January 2004, Vol.9, No.1

Introduction

Corktown Community High School (a pseudonym) was one of the 21 secondary schools selected for the Exemplary Schools Project, a large-scale national research study conducted in Canada in 1993-4. This article summarizes the results of the original study and provides follow up on the Corktown story since then.

Corktown was selected as an exemplary school because of its high student retention, student engagement, achievement, and success in meeting the needs of a unique student population. Corktown Community High School is a publicly-funded, urban, alternative high school in the Toronto District School Board. Most of its 20 students are “drop-outs” from other schools. Corktown’s six teachers and one half time teacher offer advanced level programmes only. The philosophy, pedagogy and practices of the school are grounded in a commitment to the development of the whole person, strong interpersonal relationships, a collaborative work culture, and connectedness between the school and the wider social and global communities.

The school draws from the greater Metropolitan Toronto area. Close relationships between teachers and students, and a clear humanistic philosophy stressing the school as community, are the major reasons for student retention, engagement and success. These close interpersonal relationships and a collaborative learning culture provide a context for adolescents’ growth, and engender a feeling of belonging and connectedness among its members. The school provides a supportive learning environment that encourages students to question, critique, and create; to make sophisticated connections between themselves and the world around them. Students learn to acknowledge that their lives are works-in-progress, to work with the temporal and continually evolving nature of their knowledge and life stories, and to value their inseparable relatedness from others and from the world around them.

NARRATIVES IN THE MAKING

The study of Corktown has recently been published as a book, Narratives in the Making; Teaching and Learning at Corktown Community High School, by the University of Toronto Press, 2004. The original case study and a follow-up study provided the data for the narrative accounts of teaching and learning, descriptions of classroom practices and special events, and portraits of teachers and students given here. Through narrative methods and a language that is accessible for both researchers and practitioners, a reader is shown how the achievement of success in the process of getting an education is connected with the increasing ability to express thoughts, opinions, values, beliefs and assumptions and to develop an individual and unique voice. It is also connected with the acquisition of the intellectual skills necessary to question and test and to continually transform one’s own understandings. For community members at Corktown, success is about more than the preparation for university, for jobs, or for being socialized, more than the mastery of subject knowledge or the acquisition of skills, more than learning how to live up to someone else’s agenda, to wait for the instructions and directions of others, or to adopt unquestioningly another’s values, beliefs or morals. Narrative methods allow the reader to get inside the meaning of student success from the perspectives of teachers, students and community members, and to bring the voices from inside schools into the arenas of educational research and policy-making.

Data were collected through classroom and school observation, individual and focus group interviews, student shadowing, the analysis of documents, formal and informal conversations, interactions with community members, and attendance at school and after-school events over the course of an entire school year. Interviews (totaling 40 hours) were held with Board personnel, the off-site principal, coordinator/teachers, teachers, the school administrator, students, community representatives, parents and alumni. Focus group interviews were held with two groups of students and with the seven teachers in the school. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed for emergent themes and patterns. Additionally, three students were shadowed to understand the school as students know it, and to find out how they experience its rhythms, cycles, tensions, and lifestyle. Field notes were written of all observations of practice, events and situations observed, and were used to construct narrative accounts of tentative meaning-making which were shared with school staff and the research team on a regular basis.

The Research Themes and Patterns of Distinctiveness:

As the research progressed, the thematic constructs of "the learning community," "voice and choice," and "collaboration and connectedness" emerged from early observations of classroom and school practices as evidenced by the three researchers at Corktown. These themes served as frameworks within which to explore the central questions of the research, to share these with school staff and invite feedback and further meanings, to engage in shared interpretation, and to explore the boundaries and obstacles to the full realization of success as experienced by members of the learning community. The themes also provided a framework for describing and analyzing the ways in which community members deal with the ongoing dilemmas, conflicts, and contradictions of daily life, acknowledging that "smooth sailing" or perfection is not a legitimate goal of teaching or learning, and that change and the continual solving of problems is a normal and necessary part of life. These themes and patterns of distinctiveness patterns were woven through the stories of teaching and learning, the accounts of school and classroom life, the portraits of community members, and the analysis of learning and living in this school community.

1. The Learning community: Education is a holistic endeavour

The learning environment at Corktown emphasizes student-centred learning, dialogue, conversation, and reflection, interpersonal relationships, and an academic preparation which is grounded in connectedness of self, school and society. It is understood that the purpose of education is the development of the whole person—intellectually, imaginatively, socially, morally, aesthetically, creatively, and physically—a creative and critical learner who makes connections between the different dimensions of the self, between the self and others, between the different domains of knowledge, between linear thinking and intuition, and between self, school and society. Successful learning involves the development of the individual’s ability to make increasingly more sophisticated connections and relations, the ability to adapt and adjust to meet new situations and conditions; to envision new possibilities and ways of being, and to learn from life itself on a continual basis. The development of the imagination and of the individual’s creative and critical capacities is the key to this kind of learning, and to the individual’s success in transforming the self, the community and society.

2. Voice and Choice: Developing an Authentic Voice and Identity: Cultivating Independence and Interdependence.

The development of an authentic voice and identity is connected in significant ways to the development of both independence and interdependence. It is understood that adolescents need to express their own ideas and opinions, to make sense of their inner realities, and develop the self-respect and self-esteem necessary to shape their own lives. As they do so they develop the abilities to engage in authentic dialogue and conversation with others, to acknowledge that their views are not universally shared, and to develop the willingness and capacities to hear and respond to the views of others.

At Corktown, there is an emphasis on creating a diversity of learning experiences where expressiveness and action are connected to the identification of current and future purposes, and to the envisioning of the range of choices and possibilities available. Through ongoing inquiry, individuals continually re-frame, re-create, and transform their ideas, knowledge and the narratives of their own lives. When school learning is connected to their current and future purposes, and when it engages their intellects and imaginations for the purposes of extending and enlarging those purposes, it becomes relevant and vital. Through the Outreach Programme which is an important component of the school programme, students’ life experiences are connected to the school curriculum, and the external communities to which they belong. Through Outreach, Corktown becomes a “school without walls” and takes advantage of the people, the places and the community outside, and also allows the members of the school community to give back to the external community in many ways. In their choice of Outreach projects, there is a guiding principle of two self-actualizing projects to one altruistic project. Students do not earn credits or money through their Outreach projects, but they tie them in to one of their academic courses. By providing real-life application for knowledge learned, Outreach experiences promote depth of comprehension, and foster student learning and success through an authentic school curriculum which is connected to the real world, which enables them to experience the knowledge, skills, and content they are learning as a source of current fulfilment, personal growth and continuity, and to envision how it can continue to be so, as well as being a source of income in their future lives.

3. Educating Global Citizens: Developing Connectedness and Commitment to Self, School and Community

Relationships are at the heart of teaching and learning at Corktown and it is understood that teaching and learning are facilitated when teacher-student relationships are egalitarian, informal, and collaborative. These kinds of relationships provide a context for adolescent learners to develop their expressiveness, to establish their identities, to develop the ability to hear the voices of others, and to learn how to learn from and with others. The development of relationships with others, and the ability to collaborate with others is emphasized as a necessary aspect of being a committed and responsible citizen in the learning community and beyond. It is understood as a vital component of an education that seeks to educate individuals who care not only about themselves, but also care about others, about local and global societies, and about the planet.

The education of responsible and committed global citizens requires a learning environment that invites participation, interaction, and communication. It requires conditions that are conducive to the practice of self-expression, critical and creative thought and action, participatory decision making, collaboration, commitment and the making of connections. It requires conditions that support and expand the interests of adolescents, that engage them in a participatory community of shared purposes and responsibilities, and that connect them to the larger local and global contexts. These conditions allow them to develop a commitment to their own learning and that of others, to the school community and the wider global community, and the desire and the capacities to work with others for social and global change.

For more information about Corktown see the recently published book, Narratives in the Making; Teaching and Learning at Corktown Community High School. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8020-8533-4.

Mary Beattie is Associate Professor of Curriculum, Teaching, & Learning at OISE/UT. Her research
interests focus on narrative inquiry, professional knowledge, teacher education, and teacher development.

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For more information about these research reports and other activities of the Trent Valley Centre visit: www.oise.utoronto.ca/field-centres/tvc.htm