Turning students on to learning : two teachers making a difference

Historically, students from low socio-economic backgrounds have not done well academically, becoming disenfranchised from, and uninterested in, learning and education (Connell 1994). They become disillusioned with learning because the messages conveyed through the discourse in classrooms around curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices reinforce disengaging messages instead of engaging ones. Classrooms as the sites where education is played out can be places that convince students that school is not for them, with significant impacts on learning (Lingard and Keddie 2013; Munns 2007). Alternatively, they can be sites where students see education as a potential" a resource to be profitably employed within their lives (Fair Go Project Team 2006). They can reinforce social inequality or challenge it (Wrigley, Lingard, and Thomson 2012). However, changing pedagogies or identifying pedagogy that can create the conditions to change students' views of learning and the potential of education for their future is a complex task. While teachers care strongly about their students (Lingard 2007; Lingard and Keddie 2013), their choice of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices may continue to reproduce the conditions where students do not succeed or leverage education to improve their lives (Connell 1994; Haberman 1991 2010).