Through Students' Eyes

Today’s educators—pre- and in-service teachers and teacher educators serve increasing percentages of adolescents who have limited relationships to school. These young people are often our most diverse youth; they are frequently English Language Learners (ELLs) and immigrants, and they are too often part of multi-generational dropout and disengagement trends. Teachers are desperate for pedagogical philosophies, curricula, and practices that will support them with helping young people appreciate the value of school, engage or re-engage youth with this most foundational of our public institutions and aid adolescents in the development of the core literacy and writing skills they need to be successful in school and beyond. This volume will assist teachers in recognizing the increasing diversity of their students who often look very different from and have life and school experiences that are very different than those of the educators who serve them. Current and future educators must utilize relevant curricula and creative pedagogies that honor students’ diverse cultures and school and community experiences, while respecting our highest ideals for educational equity and social justice. With this volume, the authors respond to the quickly shifting demographics of schools’ student populations and the disengagement trends teachers frequently encounter but rarely know how to address. We offer compelling, relationship-driven pedagogical principles and instructional strategies that appeal to diverse youths’ voices and cultures and rely on broad, visually- and technology-based notions of literacy.

Kristien Zenkov, PhD, is a Professor of Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of more than one hundred articles and book chapters and six books on literacy, social justice, and teacher education. He co-directs the “Through Students' Eyes” project—often partnering with teachers and students at TC Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia—which calls on youth to document with photographs and writings what they believe about school, justice, and literacy.

Jim Harmon taught high school English, computers, and video production in the Cleveland, Ohio area for eighteen years and is co-founder of “Through Students' Eyes.” He received his B.F.A. in Photojournalism from the Rochester Institute of Technology and his M.Ed. in Computer Uses in Education at Cleveland State University, where he was named a Distinguished Alumnus, 2008. Harmon was an adjunct teacher educator in educational technology at Baldwin Wallace University and Cleveland State University.