Teachers’ Extracurricular Work in Rural School Communities: New Conceptions of a Pedagogy of Place

Abstract

The work of teachers is often misunderstood as only occurring in the traditional classroom setting – teaching content, grading assessments, and managing student behavior. These skills are developed in teacher preparation programs; however, there is much more to teachers’ work. Beyond the customary school hours, teachers endure long bus rides, spend their own money, and are absent from their own family events in order to coach athletic teams or put on community events. Framed by a critical pedagogy of place and literature on teachers’ work, extracurricular activities, and rural education, this critical ethnography questions: What is the nature of teachers’ extracurricular work? How does their extracurricular work expose power and privilege in rural school communities? Data for this study included structured interviews with 27 rural teachers; participant observations in 36 school community events over a 13-month period from April 2023-May 2024; and 42 authentic artifacts collected during fieldwork throughout the Northern Appalachian region of New York State. Teachers’ extracurricular work is highly contextual, has various levels of autonomy based on seniority, is reproduced with colleagues in adherence to unwritten systems within and surrounding rural schools, and requires significant personal sacrifice. Issues of power and privilege in rural school communities are derived from contested conceptions of gender roles and altruism as part of teachers’ work. Collectively, the findings from this study yield action points for local school districts, founded upon seven socio-cultural facets: finances, freedom, flexibility, fun, fairness, family, and fitness. This study generates new understandings of the role of extracurricular events in teachers’ work with implications for teacher preparation programs, re-conceptualizations of a pedagogy of place, and identifies ways in which schools can be included as partners in regional policy implementation.