ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case study of a Nina. As is the case with many professional educators, much of Nina’s education could be described as what P. Freire calls the banking model of education. Nina understood that the teachers in her school and community all came to the work of socially-just classroom spaces from different entry points and perspectives. She also understood that without structured spaces to play with possibility, many professional educators defaulted to implementing the same pedagogies with which they were taught. In organizing for justice-oriented professional development (PD), Nina took as her baseline Freire’s assertion that “education is cultural action for freedom”. She wanted to disrupt the banking paradigm of PD in her work with adult learners. Literacy coaching has its roots in the PD of teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act mandated many things, one of which was providing “high-quality” professional learning for teachers.
