Response to Susan Reschny’s Dissertation

A Narrative Inquiry into Parents’ Experiences with Teens with Substance Use Issues: Where are the Schools in their Stories?

In ECUR 822 Re/Presenting Families in Schools, graduate students were asked to reflect their deepened knowledge and understanding of the meaning of many particular course concepts, critical to re/presenting families in schools, by exploring/interrogating them in relation to the context and particularities of a biography/memoir/dissertation they chose to read. 

Andrea Regier, a high school physics teacher and department head, chose Susan Reschny’s dissertation (see here) as the material through which to reflect her learning. In her thoughtful, personal, honest, and powerful piece, entitled Counterstories as Catalysts for Prioritizing Parent Knowledge: Considerations for a Classroom Teacher, Regier wrote, “If I aspire to truly make a positive difference as a teacher, I must prioritize student and parent knowledge in my classroom. This approach is one that requires honest self-reflection, humility, gentleness, and a release of control. It also demands a repositioning of student, parent and teacher roles so that one can look beyond the struggles that the world may see or that are being hidden for fear of the judgement in being found out. It demands a resolve to ‘walk alongside’ parents and students as an ally and an advocate (Pushor, 2015, p. 236).”

I invite you to read both Reschny’s dissertation and Regier’s heartfelt and educative response to this powerful research (attached as a pdf). As they engage with stories and counterstories, and as they ask hard questions about school structures, teacher practices, and meaningful curriculum, there is so much for each one of us to rethink and relearn.