Cultivating Hope and Possibility in Counter-Spaces: Reflections From the Politics and Pedagogy Collective

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Reclaiming Our Own Spaces: Youth and Educators Building Emancipatory Relationships, Identity Constructions, and Resistance

Abstract

Objective
It is imperative to understand the ways in which critical teachers of color working in under-resourced and racialized school environments sustain each other as they work toward creating counter spaces (Yosso, et. al, 2009) that cultivate hope and possibility within the classroom and school community. This paper presents a case study of one group of such educators—the Politics and Pedagogy Collective—who have worked to forge counter spaces at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The P&P Collective was founded in 2012 by 7 teachers of color, which all continue to be engaged in curriculum building and in educational and racial justice organizing campaigns that support the well-being of the school community. A cornerstone of the P&P work is organizing the annual Eastside Stories youth led conference, where high school students present their community-based research projects. The following questions guide this study:
What school and community conditions & histories led a group of teachers of color to create and offer sustained support for the politics and pedagogy collective?
What understandings about community history, education and social change guided this effort to create counter spaces of possibility and hope for students and educators in the P & P collective?
What practices promoted counter spaces of possibility and sustained a community of practice amongst the members of the collective?

Theoretical Framework
This study incorporates critical race theory’s notion of counter spaces (Yosso, et. al. 2009) as a means to document how critical teachers of color reclaim and create spaces that foment hope and possibility within educational communities. It draws from critical pedagogy the idea that oppressive conditions are not permanent and thus can be changed through collective critical consciousness building and transformative resistance (Freire, 2013; Morrell, 2008; Souto-Manning, 2010; Vossoughi & Gutiérrez, 2017).

Methods
The authors in this study are also founding members of P&P, and build a case study from a critical race theory perspective (Solórzano, & Bernal, 2001), engaging in a series of interviews and focus groups with the 7 founding members to create a counter-narratives. The study also creates an archive of the documents, photographs, and videos, that were developed as a result of the work of P&P.

Findings
The shared experiences of teachers of color within a counter space allowed for the engagement of teachers in curriculum building, activism with youth, and critical professional development activities. Teachers felt that these praxis-oriented endeavors were not only liberating but were also essential in sustaining their bodies and spirits while they were engaged in transformative work in the often-demoralizing and racialized schooling conditions they felt they operated within.

Scholarly Significance
By illuminating the conditions that enabled critical educators of color to join together and sustain themselves in the P&P Collective, this case study offers insights about how other educators might create counter spaces of hope and possibility in their own communities. The creation of counter-spaces within a K-12 schooling context can be used as a model for addressing the high levels of attrition for educators of color.

Authors

• Mariana E. Ramirez

• Aileen Gendrano Adao, Roosevelt High School Math, Science, and Technology Magnet