WHAT DOES MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACH? THE CURRICULUM OF BEING/BECOMING MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS

Abstract

This post-critical ethnographic study explored the curriculum of being/becoming a middle school teacher that 5 emergency-certified new-to-teaching teachers experienced through the quotidian interactions of their first fully in-person school year. The curriculum of being/becoming teachers is increasingly important as the percentage of teachers entering the profession through alternative and emergency certification pathways increases each year and school and district leaders inherit more of the responsibility to prepare and develop these teachers. The purpose of this study is to describe how participants developed a sense of students, content, and contexts through the curriculum of being/becoming teachers. Additionally, this study describes how the instructional coach/researcher co-developed and evolved a new teacher community of practice (NTCOP) that pushed participants toward becoming more sensitive, humane, and empathetic curriculum makers. Three questions guided this inquiry: (1) What are some of the core teachings in the curriculum of being/becoming teachers at this school site as evidenced by policies, practices, and relationships between teachers and students in place during their inaugural school year?; (2) In what ways does engagement in a learning group aimed at intervening in the curriculum of being/becoming teachers interact with new-to-teaching teachers' understanding of who they become, what they know, and how they interact with students and as middle school teachers?; and (3) What questions do new-to-teaching teachers’ experiences grappling with the curriculum of being/becoming teachers and emerging teacher identity raise about the ways districts and schools provide support? In middle schools, where nearly a third of adolescents experience academic and social challenges due to developmental and cultural mismatches between teachers and students, this study’s findings suggest that the curriculum of being/becoming teachers reinforced these mismatches in three ways: school and district leaders assigned teaching tasks as a mechanism of control, middle school policies and practices reinscribed deficit narratives about adolescents, and administrators and colleagues cultivated a hostile environment for new-teacher learning. The NTCOP provided a counter-space for participants to disrupt deficit narratives and to discuss and affirm placemaking practices. However, the participants did not adopt active advocacy stances toward adolescents despite the researcher’s efforts.