February 28, 2023 • 53 mins
Dr. Jerome Harste talks to us about writing in early childhood, the inherent social risks in writing, Sketch to Stretch writing, arts-based ways of communicating, kids as curricular informants, teachers as intellectuals and philosophers, and schools as spaces of possibility. Dr. Harste is best known for his work exploring young children’s written language literacy learning, connecting arts and literacies, and critical literacies. As a literacy educator his expanded view of what it meant to be literate went far beyond traditional notions of reading and writing to include visual literacy and more generally semiotics. Jerry is also a celebrated artist, working mainly in watercolors. He has published over 200 articles in refereed journals and won many awards for his research and teaching. Notably, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame, given the James Squire “Paradigm Shifters'' Award (National Council of Teachers of English), the Oscar Causey Reading Research Award (Literacy Research Association) and the David Russell Research Award for his work in the Language Arts (NCTE). He also earned the coveted Gorman Teaching Award from the School of Education and the Frederick Bachman Teaching Award from Indiana University. Before retirement, he was an elementary teacher in Monticello, Minnesota and the Peace Corps, a college professor for nearly 50 years at Indiana University, and an educational researcher. Dr. Jerome C. Harste retired from Indiana University as a Distinguished Professor where he held the Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education. He currently teaches graduate courses at Mount Saint Vincent University in Canada. You can connect with Jerry on Facebook at “Harste as Artist”or online at jeromeharste.com.
Resource PPT to accompany this episode: Harste Podcast PPT
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Feb. 28). A conversation with Jerome “Jerry” C. Harste. (Season 3, No. 19) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/DD6E-8C6E-272E-1073-EB2E-U
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 to help. In each episode Italk with a top education
researcher or an expert educatorabout what they have learned
(00:31):
from years of research andexperiences.
In this episode, Dr. JeromeHarste talks to us about writing
in early childhood, the inherentsocial risks in writing sketch
to stretch writing, arts basedways of communicating kids as
curricular informants, teachersas intellectuals and
(00:53):
philosophers and schools asspaces of possibility. Dr.
Harste is best known for hiswork exploring young children's
written language literacy,learning, connecting arts and
literacies and criticalliteracies. As a literacy
educator, his expanded view ofwhat it meant to be literate
went far beyond traditionalnotions of reading and writing
(01:13):
to include visual literacy, andmore generally, semiotics. Jerry
is also a celebrated artistworking mainly in watercolors.
He's published over 200 articlesin refereed journals, and won
many awards for his research andteaching. Notably, he was
inducted into the reading Hallof Fame, given the James Squire
paradigm shifters award from theNational Council of Teachers of
(01:36):
English, the Oscar Causeyreading research award from the
literacy Research Associationand the David Russell Research
Award for his work in thelanguage arts from the National
Council teachers of English. Healso earned the coveted Gorman
Teaching Award from the Schoolof Education and the Frederick
Bachman Teaching Award fromIndiana University. Before
(01:57):
retirement, he was an elementaryteacher in Monticello, Minnesota
and the Peace Corps, a collegeprofessor for nearly 50 years at
Indiana University and aneducational researcher, Dr.
Jerome C. Harste retired fromIndiana University as a
distinguished professor, wherehe held the Armstrong chair and
teacher education. He currentlyteaches graduate courses at
Mount Saint Vincent Universityin Canada, you can connect with
Jerry on Facebook at RST asartists or online at Jerome
(02:28):
hartse.com. That's J EROMEHA r st e.com. For more information
about our guests, stay tuned tothe end of this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink. And join me your host
Lindsay Persohn. For classroomcaffeine research to energize
(02:51):
your teaching practice. Jerry,thank you for joining me.
Welcome to the show.
Jerome Harste (02:56):
Well, thank you.
It's great to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (02:58):
So from your own experiences in education,
will you share with us one ortwo moments that inform your
thinking now?
Jerome Harste (03:07):
Oh, It'd be my pleasure. One of the most
formidable experiences that Ihad was a research project,
looking at what young childrenages 345. And six knew about
reading and writing prior togoing to school. And I must say
that study went over a 10 yearperiod. But it was really mind
(03:31):
blowing. For me, I learned somuch. What causes it was I had
kids of my own. And I was verysurprised with my son's language
development. I mean, I hadstudied language development in
college, but that my son wasdoing things that look way ahead
(03:53):
of when the kids were normallysupposed to do things. Plus he
was doing really interestingthings that I had never even
read about. So when I had mysecond child, my wife and I
decided that we would use her asa case study. So we began to
(04:14):
collect data from the verymoment that she was born
essentially, until she went tofirst grade. And meanwhile, we
had gotten funded from thefederal government to look at
little kids are languagedevelopment. And I always
remember we were looking at fouryear olds. In one study, and we
(04:39):
had a preschool that wasinternational that is there was
a lot of students that had cometo IU from different countries.
And we had collected the writingdata from the kids. We've given
them a sheet of paper, and thenwe took a sheet of paper and we
said we want you to write sostory and you write on your
(05:02):
sheet of paper, and we'll writeon our sheet of paper, and then
we'll share our stories. And thelittle four year olds, of
course, didn't really produce astory, but they produced
markings of what their storieslook like. And the Dawn was a
little four year old from theUnited States. And her
scribbles, you know, look likescribbles. But they really look
(05:25):
like American scribbles when youcompare to to najiba, who was
from Saudi Arabia, and hadwritten her scribbles sort of in
Arabic, and her scribbles looksort of Arabic, she gave me the
sheet of paper, and she said,Here's my writing, but you can't
read it, because I wrote it inArabic. And in Arabic, we use a
(05:46):
lot more dots than we do inEnglish. And then we had a
little guy from Israel. And hisgrandmother was there when we
were collecting the writingsample. And his grandmother
watched him create this text.
And it looked sort of Hebrewish. And he wrote it backwards.
And she said, I see it looks, hewrote, but it's written in the
(06:09):
wrong direction. And uncertaintywas very interesting, because
when you compare those threewriting samples, they really
look like the cultures fromwhich the kids came from. And
that was very mind blowing,because we had always before
thought that children learnedoral language, but they had to
(06:31):
be taught written language. Andthis data really suggested that
long before schooling, kids werevery actively attune to
language. And by the time theygot to be six years old, they
knew quite a bit about writtenlanguage, without having any
direct formal instruction. Sothat really, that study led us
(06:54):
to looking at what three yearolds knew, four year olds knew,
five year olds knew, and sixyear olds knew. And it was sort
of incredible. I'm going toinclude as sort of notes along
with this podcast, some picturesthat show you the three writing
(07:14):
samples that we got from thosechildren. Another kid that
really sort of amazed me wasanother four year old, and her
name was Michelle. And we askedher to write her name and
anything else that she couldwrite. And she wrote down, sort
of my shell sort of making in amthat look like an M Y, I don't
(07:35):
know, then an A and then E. Thenbelow that, she sort of kept
going, she wrote a sort of anupside down J, another y a. And
then she kept after that, in herthird line, she wrote n a n n.
And so when she was done withthat, we said, Oh, can you read
(07:59):
what you written, and she wrote,michelle that's my name. She
said, Jay, that's my father'sname. And Nancy, that's my
mother's name. And then shepicked up the pen. And she drew
a sort of a rough circle aroundit, and said, and together, they
say, Meijer, which was herfamily name. And again, we were
(08:21):
just sort of blown away with thefact that not only did she have
some letter soundcorrespondence, but you already
sort of understood set theorythat together, those formed sort
of their surnames, and I'll alsoinclude a little writing example
of Michelle in the notes, sothat you can see, as kids, a
(08:45):
five year old, and a six yearold, of course, were much more
sophisticated. And one of thethings that amazed us and got us
interested, was as kids gotolder, they use more and more
inventive spelling. And we inactual fact, could read their
writing, even though it wasn'tnecessarily parsed in a
(09:08):
conventional sort of way. But Iremember this little girl wrote
once upon a time, and she wroteit sort of as one conceptual
unit. And it was veryinteresting, because once upon a
time sort of signals to you thatthis is not a statement about
reality, but it's a imaginaryworld. And in some ways, the
(09:31):
once upon a time, while thewords function as words, they
really together is how theyfunction in stories to really
indicate to the listener thatthis is make believe story. And
it's interesting that there arelanguages like German that do
(09:53):
include long sorts of phrasesthat put together and function
In a very different way thanEnglish. So kids seem to almost
be redeveloping rediscoveringhow language works for
themselves. And then as theyinteract with their own culture,
they begin to sort of limit thehypothesis that are operating
(10:17):
and are much more active thanyou would think. So at any rate,
those experiences were extremelyinfluential in terms of my
thinking, as they were writing,they would oftentimes work hard
into their writing, they wouldsort of move freely from written
language to art without sort ofa break in terms of what they
(10:42):
were trying to communicate.
Another example that reallyinfluenced me that I collected
from my daughter, she had had atelephone conversation with a
friend, and they were going toget together after church to
play ballerina. And when shehung up the phone, she went to
(11:03):
her room, and she grabbed asheet of paper, and she drew a
little bow ribbon for hair alittle tutu, and little ballet
slippers, and then her dresser,and then she put a plus sign,
and then she drew sort of gearribbons, and the tutu and
slippers, plus a bag, indicatingthat her friend Jennifer was
(11:28):
going to be bringing her balletmaterial in a bag and she had
her stuff in a dresser. Andafter church, they're gonna play
ballerina then she put herinitials up A H for Alison
Harste and J. T for JenniferTucker. And I always looked at
that sheet of paper that she haddrawn and when gal we would do
(11:53):
well, to be able to summarizeour experiences as succinctly as
she did, even though she wasonly five years old. And her
freedom to move between art andlanguage was something we had
seen with other children. But Ithink it really sort of called
attention to how arbitrary weare, in terms of talking about
(12:20):
language as if it's the onlycommunication system that is
used when liddle kids veryfreely, we're moving between art
and language and mathematics torepresent the world and doing so
very effectively. So it wasthose experiences with young
children that really, I mean,forced me to rethink what I
(12:45):
thought I knew about children'slanguage development. I always
remember one of the teachersonce one after I had been
talking about what little kidscould do, sent me this picture
that a little kindergartener haddrawn, and she had drawn a book.
(13:06):
And then she had drawn a littlefinger inside the book, and she
wrote on there, I'm into books,once I get into them, I can't
get out. And it was just such awonderful little illustration,
because it's sort of I think themessage was extremely powerful.
And that with the little drawingof herself inside a book, it
(13:30):
really had a visual impact. AndI thought, well, how clever
these kids are, in terms oftheir ability to communicate
what they're thinking about bybeing able to freely move across
different science systems, fromlanguage, to art, to almost
drama. With little three yearolds, we were giving them
(13:53):
different pieces of objects,like spools of thread, sometimes
we give them little blocks, andwe ask them to pick out things
that they want to do. They wereall sort of nondescript things,
and tell us a story. And then weasked them to write their story
down. And it was fascinating tome, because the the three year
(14:17):
old, they use the thing, the theblock is a rabbit, for example.
And then they would say, and therabbit went hopping across the
meadow, and on the piece ofpaper, they just sort of made
little tiny marks that youwouldn't know what the story was
from the marks that they made.
But underneath they actually,when you listen to the story,
(14:41):
they actually had a characterthey actually the character had
some sort of problem. There wasa resolution they really sort of
had an understanding of thebasic structure of a story even
though the surface structurethat was produced didn't look
like it Anything traditional, Soat any rate, it was those kinds
(15:02):
of experiences that reallyinfluenced I think my thinking.
Lindsay Persohn (15:10):
So Jerry, as you're telling those stories,
I'm really struck by howlimiting writing is in so many
schools. You know, your examplesshowcase the fact that young
children before they are broughtinto formalized school settings,
are able to move betweendifferent types of symbols and
(15:31):
different ways of conveying themeaning that is in their minds.
And I'm just really struck bythe way that I think in schools,
we teach writing in a way thatlimits their ability to
communicate and limits theirability to convey a story. It's
almost as if we take away someof those inherent or seemingly
(15:53):
inherent tools that youngchildren bring to the writing
experience. Do you think that'sfair to say?
Jerome Harste (15:58):
Yeah, I really do. I think, in fact, you put
your finger on lots of things.
One of my favorite littlestories really happened in
Vivian Vasquez's classroom, thislittle kid came up, and she,
they were supposed to have awriting period. And, you know,
sometimes I think as teachers,we look at the kid's drawing as
(16:20):
sort of deviation or strategythat the kid is using to sort of
avoid the curriculum that wewant them to engage in. And this
little kids said to Vivian, butMiss Vasquez, if I can draw, I
can't write. And I think there'ssomething really powerful about
(16:40):
that. There's lots of ways toget into writing. And I think by
providing a variety of resourcesfor the kid, the key can choose
his or her own path intowriting. And for lots of kids, I
think they have to draw in orderto be able to write, and I think
we're so keen on sort of cuttingoff that dimension of their
(17:05):
knowing that we do them adisservice. You know, one of the
things that I kept dealing withis, what does all of this mean,
in terms of our teaching, andworking with kids? And how will
we create curriculum? And Ithink one of the things I would
say is that you need to reallyuse the child as your curricular
(17:29):
informant, I think, so often, weget sort of curriculum push down
on us from some administrator orsome government agency. And the
assumption seems to be thatwe're supposed to somehow
blindly carry that curriculumout in the classroom. Well, for
example, when I when we finishedour work with these studies of
(17:54):
what young kids knew, it seemedto me that the whole primary
curriculum was ratherridiculous. We were teaching
kids letter A and letter B dayand letter C day. And our data
really suggested that kids knewall of that stuff already. I
mean, we were teaching themthings that kids already knew. I
(18:17):
mean, kids knew the names ofcolors, they could write the
names of colors and inventedspelling. They knew squares and
rectangles and triangles, theyknew circles. It seemed like
everything about the wholekindergarten curriculum was
really built on the assumptionthat kids came into school, not
(18:41):
knowing a bloody thing, and thatwe had to teach them everything.
And I think, what we learned orone of the things we learned
there, as we have to build ourcurriculum with kids from what
kids already know, rather thanjust teach things, because it's
something that we logicallythought we should need to teach.
(19:06):
I think before we teach, wereally need to have some
evidence that the kid needs thiskind of information. I'm a
Lindsay Persohn (19:17):
former kindergarten teacher. And now
this was close to 20 years agothat I started on that
adventure, but I can definitelysee what you're saying, playing
out in a classroom, the toolsthat we attempt to or purport to
give to young children to helpthem communicate. It seems to me
that in so many ways, we'reactually limiting what they
(19:38):
already know or telling themthat their their inherent ways
of communicating aren't right oraren't standard enough. As you
were talking, I kept thinkingabout the child as a curricular
informant and also thinkingabout, you know how some
curricular programs might feelvery ridiculous to young
(19:59):
children. If their way ofcommunicating is actually much
more effective than what we aretrying to teach them.
Jerome Harste (20:08):
Yeah, one of the things we did is we started
this, this notion of moving toart was very fascinating. And so
one of the things we developwith a strategy called sketched
a stretch, where we read a bookto the kids, and then we asked
them to sketch what they thoughtthe book meant to draw a little
(20:28):
picture. And just having themmove to art was very
informative, because they oftenwere able to capture elements of
what the story meant better thanif you just asked them to retell
it in their own words. And partof that made me do because they
(20:51):
you heard the story because youread it, but they know you've
heard it too. So I think some ofwhat they know, they don't tell
you because of the context inwhich we retold it. Well, I one
of my favorite little exampleswe were reading, I read sleeps
over, it's the story about twolittle boys. And they they
(21:13):
decide to have a sleepover andthe bigger sister just harasses
the little one was saying what'she going to say when you get to
sleep with a teddy bear and, andthen when he goes over for the
sleepover, they're telling ghoststories. And the friend says
stop, and he goes to his dresserand he pulls out his teddy bear
(21:34):
to take with him to bed. Andit's a great little story. And
we have a fourth grader, we hadread that book in a fourth grade
class. And we asked him to do asketch to strech and draw a
sketch of what the story meantto him. And he drew sort of the
two kids in the bedroom, tellingstories, but then up in the
(21:56):
corner, he drew a little boyplus a teddy bear plus, and then
he had another little boy plus ateddy bear. And then he had
equals and two little boys. Andwe asked him what did that say.
And he said, It says a littleboy plus his teddy bear plus
another boy plus his teddy bearequals two good friends. And in
(22:17):
somehow, that little sketch, hecaptured more about what that
story was about. And itssignificance. That was sort of
just beyond anything that hecould have said about that
story. In terms of language, itwas very interesting. But I'll
send different little drawingsto people's see some of these
(22:39):
illustrations themselves andtake a closer look at that.
Lindsay Persohn (22:43):
Great, thank you for that, Jerry, that little
portrait you paint for us aroundIris leaps over, you know, I
think if we asked fourth gradersto write a story about
friendship for us, it wouldactually be much more difficult
to write in that that effectivekind of way, if we did just
limit to words. And so you'vegot me reconsidering kind of
(23:06):
everything we do around how weask kids to convey meaning. And
particularly, I think wheneverwe ask them to convey these
complex ideas, you know, writingI think is challenging writing
is challenging for me as anadult. And I think part of it is
because you have to be mindfulof things like word choice and
sentence construction, and thatlinear format of writing, where
(23:29):
I must lay out these ideas in away that I believe convey what
what I want to say, but alsosomething that's going to make
sense to someone else. And sothis idea of thinking flexibly
in how we tell or how we shareour ideas,
Jerome Harste (23:45):
or you know, I think one of the other problems
with writing and oral reading isthat in both instances, the
language user is veryvulnerable, because you can see
every mistake that they made orhear every mistake. And I think
one of the things that you gotto really be very careful about
(24:06):
is glomming on to all thosemistakes, because you've been,
it's much easier to intimidate alanguage learner than it is to
support one. And I think youneed to be very careful about
how you go about responding tochildren. Because I think you
can, you can set yourself backvery rapidly, by just the wrong
(24:29):
saying the wrong thing too. Inorder to learn language, you
really have to take a lot ofrisk. And it's kids a bit
willingness to take those risks.
That is why we get surprisedwith what they're able to do
when we actually take the timeto look carefully at what it is
they are doing. They areconstantly taking risk. If you
(24:49):
do start playing it too safely.
You can't. You can't continue togrow. You need be in an
environment where you feel freeto take those kinds of risks. I
guess in some ways, I should saya little bit more about
curriculum, I think most of usthink about curriculum, that
(25:14):
document that gets handed downto us from some authority,
either it's an administrator, orit could be from a State
Department, or it could be froma book company in terms of how
to use materials. But it's thiswritten statement of what kids
are supposed to accomplish. Andunfortunately, most of those
(25:41):
documents are written by peoplewho rarely come in contact with
children. And I think that's aproblem right there. But then I
think the second part ofcurriculum to understand is this
curriculum that gets enacted,that is, after you've read those
documents, and you've set upyour context, you as a teacher,
(26:04):
try to implement that in yourclassroom. And that curriculum
could be very different from thefirst curriculum or from that
paper curriculum that you got,because it's going to get
implemented very differently inthe hands of different teachers.
That third curriculum is thecurriculum that happens in the
(26:24):
head of the language learner asthese engage. And I think of all
of those curriculums, it iswhat's happening in the head of
the language learner. Thatreally is what you need to keep
your eye on as a teacher, thatmental trip that kids are
taking, is the real curriculum.
And it's what you need to keepyour eye on to in terms of
(26:49):
deciding what next to do well,how next to support somebody in
their language learning. One ofthe things about this sketch to
stretch also, that was veryinformative. I had a student
about mural, I suppose fiveyears ago, who worked with
special ed children, and she gotinterested in sketch to stretch.
(27:11):
And so in terms of her readingprogram, rather than having them
do retailing, she had them dosketch to stretches. And it was
interesting because the writtenretellings or the oral
retellings, were very weak forthese students. In fact, you
(27:31):
would say they flunked. But whenthey did sketch the stretches,
almost every one of them wasable to capture the essence of
what the story was really about.
So I think we've got to startexploring different kinds of
alternatives. I mean, that'svery good evidence that what's
(27:53):
going on in the mind is a lotmore than what we thought they
were if we only look at one sortof measurement of what's going
on. It's why I think you need touse the child is your curricular
informant. But it's also why Ithink you really have to build
your curriculum. Based on thatinformation from the child.
Lindsay Persohn (28:18):
Jerry, there just a couple of I what I think
are really critical points thatI want to just draw attention to
here, you mentioned that riskand language learning. And I
think it's so important toacknowledge that, but as you
were describing it, I was alsothinking back to what you said
earlier with supports, and youknow, how we help to maybe
(28:39):
minimize that risk whilechildren are learning language.
And it seems to me that in somany instances, we immediately
take away really crucialsupports. And by way of doing
that we're actually increasingthat risk for learners. So
rather than giving them ways toconvey meaning, that are not
(28:59):
only maybe more comfortable forthem, and potentially contain
more meaning than written word,we immediately say, no, no, we
don't, we don't want you to usethat you can only use words on a
page, which as I said, I thinkjust inherently increases the
risk and learning language. Theother the other connection, I
made it, this idea of curriculumin the head. And I think that so
(29:21):
often, that is a concept that'sreally underutilized in
classrooms, we are always soconcerned with the products of
what children produce, we oftenoverlook the actual process of
getting there. And again, Ithink those supports we talked
about drawing, you knows sketchto stretch, even, you know,
sometimes talking about ideasbefore we write them. When we
(29:44):
take those away. We are actuallytaking away some of our windows
into that curriculum in thehead, at least in my mind, and
in my experience, that sort ofwhat that amounts to.
Jerome Harste (29:55):
I think you're absolutely right. One of the
things that I find quitefrustrating These days is
background experience, you know,you can talk about background
experience, but teachers willsay, Well, I take into account
background, you know, everyteacher says they take into
account background experience,that concept has become what
(30:17):
what in semiotics would becalled over coded, it's just
sort of a term now, that doesn'thave any real teeth to it
anymore. And I think backgroundand knowledge is really, in some
ways, as a result of kidwatching, and I, you know, and I
think we miss the biggerpicture. So I agree with you,
(30:38):
100%, I think we'd startlimiting what resources the kid
has available. I mean, gets thesketch to stretch also with that
whole process is of taking onefrom what you know, in one area
and, and producing it in anotherarea is called Trans mediation.
(30:58):
And trans mediation reallyworks, you know, you could have
kids read a story and thenrepresent what it means in
playdough, you could have themmake a drama, you could add them
relate to music, but I thinkyour what you what you're
getting at is some deeper kindof understanding of what it
(31:19):
means. And I think that, youknow, I often try to work with
kids and get them to understandthat they haven't really read
something until they've had aconversation with someone about
it. I think too often, in ourschools, and in reading, in
particular, we're dealing andwriting, we're dealing with the
(31:43):
surface structure, rather thanthe deep structure. I mean, I
think, you know, kids have gotto have a lots of opportunities
to write that, you know, ifyou're going to be a writer, you
have to have said somethingdifferent than what other
writers have said. I mean, whatmakes you a writer is saying
(32:04):
something in your own voice in away that hasn't been said
before. And I think we've, weget so hung up with the spelling
and the grammar, that we fail toreally use writing as a vehicle
for organizing our thinking, andfor expressing our deepest sorts
(32:26):
of thoughts. I just think wework too much on the surface
structure, rather than the deepstructure of, of both reading
and writing.
Lindsay Persohn (32:36):
Well, I think in my experience, I, I believe
that part of the reason whywe've turned to the more
superficial structures, isbecause it's really difficult to
measure and assess and gradethose deeper structures,
particularly without a lot ofdeep training, and, you know,
knowledge of the subject as wellas some experience.
Jerome Harste (32:59):
It's also I think, the case that a lot of
the people developing thoseadministrative curriculums, they
they reduce everything intothose simple little terms. Do
you know what I mean? They break
Lindsay Persohn (33:13):
check boxes and, and grading scales. Yes,
yes. Agreed. I totally agreewith you, Jerry.
Jerome Harste (33:20):
So in some ways teachers, You know, this is the
probably the hardest concept toget across. But you got to be a
philosopher, before you can be ateacher, you really have to
think about what kind of worlddo I want to create? And what
kind of people do I want to havepopulated? Now, once you decided
(33:42):
what kind of people you want tocreate, and what kind of people
the world would do well to have,then I think it's a matter of
setting up your classroom tosupport those kids living that
particular experience. But youdo have to be a father, a bit of
a philosopher, you do have totake responsibility for looking
(34:05):
at the bigger picture. Andthat's what really bothers me
about the way senators andpeople talk about the teaching
profession. I mean, teachersneed to really be intellectual
professionals, in a sense, theyreally do have a huge
responsibility to think aboutwhat kind of people do we want
(34:28):
to create? And how can we getabout creating those in our
classroom? I think, you know,it's living that model with the
kids on a daily basis that keepsyou growing. I mean, you will
find yourself all of a suddensaying things like, Oh, God, I
don't really want to be thatkind of person. Why did I say
(34:48):
that? Well, that's wonderful,because that forces you to
rethink how you're going to dosomething and how you're going
to interact. And it's having asense of this bigger picture.
Sure, I think that's extremelyimportant did not sort of lose
sight of by focusing on all theminutia and the details that are
(35:12):
often what specified by people.
Lindsay Persohn (35:16):
Yeah, I think you're so right. I think you're
right on with that, Jerry. Andwe're, we're a little off script
here. But I want to be sure togive you an opportunity to
answer directly to the secondquestion. What do you want
listeners to know about yourwork? Or maybe more
appropriately? At this point?
What else do you want listenersto know about your work?
Jerome Harste (35:38):
Well I'd say, use the child as your curricular
informant, I think somehow thatrelationship that you have with
children, and thatunderstanding, I also think you
have to constantly realize thatthose kids that aren't
(35:59):
performing and you got to keepasking yourself, why the kids
who aren't performing aren'tmeeting the standards that have
been set up. And sometimes Ithink it's helpful to say to
yourself, what would school haveto be like in order for this kid
(36:21):
to be success? And then I thinkwhat that leads to is you begin
to see, what does that childcurrently know and what
currently interests them? Andhow could you build from that
particular point, I've workedwith a group of teachers up in
Indianapolis, and we started aCenter for Inquiry as a school,
(36:46):
we got permission from theboard, I was based around
inquiry based learning. And wetook our best ideas, and that
was going to be the curriculumfor the school. Yet we got kids
in there who weren't doing well.
And we would use those kids asour professional development, we
each would try to make anobservation of what the kid was
(37:07):
doing in particular locations.
And then we talked about that.
And then we hypothesized, well,what could we do to make him
successful, that was some of thebest professional development
that I've ever been involved in.
Since we were testing our besthypotheses. And they weren't
(37:28):
working, it was really anopportunity to sort of outgrow
ourselves. And not only were weable to create a curriculum
where those kids started toachieve, but we really became
much smarter about the wholeprocess of education. But I
think it again, leads to payingreally close attention to your
(37:50):
learner. And then understandingthat somebody has set up the
standards that we're supposed tobe reaching. And those standards
aren't given by God, they'regiven by humans, and they're
going to reward certain people,and they're going to jeopardize
other people. And if you changethose, somebody else might look
(38:12):
better. But you're also going tojeopardize another set. There's
no, there's no right answer tothat. But I think we do have to
question what it is that wevalue and and what are we
teaching for? And who does thateliminate in that process? I
mean, I think we need to be muchmore cognizant about and not
(38:34):
just accept that, what this whatthe government wants us to
teach. If there is a nondebatable entity, I think we
really have to question what itis we're about up and down the
line. And I think that's part ofbeing a professional to it isn't
just toeing the line all thetime.
Lindsay Persohn (38:56):
What incredible words of wisdom and I think
advice for for anyone who mightbe feeling a little bit stuck.
You know, I think that teachersalso often feel very boxed in by
curriculum by the standards. ButI think taking this critical
mindset and also this questionyou give us is, what would
(39:17):
school have to be like for thestudent to be successful? To me,
that just fills me with a lot ofhope for what things could be
those kind of imagined futuresor imagining a circumstances
that we could design in order tohelp students be successful,
rather than them hearing thatthese standards set by someone
(39:38):
you don't know who's never metyou before who's decided that
this is the thing we're going tovalue there. I think there's
just a lot of empowerment inthinking differently about how
we can support students toreally discover their strengths,
to find their voice in the worldand to exercise that kind of
power to help them become whothey want to be and to really
(39:58):
live up to their potential. So Iso appreciate that question. And
that kind of frame for thinkingabout possibilities in schools,
particularly I think, would welive in a day and age when
schools are unfortunately filledwith a lot of impossibility?
Jerome Harste (40:13):
Yeah, I agree. I, you know, your third question
that you given the challenges oftoday's educational climate,
what message? Do you wantteachers to hear? God, I thought
about that a long time I tellyou here is what I think I often
think, God, if I were teachingthese days, how long would it be
(40:36):
before I got fired? It's a verydifficult environment as for
teachers at the current time,but here's what I advise the
teachers I work with up in, I'mworking with a group of teachers
right now in Canada. And whileCanada, it doesn't have all of
the constraints that the USsystem has, for the most part,
(40:59):
they have the benchmarks, butteachers are still sort of
permitted to reach those benchmarks in any way that they
professionally think, is thebest way. Now that's changing a
little is getting morerestrictive. But here's what I
tell teachers, I think it'simportant for you to understand
(41:22):
very thoroughly what it is thestate is expecting of you. And
be very articulate about that.
So that if somebody questionsyou, you know, bloody well what
it is that's being asked of youto teach. And then I think the
second part of that is you needto know, and be very articulate
(41:44):
about how you want to go aboutteaching that, and how that's
going to more than meet theparticular standards that the
curriculum has laid out howyou're going to go not only
reach those standards, but whythat's so much more important in
(42:04):
terms of the students you'reteaching, and how that's going
to get them to go far beyondwhat even was expected of them.
I think if you're articulate,about both of those fronts, then
you've got a chance at beingable to make the kind of
curricular decisions I think youhave to make in order to be
(42:28):
effective. I would also add oneother thing. I think teachers
should practice that with eachother practice as if somebody is
an administrator asking them,why are you doing this and, and
then practice responding. Ithink if they're prepared, it's
much more likely that you'regoing to get to do what you want
(42:51):
to do.
Lindsay Persohn (42:54):
That's great advice. And I think that idea of
rehearsing responses to criticalquestions, it does have the
potential to put teachers in adifferent position when it comes
to being questioned about theirdecisions in their classroom.
And, you know, I truly believe Iwant to believe that everyone
(43:14):
who has a stake in educationreally has children's best
interests at heart. And I thinkthat quite often the way to
achieve those goals ismisunderstood, or perhaps the
picture is incomplete. But Iwould like to believe that
everyone wants what's best forchildren. But I think this
concept of you know, and thissort of tangible idea of talking
(43:36):
with our colleagues about how weexplain or in some instances,
even defend our professionaldecision making, there's so much
power in that, right. I thinkthat that that's a really
critical conversation. It also Ithink, has the potential to help
us to grow in not just thoseskills of our own personal or
professional advocacy, but alsoto hear what are others doing
(43:59):
that's really working well forthem? Or how are they thinking
about giving those gifts back tostudents, those gifts of things
like conveying your ideasthrough drawing or through
claymation, or throughdramatization or perhaps even
music? Any kind of flexiblethinking, I think once once we
have conversations about thosethings with colleagues, it
(44:19):
continues to open uppossibilities for us, and
hopefully, can sort of stopthat, that sort of stealing of
possibilities that I think ishappening in all too many
spaces. And maybe that's asimplistic way to think about
it. But I think that in kind ofan immediate sense. That's one
way that we can exercise thatpersonal and professional power.
Jerome Harste (44:41):
Yeah, and I think here its also what keeps
teaching alive and why we'reteachers. I mean, we keep
growing as as we try new things.
I think we find that, you know,it keeps an edge on learning. I
think one of the things when youask kids to use art to respond.
I think it's different than whatnormally has been going on. And
(45:04):
there's something about theprovocative-ness of an
invitation that allows kids tosort of reach for the stars in a
way. I think, oftentimes whenyou ask kids to draw something
in older grades, okay, like, oh,I can't draw, do the very best
(45:26):
you can. But I think there'ssomething about provocative in
that invitation that really,oftentimes you get much more
than you expected. And I thinkit puts an edge to learning, but
it puts a heads on the kidslearning, like your own
learning, too. And I thinkthat's equally important as a
professional to keep reflectingon what's happening and to
(45:50):
continue to grow.
Lindsay Persohn (45:54):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think
that so often in schools, wetalk about meeting expectations,
whereas what I think you and Iare talking about here is really
exceeding expectations, right,and I to be there, there's a lot
of hope, for possibility and fora brighter future of education,
if we can keep those ideas inmind if we can avoid the
(46:17):
limiting thoughts, the limitingbehaviors, and instead identify
opportunities and ourchallenges. And so I just, I
really appreciate that message.
And I appreciate you also givingus some really tangible ways to
get started on imaginingpossibilities.
Jerome Harste (46:34):
Yeah, and I would say, make it fun. I mean,
learning is fun.
Lindsay Persohn (46:38):
It should be right. I mean, I think that's
how we maximize again, that'show we exceed expectations is
whenever learning is anenjoyable experience.
Jerome Harste (46:46):
You know, bring in books that you really love
and share with them. Make surethat kids are having fun, and
you don't need to apologize forkids having fun. I think we just
need to make schooling a joyousactivity for everybody.
Lindsay Persohn (47:06):
What a different world we might live in
huh Jerry.
Jerome Harste (47:09):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Lindsay Persohn (47:11):
Is there anything else you'd like to
share with listeners today?
Jerome Harste (47:15):
No, I'm just wishing I hope. I hope what I
said makes some sense. And
Lindsay Persohn (47:20):
what you've said, We'll stick with me
forever, I think that this issuch an important conversation.
And I think it's such animportant moment in education
for teachers to hear a messageof hope and possibility because
I think that in so many places,you know, education really is a
kind of a dreary space, but itdoesn't have to be like that.
Jerome Harste (47:40):
No, I know, I'm gonna send you this little
PowerPoint of theseillustrations that I talked
about in the beginning. I'mhoping that will help sorted by
that if that sort of got toomuddled.
Lindsay Persohn (47:54):
Absolutely. And we will post that to your guests
page, so listeners can find itthere. Jerry, I just want to
thank you so much for your timetoday. Thank you for sharing
your ideas. So thank you, andthank you for your tremendous
contributions to the world ofeducation.
Jerome Harste (48:09):
It has been my pleasure. So nice meeting you.
And good luck with yourpodcasting.
Lindsay Persohn (48:15):
Thank you so much. Dr. Jerome C. Harste, he
is best known for his workexploring young children's
written language literacy,learning, connecting arts and
literacies and criticalliteracies. As the educational
researcher he studied what youngchildren knew about reading and
writing prior to going toschool, the status of reading
(48:36):
comprehension instruction in theUnited States, and how reading,
writing and art support thelearning process. together with
a group of teachers fromIndianapolis, he started a
public school called the Centerfor Inquiry. The curriculum of
that school features processreading and writing children's
literature, multiple ways ofknowing, inquiry based education
(48:57):
and critical literacy. TheCenter for Inquiry is now in its
30th year of operation inIndianapolis now hosts for such
schools covering kindergarten toeighth grade with plans to open
a high school in the future. Foran overview of his professional
writings See, researchingliterate lives the Select
writings of Jerome Harste whichwas published by Rutledge in
(49:17):
2021. The third edition ofteaching children's literature,
it's critical, co authored withdoctors Christine Leland and
Mitzi Lewisohn was just releasedby Rutledge publishers in 2023.
As a literacy educator, hisexpanded view of what it meant
to be literate went far beyondtraditional notions of reading
and writing to include visualliteracy and more generally
(49:39):
semiotics or the study of howcultural groups learn to mean
for his research and work inschools. He was inducted into
the reading Hall of Fame, giventhe James Squire paradigm
shifters award from the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English
the Oscar Causey readingresearch award from the literacy
Research Association and theDavid Russell research Award for
(50:00):
his work in the language artsfrom the National Council for
Teachers of English. He servedin leadership roles for the
National Council of Teachers ofEnglish international Reading
Association, AmericanEducational Research
Association, literacy ResearchAssociation, United Kingdom
Reading Association, wholelanguage umbrella center for the
expansion of language andthinking and the National
(50:22):
Conference on reading inlanguage and literacy. He's
earned the coveted GormanTeaching Award from the School
of Education and the FrederickBachman Teaching Award from
Indiana University. Dr. Harsteretired from Indiana University
as a distinguished professor,where he held the Armstrong
chair in teacher education. Heis currently a member of the
(50:43):
alliance of distinguishedprofessors at IU. Since his
retirement in 2006. He haspursued art a lifelong passion
by taking workshops and coursesfrom some of the best watercolor
artists in the nation. Fromthese artists, he learned how to
take risks, push boundaries andunderstand the importance of
composition, color, pattern anddesign. More and more. He's
(51:05):
become a firm advocate of JacobJohn's advice to artists do
something then do something tothat something and soon you'll
have something. Dr. Harste iscurrently a signature member of
the Bloomington watercolorsociety, the watercolor Society
of Indiana, the Hoosier salonand the Missouri watercolor
society. He regularly shows hiswork at the emeritus house on
(51:29):
Iuse campus, the William HMiller Fine Art Studio in Myrtle
Beach, South Carolina, and hashad solo shows at Meadow wood
retirement home and the Walterand Art Center in Bloomington,
Indiana. Because his paintingsdeal with the issue of literacy.
His work has been featured onthe covers of seven professional
books, as well as severalprofessional journals, including
(51:52):
language arts, Journal oflanguage and literacy,
education, literacy practice andresearch and California English.
He was a featured watercolorartist in January 2019 and
December 2020, and bluemagazine. He currently teaches
graduate courses at Mount SaintVincent University in Canada.
You can connect with Jerry onFacebook at Harste as artist or
(52:16):
online at Jerome harste.com.
That's JEROMEH A R S T E dot c oFM. For the good of all students
classroom caffeine aims toenergize education research and
practice. If this show providesyou with things to think about,
don't keep it a secret.
(52:39):
Subscribe, like and review thispodcast through your preferred
podcast provider. I also inviteyou to connect with the show
through our website at WWW dotclassroom caffeine.com where you
can learn more about each guest.
Find transcripts for manyepisodes, explore episode topics
using our tagging feature,support podcast research through
(53:03):
our survey, request an episodetopic or a potential guest or
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show. You could also leave us avoice message or a text message
at 1-941-212-0949. We would loveto hear from you. As always, I
(53:23):
raised my mug to you 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 to help. In each episode Italk with a top education
researcher or an expert educatorabout what they have learned
(00:31):
from years of research andexperiences.
In this episode, Dr. JeromeHarste talks to us about writing
in early childhood, the inherentsocial risks in writing sketch
to stretch writing, arts basedways of communicating kids as
curricular informants, teachersas intellectuals and
(00:53):
philosophers and schools asspaces of possibility. Dr.
Harste is best known for hiswork exploring young children's
written language literacy,learning, connecting arts and
literacies and criticalliteracies. As a literacy
educator, his expanded view ofwhat it meant to be literate
went far beyond traditionalnotions of reading and writing
(01:13):
to include visual literacy, andmore generally, semiotics. Jerry
is also a celebrated artistworking mainly in watercolors.
He's published over 200 articlesin refereed journals, and won
many awards for his research andteaching. Notably, he was
inducted into the reading Hallof Fame, given the James Squire
paradigm shifters award from theNational Council of Teachers of
(01:36):
English, the Oscar Causeyreading research award from the
literacy Research Associationand the David Russell Research
Award for his work in thelanguage arts from the National
Council teachers of English. Healso earned the coveted Gorman
Teaching Award from the Schoolof Education and the Frederick
Bachman Teaching Award fromIndiana University. Before
(01:57):
retirement, he was an elementaryteacher in Monticello, Minnesota
and the Peace Corps, a collegeprofessor for nearly 50 years at
Indiana University and aneducational researcher, Dr.
Jerome C. Harste retired fromIndiana University as a
distinguished professor, wherehe held the Armstrong chair and
teacher education. He currentlyteaches graduate courses at
Mount Saint Vincent Universityin Canada, you can connect with
Jerry on Facebook at RST asartists or online at Jerome
(02:28):
hartse.com. That's J EROMEHA r st e.com. For more information
about our guests, stay tuned tothe end of this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink. And join me your host
Lindsay Persohn. For classroomcaffeine research to energize
(02:51):
your teaching practice. Jerry,thank you for joining me.
Welcome to the show.
Jerome Harste (02:56):
Well, thank you.
It's great to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (02:58):
So from your own experiences in education,
will you share with us one ortwo moments that inform your
thinking now?
Jerome Harste (03:07):
Oh, It'd be my pleasure. One of the most
formidable experiences that Ihad was a research project,
looking at what young childrenages 345. And six knew about
reading and writing prior togoing to school. And I must say
that study went over a 10 yearperiod. But it was really mind
(03:31):
blowing. For me, I learned somuch. What causes it was I had
kids of my own. And I was verysurprised with my son's language
development. I mean, I hadstudied language development in
college, but that my son wasdoing things that look way ahead
(03:53):
of when the kids were normallysupposed to do things. Plus he
was doing really interestingthings that I had never even
read about. So when I had mysecond child, my wife and I
decided that we would use her asa case study. So we began to
(04:14):
collect data from the verymoment that she was born
essentially, until she went tofirst grade. And meanwhile, we
had gotten funded from thefederal government to look at
little kids are languagedevelopment. And I always
remember we were looking at fouryear olds. In one study, and we
(04:39):
had a preschool that wasinternational that is there was
a lot of students that had cometo IU from different countries.
And we had collected the writingdata from the kids. We've given
them a sheet of paper, and thenwe took a sheet of paper and we
said we want you to write sostory and you write on your
(05:02):
sheet of paper, and we'll writeon our sheet of paper, and then
we'll share our stories. And thelittle four year olds, of
course, didn't really produce astory, but they produced
markings of what their storieslook like. And the Dawn was a
little four year old from theUnited States. And her
scribbles, you know, look likescribbles. But they really look
(05:25):
like American scribbles when youcompare to to najiba, who was
from Saudi Arabia, and hadwritten her scribbles sort of in
Arabic, and her scribbles looksort of Arabic, she gave me the
sheet of paper, and she said,Here's my writing, but you can't
read it, because I wrote it inArabic. And in Arabic, we use a
(05:46):
lot more dots than we do inEnglish. And then we had a
little guy from Israel. And hisgrandmother was there when we
were collecting the writingsample. And his grandmother
watched him create this text.
And it looked sort of Hebrewish. And he wrote it backwards.
And she said, I see it looks, hewrote, but it's written in the
(06:09):
wrong direction. And uncertaintywas very interesting, because
when you compare those threewriting samples, they really
look like the cultures fromwhich the kids came from. And
that was very mind blowing,because we had always before
thought that children learnedoral language, but they had to
(06:31):
be taught written language. Andthis data really suggested that
long before schooling, kids werevery actively attune to
language. And by the time theygot to be six years old, they
knew quite a bit about writtenlanguage, without having any
direct formal instruction. Sothat really, that study led us
(06:54):
to looking at what three yearolds knew, four year olds knew,
five year olds knew, and sixyear olds knew. And it was sort
of incredible. I'm going toinclude as sort of notes along
with this podcast, some picturesthat show you the three writing
(07:14):
samples that we got from thosechildren. Another kid that
really sort of amazed me wasanother four year old, and her
name was Michelle. And we askedher to write her name and
anything else that she couldwrite. And she wrote down, sort
of my shell sort of making in amthat look like an M Y, I don't
(07:35):
know, then an A and then E. Thenbelow that, she sort of kept
going, she wrote a sort of anupside down J, another y a. And
then she kept after that, in herthird line, she wrote n a n n.
And so when she was done withthat, we said, Oh, can you read
(07:59):
what you written, and she wrote,michelle that's my name. She
said, Jay, that's my father'sname. And Nancy, that's my
mother's name. And then shepicked up the pen. And she drew
a sort of a rough circle aroundit, and said, and together, they
say, Meijer, which was herfamily name. And again, we were
(08:21):
just sort of blown away with thefact that not only did she have
some letter soundcorrespondence, but you already
sort of understood set theorythat together, those formed sort
of their surnames, and I'll alsoinclude a little writing example
of Michelle in the notes, sothat you can see, as kids, a
(08:45):
five year old, and a six yearold, of course, were much more
sophisticated. And one of thethings that amazed us and got us
interested, was as kids gotolder, they use more and more
inventive spelling. And we inactual fact, could read their
writing, even though it wasn'tnecessarily parsed in a
(09:08):
conventional sort of way. But Iremember this little girl wrote
once upon a time, and she wroteit sort of as one conceptual
unit. And it was veryinteresting, because once upon a
time sort of signals to you thatthis is not a statement about
reality, but it's a imaginaryworld. And in some ways, the
(09:31):
once upon a time, while thewords function as words, they
really together is how theyfunction in stories to really
indicate to the listener thatthis is make believe story. And
it's interesting that there arelanguages like German that do
(09:53):
include long sorts of phrasesthat put together and function
In a very different way thanEnglish. So kids seem to almost
be redeveloping rediscoveringhow language works for
themselves. And then as theyinteract with their own culture,
they begin to sort of limit thehypothesis that are operating
(10:17):
and are much more active thanyou would think. So at any rate,
those experiences were extremelyinfluential in terms of my
thinking, as they were writing,they would oftentimes work hard
into their writing, they wouldsort of move freely from written
language to art without sort ofa break in terms of what they
(10:42):
were trying to communicate.
Another example that reallyinfluenced me that I collected
from my daughter, she had had atelephone conversation with a
friend, and they were going toget together after church to
play ballerina. And when shehung up the phone, she went to
(11:03):
her room, and she grabbed asheet of paper, and she drew a
little bow ribbon for hair alittle tutu, and little ballet
slippers, and then her dresser,and then she put a plus sign,
and then she drew sort of gearribbons, and the tutu and
slippers, plus a bag, indicatingthat her friend Jennifer was
(11:28):
going to be bringing her balletmaterial in a bag and she had
her stuff in a dresser. Andafter church, they're gonna play
ballerina then she put herinitials up A H for Alison
Harste and J. T for JenniferTucker. And I always looked at
that sheet of paper that she haddrawn and when gal we would do
(11:53):
well, to be able to summarizeour experiences as succinctly as
she did, even though she wasonly five years old. And her
freedom to move between art andlanguage was something we had
seen with other children. But Ithink it really sort of called
attention to how arbitrary weare, in terms of talking about
(12:20):
language as if it's the onlycommunication system that is
used when liddle kids veryfreely, we're moving between art
and language and mathematics torepresent the world and doing so
very effectively. So it wasthose experiences with young
children that really, I mean,forced me to rethink what I
(12:45):
thought I knew about children'slanguage development. I always
remember one of the teachersonce one after I had been
talking about what little kidscould do, sent me this picture
that a little kindergartener haddrawn, and she had drawn a book.
(13:06):
And then she had drawn a littlefinger inside the book, and she
wrote on there, I'm into books,once I get into them, I can't
get out. And it was just such awonderful little illustration,
because it's sort of I think themessage was extremely powerful.
And that with the little drawingof herself inside a book, it
(13:30):
really had a visual impact. AndI thought, well, how clever
these kids are, in terms oftheir ability to communicate
what they're thinking about bybeing able to freely move across
different science systems, fromlanguage, to art, to almost
drama. With little three yearolds, we were giving them
(13:53):
different pieces of objects,like spools of thread, sometimes
we give them little blocks, andwe ask them to pick out things
that they want to do. They wereall sort of nondescript things,
and tell us a story. And then weasked them to write their story
down. And it was fascinating tome, because the the three year
(14:17):
old, they use the thing, the theblock is a rabbit, for example.
And then they would say, and therabbit went hopping across the
meadow, and on the piece ofpaper, they just sort of made
little tiny marks that youwouldn't know what the story was
from the marks that they made.
But underneath they actually,when you listen to the story,
(14:41):
they actually had a characterthey actually the character had
some sort of problem. There wasa resolution they really sort of
had an understanding of thebasic structure of a story even
though the surface structurethat was produced didn't look
like it Anything traditional, Soat any rate, it was those kinds
(15:02):
of experiences that reallyinfluenced I think my thinking.
Lindsay Persohn (15:10):
So Jerry, as you're telling those stories,
I'm really struck by howlimiting writing is in so many
schools. You know, your examplesshowcase the fact that young
children before they are broughtinto formalized school settings,
are able to move betweendifferent types of symbols and
(15:31):
different ways of conveying themeaning that is in their minds.
And I'm just really struck bythe way that I think in schools,
we teach writing in a way thatlimits their ability to
communicate and limits theirability to convey a story. It's
almost as if we take away someof those inherent or seemingly
(15:53):
inherent tools that youngchildren bring to the writing
experience. Do you think that'sfair to say?
Jerome Harste (15:58):
Yeah, I really do. I think, in fact, you put
your finger on lots of things.
One of my favorite littlestories really happened in
Vivian Vasquez's classroom, thislittle kid came up, and she,
they were supposed to have awriting period. And, you know,
sometimes I think as teachers,we look at the kid's drawing as
(16:20):
sort of deviation or strategythat the kid is using to sort of
avoid the curriculum that wewant them to engage in. And this
little kids said to Vivian, butMiss Vasquez, if I can draw, I
can't write. And I think there'ssomething really powerful about
(16:40):
that. There's lots of ways toget into writing. And I think by
providing a variety of resourcesfor the kid, the key can choose
his or her own path intowriting. And for lots of kids, I
think they have to draw in orderto be able to write, and I think
we're so keen on sort of cuttingoff that dimension of their
(17:05):
knowing that we do them adisservice. You know, one of the
things that I kept dealing withis, what does all of this mean,
in terms of our teaching, andworking with kids? And how will
we create curriculum? And Ithink one of the things I would
say is that you need to reallyuse the child as your curricular
(17:29):
informant, I think, so often, weget sort of curriculum push down
on us from some administrator orsome government agency. And the
assumption seems to be thatwe're supposed to somehow
blindly carry that curriculumout in the classroom. Well, for
example, when I when we finishedour work with these studies of
(17:54):
what young kids knew, it seemedto me that the whole primary
curriculum was ratherridiculous. We were teaching
kids letter A and letter B dayand letter C day. And our data
really suggested that kids knewall of that stuff already. I
mean, we were teaching themthings that kids already knew. I
(18:17):
mean, kids knew the names ofcolors, they could write the
names of colors and inventedspelling. They knew squares and
rectangles and triangles, theyknew circles. It seemed like
everything about the wholekindergarten curriculum was
really built on the assumptionthat kids came into school, not
(18:41):
knowing a bloody thing, and thatwe had to teach them everything.
And I think, what we learned orone of the things we learned
there, as we have to build ourcurriculum with kids from what
kids already know, rather thanjust teach things, because it's
something that we logicallythought we should need to teach.
(19:06):
I think before we teach, wereally need to have some
evidence that the kid needs thiskind of information. I'm a
Lindsay Persohn (19:17):
former kindergarten teacher. And now
this was close to 20 years agothat I started on that
adventure, but I can definitelysee what you're saying, playing
out in a classroom, the toolsthat we attempt to or purport to
give to young children to helpthem communicate. It seems to me
that in so many ways, we'reactually limiting what they
(19:38):
already know or telling themthat their their inherent ways
of communicating aren't right oraren't standard enough. As you
were talking, I kept thinkingabout the child as a curricular
informant and also thinkingabout, you know how some
curricular programs might feelvery ridiculous to young
(19:59):
children. If their way ofcommunicating is actually much
more effective than what we aretrying to teach them.
Jerome Harste (20:08):
Yeah, one of the things we did is we started
this, this notion of moving toart was very fascinating. And so
one of the things we developwith a strategy called sketched
a stretch, where we read a bookto the kids, and then we asked
them to sketch what they thoughtthe book meant to draw a little
(20:28):
picture. And just having themmove to art was very
informative, because they oftenwere able to capture elements of
what the story meant better thanif you just asked them to retell
it in their own words. And partof that made me do because they
(20:51):
you heard the story because youread it, but they know you've
heard it too. So I think some ofwhat they know, they don't tell
you because of the context inwhich we retold it. Well, I one
of my favorite little exampleswe were reading, I read sleeps
over, it's the story about twolittle boys. And they they
(21:13):
decide to have a sleepover andthe bigger sister just harasses
the little one was saying what'she going to say when you get to
sleep with a teddy bear and, andthen when he goes over for the
sleepover, they're telling ghoststories. And the friend says
stop, and he goes to his dresserand he pulls out his teddy bear
(21:34):
to take with him to bed. Andit's a great little story. And
we have a fourth grader, we hadread that book in a fourth grade
class. And we asked him to do asketch to strech and draw a
sketch of what the story meantto him. And he drew sort of the
two kids in the bedroom, tellingstories, but then up in the
(21:56):
corner, he drew a little boyplus a teddy bear plus, and then
he had another little boy plus ateddy bear. And then he had
equals and two little boys. Andwe asked him what did that say.
And he said, It says a littleboy plus his teddy bear plus
another boy plus his teddy bearequals two good friends. And in
(22:17):
somehow, that little sketch, hecaptured more about what that
story was about. And itssignificance. That was sort of
just beyond anything that hecould have said about that
story. In terms of language, itwas very interesting. But I'll
send different little drawingsto people's see some of these
(22:39):
illustrations themselves andtake a closer look at that.
Lindsay Persohn (22:43):
Great, thank you for that, Jerry, that little
portrait you paint for us aroundIris leaps over, you know, I
think if we asked fourth gradersto write a story about
friendship for us, it wouldactually be much more difficult
to write in that that effectivekind of way, if we did just
limit to words. And so you'vegot me reconsidering kind of
(23:06):
everything we do around how weask kids to convey meaning. And
particularly, I think wheneverwe ask them to convey these
complex ideas, you know, writingI think is challenging writing
is challenging for me as anadult. And I think part of it is
because you have to be mindfulof things like word choice and
sentence construction, and thatlinear format of writing, where
(23:29):
I must lay out these ideas in away that I believe convey what
what I want to say, but alsosomething that's going to make
sense to someone else. And sothis idea of thinking flexibly
in how we tell or how we shareour ideas,
Jerome Harste (23:45):
or you know, I think one of the other problems
with writing and oral reading isthat in both instances, the
language user is veryvulnerable, because you can see
every mistake that they made orhear every mistake. And I think
one of the things that you gotto really be very careful about
(24:06):
is glomming on to all thosemistakes, because you've been,
it's much easier to intimidate alanguage learner than it is to
support one. And I think youneed to be very careful about
how you go about responding tochildren. Because I think you
can, you can set yourself backvery rapidly, by just the wrong
(24:29):
saying the wrong thing too. Inorder to learn language, you
really have to take a lot ofrisk. And it's kids a bit
willingness to take those risks.
That is why we get surprisedwith what they're able to do
when we actually take the timeto look carefully at what it is
they are doing. They areconstantly taking risk. If you
(24:49):
do start playing it too safely.
You can't. You can't continue togrow. You need be in an
environment where you feel freeto take those kinds of risks. I
guess in some ways, I should saya little bit more about
curriculum, I think most of usthink about curriculum, that
(25:14):
document that gets handed downto us from some authority,
either it's an administrator, orit could be from a State
Department, or it could be froma book company in terms of how
to use materials. But it's thiswritten statement of what kids
are supposed to accomplish. Andunfortunately, most of those
(25:41):
documents are written by peoplewho rarely come in contact with
children. And I think that's aproblem right there. But then I
think the second part ofcurriculum to understand is this
curriculum that gets enacted,that is, after you've read those
documents, and you've set upyour context, you as a teacher,
(26:04):
try to implement that in yourclassroom. And that curriculum
could be very different from thefirst curriculum or from that
paper curriculum that you got,because it's going to get
implemented very differently inthe hands of different teachers.
That third curriculum is thecurriculum that happens in the
(26:24):
head of the language learner asthese engage. And I think of all
of those curriculums, it iswhat's happening in the head of
the language learner. Thatreally is what you need to keep
your eye on as a teacher, thatmental trip that kids are
taking, is the real curriculum.
And it's what you need to keepyour eye on to in terms of
(26:49):
deciding what next to do well,how next to support somebody in
their language learning. One ofthe things about this sketch to
stretch also, that was veryinformative. I had a student
about mural, I suppose fiveyears ago, who worked with
special ed children, and she gotinterested in sketch to stretch.
(27:11):
And so in terms of her readingprogram, rather than having them
do retailing, she had them dosketch to stretches. And it was
interesting because the writtenretellings or the oral
retellings, were very weak forthese students. In fact, you
(27:31):
would say they flunked. But whenthey did sketch the stretches,
almost every one of them wasable to capture the essence of
what the story was really about.
So I think we've got to startexploring different kinds of
alternatives. I mean, that'svery good evidence that what's
(27:53):
going on in the mind is a lotmore than what we thought they
were if we only look at one sortof measurement of what's going
on. It's why I think you need touse the child is your curricular
informant. But it's also why Ithink you really have to build
your curriculum. Based on thatinformation from the child.
Lindsay Persohn (28:18):
Jerry, there just a couple of I what I think
are really critical points thatI want to just draw attention to
here, you mentioned that riskand language learning. And I
think it's so important toacknowledge that, but as you
were describing it, I was alsothinking back to what you said
earlier with supports, and youknow, how we help to maybe
(28:39):
minimize that risk whilechildren are learning language.
And it seems to me that in somany instances, we immediately
take away really crucialsupports. And by way of doing
that we're actually increasingthat risk for learners. So
rather than giving them ways toconvey meaning, that are not
(28:59):
only maybe more comfortable forthem, and potentially contain
more meaning than written word,we immediately say, no, no, we
don't, we don't want you to usethat you can only use words on a
page, which as I said, I thinkjust inherently increases the
risk and learning language. Theother the other connection, I
made it, this idea of curriculumin the head. And I think that so
(29:21):
often, that is a concept that'sreally underutilized in
classrooms, we are always soconcerned with the products of
what children produce, we oftenoverlook the actual process of
getting there. And again, Ithink those supports we talked
about drawing, you knows sketchto stretch, even, you know,
sometimes talking about ideasbefore we write them. When we
(29:44):
take those away. We are actuallytaking away some of our windows
into that curriculum in thehead, at least in my mind, and
in my experience, that sort ofwhat that amounts to.
Jerome Harste (29:55):
I think you're absolutely right. One of the
things that I find quitefrustrating These days is
background experience, you know,you can talk about background
experience, but teachers willsay, Well, I take into account
background, you know, everyteacher says they take into
account background experience,that concept has become what
(30:17):
what in semiotics would becalled over coded, it's just
sort of a term now, that doesn'thave any real teeth to it
anymore. And I think backgroundand knowledge is really, in some
ways, as a result of kidwatching, and I, you know, and I
think we miss the biggerpicture. So I agree with you,
(30:38):
100%, I think we'd startlimiting what resources the kid
has available. I mean, gets thesketch to stretch also with that
whole process is of taking onefrom what you know, in one area
and, and producing it in anotherarea is called Trans mediation.
(30:58):
And trans mediation reallyworks, you know, you could have
kids read a story and thenrepresent what it means in
playdough, you could have themmake a drama, you could add them
relate to music, but I thinkyour what you what you're
getting at is some deeper kindof understanding of what it
(31:19):
means. And I think that, youknow, I often try to work with
kids and get them to understandthat they haven't really read
something until they've had aconversation with someone about
it. I think too often, in ourschools, and in reading, in
particular, we're dealing andwriting, we're dealing with the
(31:43):
surface structure, rather thanthe deep structure. I mean, I
think, you know, kids have gotto have a lots of opportunities
to write that, you know, ifyou're going to be a writer, you
have to have said somethingdifferent than what other
writers have said. I mean, whatmakes you a writer is saying
(32:04):
something in your own voice in away that hasn't been said
before. And I think we've, weget so hung up with the spelling
and the grammar, that we fail toreally use writing as a vehicle
for organizing our thinking, andfor expressing our deepest sorts
(32:26):
of thoughts. I just think wework too much on the surface
structure, rather than the deepstructure of, of both reading
and writing.
Lindsay Persohn (32:36):
Well, I think in my experience, I, I believe
that part of the reason whywe've turned to the more
superficial structures, isbecause it's really difficult to
measure and assess and gradethose deeper structures,
particularly without a lot ofdeep training, and, you know,
knowledge of the subject as wellas some experience.
Jerome Harste (32:59):
It's also I think, the case that a lot of
the people developing thoseadministrative curriculums, they
they reduce everything intothose simple little terms. Do
you know what I mean? They break
Lindsay Persohn (33:13):
check boxes and, and grading scales. Yes,
yes. Agreed. I totally agreewith you, Jerry.
Jerome Harste (33:20):
So in some ways teachers, You know, this is the
probably the hardest concept toget across. But you got to be a
philosopher, before you can be ateacher, you really have to
think about what kind of worlddo I want to create? And what
kind of people do I want to havepopulated? Now, once you decided
(33:42):
what kind of people you want tocreate, and what kind of people
the world would do well to have,then I think it's a matter of
setting up your classroom tosupport those kids living that
particular experience. But youdo have to be a father, a bit of
a philosopher, you do have totake responsibility for looking
(34:05):
at the bigger picture. Andthat's what really bothers me
about the way senators andpeople talk about the teaching
profession. I mean, teachersneed to really be intellectual
professionals, in a sense, theyreally do have a huge
responsibility to think aboutwhat kind of people do we want
(34:28):
to create? And how can we getabout creating those in our
classroom? I think, you know,it's living that model with the
kids on a daily basis that keepsyou growing. I mean, you will
find yourself all of a suddensaying things like, Oh, God, I
don't really want to be thatkind of person. Why did I say
(34:48):
that? Well, that's wonderful,because that forces you to
rethink how you're going to dosomething and how you're going
to interact. And it's having asense of this bigger picture.
Sure, I think that's extremelyimportant did not sort of lose
sight of by focusing on all theminutia and the details that are
(35:12):
often what specified by people.
Lindsay Persohn (35:16):
Yeah, I think you're so right. I think you're
right on with that, Jerry. Andwe're, we're a little off script
here. But I want to be sure togive you an opportunity to
answer directly to the secondquestion. What do you want
listeners to know about yourwork? Or maybe more
appropriately? At this point?
What else do you want listenersto know about your work?
Jerome Harste (35:38):
Well I'd say, use the child as your curricular
informant, I think somehow thatrelationship that you have with
children, and thatunderstanding, I also think you
have to constantly realize thatthose kids that aren't
(35:59):
performing and you got to keepasking yourself, why the kids
who aren't performing aren'tmeeting the standards that have
been set up. And sometimes Ithink it's helpful to say to
yourself, what would school haveto be like in order for this kid
(36:21):
to be success? And then I thinkwhat that leads to is you begin
to see, what does that childcurrently know and what
currently interests them? Andhow could you build from that
particular point, I've workedwith a group of teachers up in
Indianapolis, and we started aCenter for Inquiry as a school,
(36:46):
we got permission from theboard, I was based around
inquiry based learning. And wetook our best ideas, and that
was going to be the curriculumfor the school. Yet we got kids
in there who weren't doing well.
And we would use those kids asour professional development, we
each would try to make anobservation of what the kid was
(37:07):
doing in particular locations.
And then we talked about that.
And then we hypothesized, well,what could we do to make him
successful, that was some of thebest professional development
that I've ever been involved in.
Since we were testing our besthypotheses. And they weren't
(37:28):
working, it was really anopportunity to sort of outgrow
ourselves. And not only were weable to create a curriculum
where those kids started toachieve, but we really became
much smarter about the wholeprocess of education. But I
think it again, leads to payingreally close attention to your
(37:50):
learner. And then understandingthat somebody has set up the
standards that we're supposed tobe reaching. And those standards
aren't given by God, they'regiven by humans, and they're
going to reward certain people,and they're going to jeopardize
other people. And if you changethose, somebody else might look
(38:12):
better. But you're also going tojeopardize another set. There's
no, there's no right answer tothat. But I think we do have to
question what it is that wevalue and and what are we
teaching for? And who does thateliminate in that process? I
mean, I think we need to be muchmore cognizant about and not
(38:34):
just accept that, what this whatthe government wants us to
teach. If there is a nondebatable entity, I think we
really have to question what itis we're about up and down the
line. And I think that's part ofbeing a professional to it isn't
just toeing the line all thetime.
Lindsay Persohn (38:56):
What incredible words of wisdom and I think
advice for for anyone who mightbe feeling a little bit stuck.
You know, I think that teachersalso often feel very boxed in by
curriculum by the standards. ButI think taking this critical
mindset and also this questionyou give us is, what would
(39:17):
school have to be like for thestudent to be successful? To me,
that just fills me with a lot ofhope for what things could be
those kind of imagined futuresor imagining a circumstances
that we could design in order tohelp students be successful,
rather than them hearing thatthese standards set by someone
(39:38):
you don't know who's never metyou before who's decided that
this is the thing we're going tovalue there. I think there's
just a lot of empowerment inthinking differently about how
we can support students toreally discover their strengths,
to find their voice in the worldand to exercise that kind of
power to help them become whothey want to be and to really
(39:58):
live up to their potential. So Iso appreciate that question. And
that kind of frame for thinkingabout possibilities in schools,
particularly I think, would welive in a day and age when
schools are unfortunately filledwith a lot of impossibility?
Jerome Harste (40:13):
Yeah, I agree. I, you know, your third question
that you given the challenges oftoday's educational climate,
what message? Do you wantteachers to hear? God, I thought
about that a long time I tellyou here is what I think I often
think, God, if I were teachingthese days, how long would it be
(40:36):
before I got fired? It's a verydifficult environment as for
teachers at the current time,but here's what I advise the
teachers I work with up in, I'mworking with a group of teachers
right now in Canada. And whileCanada, it doesn't have all of
the constraints that the USsystem has, for the most part,
(40:59):
they have the benchmarks, butteachers are still sort of
permitted to reach those benchmarks in any way that they
professionally think, is thebest way. Now that's changing a
little is getting morerestrictive. But here's what I
tell teachers, I think it'simportant for you to understand
(41:22):
very thoroughly what it is thestate is expecting of you. And
be very articulate about that.
So that if somebody questionsyou, you know, bloody well what
it is that's being asked of youto teach. And then I think the
second part of that is you needto know, and be very articulate
(41:44):
about how you want to go aboutteaching that, and how that's
going to more than meet theparticular standards that the
curriculum has laid out howyou're going to go not only
reach those standards, but whythat's so much more important in
(42:04):
terms of the students you'reteaching, and how that's going
to get them to go far beyondwhat even was expected of them.
I think if you're articulate,about both of those fronts, then
you've got a chance at beingable to make the kind of
curricular decisions I think youhave to make in order to be
(42:28):
effective. I would also add oneother thing. I think teachers
should practice that with eachother practice as if somebody is
an administrator asking them,why are you doing this and, and
then practice responding. Ithink if they're prepared, it's
much more likely that you'regoing to get to do what you want
(42:51):
to do.
Lindsay Persohn (42:54):
That's great advice. And I think that idea of
rehearsing responses to criticalquestions, it does have the
potential to put teachers in adifferent position when it comes
to being questioned about theirdecisions in their classroom.
And, you know, I truly believe Iwant to believe that everyone
(43:14):
who has a stake in educationreally has children's best
interests at heart. And I thinkthat quite often the way to
achieve those goals ismisunderstood, or perhaps the
picture is incomplete. But Iwould like to believe that
everyone wants what's best forchildren. But I think this
concept of you know, and thissort of tangible idea of talking
(43:36):
with our colleagues about how weexplain or in some instances,
even defend our professionaldecision making, there's so much
power in that, right. I thinkthat that that's a really
critical conversation. It also Ithink, has the potential to help
us to grow in not just thoseskills of our own personal or
professional advocacy, but alsoto hear what are others doing
(43:59):
that's really working well forthem? Or how are they thinking
about giving those gifts back tostudents, those gifts of things
like conveying your ideasthrough drawing or through
claymation, or throughdramatization or perhaps even
music? Any kind of flexiblethinking, I think once once we
have conversations about thosethings with colleagues, it
(44:19):
continues to open uppossibilities for us, and
hopefully, can sort of stopthat, that sort of stealing of
possibilities that I think ishappening in all too many
spaces. And maybe that's asimplistic way to think about
it. But I think that in kind ofan immediate sense. That's one
way that we can exercise thatpersonal and professional power.
Jerome Harste (44:41):
Yeah, and I think here its also what keeps
teaching alive and why we'reteachers. I mean, we keep
growing as as we try new things.
I think we find that, you know,it keeps an edge on learning. I
think one of the things when youask kids to use art to respond.
I think it's different than whatnormally has been going on. And
(45:04):
there's something about theprovocative-ness of an
invitation that allows kids tosort of reach for the stars in a
way. I think, oftentimes whenyou ask kids to draw something
in older grades, okay, like, oh,I can't draw, do the very best
(45:26):
you can. But I think there'ssomething about provocative in
that invitation that really,oftentimes you get much more
than you expected. And I thinkit puts an edge to learning, but
it puts a heads on the kidslearning, like your own
learning, too. And I thinkthat's equally important as a
professional to keep reflectingon what's happening and to
(45:50):
continue to grow.
Lindsay Persohn (45:54):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think
that so often in schools, wetalk about meeting expectations,
whereas what I think you and Iare talking about here is really
exceeding expectations, right,and I to be there, there's a lot
of hope, for possibility and fora brighter future of education,
if we can keep those ideas inmind if we can avoid the
(46:17):
limiting thoughts, the limitingbehaviors, and instead identify
opportunities and ourchallenges. And so I just, I
really appreciate that message.
And I appreciate you also givingus some really tangible ways to
get started on imaginingpossibilities.
Jerome Harste (46:34):
Yeah, and I would say, make it fun. I mean,
learning is fun.
Lindsay Persohn (46:38):
It should be right. I mean, I think that's
how we maximize again, that'show we exceed expectations is
whenever learning is anenjoyable experience.
Jerome Harste (46:46):
You know, bring in books that you really love
and share with them. Make surethat kids are having fun, and
you don't need to apologize forkids having fun. I think we just
need to make schooling a joyousactivity for everybody.
Lindsay Persohn (47:06):
What a different world we might live in
huh Jerry.
Jerome Harste (47:09):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Lindsay Persohn (47:11):
Is there anything else you'd like to
share with listeners today?
Jerome Harste (47:15):
No, I'm just wishing I hope. I hope what I
said makes some sense. And
Lindsay Persohn (47:20):
what you've said, We'll stick with me
forever, I think that this issuch an important conversation.
And I think it's such animportant moment in education
for teachers to hear a messageof hope and possibility because
I think that in so many places,you know, education really is a
kind of a dreary space, but itdoesn't have to be like that.
Jerome Harste (47:40):
No, I know, I'm gonna send you this little
PowerPoint of theseillustrations that I talked
about in the beginning. I'mhoping that will help sorted by
that if that sort of got toomuddled.
Lindsay Persohn (47:54):
Absolutely. And we will post that to your guests
page, so listeners can find itthere. Jerry, I just want to
thank you so much for your timetoday. Thank you for sharing
your ideas. So thank you, andthank you for your tremendous
contributions to the world ofeducation.
Jerome Harste (48:09):
It has been my pleasure. So nice meeting you.
And good luck with yourpodcasting.
Lindsay Persohn (48:15):
Thank you so much. Dr. Jerome C. Harste, he
is best known for his workexploring young children's
written language literacy,learning, connecting arts and
literacies and criticalliteracies. As the educational
researcher he studied what youngchildren knew about reading and
writing prior to going toschool, the status of reading
(48:36):
comprehension instruction in theUnited States, and how reading,
writing and art support thelearning process. together with
a group of teachers fromIndianapolis, he started a
public school called the Centerfor Inquiry. The curriculum of
that school features processreading and writing children's
literature, multiple ways ofknowing, inquiry based education
(48:57):
and critical literacy. TheCenter for Inquiry is now in its
30th year of operation inIndianapolis now hosts for such
schools covering kindergarten toeighth grade with plans to open
a high school in the future. Foran overview of his professional
writings See, researchingliterate lives the Select
writings of Jerome Harste whichwas published by Rutledge in
(49:17):
2021. The third edition ofteaching children's literature,
it's critical, co authored withdoctors Christine Leland and
Mitzi Lewisohn was just releasedby Rutledge publishers in 2023.
As a literacy educator, hisexpanded view of what it meant
to be literate went far beyondtraditional notions of reading
and writing to include visualliteracy and more generally
(49:39):
semiotics or the study of howcultural groups learn to mean
for his research and work inschools. He was inducted into
the reading Hall of Fame, giventhe James Squire paradigm
shifters award from the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English
the Oscar Causey readingresearch award from the literacy
Research Association and theDavid Russell research Award for
(50:00):
his work in the language artsfrom the National Council for
Teachers of English. He servedin leadership roles for the
National Council of Teachers ofEnglish international Reading
Association, AmericanEducational Research
Association, literacy ResearchAssociation, United Kingdom
Reading Association, wholelanguage umbrella center for the
expansion of language andthinking and the National
(50:22):
Conference on reading inlanguage and literacy. He's
earned the coveted GormanTeaching Award from the School
of Education and the FrederickBachman Teaching Award from
Indiana University. Dr. Harsteretired from Indiana University
as a distinguished professor,where he held the Armstrong
chair in teacher education. Heis currently a member of the
(50:43):
alliance of distinguishedprofessors at IU. Since his
retirement in 2006. He haspursued art a lifelong passion
by taking workshops and coursesfrom some of the best watercolor
artists in the nation. Fromthese artists, he learned how to
take risks, push boundaries andunderstand the importance of
composition, color, pattern anddesign. More and more. He's
(51:05):
become a firm advocate of JacobJohn's advice to artists do
something then do something tothat something and soon you'll
have something. Dr. Harste iscurrently a signature member of
the Bloomington watercolorsociety, the watercolor Society
of Indiana, the Hoosier salonand the Missouri watercolor
society. He regularly shows hiswork at the emeritus house on
(51:29):
Iuse campus, the William HMiller Fine Art Studio in Myrtle
Beach, South Carolina, and hashad solo shows at Meadow wood
retirement home and the Walterand Art Center in Bloomington,
Indiana. Because his paintingsdeal with the issue of literacy.
His work has been featured onthe covers of seven professional
books, as well as severalprofessional journals, including
(51:52):
language arts, Journal oflanguage and literacy,
education, literacy practice andresearch and California English.
He was a featured watercolorartist in January 2019 and
December 2020, and bluemagazine. He currently teaches
graduate courses at Mount SaintVincent University in Canada.
You can connect with Jerry onFacebook at Harste as artist or
(52:16):
online at Jerome harste.com.
That's JEROMEH A R S T E dot c oFM. For the good of all students
classroom caffeine aims toenergize education research and
practice. If this show providesyou with things to think about,
don't keep it a secret.
(52:39):
Subscribe, like and review thispodcast through your preferred
podcast provider. I also inviteyou to connect with the show
through our website at WWW dotclassroom caffeine.com where you
can learn more about each guest.
Find transcripts for manyepisodes, explore episode topics
using our tagging feature,support podcast research through
(53:03):
our survey, request an episodetopic or a potential guest or
share your own questions that wemight respond to through the
show. You could also leave us avoice message or a text message
at 1-941-212-0949. We would loveto hear from you. As always, I
(53:23):
raised my mug to you teachers.
Thanks for joining me
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