teaching philosophy.
“...it SHOULD BE unconscionable to think that your little assignment or assessment strategy is offering a radically transformative end-game in this social system. That’s academic marketing— and a catering to white comfort. It’s NOT anti-racism. Your pedagogy is not unshackling 400 years of slavery for any slave or her descendant. Your classrooms are not untying the noose of Jim Crow lynch law, past or present, for any black bodies that have hung from trees. And you are not breaking down today’s prison walls and borders. So comfort and a feel of ease are not options. All that we have— when we think in terms of racial realism— is struggle. That’s it. The hope is in the process of the struggle. It is in the constant work, not the end result or an eventual sign of progress because that is not forthcoming… not in the lifetime of anyone in this room. Being a racial realist changes the way you approach and politicize the work.” -Carmen Kynard “...each of us holds a distinct piece of our collective, liberated future within us, and it is only accessible as we liberate our own imaginations, and our truest selves, shaped by each of our particular ancestral and life experiences.” -adrienne maree brown |
Each class community comes with their own expectations, histories, assumptions, ideologies, epistemologies, and embodied experiences that I no longer attempt to follow a uniform pattern or strategy for facilitation. Instead, my teaching philosophy exemplifies pedagogical practices that are: EMERGENT, LORDEAN, and DEFIANT.
Emergence is the process of small, insurmountable actions culminating into revolutionary changes according to my Intellectual Kinfolk, Octavia Butler and adrienne maree brown. By approaching my teaching as emergent, I begin each “syllabus day” and first unit of coursework in dialogue with students. Figuring out the skills, strategies, and knowledge they want to attain through the course to then develop scaffolded assignments to be deliberate with time and content.
My first assignment in all my courses is an assignment in mapping. Students are challenged to engage with land, memory, self, identity, history to see who and where they were formed, how communities were formed, and how essential consciousness of our environments are to understanding distant past, rapid presents, and approaching futures.
When students can visualize systems and structures of power, oppression, knowledge creation, capitalism, colonization, and our place in the world. It appears they are almost subconsciously able to approach topics, conversations, course content and life more critically; making small consistent changes that allow them to transform as citizens, advocates, and members of a community.
My first assignment in all my courses is an assignment in mapping. Students are challenged to engage with land, memory, self, identity, history to see who and where they were formed, how communities were formed, and how essential consciousness of our environments are to understanding distant past, rapid presents, and approaching futures.
When students can visualize systems and structures of power, oppression, knowledge creation, capitalism, colonization, and our place in the world. It appears they are almost subconsciously able to approach topics, conversations, course content and life more critically; making small consistent changes that allow them to transform as citizens, advocates, and members of a community.
Through her warrior poetic and unapologetic embodiment, Audre Lorde language and strategies are essential to our ability to survive in the academy and the world. Lorde wrote an essay that informs my pedagogy and role in the undergraduate classroom: “The Uses of Anger” where the audience is challenged to use anger for creative reinvention and revolution.
Spoiler, teaching courses on diversity, patriarchy, critical race, trauma, literature, etc. can almost arrest students in their emotions and experiences. Thus, in weekly responses students are asked to complete throughout the course in relation to the texts we engage with for the week, students are asked to “Spill the Tea” and provide a response and question for class discussion via a social media account (students can choose to create one for the class or use their public accounts). This assignment challenges students to get “real” and have “real” conversations within the classroom and public spheres.
Learning happens in spaces that are uncomfortable, messy, difficult, opaque; but it is through the muck that students are able to see the humanity in each other and the world. The guidelines for this assignment are clearly outlined and I participate as well (because as a Black woman, I am not at a loss for things to be angry about). Students utilize a skillset they are experts in (social media) to work through the foreign and new, or the painful and constant. For the midterm, students select one of their posts and develop a proposal, presentation, performance, or other art to repurpose the anger into action. This creates willful citizens, passionate about engaging, learning, struggling, and making mistakes to create an antiracist, accessible, and ethical world. As well as providing a real-world tool, it is a magical quality to no longer be paralyzed by injustice, but motivated to reclaim a culture.
Spoiler, teaching courses on diversity, patriarchy, critical race, trauma, literature, etc. can almost arrest students in their emotions and experiences. Thus, in weekly responses students are asked to complete throughout the course in relation to the texts we engage with for the week, students are asked to “Spill the Tea” and provide a response and question for class discussion via a social media account (students can choose to create one for the class or use their public accounts). This assignment challenges students to get “real” and have “real” conversations within the classroom and public spheres.
Learning happens in spaces that are uncomfortable, messy, difficult, opaque; but it is through the muck that students are able to see the humanity in each other and the world. The guidelines for this assignment are clearly outlined and I participate as well (because as a Black woman, I am not at a loss for things to be angry about). Students utilize a skillset they are experts in (social media) to work through the foreign and new, or the painful and constant. For the midterm, students select one of their posts and develop a proposal, presentation, performance, or other art to repurpose the anger into action. This creates willful citizens, passionate about engaging, learning, struggling, and making mistakes to create an antiracist, accessible, and ethical world. As well as providing a real-world tool, it is a magical quality to no longer be paralyzed by injustice, but motivated to reclaim a culture.
My teaching is naturally defiant. The traditional academy was not made for people who look like me; standardized tests were not coded for impoverished Black girls from South Central LA. As society begins to expand initiatives towards equity, more people like me are gaining access to the academy. Thus, in defiant efforts committed to accessibility, I do not require my students or myself to code-switch, but instead codemesh and present our most authentic selves. The work they create, the innovations they develop, the insights they unearth can be accomplished in the way that is most natural for them.
While students will see defiance in processes like examinations and grading per chance, mainly I teach defiance in the herstory we engage with. Literacy is one of the most prevalent forms of oppression in colonization. My teaching centers on textual engagement and analysis of oral histories, music, art, archives, performance, film, and textiles, world building, investigation, and communal engagement. History is owned by those in power, while herstory is the coded language in communities, the myths that transcend generations, and it can even be in the gastronomy or methods of play. Defying what dominant discourse communities view as worthy of scholarly critique, to highlight communal discourse and the power of self-love and reclamation.
I teach to reclaim narratives, to empower stories of defiant resistance, and to build sovereignty in the rich diverse cultures of our world while simultaneously providing students a space to explore, experience, engage, and evolve.
While students will see defiance in processes like examinations and grading per chance, mainly I teach defiance in the herstory we engage with. Literacy is one of the most prevalent forms of oppression in colonization. My teaching centers on textual engagement and analysis of oral histories, music, art, archives, performance, film, and textiles, world building, investigation, and communal engagement. History is owned by those in power, while herstory is the coded language in communities, the myths that transcend generations, and it can even be in the gastronomy or methods of play. Defying what dominant discourse communities view as worthy of scholarly critique, to highlight communal discourse and the power of self-love and reclamation.
I teach to reclaim narratives, to empower stories of defiant resistance, and to build sovereignty in the rich diverse cultures of our world while simultaneously providing students a space to explore, experience, engage, and evolve.