Gender, Anticolonialism, and Education

Anticolonialism is a revolutionary philosophy, a philosophy of revolution. Simply put, it is the struggle for freedom from slavery, settler colonialism, and imperialism. It is the theory and practice of the decolonization of nation-states, as well as of the decolonization of practices of knowledge production, consumption, dissemination, and the entire enterprise of education. It also works to decolonize minds, bodies, and imaginations. Anticolonialism challenges dominant practices of knowledge (and ignorance) production to highlight the intersection of gender, race, and class in what is known and not known about the past as it plays out in the present in education and beyond. Anticolonial scholarship and activism focus on intersectional accounts of history to investigate class- and gender-based forms of violence in some of the most celebrated nonviolent movements. Highlighting the psychic dimensions of domination and resistance is central to the anticolonial project, which elaborates on the boomerang effects of domination and the perils of privilege. This insight is central to imagining a sustainable world of social solidarity and reciprocity. The success of an anticolonial approach to education lies in creating capacities to critically reflect on colonial discourses, institutional structures, educational policy, practice, and pedagogical strategies. The anticolonial project brings to light the psychic life of domination and resistance, which colludes with flaws in the criminal justice system that work to funnel too many children of color out of school and into juvenile and justice systems. Anticolonial educational strategies begin with an intersectional approach to disrupting the school to prison pipeline—a devastating neocolonial formation. Twenty-first-century anticolonial educators and activists learn from the work of student activists in the Mississippi civil rights movement and their creation of Freedom Schools. The radical conceptions of pedagogy, citizenship, and power developed in Freedom Schools have important implications for thinking about the role of education in building a multiracial/multisexual anticolonial democracy in the 21st century.

Curriculum of Social Movements

Social movements change the world. Thus, they shape curriculum. Participation in movements educates the public by altering viewpoints and actions. Likewise, participants learn through participation in social movements; therefore, social movements can be considered curricula. The experiences of social movements are curricula that exist in and out of schools. Examples of the myriad connections among school curriculum, nonschool curriculum, and social movements interact in dynamic fluidity. Curriculum is much more than a course syllabus, set of plans, or the indoctrinations or liberations intended by schools. Curriculum includes all experiences of schooling and contexts that influence schooling: intended, taught, tested, hidden, excluded, outside, peer-driven, and more. It encompasses knowledge, relationships, and interpretations that students bring to school or anywhere else. These multiple dimensions of curriculum also exist in the diverse experiences, institutions, and gatherings of everyday life. Alternative forms of curriculum have been envisioned and enacted over the centuries to overcome the dominance of autocratic forms of education. Social movements educate and are therefore curricular. A noteworthy example of curricula of social movements is the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the Mississippi Freedom Schools in the United States. Another example is the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, founded by Myles Horton and based on the Danish model of folk schools, which was a center of inspiration and praxis for participants in the Civil Rights Movement. Emancipatory educational movements are exemplified in the problem-posing work of Paulo Freire, initially in Brazil, evolving to counter the oppressiveness of “banking” forms of education in many parts of the world. Freire has shown how oppressed persons could be major creators of their own education, by learning to name, write, and read the world to compose a more just world. In the second decade of the 21st century, young climate activists, such as Xiye Bastida and Greta Thunberg, have advocated ecological renewal; this has grown into a worldwide movement, captured in the title “Fridays for Future.” Local examples include the insightful stories in The Journal of Ordinary Thought, inspired and evoked by Hal Adams and authored by the parents of students in some of Chicago’s most impoverished Black neighborhoods in the late 20th century. Global movements include Black Lives Matter, which has manifested itself as an act of solidarity in the second decade of the 21st century. Social movements, of which the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. are an emblematic example, teach the power of learning and the learning of power. They help raise the deepest and most worthwhile questions: What does it mean to be human? Who am I in relation to others? What kind of a society do we want to create? How can schools and other public spaces become generative sites of contention and authentic engagement? That is where a curriculum of social movements comes to life. What lessons might educators learn from the examples of a curriculum of social movements? How should we live? How will we live? What will you do about it?

Epilogue

The trouble started late on the evening of June 16, 1964, when members of the Ku Klux Klan set fire to a church outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Mount Zion Church was slated to host one of many new “freedom schools” across the state—grassroots institutions designed to empower and organize local black youth through an alternative curriculum focused on black history, civic education, and nonviolent resistance....

“Say What you Really Believe”1: Freedom Schools, Youth Empowerment, and Black Power in 1960s Milwaukee

Background The historical literature on the civil rights movement has tended to underemphasize the movement's educational activities, while literature on the civil rights and Black Power movements has overemphasized ideological and tactical differences between these chapters in the struggle for Black liberation. A few studies have examined Freedom Schools—educational projects established as part of larger civil rights campaigns—but these studies have focused almost exclusively on Freedom Schools in the Southern context. Purpose Focusing on Freedom Schools organized as part of a school desegregation campaign in Milwaukee during the mid-1960s, this article explores the pedagogical purpose and philosophy of the Freedom Schools, as distinct from other protest activities undertaken as part of the campaign, as well as the legacy of the Freedom Schools after the campaign's conclusion. Research Design This historical analysis examines materials such as lesson plans, flyers, and correspondence from the archives of the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC), the organization responsible for the school desegregation campaign. Findings This article shows that core components of the Freedom School curriculum, which sought to challenge deficit-oriented policies and empower youth to create social change, foreshadowed key tenets of Black Power ideology. Conclusions These findings suggest that the Freedom Schools, as important sites of ideological development, highlight continuity between the civil rights and Black Power movements and situate the Freedom Schools as part of a longer tradition of education for liberation and self-determination.

Until the Revolution: Analyzing the Politics, Pedagogy, and Curriculum of the Oakland Community School

In United States conversations about progressive pedagogy and alternative forms of education, the longstanding models that scholars used were predominantly white. African-American historians of education have problematized this narrative. More recently, the interdisciplinary field of Black Power studies has increased investigation into Afrocentric pedagogy and Black politically-engaged education after World War II (Rickford, 2016). While much attention has been paid to the freedom schools, educational sites run by Black revolutionary nationalists have received less attention. One particular site is the Oakland Community School (OCS), the Black Panther Party’s full-time day school. Initially a combined day-care and home school known as the Children’s House in 1970, the school changed to become the Intercommunal Youth Institute in 1971. It then operated as the Oakland Community School from 1974 until 1982, earning acclaim from the California Department of Education and the governor of California (Gore, Theoharis & Woodard, 2009). While multiple historical studies detail the pedagogical contours of the school and its community engagement, very few elicit the voices of former students. This work incorporates such voices, in conjunction with traditional archives and digital archival material, as a means of contextualizing the OCS within the Black Panther Party’s politics of the period and the school’s implications for contemporary education.

Exploring the Implications of Culturally Relevant Teaching: Toward a Pedagogy of Liberation

Schools in America may provide opportunities for upward mobility while also perpetuating social inequality. The inequities found in the US public school system probably result in such a highly stratified society. Conditions found in many schools and classrooms are often a microcosm of the same conditions and factors present in the broader American society. Scholars and education reform activists often use the term school-to-prison pipeline to describe what they view as a widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students, especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school, and into the criminal justice system. This research explored whether mentorship in the lives of these very students can affect the trajectory that these students take in life by moving toward a pedagogy of liberation that challenges the inequities and contradictions in the institution of education. Building from a model similar to CDF Freedom Schools, but targeting academic enrichment, Farrah and her colleague Hope developed the Sankofa Project at Yin Elementary School (YES). Embracing both the social-emotional and pedagogical aspects of CDF Freedom Schools, the Sankofa Project moved from a mission that sought to instill a love for reading to actually teaching children to read. This aspect was pivotally important to Farrah and Hope as they sought to dismantle the “cradle to prison pipeline,” the concept of funneling masses of people into marginalized lives, imprisonment, and often premature death. Farrah believed that all her predecessors had done “was spot on, but academic enrichment was a key to steering children away from the pipeline.” With the rebirth of a caste-like system in America, black and brown bodies are disproportionately locked behind bars, relegated permanent second-class status if declared a felon and an increasingly common trend toward annihilation at the hands of those of who are designated to serve and protect them.

The Power of Interactive Multicultural Read-Alouds with Elementary-Aged Children

Racial identity development in young children is influenced by interactions with teachers and curriculum in schools. This article, using the framework of critical race theory, critical literacy, and critical pedagogy, explores how three elementary-aged Black children view their own identity development. Specifically, observing how children interact with Movement-Oriented Civil Rights-Themed Children’s Literature (MO-CRiTLit) in the context of a non-traditional summer literacy program, Freedom Schools, to influence their Black identity. Professional development and preservice teacher preparation are needed to support teachers as they navigate through learning about pedagogical practices that increase student engagement.