Re-Membering History in Student and Teacher Learning

An Afrocentric Culturally Informed Praxis

Joyce E. King, Ellen E. Swartz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415715126
• eBook ISBN: 9781134705344
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What kind of social studies knowledge can stimulate a critical and ethical dialog with the past and present? "Re-Membering" History in Student and Teacher Learning answers this question by explaining and illustrating a process of historical recovery that merges Afrocentric theory and principles of culturally informed curricular practice to reconnect multiple knowledge bases and experiences. In the case studies presented, K-12 practitioners, teacher educators, preservice teachers, and parents use this praxis to produce and then study the use of democratized student texts; they step outside of reproducing standard school experiences to engage in conscious inquiry about their shared present as a continuance of a shared past. This volume exemplifies not only why instructional materials—including most so-called multicultural materials—obstruct democratized knowledge, but also takes the next step to construct and then study how "re-membered" student texts can be used. Case study findings reveal improved student outcomes, enhanced relationships between teachers and families and teachers and students, and a closer connection for children and adults to their heritage.

SECTION I

An Afrocentric Culturally Informed Praxis of Historical Recovery

This volume has two sections and readers can begin with either one. For some, the case studies in Section II will provide a practice-based context for then engaging with the chapters in Section I that explain and exemplify the emancipatory intent of historical recovery. Others will prefer the reverse—moving from explanations of praxis to its school-based implementation. Moving in either direction is a viable approach to using this volume.

The four chapters in Section I describe a praxis of historical recovery that produces democratized knowledge using Afrocentric theory and principles of culturally informed curricular practice. The need for democratized knowledge is demonstrated through examination of standard social studies materials that have historically perpetuated a culturally singular version of the past through grand narratives and master scripts. A four-phase process for re-connecting or “re-membering” the past is presented, as well as how to produce democratized knowledge in the form of student texts. Even though knowledge of the past cannot be known with empirical certainty, it can become more comprehensive when scholarship is informed by a range of diverse vantage points, voices, knowledge bases, and experiences. This section also provides a democratized standards model to guide teaching and measure student learning.

1

INTRODUCTION

What kind of social studies knowledge can stimulate a critical dialog with the past and present, and how can it be constructed?

A Democratized Vision of History: Who Will Benefit?

“Re-membering” history is a process enacted within an Afrocentric culturally informed praxis of historical recovery that reconnects the multiple and shared knowledge bases and experiences that shaped the past. This praxis has three components—Afrocentric theory, the principles of culturally informed curricular practice, and practitioner inquiry (Asante, 1980/1988; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Swartz, 2012a). Together, these components are designed to actualize a democratized vision of history that steps outside of reproducing “history business” as usual by engaging teachers, teacher educators, students, and families in conscious inquiry about their shared present as a continuance of a shared past. This vision of the past—and the examples that bring it to life in this text—can enhance what social studies educators and those in other fields know and are able to do with historical knowledge. Importantly, a goal of this praxis for teacher learning and development is to cultivate teachers who (a) “are community minded—putting their knowledge, skills, and compassion at the service of themselves, peers, families, and communities;” (b) “are scholars who conceptualize and demonstrate learning as a communal practice”; and (c) “are imaginative, creative, critical, and reflective thinkers and builders” (RTC, 2007, p. 4).

These three standards are quoted from the Rochester Teacher Center Cultural Learning Standards (RTC, 2007), which describe what students are expected to know, be able to do, and be like. If educators are guided by these standards, they can model them for students. With a three-pronged focus on what teachers are expected to know (content), be able to do (pedagogy), and be like (ways of being), we invite teacher educators, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers to use this volume in structured dialogues about the practical applications of using social studies knowledge in both classrooms and communities. PK-12 practitioners, teacher educators, and researchers affiliated with the Rochester Teacher Center have demonstrated the power of this way of learning as seen in their classrooms and professional development activities such as teacher research, an example of which is included in chapter 5 in this volume.

This chapter by Joyce E. King and Ellen E. Swartz is the first of four chapters in Section I. It defines and describes the grand narratives still found in social studies curricula and analyzes examples from the master scripts that continue to teach and perpetuate these grand narratives. Even though there is now an increased presence of historically omitted cultures and groups in social studies materials, we explain how their insertions serve to reify grand narratives and the master scripts that now include them. These narratives and scripts can be countered by producing and studying democratized knowledge, which refers to knowledge that is reconnected or “re-membered” through the Afrocentric culturally informed praxis of historical recovery introduced in this chapter.

Chapter 2, “Silenced History” by Ellen E. Swartz, examines the limitations and gatekeeping function of grand narratives and master scripts that silence history and the ways in which they teach and replicate a hierarchy of human worth. She describes and exemplifies the three components of the praxis of historical recovery: Afrocentric theory and its human-centric concepts that frame historical accounts able to center all cultures and groups, the six principles of culturally informed curricular practice that translate these Afrocentric concepts into the writing of student texts, and practitioner inquiry that examines the use of “re-membered” student texts in classrooms and community.

Chapter 3, “‘Re-Membering’ the Way to Content” by Joyce E. King and Ellen E. Swartz, discusses the four phases in the “re-membering” process; identifies, refines, charts, and compares the salient themes in each identity-group narrative; and shows how the alterity themes of Haudenosaunee and African people, and a marginalized theme of a sub-group of White colonists, provide knowledge that upends the silences in grand narratives and master scripts (King, 2004; Wynter, 2006). This chapter further explains how the knowledge bases and experiences of all identity groups that shaped freedom and democracy in colonial North America can be reconnected in the form of a student text entitled Freedom and Democracy: A Story Remembered (Swartz, 2013).

In chapter 4, “Standards “Re-Membered” by Ellen E. Swartz, we take up the question of standards in the current management driven era of neo-reform. State standards and culturally informed standards are presented in order to demonstrate their combined use in guiding teaching and measuring learning in the social studies. Just as Afrocentric theory and the principles of culturally informed curricular practice can democratize knowledge by “re-membering” it, standards for the social studies can be democratized if they too are informed by a range of diverse vantage points, knowledge bases, and experiences that shaped the past. Our standards model invites teachers to take hold of standards and use them in the best interests of teaching and learning, rather than be held hostage by standards that reproduce hegemonic narratives of the past.

Chapters 5 through 8 in Section II of this volume are examples of practitioner inquiry that demonstrate how elementary, higher education, and pre-service teachers have examined the use of “re-membered” texts. Together, these four practitioner studies provide feedback about pedagogy, student outcomes, family participation, and relationships among teachers, students, and families when using “re-membered” student texts. These studies also represent a new line of research on Afrocentric culturally informed praxis with the potential for systemic change.

In chapter 5, “Austin Steward: ‘Home-Style’ Teaching, Planning, and Assessment,” Linda Campbell describes a study she conducted in her third-grade classroom that examined how students respond when parents have an expanded role in culturally responsive curriculum and assessment. (Note that in this volume the term “culturally responsive” is interchangeable with the term “culturally informed.”) Family members were invited to participate in creating an assessment rubric, help students with homework, and co-produce a book about Austin Steward with their children based on a “re-membered” document-based learning chapter entitled “Austin Steward: Self-Determination and Human Freedom” (Goodwin & Swartz, 2009). The study’s findings show the impact on a teacher, students, and parents—and on their relationships—when parents have an expanded role in a culturally informed curriculum.

In chapter 6, Shonda Lemons-Smith reports on an interdisciplinary study she conducted entitled “Using ‘Re-Membered’ Student Text as a Pedagogical Frame for Urban Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers.” As a math educator she explores the ways in which the “re-membered” student text, Freedom and Democracy: A Story Remembered (Swartz, 2013) informs pre-service teachers’ choices of math concepts, the structure of their lessons, and their ideas about historical content when writing lesson plans and discussing content. The study’s findings echo those in the teacher preparation literature about how pre-service teachers engage with issues of cultural diversity and suggest the kind of learning situations pre-service teachers need when using culturally informed content. This study also underscores the value of teacher preparation that includes cultural knowledge in methods and other courses, not only in a designated diversity course.

In chapter 7, “Culturally Informed Lesson Planning,” Ericka López describes a study she conducted when she was an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) pre-service teacher. This case study examines what a lesson plan looks like when a culturally informed text, Freedom and Democracy: A Story Remembered (Swartz, 2013) and emancipatory pedagogy are used to encourage critical thinking. The study’s findings indicate what teachers and students need to know, do, and be like in culturally informed lesson planning. López also identified how traditional lesson planning is linked to tracking and the systemic marginalization of ESOL students who are often placed in low ability or special education classes and experience high dropout rates.

In chapter 8, “Recovering History and the ‘Parent Piece’ for Cultural Well-Being and Belonging,” teacher educator Joyce E. King and two of her doctoral students, Adrienne C. Goss and Sherell A. McArthur, co-investigate what happens when doctoral students and parents engage with Afrocentric curriculum and pedagogy in an afterschool program. King models Afrocentric curriculum and pedagogy for her doctoral students who are teaching middle school students, and, in a series of workshops, the research team discusses this same curriculum with the parents of these students. This curriculum represents an African worldview drawn from both classical Africa and the Diaspora. The study’s findings indicate the impact of these interventions on doctoral students and parents related to historical recovery and cultural well-being and belonging.

Chapter 9 entitled “Coda: What ‘Re-Membered’ Texts ‘Re-Member’” is assembled through the writings of all authors. We refer to this final chapter as a coda, because it not only connects the Afrocentric culturally informed praxis described in Section I with the summaries and findings of the four case studies in Section II, but it also identifies a new theme about the relationship between using “re-membered” texts and “re-membering” disconnected relationships and practices that when put back together have implications for changing the educational system.

Democratizing Knowledge

Democratized knowledge in the social studies is coalescent knowledge that reconnects or “re-members” the multiple and shared knowledge bases and experiences that shaped the past (Swartz, 2007a). Such knowledge eschews singular, agreed-upon, hegemonic constructions of knowledge that fragment and distort the past. A number of educators write about the democratization of knowledge (Asante, 2007; Fishman & McLaren, 2000; Freire, 1998; Giroux, 2001; Grande, 2004; Karenga, 2006). These scholars make clear cases for curricular and pedagogical reinventions aimed at changing everyday oppressive conditions, achieving social justice and equality, and/or producing examples of self-determination and collective responsibility instead of the more prevalent emphases on appropriation and assimilation. Unfortunately, this scholarship has had little impact on the “official knowledge” that corporate-owned textbook publishers and their state partners continue to produce for PK-12...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Section I An Afrocentric Culturally Informed Praxis of Historical Recovery
• Section II Studying the Use of “Re-Membered” Texts
• Appendix A Four Identity-Group Narratives
• Appendix B Lesson Summaries: Themes, Concepts, and Principles
• Contributors
• Index