Unforgetting and (Re)membering Black Education Theorizing in the Educational Leadership and Policy Classroom

• In Event: Black Educational Futurism as Praxis: Re/membering Through the Curation of Black Intellectual Lineage

Abstract

Given the persistent exclusion of Black historical and intellectual knowledges from educational leadership and policy research and praxis, and the enduring and unceasing nature of antiBlackness in US K-12 education, in this paper, I leverage autoethnographic reflections, memory-work, and document analyses to contemplate: How can Black education scholars/professors curate Black space in the education classroom? In response to this query, I center my experiential knowledge and journey as a Black, tenure-track professor of educational leadership and policy.

I draw on Black Education Spaces and Living Black History as an organizing framework to theorize Black space in the higher education classroom. Specifically, I consider what it means to cultivate higher education spaces that spurn self-determination, self-efficacy, and self-actualization for Black students (Author, 2020). Additionally, I draw on Marable’s Living Black History (2006) to consider ways to construct more authentic narratives for/with Black students that intentionally connect their ancestral knowledges and historical pasts with their educational futures. That is, I construct classrooms intended to prepare students to recognize, critically examine, and thread together their educational histories, narratives, and experiences with their educational futures and possibilities. Importantly, I think of Black space in the classroom as the curated learning hub that centers on Black fugitive logics, Black intellectual curiosity, and historical examples of Black ingenuity to imagine Black educational futures.

I draw on autoethnographic (Chang, 2006) and memory work (Kuhn, 2000) to frame this study. I analyze my lived experiences as a Black male growing up in the rural south and learning from the Black ancestral knowledges within that community. Additionally, I reflect on my scholarly journey from K-12, through graduate training, and as a pre-tenure education professor. Further, I analyze course design documents (e.g., syllabi, lecture notes, and course reflections) to critically examine the ways that I leverage my Black experiential knowledge to: design syllabi, center Black storytelling, uplift excluded Black educational theorists, and explore the complex intersections of U.S. based antiBlackness and Black freedom dreaming in educational research and practice.

Preliminary analyses reveal three important thematic ideas: 1) course design is a project shaped by the complex intersection of Black intellectual histories and Black geographies/regionality, 2) Black storytelling is essential to curating Black space in the classroom, and 3) Black educational histories and futures are uniquely tethered realities.

The significance of this scholarship lies in better understanding how Black scholars can create space for Black educational policy and leadership students to engage with and dream about their collective possibilities in the field as scholars and practitioners. Furthermore, this analysis highlights unforgetting as a tool designed to counter persistent racial melancholia and school malaise (Dumas, 2014), which arguably extends into the higher education classroom. I frame my pedagogy and approach to course design as a way for Black students to see themselves as knowledge generators in educational policy and leadership and to help them (re)member their intellectual connections to their historical antecedents.

Author

• Darrius A. Stanley, University of Minnesota