Cultivating Criticality

Angela Ward
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
10 Minute Read
March 30, 2021

AntiRacistEd recognizes that schools are not designed for black, brown or indigenous students to succeed. Last week I wrote about liberatory education. Critical pedagogy is Liberatory education. It is liberating to engage in a classroom that is designed to appeal directly to your learning needs. What visual comes to mind when you think of the preK-12 classroom? Choose the level where your mind wants to linger. Do you have a visual? Now consider this…

Dr. Gholnecsar “Gholdy” Muhammad in her book Cultivating Genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy appeals to my heart as a literacy teacher and black woman. Based in the history of Black Literary Societies she weaves a counternarrative to literacy learning in schools pushing educators to critically reflect on identity, skills, intellect and criticality. Of course with the capitalist system that supplies history textbooks and curricular materials to American schools Black Literary Societies are erased. This erasure robs white, black, brown, indigenous, AAPI, all racial identities of the rich history of anti-oppressive, critical literacy that was sought after and nurtured in the black community in the 1800s. Our textbooks want us to teach children that black people were happy workers during the Antebellum era, not that my ancestors formed secret societies to emancipate their minds and bodies. In her Historically Responsive Literacy framework, Muhammad, like all critical theorists starts with the teacher. Classroom teachers, principals, central administration leaders you are NEVER off the hook when it comes to critical pedagogy. Teachers are the closest to students but they cannot do their job effectively when they receive disjointed, discombobulated, uncritical, material and tools from leaders who do not honor the socio-political-historical realities of schooling. Criticality must be applied to all content areas. Students need to develop the skill to navigate an inherently oppressive world.

Criticality

Gholdy Muhammad
“...Developing the ability to read texts (including print texts and social con-texts) to understand power, authority and anti-oppression…. The latter goal of criticality is the capacity to read, write, and think in the context of understanding power, privilege, and oppression. Criticality is also related to seeing, naming, and interrogating the world to not only make sense of injustice, but also work toward social transformation. Thus, students need spaces to name and critique injustice to help them ultimately develop the agency to build a better world. As long as oppression is present in the world, young people need pedagogy that nurtures criticality.” (Muhammad 2020, p. 12)

As a teacher I learned early not to depend on the principal nor the central administration folks that dawned the door of my inner city classroom often because our school was full of “at-risk” students. I learned to close my door and engage in enriching learning to “cultivate” first “my own genius” so I could nurture and “cultivate genius” in my students. As an elementary teacher my students and I painted, built box structures to actively practice math strategies, used manipulatives, sang and danced and chanted our alphabet in English & Spanish. We nurtured tadpoles into frogs, took care of birds and explored the world outside campus.

In February I left my role as a central administration curriculum leader. In that role I saw great value in pursuing the resources to begin a district level Student Equity Council. As an antiracist educator it was critically important that this Council #ATXStudentEquity decenter the adults in our system. By decentering adults, novel idea, we created the learning space for high school student representatives to advance their self-efficacy, agency and criticality. Students first learned about Liberatory Design Theory, in an engaging format for teens, not from a state adopted textbook. We had to keep adults at bay who wanted the students to “advise” them on decisions they were making for students. We asked for a few months December-February to get the students to build community, learn about Liberatory Design to build their discursive muscle to critically love the adults and the system that marginalizes most of them. This Council was designed to bring students from all social and racial backgrounds so the conversations and recommendations would yield equitable outcomes for them and their 80,000 peers.

As a teacher I found the support I needed to co0create this learning environment for them and myself. I sought out the professional learning that would build pedagogical knowledge I needed to improve my craft. As a central administration leader I took seriously my role to enact change for the student who sits in the seat in the classroom.

#AntiRacistEd Reflection/Action: Review the following quotes. These quotes spoke to me as I considered criticality. What comes up for you as you consider Historically Responsive Literacy to enrich the classroom spaces in your school or school system?

“If students are to develop the skills, mindsets, and ability to act against oppression, then educators must have support and opportunities to learn and practice acting as agents of change against oppression in the educational system…. To cultivate those attributes in their students, educators must have the opportunity to reflect critically on their own thoughts and practices as well.” (Zion et al. 2015, p. 915)

“As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence…. Any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged….the professor must genuinely value everyone’s presence. There must be an ongoing recognition that everyone influences the classroom dynamic, that everyone contributes. These contributions are resources. ” (hooks p. 8)

Angela Ward, “Cultivating Criticality”, As originally published on 2ward Equity Blog, April 3, 2021.

Photo by Rachel on Unsplash

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