Motherschooling to Survive and Thrive

• In Event: Interrogating How We Teach Now: Parentscholars Co-Constructing Knowledge Alongside Our Children

Abstract

In the third presentation, Motherschooling to survive and thrive, authors discuss as Black women faculty created a space for motherschooling, the collective manner our children were educated in community and centered joy as a way of resisting racial oppression before and during the pandemic (Authors, Accepted). Using collective ethnography, we explore how motherschooling led us to assess what our children are required to know to survive, and what we think they should know to thrive (Love, 2019). We have decided what our children must know about themselves (Blackness/Black History) as we help them balance what others think they should know (school curriculum). We collectively curated resources and became resources to build our children’s knowledge base about the brilliance of Blackness. Additionally, we discuss how what we know/teach/write has influenced our current home teaching experiences and our individual work. Lastly, we explore how we, as Black women motherscholars (Matias, 2016), navigate our strength and our vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic with our child(ren) so they emerge from this space being both mentally, cognitively, and physically healthy and with tools for active resistance when they (and we) return to institutions. As schools have opened up, we reflect on how our children have maintained their sense of self based on what they learned about themselves during the pandemic. Sisterscholarship (both researching and writing together) has been our praxis and experience as we support each other in supporting our children as well (Roby & Cook, 2019).

Authors

• Tehia Starker Glass, University of North Carolina - Charlotte
  Presenting Author

• Kaja Dunn, University of North Carolina - Charlotte
  Presenting Author

• Candace Brown, University of North Carolina - Charlotte
  Presenting Author

• Janaka Bowman Lewis, University of North Carolina - Charlotte
  Presenting Author

• Kendra Jason, University of North Carolina - Charlotte
  Presenting Author