Black to the Future:  Afro-Futuristic Approaches to Teacher Education for Students in the Urban South

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Afrofuturism has been defined as an interdisciplinary visioning of the future framed through the nexus of technology, liberation, and the imagination (Womack, 2010).  Although usually employed in the exploration of literature and visual arts, Afrofuturism frames the proposed session by centering the ways in which the future of urban education is imagined by presenters as inextricably linked to the deliberate training of teachers and teacher educators of color towards a more equitable, just society.  Geographically focused on the Urban South as a setting, the session will explore such constructs as diversifying the teacher workforce, pre-service support mechanisms, project based learning, and graduate program design.  

Sub Unit

• Committee on Scholars of Color in Education

Chair

• Keisha L. Green, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Papers

• Stronger Together: Origins of the Black and Brown Future Teachers Project - Jillian Carter Ford, Kennesaw State University

• Creating Troops for the Front Line: Developing Black Scholars Dedicated to Social Justice - Tiffany D. Pogue, Albany State University; Sheryl Jones Croft, Kennesaw; Vincent DeWayne Willis, University of Alabama; Miyoshi Juergensen, Tuscaloosa City School

• Who's Lives Matter? A Reflection on the Practices, Politics, and Competing Interests of Project-Based Learning Curriculum - Khalilah Ali, Clayton State University

Discussant

• Latrise Johnson, The University of Alabama