Claiming a Critical Vernacular Site in an Early Childhood Classroom

• In Event: Uplifting Black Women Educators' Critical Pedagogies for Liberation and Justice

Abstract

Drawing on Kynard’s (2013) notion of “vernacular insurrections,” this talk features a Black pre-K teacher who claimed a critical vernacular site for her Black Language speakers. Employing ethnographic case study methodology, I trace the ways this teacher advances emancipatory leadership in the midst of a white supremacist institutional architecture. This study attunes us to the many institutional mechanisms of white supremacy that are overlooked too often, and offers a pathway to consider how these mechanisms serve hegemonic ends. Concomitantly, this work also elucidates the overlooked assets Black teachers bring to Black students. The unacknowledgement of Black Language in schools for students is also an unacknowledgement of the language Black teachers bring and offer in classrooms.

Author

• Alice Y. Lee, University of California - Riverside