H.E.L.L.A. Bay Area: A Critical, Community Cultural Wealth Model of Teacher Development

• In Event: 18.042 - Disrupting Traditional Teacher Professional Development (PD): Critical PD for Teachers Committed to Social Justice

Abstract

Purpose
Teachers of color who are committed to teaching in urban schools need “financial, social, human, and cultural resources and power structures and relations that support and empower them rather than constrain and control them” (Achinstein, Ogawa, Sexton, & Freitas, 2010). Additionally, the lived experiences of teachers from marginalized backgrounds in relation to oppression and schooling inevitably calls for the need to heal to prevent reproducing a cycle of internalized oppression in/out of the classroom (Kohli, 2008). Grassroots teacher and community based collectives (i.e. Teachers 4 Social Justice, People’s Education Movement, Education for Liberation Network, and The New York Collective of Radical Educators) have sought out more radical practices to support and sustain teachers of color in anti-racist organizing work within urban education through critical forms of professional development (Picower, 2007; Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015; Ritchie, 2012). This study illustrates how a California grassroots social justice teacher organization explicitly centered the voices, needs, and Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) that Bay Area teachers of color bring to the profession.

Methods & Data Collection
The H.E.L.L.A. teacher of color group, which is an acronym for the guiding tenets: Healing, Empowerment, Love, Liberation, and Action, is a grassroots, social justice praxis-based model of teacher support that incorporates a radical healing framework (Ginwright, 2016) centered in Critical Professional Development (CPD) (Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015). The relationship between both radical healing and critical praxis fosters community among like-minded educators which positions them to move toward taking collective social action in and out of schools (Ginwright, 2016; Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015; Kohli & Pizarro, 2016). H.E.L.L.A. was tailored for and by teachers to affirm and support the unique Bay Area communities in which the 12 participating educators of color proudly served. The group met monthly and I employed participant observations and document analysis (Patten, 2002) of the extensive field notes, testimonios, all meeting agendas and emails exchanged over the course of one academic school year.

Findings & Significance

The teachers in this study highlighted the importance of having a community of critical teachers of color to learn and build with as they navigated the challenges of social justice praxis within oppressive teaching conditions. Their intersectional identities and experiences as teachers of color also highlighted their need to be part of a community that felt safe to be vulnerable and to also challenge, question, and grapple with issues that were often silenced within their respective workplaces and communities due to interpersonal, racial and structural barriers. Additionally, participants expressed how the various critical, dialogical practices in the group cultivated a sense of community, love, healing, and transformative teacher learning which led to action and agency in and out of their classrooms. This group intentionally sought to disrupt the mainstream purposes of professional development by collectively repurposing their own education as a tool for liberation.

Author

• Farima Pour-Khorshid, University of California - Santa Cruz