Boldly Braiding

Post here for Allies if needed...

 
Ever since I ran into this text several years ago, it has been a great resource for laying down groundwork with activists/artists of all ages.  The introductory section gives a great set of vocabulary terms that apply to field of community arts, and they are explained in straight-forward language.  It was this text that really gave me a toolbox for developing projects with teens, and giving teens several frameworks for analyzing community projects. 

What I admire most about the book as a whole is that it does not assume that the artist is the center of the community project, but that the community itself is the real center.  There is an expectation of humility and a need for listening, that is built into the analyses of projects--whether a person is from the community or from the outside.  It is vital that we all see each other as carriers of treasures; although the artist may have a special skill set that makes them a unique asset for a project,  it is the collective need and desire that will inform the role of that artist.

The Critical Pedagogy Reader, Knowing as Instructors
"...In the social justice classroom where social identity is central to the content, the significance of who we are often takes center stage."(465)

"As teachers we can offer our experience with both dominant and targeted identities as a way to join with students, expand the boundaries in the room for discussing these subjects and model being open to exploring our own relative positions of power and privilege in relation to different oppression issues."(465)

The questions in these articles highlight the issues we face creating constructive spaces of self-reflection and critical inquiry. I would like to apply this to myopia in social justice and arts education.

A graduate level student stated, "I have been in classrooms where the class becomes about the professor. While I think sometimes it’s done from a place of self-reflection, I think other times the professor is coming from a place of feeling superior in his identity consciousness and intellect. I think when people come from this place, it makes it difficult to create meaningful dialogue between students and teachers, or even students and students."

This dynamic does not just happen in traditional classrooms. but can also be prevalent in 'social justice' spaces and arts spaces. An instructor can be teaching the American Revolution, or be teaching an alternative or resistance narrative to the American Revolution, but it is HOW the lesson is conducted that gives it sway as liberatory education informed by dialogue and questioning. There are some teachers who are so determined in challenging traditional curriculum, that they forget to survey students/participants concerns/backgrounds/interests. Thus a lesson that was intended to be resistant ends up being a traditional lesson about a resistance narrative. It is vital to find time for SOME lessons we do work from the participants outward. A social justice teacher can communicate in such a rebel expert way, but can forget the rebel practices of dialogue and dialectic informing the lessons chosen.

I say that we should strive to not be authoritarians SOME of the time, because much of the time we are still responding to bureaucratic demands of the systems we teacher in which dictate content and social norms, and there is often a time limit in courses governed by standards that make Socratic discussion inaccessible and time-consuming. So it should be a GOAL to transgress normative and traditional frameworks some of the time--to let the participants' discussion inform the subject matter, to take the role of listener and learner rather than leader and talker, and to let go of certain goals in respect of goals the group will develop as co-developed lessons unfold.

Greater self-knowledge again highlights the need for personal reflection as educators and activists:
Who am I (today)?
What are my traditional practices, and what can I do differently?
What made me decide the topic for today?
Who are my students and how can I know them better?
What are their societal concerns and how can use these to inform my content decisions?
WHat did I learn today from interactions with my students, and what my I do differently next time?

There are a million other questions we can ask ourselves; the above are starting points for me.
Make a personal journal (even if it sounds corny). If we have to spend so much time taking attendance, can we make time to attend to our own self-growth? Hopefully...