The Teacher As Researcher
Throughout the Twentieth Century, a great deal of research and scholarship have been devoted to the acquisition and development of literacy and oral language in young learners. Dedicated researchers have committed countless hours to the empirical study of the methods by which written and oral skills are acquired and how such skills might best be developed in the classroom. Numerous experiments were designed, implemented and examined, often by professional academics and researchers with little or no experience as classroom teachers. Shifts in theoretical frameworks occurred, often at a lightening pace, and various curricular materials, representing instructional methodologies ranging from phonics to whole language, were presented to educators, who were expected to conform their teaching to the theoretical flavor of the day.
Most often missing in all of this research were the voices of those most affected by it, in particular, teachers, learners and community members. Research typically led to the development of one-size-fits-all curricular materials, disseminated by large textbook publishers and purchased by districts nationwide. The teachers in whose classrooms research occurred were frequently seen as little more than facilitators to the conduct of research by professional academics, and learners were most often simply seen as the 'subjects' of research designs.
The latter years of the Twentieth Century, however, saw a fundamental shift in the manner in which educational research was conducted, both inside the academic world and in the classroom. Qualitative approaches to research, often with their roots in the fields of anthropology and sociology, became more commonplace within educational research, and a burgeoning recognition of the fundamentally social nature of human learning and cognitive development, began to affect the way in which language and literacy were studied, placing them at the center of a richly textured work of social and cultural interaction. Teachers began to assert their natural role a classroom researchers, insisting that their voice and perspective be heard and acknowledged, as the educational professionals closest to young learners. Furthermore, learners, their families and communities became active participants in research, shedding the roles of passive experimental subjects, and demonstrating how their unique funds of knowledge and cultural heritage contributed to language learning and literacy.
The changes described above, while far from universal, represent a general trend toward greater community participation and teacher involvement in educational research, in spite of, or perhaps in response to, legislative and bureaucratic demands for rigid curricular standardization within and more 'empirical' standards for the measurement of academic progress. Such demands, particularly as outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, seek to deprive both teacher and student of opportunities for the co-construction of knowledge, placing the teacher in the position of lecturer, locked in the recitation of a bureaucratically-sanctioned script.
Fortunately, however, the teacher-researcher has the ability to gather the information necessary to competently refute such demands, offering not only evidence resulting from careful research, but grounded in the reality of praxis and the day-to-day demands of the teaching profession. The following books, articles and essays provide insight into the more practical aspects of teacher-research, while illustrating how such research can be employed to promote more inclusive models of of language learning and development within the classroom.