Yoga and Wellness Training for Teachers of Color: Healing Racialized Trauma in Our Selves and Schools

• In Event: 51.059 - Contemplative Practice in Educational Spaces

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes

The paper centers the voices and stories of K-12 school-based teachers of color using yoga and wellness practices to build their own capacities and resilience for racial justice in classrooms and schools. It explores possibilities of yoga and wellness practices for supporting processes of healing racialized trauma in teachers and students.

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

In My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017), Resmaa Menakem exams White supremacy from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. Menakem writes, “For the most part, white supremacy lives in our bodies. In fact, white supremacy would be better termed white-body supremacy, because every white-skinned body, no matter who inhabits it—and no matter what they think, believe, do, or say—automatically benefits from it” (ix). He argues healing trauma in our bodies must be incorporated in racial justice work. Using Menakem’s framework, I generate dialogue with K-12 school-based teachers of color using yoga and wellness practices to build their own capacities and resilience for racial justice work in classrooms and schools.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

The study focuses on a small purposive sample of 10 participants who are using yoga and wellness practices to enhance their capacities and resilience for racial justice work in classrooms and schools. In addition, they identify as a teacher of Color; work in a K-12 public schools serving majority students of color; have advanced racial literacy (Sealey-Ruiz, 2011); and are committed to critical approaches to transforming classrooms and schools. Using one-to-one semi-structured interviews, the author engages participants in critical self-reflexivity, inviting them to discuss how they came to yoga and wellness, and how their practice has supported their racial justice work in classrooms and schools.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials

Using one-to-one semi-structured interviews, the author engages participants in critical self-reflexivity, inviting them to discuss how they came to yoga and wellness, and how their practice has supported their racial justice work in classrooms and schools. Critical race theories and methodologies (Crenshaw, et al, 1996; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ledesma & Calderon, 2015) guide the author’s analysis of the data generated through interviews.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view

Racism/White supremacy hurt the mind, body and spirit of communities of color. This paper foregrounds the resilience of teachers of color committed to racial justice, and provides insight into healing practices that enable them to survive, thrive and continue such life-saving work in classrooms and schools.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

The paper builds a foundation for future research on sustaining and building public education movements for racial justice by studying how individual K-12 school-based teachers of color committed to racial justice use yoga and wellness practices to support their own capacities and resilience for such life-saving work in classrooms and schools.

Author

• Sameena Eidoo, University of Toronto