by: Ji Ho (Geo) Yang, PHD Candidate at the University of Washington
Note: If you haven’t read the first post from this blog series, I encourage you to read it before reading this 2nd post. Many of the concepts and ideas talked about here are explained and defined in the first post.
Shortly after the launch of the codesign project, the RCPP took time to reflect on the past year’s development and analyzed our codesign processes, including reflecting on the dynamics of politicized trust across stakeholders. During this reflection process, the UW team went through and analyzed recorded data (e.g., meetings, field notes, etc.) for key themes and takeaways. Here, we learned about the internal dynamics of our partnership, such as how the lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities affected power dynamics across the collective. We crucially also learned about external dynamics, particularly at the system’s level, concerning political and racial issues, including SPS’s budgeting issues and turnover of Black leaders. This reflective process provided learnings and helped the RCPP-ELC for its next stage of the project in codesigning with Black families and students, educators, and administrators. It also felt central to the codesign process because regular critical reflections provide checks for key leads of the process and learning opportunities to better practice codesign.
Leading into the fall, the RCPP worked diligently to recruit families and educators to the ELC codesign. Emerson, Olympic Hill, and Wing Luke elementary schools were the partnering schools for the ELC as they are part of the 13 early literacy priority schools SPS has designated based on enrollment of Black boys. These priority schools are part of SPS’s strategic plan focusing on early literacy and concentrating more resources to those schools. The process of inviting families and educators required great effort, particularly from SPS leaders, to build trust and communicate effectively with school administrators (some of whom were just beginning in their role), and family connectors, who supported in communicating and bringing in families. It took a network of educators, administrators, family connectors, and SPS leaders to invite families and educators to become part of the ELC codesign. Bringing all these people together may be one thing, but then to codesign and co-create something (e.g. practice, product, etc.) that reflects the collective’s sense and meaning of literacy required significant attention to power dynamics across languages and cultures, roles and occupations, etc. Without attending to possible power dynamics across the codesign team, trust would be weak and unsustainable. Attending to trust as politicized or trust as tied to power was central to the recruitment and onboarding process and moving forward with the project.
As the recruitment process was ongoing, the RCPP also planned the initial codesign sessions for families and educators, including setting agendas, logistics, clarifying roles, resolving technical issues, etc. The groundwork laid in the first year and summer reflections helped support the planning. Planning these initial sessions required careful consideration as this was the first time all members of the ELC codesign were coming together and the opening moments to build relationships and trust. Planning considerations included how to balance discussing logistics with community building, designing small groups to accommodate languages, and how to support engagement via Zoom (sessions were in-person following the first 2 sessions). These considerations and others were made in relation to power dynamics across all members of the ELC codesign, such as teacher to principal, family to SPS leader, and English speakers to Amarhic, Somali, Tigrinya, and multilingual speakers.
The first codesign session with families, educators, and school leaders took place in mid-October. There was bubbling excitement amongst the RCPP team that could be felt even through Zoom as the session was setting up and beginning. This was the culmination of over a year’s worth of planning and coordination, along with prior work in the pilot. As with many first events on Zoom, there was a lot of silence in the online space. Families were reluctant to unmute and share, especially because they were unfamiliar with who many of the facilitators and attendees were. We needed time to build relationships, which felt more difficult via Zoom. To mitigate language barriers, however, we had tremendous support from the Amharic and Somali interpreters. They worked to make the space more comfortable for many of the families. Interpreters not only provided language support, but participated in conversation by sharing their experiences as families within SPS. They interpreted key logistics, concepts, and perspectives across the team. Planning for the first session, the RCPP team worked intentionally to consider possible issues of power across all stakeholders in developing relationships within the new codesign team. However, actually engaging in relationship building for the first time brought in many new lessons and issues in navigating trust and building relationships. Interpreters served as a major bridge to support relationship building and navigating issues of power, especially related to language and culture, which are foundational to cultivating trust within the RCPP-ELC.
In the first session, we engaged in small groups (primarily organized by home languages), sought to form relationships and trust, and outlined the larger goals of the ELC codesign (to design a literacy practice or product rooted in families’ home- and community-based knowledge). One of the main activities in these small groups was having families share what they already do to teach their children about their culture, history, language, etc. Although some families felt the question was very broad and abstract, they still were able to share teaching practices they engage their children with as well as ideals of how they want their children to learn about their culture. This activity was crucial to the development of the RCPP-ELC moving forward because the RCPP team analyzed the responses of families to draft design principles for the codesign project moving forward. These principles were brought back to families in the second session for families and educators to amend and finalize.
For the RCPP team, reflections from the 1st session were pivotal for planning the 2nd session and beyond. Much of these reflections centered around technical logistics, stipends, clarity of roles and responsibilities, and community and relationship building. One of the major reflections was around language accessibility and how crucial interpreters were in supporting the codesign team to navigate power in building relationships founded on trust. For example, I distinctly remember in one of the small groups where the interpreter mentioned the broad and abstract nature of the questions asked to families. This was a major “ah-ha” moment for me as it noted a discrepancy between the RCPP and families within the codesign team, where the RCPP approached the session and literacy conceptually while families were thinking of literacy and this project practically. Not being on the same page can serve as an obstacle in building relationships based on trust and consideration of power. Reflections also helped us better plan to cultivate opportunities for further storytelling by family members. Altogether, we were working to develop steam for the project, particularly with an eye for what the greater team (specifically families) would create at the end of the 1st cycle.
The second session was held mid-November via Zoom, and was the last session before the winter break and in-person sessions (along with virtual sessions). The RCPP team shared examples of Black literacy tools and brilliance from past work such as story quilts from the launch, a Somali board book, and a coffee ceremony led by parents from the pilot. In small groups, families and educators shared their experiences, practices, and understandings of critical literacies. The themes of the importance of home language, intergenerational learning, and connection to the community (such as church) resonated particularly with families. While these themes would resonate with any other educational stakeholder, the Black families in the codesign were challenging the Eurocentric, anti-black, and test-based aspects of schooling. This was just the beginning of the codesign journey. As we came out of the session, we were buzzing about the project moving forward and had a lot on our plate related to planning for our next sessions and critically reflecting on the 1st two sessions. We always considered having in-person sessions for the codesign project. With conversations from the second session deepening our relationships and conversations around literacy becoming more personal and critical, the RCPP felt in-person sessions moving forward made sense. The RCPP decided to hold in-person sessions (with input and approval from the great codesign team) to further deepen connections and conversations with families and educators.
The next and final post will share the conclusion to the 2nd year of the RCPP-ELC codesign project. This post will discuss the major themes and learning from the project itself, and an outlook on what’s ahead for the RCPP-ELC codesign moving forward.
Websites (Mostly linked in blog)
https://www.education.uw.edu/pre/early-literacy-collaborative
References
Vakil et al., 2016 linked in blog
Comber, B., Thomson, P., & Wells, M. (2001). Critical literacy finds a” place”: Writing and social action in a low-income Australian grade 2/3 classroom. The Elementary School Journal, 101(4), 451-464.
Kinloch, V., Penn, C., & Burkhard, T. (2020). Black lives matter: Storying, identities, and counternarratives. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(4), 382-405.
Roby, R. S., Calabrese Barton, A., Tan, E., & Greenberg, D. (2023). Co-making against antiBlackness. Equity & Excellence in Education, 56(3), 450-463.
Souto-Manning, M., & Price-Dennis, D. (2012). Critically redefining and repositioning media texts in early childhood teacher education: What if? and why?. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 33(4), 304-321.
Vakil, S., McKinney de Royston, M., Suad Nasir, N. I., & Kirshner, B. (2016). Rethinking race and power in design-based research: Reflections from the field. Cognition and Instruction, 34(3), 194-209.
Wynter-Hoyte, K., Braden, E., Boutte, G., Long, S., & Muller, M. (2022). Identifying anti-Blackness and committing to Pro-Blackness in early literacy pedagogy and research: A guide for child care settings, schools, teacher preparation programs, and researchers. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(4), 565-591.
Yamashiro, K., Wentworth, L., & Kim, M. (2023). Politics at the boundary: Exploring politics in education research-practice partnerships. Educational Policy, 37(1), 3-30.