‘We All We Got’: Black Teachers Utilizing Peer Relationships as a Form of Wake Work

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Black Teachers and Students Historicity, Wake Work and the Struggle Against Erasure

Abstract

While once popular on both sides of the political spectrum, critiques of no-excuses charter schools date back to their inception. Gaining a reputation for their punitive rules, many teachers recognized this harm and turned to each other for sources of resilience. This study presents a dual-autoethnography of two Black women teachers who used forms of wake work (Sharpe, 2016) as a tool to combat the anti-Black carceral culture of their no-excuses charter school. These practices also created forms of healing and community for both the teachers and their students.

Authors

• British Reynolds, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Brittany L. Marshall, San Diego State University