May 13, 2025 • 38 mins
Corrine Wickens talks to us about self-efficacy and identity, teaching as coaching and a translational act, and challenging our assumptions. Corrine is known for her work in the areas of adolescent literacies, disciplinary literacies, and gender and sexuality. Her research interests examine issues of ongoing discourses around sexuality and schooling, gender and sexual characterizations in contemporary young adult literature, and disciplinary-based literacies in secondary teacher education. Her work has appeared in journals like TESOL Quarterly, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Voices from the Middle, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Urban Review, Journal of Teaching Physical Education, Sex Roles, and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Dr. Wickens is currently a professor of literacy education and serves as the doctoral program coordinator in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Illinois University.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2025, May 13). A conversation with Corrine Wickens. (Season 5, No. 10) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/C98D-5781-A685-2545-D3D1-0
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education research has a problem the work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
In this episode, Dr.
Corrine Wickens talks to usabout self-efficacy and identity
, teaching as coaching and atranslational act, and
challenging our assumptions.
Corrine is known for her workin the areas of adolescent
literacies, disciplinaryliteracies and gender and
(00:53):
sexuality.
Her research interests examineissues of ongoing discourses
around sexuality and schooling,gender and sexual
characterizations incontemporary young adult
literature anddisciplinary-based literacies in
secondary teacher education.
Her work has appeared injournals like TESOL Quarterly,
Children's LiteratureAssociation Quarterly, Voices
(01:14):
from the Middle, Journal ofAdolescent and Adult Literacy,
Urban Review, Journal ofTeaching Physical Education, and
International Journal ofQualitative Studies in Education
.
Dr Wickens is currently aprofessor of literacy education
and serves as the doctoralprogram coordinator in the
Department of Curriculum andInstruction at Northern Illinois
University.
(01:35):
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host
Lindsay Persohn, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice.
Corrine, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
It's my pleasure.
(01:55):
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now?
Corrine Wickens (02:03):
I'd love to the first one is actually going to
be kind of outside of education,but I'm going to make it
clearly applicable.
So just give me a second.
It's connected to running ofall things.
I became a runner in my 40s.
Never had I run before.
I was never the athlete, I'm anacademic, so I've always been
(02:27):
kind of geeky and dorky, outcastall of the things.
So after I got a job here atNorthern Illinois University and
I had moved back into theMidwest from being in Texas for
over a decade, met with apersonal trainer and strikingly
(02:47):
in that first conversation shesaid I think there might be an
inner runner in you.
Again when I say I was never arunner, I started from zero.
Personal training sessions wereoften the only exercise there
for at least a year that I wouldget.
Okay, so got the idea.
Well, moving forward faster isI am now a marathoner.
(03:11):
I have run four marathons.
I am anticipating a fifth andprobably final full marathon
this upcoming October.
I've run I don't know countlessnumber of half marathons over
the time frame.
So what's important related toeducation in there is the point
in time when I was justbeginning and I saw myself as a
(03:35):
struggling runner.
I began to think maybe I coulddo this, maybe I can, maybe not.
And there was one particularmoment when I, largely running
by myself, was trying to find arunning group and I looked
online, you know, using all theresources, and there was a
(03:56):
runner's club.
I found the time and place.
I was there A few minutes early.
Time goes by, time goes by.
Nobody shows up.
Apparently they had moved thetime and place and, like many
things, the information was notupdated on the website.
I'm like, okay, so I try toregather my thoughts together
(04:17):
and get myself and my gumptionback up and I made it for like
10 minutes.
I just didn't have it within meback up and I made it for like
10 minutes.
I just didn't have it within me.
And one of the things thatbecame impactful that I want to
connect to education from thatwas the notions around
self-efficacy and identity.
(04:38):
Self-efficacy, you may or maynot know, deals with particular
beliefs about what we canaccomplish and it's a particular
, in specific context.
It's different than self-esteembecause self-esteem is more
global, more holistic.
Self-efficacy is about aspecific task or content.
You know, we might say I'm amath person or I'm not the math
(04:58):
person.
So oftentimes our self-efficacyin our attitudes, our loves,
our interests often intersectbecause, as I'm going to talk
about a little bit later, thethings that we are good at we
gravitate to and makes it feelas good about ourselves.
So I had this burgeoningself-efficacy at this point in
time.
I had a really lowself-efficacy.
(05:19):
Like I said, I'm starting fromzero.
I have a personal trainer whothinks I can do this despite
having no background whatsoever,and so a couple of core
elements that are sources ofself-advocacy social persuasion
role models Bendera andpsychologists have more fancier
(05:39):
words than this but essentiallysocial persuasion, role models
but, most importantly, masteryexperiences.
When we can accomplishsomething that's meaningful and
purposeful to us, we're like yes, I did it.
Because I did it once, nowmaybe I can do it again.
So in my case, it took me acouple of 10Ks before I began
(06:02):
building that self-efficacy andit took a couple half marathons.
What's important about this isself-efficacy is slow to change,
but I had a trainer like wethink about, whether it's for
teachers as instructionalcoaches or students.
Their teachers, or literallycoaches, do that work all the
(06:22):
time.
They're trying to build andcreate opportunities for
self-efficacy for their athletesand for their students so that
they can be successful, but inthe meantime it takes a lot of
different tools and supports tohelp build and change that
self-efficacy.
So in athletics, it's differenttraining plans, it's different
(06:44):
drills.
So in athletics, it's differenttraining plans, it's different
drills, it's both strengthtraining and cardio, depending
on particularly the sport etc.
In school usually we arethinking about trying to break
down a big challenge, a bigcontent topic, into smaller
pieces so that students canunderstand this piece.
Mathematics is a great examplewhere we learn to add before we
(07:08):
learn to subtract, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
So we're really good atscaffolding and breaking apart.
Unfortunately, we're also notvery good at providing
educational experiences that aremeaningful, because in order to
build self-efficacy, thestudent has to recognize it as
important to them.
Otherwise it doesn't matterwhat one says, how important the
(07:30):
teacher thinks.
None of that really matters ifthe student doesn't have any
buy-in.
Same with an athlete.
In this case I had a lot ofbuy-in.
But one of the next things thatrelated to that that I want to
highlight is that, as myself-efficacy about my running
was changing, what was slower tochange was my own identity and
(07:51):
because again, I had that pointin time, let's just be kind and
say 20 years of an identity thatwas associated you you know,
probably 30 years an identitythat's associated with reading,
with literacy, bookworm, dork,all of those both positive and
negative attributes that weassociate with such things.
(08:14):
But none of that was athlete.
None of that was runner, andfor me a runner is an athlete.
You talk about distance running.
For me, that always brought tomind lean and strong, muscular.
I'm also none of those.
(08:35):
I'm 5'2" kind of squat.
One of the things I have sincelearned is that runners come in
all shapes and sizes, but at thebeginning I didn't know that
yet.
So I had this identity that wasbuilt and constructed and
reinforced by others, by mypeers, by my teachers, by myself
(08:57):
.
Through these vast years ofexperience, and even as I began
to shape and change myself-efficacy related to this
one thing running.
My identity was slower tochange and it didn't happen
until after I became amarathoner 26.2 miles.
Then, finally, I was a runner.
(09:19):
So when we think about teachingand education, think about
teaching and education.
How often do we take supportsaway too quickly?
How often do we changeinitiatives too quickly so we
can both talk at theteacher-student level and
administrator-teacher level?
In this particular case I'mgoing to try to keep it a
(09:39):
teacher-student, but again yousee the parallels.
But again you see the parallelsOftentimes as students are
(10:08):
building their self-advocacies,particularly in areas that have
been difficult, but thoseself-advocacies are slow to
change.
They are valuable but we oftenremove the supports too quickly
because they've got it.
But what then happens, or whatis slower to happen, that
teachers need to be more awareof, I argue, is our identities
that are shaped in the classroom, that are shaped in all of the
educational schooling spaces,peer spaces.
I'm a former Title I reading ELAteacher.
My early high school studentsthat I first worked with their
(10:32):
average reading level for myninth graders was fifth grade.
They had years and years ofnegative experience with reading
and with schooling and so theyboth had a really low
self-efficacy related to readingand a negative identity related
to reading.
It's going to take a lot ofeffort on any teacher's part,
(10:55):
particularly for secondaryteachers.
Secondary teachers might have asemester or a year not going to
change an identity in asemester or a year.
So how can we build and sustain, how can we work and
collaborate together to do thiswork?
Because, as I said, it's notgoing to happen in a short
period of time.
Nevertheless, we as teachersand educators would behoove
(11:20):
ourselves to think more likecoaches ourselves, to think more
like coaches, and this issomething that I have learned
over the last 15 years and myrespect has grown for coaches
because of the ways to thinkabout supporting students and
understanding the context ofathletic coaches to teaching
(11:42):
very different but neverthelessif we can apply some of the same
notions around coaching.
That's why there's an entireframework of literacy coaches
and instructional coaches forteachers.
So we are, as teachersourselves, need to think about
ourselves as collaborativecoaches with the students.
(12:02):
So that's kind of the firsteducation educative moment that
I would like to highlight.
The second one is when I came toNIU, I started working with
lots of physical educationpre-service teachers.
I had done so before, but I hadnever worked with so many my
(12:23):
first couple of years.
I had upwards of 70 plus PEteachers pre-service and that
was across two or threedifferent sections, and one of
the first things that I neededto do to be a better teacher was
to find collaborators inphysical education, and that's
what I did.
My long-term collaborator is DrJenny Parker, so she and I have
(12:45):
published now multiple articles, mine from the literacy
perspective and hers fromphysical education.
As part of that work, though, Ifound that I, as a literacy
person, I was the one who wasreaching out, because these were
the students in my class and Iknew I needed to do better by
them.
I needed to be a translator wethink about translation
(13:07):
relationship to our multilinguallearners but in this case it's
about the disciplines, and youmight be hard-pressed to find
any two disciplines that areimagined to be as different and
worlds apart as literacy,reading and physical education,
and I acknowledge that with myPE teachers, my pre-service PE
(13:28):
teachers but I had to learn tounderstand them and I had to
understand their discipline.
So that meant understandingtheir standards, objectives,
priorities and modalities, andthe primary modality for
physical education is movement.
In one article it's calledHabits of Practice.
One of the things that Ilearned that, I think, is also
(13:50):
important.
Connection to this and theiridea of movement is physical
education teachers.
Their number one assumption isIs that students can move.
How they move or how willingthey are to move, those are
different, different ideas,their motivation to move also
different, but the generalassumption students can move.
(14:14):
That is the primary basis, andone of the things that's
important about that is thatmany of our other disciplines,
especially at the secondarylevel, don't come from an
assumption or a mindset of whatstudents can do.
No, we think about English asoh, I need to teach this, this
and this before they do this.
(14:35):
The same true with math,science, social science, our
core classes.
It's always about what studentsneed to know before they do
this.
If we could start thinkingabout what they can do right off
the bat and that becomes partof our core assumptions, it
would just completely reshapeeducation as we know it.
I truly believe that.
But that was something Ilearned from teaching PE
(14:58):
teachers.
I had to first understand andthen appreciate, notably so
their modalities, theirpriorities, and so once I was
able to do that and demonstratethat, yes, I had the knowledge,
and every semester, every year,I teach them.
I have to reprove to them that,yes, I get them because they
(15:23):
come with the assumption thatI'm the enemy because I'm a
reading person, and one of theother aspects of that that
becomes really important isbecause I've already adjusted.
Self-advocacy and identity isthe development of attitudes,
and by and large my PE teachers,their attitudes are positive
(15:47):
towards sport and physicalactivity.
That seems kind ofself-explanatory and obvious
Elementary teachers by and large, like picture books, judy B
Jones, etc.
Etc.
So, again, we have theseattitudes that come into play,
with a teacher and asix-year-old, a teacher and a
(16:10):
16-year-old and not having everany clue that their
socialization, theirpersonalities, their
psychological makeup arepositioning themselves against
each other, positioningthemselves against each other.
(16:53):
That's why, then, thattranslation really becomes
important.
Is I have to understand you sothat I can translate my world to
yours and vice versa.
And that might mean elementaryteachers, making sure we're
using more nonfiction, whenelementary teachers typically
love picture books and fictionaltexts, and incorporating some
of that that I have been usingwith my PE teachers.
That I think has strongapplication across the case is
what I kind of frame as a readaloud, move aloud.
With physical educators I havebeen using books, and I usually
(17:15):
start with, like Dr Seuss, Hopon Pop, just because it's easy.
And in physical education I willmodel how to use Dr Seuss to
have them get working on soundsin this case.
So your listeners might be awareof, phonological awareness is
the ability to differentiatesound.
(17:37):
We're not talking about letters, but actual sounds.
So then, PE teachers can behelping you support that by then
reading aloud books, writingbooks, but then at the same time
they can use a few of thoserhymes and associate them with
specific physical movements,whether it's a stretch, whether
(17:57):
it is a strength training,muscular building, and that
would vary by age group, etcetera.
So sometimes it's like lungesor squats or toe taps, you name
it.
And so I've done that a lot inthe regular mainstream
(18:18):
elementary classroom, usingbooks with great sounds.
And one book I like, this, theSmall, small Pond, has a lot of
swoosh in those what we wouldcall diphthongs and digraph, but
they make great because thosesounds are hard for young people
to be able to recognize butthen be able to have motions
(18:42):
that are connected to thosesounds and those words.
So now we're able to createdifferent spaces where we can
incorporate movement in regularclassroom spaces and support
phonologic awareness.
And we can be doing the samething in physical education
spaces, spaces, and so usingbasically doing the same,
(19:07):
different thing but twodifferent spaces in supporting
both literacy, early literacyskills and physical development,
muscular endurance, muscularstrength, cardio, whatever it
might be, flexibility and one ofthe things that is also great
about that and particularly forclassrooms where physical
(19:28):
education and recess have beenremoved and taken away is that
helps with some of that energy,and I'd like to talk about that
as the kids with the wiggles andI don't label otherwise because
it could be, you know whetheryou think about ADHD,
hyperactivity, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
If you just talk about kidswith the wiggles, labels become
(19:50):
unimportant.
But that gives them a chance tomove and support important
content, literacy tools andskills.
Lindsay Persohn (19:59):
Corrine, you have shared some wonderfully
rich examples with us.
You have shared somewonderfully rich examples with
us.
One thing that I think I hearyou saying in both of the kind
(20:27):
of vignettes you've shared sofar is that there's this element
of time that it takes todevelop these understandings and
to make real change and tosupport kids to see themselves
as the learners, their innerlearner, to play on your inner
runner.
And I think that that issometimes what feels like the
biggest challenge is finding thetime and the focus and just
sort of that energy to give eachstudent, to identify.
Where are they starting right?
What's their beginning point?
What do they already know?
(20:48):
What are they bringing withthem?
And then how do we build fromthere in order to support them
to become who they are alreadybecoming or become who they want
to be?
And I think that that's onething that really strikes me
about this moment we're in ineducation when everything feels
so paced and pushed that I thinkthat sometimes it's challenging
(21:09):
to find that time.
But you remind me of just howmuch we're losing if we don't
still work to find it right, toget to know each individual and
where they're headed and youknow how do we help them to
develop that self-efficacy.
Corrine Wickens (21:25):
I talk about time as the four-letter word in
education.
Lindsay Persohn (21:29):
Yes, is it ever ?
Is it ever Because it is sohard to find.
It's so hard to find that timeand I think the other thing I
wanted to come back to that Ireally appreciate you sharing is
this idea of a move aloud.
I think I might use that.
I have taught disciplinaryliteracy courses and I felt some
of those same challenges youdescribed, because our
(21:50):
disciplinary literacy courseshave a mix of folks from all
different majors.
So ensuring that everyone feelsthat they are seen and that
their instructor has an idea of,you know kind of what makes
their field tick in some waysthat I think is one of the
supreme challenges of thatcourse.
But I love this way that youhave tied, you know, an ages-old
(22:13):
literacy practice intosomething that is most
influential in the world of PE.
So that's really neat and infact I think I might use that,
maybe not even with PE majors,but with my elementary education
majors, as they're working withkids who have wiggles talking
about how they can turn theirread aloud into a move aloud.
And it's not that the carpettime, so it's not an either or
(22:38):
Right, and you've even got methinking about ways to do that
in very limited space.
You know, sometimes it's amatter of hand, gestures, or,
you know, sitting in your seatand just moving your feet a
certain way.
You know.
Those kinds of things I thinkcould really be beneficial in a
lot of classroom spaces thatI've spent time in, I can sure
tell you that.
So what a great idea.
So, Corrine, what else do youwant listeners to know about
(22:59):
your work?
You've given us such richbackground about who you are and
the kind of work you do.
What else do you want us toknow?
My work.
Corrine Wickens (23:07):
Interestingly enough, kind of spans several
different fields curriculum,adolescent literacy, lgbt,
gender, sexualities.
I've kind of highlighted inthis space and platform my work
as the translator, so to speakthe disciplinary literacy
background that I come from andI think that I would connect
(23:33):
that to.
We already mentioned one partas far as the pacing.
The other part that I wouldconnect that to would be the
questions around science ofreading and the example around
the read aloud, move aloud andthe connections to a different
(23:54):
way to do phonics I think ishighly important and impactful.
The other part that I wouldconnect to that is then, as
you're hearing me talk aboutbridging across the disciplinary
divides is the same thing withthe science of reading.
There isn't a singular science,there's multiple sciences and
so if we could at least begin topluralize that, that much
(24:16):
appreciated.
Also understanding that whenwe're talking about science of
reading, we're talking aboutdecoding, and the reason it's
important to me from adisciplinary perspective, an
adolescent literacy perspective,is that most of phonics becomes
a form of worksheet format andour young people who struggle
(24:38):
with reading at early grades oneof the things also from my PE
teachers is many of themself-identify as struggling
readers.
So they are now adults, stillstruggling and still
self-identifying as strugglingreaders, and that's not because
of phonics or having wholelanguage.
Very few actually have ever hadtruthful whole language.
(25:00):
Mostly have been balancedliteracy and whatever format
that might be.
So, regardless of all of that,as adults they're still
struggling and that struggle ishard and it is real and that is
one of the things that, as ateacher of said students and a
teacher of adults, acknowledgingthat struggle has been
(25:23):
something that has been at thecore of my work and became
personal when I became astruggling runner and so that's
where I started and I circlingback around was that finding and
acknowledging, honoring thestruggle as normal.
When when my students who areadults, realized their struggles
(25:46):
as six-year-olds with decodingskills was not abnormal, because
they always feel like it's justthem and these are adults,
sharing their trauma and painand how dumb they felt.
And I've had over the years nowa lot of said students, men and
women alike, multilinguallearners, monolingual that
(26:09):
doesn't matter.
But if I go back to that, theirstruggle is normal because it
never felt normal to them aschildren, as young people.
When I normalize their context,their pain, that they weren't
dumb, that they weren't stupid,this is regardless of whatever
program.
For 25% of our young people,learning to read is hard and it
(26:34):
doesn't get any easier as theymove into through the grades.
And as a again former EnglishTitle I reading, whose ninth
graders read four grade levelsbelow, that gap just gets bigger
and bigger, and so is it nowonder that they would give up
(26:56):
Because we as adults don't wantto keep doing the things that we
aren't good at.
Lindsay Persohn (27:01):
Right, right.
Well, it reminds me ofsomething else you said earlier
this idea of you know, thesocial reinforcement that you
know you're not good at, thisRight right, delivered to them
in multiple forms report card,grades, standardized tests.
You know peers, unfortunatelyeven sometimes teachers you know
(27:28):
are are reinforcing that you'rejust no good at this, rather
than the idea that you know youdon't get to running four
marathons overnight, right?
You know, I've never been toldthat I have an inner runner and
I, so I can really never beentold that I have an inner runner
and so I can really relate tothis idea.
And I was also younger, andeven now I'm a slow reader.
(27:50):
I think people assume thatwhenever you're in literacy, you
must just be the world's bestreader.
I'm a slow reader, I've gottenbetter, but it's taken time,
right.
It's taken tons of practice andit's also to tie back to your
early point.
It takes a lot of thatself-efficacy building, Right.
You have to feel as though youcan do it and to really change
(28:11):
the way you think about yourself.
It takes so much more time aswell as, again, multiple forces
that sort of tell you you'regetting better at this, you can
do this stuff and or they'refinding it somewhere else Again.
Corrine Wickens (28:27):
So my PE teachers.
They were getting theacceptance and confidence
through sport.
So at six years old, at thesame time they're getting
competence in sport.
They are having inverserelationship with reading then
(28:49):
again.
So we have two strong, powerfulattitudinal origins.
One of the things that I'vemade them understand is the
importance of practice.
We don't provide a lot ofreally rich practice around
reading in K-12 schools.
In fact, we providedisincentives in all sorts of
formats and that's a whole otherepisode.
Lots of people that can connectto that as well.
(29:10):
But if we don't practice, theexpectations go up.
And as the students get older,the expectations go up.
Their practice, their realpractice, actually keeps going
down.
So then, like a muscle, if it'snot worked, the skill sets
diminish.
Lindsay Persohn (29:28):
I think that the metaphors that you use are
really powerful, and it remindsme also of what you talked about
earlier teaching as coaching,and I'm I will use one of your
phrase I'm not a sports person.
I never have been.
I'm one of those asthmatics whowas challenged to participate
in really any kind of sport, whowas challenged to participate
in really any kind of sport.
I finally, in my adult life,found ways to keep my body
(29:52):
moving and to stay healthy.
But this idea of teaching ascoaching even I can relate to
this, because it is aboutidentifying where somebody
begins.
It's about helping them seewhat comes next, and then what
comes after that, and then whatcomes after that, and that
encouragement all along the wayto say are you doing something
you enjoy?
What is it that brings you backto this again and again.
(30:14):
And I think if we couldapproach teaching in that sort
of way, it's so personal andit's so incremental that I think
it's such a solid approach tohow we ultimately work towards
self-efficacy and positiveidentity, reinforcing positive
identities.
So is there anything else youwant to share about your work,
(30:36):
Corrine?
Corrine Wickens (30:38):
I think about one of the classroom discussions
I was having with my studentsaround professional development
days, teacher institute days.
Where do teachers sit?
With whom do they sit?
And because we're creatures ofhabit, we sit by the people that
we know first and foremost, andif we're in elementary we sit
(31:01):
by grades.
If we're in secondary we tendto sit by our disciplines and so
we have our own attitudestowards our respective
disciplines as well as otherdisciplines, and one of the
things that I have learned thatI want to provide cautionary
(31:24):
thought about for teachers ishow we can be dismissive of our
colleagues and peers and thestudents.
So they pay attention when,again, if they are a sports
person and they hear teachersdisparaging physical education
and whether it's hearing oryou're just a coach, and whether
(31:46):
it's hearing or you're just acoach.
We do a lot of disparagingacross disciplines, across age
groups, etc.
And minimizing the importantwork in those fields, and part
of that I want to highlight isbecause we have attitudes about
where we feel good and weexternalize that to others.
So then we minimize what theydo.
(32:09):
You know English teachers?
Well, I have all these papersto grade PE teachers.
They just roll out a ball.
But if we are dismissing ourcolleagues, dismissing their
propensities, their modalities,we're also dismissing the young
people that have affinities forthat as well.
(32:31):
All of us, as adults, we werechildren, we were young people
as well.
We create these attitudes,these interests, very young, and
so an academic was a reader ornon-reader as a young person.
A PE teacher was a kid whoplayed four sports seasons and
(32:52):
had practices four to five hoursa day, competed competitively
since the age of eight, if notearlier.
Think about education, if wethought about it as translation,
where we recognized and honorednot just other people's
(33:13):
languages but their disciplines,because essentially, when we
don't, we're also notacknowledging and honoring the
young people that have thataffinity as well.
It's not just the discipline,it's our colleagues and the
young people as well.
So that's the kind ofparticular element of diversity
(33:35):
that I wanted to highlight inthis instance.
Lindsay Persohn (33:38):
I love the reminder that adults were
children once also.
I think sometimes we forgetthat, that we've all come from
somewhere.
We've all come from assumptionsabout the world and assumptions
about ourself, as well as allof the external influences.
You know, we've got theinternal and the external and
they do shape us into who webecome as adults.
So I think recognizing that inpeople it does.
(34:01):
It takes my mind to a differentstarting point when it comes to
whoever we are teaching.
Right, because somewhere insideof all of us is still that kid
who never thought they'd be arunner, or the kid who never
thought they'd be a reader, oryou know the kid who kind of
tuned out of reading because allthey wanted to do was be at PE.
(34:22):
You know those kinds of things.
We carry all that stuff with usand it reminds me again about
you know the time to get to knowwhere people are starting and
sort of what makes them tick,because then I think it leads us
to be better coaches and bettertranslators of whatever we are
trying to teach.
Yes, I think it might also makeus better humans.
Corrine Wickens (34:42):
I certainly agree with that one as well.
Lindsay Persohn (34:45):
Corrine, given the challenges of today's
educational climate, whatmessage do you want teachers to
hear?
Corrine Wickens (34:52):
Be kind to yourself, and I don't mean it in
the way that oftentimes in thelast couple of last few years
since COVID, is that there'sbeen a lot of stuff around
self-care.
Yes, self-care is terriblyimportant and sometimes it
doesn't matter how muchself-care we do, it's still not
enough.
(35:12):
So be kind to yourselves, bekind to your students, give
yourself grace, give othersgrace, forgive yourself and
forgive them.
I know that's always true and Iknow it's especially true right
now.
Lindsay Persohn (35:29):
But I don't think there can be enough
kindness in the world right now,so I really appreciate that
message.
Corrine Wickens (35:34):
It's not about being complacent.
It's not about beingprofessional.
Right, we're going to makemistakes.
Learn from them.
We learn and do better and bekind.
Lindsay Persohn (35:46):
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that Well, karan.
I've really enjoyed, yeah, yeah, I appreciate that Well,
Corrine.
I've really enjoyed talkingwith you today.
I love your energy and I lovethe way that you make such deep
connections across everythinglife, teaching, experiences,
yeah, and I think that I meanthat's what it's really all
about, you know is gathering upall the pieces of our lives and
(36:10):
putting it together.
I mean that's that truetransdisciplinary kind of
mindset that I'm sure servesyour students very well.
Also, you know, always lookingfor those connections and always
seeing how, how can we dobetter.
So I really appreciate it.
Corrine Wickens (36:25):
Thank you very much.
It's been fun so.
Lindsay Persohn (36:26):
I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much, it's beenfun.
Thank you.
Dr.
Corrine M Wickens's researchinterest examines issues of
ongoing discourses aroundsexuality and schooling, gender
and sexual characterizations incontemporary young adult
(36:47):
literature anddisciplinary-based literacies in
secondary teacher education.
She's published in suchjournals as Sex Roles, TESOL
Quarterly, Children's LiteratureAssociation Quarterly,
Children's Literature inEducation, Voices from the
Middle, Urban Review, Journal ofTeaching Physical Education,
Adult Education Quarterly, andInternational Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education.
Dr Wickens is a formersecondary English language arts
and Title I reading teacher withnearly 30 years of experience
(37:09):
in education.
She's taught undergraduate andgraduate coursework in content
area or disciplinary literacies,gender and sexuality and
curriculum.
Dr.
Wickens is a professor ofliteracy education and serves as
the doctoral programcoordinator in the Department of
Curriculum and Instruction atNorthern Illinois University.
In her spare time, Corrineenjoys historical mystery
(37:30):
fiction, running and camping.
You can connect with Dr,Wickens by email at cwickens@
niu.
edu.
That's c-w-i-c-k-e-n-s at n-i-udot e-d-u.
For the good of all students,Classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
(37:52):
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the word.
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com, where you can subscribe toreceive our short monthly
(38:13):
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On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
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(38:33):
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Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team-- Leah Berger,
Abaya Valuru, Stephanie Branson,and Csaba Osvath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou, teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Education research has a problem the work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
In this episode, Dr.
Corrine Wickens talks to usabout self-efficacy and identity
, teaching as coaching and atranslational act, and
challenging our assumptions.
Corrine is known for her workin the areas of adolescent
literacies, disciplinaryliteracies and gender and
(00:53):
sexuality.
Her research interests examineissues of ongoing discourses
around sexuality and schooling,gender and sexual
characterizations incontemporary young adult
literature anddisciplinary-based literacies in
secondary teacher education.
Her work has appeared injournals like TESOL Quarterly,
Children's LiteratureAssociation Quarterly, Voices
(01:14):
from the Middle, Journal ofAdolescent and Adult Literacy,
Urban Review, Journal ofTeaching Physical Education, and
International Journal ofQualitative Studies in Education
.
Dr Wickens is currently aprofessor of literacy education
and serves as the doctoralprogram coordinator in the
Department of Curriculum andInstruction at Northern Illinois
University.
(01:35):
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host
Lindsay Persohn, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice.
Corrine, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
It's my pleasure.
(01:55):
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now?
Corrine Wickens (02:03):
I'd love to the first one is actually going to
be kind of outside of education,but I'm going to make it
clearly applicable.
So just give me a second.
It's connected to running ofall things.
I became a runner in my 40s.
Never had I run before.
I was never the athlete, I'm anacademic, so I've always been
(02:27):
kind of geeky and dorky, outcastall of the things.
So after I got a job here atNorthern Illinois University and
I had moved back into theMidwest from being in Texas for
over a decade, met with apersonal trainer and strikingly
(02:47):
in that first conversation shesaid I think there might be an
inner runner in you.
Again when I say I was never arunner, I started from zero.
Personal training sessions wereoften the only exercise there
for at least a year that I wouldget.
Okay, so got the idea.
Well, moving forward faster isI am now a marathoner.
(03:11):
I have run four marathons.
I am anticipating a fifth andprobably final full marathon
this upcoming October.
I've run I don't know countlessnumber of half marathons over
the time frame.
So what's important related toeducation in there is the point
in time when I was justbeginning and I saw myself as a
(03:35):
struggling runner.
I began to think maybe I coulddo this, maybe I can, maybe not.
And there was one particularmoment when I, largely running
by myself, was trying to find arunning group and I looked
online, you know, using all theresources, and there was a
(03:56):
runner's club.
I found the time and place.
I was there A few minutes early.
Time goes by, time goes by.
Nobody shows up.
Apparently they had moved thetime and place and, like many
things, the information was notupdated on the website.
I'm like, okay, so I try toregather my thoughts together
(04:17):
and get myself and my gumptionback up and I made it for like
10 minutes.
I just didn't have it within meback up and I made it for like
10 minutes.
I just didn't have it within me.
And one of the things thatbecame impactful that I want to
connect to education from thatwas the notions around
self-efficacy and identity.
(04:38):
Self-efficacy, you may or maynot know, deals with particular
beliefs about what we canaccomplish and it's a particular
, in specific context.
It's different than self-esteembecause self-esteem is more
global, more holistic.
Self-efficacy is about aspecific task or content.
You know, we might say I'm amath person or I'm not the math
(04:58):
person.
So oftentimes our self-efficacyin our attitudes, our loves,
our interests often intersectbecause, as I'm going to talk
about a little bit later, thethings that we are good at we
gravitate to and makes it feelas good about ourselves.
So I had this burgeoningself-efficacy at this point in
time.
I had a really lowself-efficacy.
(05:19):
Like I said, I'm starting fromzero.
I have a personal trainer whothinks I can do this despite
having no background whatsoever,and so a couple of core
elements that are sources ofself-advocacy social persuasion
role models Bendera andpsychologists have more fancier
(05:39):
words than this but essentiallysocial persuasion, role models
but, most importantly, masteryexperiences.
When we can accomplishsomething that's meaningful and
purposeful to us, we're like yes, I did it.
Because I did it once, nowmaybe I can do it again.
So in my case, it took me acouple of 10Ks before I began
(06:02):
building that self-efficacy andit took a couple half marathons.
What's important about this isself-efficacy is slow to change,
but I had a trainer like wethink about, whether it's for
teachers as instructionalcoaches or students.
Their teachers, or literallycoaches, do that work all the
(06:22):
time.
They're trying to build andcreate opportunities for
self-efficacy for their athletesand for their students so that
they can be successful, but inthe meantime it takes a lot of
different tools and supports tohelp build and change that
self-efficacy.
So in athletics, it's differenttraining plans, it's different
(06:44):
drills.
So in athletics, it's differenttraining plans, it's different
drills, it's both strengthtraining and cardio, depending
on particularly the sport etc.
In school usually we arethinking about trying to break
down a big challenge, a bigcontent topic, into smaller
pieces so that students canunderstand this piece.
Mathematics is a great examplewhere we learn to add before we
(07:08):
learn to subtract, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
So we're really good atscaffolding and breaking apart.
Unfortunately, we're also notvery good at providing
educational experiences that aremeaningful, because in order to
build self-efficacy, thestudent has to recognize it as
important to them.
Otherwise it doesn't matterwhat one says, how important the
(07:30):
teacher thinks.
None of that really matters ifthe student doesn't have any
buy-in.
Same with an athlete.
In this case I had a lot ofbuy-in.
But one of the next things thatrelated to that that I want to
highlight is that, as myself-efficacy about my running
was changing, what was slower tochange was my own identity and
(07:51):
because again, I had that pointin time, let's just be kind and
say 20 years of an identity thatwas associated you you know,
probably 30 years an identitythat's associated with reading,
with literacy, bookworm, dork,all of those both positive and
negative attributes that weassociate with such things.
(08:14):
But none of that was athlete.
None of that was runner, andfor me a runner is an athlete.
You talk about distance running.
For me, that always brought tomind lean and strong, muscular.
I'm also none of those.
(08:35):
I'm 5'2" kind of squat.
One of the things I have sincelearned is that runners come in
all shapes and sizes, but at thebeginning I didn't know that
yet.
So I had this identity that wasbuilt and constructed and
reinforced by others, by mypeers, by my teachers, by myself
(08:57):
.
Through these vast years ofexperience, and even as I began
to shape and change myself-efficacy related to this
one thing running.
My identity was slower tochange and it didn't happen
until after I became amarathoner 26.2 miles.
Then, finally, I was a runner.
(09:19):
So when we think about teachingand education, think about
teaching and education.
How often do we take supportsaway too quickly?
How often do we changeinitiatives too quickly so we
can both talk at theteacher-student level and
administrator-teacher level?
In this particular case I'mgoing to try to keep it a
(09:39):
teacher-student, but again yousee the parallels.
But again you see the parallelsOftentimes as students are
(10:08):
building their self-advocacies,particularly in areas that have
been difficult, but thoseself-advocacies are slow to
change.
They are valuable but we oftenremove the supports too quickly
because they've got it.
But what then happens, or whatis slower to happen, that
teachers need to be more awareof, I argue, is our identities
that are shaped in the classroom, that are shaped in all of the
educational schooling spaces,peer spaces.
I'm a former Title I reading ELAteacher.
My early high school studentsthat I first worked with their
(10:32):
average reading level for myninth graders was fifth grade.
They had years and years ofnegative experience with reading
and with schooling and so theyboth had a really low
self-efficacy related to readingand a negative identity related
to reading.
It's going to take a lot ofeffort on any teacher's part,
(10:55):
particularly for secondaryteachers.
Secondary teachers might have asemester or a year not going to
change an identity in asemester or a year.
So how can we build and sustain, how can we work and
collaborate together to do thiswork?
Because, as I said, it's notgoing to happen in a short
period of time.
Nevertheless, we as teachersand educators would behoove
(11:20):
ourselves to think more likecoaches ourselves, to think more
like coaches, and this issomething that I have learned
over the last 15 years and myrespect has grown for coaches
because of the ways to thinkabout supporting students and
understanding the context ofathletic coaches to teaching
(11:42):
very different but neverthelessif we can apply some of the same
notions around coaching.
That's why there's an entireframework of literacy coaches
and instructional coaches forteachers.
So we are, as teachersourselves, need to think about
ourselves as collaborativecoaches with the students.
(12:02):
So that's kind of the firsteducation educative moment that
I would like to highlight.
The second one is when I came toNIU, I started working with
lots of physical educationpre-service teachers.
I had done so before, but I hadnever worked with so many my
(12:23):
first couple of years.
I had upwards of 70 plus PEteachers pre-service and that
was across two or threedifferent sections, and one of
the first things that I neededto do to be a better teacher was
to find collaborators inphysical education, and that's
what I did.
My long-term collaborator is DrJenny Parker, so she and I have
(12:45):
published now multiple articles, mine from the literacy
perspective and hers fromphysical education.
As part of that work, though, Ifound that I, as a literacy
person, I was the one who wasreaching out, because these were
the students in my class and Iknew I needed to do better by
them.
I needed to be a translator wethink about translation
(13:07):
relationship to our multilinguallearners but in this case it's
about the disciplines, and youmight be hard-pressed to find
any two disciplines that areimagined to be as different and
worlds apart as literacy,reading and physical education,
and I acknowledge that with myPE teachers, my pre-service PE
(13:28):
teachers but I had to learn tounderstand them and I had to
understand their discipline.
So that meant understandingtheir standards, objectives,
priorities and modalities, andthe primary modality for
physical education is movement.
In one article it's calledHabits of Practice.
One of the things that Ilearned that, I think, is also
(13:50):
important.
Connection to this and theiridea of movement is physical
education teachers.
Their number one assumption isIs that students can move.
How they move or how willingthey are to move, those are
different, different ideas,their motivation to move also
different, but the generalassumption students can move.
(14:14):
That is the primary basis, andone of the things that's
important about that is thatmany of our other disciplines,
especially at the secondarylevel, don't come from an
assumption or a mindset of whatstudents can do.
No, we think about English asoh, I need to teach this, this
and this before they do this.
(14:35):
The same true with math,science, social science, our
core classes.
It's always about what studentsneed to know before they do
this.
If we could start thinkingabout what they can do right off
the bat and that becomes partof our core assumptions, it
would just completely reshapeeducation as we know it.
I truly believe that.
But that was something Ilearned from teaching PE
(14:58):
teachers.
I had to first understand andthen appreciate, notably so
their modalities, theirpriorities, and so once I was
able to do that and demonstratethat, yes, I had the knowledge,
and every semester, every year,I teach them.
I have to reprove to them that,yes, I get them because they
(15:23):
come with the assumption thatI'm the enemy because I'm a
reading person, and one of theother aspects of that that
becomes really important isbecause I've already adjusted.
Self-advocacy and identity isthe development of attitudes,
and by and large my PE teachers,their attitudes are positive
(15:47):
towards sport and physicalactivity.
That seems kind ofself-explanatory and obvious
Elementary teachers by and large, like picture books, judy B
Jones, etc.
Etc.
So, again, we have theseattitudes that come into play,
with a teacher and asix-year-old, a teacher and a
(16:10):
16-year-old and not having everany clue that their
socialization, theirpersonalities, their
psychological makeup arepositioning themselves against
each other, positioningthemselves against each other.
(16:53):
That's why, then, thattranslation really becomes
important.
Is I have to understand you sothat I can translate my world to
yours and vice versa.
And that might mean elementaryteachers, making sure we're
using more nonfiction, whenelementary teachers typically
love picture books and fictionaltexts, and incorporating some
of that that I have been usingwith my PE teachers.
That I think has strongapplication across the case is
what I kind of frame as a readaloud, move aloud.
With physical educators I havebeen using books, and I usually
(17:15):
start with, like Dr Seuss, Hopon Pop, just because it's easy.
And in physical education I willmodel how to use Dr Seuss to
have them get working on soundsin this case.
So your listeners might be awareof, phonological awareness is
the ability to differentiatesound.
(17:37):
We're not talking about letters, but actual sounds.
So then, PE teachers can behelping you support that by then
reading aloud books, writingbooks, but then at the same time
they can use a few of thoserhymes and associate them with
specific physical movements,whether it's a stretch, whether
(17:57):
it is a strength training,muscular building, and that
would vary by age group, etcetera.
So sometimes it's like lungesor squats or toe taps, you name
it.
And so I've done that a lot inthe regular mainstream
(18:18):
elementary classroom, usingbooks with great sounds.
And one book I like, this, theSmall, small Pond, has a lot of
swoosh in those what we wouldcall diphthongs and digraph, but
they make great because thosesounds are hard for young people
to be able to recognize butthen be able to have motions
(18:42):
that are connected to thosesounds and those words.
So now we're able to createdifferent spaces where we can
incorporate movement in regularclassroom spaces and support
phonologic awareness.
And we can be doing the samething in physical education
spaces, spaces, and so usingbasically doing the same,
(19:07):
different thing but twodifferent spaces in supporting
both literacy, early literacyskills and physical development,
muscular endurance, muscularstrength, cardio, whatever it
might be, flexibility and one ofthe things that is also great
about that and particularly forclassrooms where physical
(19:28):
education and recess have beenremoved and taken away is that
helps with some of that energy,and I'd like to talk about that
as the kids with the wiggles andI don't label otherwise because
it could be, you know whetheryou think about ADHD,
hyperactivity, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
If you just talk about kidswith the wiggles, labels become
(19:50):
unimportant.
But that gives them a chance tomove and support important
content, literacy tools andskills.
Lindsay Persohn (19:59):
Corrine, you have shared some wonderfully
rich examples with us.
You have shared somewonderfully rich examples with
us.
One thing that I think I hearyou saying in both of the kind
(20:27):
of vignettes you've shared sofar is that there's this element
of time that it takes todevelop these understandings and
to make real change and tosupport kids to see themselves
as the learners, their innerlearner, to play on your inner
runner.
And I think that that issometimes what feels like the
biggest challenge is finding thetime and the focus and just
sort of that energy to give eachstudent, to identify.
Where are they starting right?
What's their beginning point?
What do they already know?
(20:48):
What are they bringing withthem?
And then how do we build fromthere in order to support them
to become who they are alreadybecoming or become who they want
to be?
And I think that that's onething that really strikes me
about this moment we're in ineducation when everything feels
so paced and pushed that I thinkthat sometimes it's challenging
(21:09):
to find that time.
But you remind me of just howmuch we're losing if we don't
still work to find it right, toget to know each individual and
where they're headed and youknow how do we help them to
develop that self-efficacy.
Corrine Wickens (21:25):
I talk about time as the four-letter word in
education.
Lindsay Persohn (21:29):
Yes, is it ever ?
Is it ever Because it is sohard to find.
It's so hard to find that timeand I think the other thing I
wanted to come back to that Ireally appreciate you sharing is
this idea of a move aloud.
I think I might use that.
I have taught disciplinaryliteracy courses and I felt some
of those same challenges youdescribed, because our
(21:50):
disciplinary literacy courseshave a mix of folks from all
different majors.
So ensuring that everyone feelsthat they are seen and that
their instructor has an idea of,you know kind of what makes
their field tick in some waysthat I think is one of the
supreme challenges of thatcourse.
But I love this way that youhave tied, you know, an ages-old
(22:13):
literacy practice intosomething that is most
influential in the world of PE.
So that's really neat and infact I think I might use that,
maybe not even with PE majors,but with my elementary education
majors, as they're working withkids who have wiggles talking
about how they can turn theirread aloud into a move aloud.
And it's not that the carpettime, so it's not an either or
(22:38):
Right, and you've even got methinking about ways to do that
in very limited space.
You know, sometimes it's amatter of hand, gestures, or,
you know, sitting in your seatand just moving your feet a
certain way.
You know.
Those kinds of things I thinkcould really be beneficial in a
lot of classroom spaces thatI've spent time in, I can sure
tell you that.
So what a great idea.
So, Corrine, what else do youwant listeners to know about
(22:59):
your work?
You've given us such richbackground about who you are and
the kind of work you do.
What else do you want us toknow?
My work.
Corrine Wickens (23:07):
Interestingly enough, kind of spans several
different fields curriculum,adolescent literacy, lgbt,
gender, sexualities.
I've kind of highlighted inthis space and platform my work
as the translator, so to speakthe disciplinary literacy
background that I come from andI think that I would connect
(23:33):
that to.
We already mentioned one partas far as the pacing.
The other part that I wouldconnect that to would be the
questions around science ofreading and the example around
the read aloud, move aloud andthe connections to a different
(23:54):
way to do phonics I think ishighly important and impactful.
The other part that I wouldconnect to that is then, as
you're hearing me talk aboutbridging across the disciplinary
divides is the same thing withthe science of reading.
There isn't a singular science,there's multiple sciences and
so if we could at least begin topluralize that, that much
(24:16):
appreciated.
Also understanding that whenwe're talking about science of
reading, we're talking aboutdecoding, and the reason it's
important to me from adisciplinary perspective, an
adolescent literacy perspective,is that most of phonics becomes
a form of worksheet format andour young people who struggle
(24:38):
with reading at early grades oneof the things also from my PE
teachers is many of themself-identify as struggling
readers.
So they are now adults, stillstruggling and still
self-identifying as strugglingreaders, and that's not because
of phonics or having wholelanguage.
Very few actually have ever hadtruthful whole language.
(25:00):
Mostly have been balancedliteracy and whatever format
that might be.
So, regardless of all of that,as adults they're still
struggling and that struggle ishard and it is real and that is
one of the things that, as ateacher of said students and a
teacher of adults, acknowledgingthat struggle has been
(25:23):
something that has been at thecore of my work and became
personal when I became astruggling runner and so that's
where I started and I circlingback around was that finding and
acknowledging, honoring thestruggle as normal.
When when my students who areadults, realized their struggles
(25:46):
as six-year-olds with decodingskills was not abnormal, because
they always feel like it's justthem and these are adults,
sharing their trauma and painand how dumb they felt.
And I've had over the years nowa lot of said students, men and
women alike, multilinguallearners, monolingual that
(26:09):
doesn't matter.
But if I go back to that, theirstruggle is normal because it
never felt normal to them aschildren, as young people.
When I normalize their context,their pain, that they weren't
dumb, that they weren't stupid,this is regardless of whatever
program.
For 25% of our young people,learning to read is hard and it
(26:34):
doesn't get any easier as theymove into through the grades.
And as a again former EnglishTitle I reading, whose ninth
graders read four grade levelsbelow, that gap just gets bigger
and bigger, and so is it nowonder that they would give up
(26:56):
Because we as adults don't wantto keep doing the things that we
aren't good at.
Lindsay Persohn (27:01):
Right, right.
Well, it reminds me ofsomething else you said earlier
this idea of you know, thesocial reinforcement that you
know you're not good at, thisRight right, delivered to them
in multiple forms report card,grades, standardized tests.
You know peers, unfortunatelyeven sometimes teachers you know
(27:28):
are are reinforcing that you'rejust no good at this, rather
than the idea that you know youdon't get to running four
marathons overnight, right?
You know, I've never been toldthat I have an inner runner and
I, so I can really never beentold that I have an inner runner
and so I can really relate tothis idea.
And I was also younger, andeven now I'm a slow reader.
(27:50):
I think people assume thatwhenever you're in literacy, you
must just be the world's bestreader.
I'm a slow reader, I've gottenbetter, but it's taken time,
right.
It's taken tons of practice andit's also to tie back to your
early point.
It takes a lot of thatself-efficacy building, Right.
You have to feel as though youcan do it and to really change
(28:11):
the way you think about yourself.
It takes so much more time aswell as, again, multiple forces
that sort of tell you you'regetting better at this, you can
do this stuff and or they'refinding it somewhere else Again.
Corrine Wickens (28:27):
So my PE teachers.
They were getting theacceptance and confidence
through sport.
So at six years old, at thesame time they're getting
competence in sport.
They are having inverserelationship with reading then
(28:49):
again.
So we have two strong, powerfulattitudinal origins.
One of the things that I'vemade them understand is the
importance of practice.
We don't provide a lot ofreally rich practice around
reading in K-12 schools.
In fact, we providedisincentives in all sorts of
formats and that's a whole otherepisode.
Lots of people that can connectto that as well.
(29:10):
But if we don't practice, theexpectations go up.
And as the students get older,the expectations go up.
Their practice, their realpractice, actually keeps going
down.
So then, like a muscle, if it'snot worked, the skill sets
diminish.
Lindsay Persohn (29:28):
I think that the metaphors that you use are
really powerful, and it remindsme also of what you talked about
earlier teaching as coaching,and I'm I will use one of your
phrase I'm not a sports person.
I never have been.
I'm one of those asthmatics whowas challenged to participate
in really any kind of sport, whowas challenged to participate
in really any kind of sport.
I finally, in my adult life,found ways to keep my body
(29:52):
moving and to stay healthy.
But this idea of teaching ascoaching even I can relate to
this, because it is aboutidentifying where somebody
begins.
It's about helping them seewhat comes next, and then what
comes after that, and then whatcomes after that, and that
encouragement all along the wayto say are you doing something
you enjoy?
What is it that brings you backto this again and again.
(30:14):
And I think if we couldapproach teaching in that sort
of way, it's so personal andit's so incremental that I think
it's such a solid approach tohow we ultimately work towards
self-efficacy and positiveidentity, reinforcing positive
identities.
So is there anything else youwant to share about your work,
(30:36):
Corrine?
Corrine Wickens (30:38):
I think about one of the classroom discussions
I was having with my studentsaround professional development
days, teacher institute days.
Where do teachers sit?
With whom do they sit?
And because we're creatures ofhabit, we sit by the people that
we know first and foremost, andif we're in elementary we sit
(31:01):
by grades.
If we're in secondary we tendto sit by our disciplines and so
we have our own attitudestowards our respective
disciplines as well as otherdisciplines, and one of the
things that I have learned thatI want to provide cautionary
(31:24):
thought about for teachers ishow we can be dismissive of our
colleagues and peers and thestudents.
So they pay attention when,again, if they are a sports
person and they hear teachersdisparaging physical education
and whether it's hearing oryou're just a coach, and whether
(31:46):
it's hearing or you're just acoach.
We do a lot of disparagingacross disciplines, across age
groups, etc.
And minimizing the importantwork in those fields, and part
of that I want to highlight isbecause we have attitudes about
where we feel good and weexternalize that to others.
So then we minimize what theydo.
(32:09):
You know English teachers?
Well, I have all these papersto grade PE teachers.
They just roll out a ball.
But if we are dismissing ourcolleagues, dismissing their
propensities, their modalities,we're also dismissing the young
people that have affinities forthat as well.
(32:31):
All of us, as adults, we werechildren, we were young people
as well.
We create these attitudes,these interests, very young, and
so an academic was a reader ornon-reader as a young person.
A PE teacher was a kid whoplayed four sports seasons and
(32:52):
had practices four to five hoursa day, competed competitively
since the age of eight, if notearlier.
Think about education, if wethought about it as translation,
where we recognized and honorednot just other people's
(33:13):
languages but their disciplines,because essentially, when we
don't, we're also notacknowledging and honoring the
young people that have thataffinity as well.
It's not just the discipline,it's our colleagues and the
young people as well.
So that's the kind ofparticular element of diversity
(33:35):
that I wanted to highlight inthis instance.
Lindsay Persohn (33:38):
I love the reminder that adults were
children once also.
I think sometimes we forgetthat, that we've all come from
somewhere.
We've all come from assumptionsabout the world and assumptions
about ourself, as well as allof the external influences.
You know, we've got theinternal and the external and
they do shape us into who webecome as adults.
So I think recognizing that inpeople it does.
(34:01):
It takes my mind to a differentstarting point when it comes to
whoever we are teaching.
Right, because somewhere insideof all of us is still that kid
who never thought they'd be arunner, or the kid who never
thought they'd be a reader, oryou know the kid who kind of
tuned out of reading because allthey wanted to do was be at PE.
(34:22):
You know those kinds of things.
We carry all that stuff with usand it reminds me again about
you know the time to get to knowwhere people are starting and
sort of what makes them tick,because then I think it leads us
to be better coaches and bettertranslators of whatever we are
trying to teach.
Yes, I think it might also makeus better humans.
Corrine Wickens (34:42):
I certainly agree with that one as well.
Lindsay Persohn (34:45):
Corrine, given the challenges of today's
educational climate, whatmessage do you want teachers to
hear?
Corrine Wickens (34:52):
Be kind to yourself, and I don't mean it in
the way that oftentimes in thelast couple of last few years
since COVID, is that there'sbeen a lot of stuff around
self-care.
Yes, self-care is terriblyimportant and sometimes it
doesn't matter how muchself-care we do, it's still not
enough.
(35:12):
So be kind to yourselves, bekind to your students, give
yourself grace, give othersgrace, forgive yourself and
forgive them.
I know that's always true and Iknow it's especially true right
now.
Lindsay Persohn (35:29):
But I don't think there can be enough
kindness in the world right now,so I really appreciate that
message.
Corrine Wickens (35:34):
It's not about being complacent.
It's not about beingprofessional.
Right, we're going to makemistakes.
Learn from them.
We learn and do better and bekind.
Lindsay Persohn (35:46):
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that Well, karan.
I've really enjoyed, yeah, yeah, I appreciate that Well,
Corrine.
I've really enjoyed talkingwith you today.
I love your energy and I lovethe way that you make such deep
connections across everythinglife, teaching, experiences,
yeah, and I think that I meanthat's what it's really all
about, you know is gathering upall the pieces of our lives and
(36:10):
putting it together.
I mean that's that truetransdisciplinary kind of
mindset that I'm sure servesyour students very well.
Also, you know, always lookingfor those connections and always
seeing how, how can we dobetter.
So I really appreciate it.
Corrine Wickens (36:25):
Thank you very much.
It's been fun so.
Lindsay Persohn (36:26):
I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much, it's beenfun.
Thank you.
Dr.
Corrine M Wickens's researchinterest examines issues of
ongoing discourses aroundsexuality and schooling, gender
and sexual characterizations incontemporary young adult
(36:47):
literature anddisciplinary-based literacies in
secondary teacher education.
She's published in suchjournals as Sex Roles, TESOL
Quarterly, Children's LiteratureAssociation Quarterly,
Children's Literature inEducation, Voices from the
Middle, Urban Review, Journal ofTeaching Physical Education,
Adult Education Quarterly, andInternational Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education.
Dr Wickens is a formersecondary English language arts
and Title I reading teacher withnearly 30 years of experience
(37:09):
in education.
She's taught undergraduate andgraduate coursework in content
area or disciplinary literacies,gender and sexuality and
curriculum.
Dr.
Wickens is a professor ofliteracy education and serves as
the doctoral programcoordinator in the Department of
Curriculum and Instruction atNorthern Illinois University.
In her spare time, Corrineenjoys historical mystery
(37:30):
fiction, running and camping.
You can connect with Dr,Wickens by email at cwickens@
niu.
edu.
That's c-w-i-c-k-e-n-s at n-i-udot e-d-u.
For the good of all students,Classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
(37:52):
If this show gives you thingsto think about, help us spread
the word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
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You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
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Liking and reviewing thispodcast through your podcast
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Visit classroomcaffeine.
com, where you can subscribe toreceive our short monthly
(38:13):
newsletter, the Espresso Shot.
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
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(38:33):
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We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team-- Leah Berger,
Abaya Valuru, Stephanie Branson,and Csaba Osvath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou, teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
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