Learning the Possible: Mexican American Students Moving from the Margins of Life to New Ways of Being

4. Key Interactions as Agency and Empowerment

92 4 Key Interactions as Agency and Empowerment in schools and classrooms, the everyday minutiae of teaching and learning often are overlooked. The consequences of these minutiae are rarely examined by teachers and students themselves in the frenetic pace of everyday teaching and learning. Such minutiae are interactions that occur on a scale that often seems inconsequential but sometimes have important implications on teaching and learning. Cummins (2000) calls these “micro-interactions” and suggests that such interactions are extremely powerful, especially in determining how students perceive themselves. He suggests that it is in the space where these micro-interactions occur between teacher and student that knowledge is acquired and identities are negotiated and formed. For example, in her study of high-achieving Latino students who overcame a number of social, linguistic, and/or economic obstacles in their pursuit of academic and professional success, Gándara (1995, 1999) noted that it was one interaction, meeting, or simple discussion with a teacher or adult role model that prompted the students to change. That interaction encouraged the students. They felt that someone recognized their potential. That interaction changed their life trajectory, and ultimately how they viewed themselves in that place and time. Building on the importance of interactions in everyday teaching and learning, I found that there were “key interactions” that occurred Key Interactions as Agency and Empowerment 93 between the CAMP students and other significant players within the CAMP program—community members, CAMP staff, instructors, and peers. Key interactions are those that occurred between student and a significant individual or object and contributed a sense of agency, knowledge, or empowerment for the student. A key interaction may be the recognition of something good, or what could be good or significant , about the student and acting upon the knowledge of that potential by interacting with the student in a way that reflects that need to recognize. Key interactions encompass a unique blending of cultural, personal, academic, and philosophical discourse of history, present, and trajectory toward a desired possible future. They are moments when the student gains a deeper sense of self and understanding in his or her role as student in an immediate reaction to an exchange of discourse that fed that sense of self (R. Reyes, 2009). Key interactions may originate in a brief compliment, a dialogue on the excellent improvement of academic work, an affirmation of the unique perspective and ideas that one takes to the classroom, or even a good grade with comments on an essay. A key interaction may begin with a nod of the head, a greeting in the home language of a student, or a story of experience told by an elder. Similar to what Bartlett and Holland (2002) and Holland et al. (1998) call a cultural artifact —objects that are given meaning and significance in the meeting of individuals and discourses within “figured worlds” in the creation of identities—a key interaction is ultimately defined by the stimulation of agency and the sense of potential empowerment. Cultural artifacts , when adopted, internalized, and practiced by students within their community of practice, help such students develop the ability to combat the effects of their marginalization (Bartlett and Holland, 2002; Holland et al., 1998). Similarly, key interactions can have a role in equipping marginalized students with new knowledge and insight that brings them to a new level of consciousness and awareness about their lived situations and marginalization. Key interactions are not involved relationships with students but are more cursory and implement the strategic use of additive and positive discourse and ways of being with the student that create a moment of understanding, learning, development, and ultimately empowerment. Furthermore, the impact of a key interaction may not be immediate. A key interaction may sometimes be a seed of potential impact planted within a 94 LEARNING THE POSSIBLE student, and its effects may be felt and realized at any moment in the future. Throughout the CAMP experience, the students were exposed to various contexts of learning and interactions with others—in classrooms , CAMP orientation, meetings, in individual meetings with CAMP staff or instructors, Adventure Learning courses, the student lounge. There were moments in many of these situations when students had a “key interaction” with another individual involved in the support and retention efforts of the CAMP program design. In these key interactions there was a type of “connection” of experience, history, culture, language, or community, and it provided a...