A Conversation with Dr. Celia Oyler
In our fifth edition of the From Roots to Research series, we had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Celia Oyler, Vice Dean for Teacher Education at Teachers College. Dr. Oyler’s work has been deeply rooted in collaboration with teachers, championing the transformation of general education systems to better serve students on the margins. Reflecting on her journey as a special education teacher turned researcher, Dr. Oyler emphasized the importance of “critical inclusivity” and the daily pedagogical moves that make learning accessible for all students. As she retired December 2024, Dr. Oyler leaves behind a profound legacy of compassion, equity, and system-level change. Her insights remind us that true inclusion requires rethinking the center, not just the margins, and remains a lasting inspiration to educators at Teachers College and beyond.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): I would love to learn more about your background and what led you to pursue a career in education and research.
Dr. Celia Oyler: I started my career as a special education teacher, and I worked in that role for 15 years before deciding to pursue my doctorate. I chose to get my doctorate in curriculum instead of special education because of something my advisor at the University of Vermont told me during my master’s program. She said that if we want to make classrooms accessible for students with disabilities and others on the margins, then we need to change what happens in general education classrooms.
I began teaching in self-contained special education settings, but gradually moved towards inclusive education. Inclusive education integrates students who had been segregated in special education into general education classrooms. My master’s work focused on helping general education teachers make their instruction accessible to a wide range of learners.
While working in a middle school in Vermont and later in a high school in Chicago, I became interested in what makes some teachers willing and able to change their teaching methods to meet the needs of diverse learners. Traditionally, classrooms are designed to teach to the “middle,” leaving students who fall behind excluded or sent into special education programs. I carried these questions with me into my doctoral program: What makes some teachers flexible and responsive to students’ needs? That question became the foundation for my research career.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): What are some of the projects you are working on right now?
Dr. Celia Oyler: Well, I am actually retiring. This is my last week of work, so all my projects are finished. I do have a new book coming out in February, which is really the culmination of all my work over the last 25 years. You can find the details in my email signature - it is based on research I conducted with New York City teachers. Most of my work has always been done with teachers, not on them.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Were there any specific experiences or individuals that inspired you during your journey, perhaps as a master’s or doctoral student?
Dr. Celia Oyler: Absolutely. During my undergraduate studies at Southern Connecticut State College, I had inspiring instructors who prepared me to become a special education teacher. But during my master’s program, one person stood out: Susan Hasazi, my professor and advisor for inclusive education at the University of Vermont. She believed in changing systems on a large scale so that general education classrooms could be inclusive, welcoming, and effective for all students.
She created opportunities for teachers to become what she called “learning specialists” or “consulting teachers.” The idea was that we could transform entire general education systems to meet the needs of a wide range of learners. That philosophy stayed with me throughout my career.
Later, when I was a visiting professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, I learned more about their approach. Scotland’s law, “Education for All,” eliminated separate categories for students, including those with disabilities, immigrants, foster children, and homeless students. Instead, they created systems that ensured all students’ needs were met through specially designed instruction. This systems-level thinking was transformative.
However, my own work focuses less on structures and more on the daily pedagogical moves teachers make - how they design instruction to be both accessible and challenging for all learners. It’s about helping teachers develop strategies that support students who need extra help while also challenging those who need more advanced work. I’m fascinated by how teachers learn to do this, especially when they themselves were educated in segregated systems.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): That’s wonderful. So were there any individuals during your doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Chicago who were influential to you?
Dr. Celia Oyler: Yes. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I got my doctorate, the most influential person was Christine Pappas. She was researching particular literacy practices, and she was doing research with teachers, not on them. She believed in collaborative research.
The idea of collaborative research is that I don’t come in as the expert telling people what to do and studying them like bugs under a microscope. Instead, I bring my questions, find out what their questions are, and then together we work on answering those questions. I’m not the one who answers the questions; we are the ones who answer them.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Wonderful. So, I want to now talk about any significant challenges you may have faced during your academic career, whether during undergrad, graduate school, or during your time at TC and beyond.
Dr. Celia Oyler: Well, I put myself through undergrad, master’s, and doctoral programs by myself. Nobody in my family had money to pay for anything, so I worked full time through all of those programs. So, time was certainly a challenge.
The major challenge in my career, however, has been that the field in general - and policymakers in particular - don’t really value the perspectives of youth or of practitioners. Practitioner-oriented research - whether it’s called collaborative practitioner research, action research, or participatory action research (PAR) - is not considered the gold standard in academia, government, or foundations. The gold standard is numbers, outcomes that can be quantified on standardized tests. But standardized tests can’t capture student learning.
How do you show that the methods teachers use translate into learning when learning is so difficult to unpack? Learning depends on prior knowledge, skills, mood, temperament, neurological systems, language abilities, and more. There are so many factors. Yet we operate in a system based on competition, not cooperation—a system based on making money, not creating harmony.
So much of my work has been what I call counter-hegemonic. Schools tend to reinforce status inequalities - defining “the smart kids” and “the not smart kids” - based on quick processing, memorization, and certain ways of knowing. My work focuses on mitigating those status inequalities, expanding pedagogical approaches to include more learners.
I think part of what made Carolyn interested in my story might be that I did not grow up in the United States my whole time, and I also taught for many years on the South Side of Chicago. So I went to high school in Japan, and my parents moved to an island in the Pacific called Saipan. And I noticed that Carol Hammer, that you interviewed, was in Saipan. It's a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean. It is kind of amazing that we both were there, and it was very much made. You know. Growing up, not in the United States helped me understand that. You know the world is very diverse, and our ways of understanding things are only one way.
So I have always been very open to learning other communities’ approaches to what’s true, what’s good, what’s right, what’s appropriate, and what’s respectful, you know. So I taught on an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont. One of my first teaching jobs was in rural, rural white poverty. And my next job afterwards was on the South Side of Chicago, in an African American neighborhood, in an African American school - an Afrocentric school. Afrocentric means that, rather than white norms and white knowledge being at the center of the curriculum, instead, it’s Black knowledge at the center, using Black discourse styles.
So, as the only white person on the staff, I was taught by my Black colleagues. I would say that’s a big piece of my learning - what I learned from my Black colleagues. When you think about who influenced you, I would say my Black principal was very, very influential in helping me understand whiteness.
And so, the idea - so much of American tradition is that people of color are supposed to assimilate into whiteness and into middle-class or upper-middle-class discourse styles, right?
But when we think about radical critical inclusion. The idea of critical inclusivity is that we change what we’re doing to accommodate all the range of people coming in, rather than trying to change the people to fit what we’re doing. I always say it’s like a dinner party. If you’re making dinner and inviting people, you might realize that some people need a different seat or a different apparatus to eat with. Maybe some people need a different menu. Maybe some people need a different way of interacting.
Rather than expecting everyone to fit into the norm, critical inclusivity is an invitation to change what’s at the center - to destabilize the center and break up the hegemonic patterns of power. And schools are places where those power relationships are created, in large part.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Thank you Dr. Oyler for sharing this knowledge. I would like to ask now what do you enjoy most about being a part of Teachers College?
Dr. Celia Oyler: Well, I’ve been at Teachers College since 1997. I was a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, and I was a faculty member in the elementary and secondary inclusive education programs. Everyone always says the very best part about Teachers College is the students.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): What advice would you give to faculty members, especially younger faculty members who may have recently started out, as well as to the students at Teachers College?
Dr. Celia Oyler: I would say that New York City schools, teachers, youth, and community-based organizations are eager for partnerships. They’re eager for thinking partners, for creativity, for innovation, and for meeting the needs of a wide range of learners. And as we move into this period of growing political fascism in the U.S., it is essential to partner with the most vulnerable community members and make alliances with them. One of the major questions facing schools is an old curriculum question by Herbert Spencer: “What knowledge is of most worth?”
It’s the central curriculum question and always has been for over a hundred years: What knowledge is of most worth? And I would argue that at this point in our destiny as humans on the planet, the knowledge of most worth is about repairing the broken world. Saving our planet from destruction. Saving ourselves from tribalism. Look around the world at the wars - they’re tribal in nature. We need to be able to forge deep relationships of knowledge and caring across identities.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Okay. So some other questions that I have - and these are more personal. Outside of academia, what are your hobbies or interests?
Dr. Celia Oyler: I am a political activist. I am an anti-imperialist. I am an active anti-racist and an active anti-imperialist.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Can you share an interesting fun fact about yourself that people at TC might not know?
Dr. Celia Oyler: I ride a motorcycle. And, I also started at Community College. I went to Prince George’s County Community College in Maryland. That’s another fun fact.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): That’s good. And now, just one last question I have is: What are you reading right now? And what are you listening to, like music or podcasts?
Dr. Celia Oyler: What I am reading right now is Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel [shows the book]. And I am listening to the Jacobin magazine podcast.
Sumit Karn (Office of the VDR): Thank you so much for sharing your insights and experiences. It has been a pleasure speaking with you.
Dr. Celia Oyler: Thank you. It has been a joy to reflect on this journey with you.