht, aber Learn the Abc! It is not enough, butLerne es! La13 es dich nicht verdriel3en! do learn it! Don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t let it get you down!Fang an! Du muBt alles wissen! Begin! You must know everything!Du mufit die F\u00C3\u00BChrung \u00C3\u00BCbernehmen. You must take the lead!(Brecht, 1966, p. 21) (E. Hasebe-Ludt, Trans.)In this poem, Bertold Brecht points out the necessity as well as the limitations oflearning the basics, the ABC. Important insights into the sociopolitical foundations anddimensions of language and literacy within the last three decades of this century have alsoaffected the field of pedagogy and have resulted in a new level of critical examination ofthe hegemony of power connected with the process of schooling (Aronowitz & Giroux,1985; Freire & Macedo, 1987). Giroux (1992), in particular, employs the notion of atheory of border pedagogy to indicate the need for an alternative to the centred unifiedpedagogy of the past in order to recognize \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe situated nature of knowledge, thepartiality of all knowledge claims, the indeterminacy of history and the shifting, multipleand often contradictory nature of identity\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 26; as quoted in Greenlaw, J., 1994, p. 15).If we can lift these borders of pedagogical and cultural constraints, Giroux claims,students will eventually benefit from multiple border crossings by moving back and forthbetween different cultural spheres and identities. Entgrenzungen, made possible bypedagogical reaching, lifting, transgressing borders. Lucy Lippard, from within a similar125American cultural and national landscape, is aware of the inherent challenges posed bythese borders:The boundaries being tested today by dialogue are not just \u00E2\u0080\u009Cracial\u00E2\u0080\u009D and national.They are also those of gender and class, of value belief systems, of religion andpolitics. The borderlands are porous, restless, often incoherent territory, virtualminefields of unknowns for both practitioners and theoreticians. Cross-cultural,cross-class, cross-gender relations are strained, to say the least, in a country thatsometimes acknowledges its overt racism and sexism, but cannot confront theunderlying xenophobia -- fear of the other -- that causes them. Participation in thecross-cultural process, from all sides, can be painful and exhilarating. I getimpatient. A friend says: remember, change is a process, not an event. (Lippard,1990, p. 6)These words remind us of a wider global trend toward revisionist and reactionaryeducational policies that is threatening this new understanding of pedagogy, this newliteracy by adhering or retreating to traditional and status quo modes of curriculum andinstruction (Willinsky, 1990). This backlash against holistic, innovative educationalphilosophies, programs, and strategies includes the rejection of a widening of the literacyand literature canon and instead advocates a populist back to the basics approach.Examples of this trend, which has been particularly widespread throughout the media andpopular press, are book titles referring to the \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccatastrophe in public education\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Nikiforuk,1993) and newspaper articles deploring educational reforms such as British Columbia\u00E2\u0080\u0099sYear 2000 as a \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccruel hoax\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Kline, 1993).In British Columbia aspects of the Sullivan Report implemented through the Year2000 initiatives came under hard scrutiny. A growing \u00E2\u0080\u009Cback to the basics\u00E2\u0080\u009Dmovement found much to criticize in non-graded integrated primary classrooms.The supposed advantages of private schools encouraged some parents so to seekto refashion local public schools in their generally more conservative image. TheNDP provincial government was forced to redraw its educational priorities. ... Thenew conservatism soon extended into the classroom. While not publiclydisavowing Year 2000 or the Sullivan Report, Premier Michael Harcourtcommitted the Ministry of Education to putting greater emphasis on \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe basics\u00E2\u0080\u009Dand job-related curriculum, giving parents a set of standards against which tomeasure their children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s performance and progress in school ... If fast approaching,126Year 2000 was also receding from view.(Barman & Sutherland, 1995, pp. 423-424)In particular, as the above authors point out, advocates and practitioners of the wholelanguage approach to teaching literacy were among those in the crossfire of criticismdirected towards this and other education systems that are struggling to prepare studentsfor the challenges of the next century (Edelsky, 1991).In an earlier section, I dwelt on the research and readings that strongly support andacknowledge the socio-cognitive and socio-cultural co-construction of language in variouscontexts. I now want to further exemplify, from the observations and materials broughtforth from my study, how such processes were carried out in the particular context ofthese classrooms with the students actively engaged in constructing knowledge in bothlocal and global perspectives and how \u00E2\u0080\u009Cour capacities and opportunities to engage indiscourses has been re-shaped by this expanding geographical imagination. The language,the texts we use in these discourses is varied and variable, constructed\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Barnes &Duncan, p. 8).This, in turn, directly relates to the selection of materials used for reading and writinginstruction. When looking at choices of such materials for multicultural classrooms,questions about the cultural inclusiveness and responsiveness of the readings must beasked. This is set against the background of an examination of the importance andmeaning of text and stories in our lives \u00E2\u0080\u009Cas part of a narrative way of knowing that is basicto the ways in which human beings understand the world and communicate thatunderstanding to others\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Gudmundsdottir, 1991, p. 207).However, only within the last two decades have we begun to question the universalvalue of being members of what Frank Smith (1986) has called the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cliteracy club.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Withreference to the educational, literary, and philosophical maxims of the postmodern andpost-structuralist schools as well as earlier and contemporary criticism within theexistentialist and phenomenological schools of thinking, we have begun to critically127examine both affirmation and rejection of these conceptual models within currentcurricular frameworks.However, attitudes to reading vary widely according to the ethnic and culturalgroup to which one belongs. The western secular and mundane view of literacycontrasts sharply with the quasi-religious significance given to reading in manyAsian cultures. ... Likewise, expectations on how reading is learned and should betaught contrast clearly between cultural groups. Western interpretations of whatcounts as reading have also led to assumptions of deficit in non-school-orientedgroups whereby the absence of reading for pleasure indicates that no reading at alltakes place at home; a lack of appropriate books means that no reading material atall is available and untypical adult/child interaction patterns reveal that no initiationof the child into reading is taking place outside the classroom.(Gregory, 1994, p.113)With a view toward a viable definition of literacy and literature in the 21St century, weneed to examine and speculate on the respective consequences of the implementation ofinnovative beliefs and practices for a future generation of school children.We require an education in literature ... in order to discover that what we haveassumed -- with the complicity of our teachers -- was nature is in fact culture, thatwhat was given is no more than a way of taking. (Howard, 1974, p. ix)Once again, the tensionality between nature and nurture/culture re-surfaces withpervasive obstinacy. Literacy, so often assumed and hailed as a fundamental characteristicof an educated citizen of the world in many of our curriculum reforms, becomesproblematic with a view toward the future educational climate in and outside our schools.We can read the forecast, at best, as partially cloudy, with a chance ofclearing accordingto the weather words we digest daily through television, radio, and the newspaper, and thewarnings about an unsettled landscape of literacy in these stormy postmodern times.Edelsky (1991), for example, reminds us thatprogressively intended work in language and education might turn out to beconserving rather than transforming ... That is, aside from the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cordinary\u00E2\u0080\u009Ddifficulties in making an institution such as education bite the dominant societalhand that feeds it by transforming that hand (into a foot perhaps?), a growing128postmodernist mentality that often smirks at the earnestness of projects oftransformation may well exacerbate those difficulties. (p. 1)Therefore, if the context of a postmodern society has the potential to negate theliberating force of emancipation through educational processes, such as language andliteracy teaching, it can be fundamentally counterproductive and needs to be re-evaluated-- not just through intellectual debates but rather by examining the actions and methodsused to counteract progressive practice.Thus, while the general theoretical maxims of critical pedagogy spoke a universallanguage that was applicable to a wide range of educational settings in Westerndemocratic societies, the reality of transforming conservative and reactionary educationalpractices into student empowerment seemed to grow more and more challenging with theever increasing multicultural and multilingual composition of Western postindustrial states(Au, 1993; Jennings & Purves, 1991; Richard-Amato & Snow, 1992; Samuda et al.,1981). In this vein, we need to keep in mind the complex nature of multiple literacies:Even though English can be considered a language of social empowerment, as Eggington(1992) states, there is a cost to the sociopolitical prestige this language carries with it.\u00E2\u0080\u009CAlong with the benefits associated with the acquisition of English come a host of dangersinvolving the inevitable imposition of cultural values -- dangers which, if not considered,can lead to English teachers participating in forms of cultural imperialism\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 4).Consequently educators recognized the urgent need for realistic and effective methods toimplement change and to abolish existing discriminatory structures (Pennycook, 1989).Willinsky (1991) very fittingly states:For my part, I would remind the modern critic that the hegemony and complicityof literary theory requires a more specific distribution system than the vagaries of\u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe State.\u00E2\u0080\u009D My contention is that the principal playing field of these ideasachieved and won has been located in the neighborhood schoolyard. The schoolsite constitutes something of a factory outlet for the hegemony of literaryinstruction, an outlet that French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1971) hasbluntly described as the dominant Ideological State Apparatus. Both literacy andliterature constitute an introduction to an ordering of language that seems to be to129many students as intent on limiting access and participation as it is on expandingthe realm and reach of meaning. (p.15)Therefore, we need to look into schools and classrooms where the everydaynegotiation of meaning takes place and where the power play between the participants inthe battle for hegemony continually affects the individual lives of students and teachers.I hear that today\u00E2\u0080\u0099s schools -- or least some of them -- are built on differentprinciples than at the time I went to school. Nowadays, children supposedly aretreated fairly and with understanding. If this is true, I regret it very much. We weretaught about such things as class differences -- it was part of the curriculum. Thechildren of better folks were treated better than those of working people. If thishas indeed been removed from the curriculum of today\u00E2\u0080\u0099s schools, young peoplewill only find out about this immensely important difference in treatment when theyget out into the real world. Everything they learned in school in their encounterswith teachers will only entice them to the most ridiculous actions outside in reallife, which is so entirely different. They will have been artfully deceived about theway the world will treat them.(From Brecht\u00E2\u0080\u0099s 1967 Fluchtlingsgesprache [Refugees in conversation], as quotedin Richter, 1972, p.23; E. Hasebe-Ludt, Trans.)As this quotation so poignantly and satirically warns us, there is no use denying theexistence of a class structure in society nor can we close our eyes to the different realitiesand practices of schooling and of \u00E2\u0080\u009Creal life.\u00E2\u0080\u009D How then can this basic dichotomy and itsdetrimental consequences, particularly for the lives of underprivileged minority groupmembers, be dealt with in the framework of a critical approach to educational and socialorganizations? How can the multiple realities of contemporary multicultural classrooms indifferent parts of the world benefit from the postulations of a liberating pedagogy thatproclaims freedom of thought and speech together with a celebration of cultural diversityas its cornerstones?Multicultural education -- or rather education that is multicultural.22 Much doubt hasbeen generated about the radical potential of a separate curriculum that caters specificallyto the implementation of multiculturalism in education through so-called \u00E2\u0080\u0098satellite\u00E2\u0080\u0099programs which in essence only maintain the isolationist tendencies and pejorative130attitudes of the majority point-of-view (Cummins, 1989). Such an approach too oftenstops at superficial activities about the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthree Fs:\u00E2\u0080\u009D food, festivals, and famous people --and in reality sanctions the existing mainstream system of cultural hegemony.Instead, a curriculum that strives for emancipatory action within the framework ofcritical pedagogy could be characterized as containing the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfive Ms:\u00E2\u0080\u0099 meaningful,motivating, multicultural, multidimensional, and multiplicative -- thereby integrating themulticultural component as a natural part of a whole (Enright, 1989). As Gay (1992)points out in the case of the United States, there seem to be efforts to placemulticulturalism into broader structural contexts and ideological frameworks. In additionto supplying teachers with instructional strategies, activities and resources appropriate forvarious multicultural settings (Carrel et al., 1988; Chamot & O\u00E2\u0080\u0099Malley, 1986; Lim &Watson, 1993), educators working within the field of multiculturalism have madesubstantive progress in analyzing the structural, environmental and procedural routines ofmainstream schooling that discriminate against students from culturally diversebackgrounds (Fyfe & Figueroa, 1993; Gay, 1993; Harris, 1992). In this way,multicultural education scholars are providing conceptual paradigms fordetermining how to make better decisions that are more responsive to culturalpluralism at all levels of the educational enterprise.... The results constitute thebases for deciding what reform interventions are appropriate for multiculturalizingthe educational process. They represent a paradigmatic shift in understanding theimplications of cultural pluralism for schooling which leads to the personalempowerment of teachers with respect to multicultural decision making.(Gay, 1992, p. 49).How does this projected paradigm shift affect students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 realities? If it is empoweringteachers to make culturally appropriate and sensitive decisions, does it bear in mind, forexample, the different roles students from Non-Western cultural backgrounds expect toperform in school? Does the emphasis on active participation, critical thinking andquestioning on the part of students, which is an essential part of recent curricular reform inNorth America- such as the Year 2000 in British Columbia (lVlinistry of Education, 1989)1\u00E2\u0080\u0094,13-- devalue and marginalize the educational experience of students from geo-culturallandscapes where different models and modes of learning, instruction, and communicationbetween teacher and student are considered appropriate (Saint-Jacques, 1995)? Thisinvolves a constant process of decision-making and evaluation on the part of the teacherwho wants to use children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s experiences and ways of knowing as a valuable resource in theclassroom and who, therefore, has to respect these in their own right (Holmes, 1993).How can this paradigm shift toward cultural pluralism help bridge the many gaps thatstill exist between students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 experiences at home and those at school? That the contentand context of the \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccurriculum-as-lived\u00E2\u0080\u009D differs considerably from that of the \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccurriculum-as-planned\u00E2\u0080\u009D is certainly not new for either students or teachers. The reality of whatstudents learn at school, the forces that shape them, in Mary Ashworth\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1979) words,are not just transmitted through the formal language of the classroom. Rather, thelanguage of social interaction with peers on the playground, for instance, is a powerfulteaching force -- and that particular language is often in conflict with the one of the schoolauthority and the teacher as the designated voice of the official curriculum. Here is whatsome of these voices tell about coping with the diverse student population in thebeginnings of the public education system in this city, during the first years of the 20thcentury:Some of the earliest immigrant children were from European countries. I hadstudents from Norway and Sweden. No one had heard of English-as-a-second-language program. All I did was speak slowly and repeat and enunciate words.And I made sure the children didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t gang up on the new students.I was appointed to Seymour School where there were a lot of children whoknew very little English. I just had to watch my vocabulary and keep it verysimple. We did half a year\u00E2\u0080\u0099s work in a year. (Gosbee & Dyson, 1988, pp. 97-98)In his article The triumph offormalism: Elementary schooling in Vancouverfrom the]920s to the 1960s, Neil Sutherland (1995) describes the typical initial schooling132experience of youngsters during that time period, brought forth by the memories from oralinterviews with Vancouverites who attended public school in the city:however they came and whatever their expectations of how the school would beordered, most beginners shared one very clear idea of what they would do inschool. They were going to learn to read. After a half century many can recallstories such as \u00E2\u0080\u009CChicken Little,\u00E2\u0080\u009D and even phrases and sentences such as \u00E2\u0080\u009CPrettypink ice cream from a pretty pink glass,\u00E2\u0080\u009D \u00E2\u0080\u009CCut, cut, said the king,\u00E2\u0080\u009D \u00E2\u0080\u009CI am a boy.My name is Jerry,\u00E2\u0080\u009D and \u00E2\u0080\u009CSee Spot Run,\u00E2\u0080\u009D which were among the first that theydecoded. (p. 103)In contrast to this scenario emerges the picture of our six, seven, eight, and nine yearold students who are also children of immigrants, first, second and third generationCanadians, such as Bethany, whose step-grandfather immigrated from Norway and isteaching her some Norwegian:This book was about a Badger and he has boat and sings:Row Row Row your boat gentley down the stream merily merily merilylife is but dream.I can sing Row your boat in Norwegian it goes like this:Rew Rew Rew Tim boat Tidon on the fut vucina vucina vucina vucinaall Tis ba tiggua.(Bethany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Log, on Row, Row Row, your boat, 10/04/95)Bethany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s reading of a familiar, song and rhyme, transposed to a non-traditional storybook about a singing badger, has now created a third level of connectedness for her --both linguistically as well as personally meaningfiil. Erin has developed a keen interest inGerman, built on his background knowledge. Erin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father is a second generationCanadian of German origin and lived in Germany for some years as an adult. Erin is alsopicking up German vocabulary from his nanny, a young German woman whom he adores.When she comes to pick him up and we exchange greetings and bits of conversation inGerman, Erin and the other children form a delighted and delightful chorus line. Erin hastaught the class a few lessons himself by now: he convinced everybody that learninganother language is as easy as pie:133Erin: \u00E2\u0080\u009CIt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s easy to learn German!!!Teacher: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhat makes you think that?1Erin: \u00E2\u0080\u0098A lot of words are the same -- like Canada: it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Kanada!\u00E2\u0080\u009DAnd he demonstrates, with an enduring, knowing expression on his face, eager toshare that there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s almost no difference in the pronunciation except for the vowel shift,which he performs masterfully. We have a lot of discussions about German language andculture and family connections when, in November of last year, I went to Germany to visitmy family. It was a very real opportunity for the children to live another culturevicariously through the picture books, posters, and photos I shared with my studentsbefore I left and through the new books I brought back.Der Hut ist f\u00C3\u00BCr den Kopf.I liked this book because you could learn German. I like learning differentlangueges.(Brittany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Margret Rettich\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Der Hut 1stfur den Kopf11/14/94)Good for you! I like learning about languages too!(Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s response).FAMILIE BABARI like this book because it like to learn othr langwiches in the whi world. do youlike to Ms. Dyer?(Amy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Jean de Brunhoffs Familie Babar, 11/24/94)Yes, I do! This book is written in German.(Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Response).Before I left, in October, Amy, who was usually quite reserved about enteringconversations with others, started to ask a lot of questions about my trip. One stands outin my mind: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhen you go to see your family in Germany, is it going to make you feelhappy or sad?\u00E2\u0080\u009D In November, another conversation picks up the thread of thisquestioning:I am very excited to be back with the children. Reading familiar and new textstogether after a joyous reunion the first day back in the classroom, we makeconnections, literally, tracing the airplane\u00E2\u0080\u0099s journey on the globe, estimating the1\u00E2\u0080\u0094ILapproximate spot where I was writing to them from somewhere over Greenland,with the photo of the airplane in front of us.Then Amy, whose father is often away in Hong Kong, asks me verysolemnly:Amy: \u00E2\u0080\u009CDid you feel happy when you saw your family again?\u00E2\u0080\u009DTeacher: \u00E2\u0080\u009COh yes, Amy, I was so happy and excited I didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t want to goto sleep for hours.\u00E2\u0080\u009DAmy: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWere you sad when you had to leave?\u00E2\u0080\u009DTeacher: \u00E2\u0080\u009CYes, I was very sad, but I know I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll be visiting them againsometime soon, and I was looking forward to seeing my daughterand all of you again.\u00E2\u0080\u009DAmy: \u00E2\u0080\u009CI\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sad when my dad leaves.\u00E2\u0080\u009DTeacher: \u00E2\u0080\u009CI know ... it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s hard,\u00E2\u0080\u009D and we just hug.(Researcher Narrative, 10/11/95)This conversation has created a new intertext, has moved from \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse a\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- theteacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s text, the story ofjourneying to my roots -- to \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse b, Amy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s text of her ownstory of family dynamics building a layer onto mine, recognizing and interpreting thetheme of family connections and dis-connections over geographical and cultural distances,Canada, Germany, China. We have something in common now, an understanding ofpainful partings and joyful reunions, and the universal emotions that come with relating toothers.Furthermore, it is not simply our accounts of the world that are intertextual; theworld itself is intertextual. Places are intertextual sites because various texts anddiscursive practices based on previous texts are deeply inscribed in their landscapesand institutions. We construct both the world and our actions towards it fromtexts that speak of who we are or wish to be. Such \u00E2\u0080\u0098texts in the world\u00E2\u0080\u0099 thenrecursively act back on the previous texts that shaped them. (Barnes & Duncan,1992, pp. 7-8)This intertextuality stretches from our own stories to the kind of literature we usewith students in our classrooms. Cairney (1992) reminds us that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe sharing of literaturewith students is much more than simply a pleasurable way to spend time. It is an135important way in which classroom communities build common ground\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 507). In thefollowing interactive exchange of poetic language, we can recognize how intertextuality iscreated through the constructing and re-constructing of meaning by readers and writerswho \u00E2\u0080\u009Ctranspose texts into other texts, absorb one text into another, and build a mosaic ofintersecting texts\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Hatman, 1990, p. 2; as quoted in Cairney, 1992, p. 502).Sun, Sun\u00E2\u0080\u009CSun, Sun overheaIJ\u00E2\u0080\u00997iatyour colour?\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CJam red\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CSun, Sun, fieryfellow,Whatyour colour?\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CI am yellow.\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CSun, Sun in sky of blue,Whatyour colour?\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009COrange too.I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m golden yellow,Orange and redA burningfire above my head\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Heidbreder, 1985, p. 9)Myfavourit poem\u00E2\u0080\u009CSun Sun.\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u0098Moon, moon overheadWhat your colour?\u00E2\u0080\u009DJam blue.\u00E2\u0080\u0098Moon moon sadfellowWhat your colour?\u00E2\u0080\u009DJam blue.My poem. (Maggie, age 8, 1994)Children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s sense of identity is co-constructed withlin the reading relations and otherpersonal kinds of relating with people and places around them. Often, the boundariesbetween these are stretched, transgressing from the world of others, fictional or real intothe children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s lives. With her Sun Sun poem, Maggie, one of our Mandarin ESL childrenwhose progress in learning English is still slow, has re-created her favourite poem, RobertHeidbreder\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Sun, Sun from his book Don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t Eat Spiders (Heidbreder, 1985). She did so inher own way, with the vocabulary she feels comfortable with in her second language atthis point, expressing how she feels through the language and her accompanying artwork,136beautifully articulate on yet another level through the cool blue colours surrounding thepale yellow of her magnificent moon in a landscape of sadness. This poem made sense toMaggie, the artist, within her own reality. It allowed her to express herself through afavourite medium, painting, with language that was facilitated, modeled after the originalpoem through its secure and simple yet beautiful patterning. And that is why it becameher \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfavourit poem\u00E2\u0080\u009D among the many other texts she was trying to read and make sense ofin our classroom.Constructing and Negotiating Knowledge: Passports to UnderstandingThe above examples illustrate that the implementation of curriculum and the teachingof reading and writing, in particular, are not set within a vacuum but, on the contrary, areintricately connected with the students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- and the teachers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 -- sociocultural andsociolinguistic background and environment. This has been confirmed in research in othersettings, specifically with reference to the effects of background knowledge and cross-cultural schemata that operate during the acquisition of literacy in multicultural settings.Johnson (1982), for example, in a study on the effects of building background knowledgeto increase reading comprehension, found that readers use both information from text aswell as from their own background knowledge to understand the content of a text. Basedon Goodman\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1971) psycholinguistic model of reading as well as elements of schematheory (Carrell, 1983), reading can be described as an interactive process in whichprevious information from both text and the reader\u00E2\u0080\u0099s world knowledge is used forprediction of meaningful content (Morrow, 1992).Readers bring to a text a wide range of experiences with the world and withdiscourse, which they can use in constructing a meaningful representation of thetext. Their prior knowledge, organized in topical clusters (Schemata) provides acontext for comprehension. (Andersson & Barnitz, 1984, p. 103)These studies outline the need for teachers to incorporate these knowledge structuresin the choice of reading materials in combination with instructional methods such as the137Language Experience Approach (Ashton-Warner, 1963) or the Experience-Text-Relationship based on the former (Au, 1993; Rigg, 1991). The former method usesstudents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 own stories as reading material while the latter expands on it by comparingculturally different texts to students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 own sociocultural experiences of a topic or issue,thereby building and enhancing their cross-cultural schemata in meaningful ways. AsAndersson and Barnitz (1984) point out, these methods and strategies are particularlycrucial in so-called \u00E2\u0080\u0098regular\u00E2\u0080\u0099 primary classrooms with a number of ESL children, a commonscenario in schools all over North America. For students with ethnic and linguisticbackgrounds outside of mainstream North American sociolinguistic and socioculturalnorms, it is often difficult to construct the schemata that will facilitate learning withinthese norms, both in and outside of classrooms. This is particularly difficult when studentshave previously experienced divergent culturally based methods of reading practices,instruction and teaching strategies, such as is often the case with students and parentsfrom China and other Asian countries. In the case of reading instruction, for example, thekind of schemata that develop are culturally conditioned based on a reader\u00E2\u0080\u0099s knowledge ofthe world. Personal knowledge, in turn, is conditioned by a person\u00E2\u0080\u0099s culture, with factorssuch as race, gender, ethnicity, age, and so on, playing significant roles in the constructionof this knowledge and consequently of the schemata needed for reading comprehension(Reynolds, Taylor, Steffensen, Shirey, & Anderson, 1982). This interactive model can beextended to the larger context of language learning and of learning the language of thecurriculum.As the trend towards \u00E2\u0080\u0098learner-centred curricula,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 \u00E2\u0080\u0098whole language,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 \u00E2\u0080\u0098process learning\u00E2\u0080\u0099and the like grows stronger, pedagogical approaches based on notions of risktaking and personal empowerment [k], so does the population of students thatcomes from cultures which espouse different ideologies. In the Vancouver,Canada School District, for example, 50% of the students speak a language otherthan English at home, representing thirty distinct ethno-cultural groups, and theirnumbers continue to grow. (Early & Gunderson, 1994, p. 4)138From the teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s perspective, this can also mean a difficult learning and adjustingtask when faced with making decisions about reading strategies for learners with diversecultural and personal background knowledge. This difficulty is an important part ofteaching and in turn is instrumental in building cross-cultural schemata for both teachersand students. One of the teachers at Franklin reflects on her students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 backgroundknowledge and findsthat they are so much more sophisticated than I am or -- even still -- you know,with their world view, I mean, some of them have had much more life experiencethan I have. They come from countries that are war-torn, you know, traumasthat they\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve lived through ... Some of the children have a completely differentview of the world than my little corner, and I think that teachers are having to letgo of their pre-conceived ideas of what kids can do, what kids own, what kind ofexperience kids have, and also of their abilities. I am constantly at myself to letthe children take more responsibility ... all of a sudden, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s kind of a letting goand a letting go, and it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s not an easy thing when you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve been doing things acertain way for a long time, and then to let kids take more responsibility foreither learning or for structures in the classroom. (Teacher Interview, Tara, 06/95)These issues center around notions of control and, as Tara reflected, the question ofwho owns the curriculum, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwhose classroom it is.\u00E2\u0080\u009D She also thinks thatmaybe sometimes children need to have a different point-of-view from what isbeing espoused at home. I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think you can always go with, you know, yourmom and dad say this kind of thing, so ... it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s interesting to hear other\u00E2\u0080\u0099s opinions,that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s how you grow and incorporate different points-of-view. So, I think you canbe sensitive to it, but you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t just sort of put off, you know, everything else thatmight offend somebody. (Teacher Interview, Tara, 06/95)Within these power structures and struggles, there is the matter of the curriculum totake care of the task of building knowledge according to the prescribed andrecommended content of the curriculum in the various subject areas.To focus on curriculum knowledge is to direct attention to the knowledge that isselected for inclusion in school programmes and made available to students inclassroom practice. Knowledge made available to students refers to opportunitiesto construct, or critique knowledge, as well as to the more common offering ofknowledge as if it were a product or object to be acquired. Curriculum knowledgemight include social and world knowledge as well as so-called academicknowledge from the recognized disciplines.139Questions of multicultural curriculum knowledge are important because howwe understand ourselves, others, a nation, and the world is shaped in part by thatknowledge. Curriculum knowledge contributes to the shaping of identity,capacity, attitude, and action both individually and collectively. Questions ofcontrol are important because different values and interests are sustained ormodified by one or another selection and distribution of curriculum knowledge. Isee the question of \u00E2\u0080\u0098whose knowledge?\u00E2\u0080\u0099 as less important per se than the questionof \u00E2\u0080\u0098who benefits?\u00E2\u0080\u0099 from particular knowledge selections. Further understanding ofcurriculum knowledge control, empirically and theoretically, would enhanceunderstanding of larger issues of curriculum policy, practice, and change.(Cornbleth, 1995, p. 166)Against this background, some researchers argue that ESL and minority students,when reading and interacting with texts for the purpose of comprehension, are at aparticular disadvantage because of their lack of cross-cultural background knowledge thatfacilitates interaction with a text (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). It is important therefore forteachers to use texts and strategies with which students can comprehend through a secondlanguage the words and the world in a meaningful way.Some of these strategies, such as the Knowledge Framework (Mohan, 1986), aim atbuilding six explicit knowledge structures such as description, classification, andevaluation in relation to thinking skills, and observing and comparing, understandingconcepts, and critical decision making. Each of these knowledge structures can berepresented graphically by \u00E2\u0080\u009Ckey visuals (Early, Mohan, & Hooper, 1989).The workshop that I took dealt with Anansi the Spider; it was the KnowledgeFramework, and part of that Knowledge Framework workshop was dealing withAnansi the Spider, and once you got those ideas for using that book, eventhough on the surface it seems like a simple picture book, all of a suddenthere\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a lot you can do with it, and it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s no different than a novel, so I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099sa way for teachers to deal with books other than from their own culture.(Teacher Interview, Tara, 04/95)Realizing this necessity to go beyond one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own limited perspective, we now see amove toward further Entgrenzungen within a constructivist framework. Out of theAustralian literary and pedagogical community comes a move toward a paradigm shift thatviews literature as a tool for overcoming etimo-centric views of curriculum and for distinct140cultural criticism (O\u00E2\u0080\u0099Neill, 1993) which goes beyond the ideologies of literature as culturalheritage (Leavis, 1972), beyond even the personal and social reality of the new literacy(Willinsky, 1990). Based on Halliday\u00E2\u0080\u0099s social-semiotic perspective (Halliday, 1978;Halliday & Hasan, 1985), this new literary mode instead transcends established boundariesof genres and redefines them as staged, goal oriented social processes in which membersof a culture participate in a variety of ways (Martin, Christie, & Rothery, 1987).According to O\u00E2\u0080\u0099Neill (1993), this more radical definition of literature and genre-basedliteracy asks for readings that students actively construct, reconstruct and change:Inviting students to consider ways in which readings change over time can be aproductive means of looking at shifts in cultural values -- shifts in what readersbring to texts and shifts in what is possible or permissible to say about them.(p.23)In Canada, the attempts to expand the traditional canon of predominantly British-Canadian and American narratives are becoming more frequent and are evidence of thisparadigm shift through the prolific writings of authors and illustrators of childrens bookssuch as William Bell, Dayal Kaur Khalsa, Joy Kogawa, George Littlechild, Jean Little,St\u00C3\u00A9phane Poulin, Barbara Smucker, and Paul Yee, to name only a few, who represent andpromote the rich cultural mosaic of the Canadian literary community (Jobe, 1993; Jobe &Hart, 1991, 1993; lobe & Sutton, 1990).Not only have they and their colleagues opened doors to a wider world of experiencefor our students, they also have actively contributed to the dialogue about culture andliterature among educators, writers, students and researchers. This dialogue needs tocontinue and expand, facilitated by greater availability of resources and a shift in prioritieswhen it comes to multicultural issues. In their case study on Literature and Reading in aMulticultural Society (lobe & Sutton, 1990), the authors found that \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe fulfillment of thevision of a socio-political climate that encourages the recognition and full participation ofvarious cultural and linguistic groups in Canadian society has been far slower than141anticipated\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 2). In the same way, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cmulticulturalism, although stressed in the BritishColumbia curriculum guides, continues to be a low priority in many schools in the lowermainland\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 41).A wide variety of texts that facilitate the use of prior knowledge as well as thebuilding of new background knowledge must be made available to all students. Thesetexts include narratives of a different kind than the ones traditionally found in schools andclassrooms and certainly those driven by a back to basics approach. They comprise thekind of stories that arise out of an authentic need for sharing and communicating beyondcultural, social, and personal boundaries. They engage the individual voices of bothstudents and teachers in a meaningful and purposeful learning context.In his work Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Jerome Bruner (1981) argues that thereare two modes of thought: the paradigmatic and the narrative. The paradigmatic isemployed most often, he suggests, in the construction of our knowledge of the naturalworld; the narrative, on the other hand, is instrumental in our understanding of humanaffairs (Hansson, 1991). If our goal is truly understanding, then, as Belenky, Clinchy,Goldberger, & Tarule (1986) explain, the personal experience of relationships needs to bepart of our storying:By understanding we mean something akin to the German word kennen, theFrench connaitre, the Spanish conocer, or the Greek gnosis (Lewis, 1983),implying personal acquaintance with an object (usually but not always a person).Understanding involves intimacy and equality between self and object, not distanceand impersonality, while knowledge (wissen, savoir, saber) implies separation fromthe object and mastery over it. ... Telling and hearing our stories helps us tounderstand. The story, a product of language, can bring forth our experiences toconsciousness. (pp. 10 1-102)In this way, the notion of understanding also speaks to the intertextual nature of ourstories and of other texts, incorporating yet another layer, another important element tothis complex cognitive process, that of evaluation. In the seminal thinking of his laterwork, Bakhtin (1986) perceives this as a creative act, one which is necessary to elevate a142given text to reveal the multiplicity of its meanings: \u00E2\u0080\u009CThus, understanding supplements thetext: it is active and also creative by nature. Creative understanding continues creativity,and multiplies the artistic wealth of humanity. The co-creativity of those who understand(p. 142).\u00E2\u0080\u009DThe Power of Our Stories: Literature as Texts for Reading the WorldOur stories are the masks through which we can be seen, and with every telling westop the flood and swirl of thought so someone can get a glimpse of us, and maybecatch us if they can.Madeleine Grumet, Bitter milkWhether we speak of our own stories or the stories of others, whether we speak ofour own education or the education of others, story-telling does give pause to find thedetails, examine the subtleties and nuances, and be with the experience. In doing so, itserves well as a tool, a method, within which one is able to think of an experience, toreflect upon and make sense of interactions, to imagine the experience of others, toconsider a dilemma and ponder solutions, to contribute and share in collective storytelling. Virginia Shabatay, Carol Witherell and Nel Noddings, in Stories Lives Tell (1991),speak of the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwholeness of the human\u00E2\u0080\u009D that is brought forth in the story.Stories allow us to break through barriers and to share in another\u00E2\u0080\u0099s experience;they warm us. Like a rap on the window, they call us to attention. Throughliterature and people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s stories we discover a variety of situations that make peoplefeel like strangers. We discover what strangers have to teach us. (Shabatay, 1991,p. 137).The power of narrative and dialogue as contributors to reflective awareness inteachers and students is that they provide opportunities for deepened relations withothers and serve as springboards for ethical action. Understanding the narrativeand contextual dimensions of human actors can lead to new insights,compassionate judgment, and the creation of shared knowledge and meanings thatcan inform professional practice. (Witherell & Noddings, 1991, p. 8)In this way, Tara found that these texts can also build that connection for students, tobring forth their own stories:143I know that when the children have been read to or have read something thatreally strikes a cord in them, they find that their own writing is so much ... theyreally want to write about it, whether it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s about something they experienced orthought about, or fear. (Teacher Interview, Tara, 04/95)If we invite the children in our classrooms to become part of this narrative way ofexperiencing, reflecting, and sharing, we can together create a rich web of meaning-making and understanding through the stories woven from this common thread ofhumanity. It is through this process that we let others see through our masks, inMadeleine Grumet\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words (198 8a), and at the same time become writers and storytellersthat have, so Alice Walker believes, the power to save lives.I wonder why Santa didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t like going out giveing presents to children because hesaid when it is December 24 I have to do everything because I hate Christmasbecause I hate children and everything in the hole entere world and holeuniverse.(Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, 12/02/94)In his response, Jimmy was trying to come to terms with a very different portrayal ofthe Santa Claus figure we traditionally encounter in story books centered aroundEurocentric beliefs and values about Christmas. In Brigg\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1973) unconventional,tongue-in-cheek cartoon version of The Night before Christmas, the benevolent FatherChristmas figure turns into a grouchy, overworked, yet lovable character. Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099sfascination started with questioning this particular adult conception of the world andcontinued with comparing this image with others he was encountering. During this time,we were reading a variety of books clustered loosely around our Peace theme inDecember. Other books that the children eagerly read and re-read were, for example,Allan Say\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1991) Tree ofCranes, and Eleanor Coerr\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1979) Sadako and the 1,000paper cranes. Especially the latter text presented a compelling and thought-provokingpicture of a world in which global issues and individual lives are intertwined in a complexand powerful way.You can really see that ... like the books that we have read with the kids, andwe\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve got a lot of books upstairs, we got tons of them, and it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s interesting, they144really learn from the content of those books. They\u00E2\u0080\u0099re very simple, you know,they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re kids\u00E2\u0080\u0099 books, they have beautiful art work, for one thing, but the contentalways, you know, has a moral, most of them, anyway, and it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really interesting,they really do pick that up.Interesting thing, you know Sadako and the Cranes, that book, great littlebook, Jasmine read that one ... and it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s so interesting, her perspective on it. Iwas raised in a generation of the ... that the Japanese were the aggressor andthe basically the atom bomb wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t a negative thing from our perspective. Itwas basically brought about to eradicate the negative thing, right? When shewas reading that book, and it was talking about why, you know, the atom bombdisease and all that, and she said: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhy, Daddy, why would the Americans beso bad and do that?\u00E2\u0080\u0099 I can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t remember exactly what she said, but herperspective from reading that book was really, gave my head a shake, becauseit was exactly the opposite perspective of how I learned, but it was learned fromthe book. And the book was a very positive thing, it was a very good book,actually, talking about the other perspective, and just about: here\u00E2\u0080\u0099s whathappened, there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a victim to everything, these were ... like, she said: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhywould they drop a bomb on innocent people, on children?\u00E2\u0080\u009D It was such a ... on alittle kid. And I, so explained quickly about the whole thing, you know, how it gotstarted and all about war, and that that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s the problem with war, and it really didbring in a good sort of lesson there, but I was struck by how the perspective, herperspective of that situation was totally different from mine by interpreting, bywhat she read, from that book. And in a way, you can talk about the content,the book, in a way, forming a sense of community. (Parent Interview, Gregg,05/95)In the situation described above, the interactive negotiation and meaning makingbetween the reader and the text forms a crucial part of one child\u00E2\u0080\u0099s developingunderstanding of the world. In addition, the relationship between child and adult, thecommunity-building process as part of a shared reading and discussion of the content ofthe text, are necessary in order to build background knowledge and facilitateunderstanding. The role that literature can play in helping children understand ourmulticultural world should therefore not be underestimated or judged simplistically andsuperficially.Books can make a difference in dispelling prejudice and building community: notwith role models and literal recipes, not with noble messages about the humanfamily, but with enthralling stories that make us imagine the lives of others. Agood story lets you know people as individuals in all their particularity andconflict; and once you see someone as a person -- flawed, complex, striving -- thenyou\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve reached beyond stereotype. Stories, writing them, telling them, sharing145them, transforming them, enrich us and connect us and help us know each other.(Rochman, 1993, p. 19)In the same way, the following researcher journal entry reflects the awareness of thecomplex and often difficult intertextuality of reading and a beginning understanding of thesituatedness of texts within the lives of both students and teachers:We were talking about Paul Yee\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Tales from Gold Mountain. The childrenespecially wanted me to read Rider Chan and the night river; a story about twobrothers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 tragic entanglement in the greed and selfishness of the gold rush inthe mountains of British Columbia. They laughed when I told them I wasworried it would be too scary -- never underestimate the passion for gruesomedetails by a bunch a grade threes. I think they got a kick out of the fact thattheir teacher thought this story scary at all, and the discussion that followed wasa lively bragging session about scary stories, mostly horror movies they hadseen in the vein of Freddy Krugerand friends ... Once again, I was dismayed atthe exposure to violence on television and through videos the children seem soused to. Most of them hadn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t found a movie yet that was too scary!The story we eventually decided to dramatize through role play, readers\u00E2\u0080\u0099theatre, and art, together with a grade six/seven class, was The spirits of theRailway, a tale about the sacrifices and exploitation of the Chinese workers whobuild the railroad through the mountains of British Columbia. This story had itsscary elements too -- ghosts, skeletons, and violence in the treatment of theworkers on the part of the \u00E2\u0080\u0098white bosses.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 The students worked hard for severalweeks in small groups. I was amazed at the amount of cooperative effort theycame to at the end when we performed our drama in the Chinese New Yearassembly in front of the whole school.Chung, who is Chinese himself, was fascinated by the story from thebeginning. He kept asking questions about the historical details of the railwaybuilding, so I was glad when the librarian supplied a film on the history of therailway in Canada. We all watched and listened to the rather dry and pompous-sounding voice of the narrator, telling about the \u00E2\u0080\u0098official\u00E2\u0080\u0099 historical facts andfigures, culminating with \u00E2\u0080\u0098the last spike\u00E2\u0080\u0099 of the transcontinental railroad. Into thesilence that followed the scene of a crowd of dignitaries gathered for this historicmoment, Chung, who sits next to me, wonders out loud: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWhere are all theChinese workers, Ms. H.?\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Researcher Narrative, 02/06/94)For Chung, literature, through a re-reading of history in the form of Paul Yee\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Talesfrom GoldMountain (1989), had opened up spaces for his own, genuine questions, forfinding out about the hidden curriculum, for learning about identity, exclusion, andinstitutional racism. At the same time, working with this text had opened up spaces,exemplified another perspective for the other children in the class, especially the ones who,146in the beginning of the year, had not been open-minded about different culturalbackgrounds, like Fiona, looking down on the Chinese children because of their languageand manners.There is obvious difficulty involved in this process of building and re-defining acommunity with the help of texts for both these children -- a difficulty that involvesinteracting with language and literature in new and challenging ways that move beyondrestrictive and canonized texts. When looking at the students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 responses to the literacytasks they were faced with, there is one insight that stands foremost in my mind. Thechildren, when helped to make connections with the texts they were reading in ways thatwere meaningful to them, were immersed in the tasks through a multi-layeredintertextuality. They connected with the materials by re-reading stories, taking bookshome to their parents and sharing them together, by writing stories about Canada, theworld, and their own sense of place, by inventing chants and poems based on patterns theyhad become familiar with, and by talking to each other about what they liked to read.Through this, they demonstrated how literacy can be actively expanded by the learnersbeyond the traditional definitions of reading and writing to affirm the social and culturalnature of intertextual literate events (Chapman, 1995).Community in diversity: Through the active negotiation of socio-cognitive and sociocultural processes such as the above, which involved the grasping of historical globalevents and their representation through different eyes -- of official sources and of thevoices of people from ethnic minority groups -- children step-by-step can come tounderstand important parts of their role as players in this vastly expanding globalcommunity of learners. There is difficulty in community building involved in this, atensionality that needs to be acknowledged as a necessary part of learning, of learningthrough language, of learning to read -- especially in the context of reading texts in asecond or other language (Elam, 1991; Heidegger, 1968; Wood, 1993).147This prompts me to revisit Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s notion of \u00E2\u0080\u0098belonging together\u00E2\u0080\u0099, in whichhe emphasizes the first word of the phrase, belonging, invoking a sense ofcommunity that incorporates the being). This communal space thereby createsthe texture of diversity, the striving, the longing for past and future connections-- unlike so much of the current educational and political rhetoric where thestress is on \u00E2\u0080\u0098belonging together on unity defined as universality, in a static andfinite frame -- without listening to the authentic voices in between and the voicesof the other. (Researcher Narrative, 07/25/94)Language, understood as text in the sense that it encompasses creative language usefor the purpose of communication, whether read, written, or spoken, represents aninterwoven tapestry, a textus, which allows us to transcend borders, to move beyond thelimitations of the imposed limit-language of the curriculum (Schemer, 1984). This, onceagain, connects me with Schwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993) notion of texts as Entgrenzungen, as creationswhich push for a transition, an opening toward a more inclusive vision of a community oflearners.My day begins with observations of the shared reading time during the firstperiod. I am curious about the progress the children are making with readingtogether. I know I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t have to worry about that with the \u00E2\u0080\u009CWaldo group,\u00E2\u0080\u009D as Ihave started to call them in my mind. Erin, Hugh, J. R., and Jimmy havedeveloped a routine of their own. They invariably pick up one of the Waldobooks we have in our classroom, negotiate whether it is possible to get the onethe resource teacher next door has, then form a circle around the book on thefloor. Usually, there is lots of talk happening between them, mostly quietly butonce or twice I have to remind the boys about chatting a bit more quietly. Icatch myself being reluctant to do that, though, not really wanting to interferewith the kind of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cgood noise\u00E2\u0080\u009D that originates in such intercultural conversationalexchanges and that I have come to appreciate so much.The participants in this nuclear speech community are Erin, our bright 6-year-old native English speaker who reads and writes about two years beyondhis age level and wonders about all kinds of things in imaginative, rich languagethat reflects his thinking and understanding of the world around him; J. R., age6, Jimmy, age 5, and Hugh, age 7, are ESL students, J. R.\u00E2\u0080\u0099s native language isTagalog, Hugh\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and Jimmy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s is Cantonese. They are learning English withenthusiasm, without being aware of it, talking about what really interests them:the hidden characters in the book -- a friendly competition and joint endeavor tosolve the puzzles in the pictures and the text.Today, I have a special surprise for them: I brought another Waldo bookfrom home -- one that my daughter, Charlotte, is graciously donating to theclass: Wher&s Waldo? The boys comment excitedly that they know it, tell eachother details about it and then, in pairs, divide their attention between the twobooks. Two others, realizing that there is some novel event happening, comeover to join: Leo who, being new to the school, has a hard time making friends148up to this point in our time together as a class, now joins this community, and sois Jan who also has difficulties relating to others. There is an atmosphere ofintensive communal negotiation as they jointly search for the hidden objects onthe pages, making predictions, telling each other about the funny and excitingdetails they notice in the drawings. When I call the class to the carpet for ourmorning gathering, they are reluctant and need a couple of extra invitations.The last part of their communal bonding consists in a conspiratory negotiationabout which will be the best hiding place for this new treasure. Even though Iknow this is going to result in future complaints and protests from other childrenin the class, I can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t help but smile at the group\u00E2\u0080\u0099s enduringly clever, clandestineways of claiming ownership of the texts in their classroom.(Researcher Narrative, 10/01/94)The world according to the Waldo universeLiterature can reproduce the diversity of sociolects, or, starting from this diversity,and suffering its laceration, literature may imagine and seek to elaborate a limit-language which would be its zero degree. Because it stages language instead ofsimply using it, literature feeds knowledge into the machinery of infinite reflexivity.Through writing, knowledge ceaselessly reflects on knowledge, in terms of adiscourse which is no longer epistemological, but dramatic. (Barthes, 1978b, p. 19,as quoted in Sontag, 1982, pp. 463-465)Reading the world according to National Geographic:We went to the Vancouver Art Gallery, to a participatory workshop in connectionwith an exhibition called Out of place, featuring seven artists from diversecultural backgrounds whose life experiences speak and display feelings ofalienation and displacement through imposed power structures.23One of the installations draws my students like a magnet: When the docentis leading small groups of children into what gives the illusion of a small roomsurrounded with suspended high shelves of National Geographic magazines,hundreds of them, my curiosity is peaked, too. We have a shelf with thesemagazines in our classroom, too, brought in by one of the children from home.Some of the children seemed to like looking at them during silent reading,particularly enjoying the photos in them. Now I see astonished looks and hearsurprised comments about the masses of magazines in this room, as part of anart display. Even more astonished looks and languaging ensue when wediscover that the artist, Panya Clark, has re-created cultural objects from theoriginal magazine pages, such as a kind of toque, a sail boat, and a pair ofearrings. The objects, displayed side by side the magazine page that framedthem, look stunningly like the originals. The children are full of wonder, askingquestions: \u00E2\u0080\u009CHow did it get here?\u00E2\u0080\u009D \u00E2\u0080\u009CDid the artist find this?\u00E2\u0080\u009D \u00E2\u0080\u009CHow did she get theexact materials to copy these?\u00E2\u0080\u009DThey are fascinated by the puzzle of how real objects were re-created,used as art, used to deliver a message about authenticity, ownership, andappropriation. They don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t tire of asking questions, responding to the docent\u00E2\u0080\u0099s149thoughtful comments and open-ended questions: \u00E2\u0080\u0098Which things did the artistmake? What do you think? Why do you think that Panya Clark decided topresent the objects and the pictures side by side?\u00E2\u0080\u009D This installation is such apowerful statement, immensely complex, yet simple in a way that children canunderstand about the powers of words and images on the printed page. Theyare reading the words and imprints of culture according to National Geographic,and they are reading the world according to a certain perspective that putsculture on display. Then, by visually adding another layer, they experience thedisplacement and interrogation of practices of cultural hegemony in a way thatleaves them spellbound with the power of artistic questioning.The learning continues after the children have had a chance to create theirown installations after the gallery tour and take them back to the school to bedisplayed in our classrooms and hallways. They are writing in their journalsabout their impressions of Out of Place. For weeks, they have become eagerreaders of the National Geographics in our classroom, sharing them in \u00E2\u0080\u009Cbooktalks,\u00E2\u0080\u009D putting the world in the centre of our classroom. The globe is becoming apermanent fixture at group carpet time; we are constantly finding places fromarticles featured in the magazines, the children are posing questions about theplaces that catch their attention. A lot of the stories and the compelling picturesthat accompany them are about animals and people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s exploitation or eradicationof them, such as the coverage of the practice of hunting elephants for ivory.Some of them sound like budding journalists reporting on endangered speciesin a global space.(Researcher Narrative, 10/12/94)In another space, in what now seems like yet another world, another time zone, myown journey of discovery in the landscape of language and literature led me to the writingof a thesis on the connections between power and language/literature:This work is conceived a contribution to the field of women studies ... will showthat the status of women writers depends on the social, political, and economicalstructure of society ... portraying the development of cultural patterns that definethe role of women within society ... attitudes about female character traitsinfluence the image of women in society and are reflected in literature ... thetreatment of women\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature by male critics ... stereotypes of women areidentified with those of women\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature ... (Ludt, 1977)24Reading life and reading the world: coming back, over and over again, to the powerof the stories of our past, to the importance of prior educational and family connections.The mapping exercise about \u00E2\u0080\u009CP.O.A. Connections\u00E2\u0080\u009D described earlier was received withoverwhelming enthusiasm, generating many discussions in the hallway between teachers,parents, and students. The globe in our classroom was a very popular learning tool for150months before and after this visual testimony to multiculturalism. The students becameMidnight on the mid-AtlanticNothing blacker than the wateinothing wider than the sky.Pitch and toss, pitch and toss.The Big Dipper mightjust ladlea drink out of the sea.Midnight on the mid-Atlantic is11 A.M. in JapanIn the pondgrandfatherfloats a tulipso the fish can greet the spring.JJA.M in Japan is6 PM in Los AngelesThe sun eases downlike a big golden dinner plateat the end of the dayon the beach.6 P.M in Los Angeles is10 A.M. in Guangzhou, ChinaOn the way to Goat Cityauntie pedals quickly,flying like a dragon.On the way to Goat Cityeider sister pedals slowly,flapping like a goose.10 A.M in Guangzhou, China, isNoon in Sydney, AustraliaAt the barbie, five cousins, fouruncles, three aunts,two sheepdogs, six iizards and onesly kookaburrastealing sausage right off theplates.Noon in Sydney, Australia, is9 PM in Brooklyn, New YorkThe vroom and shush of trafficoutside the bedroom windoi\u00E2\u0080\u0099while Mama turns the pages ofasleepytime tale.(Singer, 1991, unnumbered pages)fascinated with time zones, learning about them with the help of literature, such as thedelightful Nine Oiock Lullaby (Singer, 1991), in which young readers, through a seriesof sixteen simultaneous happenings on six continents, are introduced to the concepts oftime zones and cultural similarities.10 P.M. in Puerto RicoSweet rice, fruit ice, coconut candy.Papa playing congas Tio his guitar.Swaying lanterns in the branches,dancingpeople on the grass.Bedtime isforgotten on a specialparty night.10 P.M in Puerto Rico is151Today Jimmy was telling the class with a beaming face that his mom came backfrom San Francisco on the weekend. He wrote it in his journal, too, and I writeback to him that I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve always wanted to go to San Francisco, and that I reallyhope that I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll be able to go there some day, maybe even next spring, to aconference. When he was telling the whole class, we find it on the map,together with Los Angeles, the city from the Nine o\u00E2\u0080\u0099clock lullaby poem (Felicity isgetting excited, she tells everybody THAT\u00E2\u0080\u0099S where Disneyland is, and SHE ISgoing there in the spring, FOR SURE, her mom promised), and San Diego,where Bethany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mother and step-father live and where she is going forChristmas this year. She misses her mom ... Other children share connections:Melanie\u00E2\u0080\u0099s family, her aunt, uncle and cousins, live in San Francisco, and she islooking forward to visiting them soon. We found a lot of things to talk about,and we are reading California through our own stories and others, such as AllanSay\u00E2\u0080\u0099s stirring, bittersweet Grandfather\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journey, which I decided to read to thechildren emerging from our spontaneous real and imaginary travels to thissouthern place. (Researcher Narrative, 11/16/94)My grandfather was a young man when he left his home in Japan and went to seethe worldOfall the places he visited he liked Calfornia best. He loved the strongsunlight there, the Sierra Mountains, the lonely seacoast.The last time I saw him, my grandfather said that he longed to seeCalifornia one more time. He never didAnd when I was nearly grown, I left home and went to seeCalforniafor myseifAfter a time, I came to love the land my grandfather hadloved andI stayed on and on until I had a daughter ofmy own.But I also miss the mountains and rivers ofmy childhood I miss my oldfriends\u00E2\u0080\u0099.So I return now\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and then, when I can not still the longing in my heart. The Ilinnything is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesickfor the other.(Say, 1993, pp. 4-31)This book speaks to me in a way that not many others do. It is unique in theway it makes me relate to the emotional messages of belonging anddisplacement, of love and caring within families in between continents, makesme think of my own family between continents.PEOPLE IN MOTIONReading San Francisco: This city holds a strange and beautiful fascination;the intertextuality of its geo-cultural landscape, evoked through language,music, and art -- made meaningful through my students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and my own personalrelations: Living in Berlin, a student myself, relating to professors and studentsfrom Berkeley, trying to speak their language, listening to their music, andwishing I could go there some day: It seemed like such an exciting, progressive,on-the-edge, yet paradoxically peace-minded place. Years later, still hoping tosee San Francisco for myself ... Am I just hopelessly nostalgic? And if so, whatis wrong with that?152California dreamingon a such a winter\u00E2\u0080\u0099s dayIF YOU\u00E2\u0080\u0099RE GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO.All across the nation,such a strange vibration,people in motion . -.theres a whole generation,with a new explanation,PEOPLE IN MOTIONSan Francisco days, San Francisco nightsSan Francisco days, San Francisco nights.Listening to the song on the radioand still hoping to see San Francisco some daylistening to stories about walking on the beach in San Franciscothinking that I really wanted to be able to tell a story about San Francisco tooI went to Long Beach, L.A. instead, to another conference -- it made moresense.What made me think so?How does this thinking make sense?I can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think of a story about Long Beach, L.A.(Researcher Narrative, 04/11/95)Naomi: Me and my dad went to the park on the weekend. Me and Tara aregoing to Alaska. We will have fun.Teacher: Alaska is a beautiful place!Naomi: Today we are going back to Alaska. Yesterday we had lots of funbut it was very cold. But we had fun anyway.Teacher: Is it always cold in Alaska?Naomi: Today we are going to California with Sabrina and Meleana.We will have fun.Teacher: What will you do on your trip to California?Naomi: Today we are going back to California with Miata, Tara, Sally,Meleana, Angela. We will have fun.Teacher: What kind of fun things are you going to do on your trip toCalifornia?Tara: Today me, Naomi, Meleana, and Sally are playing house and we arepretending that we are going to California.153Teacher: What will you do in California?Tara: Today me Naomi, Sally, Meleana, Miata, and Angela are going toCalifornia for pretend. We will have fun!Teacher: What kind of fun things are you going to do in California?Sally: Today I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m going to play with Meleana and Roddie and Naomi andTara and Angela and Miata. We will have fun. We are going toCalifornia!Teacher: What will you do?Renata: Today me and Gemella are going to Disneyland. I will be makingthe tickets. We will have some fun on our imagining trip!Teacher: Great! Enjoy yourselves!Renata: Today at recess me and Gemella are going on a trip to Alaska. Wewill have a great time!Teacher: I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sure you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll have a great time on your pretend trip!(Journals, 04/15/95-04/18/95)During the observations and reflections on the kind of texts that were used in thePrimary Open Area, it became obvious that a lot of the theming and subsequent choicesfor reading were an interactive process between teachers and students. At the beginningof this year, for example, when we began our theme of\u00E2\u0080\u0099Me and my Family,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 a lot ofpersonal connections influenced the selections for reading in the classroom and in thehomes of the students. After that, all year long, it almost seemed that, through books andstories, we were going on a trip around the world: Australia, Norway, China, Japan,Germany, Alaska, California -- we were all over the map, and indeed the globe nevercollected dust in this classroom with eager small hands locating countries and cities thathad become meaningful through our own stories and those of beloved characters in books.Bethany, inspired by our reading of Jan Brett\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Trouble with Trolls (1992) andChristmas Trolls (1993), featuring beautiful border designs with intricate details of thetrolls\u00E2\u0080\u0099 homes set against the Nordic wintry landscape, brought in a Norwegian Trolls154children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s book in translation (Lidberg & Loeoef 1991), with more beautiful drawings ofthe mischievous creatures, and she delights in reading it to the class. The other childrenand the teachers then became eager to find other books with trolls and from Scandinaviancultures, from the school and classroom libraries, and for day, we were occupied withdescribing, contrasting and comparing, wondering about real and imaginary characters infolktales and the mythology of these Nordic countries. We discover Pippi Longstocking(Lindgren, 1950), Roland Dahi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s The Witches (1983), This troll that troll, a pop-up bookby Mike Tnkpen (1993), and somebody even notices that another one of our favouritestories, A letter to the king (Va, 1987) had been translated from Norwegian.The languaging the children experienced through these dialogues and through thevoices of the characters, such as the confident female narrator, Treva, from Brett\u00E2\u0080\u0099s trollbooks, held them spellbound with its beautiful patterning and humorous emulating of thespeech of the trolls who seem to have trouble with a foreign language.My name is Treva, and I have had trouble with trolls.\u00E2\u0080\u009CI need you to push me.\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009CCan\u00E2\u0080\u0099t push!\u00E2\u0080\u009D they cried. \u00E2\u0080\u009CHold dog!\u00E2\u0080\u009D\u00E2\u0080\u009COkay,\u00E2\u0080\u009D I said, sighing. \u00E2\u0080\u009CI\u00E2\u0080\u0099ll hold the dog.\u00E2\u0080\u009DI\u00E2\u0080\u0099m Treva, and the day my brother Sami and I went to our neighbor\u00E2\u0080\u0099s farm to pickout a Christmas tree was the beginning of the most unforgettable Christmas I everhad.I showed them how to jump rope.I told them how much I liked their tail knots and earrings.They smiled shyly and started tucking in their shirttails.\u00E2\u0080\u009CNice hair. Pretty belt,\u00E2\u0080\u009D they said, grinning at me.And they taught me a little troll dance. They were catching on.(Brett, 1992, 1993, unnumbered pages)Trouble with TrollsBy Jan BrettI like this story because I uk reading storys about trolls. The sory was aboutgreety troll\u00E2\u0080\u0099s who cept on steeling her dog but she cept on geting it back.My favorit part was wen she trick the trolls and when she got all her stuff back155from the troll\u00E2\u0080\u0099s.(Renata\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Log, 01/03/95)This trol that trolI like this book. it has difrent trols in it.I thot ther was only one cinde.(Felicity\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Mick Inkpen\u00E2\u0080\u0099s This troll that troll, 11/28/94)This troll that trollby Mick lnkpenI picked this Book Because I like trolls.So dose Ms. Hasebe Ludt.I love trolls so much.I just LIKE IT!(Naomi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response, 12/08/94)Through Treva and the trolls, the children also caught a glimpse into a differentcultural environment and got a sense of a role model in the determined girl who teachesthe trolls, who don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t understand about Christmas, a lesson about communication but alsoabout the spirit of generosity and getting along with each other, set against thebackground of a northern snowy landscapes, with a reindeer named Arni, a dog namedTuffi, two trolls Mig and Tig who communicate at a telegraphic level of languagedevelopment (I want dog. Can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t push! How fly? I got dog), their pet hedgehog, and awild and wonderful troll horse.During this time, we also participated in a music listening program though which thestudents learned about music styles and composers from around the world. I took thisopportunity to introduce the children to Edvard Grieg and his music, coming from the hillsofNorway and his home Troldhaugen in the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cvalley of the trolls,\u00E2\u0080\u009D we listened to some ofthe Nordic melodies and the students wrote down their impressions afterwards. I had tosmile when I read how the trolls, together with images of seasons and landscapes, figuredlargely in the imagination of the childrenIt was winter and the trolls were skating. (Renata)I liked it because it sawndid like trolls were iceskating in the winter. (Fran)156I notice That the composers song was The best song I hive hrd. (Sara)It Sounds like peace and day light. (Naomi)This tape is about trolls in Summer I think. (Erin)I learned that Edvard Grieg is a very famise composer and I felt like I wasplaying the music. (Jimmy)(Responses to Edvard Grieg, The First Meeting, One of the Nordic Melodies,25/11/95)Through music and poetry in particular, the children were able to experience theaesthetic and emotional dimensions of language and texts that transcend the borders ofperceived or traditional genres. In the following poem, Debra Frasier\u00E2\u0080\u0099s On the Day YouWere Born (1991), which we used as part of our read-aloud storytime to the children, therelationship between the earth as our global environment and the uniqueness of theindividual is portrayed in stunning verbal and visual images. The poem tells a story aboutcreation, about fitting in with the universe, about ecology, about the changing yetconstantly recurring patterns around us -- a soothing and at the same time breathtakinglystimulating listening and comprehension experience for the children. The aestheticsinvolved in this exquisite languaging go hand in hand with its sociopolitical relevance, itsappropriateness in this age of re-awakening of ecological consciousness, and, above all,the message of caring for both the earth and each of its individual inhabitants.157On the day you were bornthe round planet Earthturned toward your morning sky,whirling past darkness,spinning the night into light.On the day youwere borngravity\u00E2\u0080\u0099s strong pullheld you to theEarthwith a promise thatyouwould never floatawayOn the day you were bornthe quiet Moon glowedand offered to bringa full, bright face,each month,to your windowsillOn the dayyou were bornthe Moon pulledon the oceanbelow, and,wave by wave,a rising tidewashed thebeaches clean foryour footprintswhile deep inspacethe burning Sunsent uptowering flames,lighting your skyfrom dawn untildusk.while high above the NorthPole,Polaris, the glittering North Star,stood still, shining silver lightinto your night sky.while farout at seaclouds swelledwith water drops,sailed to shoreon a wind,and rained youa welcomeacross the Earth\u00E2\u0080\u0099sgreen lands.I like the pictures. This is about on the day you were born, and I likewhen it talks about the world!Me too!I like it because it talks about the earth, and there is a boy, and hefalls into the earth.Teacher: Yes, the boy was very special!(11/09/94)Naomi:Teacher:Tara:158In Peace begins with us (Brown, Denos, Montgomery, O\u00E2\u0080\u0099Connor, & Scott, 1993), alocally developed resource which suggests further activities with this and other books forprimary teachers and their students, the authors state: \u00E2\u0080\u0098When we meet a story, each of usautomatically makes connections to our own experiences and to familiar stories. We bringour own world to the story\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 17). Other stories, such as the timeless Good night moon(Brown, 1947) and The crane girl (Charles, 1992), which the children were choosing fortheir reading around this time connected with our conversations about peace and also withthe feelings of peacefulness that such texts evoked for them:Good night Moonby Margaret Wise Brown.I like the part when it is Quiet. this is about a Book that said Good night to theWhole house. I like It Because It talks about night and night is the Best time ofthe Day. I like it Because it is fun. I like the pictures of the Fire place, thewindow. I wonder Why it is so quiet. I think Because they are sleeping in thereBeds. I like All of the pictures. they are nice. I Wonder How they do thepictures so Good. I like this Book Because I like to write about Books like this.they are fun Books.(Naomi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Margaret Wise Brown\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Goodnight moon,11/15/94)I love your ideas about this story. Did you read the big book? Do you knowsome other stories by Margaret Wise Brown?(Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s response)The Crane GirlI liked this book because it is about Peace and love.(Martha\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response to Veronika Martenova Charles\u00E2\u0080\u0099 The crane girl,11/15/94)Have you ever felt like Yoshiko?(Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Response)The Crane girlI liked this book because it was about peace and love, it was beautiful, and Iliked Yoshiko and this book brings peace to us all.(Bethany\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Reading Response, 11/17/94).Yes! This is a lovely story. I think I felt like Yoshiko when I was a very small girl.(Teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Response).159These are the kinds of literature and responses that, as Frye (1964) and subsequentliterary and philosophical critics and scholars ascertain, illuminate the world of texts as anembodied world, reflecting fundamental human experiences (Rorty, 1985; Rosenblatt,1900). In re-living these experiences and constructing their own literary relations throughthe interactive processes of reading and writing, students came to connect their own worldwith the world at large, in all the universe. In these intertextual dialogues, students beganto create discourses that spread from their personal imagination to classroom discoursesthat were more inclusive, productive and richer than individual languaging. In connectionwith Bakhtin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1981) work on the dialogic imagination, we can thus perceive thepossibilities of creating classroom discourses that reflect community building, allowingstudents:to become aware that there are different ways of viewing the world encoded inlanguage. They become aware that language is not a window on reality but arefracting medium, and that they must make decisions about which perspective toadopt. They become aware of discourses seeking for their allegiance andcompeting for dominance. Through these processes a shared (although notnecessarily harmonious) language gradually emerges; if the process has been asuccessful one, this shared language is enriched by the many perspectives and waysof making meaning that the members of the group bring with them.(Maclean, 1994, p. 237)By allowing multiple discourses, the voices of the others, into the textual experiencesof the classroom community, aesthetic experiences become invaginated with cognitive,social, and critical learning and growth experiences, constructing, in Rosenblatt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words,\u00E2\u0080\u009Cframeworks for thinking\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Rosenblatt, 1990, p. 100) that are \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwhole, bright, deep withunderstanding\u00E2\u0080\u009D in both a personal as well as a community sense (Pinar, 1988). Thesephilosophical and literary connections are reinforced in British Columbia\u00E2\u0080\u0099s language artsreform which elaborates on the importance of literature in the development of literacy:The reading and study of literature enhance the aesthetic, imaginative, creative,and affective aspects of a person\u00E2\u0080\u0099s development. Literature preserves and extendsthe imaginative power of the individual. It allows young people to exploreimaginatively the places where they live and provides them with an understanding160of cultural heritage and a historical perspective, exposing them to points of viewother than the present and personal. (British Columbia Ministry of Education,1990a, p. 13)This belief in the empowering nature of literature is mirrored in the Ministry\u00E2\u0080\u0099sLiterature Connections (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1991) which elaborateson the importance of the partnership between teachers and teacher librarians in order tohelp students fully explore the world of literature and, through it, their own personalworld. Through these positive experiences that lead to understanding and enjoyment of thebooks they choose to read, so the goal statement reads, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cstudents will develop thedisposition to become lifelong readers\u00E2\u0080\u009D (BC IVlinistry of Education, 1991, p. 35).Just a couple of decades ago, in this very same school, the contexts of reading thewords and the world were set by standards very different from the above recommendedcurriculum:And I remember, we were, there were 35, and you sat there, and everythingwas very stereotyped. You see, for me, I\u00E2\u0080\u0099d read these stories and think: \u00E2\u0080\u009CWow\u00E2\u0080\u009D!Because I knew different kinds of ... I had a different culture at home. I wouldread these stories and think: \u00E2\u0080\u009COh, that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s what I want. You know, Dick and Jane -- everything was so stereotyped, and you know, you didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t see anythingdifferent, and I remember that it was important for us not to be different, eventhough I was Italian; and I had security within my group, the Italians, but when Iwas at school, I wanted to be Canadian like everybody else. And there was astrong influence of the Anglo-Caucasians, they were the ones that you wantedto be like. (Teacher Interview, Bella, 05/95)How has the language arts curriculum changed? Angela, one of the teachers fromthat very same generation, having herself grown up in Vancouver and having taught atFranklin for 15 years, thinks back to when there were hardly any materials available thatreflected the multicultural nature of the school (except for The Five Chinese Brothers, sheremarks with an ironic smile, alluding to the racist overtones of this book). Then, in theearly 80s, Franklin was part of a pilot program for the multicultural primary social studiestext New Friends (Alternatives to Racism, 1 984),25 and teachers for the first time were161encouraged to integrate multicultural issues into the curriculum with meaningful materials.Angela remembers how she and her teaching partner used this text at the time:We piloted some of the materials ... we used it in the classroom, almost like asocial studies theme, we\u00E2\u0080\u0099d sit down, look at the book and talk about it ... for acouple of weeks, we did a little section each. Actually this would be good to useagain. When I look at it again, I remember it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s more about relationships withothers, and it just happens to use multiculturalism, which is what you want to do,you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t want to say: \u00E2\u0080\u009COh, lets\u00E2\u0080\u0099 learn about this country and all the things thatare done there.\u00E2\u0080\u009D So when you look at the suggested activities in here, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s justbasically about getting along with others, but they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re using different culturalgroups. Yeah, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s actually pretty good. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a good theme to use in September,New Friends, and to have something like this which is a good guide, you coulduse this and the activities, and it would save a lot of time for the teacher, andyet you are doing something that is very valid, yeah, let\u00E2\u0080\u0099s do that again, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s agood idea. It would be nice if you sat down and read it with the children, itwould be nice maybe for grade two and three, particularly, but certainly youcould read it out loud to the other kids. (Teacher Interview, Angela, 06/95)A decade later, the scenario has changed considerably with respect to materials. Aspart of a whole-school curriculum focus during the past two years, Angela and the otherteam teachers in the P.O.A. have worked together with the Curriculum ImplementationTeacher Associate (CI. T . A.), the school librarian, the curriculum committee as well as asmall group of parents and students to supplement and change the focus of both classroomand school library texts to be more culturally inclusive. As a result of this work, criteriafor selecting and purchasing new books were developed. This became an interesting andspontaneous area for reflection for me.I find myself on another committee ... At the same time that I am interested inthis topic from both my research perspective and my classroom practice, I\u00E2\u0080\u0099mstarting to feel exasperated by the slow progress, lack of both interest andawareness by other staff members. How can we establish a policy on criteriafor selecting books with multicultural content in this climate? Even though Iknow that these processes need time and that there is much potential for growththanks to Kathy\u00E2\u0080\u0099s support and initiative, I feel I am once again fighting an uphillbattle against apathy, superficiality, and the pervasive perception ofmulticulturalism as an add-on curricular activity.(Researcher Narrative, 01/12/94)162TABLE 2Criteria for Selecting Multicultural MaterialFranklin Community SchoolApril 1994\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Authentic language and authorship\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Non-sexist and non-racist portrayal of characters (cf. guidelines/checklist)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Quality of illustrations/art work in combination with rich language\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Variety of genres: folktales, fairytales, poetry, rhymes and chants, big books,contemporary fiction and non-fiction for different ages and reading levels, i.e.,wordless books, easy picture books, story books, short chapter books,biography, novels, etc.\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Authors from a variety of ethno-cultural backgrounds, in particular from thosepresent in Franklin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s student population (cf. statistics on ethnic percentages),including Indo-Canadian, Central America\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Include books in first languages of these groups as well as bilingual books(English/Li)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Include Canadian authors/illustrators with multicultural background and/ortheme/topic relevant to multicultural Canada\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Include international children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature in translation (cf. IBBY books)\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Emphasis on narratives: stories from different cultures in order to encouragestudents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 own story-telling and story-writing\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Include narratives from both visible and non-visible minority/ethnic groups163The policy that was eventually established with support and input from some staff andparents stresses the use of authentic children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature written by authors from diversecultural backgrounds, especially those represented through children and parents in theschool, with an emphasis on narratives that include the experiences of immigrants andvisible minority communities (see Table 2). However, it was felt that a balanced selectionalso needs to ensure that, for example, white writers are not excluded -- as long as thecontent of the literature is not racially, gender- or otherwise biased.Two major purchases of texts were made during last year for both the school libraryas well as for individual classrooms. \u00E2\u0080\u0098Book buying\u00E2\u0080\u0099 for the latter was done in conjunctionwith professional development workshops on available choices for children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature andhow to use them in the setting up of classroom libraries and implementation of aclassroom literature program. Compared with the first purchase, which concentrated onfiction, the second one later that year focused on information books and autobiographicalnarratives and biographies, arts from Canada around the world (e.g., shared visions, lives,drama, dance, First Nations), and texts specifically focusing on anti-racism, such asNaomi Road (Kogawa, 1986). These texts complemented the theme for the ProfessionalDevelopment days for that year, Culture and Conflict. Resource materials werepurchased mainly from the following sources: Vancouver Kidsbooks, Pacific EducationalPress, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology, as well as a limited amountof from catalogues through United Library Services.Our professional day is themed around book-buying for classroom libraries.Both Kathy and I have taken the responsibility to organize it collaboratively invarious ways. We have invited a speaker to talk about reading \u00E2\u0080\u0098with real books,\u00E2\u0080\u0099we have established links with two publishers and a bookstore, and we havedeveloped an agenda to structure the day. Everything seems set up efficiently,yet I am worried. How will individual teachers respond to this challenge of a dayimmersed in thinking about books, choosing books, and reflecting about theirown approach to teaching reading? Once again, I am succinctly aware of thedifferences among them, the wide span of pedagogical and professional beliefand knowing that exists in the school. How can I ever think that I could beeffective in helping to build a bridge between these? What will they think of me,164a fairly inexperienced teacher, setting up a workshop in literature? Who isfeeling challenged, threatened?We went book buying. People felt good about discovering the rich diversityof children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature in an authentic place: Vancouver Kidsbooks was theplace most people went -- and I felt glad that there was much one-on-oneconversation between teachers and the knowledgeable staff of the store, quietlyabsorbed reading, and excited sharing of new discoveries. Yet, this episode, inits singularity and specialness, once again left me feeling dismayed at theprospect of implementing this \u00E2\u0080\u0098literature-based\u00E2\u0080\u0099 curriculum. What is it based on -- whose beliefs and values about literature? Where is the base in the spacebetween the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s lived experiences and the teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s world of teachingreading? Who is setting the standards for quality?(Researcher Narrative, 04/95)Angela, when reflecting on the progress we have made with respect to materials forreading instruction, recognizes the long-term effort that is involved when working withissues of cultural inclusiveness and responsiveness:I think there\u00E2\u0080\u0099s more . . .1 still don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think there is adequate ... it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s just.. I think we\u00E2\u0080\u0099reat the beginning, at a time when people are beginning, writers are considering,Canadian writers are considering their family histories as valid and important tobe written down; people just didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t write about it before, they didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think it wasimportant, or ... I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know what. Now this is becoming more important, and Ithink because the world is getting smaller, you know, you can get materials fromother countries and, there are storytellers that can come in and bring theirstories, and I think that has changed. I think the materials are important, buteven more I think it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really that what the teachers say and do, I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mostimportant, no matter what materials. I think without any materials you could stillmanage; for example, if you take a book that is based here in North America, oranimals for that matter, animals can be non-cultural, and then turn it into acultural experience, or \u00E2\u0080\u0098How does that fit in with your family?\u00E2\u0080\u0099, or not evencultural, a family, \u00E2\u0080\u0098How does your family handle that?\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and it might be completelydifferent, even within cultural groups, and I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s what\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really changing.And the literature is helping, it definitely helps, it gives you a base to talk aboutthings, it also makes children think: \u00E2\u0080\u009CGee, maybe I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m not so differentI would like to see ... I bet there are so many books published in differentcountries, if we could get our hands on that, I would love that, like, published inAfrica, in translation, that would be really good. But that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s probably somethingthat will come over the next ten years, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s probably starting ... and bilingualbooks too ... (Teacher Interview, Angela, 06/95)Having texts available in the students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 first language is a difficult task, not only froman availability perspective. It also involves value judgments about the importance and theappropriateness of such texts in classrooms where English is the designated language of165instruction. With respect to the connection between home and school, the school-widehome reading program that was initiated at the beginning of the year seemed to giveteachers a unique opportunity to build a bridge between literacy experiences at home andthose at school and to try to communicate with parents through a common interest inhelping children along the road of literacy. ESL children and parents could read togethereither in their first language or in English, depending on their preference. According toWalters and Gunderson (1985), there are substantial positive effects when Li reading ispracticed in both home and school. However, this view is not always shared unanimously;there are different expectations, constraints, and motivations on the parents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 side:I was really fascinated by that in the Read-it-up this year. Some people reallyobjected to that Read-it-up program. I was aghast at that. It was an impositionto their life. (Parent Interview, Gregg, 05/95)Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s progress in English is moving ahead in leaps and bounds. Both hisparents are tremendously motivated to help him with his second language. It isa pleasure to watch them interact with their son during the student-ledconference, their interest in his portfolio, especially in his reading log.Afterwards, they talk about how the home reading program has been such ahelp for them. I know -- their extensive and enthusiastic comments on Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099srecord sheets tell their own story. Especially Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father\u00E2\u0080\u0099s comments revealhis great interest in his son\u00E2\u0080\u0099s progress in English, but he doesn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t think that heshould be reading anything in Chinese at all.(Researcher Narrative, 03/05/94)These two books are too easy for Sung. I have told him to read harder bookswhich are challenging. (Philippa and the dragon by Susan King/Diane Vanderee,The hungty chickens by Kathryn Pond).Sung can read this book pretty good! It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a significant progress compared withwhat he could a few months ago. (The hare and the tortoise by Janet Hiliman).Sung likes FOOLISH JACK. He thinks that FOOLISH JACK is somewhat likeAmelia Bedelia. Nice book. (BUZZ by Roger Hargreaves, Foolish Jack by LucyKmcaidlEric Rowe).166Great book. We enjoy it. (Good workAmelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish and LynnSweat).Hard book. (War andpeas by Michael Foreman).Very smart boy. Sung likes the book. (Don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t worry by Pauline Cartwright & IanMcNee).We discussed Peevish\u00E2\u0080\u0099s behaviour: sour -- loser. (Little monster\u00E2\u0080\u0099t bedtime book byMercer Mayer).Nice book. Sung can not [sic] understand the book good enough to know thefun of the book. (Amelia Bedeliafamily album by Peggy Parish and Lynn Sweat).(Father\u00E2\u0080\u0099s comments in Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Home Reading Log, 03/14/94-03/21/94)Sung had chosen a mixture of books to read at home: some fables and folk- andfairytales such as Foolish Jack, some from series such as the Amelia Bedelia books andthe Literacy 2000 series designed as a multidisciplinary ESL text series,26 some fromauthors who were popular among the students in the P.O.A. such as Michael Foreman andRoger Hargreaves. Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father was his only reading partner, switching back and forthfrom being the reader to that of the listener, and he was quite involved in directing hisson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s reading choices. Judging from our conversations and the comments in the readinglogs, Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father was very motivated to have his son learn English and therefore satdown with him to read -- in English -- on an almost daily basis. His own command ofEnglish was sufficient to discuss the books with his son, but Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mother hardly spokeany English at all. There was no way the father wanted his son to read in their firstlanguage, and I was concerned about the mother\u00E2\u0080\u0099s exclusion in this process of literacyacquisition compared with the following scenario:I am immensely excited by the response from the parents we invited to be partof our multicultural literature committee. With their culturally diversebackgrounds, such as Caribbean and Australian, they have shared somedelightful perspectives and materials with us. Leila, Maya\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mother, is a167treasure to have as a parent in my classroom -- her love of literature is obviouslycatching. Her interaction with the children in the classroom through storytellingand reading is making a big impact on them. They are looking forward to hersharing stories from the Caribbean with them whenever she can make the timeto come in. I am prepared to put everything else on hold for these preciousoccasions. We are also becoming quite knowledgeable about Australianculture, places, and animals thanks to the wonderful books Darlene, Paul\u00E2\u0080\u0099smother, is bringing into the classroom from home and from the book-buying shewas part of.(Researcher Narrative, 03/30/94)Australia has provided us with many enjoyable reading experiences. Once again thisyear, one of the children, Sara, has family connections \u00E2\u0080\u0098down under\u00E2\u0080\u0099 through her mother,who was born there. When I brought in a stack of Australian children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s books which mydaughter bought for me (with the help of a teacher friend in Melbourne) while she wasvisiting there this summer, Sara and the other children were immediately hooked. Theyadored the combinations of storytelling and art, some of it from the cultural context of theaboriginal people of Australia and New Zealand, such as the story about Mungoon-gali,the giant goanna (Trezise, 1991), the legend ofEnora and the black crane (Meeks,1991), and the delightful Possum in the house (Jensen, 1986). Over the next few days,Renata and others brought in more Australian books, Koala Loo, Wombat Stew, My place.The children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s librarian from the local library was wondering what is going onTogether with Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s photographs from her trip and Sara\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and her mother\u00E2\u0080\u0099sstories and pictures from their home country, the other children and I were able to create apicture of a landscape that is exactly opposite to our own geographical position on theearth. When reflecting about the impact of such stories from different cultural andgeographical landscapes, Bronwen sensed a feeling of understanding, belonging andcon?fort building among the children through this teaching approach that integrateslanguage into global issues and landscapes throughout the curriculum:Yes, I think it is working for the kids, and I think it makes them feel reallycomfortable, excited in a way to maybe hear a story about their culture, youknow, and kind of proud in a way. I could really see that in some of our kidswith some of the stories, Grandfather\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Journey, and you know you see that in168Jan, he was just beaming -- those kinds of stories. Yeah, I think it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s working forthe kids, and they go back and re-read, if you look closely at what they\u00E2\u0080\u0099relooking at, reading it again, and if you shared a story they can relate to. Not justthose kids but all the kids, you know, they are choosing it again, it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s really neatThe same with the stories from Norway, you know, that we had at thebeginning of the year, you know, we\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve shared lots of stories from all over theworld. (Teacher Interview, Bronwen, 03/95)Talking about the books her daughter was bringing home, Loren commented on howstories about children in different geo-cultural settings and backgrounds were appealing toFelicity:The read-it-up program is just great, because Felicity gets very proud of herselfwhen she realizes how many books she\u00E2\u0080\u0099s read, and she likes to keep track ofthem with her log. I like the read-it-up program because you teachers have thisgreat selection of books, and she\u00E2\u0080\u0099s my first child, so I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m not that aware of theauthors even though we go to the library and look around, but this hasintroduced me to a lot of very good writers, so it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s great.There was one story about some African kids by a river, and they go acrossthe river and get into all this trouble; and she really liked that one. And therewas another book about a black girl, a single parent family, and she wanted tobe Peter Pan, and they said: \u00E2\u0080\u009CNo you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t, number one because you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re a girl,and number two because you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re black.\u00E2\u0080\u009D And she really liked that one.(Parent Interview, Loren, 06/95)Jodi, one of the parents who has been involved in the community school programs byteaching an after-school childrens art class, believes in the importance of incorporatingmulticultural elements visually into art and across the curriculum:One of the things that I grew up with that made a very strong impression on mewas my mother celebrated multicultural holidays, so we celebrated Girls Day inJapan, we celebrated a Swedish holiday, I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know what it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s called, and soon. We would celebrate different nationalities\u00E2\u0080\u0099 holidays, and my mom would dothe research and would know all about, you know, do the whole customs thatwere involved, and that made a very strong impact on me, and I know has mademe, instead of having some bias or racial attitudes, I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m more curious about thecultures because I find that really interesting. I found that focusing on theholidays is a really good way of introducing a culture because holidays tend tobe the time when the culture really shows, right? So that would be somethingthat I can see, see doing, is planning units around holidays, and gettingliterature and that.The other thing that I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve been thinking about is research, getting the kidsinvolved in doing the research, and showing them how books can be involved inthe research process, even at grade two or so. I certainly see Hilary doingresearch, even if it\u00E2\u0080\u0099s just with a very simple picture or map, that sort of thing,getting them as a team to work together, to find out about a certain holiday, for169example. Certainly Hilary has brought home a few books that had amulticultural slant; I know she brought home one that was about Chinatown,about the dragon dance, that was a lovely book, I loved that. And I think that\u00E2\u0080\u0099sreally really important too, I really feel very strongly about that too, introducing aculture so that way to understand what goes on in the culture and get the kidsinvolved that way. (Parent Interview, Jodi, 03/95)At the end of this year, I too felt that we indeed shared a lot of stories in thisclassroom and that the children responded to literature in ways that were both comfortableand meaningful. The following table (Table 3) intends to give only a sampling of all themeaningful texts in all the universe that were part of our geo-cultural exploration ofstories that spoke to us about the earth, our cultures and the need for relating through anunderstanding of both personal as well as universal human experiences. They are by nomeans the only ones; there are many more, and such texts are becoming more visible in thelibraries and bookstores in our schools, city, country, and all over the world (Abbott &Polk, 1993; Brown, 1994; Harris, 1993; Jobe & Sutton, 1992; Kezwer, 1995; MillerLachmarm, 1992; IVliller & McCaskill, 1993; Simon, 1993a, 1993b; Teale, 1993).170TABLE 3A Sampling of Multicultural Children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Literature: In All The UniverseTitlesA letter to the kingA light in the attic/Where the sidewalk endsAnansi the spider: A legendfrom the AshantiAunt Harriet underground railroad in the skyChin Chiang and the dragon c danceCloudy with a chance ofmeatballsChristmas trolls/Trouble with trollsDon\u00E2\u0080\u0099t eat spidersEnora and the black craneFather ChristmasFollow the drinking gourdGoodnight moonGrandfather journey/Tree ofcranesIfyou re notfrom the prairieLegends of the sun and moonMoonhorseMother Earth counting bookMungoon-gali and the giant goannaNaomic roadNine o lock lullabyOnly oneOn the day that you were bornPippi LongstoclcingSadako and the thousand paper cranesSing to the starsSome of the kinder planetsTales from GoldMountainThe elders are watchingThe crane girlThe faithful elephantsThe little princeThe nutmeg princessThe witchesThe Wump WorldThis land is my landTusk tuskWhere the forest meets the sea/WindowWhere Waldo?Leong Va and James AndersonShe! SilversteinGerald McDermottFaith RinggoldIan WallaceJudi and Ron BarrettJan BrettRobert Heidbreder and Karen PatkauArone Raymond MeeksRaymond BriggsJeanette WinterMargaret Wise Brown and Clement HurdAllan SayDave Bouchard and Henry RipplingerEric and Tessa Hadley and Jan NesbittMary Pope Osborne and S. M. SaeligAndrew Clements and Lonni Sue JohnsonPercy TreziseJoy KogawaMarilyn Singer and Fran LessacMarc Harshman and Barbara GarrisonDebra FrasierAstrid LindgrenEleanor CoerrMary Brigid Barrett and Sandra SpeidelTim Wynne-JonesPaul Yee and Simon NgDave Bouchard and Roy Henry VickersVeronika Martenova CharlesYukio Tsuchiga and Ted LewinAntoine de Saint-Exup\u00C3\u00A9ryRichard Keens-Douglas and A. GalouchkoRoald DahIBill PeetGeorge LittlechildDavid McKeeJeannie BakerMartin HandfordAuthors171The Many Webs of Charlotte RevisitedHow then can we grasp how this multi-faceted reality of reading the word and theworld translates into the actual print sources, the literature used for reading in today\u00E2\u0080\u0099sclassrooms? Literature continues to speak to our hearts, bridging chronological andgeographical boundaries. Just as Goethe\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Charlotte has endeared herself to us as acharacter who inspired love and devotion throughout the course of two centuries, E. B.White\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Charlotte, this truly remarkable writer and friend, re-enters the pages ofpedagogical discourse.No student should ever be asked to answer worksheet questions about a goodbook. Asking nine-year-olds how many webs Charlotte spun after readingCharlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Web ruins the purpose of the story. Alas, the tradition of assigningstudents worksheets, or, perhaps worse, the dreaded book report, has resulted inhundreds of thousands of adults who don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t enjoy reading books and, in fact, don\u00E2\u0080\u0099tread books at all (Gunderson, 1995b, p. 26).Re-reading Charlotte: a family name, my grandmother\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and now my daughter\u00E2\u0080\u0099s,old and new, re-surfacing in print around me: many a dedication on the frontpage of a book, reading aloud from Chadotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Web in classrooms where I am astudent and a teacher, coming across an article in a German magazine onCharlotte: Em Name macht Karriere: \u00E2\u0080\u009CSuddenly, an almost forgotten name is oneverybody\u00E2\u0080\u0099s tongue -- a name that gets on well withAn the world -- and adaughter who indeed lives the promise of her name. Other Charlottes\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives: InBerlin, writing my thesis about writers, among them the Bront\u00C3\u00AB sisters, Charlotteand Emily, who, in the isolation of the windswept Yorkshire moors, spent theirshort lives struggling with the difficulty of being women writers in a male-dominated world, yet whose literary endeavours were passionate and inspiredgenerations to come. Years later, visiting Charlottenburg, the palatial residenceof Charlotte, Queen of Prussia, with my Charlotte, six years old and a writer inher own right whose tongue-in-cheek autobiographical notes read just anothercouple of years later:Charlotte Hasebe wrote the award winning novel \u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With the World\u00E2\u0080\u009D to makeother people aware of the problem with racism. Other novels by CharlotteHasebe include \u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With Saturn\u00E2\u0080\u009D and \u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With the Black Holes.\u00E2\u0080\u009D All herbooks deal with one problem of the world today. Charlotte Hasebe books havewon at least one prize. \u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With Saturn\u00E2\u0080\u009D won the prize for the best book in1989 and again in 1990. The book \u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With the World\u00E2\u0080\u009D is now being madeinto a movie by Steven Speilberg fsicj. Charlotte is hopingfor a promotion for\u00E2\u0080\u009CShare With Black Holes\u00E2\u0080\u009D. Charlotte Hasebe was born on October], 1980. She172enjoys reading, Bike riding, and badminton. Charlotte loves all animalsincluding snakes, lizards, andfrogs. She currently lives in Vancouver B.C.(Share with the world by C. Hasebe, 1990)Other Charlottes ... re-reading Chlldrens literature in the classroom: WeavingCharIottes web, which refers to yet another Charlotte whose love of literaturehas inspired many students and colleagues. Remembering yet another queenfrom yet another historical landscape, and islands inhabiting generations ofaboriginal people who have been denied their own history for centuriesCharlotte has a seriously beautiful resonance -- and is at the same timecapriciously suitable for famous spiders and irreverent basset hound puppies.27(Researcher Narrative, 01/31/95)More frequently than we like to admit, we ask children to stretch, to use theirimagination to relate to a character in a work of literature in ways we as teachers thinkwill be cognitively enriching and put those higher thinking skills in place. We have goodreasons for that in the Vygotskian framework of the Zone of Proximal Development(Vygotsky, 1962; 1978) and Bruner\u00E2\u0080\u0099s scaffolding (Bruner, 1981). Pretending they areWilbur and re-creating the details of life in the barnyard within the framework ofcharacters and the plot, such as finding new adjectives for describing Wilbur anddecorating a T-shirt, and numerous other job cards related to Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s web: This maywork, sometimes, for some children, but it can be a dangerous way to stifle creativity, toachieve the exact opposite: staying fenced in, never leaving that barnyard to see the widerlandscape, to make sense of a geo-cultural landscape from one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own perspective.In the context of postmodern pedagogical practice, we are concerned with thesimultaneous deconstruction and construction of identities through reading and writing,with the search for new concepts of literacy that allow for the multiple realities of livedexperiences in our classrooms through interpretation and adaptation. Looking at differentCharlottes revealed many different stories for me and made me appreciate the complexitythat lies in just one name.Mary Ashworth, over breakfast, tells of a former student of hers, a nun who wasgoing to one of the Near Eastern countries to teach in a Muslim school. For a class173project, she decided to examine the possibilities of adapting her favourite book,Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Web, to this particular cultural environment. She decided that, alas, the bookwas not going to be suitable at all within the cultural constraints of a Muslim society andeducational system with regards of the character of Wilbur, the pig, and his destiny ofbeing slaughtered for food, the relationships within the family and in particular the strongfemale character of Fran that would contradict the strict patriarchal hierarchy within theMuslim community.Lynn Thomas, a colleague who has taught Native children in Northern Quebec, on thecontrary, remembers the popularity of this particular book with the students in the remotevillage where she was a teacher. Charlotte had a particular appeal for these children, itseemed, even though, or perhaps despite of the foreigners of the landscape and thecharacters in the book. In this particular northern geo-cultural setting, hearing and readingthis story about friendship and devotion set in a southern American White farmingcommunity and family seemed to transcend cultural and climatic differences through itsmasterful languaging and universal appeal of human values that touch every reader\u00E2\u0080\u0099s heart.Maybe it would have achieved just the same in the Far East for a nun trying to teachEnglish to Muslim children.Maxine Greene (1993), in an earlier quotation, had acknowledged the value oflegitimizing a polyphony of voices by telling and bringing such stories into our classroomsand. At the same time, by seeing the world through multiple texts from multipleperspectives, we may be able to transform traditional classroom practices and prescribedtext lists into a working community of inclusive voices (Sutherland, 1993).Texts that allow us to construct and interpret within multiple frameworks, such as thevaried and variable readings of the Charlotte texts above, are essential components ofliteracy instruction that aims toward building coherent and caring curricula andcommunities in the context of cultural diversity. Spinning the webs of stories thatchallenge children to creatively question their world and at the same time construct their174own understanding of the world based on these experiences will ultimately enrich theirlives. As teachers, we must create windows of opportunities for students to observe,incorporate and participate in the weaving of webs of rich intertextual literacies. JanetHickman and Bernice Cullinan (1989), in honouring Charlotte Huck, re-create the manywebs of the many Charlottes we have come to love and honour:A point of view that honors children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s response and an attitude that makes theteacher one of a community of readers and learners are both importantcontributions. All together, this interwoven idea about literature and learning forma web of support for its use in the classroom. Had this been the work of anotherCharlotte (Charlotte A. Cavatica of E. B. White\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Charlotte s Web), the wordswritten large in the web would surely be \u00E2\u0080\u009CENJOY\u00E2\u0080\u009D and \u00E2\u0080\u009CLEARA\u00E2\u0080\u0099Y\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (p. 11)175Chapter 5Re-tracing the Paths and Places of Community in LanguagingMidnighz, not a soundfrom the pavement.Has the moon lost her memory?She is smiling alone.In the lamplight the withered leaves collect at myfeetAnd the wind begins to moan.Memory, from Andrew Lloyd Webber\u00E2\u0080\u0099s musical Cats, based onRhapsody on a windy night by T. S. EliotThe future of the hyphen wili I believe, trace a path into the past as well.Una Chaudhuri, The future of the hyphenIn den Flussen n\u00C3\u00B6rdlich der Zukunfiwerfich this Netz au das Duzogernd beschwerstmit von Steinen geschriebenenSchatten.In the rivers north of the futureI cast out the net, that youhesitantly weigh downwith stone-writtenshadows.Paul Celan, In Hans-Georg Gadamer on education, poetry, and history176In his 1986 volume on the poetry of Paul Celan, Spur des Worts [Trace of the word],Otto POggeler interprets the words of the writer and poet as a trace that enables us to stayclose to what has escaped, to find a way of one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own and, most importantly, to helpothers to join us on this path. At the same time, however, the author asks the question:But whose life and work can trace a path in this sense? ... Only a few \u00E2\u0080\u009Ctraces\u00E2\u0080\u009D areindeed such that they will truly remain in people\u00E2\u0080\u0099s memory. Only those who takerisks for themselves and bear testimony to what at first glance might not berecognized as the decisive movement of a time can leave behind such a trace. It islife itself that engraves the traces that matter, and only the word that can bringsuch a trace into language will find lasting attention (pp. 20-2 1). (E. Hasebe-Ludt,Trans.)Memory Brighter than a thousand suns:To remember that pedagogy is concerned with the formation of memory means tobe frilly responsive to the conditions by which a person learns to remember well.And remembering well does not mean just remembering happy times, that is,suppressing the fire by which we might be refined. More importantly,remembering well means remembering how each of us might struggle through life\u00E2\u0080\u0099sbittersweetness with the kind of courage that enables life to go on. (Smith, 1988,pp. 281-282)In this chapter, I want to re-visit and re-connect with some of the sites from whichthis pedagogical questioning started out in order to assess the important landmarks oflearning that have come into view. In remembering, as Smith tells us above, we are ableto make connections with our own past through the many webs of influences -- be theytextual or personal -- on our developing sense of self Moreover, the particular kind ofremembering through language that writing and re-writing allows, constitutes, inBorgman\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1992) words, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe recovery of the world of eloquent things, a recovery thataccepts the postmodern critique and realizes postmodern aspirations\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 6). I joinBorgman in including among these aspirations \u00E2\u0080\u009Cfocal realism, patient vigor, and communalcelebration\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 6).177When writing about the journey of coming to live reflectively within a community ofinquiry, I had addressed the notion of caring with regard to the pedagogical landscape Ifound myself constructing and inhabiting. I had created a dialogue within myself; movingfrom \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse a\u00E2\u0080\u0099 to \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse b,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 both informing each other and becoming invaginatedthrough layers of meaning-making that re-constituted prior texts and produced newunderstandings of myself in relation to others within the multiple realities of pedagogicaland personal caring.When re-reading these reflections, I realized that within the theme of caring,underneath and in between the first two narratives of individual and joint experiences asteachers, colleagues, and human beings, there runs another story that is my own and that Ihad not told yet: a story of personal meaning-making and journeying which was surfacingin this ongoing process of re-searching and questioning about myself; my praxis, myvalues, and my relationships with others.The Tensionality Within Textual CommunitiesPedagogy as lived experience -- in re-discovering and re-shaping my beliefs andvalues within a philosophically coloured light and from a social-constructivist perspective,I have come to see that my individual lived experience has been altered dramaticallythrough the presence of certain people and through my reactions to them while learning,teaching, and starting to live and write more reflectively.Robert Graves, in his poem To walk on hills has expressed this kind of experientiallearning that seems to have characterized my path up to this point: It has been and still is aclimb uphill. In many ways, this journey has not been a solitary one but rather a jointventure together with other teachers, colleagues, and mentors whom I have come to carefor deeply. However, on another plane ofjourneying, there has been -- and still is -- the178solitude and the separateness of\u00E2\u0080\u0099head\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and \u00E2\u0080\u0098heart\u00E2\u0080\u0099 that echo in the poem -- tensionalitieswithin communities of inquiry.What milestones have I reached along this path ofjourneying toward making sense ofthings, amidst the con-fusion (in the sense of working against, resisting a fusion) thatseemed to inhabit both \u00E2\u0080\u0098head and heart,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 and which were the memorable moments thatgave me the courage to look ahead, move on, and draw from past experiences?Somewhere in this re-discovery process it became clear to me that the building anddeveloping of some very special relationships have played a decisive role in shaping mypedagogical persona and in re-shaping my personal profile. While my head reverberatedwith the impact of the readings of such seminal philosophical writers as Aoki, Derrida,Foucault, Grumet, Heidegger, Noddings, and Pinar, among others, my heart resonatedwith a growing genuine communal belonging with the teachers, mentors, and children whoinspired me to keep on walking uphill, to climb more mountains, to risk standing on theedge of a cliff in order to see more clearly and to achieve harmony. \u00E2\u0080\u0098True equanimity,\u00E2\u0080\u0099Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Gelassenheit, not a goal within easy reach, by far, when faced with theturmoil of students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lives and my own beliefs and emotions -- yet, until recently, it seemeda desirable one to strive for.I came to realize that the striving for unity, for harmony, which I felt was soimportant in the past, has often disguised the danger of silencing the voices in between andunderneath the multiple layers of realities that make up our lives. In Derrida\u00E2\u0080\u0099s notion ofintertextuality, he uses the term invagination \u00E2\u0080\u009Cpour essayer de d\u00C3\u00A9crire comment unesurface ext\u00C3\u00A9rieure se replie en surface int\u00C3\u00A9rieure,\u00E2\u0080\u009D to try to describe how an outside layerrepeats itself in an inside layer and, eventually, can become \u00E2\u0080\u009Cune double invaginationchiasmatique des bords,\u00E2\u0080\u009D a doubly chiasmatic invagination of the borders of a text(Bennington & Derrida, 1991, p. 210). This multi-layeredness invites us to probe for themeaning hidden away underneath the folds of different readings and writings of texts, texts179that reverberate with the lived experiences of children and teachers dwelling together incultural diversity.However, as I felt myself] ourneying amidst the tangle of postmodern intertext, I wasstarting to, once again, question my goals as too idealistic, deterministic, and finite. I seethe need for more questioning, for adding yet another layer -- the third time around,encore unefois, und so welterI am less secure in my search for being, in myself (my self) as a researcher in actionresearch. In so many ways, as researchers we have been preoccupied with searching foreither objectivity or subjectivity, which both can be described as unmoving, static positions-- as essence in the phenomenological tradition, a notion I am finding myself increasinglyun-comfortable with while trying to move toward transitional spaces that create newmeanings.In this joint venture, who are my companions, and where do I see us traveling? Whoam I asking to become partners in equanimity? My mentors, colleagues, the children, theirfamilies, my family? The calmness, the composure the dictionary speaks of-- is that reallywhat we should be striving for? Or is it the opposite, the chiasmatic notion of turbulence,of quaking, of living amidst difficulty that is needed in order to move forward, to trulytransform? Underneath, in yet another layer, I am caught in the confusion of postmoderndeconstructing of seemingly established notions of unity. How can we live in community,though, when there are only \u00E2\u0080\u0098partial truths,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 as Clifford and Marcus (1986) remind us? Atthis pedagogical moment of writing, of creating layers of text within texts, I am findingsmall comfort in the etymological promise of confusion as a semantic signifier which, in itstruest sense could mean a togetherness, afusion, of multiple realities and voices.Through holistic interpretations of language learning and teaching, we mustoppose the formulation of meta-narratives and, instead, acknowledge theexistence of a composite propositional intertext that represents thecommunication of multiple voices. In embracing this view, in MadeleineGrumet\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cintertextuality invites us to use multiple texts, splicing them,180interweaving them with each other, with our commentaries, with our questions.There are no sacred texts.\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Researcher Narrative, 07/07/94)We are being swept downstream by a torrent of change. Each year, each month,and almost every week, the landscape alters. The familiar vanishes, and within itthe effectiveness of the ways we have made decisions as individuals, families,groups, and communities. (Theobald, 1987, p. 29)The metaphor of torrent ofchange in the pedagogical landscape relates to thetransformative change that critical action research intends to initiate. It also reminds us ofthe need for building bridges across the turbulences created by change. I am re-thinkingthe possibilities of a renewed dialogue, a bridge indeed, between the ivory towers of theacademic landscape and the open fields of our schools and classrooms, between theoryand praxis. Action research, perhaps, has the potential to become such a bridge -- or tobecome the stream that flows from underneath and, in multi-layered strands, informs thedifferent plateaus of professional inquiry. This languaging of fluidity as a powerful forcefor change echoes in the following poem from a volume on Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s power withlanguage (Jaeger, 1971):Der r\u00C3\u00B6mische BrunnenAuf steigt der Strahl, und fallend giefitEr voll der Marmorschale RundDie, sich verschleiernd, Uberfliel3tIn einer zweiten Schale Grund;Die zweite gibt, sie wird zu reich,der dritten wallend ihre Flut,und jede nimmt und gibt zugleichund str\u00C3\u00B6mt und ruht.Conrad Ferdinand MeyerThe Roman FountainUpwards climbs the jet, and in falling fillsthe roundness of the marble bowlwhich, in veiling itself overflowsinto a second bowl\u00E2\u0080\u0099s base;the second one, becoming too rich,gives its flood to the third one seethingly,and each one takes and gives at onceand rushes and rests.(E. Hasebe-Ludt, Trans.)181In this joint process of searching for the roots of the disintegration that educationalinstitutions have created for our children, the concept of unity emerged as an artificialconstruct and an undesirable goal to aim for within the framework of a critical postmodernintertextuality that legitimizes the \u00E2\u0080\u0098spaces of dwelling in between\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Aoki, 1993). Affirmingindividual rights and differences in principle, yet sacrificing them \u00E2\u0080\u0098for the common good\u00E2\u0080\u0099when it comes to the future of a sustainable economy constitutes a hypocritical lip servicewe must critically, yet thoughtfully, examine and expose.I am re-thinking the notion of thoughtfulness, once again, in connection with thenotion of pedagogical responsibility that establishes an intricate relationship between twoindividuals. It speaks of belonging, of an obligation in connection with caring aboutanother human being. This notion creates a change in of a teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s obligation toward hisor her students, a Kehre in the way we care about our pedagogical relationships withothers in the diverse community of teaching and learning. I am further enlightened byreading Terry Carson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1992, 1994) writing about not ethics, but obligation and aboutwhat it means to collaboratively teach and dwell in action research in our schools. Inconnection with this responsible action comes a global perspective that transcends bordersof different kind and is concerned with working toward a caring, just society:I believe that we need a conception of a global perspective that incorporates aview of the nature of responsible value deliberation and justification. This newconception, which I will call a constructivist conception, should provide theintellectual resources for approaching value conflict in a responsible manner. Aperson who has a constructivist global perspective will see all of the peoples of theworld as having equal moral worth. In addition she will believe that an integralpart of the task of bettering the lives of persons is the task of constructing elementsof a genuine world moral community out of our disparate value heritages.(Coombs, 1989, p. 6)For me, this year has truly been an experience of \u00E2\u0080\u0098authentic dwelling\u00E2\u0080\u0099 amongst thatspecial and precious community of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cbeings who belong together in this neighbourhood\u00E2\u0080\u009D(Aoki, 1992, p. 28). However, as Louise Berman and her colleagues discovered in theirearlier mentioned conversations with Ted Aoki, the reaching out to others, the journeying182toward and dwelling in larger communities are also necessary to create a \u00E2\u0080\u0098curriculum forbeing,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 for creating contexts in which hope, courage, and inspirited dialogues can flourish(Berman et al., 1991). This is an important landmark in the context of research throughhermeneutic inquiry. I felt that many of the conversations I took part in during the pasttwo years enabled me to gain meaning beyond the strictly personal realm; in between thelived experiences of others, meaning was constituted and re-constituted through theexchange of languaging. In this way, language itself \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe language of postmodernism hascrucial critical force\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Borgman, 1992, p. 3).My year of living reflectively in the pedagogical landscape has created manybeginnings. It has marked a Kehre, a turn -- but also a renewed understandingof kehren in the sense of caring. Maxine Greene, in the quotation which setsthe theme to my multi-layered journeying and journalizing, expresses the kind ofpedagogical reaching that will be necessary to truly transform the livedexperiences of the young people we as teachers treasure. As pupils and aspedagogues, by building bridges, by learning to look through multipleperspectives, by celebrating diversity in community, we might come to locatemultiple communities in diversity.(Researcher Narrative. 07/07/94)Community in diversity: a phrase that comes easily to our lips, a geopolitical slogan,as Ted Aoki (1995) warns us:I see inscribed in the word \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccommunity,\u00E2\u0080\u009D the words \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccommon\u00E2\u0080\u009D and \u00E2\u0080\u009Cunity,\u00E2\u0080\u009D whichI sense are prevailing signifiers in articulating the conventional imaginary of\u00E2\u0080\u009Ccommunity.\u00E2\u0080\u009D ... But such an imaginary that gives birth to the metaphor ofcommunity as diversity produces, in its seeming liberal openness and tolerance ofother, a silent norm that both contains and constrains differences on the undersideof diversity. (pp. 5-6)Similarly, Carl Leggo and his co-authors reflect on the dangers of equatingcommunity with unity:There is a grave danger of erasing the differences among people when communityand unity are equated. In order to achieve unity an homogeneous complexion ispromoted, and conformity is demanded. In this approach, the emphasis is onpeople toeing the party line, obeying the strictures of the majority or a powerfulminority, adhering to rules, speaking in a single voice or at least in harmonious183voices. We have felt silenced in communities where unity has been emphasized asthe foundation of community. And we have not been alone in our experience ofsilence. Many others have been silenced, too, when unity is emphasized as thefoundation of community. What we have observed is that an emphasis on unity incommunity leads to a small group of people being served while most people aresignificantly erased, rendered invisible. (Hasebe-Ludt, Duff, & Leggo, 1995, p. 1)However, through the active negotiation of socio-cognitive and socio-culturalprocesses such as the ones described in this dissertation and which involved the graspingof historical global events and their representation through different eyes -- of officialsources and of the voices of people from ethnic minority groups -- children step-by-stepcan come to understand important parts of their role as players in this vastly expandingglobal community of learners. There is difficulty in community building involved in this, atensionality that needs to be acknowledged as a necessary part of learning, of learningthrough language, of learning to read -- especially in the context of reading texts in asecond or other language (Early & Gunderson, 1993; Elam, 1991).This prompts me to revisit Heidegger\u00E2\u0080\u0099s notion of \u00E2\u0080\u0098belonging together,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 in whichhe emphasizes the first word of the phrase, belonging, invoking a sense ofcommunity that incorporates the being (Heidegger, 1968; Wood, 1993). Thiscommunal space thereby creates the texture of diversity, the striving, thelonging for past and future connections -- unlike so much of the currenteducational and political rhetoric where the stress is on \u00E2\u0080\u0098belonging togethe?, onunity defined as universality, in a static and finite frame -- without listening to theauthentic voices in between and the voices of the other.(Researcher Narrative, 07/25/94)The children are falling in love with poems. The poetry books are out on theirtables before silent reading, and they are eager to read out a poem of theirchoice afterwards during book sharing. They especially like Dennis Lee, ShelSilverstein, and David Bouchard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s If youre not from the prairie ... They arewriting their own poems spontaneously, picking up on the rhythm and patterningof the language, improvising, making them meaningful with their own sense ofplace. (Researcher Narrative, 04/11/94)184If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from the prairie,You don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know our trees, If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.You can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know our trees. you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the trees,you can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the trees.The trees that we know have takenso long, The leaves are so green,To live through our seasons, to bigger than you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve ever seen.grow tall and strong. Climbing way up,They\u00E2\u0080\u0099re loved and they\u00E2\u0080\u0099re looking down at that tiny pup.treasured, we watched as theygrew, If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from B.C.We knew they were special -- the you don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know the trees.prairie has few.If you\u00E2\u0080\u0099re not from the prairie, (Amelie, age 9, 05/29/94)You don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t know our trees.Poetry, in many instances, has created these spaces in between, for the children andfor adults alike. Certainly, poems have figured prominently in the landscapes of culturalgeo-graphing of this thesis for me. The poetic language of music has entered theseintertextual spaces and has accompanied the children throughout the school year, just as ithas kept me company throughout my writing of this text.Language, understood as text in the sense that it encompasses creative language usefor the purpose of communication, whether read, written, spoken, or sung, represents aninterwoven tapestry, a textus, which allows us to transcend borders, to move beyond thelimitations of the imposed limit-language of the curriculum (Schemer, 1984). This, onceagain, connects me with Schwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993) notion of texts as Entgrenzungen, as creationsthat push for a transition, an opening toward a more inclusive vision of a community oflearners. I have experienced some of this pushing beyond the borders of conceivedconventions of cultural literacy with other, teachers, parents, and students. I havenumerous times felt pushed myself have felt that I have had to stretch my pedagogical andpersonal understanding of what goes on with/in language beyond a comfortable level.Yet, I still feel the need for further stretching, for myself and for all those who are185involved in the matter of the curriculum and who care about a curriculum that matters, asMadeleine Grumet put it in a lecture last summer (Grumet, 1994).Differance and Kehre: A Turn Toward Coherent CurriculumBy allowing different multiple authentic literacies into the classroom, teachers andstudents together are creating new literate communities that legitimize a polyphony ofvoices and languages together with a beginning critical understanding of lived experiences.My years of living reflectively in the pedagogical landscape, amidst this community ofchildren, had indeed created many beginnings. As my journal entries pronounce, it hadmarked a Kehre, a turn -- but also a renewed understanding of kehren in the sense ofcaring, along with the recognition of dfflculty as an essential and not necessarily negativecomponent of learning and living. The polyphony of voices in Green&s (1993) words,creates different communities within texts as well as within its communities of readers,communities that reveal multiple perspectives and that are not without tensions:Different textual communities found within the ... document alternative meaningsand, consequently, multiple readings. ... I would argue that these tensions andambiguities are inherent within the discursive field of liberal ideology, with itsattempt to manage society for the public good while supporting the rights ofindividuals. The difficulty of achieving this balance is highlighted by the variedinterests within a community. Defining the public good becomes a matter ofpower. ... As Terry Eagleton describes, the act of reading provides \u00E2\u0080\u0098a frame ofreference within which to interpret what comes next\u00E2\u0080\u0099(Kenny, 1992, pp. 191-192).Kenny here refers to Eagleton\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1983) introductory volume on literary theory inwhich he outlines the tenets of post-structural engagement with text as an interpretiveendeavour rather than one that claims objectivity, therefore making it possible to createmultiple readings of a singular text.186We Sing to the UniverseAnd, our voice is timelessPureEmotion without structureDirected nowhereAnd sent everywhereFalling down from the skyAnd rising up from our bowelsCarried in our bloodstreamAnd resonating in our mindsOur voice belongs hereThese parts of a poem by Ron Hamilton (1994) exemplify our fascination withfiguring out the world at large, across the universe. In our theme of Peace last December,the children were, together with their teachers, constructing meaning about peace on earthin the context of celebrating Christmas and related Festivals of Light. The books that weread during this theme were challenging for them, among them The faithful elephants(Tsuchiya, 1988), Sadako and the 1,000 paper cranes (Coerr, 1979), and Tree of Cranes(Say, 1991). Through brainstorming about the different places and emotions in betweenwar and peace, we generated sentences that became part of the environmental print in ourclassroom all year long.Peace sayingsPeace means harmony.Peace means there is no war.Peace means that people don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t fight with each other.Peace means that people need to care and love one another.Peace means accepting others who are different and celebrating differences.187The students owned these sentences; they had together created them, written themdown for anybody who came into the Open Area to see and read. This act of writing hadcome out of their questions about the world, their inquiry into stories from their ownexperience and from literature in the classroom: This kind of literary ethnography, inSchwab\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1994) terms, indeed holds the promise of a new understanding of curriculumand the creation of communities in inquiry. The languaging that went on during those twoyears in this classroom community reflected culture in context and culture being reshapedboth locally and perhaps eventually transforming global practices. Through thesemeaningful acts of reading and writing, the children were able to share with the worldwhat they had come to understand about peace, on earth -- far beyond this one classroomsetting. I watched their desire to communicate, I saw them engage in writing almostferociously at times, I read their stories and letters with delight and wonder and sadness,and I shared their difficulties in building communities when they let me enter with theminto those transitional spaces they were co-constructing with each other\u00E2\u0080\u0099s texts.Dear Bethany,Why are you not playing with me and Tara, tim.Itis not fair to usI have to say this I don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t want to But I have to say thisWe can\u00E2\u0080\u0099t be your Friends any More I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m sorryI am sorry I had to say that. I know you feel sad. I know how it feels.that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s how we feel. I feel like I have to cry. So do you. think about my letter.From Naomi K. (Naomi\u00E2\u0080\u0099s letter, 01/23/95)Dear Bethany,I am sorry what happened.I was out of controlI was so exited to turn 7 I missed youLots and LotsI wish you can come over to my house SoonI want to know What Happend in winter vakation!I went to see the Little Womentheir names wor Meg Joe Beth and AmyBeth Deid from this poor BabyHilary (Hilary\u00E2\u0080\u0099s letter, age 7, 01/95)188to Bethany from SaraSorry, I do not want to be in The witch group.anymore.If you make up another secret I might keep it, if it is nice and true.(Sara\u00E2\u0080\u0099 s letter, age 6, 01/30/95)Writing and reading need to encompass these authentic structures of making meaningand of telling others about it. Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, and Rosen (1975) talkabout this as \u00E2\u0080\u0098impelled writing,\u00E2\u0080\u0099 writing that is totally self-initiated and embodies a child\u00E2\u0080\u0099sprior knowledge and thinking, with a \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccapacity to generate their own reasons for writingand to define their own audiences\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 64). As teachers, we must foster our students\u00E2\u0080\u0099active and authentic engagement in this kind of negotiation of making sense of theirworlds, be it through literature or other kinds of reading and writing. Only when studentsbecome self-motivated to engage in purposeful dialogue with others, to communicate withtheir friends and to share with the world, in Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words, can they become literate ina truly holistic way that will benefit both individual and community.The opening of self to the non-self involves primarily an opening of our stories toeach other, an acceptance of how we are always everywhere already living in themidst of stories, involving a surfacing and a sharing of that which constitutes us.This is difficult, but it provides the necessary means by which we can see oneanother in a deep way -- to get beyond pure difference to creative relation and thepossibility of true care.As a teacher it is impossible to reach and teach children effectively withoutknowing their stories, just as it is impossible to be available to another person\u00E2\u0080\u0099sstory unless one undertakes in an ongoing way the profoundly challenging, oftenfearsome task of desconstructing one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s own. (Smith, 1994b, p. 79)Therefore, teachers themselves need to remember to embrace this notion of sharedliteracies and become more engaged through writing, through reading the words and theworld in a humanistic and personalized framework of curriculum. Only then will we beable to build communities and curricula rich with the texture of individual voices andstories. For too long, Patrick Shannon tells us, we have been constrained by closed spaces189and notions of knowing that separate the personal from the pedagogical and therefore donot permit the opening up of the person to pedagogical inquiry:I believe that many of us think of teaching as a private matter that we\u00E2\u0080\u0099re consumedby and ashamed of at the same time. We\u00E2\u0080\u0099re full of desire to teach and ofjoys fromteaching, but we think that to share what we know and do is much like kissing andtelling. It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s too personal.Many of us teach behind closed doors with little or no adult supervision, butteaching is not like adolescents kissing, although both should be joyous, sincere,and creative endeavors. Teaching is not a private matter at all. In fact, it is a mostpublic display -- like baseball. Your audience -- your fans so to speak -- onlybegins with your students. It includes their families, other teachers, communitytaxpayers, and more. Think about it. The lives of the children you teach and havetaught can touch all of the people in the world. (Shannon, 1995, p. 465)Teaching, then, needs to create spaces where the private, the personal, through thetelling of our own stories, can become public in a meaningful way. Nel Noddings, in herPostmodern musings on pedagogical uses of the personal (1994) affirms the value of thiselement of the personal as an integral part of the curriculum:Personal stories are, then, allowable, desirable and vital. They may even bemorally obligatory. A teacher\u00E2\u0080\u0099s responsibility is not fully discharged with thecompetent handling of subject-matter. Rather he or she has a special responsibilityto help students grow as persons in all their fullness (p. 357).Therefore, part of this responsibility or obligation is that as teachers we also takeseriously the meaning of dffe\u00E2\u0080\u0099rance, that we leave behind the superficial treatment ofdifference and diversity in our multicultural curricula. It is not enough to simply accept\u00E2\u0080\u009Cthe polyphony of curricular and pedagogic voices in teaching today, or within the culturegenerally (Smith, 1994b, p. 71) warns us since it contains the dangers of the isolation ofindividuals in their difference.If I merely accept you in your difference without exploring how you are differentand how your difference reflects my difference from you, that is, how knowing youinvites self-reflection on my part -- without such conversation we merely exist astwo solitudes. And that is what strikes me as the chief danger in the postmoderncondition, namely the increasing isolation of persons within the cages of their ownsubjectivity without any historical, philosophical or linguistic means forestablishing deep and meaningful connections with others. (Smith, 1994b, p. 72)190For teachers and students, living creatively with our differences together is thechallenge without what Smith calls the \u00E2\u0080\u009Closs of capacity for intimacy\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 72). We faceeven further challenges if we want these communal connections to reach outside theclassroom, to extend to conversations between school communities and other local andglobal communities. In order for these dialogues to indeed become effective allstakeholders must become involved in, for example, establishing guidelines for jointdecision-making and for how parents and other community members can supporteducational processes and programs in constructive ways. This is essential in order forteachers, parents, and other community stakeholders to become comfortable with workingtogether and to build the trust so necessary for meaningful, collaborative decision-making.In addition, since these processes require not only a philosophical commitment by thoseinvolved but also actual time and resources, it is necessary that teachers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 andadministrators\u00E2\u0080\u0099 time spent working with the community and its issues is recognized andfacilitated as a valuable professional engagement. In British Columbia, with the newinitiatives by the provincial government mentioned earlier, community-serving schools arefinally no longer \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwaiting at the crossroads\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Stevens & Talbot, 1986) but are movingahead confidently into a new century of community-based learning and teaching. Andfinally, Carl Leggo (1995) tells us thatto foster schools as places of community in diversity, we need to celebrate.By acknowledging and celebrating diversity we can create communities in whichsecurity and dignity and compassion and care are all joyfully present. Genuinecommunity will be known in the experience of unity in diversity and diversity inunity (p. 6).However, in order for this celebration to become a truly communal experience thattranscends established borders, a greater recognition of community education on a globalscale needs to be facilitated, through community schools and other integrated communitybased projects. In the presence of many different voices, Ted Aoki (Hinds, 1994)challenges us to speak \u00E2\u0080\u009Ca new language of living practice,\u00E2\u0080\u009D a language with which \u00E2\u0080\u009Cwe191begin to see a new relationship between self and others (p. 10).\u00E2\u0080\u009D By also celebrating andhonouring these voices of others and the connections between the various communities webelong to, we indeed have the potential to make cogent educational decisions and turnmeaningful educational change into a reality.192Chapter 6Con-fusion: The Difficult Pleasure of the TextOne moon in space airOne moon running through my hairWhisper of the moon.Kristopher, age 9, In The Franklin GazetteThese are the days ofmiracle and wonderThis is the long distance callThe way the camerafollows us in sb-moThe way we look to us allThe way we look to a distant constellationThat dying in a corner of the skyThese are the days ofmiracle and wonderAnd don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t cry baby, don\u00E2\u0080\u0099t etyDon\u00E2\u0080\u0099t cryPaul Simon, The boy in the bubble, From GracelandSHE WANTS TO write a book about the wind, about the weather.She wants the words constancy and capriciousness to move in and outof the sentences the way a passing cloud changes the colour of the pageyou read outside on a variable day. She wants there to be thunder, then,some calm, then some thunder again. She wants to predict time in relationto change and to have all her predictions prove wrong. She wantsrecurrence.She wants to write a book about disturbance; about elements thatchange shape but never substance, about things that never disappear.About relentlessness.About sky, weather, and wind.Jane Urquhart, C\u00E2\u0080\u0099hanging heaven193Reading Weather/Weathering ReadingThe weather we experience by day and by season, the climate we live in, thelandscape we dwell in, the universe that surrounds us: They all have found their way intothe language we speak, read, write, and sing. Thousands of metaphors and similes relateto the atmospheric and geographic influences we praise and loathe continuously. Inelementary primary classrooms we chart the weather as a daily morning exercise, wecelebrate the coming and going of seasonal landmarks, the beginning and the passing ofthe cycles of nature connected with climatic changes from the perspective of the uniqueplace on earth we inhabit -- lexi-co-geo-graphy: We are graphing the earth through theeyes and words and of our lived/living experience.David Smith, in his article Brighter than a thousand suns (1988), speaks to theconnections between knowledge and cultural beliefs and the persistence of many of ourperceptions about the world despite their obvious lack of \u00E2\u0080\u0098scientific truth:Take, for example, a simple statement often taught in primary grades: \u00E2\u0080\u009CThe sunrises in the east and sets in the west.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Such a statement is loaded with culturalmemory. It reminds us that we once believed the earth was the center of thingsand that the sun actively circled the earth. But such a statement, residual in ourcommon speech, could also remind us that we have a deep tenacity to forms ofknowledge which will not be overcome by scientific knowledge, and that eventhough science may inform us that we live in a heliocentric universe, we know toothat we are still at the center of our own knowing about it. (pp. 180-18 1)This curious need for centredness, for placing ourselves in the middle does far fromcease after the so-called egocentric stage that children supposedly leave behind after theirearly childhood years. We can locate this need to identify ourselves in the midst of amultitude of planes beyond the personal one: within families, communities, nations, and inall the universe, as Jimmy so poignantly put it. Much of the postmodern interpretation ofour world has been about coming to understand this need for centredness in a world that isdisplaying more and more obvious signs of fragmentation, of coming apart at the seams,of moving toward the edge of previously valid notions of self as part of a whole, of the194whole as part of the other. Postmodern thinking is about moving away from the centre, itis being on edge. In the case of this one school, bordering on the Pacific Rim, it means aunique kind of living on the rim/Rim, with all its geographical and cultural advantages,challenges, and difficulties.Much of this dissertation has been about attempting to urge the engagement acrossgeographicai social and cultural edges, to breakframes, in Dan Rose\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words at thebeginning of Chapter Three. Yet, it is just as much about re-framing, about re-building acoherent frame within which we can work, about pointing to a new framework, defined asa frame that works. The pictures that are inside the frame are different, need to beallowed to be different for each local pedagogical landscape, but all these pictures are heldtogether by a shared way of constructing the frames.This framing and re-framing also relate to the loss of so many of our culturalmemories and our attempts to revive traditions, to revisit treasured symbols of commonheritage, to re-interpret our past. A couple of years ago, for example, on the occasion ofthe 150th anniversary of the composer Edvard Grieg\u00E2\u0080\u0099s birth, we saw and heard a rereading of this musician\u00E2\u0080\u0099s role in one country\u00E2\u0080\u0099s identity:a picture emerged of Grieg as the artist who gave his country a sense of identityat a time when it most needed that identity. For Norway today, as it continues topreserve and discover a cultural identity outside mainstream Europe and the EEC,Grieg remains a catalyst to self-discovery. (Homer, 1993, p. 22)28Just as present-day Norwegian school children, in the inspiring landscape of ruralScandinavian fjords, hills, and valleys revive and reinterpret Grieg\u00E2\u0080\u0099s message to theircountry and to a global audience (Homer, 1993), children in the inner city of a Canadianocean-fronted, mountain-framed metropolis are finding ways to interpret theirenvironment through the eyes of living with/in texts, spoken and written -- books, movingpictures, musical notes, chants -- communicating with/in cultural frames.195When writing about the journey of coming to live reflectively within a community ofinquiry, I had addressed the notions of identity and caring for others with regard to thepedagogical landscape I found myself inhabiting. I had created a dialogue within myselfand with others, from \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse a\u00E2\u0080\u0099 to \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse b, both informing each other andbecoming invaginated through layers of meaning-making that re-constituted prior textsand created new understandings of myself within the multiple realities of pedagogical andpersonal caring.Through this dissertation, I have now created a new layer, added a new letter to mydiscourses, \u00E2\u0080\u0098discourse c.\u00E2\u0080\u0099 It is astonishing indeed how many meaningful notions beginwith this letter, the third one, in our basic litany of literacy, abc ... It stands for manymore things than only phonemes and graphemes: It resonates with the values ofcommunity, and caring, and coherence -- and many more:Charlottecapriciousness,cogencycommunication,continuation,constancy,changeCultureCanadaconflictcontrastcelebration,constancy,change196Childrenco-operation,curriculum,crisis,calm,constancy,changeChildren construct their identity with/in the climate of their reading relations and theother kinds of weather or climate created by the people and places in the world aroundthem. Often, the boundaries between these cannot be clearly defined. There are opaquespaces, like clouds obscuring the clear lines of the borders, moving from the landscape offiction into children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s actual reality, building bridges that make it possible for livedexperience to be shaped by both. In one of the picture books with which the children havejoyftilly blended mathematical and scientific concepts and categories with linguistic --morphological, syntactic, semantic -- ones, the composition of the world through bothglobal and local, universal and unique features is playflully brought home:There may be a million of stars,But there is only one sky.There may be 50,000 bees,But there is only one hive.There may be 100 patches,But there is only one quilt.There may be 9 players,But there is only one team.197There may be 7 peas,But there is only one pod.There may be three musicians,But there is only one trio.There may be two ropes,But there is only one swing.But the best thing of allis that there is only one meand there is only one you.Marc Harshman, Only One (1993, unnumbered pages)This beautifully thoughtful book closes with a re-affirmation of the importance of theone, the individual child, yet not alone, always with reference to the other, the connectingconjunction AND being, after all, the best thing ofall. The one is a group, a unity madeup of many diverse ones. Only in the relation, the con-junction of human beings lies theredeeming worth of individual worth. Coming together to form a group makes each oneindispensable. Ted Aoki, in conversation, recalls another conversation about the meaningof the word for \u00E2\u0080\u009Cindividual\u00E2\u0080\u009D in the Japanese language, \u00E2\u0080\u009Cko-jin,\u00E2\u0080\u009D coming about through ato-and-fro of languages, languages-in-intercultural-movement.It is a hybrid; it is both Japanese and English, yet it is neither Japanese nor English.It is a space of paradoxical ambivalence with its built in contradiction. Yet, it is agenerative space of difference, an enunciatory space of becoming, a space wherenewness emerges. (Aoki, 1995, p. 9)198\u00E2\u0080\u009CHow many webs did Charlotte spin?\u00E2\u0080\u009D Lee Gunderson asks in The Monday morningguide to comprehension (1995b, p. 16). Once we move beyond the need to focus onnumerical correctness, literal retelling, and dissecting and translating literature and othertexts into teachable units and blocks, into subject matter it was never intended to represent(such as a science lesson about the life cycle of spiders), we can indeed discover themagnitude of Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s message. Rather than asking the above question with a focus onexact recall, we should stop and think instead: How many children did she inspire throughthe sheer pleasure of the text? Just like the magnificent legacies of Charlotte\u00E2\u0080\u0099s ownchildren, generations of other children and adults have come to love and treasure herthrough the power of language and a message that transcends cultures and geographies.The incandescent glow of her radiant and glistening web needs to be left intact,unharmed for our students to be able to weather reading in the climate of our classroomsand schools. Too many original webs have been broken, never to be re-constructed; toomany students have been deprived of experiencing the joy of reading and re-reading andliving and growing with/in a book\u00E2\u0080\u0099s pages. On the other hand, too many artificial webshave been constructed in the name of instructional expertise, never to be de-constructed,questioned for the sake of those children who do not fit the norms and patterns of thearchitectures of the pedagogical empire. As Arm Haas Dyson earlier stated, stayingfreeto dance with the children is an obligation we have as teachers who are committed to stayin touch with, to touch children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s lives with/in a caring and coherent curriculum.Connection and Obligation: What Indeed is a Bridge?Near one end of the Nitobe Garden on the campus of the University of BritishColumbia is a small unassuming bridge of several wood-trodden, weather-bleachedplanks, slightly angled, bridging a small pond. There are no guard rails.As strollers approach the bridge, they forego strolling to pause a while. Asthey pause, the bridge gathers into a unity the hundred iris plants in the shallowwaters reaching for the sunbeams that pass through the foliage of the pinessheltering the bridge, the landscapes beyond that acknowledge their bond with the199bridge and the sky above, and the strollers themselves who receive inspiration asthey sense the link between their mortal finitude and the divine infinitude.Such a moment is authentic dwelling, as Heidegger would say, made possibleby the way mortals are, on this earth beneath the sky, beings who belong togetherin this neighbourhood. (Aoki, 1993, p. 3)Throughout this dissertation, the strands of various themes have emerged in anintertextual fashion, brought forth from the explored themes in the classroom, the relatedreadings in both children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature and adult texts on pedagogically connected topics,and, finally, the reflections on the theming and texts.The documentation of my observations and reflections over two consecutive schoolyears, together with the vivid recollections of interviews with students, teachers, andparents, still make me ponder about the incredible difficulty of capturing educationalchange in progress and coming to terms with decision-making as a stakeholder immersedin this change and, at the same time, trying to find the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cright voice\u00E2\u0080\u009D to negotiate and bringit to a varied audience of educators, parents, and community members. The memories ofthe inspirited and instructional conversations I have engaged in with my students, theparticipants in my study, my colleagues, my dissertation committee members, and thosewho are captured in narrative format in these chapters, are also precious reminders of theprivileged position I have been in as a teacher researcher. These memories have providedme with many moments of the kind of authentic dwelling Heidegger and Aoki speak ofThe theming of authenticity has also reached into the methodological domain of myresearch endeavour, bringing about the Kehre, the turn, in how I have come to view doingresearch. Ij oin Kirby & McKenna (1989) in celebrating what they call doing researchfrom the margins:We care about the accessibility of research skills because we believe that peopleshould have the opportunity to inform themselves, to participate in discussion andpolicy formation and advance their interests through political action. Demystifyingresearch skills challenges current social relations in which expertise remains asource of power for a few rather than a resource available to all. Doing research200allows us to begin to rename our experience, and thus participate in creatingknowledge we can use. (p. 170)In this process it became inevitable for me to be living my research and to experiencethe need to tell this story, to share it with others who care. The theming of the power ofour stories resurfaces here, once again: \u00E2\u0080\u0098There is power in being able to tell your story andhearing others tell theirs. Sharing experiences triggers some life, some anger, some needto create change\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Kirby & McKenna, 1989, p. 170).In the end, the theming of difficulty is the one that I choose to address once more andleave my readers to reflect on. The foremost difficulty I am faced with in this text infrontofme is, once again, the perceived need to bring closure to this venture of a textus, atapestry placed within the constraints of a certain academic tradition, to leave behino toclose the door of this school and classroom I set out to describe in the beginning. I realizethe difficulty of making an arbitrary incision into the lifeline of this vibrant place. I want tocontinue charting the weather day by day, to keep observing the ongoing changes,celebrate the recurring and reassuring small successes, the conslancies of the educationalclimate, yet, most of all, to revel in the anticipation of what will happen next, of the unknown that builds on what is already known. I feel related in this suspense-fulltensionality to yet another writer, Italo Calvino, who reminds us that \u00E2\u0080\u009Creading is goingtoward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Brossard,1990, unnumbered page).In typically Postmodern fashion Calvino reassembled and recombined alreadyexisting themes, characters and plots from his own personal library, in a process ofboth replenishment and exhaustion The scheme is simple: on the one handthere is the immediate task, whatever it may be (playing, traveling on a train,reading, thinking), on the other is the unknown, the unconscious, the ominousvoid All of the tales are qualified by the adjective dfficile and indeed adisturbing aura pervades the work, coloring the actions of the characters withtones of despair. (Ricci, 1990, pp. 5, 16)201The powerful writings by Italo Calvino, like many of the other voices heard in thisdissertation, remind us of the very real dimensions of despair in both children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and adults\u00E2\u0080\u0099lives throughout the processes of reading, writing, and living within cultural, social,political, and educational systems that rule and run against the natural stream of individualpersonalities and the cultural beliefs of those outside the main stream. Here I come back,finally, to the notion of responsibility, or obligation, in Terry Carson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993) terms,connected with teaching in this world of difficulties and paradoxes of identities. He haspoignantly placed these notions in the context of Gadamer\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1987) and Caputo\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1993)philosophical frameworks on ethics, referring to their deconstruction of Ethics (with acapital E and in the sense of the Western philosophical tradition) as \u00E2\u0080\u0098caught in the bind ofcreating general rules to handle what is essentially individual and specific (Carson, 1994,p. 6). This also applies to educational contexts in that pedagogical responsibility, in realsituations, among individual teachers and students, means being in no other place exceptwhere one is already -- in the middleRe-discovering the joys of this challenging task, and in between, un-covering theradiance with which students create new contexts for meaning and new meanings forcontexts has made this dissertation a true labour of love for me. David Jardine, whenspeaking about the \u00E2\u0080\u009Cpotentially painful process\u00E2\u0080\u009D of pursuing interpretive inquiry, onceagain connecting with Gadamer, alludes to the emotional involvement of the pedagogicheart and the danger of such work which \u00E2\u0080\u009Ccan pull you in so many different, oftenincompatible ways\u00E2\u0080\u009D (Jardine, 1992, p. 60). Yet, it is also a joyful, heart-felt emotional taskthat builds understanding and renews the possibilities of living thoughtfully andcapriciously with/in situations \u00E2\u0080\u009Cthat we must learn to live well\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 60). C\u00E2\u0080\u0099apriciousness,so often associated with children, their un-reasonable demands, their mostly messy,sometimes spoiled, frequently fanciful actions, needs a new appreciation, along with amore playful and thoughtful languaging within cultural and textual difference.202This thesis, in David Jardine\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1994) words, has been \u00E2\u0080\u009Clittered with literacy.\u00E2\u0080\u009D Inmany of its places, I have written about languaging; I have placed many of its vital parts,playfully and earnestly, within and outside of linguistic arrangements and conventions; Ihave spoken of prefixes and suffixes, of re- and of -ations and told of the importance ofincluding the extra-linguistic dimensions of language, thought, and culture in a rich andvaried but most of all meaningful, mind-ful curriculum. Thus I linger here with a suffix inthe shape of a poem, \u00E2\u0080\u009CAtions\u00E2\u0080\u009D, a re-cre-ation of meaning-making through languagingacross cultures. My re-assembling of some of the thoughts and voices of others, and myre-interpretation of what it means to be teaching and learning does, after all, call for aconcluding note, if not for an ending. As I search for a way to bring closure to thisintertextual enterprise, I believe it appropriately fitting to let the children speak once again,through the language of an \u00E2\u0080\u009Cother\u00E2\u0080\u009D they have come to understand and to connect with in ameaningful way.It is spring, a new season, and the children are excited about extending ourCommunication theme into Space, launching into ever-new ways of communicatingwithlin the future, becoming explorers of and in all the universe. As part of a celebrationof this theme, they, a sixty-some strong group of Primary Open Area children, brought asa message to their school community, chanting playfully in front of a school assembly oneof the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s favourite poems by Shel Silverstein, \u00E2\u0080\u009CA tions\u00E2\u0080\u009D from A light in the attic(Silverstein, 1981, p. 59). A re-arranging of yet another reading relation in a differentplace, a relation the students have come to love and re-cite throughout the year, over andover again, and which so poignantly reflects the many kinds of languaging that continue tosurface and spread among the voices of the actors in this dramatic play of becomingcitizens of this world. \u00E2\u0080\u009CWe\u00E2\u0080\u009D and \u00E2\u0080\u00981\u00E2\u0080\u009D go together in this exchange of words; they are linkedthrough a dialogue that represents thoughtfulness and understanding and caring for eachother:L\u00E2\u0080\u0099.J3Ifwe meet and I say, \u00E2\u0080\u009CHi,\u00E2\u0080\u009DThat\u00E2\u0080\u0099s a salutation.Ifyou ask me how Ifeel,That consideration.Ifwe stop and talk awhile,That a conversation.Ifwe understand each otherThat communication.Ifwe argue, scream andfight,That\u00E2\u0080\u0099s an altercation.If later we apologize,That reconciliation.Ifwe help each other home,Thats cooperation.And all these ations added upMake civilization.(And fI say this is a wonderfulpoem,Is that exaggeration?)What is it that we spend a great deal of our time doing when we come togetherwith other people? We talk and we listen. We argue. We agree and we disagree.We negotiate and we compromise. We ask questions and we provide answers.We describe and we explain. We tell stories. We praise. We promise. We laugh.We cry.In other words, what stands out when we look at what people do together islanguage as communication in action. Because we have become so intent onsearching deeply within the individual\u00E2\u0080\u0099s psyche for the answers to all our questionsabout human nature, we usually fail to see what sits right before us, a dominatingfeature of our lives with others: conversations. It is time now to takeconversations seriously. (Sampson, 1993, p. 97).I have chosen parts of two other wonderfulpoems as examples of conversations toconclude this dissertation text which itself has elements of a conversation in intertextuality.Dave Bouchard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and Roy Henry Vickers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (1990) The elders are watching exemplifies, tome, the forward-looking ecological spirit we need to embrace through pedagogical action204now and in the future; at the same time it is evidence of the conversation and cooperativeenterprise between pedagogy, culture and place, by a West Vancouver schooladministrator who grew up in the Prairies and a First Nations artist deeply connected withthe geo-cultural spaces ofNorthwest Coast Indian art. It is the kind of collaborationwhich we need to celebrate and encourage with our colleagues and students. It is also areminder to cherish the Elders, our past experiences, and to reflect on them as well as toput into action what we have learned from the mistakes we have made and the successeswe have had. These lessons have to be taught to our children though(fully andrespeqfully, as Roy Henry Vickers reminds us in his Thoughts in the foreword to thiscollaborative project:Change comes from understanding ourselves -- our weaknesses, our strengths.That understanding can be fostered from knowledge of our past, our culturalheritage and our environment. This priceless wisdom is available from our elders,who like us, received it from their ancestors.Such changes can affect our many relationships -- intimate ones, social andprofessional ones, and the one we have with our environment. These actions willhelp us to turn the tide, letting it wash over the land, healing those wrongs we havehad a part in creating. (Vickers, 1990, unnumbered page)Dave Bouchard, in turn, in Whispers reminds us once again how difficult it is forsome of the students in our classrooms to fit in. He urges us to learn more about them, tolisten to what these students have to share with us and to build on their stories.The boy looked much the same as the other kids in his class. New faces arrivedalmost daily from far away places, so it wasn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t his appearance that made himdifferent.He had always tried his hardest, but try as he might, somehow he didn\u00E2\u0080\u0099t seemto be able to get excited about the same things his classmates did. This year wasno different.Of all the tales his grandfather told, none captured his heart more than thestories of the Old Ones -- the Elders. And as the stories slowly became part ofhim, by the seashore in the clear red sky of early evening, he began to see them.They appeared as images suspended in the air, up toward the sun. Their lipswere still, yet he heard them speak. Their message, like the words of his \u00E2\u0080\u0098Ya-A,\u00E2\u0080\u0099was clear and true, a message gone too long without being passed to other hearts.205He and his \u00E2\u0080\u0098Ya-A\u00E2\u0080\u0099 would share the words of the Elders often with all thosewho cared to listen -- with all those who cared at all. (Bouchard, 1990,unnumbered page)Both authors\u00E2\u0080\u0099 voices are heard loud and clear, one\u00E2\u0080\u0099s through poetry, the other\u00E2\u0080\u0099sthrough powerful visual art images. Their voices are distinct, different, yet the message isa joint one, united by the spirit of collaboration and sharing of cultures that have much togive to each other and that can both contribute to creating a better, more harmoniousplace to live for our children, our students, and ourselves, to dwell together humanly, inTed Aoki\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words (Aoki, 1993, p. 3). The poetry and the art are firmly placed within theenvironment the authors call their place of work and their home, and they affirm theimportance of place in both local and global dimensions. Vickers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 art that accompanies thepoetry connects images of such local place names as Carmanah, Capilano, and Vancouverwith the spiritual and ecological interplay of humans and natural environment, throughpaintings entitled, for instance, Summer Solstice, Going to the Potlach, Reflections,Guardians of the Pass, The Two of Us, and, from beginning to end, the powerful messageof The Elders are Watching.Here, yet another message is spoken once again, the warning is repeated that It rudeto interrupt, Sylvia Ashton Warner\u00E2\u0080\u0099s lesson she learned from her teaching of children froma different cultural background than her own (Ashton-Warner, 1963). For too long andtoo often we have done just that: interrupted or completely ignored the stories that ourstudents have brought with them to our classrooms.In the other poem, Der Lesende (Some-one reading), Rainer Maria Rilke portrays oneperson, quite possibly the author himself\u00E2\u0080\u0099 actively engaged, reconnecting, through the actof reading, with the life-affirming cosmic processes around him; reading creates adialogical exchange, constitutes a window to the world outside, lifts the broders, createsan ecological empire without borders, simultaneously simple and complex, serene andserious -- difjIcile: mein Buch war schwer my book was heavy dfJicult206Ich las schon lang. Seit dieser Nachmittag,mit Regen rauschend, an den Fenstern lag.Vom Winde draul3en h\u00C3\u00B6rte ich nichts mehr:mein Buch war schwer.Und wenn ich jetzt vom Buch die Augen hebe,wird nichts befremdlich sein und alles grol3.Dort drauBen ist, was ich hier drinnen lebe,und hier und dort ist alles grenzenlos;nur daB ich mich noch mehr damit verwebe,wenn meine Blicke an die Dinge passenund an die ernste Einfachheit der Massen, -da w\u00C3\u00A4chst die Erde Uber sich hinaus.Den ganzen Himmel scheint sie zu umfassen:der erste Stern ist wie das letzte Haus. (Rilke, 1955, PP. 214-215)Thefirst star is like the last house...: the borders between the natural world andhuman dwelling places, between beginning and ending are interwoven; they truly havebecome transient, and the earth embraces the whole of the universe. And Brecht, in hispoem Lob des Lernens, quoted in a previous chapter, urges us to take charge of our ownlearning: \u00E2\u0080\u009CDu mul3t die Fuhrung Ubernehmen\u00E2\u0080\u009D -- \u00E2\u0080\u009CYou must take the lead\u00E2\u0080\u009D (1966, p. 21);he speaks directly to the need to grasp both the fundamental, the simple things, the Abc,and a more inclusive knowledge of our world. This is where the spaces for responsiblesocial action open up, through active reading and writing of the geo-cultural spaces thatsurround us. The time has come for all of us to re-tell the stories, to re-build the bridges,and to create new understandings and connections, new conversations. The heart andbody of pedagogical inquiry remains with the hope and trust in our children and theirfuture. Thus, the future of the hyphen will I believe, trace a path into the past as well.Through a new way of writing, language has indeed become a crucial critical force forcultural and educational change and constitutes a strong wind blowing across the path ofthe status quo. With it comes a clearer vision, a chance of a clearing of clouds toward achange for the better in how we weather cultural literacies and pedagogy in the future, ifonly, in David Bouchard\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1990) words, we look toward the sun.207They told me to tellyou the time has come.They want you to know how theyfeel.So listen carefully, look toward the sun.The Elders are watching.Now friend be clear and understandNot everything\u00E2\u0080\u0099s dark and glum.They are seeing some things that are making them smile,And that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s part of the reason I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve come.The colour green has come back to the land.It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s for people who feel like me.For people who treasure what nature gives,For those who help others to see.And there are those whose actions show.They see the way things could be.They do what they can, give all that they haveJust to save one ancient tree.They told me to tell you the time has come.They want you to know how theyfeel.So listen carefully, look toward the sun.The Elders are watching.Of all the things that you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve done so well,The things they are growing to love,It\u00E2\u0080\u0099s the sight of your home, the town that you\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve built.They can see it from far up above.Like the sun when it shines, like the full moon at night,Like a hundred totems tall,It has brightened their sky and that\u00E2\u0080\u0099s partially whyThey\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve sent me to you with their call.Now I\u00E2\u0080\u0099ve said all the things that I told them I would.I hope I am doing my share.If the beauty around us is to live through this dayWe\u00E2\u0080\u0099d better start watching -- and care.The told me to tell you the time is now.They want you to know how theyfeel.So listen carefully, look toward the sun.The Elders are watching.208In revisiting once more the questions I set out with on this intertextual journey intonew pedagogical landscapes, I now perceive the presence of new understandings formyself and for the community of teachers and learners who are my readers. Throughwriting, through the particular language of action writing/research, I have come to livewith my texts and those of others, old and new, in a different way, in dff\u00C3\u00A9rance. This hascreated, as Barthes in The rustle of language (1986) so aptly observed, a new perspectiveon language, on reading and writing, and pedagogical experience has become meaningfulin a way that is both unique and common/communal, transitional -- entgrenzt/withoutborders -- and therefore liberating.When we, as teachers, engaged in the complex and at times difficult tasks ofbecoming deeply connected with our students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 lived experiences as well as with our ownpersonal and pedagogical praxis through diverse languaging and texts, spaces forcommunity-building in and outside the classroom as well as responsible social actionbegan to open up within the curriculum. The construction of meaning, the making senseof the world around us was influenced by this language in a crucial way. It seemed vital inthis process of co-constructing meaningful connections between our diverse and oftendivergent backgrounds that teachers and students engaged with texts that reflected thecultural diversity within this local setting but that also spoke to issues of cultural pluralismand heterogeneity within the larger societal and global context, in all the universe, in oneof the children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s words. Through texts that celebrated the joys, the differences, thedifficulties and the paradoxes of communal belonging within both local and universalintertextual frames, we came to locate multiple communities in diversity. This indeedconstitutes the power of our stories.209Notes1 The title of this section mirrors a choice of phrase from Benjamin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1989) The LyotardReader. Und so welter ... [and so on. ..j expresses the continuous movement within awriting process that builds on prior texts and at the same time progresses toward newtexts.2 The Primary Program documents include, in addition to the Foundation Document, theResource Document (B.C. Ministry of Education, 1990) and the Learning ResourcesCatalogue (B.C. Ministry of Education, 1990).The paligraphic nature of this text reflects its layered textuality in the form of differenttypes of fonts and spatial arrangements (e.g., altered indentations and margins) for theshifting voices of researcher, students, and other participants, in the form of reflections injournal entries, quotations by students, teachers, and other stakeholders from interviewsand other work samples, such as creative writing and reading responses.4 This refers to an earlier recollection of the visits by my brother\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Canadian friends whowere traveling abroad and spent time at my parents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 house in the southwestern part ofGermany.5 Excerpt from a narrative paper entitled For richer or poorer: Reflections on teachingESL in the context ofCanadian multicultural education for R. Berwick\u00E2\u0080\u0099s ENED 543course on Research and Theory in Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language,University of British Columbia, 10/10/91, p. 7.6 Smith\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mentioning of Wilhelm Dithey here strikes a further familiar inter-cultural note:Much of Dilthey\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1905) work was written when he was professor of philosophy andhistory in Berlin, my own alma mater.7 Excerpt from a journal critique of Catherine Wallace\u00E2\u0080\u0099s and Yetta Goodman\u00E2\u0080\u0099s 1989article Research currents: Language and literacy development ofmultilingual learners,written for L. Gunderson\u00E2\u0080\u0099s READ 477 course on Teaching ESL/EFL Students to Read:Kindergarten to Adult Level, University of British Columbia, 3/29/90, p. 15.8 From A Wish Listfor the World, part of the study unit entitled \u00E2\u0080\u009CPeace on Earth\u00E2\u0080\u009D inUnder the tree, a global education package for elementary classrooms by Elizabeth andDavid Morley, p. 15. The students who worked with this unit are in a Primary Open Areaof three multi-age classes in an east-side community school in Vancouver, BritishColumbia, which is the site of this study.2109 The members of this group were Andrea Hawkes, A. J. Miller, Judy Ann Nishi, andRon Rumak, all elementary teachers but with different areas of expertise, such as art,English as a Second Language (ESL), and Learning Assistance Centre (LAC). Dr. SharonReid, Supervisor of Research for the Vancouver School Board, and A. J. Miller, an ESLdistrict resource teacher, became the coordinators and facilitators of the teacher researchgroup, supplying many of the resources in the form of materials, release time, meetingspaces, and, last not least, the much needed good humour, coffee, and cookies at the endof a long teaching day. Currently, J. A. Nishi is the chairperson of the local network.10 A recent special issue of the TESOL Journal (Autumn 1994) focused on issues,processes, and outcomes of\u00E2\u0080\u0099teacher research\u00E2\u0080\u0099 (Burton & Agor, 1994).11 In this newspaper article, Murrills quotes from an interview with Anne Coombs, aVancouver-based futurist who works extensively with educational agencies.12 The students performed this song and responded to it with their own Wish Listfor theWorld in a school concert. From the British Columbia Primary Teachers\u00E2\u0080\u0099 Association\u00E2\u0080\u0099s1990 publication Teaching global responsibility and E. & D. Morley\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1987) Under thefree.13 From a panel presentation of the Research Interest Section on \u00E2\u0080\u009CClassroom-centeredResearch: Perspectives from Teachers, Teacher Researchers, and Researchers\u00E2\u0080\u009D at TESOL\u00E2\u0080\u009892, March 5, 1992. Participants included Diane Belcher, Richard Blot, Patricia Carrell,Craig Chaudron, Ulla Connor, Scott Enright, Nadine Watson, Vivian Zamel.14\u00E2\u0080\u009CAt rest on the verandah ...\u00E2\u0080\u009C was the metaphor Blot used in his paper \u00E2\u0080\u009CEthnography inClassroom Research\u00E2\u0080\u009D at the above TESOL \u00E2\u0080\u009892 conference.15 Some of the Greater Vancouver area municipalities, such as Richmond, Surrey, andCoquitlam, are experiencing staggering growth rates and, connected with this, a rapidincrease in the number of ESL children. These demographic trends might change thestatistics considerably in the near future (Gunderson, in press-a). Also, a recent study ofthe background characteristics of students entering the Vancouver School Districtconfirms the high rate of immigrants from China and Southeast Asia (Gunderson, 1995a).16 A study by Rodgers, Slade, & Conry (1974) on the relationship betweensocioeconomic area of school location and oral language competency of Grade onestudents in three Vancouver schools \u00E2\u0080\u009Crepresenting, respectively, high, middle, or lowincome populations\u00E2\u0080\u009D (p. 318) used 1961 census data to determine the sample of theschools. According to this information Franklin School represented the school in themiddle, which was characterized as a solid \u00E2\u0080\u009Cblue collar, artisan\u00E2\u0080\u009D socioeconomic area (K.Slade, personal conversations, October 20, 1994 and July 26, 1995).21117 This information of 09/30/94 lists the major home languages for each school in thedistrict (Vancouver School Board, 1994).18 One of the highlights this year was a special \u00E2\u0080\u009Cworkshop\u00E2\u0080\u009D presented by one thechildren\u00E2\u0080\u0099s parents. Hilary\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father, a local filmmaker, gave a presentation on his award-nominated animated short film of Earle Birney\u00E2\u0080\u0099s poem TRAWATA TUHBELVUL BYKNAYJINPSIFIK (Birney, 1991), narrated by the poet himself especially for this film. Hetalked about the special language of this poem, featuring the onomatopoetic sounds of atrain ride, and introduced the children to the special art technique he had used involvinglayers of water colours and boxes of \u00E2\u0080\u009Cpaper eyes\u00E2\u0080\u009D for the characters. The next day, thestudents had a chance to produce a short animated film of their very own with the help ofHilary\u00E2\u0080\u0099s mother, who also teaches an after-school art program at the school.19 Unfortunately, Kiwi is no longer with us -- he was peacefully laid to rest after fouryears of devoted service to children of all different kinds. He created, through this act,one of those truly \u00E2\u0080\u009Cteachable moments.\u00E2\u0080\u009D The children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s letters, pictures, and the special\u00E2\u0080\u009Cshrine\u00E2\u0080\u009D they set up in his corner were a touching homage to a very special friend. Asuccessor for Kiwi, Grover/Glover (honouring the linguistic variability within Asian andIndo-Germanic languages, his name remains appropriately ambiguous) is in the process ofbeing gradually trained for the assault of the masses of eager new \u00E2\u0080\u009CGlover/GroverGuardians\u00E2\u0080\u009D in September. Some of the trusted \u00E2\u0080\u009CKiwi Keepers\u00E2\u0080\u009D are in charge of thisresponsibility-laden task.20 For samples of the letters of permission and open-ended interview questions, seeAppendix 1.21 Sharon Reid, Supervisor of Research for the Vancouver School Board andcoordinator of the teacher research group, supplied the computer assistance for therandom sample selection. The number of students in the P.O.A. varied between 60 and 70over the two years depending on residents\u00E2\u0080\u0099 movement in the neighbourhood.22\u00E2\u0080\u009CEducation that is multicultural:\u00E2\u0080\u009D I am referring to the terminology used by Kofi Marfoin his presentation at a conference on Multiculturalism in Early Childhood Education atthe Centre for the Study of Curriculum and Instruction/Child Study Centre, University ofBritish Columbia in May 1993.23 In the Teacher Preparation Materials for this exhibition, we read that the artists\u00E2\u0080\u0099 workis not meant to be representative of their geographical locations. Each of themstrives to represent human experience informed by specific historical and socialcontexts. By acknowledging their cultural traditions, histories and locales, the212seven artists in Out of Place invite us to consider our own hybrid identities(Vancouver Art Gallery, 1994, p.1).24 These excerpts are taken from the English abstract of my master\u00E2\u0080\u0099s thesis on MaryMcCarthy: Probleme der literaturkritischen Rezeption von women writers/In the crossfireofmale literary critics (Ludt, 1977).25 This study unit (student text and teacher guide) was published by Alternatives toRacism, an organization devoted to \u00E2\u0080\u009Ceducate people, particularly children, to live at peacewith each other.\u00E2\u0080\u009D The materials were developed with the assistance of the Faculty ofEducation at the University of British Columbia, the Victoria and Vancouver SchoolBoards, and the British Columbia Teachers Federation, as well as various other non-profitgroups (Alternatives to Racism, 1983, 1984).26 The first two the books that Sung\u00E2\u0080\u0099s father comments on, Philippa and the hungtydragon (Level 4, Set B)and The hungiy chickens (Level 4, Set C) are from the Literacy2000 series, one of the Recommended Learning Resources from the B.C. EducationMinistry\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1991a) Catalogue of learning resources, designed for \u00E2\u0080\u009CESL Beginning LevelK-12\u00E2\u0080\u009D and published by Ginn & Company.27 This book, edited by Janet Hickman and Bernice Cullinan (1989), is a Festschrift forCharlotte Huck, the well-known scholar and teacher of children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature. Other sourcesmentioned include Kathleen Krull\u00E2\u0080\u0099s (1994) Currer and Ellis Bell: Charlotte and EmilyBront\u00C3\u00AB, In Lives of the writers: Comedies, tragedies (and what the neighbors thought), E.B. White\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Charlotte Web, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Die Leiden desjungenWerther. Charlotte the basset belongs to Carl Leggo and his family.28 Just recently, in 1995, Norway has joined the EEC (European Economic Community).Further accounts of Grieg, \u00E2\u0080\u009CNorway\u00E2\u0080\u0099s greatest composer, a national hero and collectivesymbol of the Norwegian identity,\u00E2\u0080\u009D as well as a documentary of his musical heritage canbe found in Celebrating Edvard Grieg, a CBC Stereo production produced by KeithHomer. In addition, Soulfor sale, an article by Anders Johansen (1994), documents thiscountry\u00E2\u0080\u0099s struggle with its cultural and political heritage.213ReferencesAbbott, M., & Polk, B. (1993). Celebrating our diversity: Using multicultural literatureto promote cultural awareness. Carthage, IL: Fearon Teacher Aids/Simon & SchusterEducation Group.Adachi, K. (1976). The enemy that never was: A history of the Japanese Canadians.Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Adair, G. (1992). 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Talesfrom GoldMountain: Stories of the Chinese in the newworld. Toronto: Groundwood.Yokota, J. (1993). Issues in selecting multicultural children\u00E2\u0080\u0099s literature. Language Arts,10(3), 156-167.253Appendix 1Letters of Permission and Interview Questions254Letter of Permission ADear Parent(s) or Guardian(s),We would like to ask for your cooperation in helping us to better understand thefactors that influence students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 learning at school. For this purpose, we are conductingclassroom research in the area of language education through a study on Communities ofinquiry: Language, Literature and Culture in the Classroom (Teacher researcher:E. Hasebe-Ludt). This study is part of a continuing project sponsored by the VancouverSchool Board and is also part of the requirements for Ms. Hasebe-Ludt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Ph.D. degree inCurriculum and Instruction/Language Education at the University of British Columbia(Faculty advisor: Dr. Ken Reeder).The data collection involves video and audio taping of classroom activities as well asinformal interviewing of students as part of regular instructional practices (no interventionor testing will be required). Participation is strictly voluntary, and your child\u00E2\u0080\u0099s standing inschool will not be affected if you decide not to allow her or him to participate. Childrennot participating in the study will simply continue with regular instruction. All informationobtained will be kept confidential and anonymous.If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact eitherMs. Hasebe-Ludt or at 294-8626 or Dr. Reeder at 822-5764.Sincerely,(E. Hasebe-Ludt) (K. Reeder) (K. Toye)I give permission/do not give permission for my child__________________________to participate in the classroom research project at Franklin School as described in thisletter of 94.11.12. I also acknowledge receiving a copy of this letter for my own files.Parent(s)\u00E2\u0080\u0099/Guardian(s) Signature Date255Letter of Permission BDear Parent or Guardian,We would like to ask for your cooperation in helping us to better understand thefactors that influence student& learning at school. For this purpose, we are conductingclassroom research in the area of language education through a study on Communities ofinquily: Language, Literature and Culture in the Classroom (Teacher researcher:E. Hasebe-Ludt). This study is part of a continuing project sponsored by the VancouverSchool Board and is also part of the requirements for Ms. Hasebe-Ludt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Ph.D. degree inCurriculum and Instruction/Language Education at the University of British Columbia(Faculty advisor: Dr. Ken Reeder).The data collection involves informal interviewing of parents/guardians of students inthe Primary Open Area. Participation is strictly voluntary, and all information obtainedwill be kept confidential and anonymous.If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact eitherMs. Hasebe-Ludt or at 294-8626 or Dr. Reeder at 822-5764.Sincerely,(E. Hasebe-Ludt) (K. Reeder) (K. Toye)I agree/do not agree to participate in the classroom research project at Franklin School asdescribed in this letter of 94.11.12. I also acknowledge receiving a copy of this letter formy own files.Signature Date256Letter of Permission CDear Teacher/Community School Staff Member,We would like to ask for your cooperation in helping us to better understand thefactors that influence students\u00E2\u0080\u0099 learning at school. For this purpose, we are conductingclassroom research in the area of language education through a study on Communities ofinquiry: Language, Literature and Culture in the Classroom (Teacher researcher:E. Hasebe-Ludt). This study is part of a continuing project sponsored by the VancouverSchool Board and is also part of the requirements for Ms. Hasebe-Ludt\u00E2\u0080\u0099s Ph.D. degree inCurriculum and InstructionfLanguage Education at the University of British Columbia(Faculty advisor: Dr. Ken Reeder).The data collection involves video and audio taping of your classroom activities aswell as informal interviewing of teachers, community school stafl and students.Participation is strictly voluntary, and all information obtained will be kept confidential andanonymous.If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact eitherMs. Hasebe-Ludt or at 294-8626 or Dr. Reeder at 822-5764.Sincerely,(E. Hasebe-Ludt) (K. Reeder) (K. Toye)I agree/do not agree to participate in the classroom research project at Franklin School asdescribed in this letter of 94.11.12. I also acknowledge receiving a copy of this letter formy own files.Signature Date257Interview Questions(Parent/Teacher/Staff Open-ended Interviews)I\u00E2\u0080\u0099m interested in finding out about children learn about language and literature at home andas part of how we teach reading at school.Can you tell me what kinds of books your child/students in your class read\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 at home?\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 in school?Any specific titles or authors?Do you approve? If not, what kinds of books do you think your child/students should bereading instead?\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 at home?\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 in school?Any specific titles or authors?258Parents: What language does /do your students speak at home? Is a languageother than English spoken in the home or family?Tell me about your/your students\u00E2\u0080\u0099/your child\u00E2\u0080\u0099s experience with Franklin\u00E2\u0080\u0099s home readingprogram.What kinds of books did your students/your child take home?Do you have any comments about your students\u00E2\u0080\u0099/child\u00E2\u0080\u0099s reading?Franklin is a community school. How is that different from other schools?What are the advantages/disadvantages?What kinds of things are you involved in through the community school?Other comments:259"@en . "Thesis/Dissertation"@en . "1994-11"@en . "10.14288/1.0078135"@en . "eng"@en . "Language and Literacy Education"@en . "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en . "University of British Columbia"@en . "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en . "Graduate"@en . "In all the universe: placing the texts of culture and community in only one school"@en . "Text"@en . "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7229"@en .