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Join the 2019 SHEEO Conference in exploring the importance of liberating education through increased teacher diversity and cultural responsiveness. Discover key strategies and pathways to creating a more inclusive and equitable education system for all students.
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2019 SHEEO Conf Liberating Education Sharif El-Mekki @SELMEKKI
Liberating Education The Center for Black Educator Development 2019 SHEEO Conf
Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News (PA) BALL GAME ENDS WITH 2 MEN SHOTOctober 5, 1992
3rdAnnual National Black Male Educators Convening (BMEC) 10/19/19-10/20/19 www.NationalBMEC.com
VISION • All Black students will have consistent access to high quality, same race teachers throughout their PreK-12 experience. Teachers who do not share the same cultural backgrounds as their students will demonstrate high levels of expertise in cultural responsive practices and anti-discriminatory mindsets and habits. Professional learning, pipeline, policies, and pedagogy will be aligned to ensure greater educator diversity, cultural responsiveness, and improved student outcomes.
“Teachers of color can help disrupt what are often one-sided portrayals of the world and offer invaluable insight to students from different backgrounds.” —MELINDA D. ANDERSON,The Atlantic Students benefit from teachers who reflect their diverse cultures, experiences, aspirations, interests and values.
“The role model effect seems to show that having one teacher of the same race is enough to give a student the ambition to achieve.” —NICHOLAS PAPAGEORGE, Johns Hopkins University Black students who have just one Black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate and more likely to enroll in college. Chances significantly increase if they have two Black teachers.
“Boys, and particularly black boys, are more affected than girls by disadvantages, like poverty and racism, and by positive influences, like high-quality schools and role models. Yet they are least likely to have had a teacher that looks like them.” —CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, The New York Times Black male students who have Black male teachers are significantly less likely to drop out of high school.
THE WORLD AS IT IS Despite a long and proud history of powerful Black educators, public education nationwide is largely designed by white middle-class educators. Both what’s taught and how it’s taught were developed—and is still delivered—mostly by white middle-class (mostly female) educators. They set standards and expectations. They choose curriculum. They guide instruction. They grade the tests. They create school culture. They define education for all of us. Yet, the generation of students currently in our schools is the most diverse in American history, and majority non-white. And demographers tell us this diversity will only accelerate in the years to come.
WHY WE MUST CHANGE The dominance of one racial, cultural and socio-political lens on education negatively impacts not just students of color, but all students, and society more broadly. An educational enterprise informed and fueled by a teacher corps that better reflects society brings greater opportunities to everyone for critical growth experiences that counter stereotypes, racism, classism, sexism, homophobia and other deep prejudices. In liberating this kind of education, we instill not only compassion and understanding, but rightfully prepare all our children for an increasingly complex, diverse and just world.
LIBERATING EDUCATION To bring about societal changes we seek requires nothing less than liberating ourselves from the current dominant version of education: its concepts and pedagogy; its systems for teacher recruitment, development and retention; its notions of standards, curriculum, instruction, assessment; everything. For us, the central strategy fueling this liberation is teacher diversity, significantly growing the number of highly-effective Black and fellow educators nationwide who appreciate the power of culture and have elected to fight for social justice in classrooms and through revolutionary education.
Black educator excellence is at the center of our efforts because we know what’s possible when we put us—our love, culture and justice—at the center of education. We serve as a national nexus for change: testing new approaches and programs that leverage the history, experiences and insights of Black educators, their students and their communities; promoting their hard-won lessons from around the country in every grade and discipline for all educators; and advocating for mission-critical policies everywhere.
KEY STRATEGIES FOR LIBERATING EDUCATION Pathways to teaching. Recruit talented Black men and women to advance social justice by pursuing a career in education. Professional learning. Help all educators—and especially Black educators—excel by offering targeted training, insights, practices, experiences and opportunities. Culturally-informed pedagogy. Develop and promote curriculum and materials sourced in multicultural perspectives on student learning, teacher practices, school leadership and culture. Policy changes. Advocate for local, state and federal interventions necessary for greater educational equity, teacher diversity and new pedagogy.
FREEDOM SCHOOLS - LITERACY ACADEMY: A CHANGE AGENT FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AND EARLY LITERACY By design, the Literacy Academy’s eight-week summer programming: 1 Recruits Black educators, college students, and high schoolers, and enrolls Black elementary school students. Recruits Black educators, college studts, and high schoolers, and enrolls Black elementary school students. 2 Strengthens the student-teacher pipeline through targeted intergenerational dynamics and relationships. Black master teachers mentor and serve as role models for Black college students and high schoolers who’ve expressed interest in an education career. They, in turn, teach and serve as role models for their rising Black 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students. 3 Presents lesser-known and underutilized entry points to the educator pipeline, including alt-cert programs, early on during high school.
FREEDOM SCHOOLS - LITERACY ACADEMY: A CHANGE AGENT FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AND EARLY LITERACY By design, the Literacy Academy’s eight-week summer programming: 4 Leverages the success of Philadelphia Freedom Schools, which is based the 25-year-old Children’s Defense Fund’s summer program and applauded for its positive identity development, intergenerational approach, and “belongingness” effect on student outcomes. Recruits Black educators, college studts, and high schoolers, and enrolls Black elementary school students. 5 Double-downs on early literacy by integrating the culturally-responsive curriculum created by national expert, Dr. Nell Duke, and recognized for its research efficacy, and by providing the college student-teachers with a week-long intensive training and daily instructional coaching by literacy specialists. Tracks the efficacy of this approach to quickly document, improve, plan, scale and replicate. 6
FREEDOM SCHOOLS - LITERACYACADEMY: LEARNING BELIEFS We believe in each other and have faith in our community’s power. Talent can be developed when there is ongoing support and accountability. Racial identity development is an underappreciated and underutilized strategy for education generally and for early literacy specifically. Research will prove our hunches and insights to be true. And when that happens, we will share our ideas widely. Four of the metrics we are tracking: NWEA Map Growth Student Assessment, the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey, the Racial Attitudes Survey, and Prompted Writing Sample Professional Learning Team tools.
THE CENTER FOR BLACK EDUCATOR DEVELOPMENT’S: TWO-YEAR GOALS 25 Black educators recommitted to teaching for another five years 25 Black college students earning teacher certifications or enteringteacher residency programs 50 Black high school graduates registering for alt-cert programs 100 Black high school students considering a college major in education 200 Black elementary students showing significant gains in early literacy 600 Black families and community members making their Reading Promise to their children 1,000 Black stakeholders for educational justice
FREEDOM SCHOOL - LITERACY ACADEMY: PILOT SUMMER During summer 2019, we launched Liberation Academy (as Freedom School) at Simon Gratz High School Mastery Charter in Philadelphia. 100 1st-3rd graders and more than 40 high school and college instructors, 98% of whom are Black and several of which attend HBCUs. 85% of these students said they are more interested in teaching because of their summer experience.
A great education can transform lives, communities and whole societies for the better. It frees the mind, and liberates the soul. That is our core charge: to make this kind of transformative education a common expectation. In every neighborhood. For all our children. But to realize this potential, we know the practice of education itself must be rethought and unshackled: • Revolutionary Black educators teaching in every school throughout the country. • Revolutionary teaching practices that unleash the power of cultural insights. • Revolutionary policies that liberate us from funding and ideological constraints. We seek to reclaim power and honor the legacy we all inherited from those who struggled—sometimes at great peril—to spread knowledge and commit the deeply subversive, ultimately liberating act of teaching.
BECOME THE TEACHER YOU WISH YOU HAD. LIBERATING EDUCATION
MY THIRD GRADE TEACHER LOOKED AND SOUNDED LIKE ME. HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER TOLD ME I CAN BE ANYTHING I WANTED TO BE.I DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL LATER THAT WAS SOMEONE A LOT LIKE HIM. LIBERATING EDUCATION
When asked what got them on the pathway to teach, most Black educators will tell you about someone early in life who motivated them. But the gross underrepresentation of Black educators nationwide means this doesn’t happen very often. The Center for Black Educator Development is changing this with transformative education experiences.
Families, register your rising 1st, 2nd or 3rd grader in next summer’s literacy-intensive, culturally-rich FREEDOM SCHOOLS - LITERACY ACADEMY. We want the same things you do. To see your child’s confidence in themselves and in reading soar. To be sure they feel ready, even excited, to go back to school. LIBERATING EDUCATION
High schoolers, don’t miss this opportunity to get paid while getting first-hand experience in teaching. At the FREEDOM SCHOOLS-LITERACY ACADEMY, you’ll meet brilliant social justice warriors who’ve chosen the classroom as their arena and teaching as their change agent. LIBERATING EDUCATION
College students, if you want to make a truly disruptive difference in this world, consider a career in education. Sign up for an unforgettable teaching experience this summer at the FREEDOM SCHOOLS -LITERACY ACADEMY. Help students from underserved communities make life-saving leaps in reading. As a paid classroom instructor, you’ll be guided by master Black Educators and literacy specialists. Join a fellowship of other Black educators fighting for social justice. Find out what it means to liberate education. Your future awaits. Apply today. LIBERATING EDUCATION
Master educators, use your knowledge and expertise to inspire the next generation of Black educators. Join the faculty of the FREEDOM SCHOOLS LITERACY ACADEMY. LIBERATING EDUCATION
Liberating Education • @selmekki • Phillys7thWard.org
