Focusing on teachers' practices amid a national curriculum 'implementation' project for schools identified as having high enrolments of students experiencing disadvantage, this paper uses narrative methods to illustrate what we refer to as teachers' everyday work-for-change. Teacher interview data was generated via a longitudinal multi-site case…

The rapidly changing landscape of instructional materials in elementary education has involved both a wider range of available materials, particularly online, as well as increasing use of materials provided to teachers by other teachers on sites such as Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers. In this commentary, I outline three key shifts in…

In this forum, practitioners reflect on their experiences as they respond to the following question: How can we use literacy to advocate for environmental issues? Three educators across elementary, middle school, and college settings describe using multiple literacies to conduct inquiries and create a deeper awareness of sustainability and shared…

In this commentary, summarized from a recent interview, the author reminisces about a career dedicated to critical exploration in the classroom. She discusses the formation of the Moon Group, a group of teachers who met over a period of 25 years to study the behaviour of the moon. Duckworth later describes an exercise in which her students…

Students are guaranteed, by legislation, a math education that focuses on the process of mastery learning, and that incorporates an Indigenous worldview. The issue is that some teachers and principals are apprehensive or do not have the skill or knowledge to support mastery learning and Indigenous worldview in math. This article is not a…

This article examines the complex but seldom articulated relationship of primary physical education, citizenship, and social justice. We argue that to conflate physical "activity" and sport with physical "education" in unacknowledged ways may serve to perpetuate the status quo. More significantly, the current emphasis on…

In this interview, elementary school teacher and mindfulness coach Barbara Kurtzman discusses how she brought mindfulness in the class, starting in Cycle 1 and then with the whole elementary school. Her interest in mindfulness began as a personal journey which she wanted to share with her students. She explains that taking only a few minutes a day…

Jean Kirshner holds a Ph.D. in Education and Human Resource Development from Colorado State University and specializes in literacy and teacher education. Jean started her career as the Early Childhood Director at Saint Ignatius Grammar School, Chicago in 1988. After two years she joined the Child Opportunity Program in Denver as a Head Start…

In November 2017, Ofsted published Bold Beginnings, a report on its findings about teaching in the Reception year. Like very many practitioners in the early years, the author of this article believes this report to be of concern, as the recommendations it proposes would be so damaging for the early education of young children. She believes its…

This commentary aims to encourage a research-based, critical, inquiring approach to the development of play-based learning in primary schools. I suggest that this approach could build from the wealth of knowledge in the early childhood education sector. I also invite greater collaboration between early childhood and primary teachers, particularly…

In this Research Commentary, the author explores what is meant by "teaching for understanding" and delves into these questions: How does teaching for understanding interact with the backgrounds of the students who experience it or the attributes of the contexts in which they learn? Which empirical findings are context dependent, and…

This article offers a critique of Ofsted's Bold Beginnings report based on the author's own experience as an early years practitioner. It draws attention to the growing 'readiness' agenda of the Department for Education (DfE) and to its focus on a primarily transmission-based model of teaching. It reaffirms the necessity of an approach to the…

This response is based on my presentation at Teachers College, Columbia University celebrating the launch of Allsup's (2016) book, "Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education." I enter the text with openness, and with a willingness to ponder and consider. As such I offer the following considerations for further…

As indicated in the introductory article, this special issue has attempted to represent and illustrate developments in theoretical, methodological, and empirical work related to the role of primary classroom dialogue in supporting children's self-regulation. The articles included report studies carried out in the United Kingdom and Chile (two…

This article explores how TCTELA's 2024 Teachers of the Year forged the future through their literacy teaching at the elementary, middle school, high school, and college levels. Each essay captures how they understand their work as literacy educators and intentionally educate their students toward a brighter future amid trying local contexts. The…