A Curriculum of Relationships: Teacher Learning for Abolition

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Curricular Futures (Table 40)

Abstract

In this paper I examine antiracist teacher learning occurring in 31 New York City schools between 2012-2022 through professional development (PD). To do this, I draw upon Aoki’s (2004) conceptions of curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived as well as abolitionist perspectives from within and outside of education (Critical Resistance, 2023; Kaba, 2021; Rodriguez, 2010). In the work happening in schools, I found an overemphasis on the curriculum-as-plan and a neglect of the curriculum-as-lived. Educators were eager to change their text selections and other formal parts of their curricula, but the dominance of carcerality made liberatory spaces untenable. The curriculum-as-lived by and for students was neglected and oftentimes at odds with the antiracist beliefs espoused in the PD itself.

Author

• Abby C. Emerson, Touro University