Affirming Identity & Sustaining Students’ Sense of Self

• In Event: Critical and Embodied Literacies: Narrations of Unforgetting by Intergenerational Women of Color

Abstract

When we were discussing our experiences with education and schooling over Zoom, I found myself coming back to the moments I had shared with *name of professor* for our “Lessons From My Younger Self” presentation in our Theories of Teaching and Learning course. I recalled the time a school officer told my mother I was dressed “too sexy” on my 4th birthday, the consistent comments surrounding my hair from other classmates—being given the nickname “poofy poodle” and being told by my third grade crush that he would like me if i had “normal” hair— and the time my uncle came to pick me up from school and my teacher did not want to release me into his care because she could not believe that we were related due to his darker complexion. In my presentation, I focused on the confusion and the hurt that I had felt and how I wasn’t really sure what to do with all of these feelings. As I continued my education into high school and now university, I’ve begun to contend with these emotions and question what it is I can do to lessen and hopefully put an end to these experiences for students like me. It wasn’t until I was able to be in conversation with other Black women and Women of Color that I could recognize that I wasn’t crazy, that I am not alone in these experiences. I was taking Theories of Teaching and Learning at the same time I was taking *name of professor’s* other course, Black Women in Education. Taking these two courses at the same time was an eye opening experience as I was able to look to my own education and what was missing while also venturing into the past to find Black women educators enacting theories that had not yet been given a name in order to nurture students such as myself. I think it is important that we ask ourselves, especially given our current political climate, what can we learn from the past in order to better our future? How can we sustain and continue to build upon this knowledge?

Author

• Adrianna Foladare, Colgate University