"Overcoming the Tradition of Silence": Maestras Matematicas Creating Spaces for Us and by Us

• In Event: Encrypted Storytelling in Fugitive Learning Spaces: Disseminating Educational Research When Your Pedagogy Is Secret

Abstract

I grew up listening to and contando historias (storytelling) en familia (with family). These historias, the stories from the past, were often intertwined with dichos (sayings), and consejos (advice) that were about becoming good people. I begin with historias because storytelling is interconnected with who we are in history, the intergenerational knowledge and connection that is passed on, and what becomes groundwork for the future (Delgado, 1989). This form of storytelling is what we call platicas, critical conversations (Fierros & Delgado-Bernal, 2016). What would it mean for platicas to merge with teacher education spaces that center dignity and community? But more specifically, what would that look like when the teacher education space is outside of the institution, a form of counterspace (Solorzano et. al, 2000)? Aligned with the theme in this symposium, I am not interested in “divulging the codex'' but rather to take a researcher-participant perspective and reflect on ways in which we created our spaces as maestras Mexicanas through our lengua (language) to co-construct new understandings about what it means to teach mathematics for social justice at this moment in time.
Critical Race Theory is a powerful theoretical approach that provides opportunities to understand race as an endemic part of our everyday lives, more specifically in structural systems of schooling (Ladson-Billings et. al, 1995). This became the foundation to LatCrit Theory, a framework that centers intersectionality in identities beyond race (Solórzano et al, 2001). A LatCrit framework was developed to acknowledge the multiplicity of identities that attend to various forms of racialization such as gender, immigration status, linguistic identity. In particular, LatCrit framework centers narratives, counterstories, the stories that are often missing from academia, especially in mathematics teacher education. This paper is interested in understanding linguistic identity and the ways in which linguistic repertoires were employed within platicas (Garcia, 2009). Specifically, considering their use and function within the learning community.
This paper draws from a project with four self-identified Mexicanas who seek to become
maestras. The study aimed at understanding how through pláticas prospective maestras make
sense of issues of race and social justice with mathematics. This paper draws from audio recorded pláticas through Zoom. Drawing from the data, I will share two vignettes that showcase how the women are coming to understand what justice in mathematics is and how that would bridge to the practical component of teaching. Through the vignettes, I highlight how translanguaging and the use of dichos (sayings) functioned as resources for the women to resist dominant narratives that perpetuate deficit discourses in mathematics about children of color. Translanguaging and dichos were critical to code and decode as educators of color making sense of what justice in mathematics looks like and as educators committed to cultivating more just learning opportunities for children.

Author

• Sandra Zuniga, San Jose State University
  Presenting Author