ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explain honor the voices of teachers who strive to create the conditions for all children's participation in languaging experiences. They emphasize that as communities grow more diverse, it is important to consider the multiple communities, literacy practices, and childhoods of which children are members as they enter the community of school. The authors argue that the media and the public obsessively perpetuate extremes: heroes and saviors vs. delinquent and misfit teachers; both images are problematic to understanding a teacher's work. They honor the voices of teachers who strive to create the conditions for all children's participation in languaging experiences. In the spaces, children's ideas were legitimized and identities affirmed as inequities were questioned and injustices were interrupted. The authors call for a reframing of early languages and literacies—redefining and reconceptualizing them in ways that create pedagogical spaces where students are encouraged to draw from language and literacy practices and repertoires that speak to their being.
