ABSTRACT
In the BC: RLL project, teachers were supported as they became both learners and researchers, seeking to develop new knowledge about the children in their classes. Both in the classroom and by undertaking Learner Visits to children’s homes, they sought to fi nd out more about them as individuals and in particular to learn about their literacy lives. As Chapter 2 argues, children’s home literacy experiences and practices, including the use of digital technologies, familiarity with different forms of popular culture, sport, hobbies, and home language experience all enrich them as learners (Gregory and Williams, 2000; Peterson and Heywood, 2007; Ren and Hu, 2011). Such funds of knowledge have the potential to contribute signifi cantly to their school learning and understanding. The exclusion of this knowledge from the curriculum can have a detrimental effect on children’s potential for learning, their self-esteem and sense of identity as learners (Comber and Kamler, 2004; Lingard and Keddie, 2013). Ignoring cultural difference – and inequality – can exacerbate educational disadvantage, side-lining children’s cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2008). To counter this, teachers need to have knowledge of, and engage with, the out-of-school interests and experiences of the children they teach and arguably need to become what Luke (2010) describes as ‘cosmopolitan’ teachers. Such teachers take it upon themselves to fi nd out about the children they teach and the current trends they are interested in both global and local, which relate to their pupils’ personal knowledge and interests. As one of the project teachers noted:
In the end, though I know it’s not rocket science to know your children and to know your families, I actually think it’s terribly important and it does have an impact on their learning. (Final interview)
However, the role of the teacher entering children’s homes is by no means unproblematic. Most of the teachers expressed surprise about the literacy and
learning environments which they witnessed on Learner Visits. They often took with them the baggage of assumptions they had made about the children’s community practices or about their class or socioeconomic position (Andrews and Yee, 2010; Gregory and Ruby, 2011). Such assumptions were challenged, either by the teachers’ own refl ections on the visits or through a process of dialogue with project colleagues. This chapter offers an overview of the teachers’ initial knowledge about the children’s lives at the start of the work and then gives examples of the ways in which they sought to widen their knowledge and experience. This overview is followed by a case study describing the process of one teacher coming to understand and appreciate more about one child’s cultural knowledge and home literacy experience.
