PURPOSE
My curiosity about the history of black people outside of
Africa continued its evolution. I was interested in the black people of the African Diaspora, the black people of the slave trade. The dream took me to the internet and as I surfed I found a website dedicated to the Afro Mexican population. A young man at Stanford University was doing his dissertation in that area and I emailed him. After making contact, he suggested that I might want to attend the Afro-Mexican cultural celebration that was being held in March. Excited by the possibilities of meeting the people, I took the plunge and arrived in the area with nothing more than a backpack and a
Spanish/English dictionary. It was frightening and spectacular at the same time. I found the Stanford student, envied his ease with the language, and proceeded to meet as many people as possible. The high school students took me under their wings and proceeded to patiently teach me the language during the festival. To my surprise, I met another Guyanese in this most unexpected place and found out that the priest, who was mainly responsible for the cultural awareness of black heritage, was a Trinidadian who had become a resident of this Afro-Mexican community over 20 years.
In conversations with these men and the people of the village, I became more aware of the need to tell stories, the stories of women, both the historical and the contemporary stories. The women were eager to share their stories, eager to learn stories of other women, and eager to hear my ideas. And, that is how the ideas of sharing culture and language and using the information to develop and sustain literacy became focused and purposeful. Multiple visits and many conversations over the past few years have helped to shape the possibilities of this kind of work.
WHAT DRIVES THIS CONCEPT
The fact is that the statistics show that many students, predominantly poor and "minority" students, are below grade level in relation to the standardized tests of the United States. The problem, as noted by these dominant assessment standards, is that these students are not and will not be eligible for higher education unless they are able to succeed in this environment. Many of these students' work reflect a lack of knowledge in reading, writing, and speaking -- the language arts. This concept is one attempt at reinvigorating the curriculum with stories that utilize the technology of the time and work to motivate and encourage students to engage with their literacy lives while constructing their own knowledge and their own identities.
COMPUTER CONCEPT
Creating interactive websites/CDs and books for junior high and high school students (even creating them with the students -- in local situations such as collecting the stories of mothers and grandmothers/elders in the community). These stories will focus on the lives of women in the
African Diaspora, starting with women in
North America -- Canada, the U.S., and Mexico and then moving to women in Latin America -- Central and South America -- and moving to women in the English and French Caribbean, etc. There will be a focus on collecting the historical stories, moving to recent past and the present, of African women involved in resistance -- resistance seen on many levels (historically women involved in insurrections, maroon societies like Nannytown in Jamaica, maroon societies in Suriname, Brazil, Belize, Honduras, etc; resistance in private lives around children and relationships; resistance in education; resistance in women's rights, etc.; in civil rights, job market, etc.
These stories will be based on a critical pedagogy perspective. Wherein, the stories will be dependent on teacher involvement and facilitation, cooperative group learning through dialogue -- constructing knowledge together. The stories will be analyzed and discussed according to author's possible perspective and social influences and possible intentions and the character/s will be viewed through the period of time in which they lived. Therefore, resistance will be discussed according to the social environment of the time.
WHY?
There is a need for all students and especially "minority" students to learn the dynamics of language, all language including the language of -- imposed -- power (Delpit), Standard English. This means that students should be introduced to the structure of language (grammar, syntax and semantics) as well as to a content that is a reflection of American's Utopian idea of democracy. In a democratic classroom all voices should be heard. Therefore, in teaching language the curriculum/ the readings should reflect the multiple peoples that have contributed to the "successful" capitalism of the U.S., where some, a small minority, have the most and the majority (which happens to be mostly of color) have the least. This gathering of knowledge to build new knowledge should also reflect the genders in a society. Consequently, as a black person and as a woman I would like to work with others to construct some knowledge about women of African descent and their stories of resistance.
In dealing with issues such as racism and sexism and as a black woman entering into education in the post-modern era -- theories driven by diverse/multicultured and multilingual societies that are pushing at borders and demanding the decentering of male and European dominated thought and making space in the center for their voices to be heard, their ways to be acknowledged -- rethinking, remaking, revisualizing, reconceptualizing -- (we make the world as it makes us / Bahktin; reading the world and the word / Freire -- this means that a changing society driven by human action, the colonization of lands, the enslavement of people, the creation of industry, revolutions, decolonization, all created theories/justifications explanations for human behavior -- each one adequate for a time, to be toppled by the activities of the time and the people to come. Modernism and structuralism supported by scientific knowledge and the need to make sense, "common sense" -- rationale/logic out of life (Weber); driven by people who had power and needed to control people for an industrial/capitalistic society where nations expanded into other territories, imperialistic colonization of other people in other lands, the need for large masses of people as labor force to sell their physical labor as a commodity for other people's profit (Marx) -- a need to think of the world as static (that there will always be a hierarchy, the need for a hegemony that will keep people in place consistently over time-a continuous capitalist society that exists in the same way and with the same rules.
Marxism also fell prey to this idea of predictability and control -- he felt that humans had agency, but he felt that that agency would follow some order, some linear progression -- abused, alienated = total revolution and that universally people would behave in this fashion when in similar circumstances. It seems that Marx -- even though he was rethinking the society he was still influenced by the scientific thinking of the time and believed therefore that 2 + 2 = 4). Post-modernism and post-structuralism is the recognition of difference and unpredictability, non-linear, shifting, changing, and growing languages; reading the world in different ways depending on gender, dialects, experiences -- making new spaces for different voices -- multilevels/multilayers -- multicultured, multilingual, multiple subjectivities, positions, views -- multiple identities -- crossing borders [hall, giroux] (as acknowledged by the contribution of Bahktin to language in expressing the understanding that an utterance comes to us loaded with historical meaning only to be somewhat authored by us as we utter it with the old and the new wedded together -- staying the same but always changing! Not, as the structuralists believed, a language with a concrete structure and a static meaning that had rules and grammar that would therefore in some way universalize the language for all of those who speak it -- the signified and the signifier -- de Saussure/ed. John Storey).
In dealing with these issues that have created/formed/influenced the hegemony of the United States -- the particularities, results and consequences of this hegemony in the history books, the curriculum, the ways of being that have silenced the many voices of the United States -- it is crucial that the students be presented with material that is relevant to their lives, that speak to their truths -- culturally and individually; material that allows them access to figures that reflect the multiple voices that have been buried over the years. This knowledge should be presented to them in a critical thinking environment; an environment rich in dialogue that illuminates and enhances both critical thinking skills and literacy skills that prepare them for functioning in a changing world where their participation is necessary.
WHY WOMEN?
Due to the dominance of a patriarchal society, the stories of women and the value of women's roles have been left out of our history books. Racism added another dimension and, therefore, the stories of women of color are almost nil and their lives are invisible. In a time when academic failure is severe for the black child and barriers are in abundance and perpetuated by the ever present issues of racism, classism, and sexism, girls and especially African American girls, need to see themselves reflected in the material of the classroom so that they learn about their possibilities and their contributions and they negotiate this world and decide of their possibilities.
PURPOSE
The purpose of this creation is to motivate learning and enhance the academic language skills of elementary, junior, and high school students at many levels. For example and this is a simplified version.
Elementary students: read and understand and talk
Junior high students: do projects and research
High school students: create own, use links, etc.
The stories are to facilitate the learning of subjects across the curriculum. For example, a story in North America could link to Social Studies, geography, history, math, science.
WHY WEBSITES AND CDs AND BOOKS
Students are living at a time when technology is advancing rapidly. Many schools and many students are being exposed to information highways that are becoming easier to access than books and libraries. This of course means that books themselves need to change in order to attract the attention of the multimedia student. In some environments, the access to computers is minimal and in some cases the software is based on a traditional pedagogical philosophy of rote memorization and fill in the blank forms -- an ideology based in behaviorism.
In order to facilitate the many languages that are now present in our society and in the classrooms we need to make access to information available in many forms. Books should always be available in many languages and the technology is another method of introducing information through sound and visual images.
Labels: Afro-Mexican, black women, critical theory, critical thinking, Mexico, oral histories, reading, travel, women's stories, writing
