#OurEducationWillNotBePoliced: Collaborative Literacies for Social Change

• In Event: Critical Literacies: Agency, Place, Story

Abstract

This paper draws from a larger ethnographic case study that explored how community organizing influenced critical literacy practices with youth in a Bay Area education justice non-profit. The focus of this paper is an interactive workshop on school policing (#OurEducationWillNotBePoliced) that was created with and facilitated by five youth aged 11-14 over a period of eight months. The workshop was facilitated at two national education justice conferences and at two local education justice events.
Findings from the study included that community organizing supported creative expression and facilitation skills; and the workshop process led to peer-to-peer teaching and learning and it supported non-hierarchical leadership development and civic engagement. This paper focuses closely on the last two findings.

Author

• Liz Murray, Bay Area Writing Project