Black Liberatory Pedagogy

What is Black Liberatory pedagogy?

BTC’s Black Liberatory Pedagogy is a comprehensive set of mindsets, knowledge, instructional strategies, and classroom culture practices that intentionally cultivate a positive racial identity in Black students while deepening their academic knowledge and skills. Black Liberatory Pedagogy intends to rearrange power by reconceptualizing and centering Black children’s and Black teachers’ ways of knowing. We seek to maximize the unique opportunities for increased impact on Black children’s educational experiences in classrooms led by Black teachers.

BTC’S PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK

SRILE an acronym for Shared Racial Identity Learning Environments which BTC defines as schools where the majority of the teaching staff and the majority of the student population share the same racial identity. BTC’s work focuses on Black SRILE spaces. There is an ever increasing body of research that suggest Black students benefit from having Black teachers including a recent report from Johns Hopkins University Black Teachers Make a Difference.
Source: www.edweek.org

The pedagogical framework includes:

Five educational goals that Black liberation based teachers have when teaching Black students
• Love of Learning and Intellectual Excellence
• Strong Racial Identity
• Sociopolitical Consciousness
• Healing
• Collective Responsibility

Two core pathways that excellent Black teachers use to reach those goals
• Culturally Compatible and Community Connected Praxis
• High Expectations (academic, social, behavioral) of students, their families and their communities

One core foundational mindset/belief that drives all of excellent Black teachers work
• An ethic of critical care and love from which all other actions and choices grow

Elements of Black Liberatory Pedagogy

Critical Care & Love

Creates classroom cultures in which Black students feel loved & known (as measured by student self-reports)

BELIEFS

Black children are beautiful, creative, unique, and full of natural genius to be awakened
Loving black children is personal, human and political (i.e. love is a weapon against oppression)

KNOWLEDGE

Critical Care & Love is the foundation of student learning (i.e. students don’t care what you know until they know that you care)

IN PRACTICE

Building systems and rituals that communicate to all black children in class that they are special and loved
Creating routines for building individual personal connections with each student as a part of the classroom structure

Strong Racial Identity

Creates classroom cultures in which Black cultural customs & patterns appropriate/aligned to students are highlighted and embraced

BELIEFS

Being Black is central to the everyday experiences of my students
Given our existence in a racist society, my students and myself are subjected to negative messages about Blackness and therefore need to consistently mine for internalized racism
Black teachers are responsible for building a strong racial identity in Black students as a critical pathway to liberation and academic success

KNOWLEDGE

A positive racial identity is empirically linked to academic excellence and success for Black children
Examples (historical and contemporary) of excellent Black teachers and how they have used racial identity to move students towards achievement and liberation

IN PRACTICE

Drawing on students’ cultural customs to create classroom routines and rituals that appropriately reflect student’s racial/ethnic identities.
Responding to and disrupting student to student and student to self internalized racism

High Expectations

Creates classroom cultures where students and teachers collectively engage in social, emotional and academic support system, routines and strategies for students striving to meet high expectations.

BELIEFS

All of my students are inherently genius and can achieve academic excellence
It is my duty to hold and support Black students in meeting high social and academic expectations

KNOWLEDGE

Historical narratives and examples that highlights the rich reservoir of Black resilience, capability and perseverance (i.e someone to fill in)
Historical and contemporary data that highlights the long history of the United States creating and maintaining a narrative of Black intellectual inferiority
The impact on Black students’ and Black adults’ efficacy and mental psyche of receiving and internalizing messages of Black intellectual and social inferiority
Empirical evidence on the relationship between expectations and academic excellence

IN PRACTICE

Warmly and clearly communicating high expectations using multiple culturally congruent strategies
Skillfully scaffolding milestones leading toward students’ successfully meeting expectations

Sociopolitical Consciousness

Creates classroom cultures in which Black students are comfortable with and skillful at engaging in sociopolitical discourse with their peers and confidently and skillfully challenge the status quo using content area knowledge and skills

BELIEFS

All of my students are inherently genius and can achieve academic excellence

KNOWLEDGE

Pedagogical stances and instructional practices of Black liberatory pedagogical tradition
Location of current teaching practice in relation to Black liberatory pedagogy

IN PRACTICE

Approaching lesson planning, delivery and building a classroom environment with the belief that what we learn can be utilized to improve the sociopolitical conditions of Black people
Approaching lesson planning, delivery and classroom environment with the belief that each aspect should be relevant to sociopolitical conditions of Black people
Helping students comfortably, confidently and skillfully engage in subject area related sociopolitical discourse

Healing

Creates classroom cultures in which a “many hands make the work light” approach is taken to building a classroom culture and there is structured time for lament, disappointment and grief

BELIEFS

Black Children and Black Teachers exist with wounds from oppression and have what they need to recover from societal assaults to their humanity

KNOWLEDGE

The significance of “ being”, “belonging” and “becoming” in the healing of relationships

IN PRACTICE

Extending problem solving activities to community wellness along with inserting and adopting vocabulary of mutual benefit in the learning environment.

Collective Responsibility

Creates classroom cultures in which intentional actions bring attention (without diminishing personhood) to the importance of full participation and community problem solving is promoted to emphasize the classroom space as a learning space in which problems are solved collectively

BELIEFS

Success/Achievement is tied to/contingent upon the success achievement of the whole
The purpose of learning is to pragmatically put to use to uplift the race (learnt uplift strengthens you morally; not just about help the disadvantage, it strengthens one character)
Shared responsibility increases group effort and group achievement

KNOWLEDGE

The characteristics of collaborative learning as a learning model (versus a learning exercise)
How to gain from/access/ construct upon what learners already know increases learner receptivity for new information (formative assessment beyond new information)

IN PRACTICE

Revisiting classifications of types of instruction to inventory, assess and evaluate them as modes of collective work and responsibility
Communicating measures of proficiency that include collective progress/deficiencies

Love of Learning & Intellectual Excellence

Creates classroom cultures in which resilience in learning and excellence as a way of Being is cultivated, and black students’ confidence in the “How” and the “Why” is developed

BELIEFS

Black teachers seek out ways to give Black children the deeper meaning of learning beyond recall of information
Black teachers recognize the merit of meaningful connections to real life purposes.
Excellence is evidenced in one’s standard of personal best

KNOWLEDGE

How to associate the stages of learning in context of the learning activity (developmental appropriateness)
The application of human qualities of engagement to foster positive feelings about learning

IN PRACTICE

Using differentiating instruction to reinforce learner’s cognitive assets
Effectively communicating obstacles and deficiencies in ways that invoke resilience and persistence
Routinely “humanizing” all information as it shows up in the lived experiences and the larger social context

Culturally Compatible & Community Connected Praxis

Creates classroom cultures that models community obligation to cultivate in students’ community obligation and demonstrates the success of each learner to the success of the community

BELIEFS

Students cultural knowledge and expressions are valuable and should be central to the learning process
Students’ families and communities have unique value and strengths as core members of their village

KNOWLEDGE

Culturally centered pedagogies are counter-cultural to the modus operandi of U.S. public schooling
Diasporic and Heritage knowledge must be integrated into learning environments in meaningful ways

IN PRACTICE

Integrating experiential learning and multiple intelligences into instruction, and diasporic and heritage knowledge into the curriculum

Black Liberatory Pedagogy – Black Teacher Collaborative (2024)