Greetings Brothers:
This blog space is our virtual
space to wrestle with, reflect on, and share our classroom experiences, best
practices, and our variegated, dynamic pedagogical approaches. In this space we
should feel free to discuss our triumphs as well as our challenges. As we all
know, we are lifelong learners. So, then, as such it is incumbent upon us to
seek out opportunities to learn from each other, and equally as important to
build together as a community of educators.
What is more, this blog space is
intended to be a dynamic conversation. We can detail the above-mentioned (as well as other) aspects
of our facilitation/teaching as well as let the community know about important
upcoming events.
This space is a virtual extension
of our professional learning community, and as such, it should function as a
space to reflect on and continually iterate (and subsequently hone) our
individual/collective pedagogy. In the spirit of this, I have listed a somewhat
random group of readings, which have helped and continue to help me think,
metacognitively, about my pedagogical theory & practice (praxis). (By the
way, I have either electronic and/or hard copies of all of the titles below if
anyone is interested in reading anything on this list.)
- Fanon, Frantz (1963). The wretched of the earth.
New York, New York: Grove Press.
- Fanon, Frantz (1968). Black skin, white masks.
New York, New York: Grove Press.
·
Freire,
Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. 30th Anniversary Edition (2000) with
an introduction by Donaldo Macedo (pp. 71-86). New York: Continuum.
In
this now classic text by the Brazilian educator, Freire, we are asked to
contrast education as "banking" with "education as the practice
of freedom."
·
Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Chapter 7:
Literacy and critical pedagogy (pp. 98—110). In Readingthe word and the world.
London: Routledge.
In
this this chapter, Freire analyzes the role of language in literacy writ large,
and in literacy instruction more specifically. Additionally, he discusses and
subsequently deconstructs the asymmetrical power relationships that
non-emancipatory (i.e., repressive/oppressive) pedagogy foments for
traditionally marginalized students.
·
Rose,
M. (1989). “I just wanna be average.” In Lives on the boundary: An account of the struggles and achievements
of America's educationally under-prepared (pp. 11-37). New York: Penguin.
Rose
writes an evocative account of his years in the "Voc. Ed." track,
reflecting on his own school experiences in light of public discussions of
education and the under-prepared student.
·
Mahiri,
Jabari, & Sablo, Soraya. (1996). Writing for their lives: The
non-school literacy of California’s urban African American youth. The Journal of Negro Education, 65 (2), 164-80.
These authors examine the voluntary literacy practices by means of
which urban African American youth make sense of their worlds. How can we
draw upon youth’s out-of-school literacy practices to rethink literacy
instruction inside schools?
·
Douglass,
F. (1987). Narrative of the life
of Frederick Douglass. In H.L.
Gates, Jr. (Ed.), The Classic
Slave Narratives (pp. 273-281).
New York: Penguin.
This section of Douglass's autobiography gives an account of his
learning to read and write, despite the fact that, from the perspective of
Douglass's slave owners, "it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a
slave to read."
·
Delpit, L. (1995). The silenced dialogue: Power
and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. In Other people's children: Cultural conflict in theclassroom (pp. 21-47). New York: The New Press.
Delpitquestions both why some children of color don't learn to read when taught by
means of "progressive" and "child-centered" methods and why
teachers and parents of color are often excluded in conversations about what is
good for their children.
·
Alexander, M. (2010). The
New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New
Press. New York, NY. 10013
·
Delpit, L. (2012). Multiplication
is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children. The
New Press. New York, NY 10013.
- Smyth, J. (2011). Critical Pedagogy for Social
Justice. Continuum. New York, NY 10038.
- Steele, C. & Aronson, J. (2004). Stereotype threat
and intellectual performance of African Americans.
- Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other
clues to how stereotypes affect us. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company.
