Community of Healers: Decolonial Approaches for Elementary Youth and Teachers

• In Event: 41.029 - Teachers of Color as Wounded Healers: Disrupting Dehumanization in the Teaching Profession

Abstract

Due to the violent domination and dispossession that occurs within internal colonialism (Fanon 1961; Gutierrez, 2004; Paperson, 2010), communities of color are left battling the byproducts of poverty: violence, poor healthcare, unemployment, and drug abuse. Thus, students living in internal colonies, or ghettos, struggle with trauma (Fanon, 1961), which often manifests as “behavioral issues” within under resourced schools with few mental health practitioners. With disproportionately high numbers of students of color being pushed out of schools and into the criminal justice system, it is imperative that urban educators create spaces for healing within the classroom context.

This study examines the ways in which multiple traumas intersect in the elementary classroom, and how educators can begin to create spaces for personal and collective healing. This study investigates how one teacher navigates her trauma in developing curricular activities for student healing. I center student trauma, the teacher’s personal trauma, and the school site trauma incurred from the colonizing conditions within schools. Additionally, my study highlights the role of a teacher collective in supporting teacher wellness and healing in order to sustain a critical teaching practice.

The following questions guide this study:
1. How does an elementary educator confront internal colonialism to create spaces for healing within the classroom?
2. How can educator collectives support teachers of color in their personal healing?

This study employs decolonizing pedagogy (Fanon, 1961; Paperson, 2010; Tejeda & Espinoza, 2003) as a means to foster critical race theory’s notion of transformational resistance (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). Focusing on transformative resistance, the study investigates the importance of personal and community healing within the elementary classroom (Chen, Dulani, & Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2012; Lorde, 2007; Huggins & LeBlanc-Ernest, 2009). Using a mixed methods approach incorporating autoethnography (Chang, 2008) and portraiture (Chapman, 2007; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005), the study highlights educator/student voices and relationships, while centering the community context of South Central Los Angeles. Data was collected from August 2013 to June 2014, and consisted of observations, artifacts and field notes from a public school in Los Angeles. The fifth grade classroom was in a low-income urban community of color, comprised mostly of Latino and Black students.

Multiple examples of healing curriculum were possible within the fifth grade classroom despite limitations in the classroom schedule. In addition to healing activities embedded within language arts lessons, transformative justice circles were implemented in order to provide a space to be vulnerable and talk through trauma collectively. Lastly, the teacher’s participation within a collective of decolonial educators was critical in sustaining her wellness against the traumas inflicted by the school and district. Recognizing the lack of mental health resources within urban schools, teachers must develop pedagogical practices that recognize and nurture the dialectical relationship between individual and collective healing. Moreover, universities and school districts must provide professional development around youth trauma and support teacher development of healing curriculum across various grade levels and subject matters.

Author

• Carolina Valdez, California State University - Fullerton