The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself
~bell hooks
As an antiracist educator I am committed to engaged pedagogy holding myself accountable for learning. I engage critically to build capacity and expand my knowledge base. I find that through my openness to critique and inquiry I am able to create a learning community that values the contributions of my co-learners in the process.
Learning is a process. This process takes collective effort from each individual in the class, or professional learning session. The effort of each person combined makes for a powerful learning experience. I bring up the professional learning space because in education we have moved so far away from a deep dive into learning processes. We have replaced authentic professional learning experiences that require adults to lift the heavy cognitive load of learning with compliance and strategy dump sessions.
Even in her seminal work Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks warns against looking for “strategies” to teach counter to the norm of basic skills and compliance.
“Even though I share strategies, these works do not offer blueprints for ways to make the classroom an exciting place for learning. To do so would undermine the insistence that engaged pedagogy recognize each classroom as different, that strategies must constantly be changed, invented, reconceptualized to address each new teaching experience.” hooks p.11
Critical pedagogy honors the student contribution as a crucial component to the classroom dynamic. Critical pedagogy necessitates critical thinking on the part of the teacher and facilitator. The teacher has to constantly think about their thinking, listen to the co-learners and consider what might need to shift, change or be adapted for optimal communal learning. As I plan for professional learning spaces I think about my learning intentions and what those intentions might look like, sound like and feel like in the professional learning space. This view requires me as facilitator to take a step back and honor the professional learning space as a learning environment bringing together multiple perspectives and experiences. It is those experiences and perspectives that enrich the learning space for the teacher and co-learners.
#AntiRacistEd Reflection/Action: I’ve shared a couple of quotes to this blog for your reflection. What is most salient for you as you consider the words of bell hooks?
#AntiRacistEd #CiteBlackWomen
Angela Ward, “Critical Pedagogy as Collective Effort”, As originally published on 2ward Equity Blog, April 3, 2021.
Photo by Muneer ahmed ok on Unsplash
