Challenging the "Normalcy" of Black History Week in Early Childhood Education

• In Event: Disrupting Notions of Normalcy and White Supremacy: Radical Imaginations Across Educational Research

Abstract

Purpose: This presentation is an autoethnographic account from a Black female teacher researcher who is challenging the normalcy of a narrow and superficial Black History Month curriculum in the early childhood classroom. In this presentation, I share the possibility of teaching Black History beyond the normal weeklong curriculum given in the district’s curriculum plan. This challenges the normalcy of the curriculum and its tendency to perpetuate white supremacy and racism by omitting certain histories and not giving ample time and space for the teaching and learning.

Theoretical framework: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2021) explains the results of intentionally teaching black history lessons each day despite being given other plans from colleagues who followed district-created lessons. Critical Consciousness (Freire, 1973) is also evident as I reflect on my positionality and journey as a classroom teacher. As I became more knowledgeable of my true power to stand against the invisible nature of the curriculum that has continued to leave out the histories that are important to Black students, families, and communities, my role as a classroom teacher began to evolve into teacher researcher.. Critical Race Theory shows that racism and white supremacy existed in the systematic ways in which I was taught to teach my students. Continuously teaching and learning Black History for one week out of the school year instead of the entire year shows how this omission is normalized in everyday society.

Methods: Autoethnography (Ellis et al., 2011) was used to reflect my experience as a teacher and to give voice that interrupts the complex silence of “Just words' ' on paper (Granger, 2011). Critical storytelling was also used to show teachers accounts of influential teaching strategies and transformation of praxis. (Aveling, 2001; Ellis et al., 2021)

Data: Data includes analysis and reflections of personal experiences, artifacts used during the month of teaching (lesson plans, district mandated curriculum), student work that was submitted and presented in person and virtually via Zoom communication, and notes I took during grade level team meetings.

Results: This presentation unveils how the interruption of normalcy overhauled Curricular Silences of Black historical figures and black history month. Black voices and insights were normalized and highlighted. This present also showcases this interruption of normalcy extended black familial involvement opportunities. Students were framed as teachers and experts of topics pertaining to Black History. I considered this as an effective teaching moment that changed the trajectory of the way I interacted with curriculum in my classroom.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:
Historically, the voices of Black Female Early Childhood Education teachers are missing in educational research. This presentation also critiques the ways Black History is centered in Early Childhood Education and the topic hasn’t been widely explored. This paper also highlights the tension between the hard topics and the notion of Childhood Innocence that gets in the way of teaching topics such as authentic Black History (Brewster, 2019).

Author

• Amber T. Fowler, University of Texas at Austin