Collins, Kathleen M. (2011). “My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, positioning, and resistance in multimodal instructional contexts. Language Arts, 88(6), 409-418.
This is a story about how miracles can happen when we focus on children’s strengths in the classroom. Collins makes a strong case for looking critically at our notions of what is ability and disability in classrooms (hence the term Dis/Ability) through a sociocultural lens. Such a lens should assist us as educators in “moving beyond the assumption that abilities and disabilities are located solely within learners” (p. 409). The case presented here shows that what is considered ability or disability (i.e., deficit) always is constructed within the framework of what is valued in a particular context. In schools, certain kinds of behaviors and abilities have been traditionally more privileged than others, perhaps in an attempt to preserve a certain status quo. Print literacy is often at the top of the hierarchy in schools, and just below that, oral literacy. If you are not strong in those modalities, you may be seen as “deficient” and even disabled, and in the worst cases, you’ll be labeled and segregated, all in the name of “meeting needs”, as Collins observed in her three years of data gathering in the school described here. You may be strong in other modalities, like the visual arts or kinesthetic activities like sports or dance, but those are less valued in schools, and probably are not assessed or seen as strengths.
The focal student described here, “Christopher”, was an African-American male second grader who was seen as “a shy child” and “emotionally disturbed” because he would not participate in oral and written activities, and when pressed to do so, would retreat underneath his desk. He was on the road to becoming a “special ed kid”. It was only after Collins, who was a researcher in Christopher’s classroom, together with Christopher’s teacher, discovered Christopher’s ability in art and his self-identification as an artist (fueled by the encouragement of his family) that they were able to use that strength to set up a context (a play in which Christopher was costume designer and “chief set designer”) in which Christopher’s strengths could emerge and be recognized and valued. As the teachers began to value Christopher’s abilities rather than seeing him as disabled, so did the other children and Christopher himself, and a near-miraculous transformation is described.
I am deeply in agreement that we need to look at, value, and nurture children’s strengths. I also agree that children should not be marked as “disabled” just because their particular strengths differ from what the white, female-oriented, middle-class culture of many elementary schools (even those schools populated with non-white children and even in the classrooms of nonwhite teachers, because school values reflect the “dominant” culture in most cases) think counts or does not count as ability. What I am wondering about is how we can get the current view to change. In recent years, the status quo has seemed to strengthen rather than weaken, and children like Christopher often aren’t as lucky as he was to have someone willing to discover his strengths. How can we reach all the unreached “Christophers” out there before it is too late?
As a postscript, little tidbits about Christopher’s family intrigued me. He is quoted as describing a picture painted by an uncle—is this a family of artists who provided some important modeling and support? Also, it is noted that Christopher’s parents resisted special intervention (that would have probably ended in a special education placement). Many of us know of cases where children are known as two completely different people at home and at school. I myself was a child who was considered quiet and shy at school, but definitely was not at home. Was Christopher’s parents’ resistance a form of support for the boy they themselves knew as able, or even a protest against exactly the problem outlined here—a conception of difference as deficit, often resulting in labeling and educational inequity? Christopher’s family seems more important here than may initially meet the eye, and I’d like to know more about that important piece of the picture.
Discussion Prompts:
1. What kinds of evidence were used by the different people who spoke about Christopher in this article? What do the different views of Christopher tell us about assessment?
2. Do you know a child like Christopher who is viewed differently in different contexts and by different people? Who views this child positively? On what basis? Who views this child negatively? On what basis?
3. What are the values and assumptions that might lead to a child like Christopher being described as “deficient”? What are the values and assumptions that might lead to a child like Christopher being described as “creative”? (Note: Think of a “value” as a belief about what is “good”. Think of an “assumption” as an accepted belief about what is “true.”)
4. Reread the account of Christopher’s experience with the fables unit on pp. 413-416 of the article. Write a short script for a conference at which the following people are present: Christopher, Christopher’s mom, the artist-in-residence who worked with the children, and Ms. McSweeney (Christopher’s second grade teacher). Use the comments at the beginning of the article and expand upon them. Assume for the moment that each of these people has a valid point of view supported by evidence, and try to really put yourself in that person’s place. Try to really “hear” and understand each person’s point of view without making right/wrong judgments.
Group activity variation: Split into four small groups, and let each group develop the viewpoint of one of the above stakeholders in Christopher’s education. Then role-play the conference. This could be done in two ways: 1) elect one person from each group to play the four roles, enact the conference with everyone else observing, and then debrief as a whole group, OR 2) present the role-play “Jigsaw” fashion, forming new groups with one person from each viewpoint in each group, enacting several versions of the conference in small groups simultaneously, and then debrief as a whole group. If you are responding to the blog and try this group variation, please report on how it went in your blog entry!
5. What kinds of answers might be formulated for the question, “What is this child capable of?” How would the answers to the question “What is this child capable of in this context?” be different?
6. In what contexts are you personally viewed as “competent”? In what contexts might you be viewed as “deficient”? Most adults tend to seek out situations where they can be seen as competent, and avoid situations where they might be viewed as less than competent or even deficient. What if you were required to spend a lot of time in a situation where you were viewed as not competent or deficient? If you have experienced this at some time in your life, describe your feelings, actions, reactions, responses, etc.
7. Why do you think the “deficit” view is so common in school settings? What are the effects of this view on children who are viewed as “deficient”?
8. Think of a typical, everyday kind of language arts/literacy activity (reading, writing, speaking, listening or any combination of these) that you have observed or experienced in some way in a classroom (any level). What kinds of abilities are privileged by this activity? How could the activity be expanded and/or adapted to honor a wider variety of abilities?
9. Think of a typical school topic taught in elementary or secondary schools (any content area). List as many “modes of meaning making” (or “multiple semiotic modes”, as Collins puts it) as you can think of for that topic. How many ways could a student communicate understanding of that topic? Do not censor your list; include both the more “traditional” ways of meaning making along with some more “out of the box” ways. How many ways can meaning be expressed and communicated?
10. How do we reconcile the need to build on and honor children’s strengths with the pressures to teach to standards and to raise student test scores that prevail in most classrooms today? How can we meet accountability requirements and still focus on student strengths?
11. Respond to the following statement Collins makes on page 411 of the article:
“It is well documented that teachers’ assessment and interpretation of students’ use of various oral and written forms of literacy are influenced by the degree to which students’ primary discourse differs from ‘standard English,’ and that these assessments influence the ways in which schools position children in marginalized or ‘low-performing’categories.”
What evidence does Collins use to support her claim that school assessments and the educational placements of students that can result from these assessments may often function in discriminatory ways? What do you think? In what ways can placements meant to meet “special needs” be discriminatory? Is discrimination inherent in the way special education is delivered in the U.S., or can it be delivered in nondiscriminatory ways? How would special education that is nondiscriminatory look?
12. Why don’t we actually hear the voices of Christopher’s family members directly in this article? How could actually hearing their voices help us understand Christopher’s story better? What factors could have affected whether family members’ voices were or were not heard in the context described in the article?
Why do you think the parents put the Student Study Team process (which could lead to special placement) “on hold”?
13. It would be easy to criticize Ms. McSweeney from what we read in the first part of this article. Why should we resist that kind of reaction? What factors may have influenced Ms. McSweeney’s response to Christopher? Put yourself in her place. How would you have responded to the kinds of behaviors Christopher displayed in Ms. McSweeney’s classroom?
14. Go to the web site for Collaborations between Teachers and Artists (CoTA) given on page 412 of the article (http://cotaprogram.org/). This is the web site for the program that Collins was hired to help develop and gather data for. Read the information there (it is concise and will not take much time to read).
What do you see as benefits of this program? What do you see as its biggest challenges? What contextual factors would need to be in place for a program like CoTA to be successful?
Go to the pages under the tab, Workshops. Select a workshop you would be most interested in, and explain why.
The workshops are designed for elementary grade children. How might such an approach work in secondary schools? How would it have to be adapted?
View the slideshow under the tab, Gallery of Student Work. What is your response to the images you see there?
15. What purposes did each of the classroom strategies Collins observed in the second grade accomplish for the children?
Strategy 1: Opting Out
What purposes did Christopher’s “opting out” strategies (hanging back, remaining silent, not speaking, retreating under his desk) accomplish for Christopher in the classroom? Do you know students who enact similar strategies?
Strategy 2: Telling stories
Why were the children eager to tell Collins, a participant-observer in their classroom, their personal stories? What purposes did their story-telling accomplish? Why might the position of a classroom “visitor” like Collins sometimes be conducive to such story-telling?
Strategy 3: Doing it My Way
How did Ms. McSweeney create conditions that allowed children to “do it their way” in the activity on fables? What are ways that teachers can similarly empower children in their classrooms?
16. Collins writes about student strategies serving to “strategically disrupt classroom norms” (p. 415). Many times teachers might think of a disruption of classroom norms as a negative thing. Why might teachers think that? How might a disruption of classroom norms be viewed as a positive thing that contributes to learning? What does such a view require of teachers?
17. Read Christopher’s comments on his favorite part of the fables project on page 416 of the article. What do his comments, and the way he expressed them, tell us about Christopher?
18. What was the most important thing that Margaret McSweeney learned from the events described in this article? In what ways can we expect her learning to transform her classroom practice?
19. What is the difference between asking, “Do you really belong here?” and asking, “How do we support your belonging here?”
