August 8, 2023 • 39 mins
Dr. Robert Petrone talks to us about reconsidering structures of schools, valuing the expertise of young people, and how he learned about these ideas in a seemingly unlikely place, the skatepark. Dr. Petrone is known for his interdisciplinary work, particularly as he examines the cultural production of ideas of “age,” “youth” and “adolescence,” explores youth cultural, learning, and literacy practices beyond school contexts, and collaborates with educators to build curricula that repositions youth as educational experts. Dr. Robert Petrone is Associate Professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum at the University of Missouri. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, Aug 8). A conversation with Robert Petone (Season 4, No. 2) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/767A-06CA-FC45-6FB5-20E8-N
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
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Lindsay Persohn (00:00):
In education research has a problem. The work
(00:15):
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers. Classroom caffeine is
here to help. In each episode, Italk with the top education
researcher or expert educatorabout what they have learned
from their research andexperiences. In this episode,
(00:37):
Dr. Robert Petrone talks to usabout reconsidering structures
of schools, valuing theexpertise of young people and
how he learned about these ideasin a seemingly unlikely place.
The skatepark Dr. Petrone isknown for his interdisciplinary
work, particularly as heexamines the cultural production
of ideas of age, youth andadolescence, explores youth
(01:01):
cultural learning and literacypractices beyond school contexts
and collaborates with educatorsto build curricula that
repositions youth as educationalexperts, Dr. Robert Petrone, is
an associate professor in theDepartment of learning, teaching
and curriculum at the Universityof Missouri. For more
information about our guest,stay tuned to the end of this
(01:24):
episode. So pour a cup of yourfavorite drink. And join me your
host, Lindsay Persohn. Forclassroom caffeine research to
energize your teaching practice.
Robert, thank you for joiningme. Welcome to the show.
Robert Petrone (01:41):
Thank you, Lindsay, for having me. I'm
really excited to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (01:43):
We're excited to have you. So from your own
experiences and education, willyou share with us one or two
moments that inform yourthinking now,
Robert Petrone (01:53):
actually really hard. Because there's so many
moments, but there are two thatreally stuck out to me. So a lot
of my research takes place inschools with teachers and
students, but also out ofschools with youth, particularly
youth who are marginalized byschools kicked out of schools
(02:16):
dropping out of schools labeledat risk, what have you. And my
book that's coming out is aboutskateboarders and a skateboard
park that I studied and reallyspent a lot of time with. And
one of the things that happenedthere that really changed me as
a researcher and an educator,was paying attention to how
learning was structured at theskate park. And one of the
(02:36):
things that really opened me upis the way that age function
that the skatepark, right, so Icame into that space coming from
schooling. And I never thoughtabout the fact that in schools,
we segregate kids by age. Youknow, when we think of
segregation, we often thinkabout it in terms of race, and
(02:57):
gender. And of course, there'sclass segregation, that sort of
de facto, but it's rare that wetalk about the ways that schools
segregate kids by age. And so Iwasn't thinking of that, you
know, when I went to the park,but as soon as I stepped into
the park, I started seeing 14year olds side by side with
seven year olds, side by sidewith 21 year olds and 30 year
(03:18):
olds. And this was normalpractice. So the first thing I
had was I had this surprise,like, oh, wait a minute, age
operates differently here. Andso I really started to pay
attention to that. And what Istarted to notice is that
because there were differentages, and because there were
different ability groups, youknow, oftentimes associated with
those ages, but not always,there were different
(03:40):
opportunities for theskateboarders to be different
kinds of people in that space,sometimes simultaneously, right.
So at once a 14 year old couldbe a learner, he could be
watching the 21 year old, right,the more advanced skater and
could be a teacher to the sevenyear old that sort of became
something that not only that Istart paying attention to, but
(04:01):
the skateboarders themselvestalked about as one of the most
important parts of theirexperience, right? So on the one
hand, it opened up opportunitiesto be simultaneously mentor and
mentee, right. But it reallyopened up a sense of
contribution that these kids whoare studying, they didn't feel
like they had anything tocontribute in schools, that
(04:22):
schools just weren't structuredin a way that they're sort of
funds of knowledge, they're sortof skills, their areas of
expertise had space for, infact, they were told quite the
opposite. And there had labelsto sort of prove that so to
speak. But at the park, theyfelt like they had something of
real value to contribute to thebetterment of others. And this
(04:43):
was really powerful, powerful onan emotional level. And suddenly
that sort of developed into asense of responsibility that I
have to show up to the parkbecause I'm important there.
It's not just about my ownlearning and edification, this
isn't about helping othersequal. And one of the things I
chart in the book are theseemotional connections that get
(05:06):
developed because of the crossage grouping. So I sort of frame
this as mostly young men who Istudy. And I frame this around
this notion of little and bigbrothers. That's the language
that they use to describe theway that age affords new
opportunities to be inrelationship with each other
both as learners, but also asjust, you know, humans who are
(05:28):
in connection with each other.
So that was a watershed moment.
For me, it flew in the face ofeverything I had learned about
adolescence, adolescentdevelopment, it was all about
these intergenerationaldynamics. It was all about just
being peers, not by age, but byparticipation in a cultural
practice. And so it just thatsort of opened me up. And then
(05:52):
what I did with that, and thisis the second moment, I know,
I'm already talking a lot here.
But the second moment was, I wasworking with pre service
teachers. And they were comingto me with all these questions
about classroom management,about building curriculum. And
at the same time, I'm workingwith the skateboarders seeing
all this stuff that's happening.
And these are the kids like theguys in the skate park with the
(06:14):
kids. My pre service teacherswere like, what do we do with
these kids? Right? And I kept onnoting how these kids were such
experts, they had expertise,right. And so what I did is I
started bringing those kids andivinting them, I should say, to
go into the teacher ed space toteach future teachers, right.
And this literally started witha future teacher saying, how do
(06:35):
we do classroom management? AndI was like, well, let's bring in
the experts, right? And so Ibrought in a panel of the
skateboarders to talk to theteachers about how do you do
classroom management, right. Andof course, it was all the things
that we know, it's aboutrelationship. It's about
respect. It's about trust. It'sall those kinds of relational
(06:55):
moves that teachers can make, tobuild rapport with students to
build security with students.
And so I started doing thisthing. Of course, this isn't,
this is built on the work ofpeople like Ernest Morel, and
lots of other folks who'veinspired my own thinking. And so
I started doing this thing Icall a repositioning pedagogy,
right, where I bring youth intoteacher education, as
(07:16):
consultants, paid consultants,and experts to teach future
teachers about any number ofthings. That was my second
moment. And I could get intospecifics on that. But But the
second moment, is really justwatching this process unfold
this, this sort of exchangebetween pre service teachers
and, and the young peoplethemselves. And because it's
(07:36):
shifted notion of who's expert,who has expertise, who has
contributions to make, and itbroke down categories of
representation, and who getsauthorized as expert and those
kinds of things. And there'slots of iterations I've done in
the past. And that one, too, issort of linked to the first one.
But that's a second moment whereI'm like, wow, there's some
(07:57):
magic in here, if we just breakdown these, these sort of
barriers between teachers andstudents, and allow them to
talk, and to sort of thinkthrough these hierarchies of
relating to one another, and whohas expertise and authority.
Lindsay Persohn (08:13):
Thank you so much for sharing that, Robert.
And as I'm listening, so manythoughts go through my mind, but
maybe one of the loudest is, whydoes this seem so?
Groundbreaking? Right? Right.
Why does this seem to just sortof blow our minds when what
you're really talking about? isasking kids, right? Like, what,
why in the world of education,would that be such an impactful
(08:35):
moment, but I can telleverything that you've said, you
know, watching the relationshipsbetween, you know, skateboarders
of different ages, bringing themin to talk with your pre service
teachers, all of this stuffseems it just seems to be so
impactful, and so incrediblyuseful. Why aren't we doing
these things?
Robert Petrone (08:57):
Yeah, I mean, in some ways, it feels so basic,
right? Oh, common sensical,right.
Lindsay Persohn (09:02):
It really lets what I said I just wrapping your
head around it. Like, why isthis a groundbreaking moment
when it seems like it's what weshould be doing all along?
Robert Petrone (09:11):
I had the same experience when I read Louis
smalls Funds of Knowledge piece,where I'm like, Okay, we should
we should learn what studentscultural funds of knowledge are.
It's like, My mind is blown bythis. And I'm like, how is that?
Like, how did we get here whereI'm sort of blown away that we
should pay attention tostudents, cultural expertise,
and whatnot. And for me, I thinkit I think one of the main
(09:32):
contributing factors as to whythat's the case, is because
we're so steeped indevelopmentalist ideology, and
there's a lot of sort ofpositive things that can be
emergent from that. But I thinkon the negative side of that is
developmentalism, castes,children and youth as not yet
adults. It's a residualunderstanding of of young people
(09:54):
that is there not yet complete,and so it establishes
immediately a high hierarchy ofauthority of expertise of
knowledge holders. I mean, inits worst iteration adolescence
gets pathologized. It gets seenas this disability, it gets seen
as disease. You know, there'sthis New Yorker cartoon I
reference all the time where youhave this medical doctor sitting
(10:17):
with with a mom, and then thatmoms adolescent child, and that
the tagline says, We're reallysorry, but so far, medical
science hasn't come up with acure yet for adolescents. Right?
So these are our dominantcultural scripts. How and why
would a schooling system think,to imagine that that demographic
(10:38):
has anything to offer? If theseare the ways that we're making
sense of those people, and Idon't mean to, like, throw
developmentalism under the busin this way. But I just am
saying that we need tocomplexify the discourse and the
theoretical ways reframingchildren and youth.
Lindsay Persohn (10:55):
Right, right, because we're so locked into
that thinking that, you know,it's like we can't see around
it, we can't see another way.
And the other thing that I wasthinking, as you were talking,
Robert, is just theindustrialization and that model
of schooling, and how, you know,we have to standardize things,
because that makes it easy tomeasure. And that makes it easy
to put in, you know,spreadsheets and templates. And
when you're talking about,particularly the way you're
(11:18):
speaking about multi agelearning, and the sort of near
peer kind of learning, it's notcut and dry, right? It's not
simple. It's not grade levelprogressions that we are so used
to working within in schools.
It's almost like our systemsdon't know how to handle this
kind of thinking. And so I thinkthat's another reason why we've,
(11:40):
in some ways, kind of missed theforest for the tree, so to
speak, because we're so lockedinto, well, it's the way we've
always done things, you know, Imean, how many times do you hear
that in school? So it's justyeah, I think you've pointed out
some really fundamental waysthat we can shift our thinking
around what young people have tooffer.
Robert Petrone (11:57):
Yeah, can I just add to little to please. So
there's some research, BarbaraRogoff is a cultural
psychologist, she talks aboutit, but she's drawing on some
other folks in the book that Igot this from his cultural
nature of human development. Butshe references this research
that looks at children and youthin same age groupings, and cross
age groupings. And what theycame to realize is that same age
(12:20):
groupings, that youth are morecompetitive with each other, and
cross age groupings, youth aremore more cooperative with each
other. And so I just think Ijust want to put that out there,
right, that there's, so you canstart to think of the
contradictions that start tohappen in schooling spaces,
where we segregate kids by age,which we know breeds
competition, and then we askthem to get into working groups
(12:42):
and work with each other andcollaborate with each other.
Like, it's almost like these twothings are in tension with each
other. It's a setup. Exactly,exactly. And it's important to
recognize, too, that this sortof same age grouping is not
normal. This is not likeuniversally, like a normative
experience, particularly if youthink about indigenous
communities. If you think about,you know, this is this is a
(13:04):
colonial construct at the at aglobal level, and a settler
colonial construct here in theUnited States. And we could go
deep into that as to why that'sthe case and how that's the
case. But you know, it seversinto an intergenerational
reality. It severs knowledgesystems, it severs educational
systems, when you start at thissort of age segregation. And
(13:25):
again, that's like a wholenother podcast, right? The
second thing I want you to sayis some other research. And I
just love this study. One of thethings is that I think, when we
start talking about cross agepotentials, right, some pushback
I always get is something like,Well, what do you want to just
go back to the one roomschoolhouse or something like
that? And I'm like, well, notnecessarily, but you know, how
(13:46):
can we think imaginativelyabout, about this. And the other
thing that the concern that getsraised is that well, the younger
kids are going to benefit, theolder kids aren't. And so I
always want to point to this onestudy that I love where, and I
could get this for you for yournotes or whatever, but like, but
it was a it was a group of itwas teachers who worked with
ninth graders who werestruggling readers, right. So
(14:08):
think about ninth graders whoare labeled struggling readers.
And I'm doing that in airquotes. I know our audience
won't see that. But I'mdeliberately making that an
artifice. And so you think abouthow they feel about themselves.
You know, they've been throughschool for 910 years as
struggling readers, right? Andinstead of them kind of being
framed as deficit, or, you know,in all the ways that we know at
(14:29):
risk, struggling readers can beframed, the teacher said, you're
going to be a reading tutor. Forthird graders, who were
similarly labeled as usestruggling. What kinds of assets
and experiences and knowledge doninth grade, quote unquote,
struggling readers have, thatcan be shared with third graders
(14:49):
is a totally differentintervention point, then what's
wrong with struggling readerswho are ninth graders, right? So
so this study paired up theseninth graders as to tutors for
the third grade where the ninthgraders had to build curriculum.
They had to get in there andwork with the third graders.
Well, lo and behold, the thirdgraders, quantitative scores
went up, their qualitativemeasures of self efficacy went
(15:11):
up. But so did the ninthgraders. And they far surpassed
this, this sort of measures,both qualitatively and
quantitatively, they are typicalfor intervention for ninth grade
readers. Right. So just, I'llsay simple, but just a basic
pairing like that could havemassive implications.
Lindsay Persohn (15:29):
Yeah, if we could just again, see something
different, you know, and thenI'm also struck by the pushback
that you get what a one roomschoolhouse, when I think what
you're talking about issomething we have actually yet
to envision. It's notnecessarily moving backwards in
time, right. But instead, itsounds a lot like a flexible
(15:49):
pairings about really meetingkids where they are as
individuals, not necessarilyharkening back to an old model.
I think we're talking aboutsomething pretty innovative
here. pretty new. Yeah. SoRobert, what do you want
listeners to know about yourwork?
Robert Petrone (16:06):
So I think it connects, I think all of these
things connect, it'shistorically been problematic
and still can be veryproblematic. But I really love
ethnography, you know, as aresearch or critical
ethnography, I should say that'sreally attending to power
dynamics and representation. Butwhat I love about ethnography
more than a methodology is forme, ethnography is a sort of way
(16:27):
of being in the world. Andethnographers, you know,
typically go out and studyculture, they study groups of
people, and they try to makesense. So how are these people
making meaning in their lives?
And again, it's it's can be avery fraught process. But I
think for me, the, the realtakeaway of of ethnography is,
how do I become an ethnographer?
(16:47):
In my day to day life, right?
How do I, how do I becomecurious about the logic people
are operating from from themeans and motivations as Jabari
Mahiri, he's has one of hisarticles that young people are
utilizing in their lives. Right?
So how do I sort of take that onand get curious and ask a lot of
(17:08):
questions? What's anethnographic pedagogy? Like, how
do I take on this sensibility ofbeing really inquisitive and
suspending judgment and tryingto get to know students and sort
of logic of their lives? And Ithink it's twofold. I think it's
paying attention to the studentsand, and youth and children and
things like that. But it's alsopaying attention to ourselves,
(17:30):
and the ways that, that we canmake better sense of the filters
that we're using to make senseof our students, or the
assumptions that we have. So Ithink, I think really good
ethnography kind of works bothways, where the first is to sort
of make sense of folks in yoursphere. And the other is to
become more aware of yourself.
So I'll just give a concreteexample, for me. And in the
(17:50):
skate park. With age, let's sayI was I found myself surprised
that I found myself surprisedthat this was a cross age
grouping, I found myselfsurprised that all these young
men who I had known in theschooling context, were acting
with such care and sense ofresponsibility, right? So I had
to start asking myself, why wasI surprised? Why was I surprised
(18:11):
that a group of young men mightbe acting really cooperatively
with each other? Why was Isurprised that age variation
really facilitates learning,right? Those get at my
assumptions, those surprises aresort of entry. So So I think for
me, one of the takeaways isokay, let's better pay attention
(18:32):
to the meaning making that ourstudents are doing in their
lives, outside and inside ofschools. And let's make better
sense of the sort of assumptionsand filters that we're using as
adults, right, our own adultism, as teachers, how are we
making? Meaning? What are thefilters we're using to see and
(18:52):
to make sense of our students?
Right? So those would be sort ofsome key takeaways. And then I
want to say one or two. Oneother thing. I think, for me,
the skatepark, and the guys atthe skate park really helped me
to understand that thisdiscourse, you know, I worked a
lot with pre service teachers atthe time, and still, and there's
(19:12):
a real discourse around lifelonglearners, right? Like, I want my
students to be lifelonglearners. And what I came to
understand is, the guys at thepark are already lifelong
learners. Right? They theyexisted as lifelong learners
long before they stepped footinto my class. And in some ways,
I felt like what was happeningfor these guys, and this is not
(19:35):
to blame teachers, right? Thisis we're talking about
structures of schooling. Theschools were interfering in
their lifelong learning, right?
And so, so I want to shift thatdiscourse around Lifelong
Learning specifically, like Iwant to imagine students as
already lifelong learners. Myreally close colleague, Vaughn
Watson has this concept. Hetalks about the already present,
(19:57):
right how How can we becomeaware of what's already present
from a literacy perspective inour students lives? And so I
want, like, what would it belike if we started curriculum
from the assumption that ourstudents are already lifelong
learners? Right? And then thesecond, I just needed my sort of
bones to pick. The second one isthis concept of gifted and
(20:18):
talented, right, I really sawthat, like, I would frame the
guys at the park is gifted andtalented, right there gifted and
talented-ness was contextspecific, right? So we have to
be thinking in schooling contextof what counts is gifted and
talented. What counts is atrisk, like these labels, these
categories have real impact onkids, for better and worse, and,
(20:39):
and so it's a recalibration ofhow we're making sense of these
kinds of concepts. And so it'sreally paying attention to our
language, our discourse is thatthe sort of assumptions we're
bringing to bear stuff likethat, and assumptions of school,
not just us as individuals, butassumptions of schooling process
of assessment, right, we canstart to ask those same
questions about all these levelsthat impact what can happen in
(21:03):
classroom,
Lindsay Persohn (21:06):
these are such great questions that I hope we
can keep close to us. You know,as as we think about the young
people we interact with, whetherthey are elementary age
students, or adolescents oryoung adults, you know, whoever
we may be teaching, I think thatit is so important to approach
those structures with a reallycritical lens to ask, what are
(21:26):
the affordances potentialaffordances that we're missing
here, because of the way thatwe've always done things or, you
know, the colored glasses wemight be wearing, that just
really, really, I think,critical things for us to ask
ourselves. And I think sometimesthe, the nuance of those
questions is a little bitdifferent for each of us, right,
depending upon who we're workingwith, and sort of where we come
(21:47):
from, and our own personalbackgrounds. And I'd also say
they're the structures we workwithin, I think that also might
change the questions a bit, too.
Yeah.
Robert Petrone (21:55):
Can I just I just want to say so, it's not
quite a disclaimer, but it's, Ialways want to be really mindful
that this sort of critiques thatI'm levying, are at the
structural level, not at theindividual teacher level,
because I'm worried that thesort of in there's so much
teacher bashing, there's so muchbeating up on teachers, there's,
you know, oftentimes, we'rescapegoats, you know, former
(22:18):
high school English teacher, andI think that this, what I'm
talking about here, isn't leviedat like, you know, the, I mean,
yes, individual teachers, weneed to be paying attention to
the artist, but like, where theycome from is really important,
and how are the structures ofschooling, and policies and
whatnot, shaping these kinds ofassumptions? You know, what
(22:40):
assumptions are those structuresmaking, and my hope is that it
can empower teachers, yes, to dosome introspection, but also to
do some, like, externalizing ofthe systems that are helping to
produce these very, you know,deficit discourses of youth,
let's say,
Lindsay Persohn (22:56):
well, and I think I think, for me, along
that I really appreciate thatclarification, because you're
absolutely right, you know,teachers, they get an awful lot
of critique and, and pushback asit is. But I think, for me, one
way that I'm thinking about thatis questioning the school
structures that I grew upwithin. So you know, what was it
(23:18):
like, whenever I was a kid, andhas anything changed? How has
anything changed? Or, you know,how do we better support every
individual, you know, throughthose structures? So I think
that's a that's a greatclarification. I appreciate
that. And I another question Ihad for you, as you were telling
us your story, Robert, is theskate park a new place for you?
Or is this someplace that you'vealways spent time?
Robert Petrone (23:39):
Yeah, that's usually the first question I
get. Yeah. No, it was a newplace. For me. It was. I mean, I
write about this in the book. Imean, I my cousin was a big
skateboarder when I was inmiddle school. And he got me to
try and I was flipped on myback. And I was like, you know,
what I got to just try harder toget make the basketball team is
what I need to do. You know, Imean, the skate park emerged
briefly with no prior interestin skateboarding, it wasn't like
(24:02):
I was drawn to skateboarding.
What I was interested in is, Iwas interested in young men at
the secondary level, who werebeing pushed out, dropping out
of school, who, who were havinga hard time in school, we kind
of and who were listed a labelthat risk and what I was
interested in, is this sort ofnormal intervention point for,
quote, unquote, at risk youthis, what's what are they doing
(24:25):
wrong? How do we support them?
And you know, like, and what Iwanted to do is I want to have a
different starting point, I wantthem to start with what are they
doing right? Where are theyreally succeeding? Where are
they thriving and excelling? AndI had this great well, there's a
several quotes you know, in thebook from participants and from
(24:47):
others, like musicians now whotalk about the ways that music
or cultural practice youthculture, sort of open them up to
expertise. And so what I wantedto do is I had this group of
guys you know, from the study Ihad done in the classroom, and
they were all hanging out at thepark. And so I was really
informed at the time byscholarship that was talking
about that literacy exists inlots of places, not just school.
(25:11):
And so I was like, Hey, can Ihang out here with you guys? And
and then I got turned on tolearning specifically because I
was so taken, by the way thatlearning was structured in the
social arrangements, becausethese is a rural community,
these are working class, youngman, Latino, and white. So there
was this race class, you know,gender dynamics, place dynamics.
And I was like, How is this alllike, what's happening here? And
(25:33):
how are you all reallydeveloping identity and cultural
capital and all that kind ofstuff. So that that's how I got
to the point and then had tostart skateboarding as part of
that. And so I was like, Man, I,if I break, if I break my wrist,
I'm going to write this thing.
And I was like, so no, I didn'tgo there with any inherent
interest in skateboarding. But Icame out with this sort of sense
of madness, the gifted andtalented group of kids, and an
(25:54):
impressive learning ecology thathas been generated that in that
space that we can learn a lotfrom in schools, frankly.
Lindsay Persohn (26:04):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. And I think thatquestion you just gave us what
are they doing? Right? I thinkthat that is a great question
for reframing, you know, and forworking to get closer to an
asset based mindset, becauseyou're right, I think so often
in schools, we are looking to dosome sort of diagnosis, right?
Like, what is wrong here? Andhow can we then fix it, rather
than really approaching youngpeople by saying, what are they
(26:28):
already doing really? Well? Whatare they experts in? Because
you're right, I mean, we do havethe sort of cultural
situatedness of young peoplewhere, you know, they're all a
little, you know, they're kindof half baked, they don't really
know what's going on yet. But inmy experience, I think it's
actually, you know, we'retelling the wrong story, right,
we're telling the wrong storyabout them, young people have so
(26:49):
much to offer, I think there'sso much more observant in the
world than we give them creditfor I think they have ways and
ideas about how we can reallychange some of the biggest
problems in the world. Butunfortunately, so many of our
structures do silence theirvoices, rather than giving them
a real platform to to informchange, and to make changes
(27:10):
themselves.
Robert Petrone (27:12):
So I think about, you know, curriculum, for
example, like how wouldcurriculum be different? If that
was our orienting start, right?
Like, what are the kids in myclass already doing really well?
How do I help them do thatbetter? Right? And all the
standards and stuff out all getssort of woven into that? And not
only what would the curriculumlook like differently, but what
(27:33):
would the student experience ofthe curriculum be different? How
would the teachers experience ofthat curriculum? What if the
measure of a successfulcurriculum was how much the
teacher learned? You know, Imean, think about that as a as a
different way to start thedevelopment of a curriculum. How
can I learn from these students?
(27:53):
As part of it like that, it'sjust totally different way of
approaching
Lindsay Persohn (27:56):
it sounds like a very interesting world to
potentially live in, right? Youknow, were the teacher becomes
the student in so manyinstances, and, and I think
that's when we arrive atsomething that looks like true
facilitation of learning, ratherthan the sort of top down
approach of, you know, I knowall the things and I'm going to
impart knowledge, we are goingto impart knowledge on you
(28:17):
collectively. Yeah, it soundslike a world I'd love to live
in.
Robert Petrone (28:21):
I think I think the students would, too, or more
and more. So you
Lindsay Persohn (28:25):
know, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So giventhe challenges of today's
educational climate, whatmessage do you want teachers to
hear?
Robert Petrone (28:32):
And I think this ties back to the disclaimer kind
of moment, just a few minutesago. And an age is a tough
moment right now, to be ateacher. I mean, I don't think
it's ever been easy, but it'snever felt this challenging and
fraught before in my career. AndI started in 95, you know, and
so I just want to acknowledgethat, like, I mean, I was
(28:52):
reading an article today about ateacher in Florida, who is on
like, suspended or maybe gottenfired, I can't recall that
detail for showing a Disney filmwith a gay character. And I
just, it's just, you know,through surveillance, the sort
of the censorship, the selfcensorship that I'm certain is
going on, and I don't blame someteachers for it right. It's just
(29:13):
it's a it's a real panicked andparent paranoid, you know, kind
of culture we're in right now.
And so it's really just want tosay that and, you know, the
first thing, the message I wantto share is actually not for
teachers, but foradministrators. Right, and, and
maybe policymakers though, Ihold out more that maybe
administrators can be a lever ofchange in a more direct sense
right now immediately, but Ihave a collaborative
(29:36):
relationship with a communityand native community. And I work
with an alternative school andhave been in relationship for
seven years and the school isdoing amazing things there. And
one of the main reasons why theschool has been able to do so
many amazing things is becausethe administrator has really
done an amazing job of being anintermediary between sort of
policy legislation In and theteachers and students, and it's
(30:00):
an alternative school. Sothere's maybe a little bit more
leeway. But I really put the puta charge out to administrators
to think of ways to supportteachers to be able to do all
the, you know, and to be thekinds of teachers who we know
from research that that make themost effective learning
environment for studentsautonomy, right? Collaboration,
(30:22):
sense of that their trusted.
sense of agency, right? Like,how can how can administrators
really support teachers createspace for them? And I don't know
exactly what that looks like,I'm not an administrator. Right?
But but that's the charge or Howcan teachers maybe get in the
(30:42):
ear their administrative, maybeit's too dangerous to do that.
But But, but I think that's thefirst message is just like, we
have to think about thisstructurally, right, we have to
move away from from like, youknow, the individual teachers
gonna bring down the system. Andthis has to be a systemic
structural approach here. And Ithink administrators are way
more poised to do some of thatthan teachers. And then, of
course, policymakers and stufflike, you know, the folks in
(31:05):
those, those places. And thenfor teachers, you know, I, when
I moved from, I'm from New York,right? So I grew up in and
around New York City. And Imoved to Montana, and I lived
there for eight years, which isa very rural place. And, and so
I have a book on rural ifthere's any rural listen to
English teachers out there, I'vegot a book with my colleague,
Allison Wynhoff Olson, onteaching English and rural
(31:26):
communities, that's the title ofit. And, and we spent a lot of
time driving around Montana,interviewing English teachers,
and also writing with Englishteachers in the books, a lot of
curricular ideas and things likethat. But my point in all of
that is our last chapter in thatbook is all about how to support
rural teachers. And we talk alot about coalition building, we
(31:47):
talk right, like the field, thatteaching is so siloed, right?
We're in our own classrooms. Andfor rural teachers in
particular, you know,oftentimes, the one of only
that, you know, we have formerstudents who become rural to
English and be like me, like, doyou have curriculum coordinator?
So like, I'm the only Englishteacher within a 50 mile radius,
you know, I'm like, what? And soand so are there ways that that
(32:09):
we can really, that teachers canthink and we could support
teachers to be in coalitionbuilding, right? Because
individual teachers will getsingled out, right, a teacher
shows a film with a gaycharacter and is fired to How
can teachers come together tosort of support each other in
that structurallyinfrastructurally. And then the
second thing, and we talkedabout this in the in the book,
(32:30):
as well as self care, right, andthis, but this is unilaterally
for teachers, this is a, youknow, coming out of COVID. And
then all this legislation,that's, that's really
dehumanizing for students, and,and teachers, and quite frankly,
violence, you know, What canteachers do and help students do
to take care of themselves,right? psychologically,
(32:53):
emotionally, physically? And Howcan teachers come together to
create support networks, thatboth are sort of maybe more
agentive and sort of activistoriented, but also just think in
terms of self care and sort ofhealing and, and that stuff,
Lindsay Persohn (33:10):
I think you point out something that in my
mind is really important aboutself care, we hear a lot of you
know, about teachers taking careof themselves and those sorts of
things. In my mind, you know,that looks like what taking a
break from life, you know, isit? Is it going to a salon, is
it sitting by a pool, like whatis that, actually, but I think
that you hit on something, to methat is so much deeper that yes,
(33:33):
all those things I very muchenjoy. But I think that there's
this emotional self care, it'snot just about taking a pause.
But I think when you askprofessionals to do things they
don't believe in, they have nosay and, and they feel are
harmful to others. I mean, thatis a really, that is a deep,
deep problem that I think is sohard to navigate, it's hard to
(33:56):
navigate individually, it'scertainly hard to even navigate
as a group. But you know, like Isaid, I think that whenever we
hear self care, you know, ourmind might go to these sorts of
Pat examples of what relaxationmight look like. But what I
think you're talking about is somuch deeper than that. You know,
it's not just taking a break.
But it's understanding that wecan feel pretty traumatized
being asked to do things that weabsolutely don't believe in, or
(34:19):
that we believe are harmful tothe young people and the
families who are right in frontof us. And so I think that this
idea of building coalitions andbeing together in order to try
to navigate some of those reallydeep issues, I think it's a
place that we've we've got to beif we aren't already there.
Robert Petrone (34:39):
Yeah. And I think that you know, I'm in
Missouri right now, wherethere's a lot of anti LGBTQ
policies and whatnot. And I feellike, you know, it's especially
important to build the supportstructures for youth, children
and teachers who these policiesare specifically targeting.
Right and like, like, who isanti CRT A policy really
(35:01):
targeting right? And so it'sjust when you start layering in
gender, sexuality race, itbecomes even more imperative
that support self care,administer administrative
protection. To the extent thatthat's possible, is really
taking into consideration.
Lindsay Persohn (35:21):
Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that. Like I
said, I think we've got to movebeyond sort of Pat ideas of what
self care is and move intothings that are, you know, that
have the potential to impactthese really deeply rooted
challenges that I think yeah,exactly. systemic issues in our,
in our society. So I reallyappreciate that. Well, Robert, I
thank you so very much for yourtime today. I thank you for your
(35:44):
contributions to the field ofeducation. I think the work
you're doing is like you saidit, it shouldn't be revelatory.
It shouldn't be groundbreaking,but it certainly is. And so I
thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
Robert Petrone (35:54):
Yeah, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the
conversation and I hope peopleget something out of it. Thank
Lindsay Persohn (35:59):
you. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr.
Robert PETRONAS, research movesacross many domains, including
examination of the culturalproduction of ideas of age,
youth and adolescence,particularly as they are
manifested by and throughdiscourse, literary and media
(36:19):
text and policies, explorationof youth cultural learning and
literacy practices in contextsbeyond schools, specifically
skateboarding, and collaborationwith educators to build
curricula that critiques deficitrenderings of youth centers,
youth epistemologies, andrepositions youth as educational
experts methodologically, heemploys critical discourse
(36:43):
analysis, literary analysis,critical ethnography, and
participatory approaches.
Demographically, his work hasprimarily been in relation with
indigenous Latin X and whiteworking class and low SES male
youth in rural contexts.
Recently, his work has consistedof a long term participatory
research collaboration withstudents and staff of an
(37:06):
alternative high school on aNative American reservation. Dr.
Patrone scholarship has beenpublished in venues such as
Harvard educational review,educational researcher, Journal
of Adolescent research, Journalof literacy research, Journal of
adolescent and adult literacy,English education and teaching
(37:26):
and teacher education. Inaddition, Dr. PETRONAS co
authored two books rethinkingthe adolescent and adolescent
literacy with Sophia SargentETUs and mark a Lewis and
teaching English and ruralcommunities with Dr. Allison
wine, Hoff Olson. He also has asolo authored monograph that
will be published this summer byUniversity of Massachusetts
(37:49):
press entitled, dropping in whatskateboarders can teach us about
learning, schooling and youthdevelopment, which is a long
term ethnographic study thatexplores the learning literacy
and cultural practices of agroup of working class, Latino
and white rural skateboarders.
Dr. patroon serves as CO editorfor the international academic
journal English teaching,practice and critique co
(38:11):
director of the MissouriLanguage and Literacy Center,
and coordinator for the languageand literacies for social
transformation doctoral program.
Prior to joining University ofMissouri, Dr. patroon was a
faculty member at Montana StateUniversity and the University of
Nebraska Lincoln. He earnedgraduate degrees at Northern
(38:31):
Arizona University and MichiganState University and taught
middle school and high schoolEnglish and reading in New York
and Colorado. Dr. Robert patroonis an associate professor in the
Department of learning teachingand curriculum at the University
of Missouri. For the good of allstudents classroom caffeine aims
to energize education, researchand practice. If this show
(38:55):
provides you with things tothink about, help us spread the
word. Talk to your colleaguesand educate our friends about
what you hear. You can supportthe show by subscribing liking
and reviewing this podcastthrough your podcast provider.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, Facebook and
Twitter, on our website atclassroom caffeine.com You can
(39:16):
learn more about each guest findtranscripts of our episodes,
explore topics using our dropdown menu of tags, request an
episode topic or potential guestsupport our research through a
listener survey, or learn moreabout the research we are doing
on our publications page. Wewould love to hear from you. As
always, I raised my mug to youteachers. Thanks for joining me
In education research has a problem. The work
(00:15):
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers. Classroom caffeine is
here to help. In each episode, Italk with the top education
researcher or expert educatorabout what they have learned
from their research andexperiences. In this episode,
(00:37):
Dr. Robert Petrone talks to usabout reconsidering structures
of schools, valuing theexpertise of young people and
how he learned about these ideasin a seemingly unlikely place.
The skatepark Dr. Petrone isknown for his interdisciplinary
work, particularly as heexamines the cultural production
of ideas of age, youth andadolescence, explores youth
(01:01):
cultural learning and literacypractices beyond school contexts
and collaborates with educatorsto build curricula that
repositions youth as educationalexperts, Dr. Robert Petrone, is
an associate professor in theDepartment of learning, teaching
and curriculum at the Universityof Missouri. For more
information about our guest,stay tuned to the end of this
(01:24):
episode. So pour a cup of yourfavorite drink. And join me your
host, Lindsay Persohn. Forclassroom caffeine research to
energize your teaching practice.
Robert, thank you for joiningme. Welcome to the show.
Robert Petrone (01:41):
Thank you, Lindsay, for having me. I'm
really excited to be here.
Lindsay Persohn (01:43):
We're excited to have you. So from your own
experiences and education, willyou share with us one or two
moments that inform yourthinking now,
Robert Petrone (01:53):
actually really hard. Because there's so many
moments, but there are two thatreally stuck out to me. So a lot
of my research takes place inschools with teachers and
students, but also out ofschools with youth, particularly
youth who are marginalized byschools kicked out of schools
(02:16):
dropping out of schools labeledat risk, what have you. And my
book that's coming out is aboutskateboarders and a skateboard
park that I studied and reallyspent a lot of time with. And
one of the things that happenedthere that really changed me as
a researcher and an educator,was paying attention to how
learning was structured at theskate park. And one of the
(02:36):
things that really opened me upis the way that age function
that the skatepark, right, so Icame into that space coming from
schooling. And I never thoughtabout the fact that in schools,
we segregate kids by age. Youknow, when we think of
segregation, we often thinkabout it in terms of race, and
(02:57):
gender. And of course, there'sclass segregation, that sort of
de facto, but it's rare that wetalk about the ways that schools
segregate kids by age. And so Iwasn't thinking of that, you
know, when I went to the park,but as soon as I stepped into
the park, I started seeing 14year olds side by side with
seven year olds, side by sidewith 21 year olds and 30 year
(03:18):
olds. And this was normalpractice. So the first thing I
had was I had this surprise,like, oh, wait a minute, age
operates differently here. Andso I really started to pay
attention to that. And what Istarted to notice is that
because there were differentages, and because there were
different ability groups, youknow, oftentimes associated with
those ages, but not always,there were different
(03:40):
opportunities for theskateboarders to be different
kinds of people in that space,sometimes simultaneously, right.
So at once a 14 year old couldbe a learner, he could be
watching the 21 year old, right,the more advanced skater and
could be a teacher to the sevenyear old that sort of became
something that not only that Istart paying attention to, but
(04:01):
the skateboarders themselvestalked about as one of the most
important parts of theirexperience, right? So on the one
hand, it opened up opportunitiesto be simultaneously mentor and
mentee, right. But it reallyopened up a sense of
contribution that these kids whoare studying, they didn't feel
like they had anything tocontribute in schools, that
(04:22):
schools just weren't structuredin a way that they're sort of
funds of knowledge, they're sortof skills, their areas of
expertise had space for, infact, they were told quite the
opposite. And there had labelsto sort of prove that so to
speak. But at the park, theyfelt like they had something of
real value to contribute to thebetterment of others. And this
(04:43):
was really powerful, powerful onan emotional level. And suddenly
that sort of developed into asense of responsibility that I
have to show up to the parkbecause I'm important there.
It's not just about my ownlearning and edification, this
isn't about helping othersequal. And one of the things I
chart in the book are theseemotional connections that get
(05:06):
developed because of the crossage grouping. So I sort of frame
this as mostly young men who Istudy. And I frame this around
this notion of little and bigbrothers. That's the language
that they use to describe theway that age affords new
opportunities to be inrelationship with each other
both as learners, but also asjust, you know, humans who are
(05:28):
in connection with each other.
So that was a watershed moment.
For me, it flew in the face ofeverything I had learned about
adolescence, adolescentdevelopment, it was all about
these intergenerationaldynamics. It was all about just
being peers, not by age, but byparticipation in a cultural
practice. And so it just thatsort of opened me up. And then
(05:52):
what I did with that, and thisis the second moment, I know,
I'm already talking a lot here.
But the second moment was, I wasworking with pre service
teachers. And they were comingto me with all these questions
about classroom management,about building curriculum. And
at the same time, I'm workingwith the skateboarders seeing
all this stuff that's happening.
And these are the kids like theguys in the skate park with the
(06:14):
kids. My pre service teacherswere like, what do we do with
these kids? Right? And I kept onnoting how these kids were such
experts, they had expertise,right. And so what I did is I
started bringing those kids andivinting them, I should say, to
go into the teacher ed space toteach future teachers, right.
And this literally started witha future teacher saying, how do
(06:35):
we do classroom management? AndI was like, well, let's bring in
the experts, right? And so Ibrought in a panel of the
skateboarders to talk to theteachers about how do you do
classroom management, right. Andof course, it was all the things
that we know, it's aboutrelationship. It's about
respect. It's about trust. It'sall those kinds of relational
(06:55):
moves that teachers can make, tobuild rapport with students to
build security with students.
And so I started doing thisthing. Of course, this isn't,
this is built on the work ofpeople like Ernest Morel, and
lots of other folks who'veinspired my own thinking. And so
I started doing this thing Icall a repositioning pedagogy,
right, where I bring youth intoteacher education, as
(07:16):
consultants, paid consultants,and experts to teach future
teachers about any number ofthings. That was my second
moment. And I could get intospecifics on that. But But the
second moment, is really justwatching this process unfold
this, this sort of exchangebetween pre service teachers
and, and the young peoplethemselves. And because it's
(07:36):
shifted notion of who's expert,who has expertise, who has
contributions to make, and itbroke down categories of
representation, and who getsauthorized as expert and those
kinds of things. And there'slots of iterations I've done in
the past. And that one, too, issort of linked to the first one.
But that's a second moment whereI'm like, wow, there's some
(07:57):
magic in here, if we just breakdown these, these sort of
barriers between teachers andstudents, and allow them to
talk, and to sort of thinkthrough these hierarchies of
relating to one another, and whohas expertise and authority.
Lindsay Persohn (08:13):
Thank you so much for sharing that, Robert.
And as I'm listening, so manythoughts go through my mind, but
maybe one of the loudest is, whydoes this seem so?
Groundbreaking? Right? Right.
Why does this seem to just sortof blow our minds when what
you're really talking about? isasking kids, right? Like, what,
why in the world of education,would that be such an impactful
(08:35):
moment, but I can telleverything that you've said, you
know, watching the relationshipsbetween, you know, skateboarders
of different ages, bringing themin to talk with your pre service
teachers, all of this stuffseems it just seems to be so
impactful, and so incrediblyuseful. Why aren't we doing
these things?
Robert Petrone (08:57):
Yeah, I mean, in some ways, it feels so basic,
right? Oh, common sensical,right.
Lindsay Persohn (09:02):
It really lets what I said I just wrapping your
head around it. Like, why isthis a groundbreaking moment
when it seems like it's what weshould be doing all along?
Robert Petrone (09:11):
I had the same experience when I read Louis
smalls Funds of Knowledge piece,where I'm like, Okay, we should
we should learn what studentscultural funds of knowledge are.
It's like, My mind is blown bythis. And I'm like, how is that?
Like, how did we get here whereI'm sort of blown away that we
should pay attention tostudents, cultural expertise,
and whatnot. And for me, I thinkit I think one of the main
(09:32):
contributing factors as to whythat's the case, is because
we're so steeped indevelopmentalist ideology, and
there's a lot of sort ofpositive things that can be
emergent from that. But I thinkon the negative side of that is
developmentalism, castes,children and youth as not yet
adults. It's a residualunderstanding of of young people
(09:54):
that is there not yet complete,and so it establishes
immediately a high hierarchy ofauthority of expertise of
knowledge holders. I mean, inits worst iteration adolescence
gets pathologized. It gets seenas this disability, it gets seen
as disease. You know, there'sthis New Yorker cartoon I
reference all the time where youhave this medical doctor sitting
(10:17):
with with a mom, and then thatmoms adolescent child, and that
the tagline says, We're reallysorry, but so far, medical
science hasn't come up with acure yet for adolescents. Right?
So these are our dominantcultural scripts. How and why
would a schooling system think,to imagine that that demographic
(10:38):
has anything to offer? If theseare the ways that we're making
sense of those people, and Idon't mean to, like, throw
developmentalism under the busin this way. But I just am
saying that we need tocomplexify the discourse and the
theoretical ways reframingchildren and youth.
Lindsay Persohn (10:55):
Right, right, because we're so locked into
that thinking that, you know,it's like we can't see around
it, we can't see another way.
And the other thing that I wasthinking, as you were talking,
Robert, is just theindustrialization and that model
of schooling, and how, you know,we have to standardize things,
because that makes it easy tomeasure. And that makes it easy
to put in, you know,spreadsheets and templates. And
when you're talking about,particularly the way you're
(11:18):
speaking about multi agelearning, and the sort of near
peer kind of learning, it's notcut and dry, right? It's not
simple. It's not grade levelprogressions that we are so used
to working within in schools.
It's almost like our systemsdon't know how to handle this
kind of thinking. And so I thinkthat's another reason why we've,
(11:40):
in some ways, kind of missed theforest for the tree, so to
speak, because we're so lockedinto, well, it's the way we've
always done things, you know, Imean, how many times do you hear
that in school? So it's justyeah, I think you've pointed out
some really fundamental waysthat we can shift our thinking
around what young people have tooffer.
Robert Petrone (11:57):
Yeah, can I just add to little to please. So
there's some research, BarbaraRogoff is a cultural
psychologist, she talks aboutit, but she's drawing on some
other folks in the book that Igot this from his cultural
nature of human development. Butshe references this research
that looks at children and youthin same age groupings, and cross
age groupings. And what theycame to realize is that same age
(12:20):
groupings, that youth are morecompetitive with each other, and
cross age groupings, youth aremore more cooperative with each
other. And so I just think Ijust want to put that out there,
right, that there's, so you canstart to think of the
contradictions that start tohappen in schooling spaces,
where we segregate kids by age,which we know breeds
competition, and then we askthem to get into working groups
(12:42):
and work with each other andcollaborate with each other.
Like, it's almost like these twothings are in tension with each
other. It's a setup. Exactly,exactly. And it's important to
recognize, too, that this sortof same age grouping is not
normal. This is not likeuniversally, like a normative
experience, particularly if youthink about indigenous
communities. If you think about,you know, this is this is a
(13:04):
colonial construct at the at aglobal level, and a settler
colonial construct here in theUnited States. And we could go
deep into that as to why that'sthe case and how that's the
case. But you know, it seversinto an intergenerational
reality. It severs knowledgesystems, it severs educational
systems, when you start at thissort of age segregation. And
(13:25):
again, that's like a wholenother podcast, right? The
second thing I want you to sayis some other research. And I
just love this study. One of thethings is that I think, when we
start talking about cross agepotentials, right, some pushback
I always get is something like,Well, what do you want to just
go back to the one roomschoolhouse or something like
that? And I'm like, well, notnecessarily, but you know, how
(13:46):
can we think imaginativelyabout, about this. And the other
thing that the concern that getsraised is that well, the younger
kids are going to benefit, theolder kids aren't. And so I
always want to point to this onestudy that I love where, and I
could get this for you for yournotes or whatever, but like, but
it was a it was a group of itwas teachers who worked with
ninth graders who werestruggling readers, right. So
(14:08):
think about ninth graders whoare labeled struggling readers.
And I'm doing that in airquotes. I know our audience
won't see that. But I'mdeliberately making that an
artifice. And so you think abouthow they feel about themselves.
You know, they've been throughschool for 910 years as
struggling readers, right? Andinstead of them kind of being
framed as deficit, or, you know,in all the ways that we know at
(14:29):
risk, struggling readers can beframed, the teacher said, you're
going to be a reading tutor. Forthird graders, who were
similarly labeled as usestruggling. What kinds of assets
and experiences and knowledge doninth grade, quote unquote,
struggling readers have, thatcan be shared with third graders
(14:49):
is a totally differentintervention point, then what's
wrong with struggling readerswho are ninth graders, right? So
so this study paired up theseninth graders as to tutors for
the third grade where the ninthgraders had to build curriculum.
They had to get in there andwork with the third graders.
Well, lo and behold, the thirdgraders, quantitative scores
went up, their qualitativemeasures of self efficacy went
(15:11):
up. But so did the ninthgraders. And they far surpassed
this, this sort of measures,both qualitatively and
quantitatively, they are typicalfor intervention for ninth grade
readers. Right. So just, I'llsay simple, but just a basic
pairing like that could havemassive implications.
Lindsay Persohn (15:29):
Yeah, if we could just again, see something
different, you know, and thenI'm also struck by the pushback
that you get what a one roomschoolhouse, when I think what
you're talking about issomething we have actually yet
to envision. It's notnecessarily moving backwards in
time, right. But instead, itsounds a lot like a flexible
(15:49):
pairings about really meetingkids where they are as
individuals, not necessarilyharkening back to an old model.
I think we're talking aboutsomething pretty innovative
here. pretty new. Yeah. SoRobert, what do you want
listeners to know about yourwork?
Robert Petrone (16:06):
So I think it connects, I think all of these
things connect, it'shistorically been problematic
and still can be veryproblematic. But I really love
ethnography, you know, as aresearch or critical
ethnography, I should say that'sreally attending to power
dynamics and representation. Butwhat I love about ethnography
more than a methodology is forme, ethnography is a sort of way
(16:27):
of being in the world. Andethnographers, you know,
typically go out and studyculture, they study groups of
people, and they try to makesense. So how are these people
making meaning in their lives?
And again, it's it's can be avery fraught process. But I
think for me, the, the realtakeaway of of ethnography is,
how do I become an ethnographer?
(16:47):
In my day to day life, right?
How do I, how do I becomecurious about the logic people
are operating from from themeans and motivations as Jabari
Mahiri, he's has one of hisarticles that young people are
utilizing in their lives. Right?
So how do I sort of take that onand get curious and ask a lot of
(17:08):
questions? What's anethnographic pedagogy? Like, how
do I take on this sensibility ofbeing really inquisitive and
suspending judgment and tryingto get to know students and sort
of logic of their lives? And Ithink it's twofold. I think it's
paying attention to the studentsand, and youth and children and
things like that. But it's alsopaying attention to ourselves,
(17:30):
and the ways that, that we canmake better sense of the filters
that we're using to make senseof our students, or the
assumptions that we have. So Ithink, I think really good
ethnography kind of works bothways, where the first is to sort
of make sense of folks in yoursphere. And the other is to
become more aware of yourself.
So I'll just give a concreteexample, for me. And in the
(17:50):
skate park. With age, let's sayI was I found myself surprised
that I found myself surprisedthat this was a cross age
grouping, I found myselfsurprised that all these young
men who I had known in theschooling context, were acting
with such care and sense ofresponsibility, right? So I had
to start asking myself, why wasI surprised? Why was I surprised
(18:11):
that a group of young men mightbe acting really cooperatively
with each other? Why was Isurprised that age variation
really facilitates learning,right? Those get at my
assumptions, those surprises aresort of entry. So So I think for
me, one of the takeaways isokay, let's better pay attention
(18:32):
to the meaning making that ourstudents are doing in their
lives, outside and inside ofschools. And let's make better
sense of the sort of assumptionsand filters that we're using as
adults, right, our own adultism, as teachers, how are we
making? Meaning? What are thefilters we're using to see and
(18:52):
to make sense of our students?
Right? So those would be sort ofsome key takeaways. And then I
want to say one or two. Oneother thing. I think, for me,
the skatepark, and the guys atthe skate park really helped me
to understand that thisdiscourse, you know, I worked a
lot with pre service teachers atthe time, and still, and there's
(19:12):
a real discourse around lifelonglearners, right? Like, I want my
students to be lifelonglearners. And what I came to
understand is, the guys at thepark are already lifelong
learners. Right? They theyexisted as lifelong learners
long before they stepped footinto my class. And in some ways,
I felt like what was happeningfor these guys, and this is not
(19:35):
to blame teachers, right? Thisis we're talking about
structures of schooling. Theschools were interfering in
their lifelong learning, right?
And so, so I want to shift thatdiscourse around Lifelong
Learning specifically, like Iwant to imagine students as
already lifelong learners. Myreally close colleague, Vaughn
Watson has this concept. Hetalks about the already present,
(19:57):
right how How can we becomeaware of what's already present
from a literacy perspective inour students lives? And so I
want, like, what would it belike if we started curriculum
from the assumption that ourstudents are already lifelong
learners? Right? And then thesecond, I just needed my sort of
bones to pick. The second one isthis concept of gifted and
(20:18):
talented, right, I really sawthat, like, I would frame the
guys at the park is gifted andtalented, right there gifted and
talented-ness was contextspecific, right? So we have to
be thinking in schooling contextof what counts is gifted and
talented. What counts is atrisk, like these labels, these
categories have real impact onkids, for better and worse, and,
(20:39):
and so it's a recalibration ofhow we're making sense of these
kinds of concepts. And so it'sreally paying attention to our
language, our discourse is thatthe sort of assumptions we're
bringing to bear stuff likethat, and assumptions of school,
not just us as individuals, butassumptions of schooling process
of assessment, right, we canstart to ask those same
questions about all these levelsthat impact what can happen in
(21:03):
classroom,
Lindsay Persohn (21:06):
these are such great questions that I hope we
can keep close to us. You know,as as we think about the young
people we interact with, whetherthey are elementary age
students, or adolescents oryoung adults, you know, whoever
we may be teaching, I think thatit is so important to approach
those structures with a reallycritical lens to ask, what are
(21:26):
the affordances potentialaffordances that we're missing
here, because of the way thatwe've always done things or, you
know, the colored glasses wemight be wearing, that just
really, really, I think,critical things for us to ask
ourselves. And I think sometimesthe, the nuance of those
questions is a little bitdifferent for each of us, right,
depending upon who we're workingwith, and sort of where we come
(21:47):
from, and our own personalbackgrounds. And I'd also say
they're the structures we workwithin, I think that also might
change the questions a bit, too.
Yeah.
Robert Petrone (21:55):
Can I just I just want to say so, it's not
quite a disclaimer, but it's, Ialways want to be really mindful
that this sort of critiques thatI'm levying, are at the
structural level, not at theindividual teacher level,
because I'm worried that thesort of in there's so much
teacher bashing, there's so muchbeating up on teachers, there's,
you know, oftentimes, we'rescapegoats, you know, former
(22:18):
high school English teacher, andI think that this, what I'm
talking about here, isn't leviedat like, you know, the, I mean,
yes, individual teachers, weneed to be paying attention to
the artist, but like, where theycome from is really important,
and how are the structures ofschooling, and policies and
whatnot, shaping these kinds ofassumptions? You know, what
(22:40):
assumptions are those structuresmaking, and my hope is that it
can empower teachers, yes, to dosome introspection, but also to
do some, like, externalizing ofthe systems that are helping to
produce these very, you know,deficit discourses of youth,
let's say,
Lindsay Persohn (22:56):
well, and I think I think, for me, along
that I really appreciate thatclarification, because you're
absolutely right, you know,teachers, they get an awful lot
of critique and, and pushback asit is. But I think, for me, one
way that I'm thinking about thatis questioning the school
structures that I grew upwithin. So you know, what was it
(23:18):
like, whenever I was a kid, andhas anything changed? How has
anything changed? Or, you know,how do we better support every
individual, you know, throughthose structures? So I think
that's a that's a greatclarification. I appreciate
that. And I another question Ihad for you, as you were telling
us your story, Robert, is theskate park a new place for you?
Or is this someplace that you'vealways spent time?
Robert Petrone (23:39):
Yeah, that's usually the first question I
get. Yeah. No, it was a newplace. For me. It was. I mean, I
write about this in the book. Imean, I my cousin was a big
skateboarder when I was inmiddle school. And he got me to
try and I was flipped on myback. And I was like, you know,
what I got to just try harder toget make the basketball team is
what I need to do. You know, Imean, the skate park emerged
briefly with no prior interestin skateboarding, it wasn't like
(24:02):
I was drawn to skateboarding.
What I was interested in is, Iwas interested in young men at
the secondary level, who werebeing pushed out, dropping out
of school, who, who were havinga hard time in school, we kind
of and who were listed a labelthat risk and what I was
interested in, is this sort ofnormal intervention point for,
quote, unquote, at risk youthis, what's what are they doing
(24:25):
wrong? How do we support them?
And you know, like, and what Iwanted to do is I want to have a
different starting point, I wantthem to start with what are they
doing right? Where are theyreally succeeding? Where are
they thriving and excelling? AndI had this great well, there's a
several quotes you know, in thebook from participants and from
(24:47):
others, like musicians now whotalk about the ways that music
or cultural practice youthculture, sort of open them up to
expertise. And so what I wantedto do is I had this group of
guys you know, from the study Ihad done in the classroom, and
they were all hanging out at thepark. And so I was really
informed at the time byscholarship that was talking
about that literacy exists inlots of places, not just school.
(25:11):
And so I was like, Hey, can Ihang out here with you guys? And
and then I got turned on tolearning specifically because I
was so taken, by the way thatlearning was structured in the
social arrangements, becausethese is a rural community,
these are working class, youngman, Latino, and white. So there
was this race class, you know,gender dynamics, place dynamics.
And I was like, How is this alllike, what's happening here? And
(25:33):
how are you all reallydeveloping identity and cultural
capital and all that kind ofstuff. So that that's how I got
to the point and then had tostart skateboarding as part of
that. And so I was like, Man, I,if I break, if I break my wrist,
I'm going to write this thing.
And I was like, so no, I didn'tgo there with any inherent
interest in skateboarding. But Icame out with this sort of sense
of madness, the gifted andtalented group of kids, and an
(25:54):
impressive learning ecology thathas been generated that in that
space that we can learn a lotfrom in schools, frankly.
Lindsay Persohn (26:04):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. And I think thatquestion you just gave us what
are they doing? Right? I thinkthat that is a great question
for reframing, you know, and forworking to get closer to an
asset based mindset, becauseyou're right, I think so often
in schools, we are looking to dosome sort of diagnosis, right?
Like, what is wrong here? Andhow can we then fix it, rather
than really approaching youngpeople by saying, what are they
(26:28):
already doing really? Well? Whatare they experts in? Because
you're right, I mean, we do havethe sort of cultural
situatedness of young peoplewhere, you know, they're all a
little, you know, they're kindof half baked, they don't really
know what's going on yet. But inmy experience, I think it's
actually, you know, we'retelling the wrong story, right,
we're telling the wrong storyabout them, young people have so
(26:49):
much to offer, I think there'sso much more observant in the
world than we give them creditfor I think they have ways and
ideas about how we can reallychange some of the biggest
problems in the world. Butunfortunately, so many of our
structures do silence theirvoices, rather than giving them
a real platform to to informchange, and to make changes
(27:10):
themselves.
Robert Petrone (27:12):
So I think about, you know, curriculum, for
example, like how wouldcurriculum be different? If that
was our orienting start, right?
Like, what are the kids in myclass already doing really well?
How do I help them do thatbetter? Right? And all the
standards and stuff out all getssort of woven into that? And not
only what would the curriculumlook like differently, but what
(27:33):
would the student experience ofthe curriculum be different? How
would the teachers experience ofthat curriculum? What if the
measure of a successfulcurriculum was how much the
teacher learned? You know, Imean, think about that as a as a
different way to start thedevelopment of a curriculum. How
can I learn from these students?
(27:53):
As part of it like that, it'sjust totally different way of
approaching
Lindsay Persohn (27:56):
it sounds like a very interesting world to
potentially live in, right? Youknow, were the teacher becomes
the student in so manyinstances, and, and I think
that's when we arrive atsomething that looks like true
facilitation of learning, ratherthan the sort of top down
approach of, you know, I knowall the things and I'm going to
impart knowledge, we are goingto impart knowledge on you
(28:17):
collectively. Yeah, it soundslike a world I'd love to live
in.
Robert Petrone (28:21):
I think I think the students would, too, or more
and more. So you
Lindsay Persohn (28:25):
know, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So giventhe challenges of today's
educational climate, whatmessage do you want teachers to
hear?
Robert Petrone (28:32):
And I think this ties back to the disclaimer kind
of moment, just a few minutesago. And an age is a tough
moment right now, to be ateacher. I mean, I don't think
it's ever been easy, but it'snever felt this challenging and
fraught before in my career. AndI started in 95, you know, and
so I just want to acknowledgethat, like, I mean, I was
(28:52):
reading an article today about ateacher in Florida, who is on
like, suspended or maybe gottenfired, I can't recall that
detail for showing a Disney filmwith a gay character. And I
just, it's just, you know,through surveillance, the sort
of the censorship, the selfcensorship that I'm certain is
going on, and I don't blame someteachers for it right. It's just
(29:13):
it's a it's a real panicked andparent paranoid, you know, kind
of culture we're in right now.
And so it's really just want tosay that and, you know, the
first thing, the message I wantto share is actually not for
teachers, but foradministrators. Right, and, and
maybe policymakers though, Ihold out more that maybe
administrators can be a lever ofchange in a more direct sense
right now immediately, but Ihave a collaborative
(29:36):
relationship with a communityand native community. And I work
with an alternative school andhave been in relationship for
seven years and the school isdoing amazing things there. And
one of the main reasons why theschool has been able to do so
many amazing things is becausethe administrator has really
done an amazing job of being anintermediary between sort of
policy legislation In and theteachers and students, and it's
(30:00):
an alternative school. Sothere's maybe a little bit more
leeway. But I really put the puta charge out to administrators
to think of ways to supportteachers to be able to do all
the, you know, and to be thekinds of teachers who we know
from research that that make themost effective learning
environment for studentsautonomy, right? Collaboration,
(30:22):
sense of that their trusted.
sense of agency, right? Like,how can how can administrators
really support teachers createspace for them? And I don't know
exactly what that looks like,I'm not an administrator. Right?
But but that's the charge or Howcan teachers maybe get in the
(30:42):
ear their administrative, maybeit's too dangerous to do that.
But But, but I think that's thefirst message is just like, we
have to think about thisstructurally, right, we have to
move away from from like, youknow, the individual teachers
gonna bring down the system. Andthis has to be a systemic
structural approach here. And Ithink administrators are way
more poised to do some of thatthan teachers. And then, of
course, policymakers and stufflike, you know, the folks in
(31:05):
those, those places. And thenfor teachers, you know, I, when
I moved from, I'm from New York,right? So I grew up in and
around New York City. And Imoved to Montana, and I lived
there for eight years, which isa very rural place. And, and so
I have a book on rural ifthere's any rural listen to
English teachers out there, I'vegot a book with my colleague,
Allison Wynhoff Olson, onteaching English and rural
(31:26):
communities, that's the title ofit. And, and we spent a lot of
time driving around Montana,interviewing English teachers,
and also writing with Englishteachers in the books, a lot of
curricular ideas and things likethat. But my point in all of
that is our last chapter in thatbook is all about how to support
rural teachers. And we talk alot about coalition building, we
(31:47):
talk right, like the field, thatteaching is so siloed, right?
We're in our own classrooms. Andfor rural teachers in
particular, you know,oftentimes, the one of only
that, you know, we have formerstudents who become rural to
English and be like me, like, doyou have curriculum coordinator?
So like, I'm the only Englishteacher within a 50 mile radius,
you know, I'm like, what? And soand so are there ways that that
(32:09):
we can really, that teachers canthink and we could support
teachers to be in coalitionbuilding, right? Because
individual teachers will getsingled out, right, a teacher
shows a film with a gaycharacter and is fired to How
can teachers come together tosort of support each other in
that structurallyinfrastructurally. And then the
second thing, and we talkedabout this in the in the book,
(32:30):
as well as self care, right, andthis, but this is unilaterally
for teachers, this is a, youknow, coming out of COVID. And
then all this legislation,that's, that's really
dehumanizing for students, and,and teachers, and quite frankly,
violence, you know, What canteachers do and help students do
to take care of themselves,right? psychologically,
(32:53):
emotionally, physically? And Howcan teachers come together to
create support networks, thatboth are sort of maybe more
agentive and sort of activistoriented, but also just think in
terms of self care and sort ofhealing and, and that stuff,
Lindsay Persohn (33:10):
I think you point out something that in my
mind is really important aboutself care, we hear a lot of you
know, about teachers taking careof themselves and those sorts of
things. In my mind, you know,that looks like what taking a
break from life, you know, isit? Is it going to a salon, is
it sitting by a pool, like whatis that, actually, but I think
that you hit on something, to methat is so much deeper that yes,
(33:33):
all those things I very muchenjoy. But I think that there's
this emotional self care, it'snot just about taking a pause.
But I think when you askprofessionals to do things they
don't believe in, they have nosay and, and they feel are
harmful to others. I mean, thatis a really, that is a deep,
deep problem that I think is sohard to navigate, it's hard to
(33:56):
navigate individually, it'scertainly hard to even navigate
as a group. But you know, like Isaid, I think that whenever we
hear self care, you know, ourmind might go to these sorts of
Pat examples of what relaxationmight look like. But what I
think you're talking about is somuch deeper than that. You know,
it's not just taking a break.
But it's understanding that wecan feel pretty traumatized
being asked to do things that weabsolutely don't believe in, or
(34:19):
that we believe are harmful tothe young people and the
families who are right in frontof us. And so I think that this
idea of building coalitions andbeing together in order to try
to navigate some of those reallydeep issues, I think it's a
place that we've we've got to beif we aren't already there.
Robert Petrone (34:39):
Yeah. And I think that you know, I'm in
Missouri right now, wherethere's a lot of anti LGBTQ
policies and whatnot. And I feellike, you know, it's especially
important to build the supportstructures for youth, children
and teachers who these policiesare specifically targeting.
Right and like, like, who isanti CRT A policy really
(35:01):
targeting right? And so it'sjust when you start layering in
gender, sexuality race, itbecomes even more imperative
that support self care,administer administrative
protection. To the extent thatthat's possible, is really
taking into consideration.
Lindsay Persohn (35:21):
Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that. Like I
said, I think we've got to movebeyond sort of Pat ideas of what
self care is and move intothings that are, you know, that
have the potential to impactthese really deeply rooted
challenges that I think yeah,exactly. systemic issues in our,
in our society. So I reallyappreciate that. Well, Robert, I
thank you so very much for yourtime today. I thank you for your
(35:44):
contributions to the field ofeducation. I think the work
you're doing is like you saidit, it shouldn't be revelatory.
It shouldn't be groundbreaking,but it certainly is. And so I
thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
Robert Petrone (35:54):
Yeah, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the
conversation and I hope peopleget something out of it. Thank
Lindsay Persohn (35:59):
you. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr.
Robert PETRONAS, research movesacross many domains, including
examination of the culturalproduction of ideas of age,
youth and adolescence,particularly as they are
manifested by and throughdiscourse, literary and media
(36:19):
text and policies, explorationof youth cultural learning and
literacy practices in contextsbeyond schools, specifically
skateboarding, and collaborationwith educators to build
curricula that critiques deficitrenderings of youth centers,
youth epistemologies, andrepositions youth as educational
experts methodologically, heemploys critical discourse
(36:43):
analysis, literary analysis,critical ethnography, and
participatory approaches.
Demographically, his work hasprimarily been in relation with
indigenous Latin X and whiteworking class and low SES male
youth in rural contexts.
Recently, his work has consistedof a long term participatory
research collaboration withstudents and staff of an
(37:06):
alternative high school on aNative American reservation. Dr.
Patrone scholarship has beenpublished in venues such as
Harvard educational review,educational researcher, Journal
of Adolescent research, Journalof literacy research, Journal of
adolescent and adult literacy,English education and teaching
(37:26):
and teacher education. Inaddition, Dr. PETRONAS co
authored two books rethinkingthe adolescent and adolescent
literacy with Sophia SargentETUs and mark a Lewis and
teaching English and ruralcommunities with Dr. Allison
wine, Hoff Olson. He also has asolo authored monograph that
will be published this summer byUniversity of Massachusetts
(37:49):
press entitled, dropping in whatskateboarders can teach us about
learning, schooling and youthdevelopment, which is a long
term ethnographic study thatexplores the learning literacy
and cultural practices of agroup of working class, Latino
and white rural skateboarders.
Dr. patroon serves as CO editorfor the international academic
journal English teaching,practice and critique co
(38:11):
director of the MissouriLanguage and Literacy Center,
and coordinator for the languageand literacies for social
transformation doctoral program.
Prior to joining University ofMissouri, Dr. patroon was a
faculty member at Montana StateUniversity and the University of
Nebraska Lincoln. He earnedgraduate degrees at Northern
(38:31):
Arizona University and MichiganState University and taught
middle school and high schoolEnglish and reading in New York
and Colorado. Dr. Robert patroonis an associate professor in the
Department of learning teachingand curriculum at the University
of Missouri. For the good of allstudents classroom caffeine aims
to energize education, researchand practice. If this show
(38:55):
provides you with things tothink about, help us spread the
word. Talk to your colleaguesand educate our friends about
what you hear. You can supportthe show by subscribing liking
and reviewing this podcastthrough your podcast provider.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, Facebook and
Twitter, on our website atclassroom caffeine.com You can
(39:16):
learn more about each guest findtranscripts of our episodes,
explore topics using our dropdown menu of tags, request an
episode topic or potential guestsupport our research through a
listener survey, or learn moreabout the research we are doing
on our publications page. Wewould love to hear from you. As
always, I raised my mug to youteachers. Thanks for joining me
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