Pursuing lines of flight: Enacting equity-based preservice teacher learning in first-year teaching

Abstract

This article examines how one first-year physics teacher translated his inquiry-based, socially just pre-professional learning into classroom practice in his first several months of teaching, using rhizomatics, a non-linear theory of social activity, as a theoretical and methodological frame. This case highlights the complexity of enacting a social justice-oriented pedagogical practice as a new teacher in a constrained school environment. Although the participant experienced positive interactions with his students, he faced multiple external challenges as well as his own internal conflicts about teaching methods. These conditions influenced him to adopt more traditional practices than those that were espoused in the participant’s teacher education programme, although some evidence of progressive teaching surfaced inconsistently. Authors provide recommendations for teacher educators and policy makers to better support new teachers as they transition into the first year of teaching, and call on researchers to explore methodologies and theories that can account for nonlinearity, complexity and multiplicity in investigating teaching and learning.

Keywords

Teachers beginning teachers social justice teaching methods rhizomatics case study

Introduction

Studies show that first-year teachers often revert back to the historical norm of transmission teaching informed by a behaviourist philosophy, even when they have been prepared in more learner-centred, socially just ways (Allen, 2009; Cady et al., 2006; Flores and Day, 2006). Multiple factors contribute to this pattern. New teachers’ own deep-set beliefs about teaching and learning are difficult to change (Lortie, 1975; Pajares, 1992; Wideen et al., 1998), making them susceptible to socialization into traditional patterns of teacher-led instruction (Allen, 2009; Zeichner and Tabachnik, 1981). Given these and other organizational and institutional challenges, such as inconsistent opportunities for quality mentoring (Fry, 2007; Wang et al., 2008), often unsupportive workplace environments (Moore Johnson, 2006) and frequent assignment of extremely challenging classes (Scherff, 2008; Tait, 2008), it is not surprising that many new teachers either leave the profession altogether (Ingersoll, 2003) or adopt more traditional forms of instruction to survive. However, some pockets of more socially just practice do exist, even in the classrooms of first-year teachers (e.g., Bergeron, 2008; McDonough, 2009). What, then, constrains or enables the ability of new teachers to enact practices that break with the status quo of schools, and how do new teachers negotiate these factors to construct their practices?

To examine the processes of translating pre-professional, social justice teacher learning into first-year teaching practice, in this article we present the case study of one novice secondary science teacher, Bruce, who was prepared in an urban teacher residency focused on inquiry-based, socially just pedagogy. Using the theoretical framework of rhizomatics—a non-linear theory of social activity—and methods informed by constructivist grounded theory, we argue that the case presented provides evidence that enacting a pedagogy that breaks from the status quo of teaching is an extremely challenging, non-linear process affected by multiple factors (e.g., the teacher herself, her students and contextual conditions). We also suggest that concepts from rhizomatics hold promise for investigating and analysing the enactment of social justice-focused teaching, illuminating the ways the interactions among the above-noted factors contribute to the emergence of particular teaching practices. Illuminating examples of these situated processes can inform educational policy initiatives affecting new teachers, methodology for exploring teaching as complex phenomena, and the preparation and support of first-year teachers to teach in ways that can contribute to the interruption of schools’ reproduction of societal inequality.

Rhizomatics and teaching activity

Although many scholars agree that teaching is a complex activity (Cochran-Smith, 2003) that is inherently social (Borko and Putnam, 1997) and culturally ingrained (Stigler and Thompson, 2009), linear views of “transferring” preservice teacher learning into first-year teaching practice persist. Evidence of this perspective, which holds that the teacher takes her pre-professional learning, whole, and transfers it into classroom action, which automatically produces student learning, can be found in recent accountability policies that draw a direct line between student achievement, teaching practice and the teacher’s initial preparation programme (Cochran-Smith et al., 2013). However, such a linear view ignores two major points. Firstly, the teacher is only one element in a larger constellation of variables at the classroom, school, district and policy levels affecting teaching practices (Strom, 2015). Secondly, the type of teaching that teacher preparation programmes currently promote tends to take a social constructivist perspective (Cochran-Smith and Villegas, in press), an approach rooted in cultural competence and responsiveness (Villegas and Lucas, 2002; Zeichner, 2006) and/or explicit social justice orientations (Cochran-Smith, 2004). This type of pedagogy contradicts the status quo of transmission instruction in schools, particularly those in urban, high-poverty settings (e.g., Haberman, 2010; Solomon et al., 2011). Enacting socially just teaching as a first-year teacher, then, requires the negotiation of multiple variables within the novice’s classroom context while simultaneously attempting to interrupt the status quo of instruction supported by many of those factors.

The ideas articulated above are not radical or new. However, fresh frameworks are needed to investigate these ideas and disrupt the persistence of linear conceptions of the relationship between teacher learning and practice. One such framework, rhizomatics, offers a way to conceptualize teaching as non-linear, ongoing work constituted by lines, or forces, that either conform to or interrupt normalized patterns of activity (such as transmission-based instruction) (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Rhizomatics offers the opportunity to interrupt normalized educational ideas that are “too regular, petrified … the most skeletal and least interesting” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994: 83) by thinking with different concepts and language that purposely pushes the positivistic boundaries of current educational discourse. We suggest that taking the time to engage with these ideas—which at first might seem strange and unwieldy—can open pathways to new and substantively different lines of thinking about educational processes. To help readers who may be new to Deleuzian vocabulary, we have attempted to offer “translations” through more familiar language and concrete examples that still retain the original complexity. While some scholars of Deleuze might critique such treatment of his philosophical concepts, we contend that this type of accessible rendering is essential to make these important ideas available to a wider audience.

The central concept of rhizomatics is the rhizome—a concept taken from the biological sciences that Deleuze and Guattari (1987) offer as a way to think about the world in more complex terms. Rhizomes, as they appear in nature, are plants that proliferate and grow in multiple directions unpredictably. As a philosophical concept, a rhizome can be employed to think about any situation involving multiple elements that connect and interact in some way, resulting in social activity (Strom and Martin, 2013). For example, a classroom might be a rhizome, with teacher, students, classroom space and ideas (among other things) coming together to create interactions that produce different types of teaching and learning (DeFreitas, 2012). In a way, rhizomes represent thinking about teaching activity in terms of systems (Davis and Sumara, 2006)— albeit a more explicitly political view concerned with interruption of normalized social activity (Bonta and Protevi, 2004).

Rhizomes are made up of molar and molecular lines (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) that articulate how rhizomes work. Molar lines refer to macro-level forces that reinforce normalized patterns of activity. These constraining lines might appear as institutional structures, existing conventions or normative discourses—anything that serves a corrective function to maintain the current power balance (Strom et al., 2014). The rigid molar lines create striated space, or a situation that contains many barriers to creativity or non-conformity. In schools, many molar lines are present, such as policy mandates, bell schedules and emphases on testing. These multiple molar lines create a striated space that constrains new teachers in enacting equitable pedagogy (Strom and Martin, 2013).

Molecular lines are forces that carry out the normalizing work of molar lines—that is, they do the actual micropolitical work of maintaining the status quo. Where molar lines are rigid, however, molecular lines are supple and flexible (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), and can therefore go in two different directions. They might reinforce the work of the molar, serving to reproduce normalized patterns of behaviour, and they often do. However, due to their flexibility, they can also break free and form a line of flight (an escape from the norm). As an example, consider the day-to-day activity that takes place as a citizen in US society, which is made up of molecular lines. While governing bodies may make laws and institutions may set particular regulations (molar lines), the populace must decide whether to obey them. Similarly, the day-to-day work of the teacher is molecular. Many molar lines create striated space that attempts to regulate her practice, but ultimately she has some agency in her responses to bureaucratic structures, curricular norms and discourses, and might find temporary lines of flight with her students (Albrecht-Crane and Slack, 2003).

A line of flight is a temporary break from the typical or status quo, a momentary mutation or change that slips through the cracks of institutional/societal structures or discourses (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). A line of flight is not necessarily positive (although it often can be)—it is merely a deviation from the usual (Albrecht-Crane and Slack, 2003). In schools, a line of flight might take the shape of a student-led lesson, a moment of role-reversal or boundary crossing between the normative interaction of teachers and students, or even a loud laugh in a quiet study hall. These lines of flights are temporary, however. Because society is controlled by various institutions, molar lines are ever-present and will recapture the line, returning to the norm (Albrecht-Crane and Slack, 2003). The lesson will end, the teacher will resume her position of authority, or the laugher will be shushed. But in that moment of escape from the norm, the larger educational system is shuffled and change occurs (although it may be too small to detect at that moment). If reconstructed over time, however, lines of flight have the potential to shift the status quo and result in larger changes in the educational system as a whole (Albrecht-Crane and Slack, 2003).

Rhizomatic lines offer a compelling notion of how change occurs in a social setting, such as a first-year teacher’s classroom. Conceptualizing the constraints of a school setting—the discourses, normalized patterns of teaching and “grammar of schooling” (Tyack and Cuban, 1994) that retain traditional structures that perpetuate inequality—as molar lines helps us understand it is a given that teachers face barriers to enacting more socially just forms of instruction. Thus, constructing this type of pedagogy is doubly challenging as a new teacher, since it implies both navigating all the myriad challenges that come with the transition to the classroom while attempting to teach in ways that challenge dominant patterns of instruction. The notion of rhizomatics lines also provides an analytic tool for tracing the movement and construction of more progressive pedagogies—through lines of flight.

The challenges of enacting pedagogies of equity

Researchers have identified multiple variables within the school environment that can constrain or enable efforts to teach equitably (in rhizomatic terms, these represent molar lines as well as molecular lines of flight). In the literature regarding first-year teachers, these factors largely served to pressure new teachers to adopt practices that fit the traditional norm of instruction (Allen, 2009; Brashier and Norris, 2008; Chubbock et al., 2001; Luft and Roehrig, 2005; Saka et al., 2009; Stanulis et al., 2002). For example, Saka et al.’s (2009) study featured a beginning teacher in a school labelled as failing under No Child Left Behind. To improve achievement, the school had adopted a culture that emphasized testing and privileged rote teaching methods. Although the teacher initially attempted to implement the type of inquiry-based pedagogy promoted by his preservice preparation programme, the combination of the school culture coupled with challenging student behaviour resulted in his conforming to the school norm of traditional, lecture-based teaching. From a rhizomatic perspective, this combination of factors would be characterized as presenting multiple molar lines, or forces that reinforced dominant ideologies (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), and the molecular work of the teacher carried out these instructional patterns, thus conforming to the status quo.

Although teacher-centred pedagogy and collegial isolation tends to be the reigning pattern that emerges from interactions among the teacher, classroom and school contexts, and the work of teaching, unpredictability exists on several levels. For instance, teachers may have different personal attributes, beliefs or histories; students present a range of varying characteristics, needs and dynamics; and schools can offer a dizzying array of personalities, values and organizational structures. This inherent unpredictability provides opportunities for adaptation to the local environment, which can result in new lines of flight of equitable teaching. In some instances, one or two unexpected or unusual teaching system elements, such as continued support from the university preservice programme throughout the induction phase (Luft, 2009; Luft and Roehrig, 2005; Stanulis et al., 2002), a strong sense of agency on the part of the teacher (Castro et al., 2010; Hebert and Worthy, 2001; Tait, 2008) and/or a supportive administrator (Bergeron, 2008) could lead to unanticipated interactions that escaped the status quo of traditional patterns in schools. These served as lines of flight that enabled teachers to break from instructional norms, which indicate possibilities for developing progressive practice.

As an illustration, in their study of a “novice success”, Hebert and Worthy (2001) describe a first-year teacher who, despite an isolationist school culture, initially unresponsive administration and colleagues who marginalized her due to her position as a physical education teacher, was able to become an active participant within the school and build positive relationships with staff by virtue of her own personal qualities, including a strong sense of personal agency, a positive outlook and persistence. Bergeron (2008) provides another example that illustrates how the interactions between and among teacher, environment and student factors enabled this teacher to enact culturally responsive instruction. A white, first-year teacher, a graduate of a preservice programme emphasizing culturally relevant instruction, taught mainly Spanish-speaking students in Arizona after the state had made it illegal to teach in a language other than English. The principal, whose educational values were aligned with the values of the new teacher, encouraged her to implement language supports for bilingual students. Her colleagues also provided support in the form of collaboration, and her students responded positively to her teaching. In turn, the teacher responded with increased confidence and continued to take risks that another novice teacher might not have. These unexpected interactions illustrate how lines of flight in daily practice feed back into the system and amplify change in teaching practice.

Across the first-year teaching literature, elements that supported teachers in enacting more equitable pedagogy included school partnerships (Bianchini and Cazavos, 2007), collaborative school cultures (Lambson, 2010), supportive administrators and/or colleagues (Bergeron, 2008; Castro et al., 2010; Farrell, 2003), quality mentoring experiences (Fry, 2007; Newman, 2010) and induction programmes provided by teachers’ preservice preparation programmes (Luft, 2009; Luft and Roehrig, 2005; Stanulis et al., 2002; Ulvik et al., 2009). Although the negotiation of such practices is not predictable, these enabling structural conditions, such as the ones noted above, can be investigated further to inform efforts to support beginning teachers. Moreover, information about the ways the above-mentioned factors interact can illuminate the day-to-day processes of first-year teaching practice, which can contribute to research on the ways teaching knowledge and skills taught at the preservice teacher phase move into the classroom. Such knowledge can prove helpful for both policy makers and teacher educators as they seek to prepare a teaching force to serve an ever-diversifying school population.

Methods

The question that guided this investigation was: “How does a physics teacher translate his pre-professional learning into practice in his first year of teaching?” The study was conducted by one of the lead authors as part of her dissertation work, and the second author participated in analysis and reporting stages of the work. The methods used in this study were grounded in a post-qualitative methodology, a perspective that is both informed by post frameworks as well as indicating a “coming after” of qualitative research (St. Pierre, 2011). Claiming that traditional qualitative methods are still based in positivistic logic (St. Pierre, 2004) that perpetuates a false myth of researcher objectivity (Clarke, 2003), post-qualitative researchers seek to highlight non-linear, multiplicitous ways of researching complex phenomena. The aim was to “build a rich and openly partial account of a phenomenon that problematizes its own construction” (Ellingson, 2009) by using a combination of rhizomatic mapping (Strom, 2014) and situational analysis, a postmodern form of grounded theory (Clarke, 2003). Within this larger methodological perspective, we chose case study as the design. Case studies allow for in-depth investigation into the complicated set of institutional, political, developmental and personal factors that shape actions in schools and classrooms (Stake, 1995), helping the researcher to gain a deeper and more holistic understanding of complex phenomena, like teaching, that involve multiple interacting variables (Merriam, 1998). Below, we describe the participant and study context, outline the data collection process, detail analytic methods and discuss issues of trustworthiness.

Participant and context

A 25-year old native of a small suburb in the Northeast, Bruce was a tall, stocky Orthodox Jewish male with interests in science, theatre and religion. Bruce graduated from one of the most well-known and prestigious Jewish universities in the country with a BS in physics, a BA in Theatre Arts and an Associate’s degree in Jewish Studies. He began thinking about a career in education at a young age, and after leaving his graduate programme applied to the Northeastern Teacher Residency (NUTR), a mathematics- and science-focused hybrid teacher education programme (Klein et al., 2013). Bruce reported that the programme appealed to him because of its social justice focus. He had attended primary school in a relatively low-income area and high school in an area noted for its affluence, and was struck by the difference in educational quality offered by the two schools. Reasoning that if he pursued a career as a high school teacher, he would work in a place where quality teachers were needed the most, and therefore considered the district in which the NUTR was located a good match.

Alongside his peers in the NUTR, Bruce studied socio-cultural learning theory (Vygotsky, 1978), inquiry-based learning (Freire, 1970; Windshitl, 2000) and democratic teaching methods (Dewey, 1916). Although all the residents initially struggled with the transition from a transmission-based model of teaching to one emphasizing learner-centred, inquiry-based instruction (Klein et al., 2013), Bruce found this paradigm shift particularly challenging. In the second semester of his preservice year, Bruce received intensive intervention from NUTR faculty members, with explicit attention to planning instruction in ways that would both support student learning and enable him to assess the extent to which his learning objectives were met. At one point, his ability to complete the programme was in question, but by the end of the second semester the instructors and his mentor were satisfied with his progress and considered him ready to graduate.

At the end of his residency year, Bruce was hired to teach ninth grade “Progressive Science Initiative” (PSI) physics at a relatively new, and growing, magnet school, Northeastern College Prep (NCP), which focused on college preparation. The school was located in a section of the city known for crime and poverty, situated among run-down housing projects and boarded-up, abandoned buildings covered in graffiti. The small school had begun as a single sixth grade class, and grew by one grade each year, with the current ninth graders as the most senior class. At the time of the study, Northeastern College Prep (NCP) was “co-located” with two other schools (both charters), meaning that all three schools shared one building. Bruce shared a classroom with a French teacher in a room that was not outfitted for physics or any type of scientific laboratory activities. The school also experienced a shift in leadership three months into the school year, with the school’s founding director unexpectedly retiring and a new principal taking over.

Data collection

Because the study focuses on teachers’ negotiation of practices in the classroom setting specifically, the main data source of the study was classroom observations, which were collected by the lead author as part of her dissertation work. She conducted two to three observations during the first month of school, observed one full instructional unit with Bruce between October and December, and concluded with a mini-unit of three to four observations. She scripted each observation and recorded her own interpretations before, during and after observations in the form of field notes, which she later typed and use to supplement observational scripts. Each lesson observation during the full instructional unit was followed by a short post-observation interview, during which Bruce reflected on the lesson, discussed his instructional choices and answered other questions that arose from the observation. In addition to observations, two semi-structured interviews of approximately 60–90 minutes in length were conducted, one at the start and another at the conclusion of the study. Finally, a researcher journal was maintained to record methodological decisions and the thinking that accompanied them.

The first three observations of Bruce’s teaching were conducted in late September and early October, prior to the change in school leadership at NPMS. These three lessons introduced the scientific method and the kinetics concepts of accuracy and precision, accompanied by the appropriate formulas. When the second round of observations occurred in mid-November, the new principal had just arrived. The main topic of the unit, which lasted through the first week of December (14 classes), was dynamics, which folded the kinetics concepts learned in September and October into new physics concepts such as free-body diagrams. The final three lessons, which encompassed the topic of gravity, were observed during the second week of January.

Analysis

The initial analysis consisted of the creation of rhizomatic maps (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Hagood, 2004), which also approximates the mapping stage of situational analysis (Clarke, 2003). The first step in situational analysis is to create “abstract situational maps” that name “who and what” matter with respect to the inquiry at hand. These should include “all analytically pertinent human and non-human, material and symbolic/discursive elements of a particular situation as framed by those in it and by the analyst” (Clarke, 2003: 561, emphasis in the original). We first read data multiple times, marking or highlighting sections of interest and beginning to note connections between the data and the theoretical literature, the empirical literature and other data sources. For example, we noted several contradictions existing between Bruce’s interviews and his actual teaching, and connected textual data regarding these instances to empirical novice teacher literature discussing the “double bind” (Achinstein and Ogawa, 2011: 140) that occurs when teachers believe and profess one set of beliefs, but are not able to carry them out for internal or external reasons (Massengill et al., 2005).

We used the data software Inspiration to record connections from the data sources, group similar ideas together and make further linkages (Bowles, 2001; Waterhouse, 2011). This simulated a version of a discovery and coding approach (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998). Main ideas were entered into maps and clustered together. We assigned initial codes such as “Translating NUTR practices”, “Constraining conditions” and “Negotiating with students”. From these we linked more circles, adding data from observation scripts, debrief and interview transcripts, field notes and the research journal, which supported the linkages that were being made. As we plotted these, we began to make connections between and among the concepts, indicating these with non-directional, irregularly curved lines.

We then theorized the lines drawn or the connections made within the rhizomatic maps, a move that encompasses the second step of situational analysis (Clarke, 2003). We considered these the social negotiations within each assemblage—that is, the interactions between important elements that shaped Bruce’s ongoing teaching practices. We then proceeded to the third step of situational analysis, which involves creating organized charts of the theorized connections (Clarke, 2003) and engaged in the next layer of analysis, “memo-writing” (Charmaz, 2006: 72). As we pulled evidence to map and plot into the organized charts, we also began to write analytic memos from the rhizomatic maps, developing main ideas in more detail and creating lengthier descriptions of events to re-situate my data. To do so, we revisited multiple data sources—the observation scripts, the debrief interviews, and the formal interviews—and began to form “data stories” (Bowles, 2001: 131) that would later serve as examples and illustrations of the key processes of constructing teaching practice.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness, or the argument that this study is “worth paying attention to” (Lincoln and Guba, 1985: 290), speaks to the quality of the study. We employed a number of strategies to demonstrate to the reader that the study is both credible and plausible (Merriam, 2009), including multiple opportunities for member checks, linking and searching for commonalities or confirmation of findings among and between data sources, and sharing findings with critical friends. We continually interrogated our own research practices and emerging understandings in a shared online research journal. Although the researcher has incredible power to tell the story she wants to tell (Fine, 1994), throughout the data collection process the lead author continually solicited feedback from Bruce, speaking with him in formal interviews and before and after she observed him teaching to discuss her interpretations. Because these were opportunities to mutually construct and mediate meaning in-between researcher and participant, we consider these discussions to be collaborative theorizing. Finally, we also share the findings as a thickly descriptive case study that allows readers to evaluate whether the evidence presented is transferrable to their own contexts.

Our own experiences and positionalities necessarily informed this study as well as the “agential cuts” (Barad, 2007) that were made to shape the final case presented in this article. We are both urban teachers and teacher educators with strong beliefs about the importance of socially just teaching. One of us, Kathryn, is a white, middle-class, Jewish woman, and the other, Adrian, a middle-class Hispanic male. Adrian was a doctoral candidate at the same institution as Kathryn, and served as an educational leader at a neighbouring urban school district to the one in which the study was conducted. Prior to beginning the study, Kathryn served as a doctoral assistant with the NUTR programme, working with the residents in various instructional and coaching capacities. Although she was not working with the programme during the study, she had pre-existing relationships with the research participant. While this might have influenced the researcher–participant relationship in different ways, we believe that it helped establish rapport (Garton and Copeland, 2010).

Bruce’s case

In presenting the following case, we illustrate how Bruce navigated multiple molar lines or constraints, both within his classroom and within the larger school setting, to construct his first-year practices. Although he was able to build relationships with his students that enabled him to be creative in his teaching (a line of flight), conflicts within himself—including a tendency to “play it safe” and lingering traditional beliefs about teaching—combined with elements within the school context, such as a drastic leadership change early in the school year and a lack of support and resources, to produce patterns of practice that moved unpredictably between teacher-led lecture and student-centred, inquiry-driven projects. In the sections that follow, we describe the ways in which Bruce’s internal conflicts, the external constraints and the interactions he had with students combined to influence his first-year practices.

Bruce’s internal conflicts

Both interview and observation data show that Bruce was conflicted by his desire to enact the inquiry-based practices he had learned from his pre-professional programme, his fears about moving too far away from the status quo of teaching as a first-year teacher, and his own deeply ingrained traditional beliefs about teaching. For example, in his first interview, Bruce claimed to have active, student-centred views. He described his ideal lesson as having “a lot of student to student discourse … [and] the students taking it so far that it actually goes out of my hands and they actually take over the lesson”. However, Bruce began the school year with teacher-led, mathematics-driven lessons delivered via direct instruction. He explained that he taught this way, which he knew contradicted his preservice learning, because he wanted to “be safe” from criticism as he began his first year as a teacher. Bruce reflected, “I didn’t want to … shake the boat. I wanted to [get into inquiry] gradually”.

This choice may have also been influenced by his lingering traditional beliefs, which surfaced, for example, in his tendency to separate the procedural (mathematic) and conceptual aspects of physics. Although Bruce professed his desire to teach in ways that integrated both the mathematic and conceptual physics components—a stance his preservice programme had promoted—in the teaching practices, his lessons often focused on isolated mathematical procedures. In post-lesson debriefs, he explained that he considered these mathematic procedures the foundation for conceptual understanding of complex topics, an assumption that undergirds the traditional teaching stance, where development is believed to precede learning (Van Lier, 2004). For example, just before beginning the main unit of instruction, he shared, “We are going to be doing a lot more of the cool conceptual stuff in physics”. His first lesson included a video introducing Newton’s three laws, followed by a lecture in which he asked students to take notes about the corresponding formulas. The second class in the unit was a full 40 minutes of students working on isolated mathematic problems involving the use of formulas associated with Newton’s laws. After the second class, Bruce was asked to explain how his teaching had helped students to understand the “conceptual stuff” he had mentioned. He responded, “The issue is, there are mathematics involved … there is still a lot of math, even in the conceptual. So this is just getting them ready for those kinds of problems”. His reply indicated a belief that students needed to first develop a foundation of mathematics before moving into conceptual understanding, a view consistent with normative forms of physics instruction.

He also worried that integrating procedural and conceptual processes would do students a disservice in preparing them for collegiate physics classes they might study, which he believed would take the more traditional pedagogical stance of presenting information free of context and connection. He articulated,

Most of the time the problem with … other stuff that they’ll see in college, it looks like that, there’s never a conceptual edge to it. “There’s a particle”, or “An object is moving”, that’s how all questions start. So once we are outside of the classroom, if another physics teacher will start, “Did you learn”, and give them a problem, I don’t want then to be like, “What! What kind of object? What are we talking about here?” So it’s a matter of, unfortunately, standardization, which is why I do that.

External constraints

As discussed above, from the start of the school year Bruce worried about straying too far from the dominant norms of teaching that prevail in schools. Although Bruce still attempted to put some ideas from his preservice preparation into practice, such as learner-centred problem-solving, contextual factors within his school setting—including a drastic leadership change and a dearth of resources and support—inflamed his insecurities about non-traditional teaching and reinforced his tendencies towards traditional instruction. In November, the original school leader unexpectedly retired and was replaced by a new principal, an administrative disruption that reinforced his unwillingness to “experiment” with non-traditional instruction. Bruce perceived the new principal as less inclined towards innovative practice than the original principal had been. In an interview in the month following the new principal’s arrival, Bruce discussed how this had affected his practice, commenting, “I’m trying to stay in the safe zone until I get some actual feedback from [the new principal]”. He expanded, “I don’t think I can go as ‘out there’ when planning stuff. I can’t just go, ‘Hey! This is inquiry-based, let me try it and see if it works!’ It’s GOT to work”. He connected his choice to teach more conservatively to a fear of losing his position, adding, “These are your administrators, and they can lay you off”.

The shortage of resources within the school was another condition Bruce perceived as a constraint on his practice. While science classrooms in the district usually shared particular features, such as sinks, cabinets to store equipment and lab tables, Bruce’s classroom lacked these standard implements. As the school would be moving to another location the next year, no possibility existed of obtaining a classroom appropriate for conducting inquiry-based scientific activities. Further, Bruce reported, he lacked laboratory or physics equipment with which to create experiments or demonstrations of phenomena. He explained, “One of the huge limiting factors here is the complete lack of physics equipment”. The few labs he was able to plan, he explained, “are invented out of stuff I already have [from home] … I have to actually build these labs from scratch”. To compensate for the dearth of supplies, he brought his own massive collection of Nerf guns, which he featured in two labs, and creatively used whatever was at hand in the classroom—a chair, a bowling ball, a towel—for in-the-moment demonstrations of physics phenomena.

Bruce identified the lack of consistent and appropriate induction support as another major institutional constraint. As the only ninth-grade science teacher, Bruce experienced some isolation. He sometimes collaborated with the middle school teachers, but found working with them of limited value because they did not share the same content area or have the specific challenges that came with teaching the PSI coursework, an advanced physics curriculum the district in which he worked had adopted. Although he was assigned a school mentor, a veteran seventh grade science teacher, the mentor rarely observed Bruce. When he did, Bruce reported the visits lasting only a few minutes. Bruce characterized his school-based mentor as very “traditional” in his teaching, and therefore unable to provide support with the type of inquiry-based activities promoted by the NUTR. Moreover, like the other middle school teachers at his school, Bruce’s mentor was neither familiar with the physics content nor well versed in the particular requirements of PSI (the programme was only for high school science subjects).

Student interactions

With his internal conflicts and difficult external conditions, challenging student interactions may have ensured that Bruce’s practices became entirely traditional. However, the majority of Bruce’s students seemed to be enthusiastic and curious about physics concepts, and actively participated in his lessons, which engendered relatively smooth student–teacher interactions and provided an enabling condition for enacting some of the elements of his preservice learning. For example, students became visibly excited when Bruce asked for volunteers to assist him with demonstrations, calling out or jumping out of their seats in hopes of being chosen to shoot a Nerf gun alongside Bruce or otherwise help him create a visualization of a concept. The enthusiasm of Bruce’s students towards his content was also apparent from student comments heard throughout the observations: “I love this class!” or in response to an announcement about an upcoming lab, “Yay! I love labs!” His students also seemed to be genuinely curious and comfortable asking questions, shouting them out freely during activities or direct instruction. As an illustration, in one class, Bruce began a lesson by saying, “Today we are going to talk about free body diagrams”. Before he could say anything else, student questions rang out: “What’s that?” “Is that physics?” “We’re gonna diagram my body?”

The relationships Bruce constructed with his students seemed to contribute to students’ eagerness to participate in instructional activities. Observations showed that Bruce interacted with students in a friendly and open manner, and students seemed to genuinely like him. The nature of these relationships may have added to the enthusiasm students showed towards the instructional content of many of the lessons observed. This easy relationship was demonstrated in numerous, casual classroom interactions. For instance, one day as Bruce made his way around the room checking homework, a student was rapping loudly. Bruce stopped in front of the student and joked, “Is that the best you got? You need to work on your freestyling!” The student laughed and, on the spot, improvised a few more rhyming lines about Bruce checking homework. During another lesson, Bruce drew a stick figure on the board to accompany a diagram. “Is that you, Mr. C?” called a student. “Sure, why not?” Bruce replied. “Ooh! You have to draw your beard!” said another student. Bruce obligingly drew a beard. “You gotta draw your hat!” added a third student, referring to the yarmulke Bruce always wore. Bruce drew the disc perched on the stick figure’s head. “You gotta draw your stomach!” said another student, rounding his arms out in front of him in simulation of a large belly. “Hey!” Bruce shot back, scrunching his face into a mock “angry” expression and wagging his chalk playfully as students laughed.

Multiple factors may have contributed to Bruce’s ability to develop such relationships with his students. Bruce demonstrated that he cared about his students by going beyond his normal role as a physics teacher, such as working on extracurricular projects based on students’ interests during his homeroom period, forming an afterschool drama club and volunteering to step in as a substitute during a prolonged absence of the teacher with whom he shared a room. During the first few days of school, he also gave out his home phone number and personal email so students could contact him outside of school. In his first interview, Bruce said, “I actually have had two students who have texted me so far. Which is cool! It’s a lot more personal … actually showing that … you are not like, a robot”.

As previously noted, these relatively smooth interactions with students may have also contributed to Bruce’s continuing to pursue more active learning opportunities despite multiple constraining circumstances. Although his classes were often teacher-led, other times he planned for collaborative student learning. For instance, during a review for an upcoming test, Bruce asked students to co-construct a scenario, or word problem, using a (acceleration), m (mass) or f (force), three variables with which they had been working. After helping students get into pairs or trios, Bruce walked to each table with a bucket containing slips of paper that had these variables written on them, so students might randomly choose one to create their problem. Bruce told his students, “Make the scenario as hard as you can, but remember, you have to be able to solve it”. After each group had created their problem, students would compete to solve each other’s problems for an extra credit point on the upcoming quiz. As students worked together to create their problems, Bruce circulated through the room, looking over students’ work, answering questions and validating ideas. While most groups worked in relative quiet, a group of three girls animatedly debated over the construction of their problem. “No, that’s not, that’s the distance!” one exclaimed. A second girl stood and leaned over her shoulder, peering at her paper. “No, here’s what I’m thinking—you have to have the ‘v_o’ and the ‘x_o,’” the second girl argued, referring to the parts of the first and second kinematics equation, which they had learned earlier in the year. “But if she’s giving them ‘a,’ that’s a two-step equation,” responded the third girl. The second girl stamped her foot in frustration. “No, look! Think about it! It’s gotta be three steps. They have to find ‘v_o’ first. Then they have to find ‘a.’ Then they have to plug that into that equation and—” “But we have to give them ‘time,’” interjected the first group member, reminding them of yet another variable.

However, these collaborative, student-led activities occurred less in the observations than whole-class lecture or problem solving with what Bruce referred to as “breakout demonstrations”. For example, he introduced the concept of tension by providing a teacher-led problem solving exercise followed by an experiential visualization. Bruce first posed a problem that included tension, a force variable—that is, a manner of representing a force—with which students were not familiar. After working through the problem, identifying the force with which a string was being pulled downward, and naming tension as the missing variable, Bruce said, “OK, here is what I want to show you about strings and tension”. He twisted a hand towel into a spiral and offered the end to a student. Once he had grasped the end of the towel, Bruce asked the student to pull the towel. “OK, now I’m going to pull on my end,” Bruce told the class. “You feel the pull, right?” he asked the student, who nodded. Bruce continued, “So, whatever force I’m pulling with, he’s feeling, even though we’re not touching. The force travels. So if I pull, he can feel it. If he pulls, I can feel it”. The student pulled his end of the towel, and Bruce jerked forward. Turning back to the board, Bruce gestured at the problem and said, “So the same thing is going to happen here”.

Discussion

Bruce’s practice was influenced by both internal and external conditions that conflicted with his preservice learning and his stated intentions to continue to espouse an inquiry-based, socially just pedagogy in his first year of teaching. Internally, Bruce persisted in his beliefs about more traditional forms of physics learning and assessment and wanted to avoid “rocking the boat” in his new setting because he feared being evaluated negatively by his principal and losing his job. When these initial internal conditions collided with multiple difficult circumstances external to him—such as a leadership change—Bruce responded by normalizing his teaching to more closely fit what he considered to be the standard for physics instruction in his district. Because Bruce was also committed to enacting aspects of the pedagogy he had learned in the NUTR programme, this set of circumstances created conflict for him. The tension Bruce experienced manifested itself as inconsistencies and contradictions in his teaching practice.

The rhizomatic concepts of molar and molecular lines and lines of flight (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) are tools for thinking about the decidedly non-linear nature of Bruce’s development. Specifically, rhizomatic lines can assist in conceptualizing the constraints and affordances of particular teaching contexts as new teachers attempt to translate their learning into practice. Schools are not particularly democratic spaces (Darling-Hammond, 1996; Haberman, 2010)—they are characterized by rigid bureaucracy, widespread dysfunction and entrenched patterns of teaching that conflict with what is taught by many teacher preparation programmes. Compounding this external challenge, societal discourses about what teaching should look like and how classrooms should function have been internalized by most teachers (Albrecht-Crane and Slack, 2003), meaning they not only have to navigate institutional structures that normalize their instruction, but also must disrupt their own “mental scripts” of teaching (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999). The concept of rhizomatic lines can assist in analysing and theorizing the way these conditions relate to the practices constructed by a particular teacher within a particular context. By examining the molar lines present in the teaching situation (e.g., both the institutional forces and structures, as well as internalized ones, that normalize instruction) and the molecular work of the teacher (e.g., the day-to-day work that is negotiated with students and context), researchers can gain a more nuanced understanding of the process of enacting practices in particular settings.

While molar lines might appear as rules or structures imposed from outside, they simultaneously exist as internalized beliefs of actors within the setting. As Deleuze and Guattari (1987) note, “It's too easy to be antifascist on the molar level, and not even see the fascist inside you” (p. 215). Most teachers have deeply entrenched beliefs about teaching from their own school experiences (Lortie, 1975; Pajares, 1992), which can conflict with the more progressive pedagogies they learn about in their preservice programmes (Cohen, 1988). This tension was evident within Bruce, who claimed that he was committed to principles of inquiry and democratic practice, but implemented them inconsistently because he was conflicted by performance-related fears and deeply ingrained beliefs about traditional teaching. Bruce’s teaching was not just constrained by difficult contextual elements—such as the dysfunction of the school, the lack of resources and consistent instructional support, and a tumultuous change in school leadership—but was also hindered by normalizing forces within him in the form of traditional beliefs about teaching and performance-related fears of straying too far from the norm of instruction. These two factors—the persistence of Bruce’s traditional beliefs and worries of receiving a negative teaching evaluation—might be seen as molar lines, or normalizing forces, that moved Bruce’s teaching towards traditional instructional practices. The combination of molar lines at both the institutional and individual levels worked to reinforce the construction of practices that mirrored many characteristics of traditional teaching, such as separating conceptual and procedural aspects of physics and introducing ideas to the class as a whole through lectures and the presentation of problems.

The complex interaction of these elements meant Bruce was attempting to enact equity-minded practice in an extremely striated space with many molar lines. In other words, Bruce was attempting to teach in ways that broke from the status quo under very constraining conditions, both internal and external, which hindered the ability to produce such practices consistently. Yet, despite the rigid circumstances Bruce faced, both internally and externally, he did not abandon his preservice learning entirely in favour of transmission-based, authoritarian teaching practices, as is commonly reported in the research literature on novice teachers (Allen, 2009; Saka et al., 2009; Veenman, 1984; Zeichner and Tabachnik, 1981). While many molar lines, or constraining factors, caused tension for Bruce in negotiating with his new school setting and students and contributed to contradictions that emerged in his teaching practices, some lines of flight, or breaks from the status quo, were also evident. Although such instructional strategies appeared inconsistently, his lessons nevertheless included the occasional use of experiential learning, for example, in the form of “break-out demonstrations” of physics phenomena and collaborative student-led problem solving. These strategies provide evidence of the flexible molecular lines present at the classroom level that characterize the day-to-day activity of teachers and their students. Although Bruce’s molecular work approximated traditional instructional norms, lines of flight also occurred. Bruce was able to cultivate relationships with students, which he struggled to do during his residency year. He opened lines of communication and demonstrated trust by giving out his personal phone number and email, and took advantage of extra time in his day to get to know his students and their interests. Reconstructed over time, these lines of flight with his students helped create relatively smooth teacher–student relationships. The absence of major classroom management struggles may have contributed to the appearance of some elements of student-centred, inquiry-based learning (although inconsistently).

To view the construction of an equitable pedagogy as lines of flight, consideration must be given to the unpredictable nature of the process of enacting this type of pedagogy. Because the work of the teacher occurs in a stratified space, rigid with molar lines, escapes and breaks from the status quo occur unpredictably, in fits and starts. It follows, then, that the construction of a pedagogy rooted in social justice is not likely to be a smooth or easy process. Given the nature of the molar lines they must navigate, it is highly unlikely, for example, that we might enter a new teacher’s class in the first months of her career and see her working with students seamlessly to collectively generate critical questions about scientific phenomena. However, if enough lines of flight occur, each of those lines feeds back into the system, creating small shifts. Over time, these shifts can transform the system as a whole, creating a smoother space in which to enact teaching methods that break from the status quo of teacher-centred instruction.

Implications

Bruce’s case highlights the complexity of enacting a social justice-oriented pedagogical practice as a new teacher in a school environment with many constraints. His internal conflicts, in conjunction with the external challenges of the school, supported the enactment of more traditional oriented teaching practices (and persistence of related beliefs about teaching) than those that were espoused in Bruce’s teacher education programme. Although Bruce considered himself to be inquiry-oriented and progressive, the interaction of internal and external factors led him to proceed with caution in his instructional practices. This case study highlights the layers of challenge of teaching for social justice—not only do beginning teachers experience the difficulties that come with translating pre-professional learning from initial teacher preparation to a classroom setting, but they must also feel supported so they can take risks in their teaching to break from the status quo. Although Bruce began his professional career with a conceptual knowledge base about equity-based and emergent pedagogical skills relating to inquiry-based teaching, without this type of support, he struggled to bring them to life within the rigid, molar structures of K-12 schooling.

Clearly, more studies attending to the confluence of enabling and constraining teacher, classroom and school-level factors, and the ways they interact within the day-to-day work of first-year teachers to influence their ability to enact socially just practices, are needed. However, based on the case at hand, several suggestions may be made for teacher educators and policy makers to improve the preservice and inservice supports afforded to teachers as they begin their careers. Below, we discuss these recommendations, along with implications for educational methodology.

Recommendations for teacher education

Teacher educators, whether in universities or based in school settings, have the responsibility to acknowledge the dual challenge of navigating the multitude of first-year teaching challenges (molar lines) while also attempting to enact instruction that breaks from entrenched norms (lines of flight). This complexity, and the even broader problem of translating educational theories learned in the university into situated practices, must become a central part of the curriculum of initial teacher education. While the idea that pre-professional learning does not have a one-to-one correspondence with what is eventually enacted in professional contexts might scare some students of teaching, it is the lived reality of Bruce and many other teachers like him. Teacher educators have a responsibility to ensure that teacher candidates do not enter into schools with a utopian vision of teaching by helping them to problematize their learning (Korthagen et al., 2006). Put differently, rather than focusing solely on the ideal (a barrage of continuously productive lines of flight), teacher education would better equip future educators by helping them to recognize the spectrum of challenges they are likely to encounter as teachers and providing them with theoretical and practical tools to assist them through those difficult early years.

More closely tying teacher candidates’ coursework and practical experiences (Zeichner, 2010) is one strategy by which this work might take place. With simultaneous opportunities to act on this new learning through field experiences, students can problematize their learning in supported ways in the context of actual instruction. One way this endeavour might take shape is for future teachers to engage in recursive cycles of inquiring into learning theory with classmates and their instructor(s), enacting that learning in a practice setting, and returning to their class(es) to discuss, reflect and problematize their experiences (Klein, et al., 2013). However, for programmes that still offer separate theory, methods and practicum coursework, future teachers can problematize the ideas they are learning through the use of richly descriptive case studies of teaching practice and videos of actual teaching practice. In addition, “approximations of practice” (Grossman et al., 2009: 2076) that simulate learning situations may be helpful. For instance, students may be assigned to teach a lesson in pairs or small groups. Afterward, the class might discuss particular pedagogical principles, how they were realized (or not) through the lesson and what contextual factors in a classroom setting might also affect the lesson outcome.

Recommendations for educational policy

The extreme challenges of enacting preservice learning should also be addressed by policy makers. The common challenges new teachers face generally, as well the molar (constraining) and molecular (enabling) lines or forces present in their local contexts, are well-documented. Bruce’s struggle to take a progressive inquiry stance in his teaching illustrates the lack of support and workplace instability that urban teachers often experience—a major molar line. In an era of systematic defunding of public schools, the workplace conditions of schools may only worsen, making it more and more difficult for teachers like Bruce to be supported enough to successfully teach in ways that would interrupt current systems of entrenched inequality.

Given that the first year of teaching is a period that shapes teachers’ practices in profound ways and impacts whether they remain in the profession (Smith and Ingersoll, 2004), policy makers must attend to reforms that provide supportive, enabling conditions for teachers to carry out pedagogy characterized by the type of problem solving and critical thinking new sets of curricular standards promote. For example, an issue that must be addressed is the quality and turnover of instructional leaders in urban districts, an important factor in the success of new teachers (Boyd et al., 2011). Clearly, as Bruce’s case shows, instructional leadership matters, and schools like the one in which Bruce spent his first year of teaching—urban schools serving high proportions of culturally and linguistically diverse, high-poverty students—are more likely to have less experienced, lower quality principals and higher leader turnover rates (Loeb et al., 2010; Rice, 2010). Attending to the disparity of experience (a proxy for principal effectiveness) (Rice, 2010) among principals in urban, low-income schools is one way leader instability might be addressed, particularly as the shortage of teachers in high-needs schools virtually ensures that many new teachers will find themselves in such settings.

Ensuring that new teachers have appropriate support as they transition into school settings is also a central concern (Wang et al., 2008). To this end, policy makers must work with districts to create consistent and coherent induction programmes that provide supports for new teachers, including appointing mentors who are qualified and appropriately matched to their mentees (Fry, 2007). Such supports are imperative to help teachers continue to develop their pedagogical knowledge and skills and to assist in the continual meaning making processes, negotiations and school site navigations that occur as the teacher moves from their pre-professional preparation into their initial year of teaching. Moreover, these induction programmes should specifically help novice teachers close gaps between their preservice learning and the realities of their new settings. Designing an induction programme focused on the translation of the pedagogy new teachers learned as part of their preservice preparation provides powerful possibilities for learning and for practice (Lampert, 2010), or for using the teacher’s current practices as the basis for learning, while also providing much-needed support for them.

Recommendations for research methodology

As demonstrated by Bruce’s case, preservice teacher learning does not directly transfer into classroom practices in the first year of teaching. Rather, multiple enabling and constraining factors influence the pedagogical decision-making and the enactment of teaching practices. For education research to better reflect and account for these multiple, shifting and contextually bound factors, non-linear methods, such as Complexity Theory, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Actor-Network Theory, must be incorporated into the systematic investigations of the experiences and work of teachers. Although a non-linear approach to education research may complicate methods of inquiry, it is only through such a complex approach that those in the field can begin to map out and connect the myriad of influences, contextual circumstances and conditions that interact to constrain or enable new teachers’ practices and, ultimately, the patterns of teaching that maintain or disrupt the status quo.

Mazzei (2010) notes, “Unless we push research and data (or theory for that matter) to its exhaustion, then we merely reproduce the original form” (p. 515). To avoid reproducing research that does nothing to address current educational struggles, and even worse, reinforces the inequalities we seek to address, we as researchers must push ourselves in our language and thought to find ways to investigate and express processes of teaching as complex phenomena. The theoretical and methodological frameworks offered in this article highlight only one possibility. In this era of neoliberal reforms promoting linear views of teaching and educational research, designing and carrying out studies with these or other non-linear lenses and methods, such as those noted above, also can offer a critical site of resistance to reductive research paradigms (cf. St. Pierre, 2004, 2011; Strom and Martin, 2013).

Conclusion

The complexities of enacting social justice instruction as a beginning teacher may make pursuing such teaching methods seem like an impossible uphill battle. However, rhizomatics offers a compelling theory of moment-to-moment social change that provides a hopeful lens for those involved in the struggle for a more just society in education. A rhizomatic perspective suggests an alternative way of conceptualizing the seemingly sisyphean task of breaking the status quo of instruction in schools—one that might potentially disrupt the disillusionment even the most committed educators face in light of current struggles in schools. According to a rhizomatic view of education, it is a given that we must navigate molar lines that force us to conform to particular expectations for and patterns of teaching. Yet, every day provides opportunity to break from the status quo and follow a line of flight in K-12 classrooms. Although always recaptured by the ever-present dominant forces in society and institutions, when continually re-created over time, these small escapes can build to greater, even transformative, changes in our educational system.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Kathryn Strom is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, CA, and currently teaches in their Educational Leadership for Social Justice EdD program. Her research interests include equitable pedagogies for marginalized student populations, teacher preparation for diverse/urban settings, and nonlinear theory/methodology. Before pursuing her doctoral studies, Kathryn taught secondary social studies and served as a school leader in Southern California. She received her Ph.D in Teacher Education and Teacher Development from Montclair State University, and has authored articles in multiple journals, including Equity and Excellence in Education, Journal of Teacher Education, Studying Teacher Education, and Teaching Education.

Adrian D Martin is a doctoral fellow in the Teacher Education and Teacher Development PhD program at Montclair State University. Prior to the fellowship, Adrian was an elementary classroom teacher for more than a decade and subsequent to that served as an educational leader in the capacity of language arts department chair. Teaching experiences with culturally and linguistically diverse student populations and scholarly inquiry on the educative experiences of diverse student populations informed his interest on issues of social justice and educational equity. His research interests encompass teacher preparation and development for linguistically and culturally diverse students, teacher identity, discourse analysis, qualitative methods, and the self-study of teacher education practices.

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