Cultivating genius
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Criticality calls for teachers to connect their teaching to the human condition and to frame their teaching practices in response to the social and uneven times in which we live. It is helping youths to be “woke” socio-politically. But Critical with a capital “c” is related to power, equity, and anti-oppression. In my work, I discuss the difference between lower case “c” critical, which is just deep and analytical thinking. This can be racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, or any other oppression. I define oppression simply as any wrongdoing, hurt, or harm. With each lesson or unit plan, teachers should ask, How does our curriculum and instruction help students to learn about themselves or others?Ĭriticality is the capacity and ability to read, write, think, and speak in ways to understand power and equity in order to understand and promote anti-oppression.
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When they don’t know themselves, others may tell them, and sometimes that may not be positive. When youths have a strong sense of their own histories and identities, it becomes a refuge or a protection. When we have true, clear, and complete understandings about people different from us, we are less inclined to hate, show bias, or hold false views of others. Not only is it important to teach youths who they are, but educators should also teach students about the identities and cultures of others different from them. Because we are complex beings, we have racial, cultural, gender, environmental, and community identities, to name a few. Students are constantly making sense of who they are, and, I argue, classroom instruction needs to be responsive to their identities. Identity is made up of who we say we are, who others say we are, and the people we desire to be.
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Collectively teaching these four goals or standards helps to cultivate students who are socio-conscious beings, who deeply have a strong sense of self and others, and who are academically successful. Instead, they had wider goals for learning, which resulted in the Historically Responsive Model for teaching and learning. But importantly, they did not seek to just advance their skills in language, history, math, or science. They were highly collaborative and believed in the collective responsibility for one another’s learning. I asked questions such as, What types of texts did they read? What were some of their goals for learning? What factors contributed to their personal and academic success? I found that members of literary societies read diverse texts written by diverse authors. I studied black literary societies to understand their literacy practices and learning. The four-part equity model was derived from examining archives and historical artifacts during the 19th century. If we compare these four areas to schools today, I find that most educators are teaching skills only, or their state learning standards. In other words, as black people were learning, they were cultivating each of those four areas of their lives.
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Literacy was also defined within the four frames of identity, skills, intellectualism, and criticality, the four-part equity model. And I found that literacy was synonymous with education. In my research, I take up the ways in which literacy was defined historically within black communities, particularly in black literary societies. The framework does bring diverse texts and literacies into all content areas in K-12 classrooms. The historically responsive equity framework is not just for literacy instruction or literacy educators per se but for all teachers across the disciplines. LF: You propose a four-part “equity framework” for literacy instruction including: “1) identity development 2) skill development 3) intellectual development and 4) criticality.”Ĭould you describe these elements, particularly “identity development” and “criticality” since it seems that teachers might be more familiar with the middle two? Gholdy Muhammad is an associate professor of language and literacy at Georgia State University. īy the way, this is the 100th book-related column published in this blog, including 96 interviews with authors and a handful of book reviews and lists of book recommendations by teachers. Gholdy Muhammad agreed to answer a few questions about her new book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy.