Chapter 4: The Teachers

The learning centred environment of the Reading and Writing Centre is created and maintained through the teachers' philosophy and their facilitative power system. The Centre has evolved a facilitative power system through the teachers' consciousness of group and in their work towards the learner-run goal. My description and analysis of the Centre as a learning centred environment is structured through Luttrell's three main elements of dialogic instruction, mutuality and community. This analysis chapter looks at the teachers' philosophy and instructional approaches, while the next chapter is about the quality of relationships that form at the Centre through mutuality and community.

Teacher Philosophy

The philosophy of the teachers underlies the efficacy of the Centre. Kate and Christina have a political stance on literacy: literacy education is a right; there are social and economic reasons why some students fail in school and others don't; self-confidence, self-awareness and self-esteem are essential to success in a literacy program. Quigley (1997) outlines four working philosophies underlying literacy practice - vocational, liberal, humanist and liberatory - the Centre in action is an eclectic combination of all four, but the teachers' principles lean more towards a humanist and liberatory philosophy.

Kate, a self-declared feminist, shared stories with me about her background of political activist work and experiences working with people in lower socioeconomic groups. Christina talked about her experiences of always having worked with people who did not fit into the regular school system and feeling personal empathy with their sense of not fitting in: "I always felt that they were valuable people and really it was the system that was at fault for these people not being able to fit in there" (ChI 05/14/01). Christina's attitude is counter to the (il)literacy discourse of deficit and individualism that places blame on the individual.

The ethical framework that guides the work of the Centre's teachers is one of immanence - that all people, thus all students, have the right and the potential to exercise and use power. Kate and Christina acknowledge that the learning process includes them as well, evident in their goal and vision to be a learner-run centre. As teachers, they are willing to take risks, and to learn along with the students in finding out just what it means to work at being a learner-run centre.