Radical Vulnerability Unveils Educational Possibilities

• In Event: Rituals of Resistance: Lectio Divina as a Holistic Tool for Transformation

Abstract

“I am not who you think I am…” is the first line of a student’s poem that belies stereotypes about single-family households and underachievement. Standing at nearly 6-feet tall, a 10th grade African-American student weeps as he pronounces the roots of his family tree and proclaims all he was born to be. This moment is soul-stirring because less than a year ago he was deemed delinquent and expelled. He now stands, on stage, receiving a standing ovation from his entire school.
Over the last fifteen years, research on spoken word performance poetry and hip-hop educational models has blossomed (Clemons, Price, & Clemons, 2017; Fisher, 2003; 2005, 2015; Hill & Petchauer, 2013; Jocson, 2005, 2009). My study builds upon this burgeoning field of research, but is distinct because I present findings from a critical literacy program, called SAYS, that places community-based poet-mentor educators (PMEs) directly into middle and high school English classrooms as a way to disrupt and revivify the learning process. For this proposed paper, my data collection occurred inside ten treatment classrooms over the course of three years.
PMEs work inside English classrooms on a weekly basis. Because of their personal experiences and intimate knowledge of the cultural practices and conditions surrounding students, these poets devise workshops that encourage students to freely express themselves in their own terms, lexicon, and native voices. Throughout this creative process, students began to “feel at home” with learning and “the authors of their own lives.” Below is a sample observation.
Field Notes:
All desks are assembled in a circle and the SAYS guidelines posted. Students sluggishly enter class after lunch. They are met by Laura, a PME, who smiles wide as she shake hands, gives fist bumps, and offers a few hugs to each sixth grader. Without direction, the students go to the SAYS box and collect their journals. A few anxiously check inside their notebooks to see if there is a personalized response from Laura. With their notebooks and pencils in place, the students take a seat. Laura kindly reminds me as well as the classroom teacher to join the group.
After a momentary check-in, Mama Laura, as the students call her, begins the workshop in a soothing monotone. She speaks slowly. “Write what I am about to tell you in your journal and then keep on writing.” She provides the prompt: “When I look in the mirror…” During the next five-minutes, we all sit writing intently in our journals. It is so quiet that the only sound is of pens and pencils in motion. Next, Mama Laura asks “her babies” to share. Hands raise. Within minutes, the classroom is filled with young people’s raw testimonies about who they are and what they see.
As demonstrated in the above example, the structure of the room, the cultural cues, and the introspective questions provided space for radical vulnerability. As minds, hearts, and notebooks opened each person shared parts of themselves, that when brought together inside the sharing circle, made the classroom whole.

Author

• Vajra M. Watson, University of California - Davis