A Choice to Surrender: Endarkened Feminist Pedagogies to Honor Black Girls' Dreams

• In Event: Worlds That Black Girls Deserve: Working With Black Girls Toward Black Girl Futures

Abstract

Objectives
As Black girls’ imaginations have laid the groundwork for various activist movements, educators who are dedicated to a pedagogy of freedom must engage in instruction and research that centers Black girls’ dreams. However, to create a space where Black girls feel safe enough to share their freedom dreams, we must center them as the experts they are, honoring them as partners in research and teaching. Thus, this research proposal asks: (1) How might educators engage in pedagogical processes that center Black girls’ dreams and imaginations?

Theoretical framework
To engage in this research, I foreground the four principles of Dillard’s (2006) methodology of surrender–love, compassion, reciprocity, and ritual. Love is the ability to offer joy and happiness to Black girls by listening and looking deeply into their words and actions within and beyond the pedagogical context. Compassion is a pledge to care for the community and work to transform the community and the self. Reciprocity demands “the intention and capacity to see human beings as equal, shedding all discrimination and prejudice and removing the boundaries between ourselves and others” (p. 85). Lastly, ritual involves remembering the spirit–the transcendental, the spiritual, the eternal–as part of teaching. Ultimately, a method of surrender requires the acknowledgement that research and teaching are processes of give and take, and researchers and educators must learn to give.

Methods & Data
Data for this study included audio-recorded group discussions and one-on-one interviews collected from an Afrofuturist workshop I facilitated with eight Black girls. To analyze study data, I employed the three-phase process of Womanist Discourse Analysis, a method to analyze the discursive practices of Black women and girls. I first focused on instances of love, compassion, reciprocity, and ritual in our conversations. Next, I noted when the girls chose to participate in conversation; when they agreed or disagreed; when they took turns to speak, spoke all at once, or remained silent; and when they laughed, shouted, complained, or counseled one another (Dillard, 2021; Phillips, 2006). Last, I connected the internal context cultivated and maintained within the workshop to conversations about teaching Black girls in the larger research sphere. Rather than focusing on educator-facilitated learning moments I centered the ideal of surrender by focusing on the moments when the girls’ controlled the learning space.

Results
Findings indicate the need for teachers to (1) honor Black girls’ truths with love and care; (2) adopt a mindset in which the relationship between educator and learner is reciprocal; (3) create spaces where Black girls can heal and transform both individually and in community; and (4) construct learning spaces where Black girls can experience joy, healing, and transformation.

Significance
These findings are significant because, if educators truly want to show “an unapologetic, unashamed, and unconditional love for Blackness and for Black lives” (Johnson, 2018, p. 109), then we must showcase an unwavering love for Black girls’ dreams. However, making space for their dreams requires educators to surrender control–to employ love, compassion, reciprocity, and ritual in the teaching of Black girls.

Author

• Stephanie R Toliver, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author