“Wounded Healers”: Movement, Memory, and Cultural Meaning-Making Through Performance Pedagogy in Teacher Education

• In Event: Teaching In the Wake: Racial Justice Praxis Across Teacher Education, Classrooms, and Schools

Abstract

Objectives
Efforts to minimize predictability by race in school success in the United States are currently under political attack. Thus, it is imperative to consider how educators can learn about history in innovative, experiential ways deepening their knowledge and understanding about the construction of race in the United States. Experiential learning provides opportunities for multiple perspectives of all participants and embodied engagement within a shared space.

We explored the impact of attending a spoken-word play performance about racialized trauma and healing in Black bodies with educators who attended a summer institute hosted by the Racial Justice in Teacher Education Network Improvement Community. Teacher educators from four institutions varying in demographic population, geography, and institutional type attended the institute to learn from and with one another while deepening partnerships between K-12 and higher education sites to more effectively prepare teacher candidates for racially diverse classrooms. The study’s research questions were: In what ways did the performance and discussion foster critical reflection between teacher educators and the play’s cast and director? What were the critical performance pedagogical connotations from the discussion?

Theory
This paper is informed by two conceptual categories from an Africana studies framework (Carr, 2006): movement and memory and cultural meaning-making. Movement and memory explores the question how did Africans during the period being studied preserve memories of where they had been and what they had experienced, and how did they pass these memories to future generations? Cultural meaning-making asks the question, what specific types of music, art, dance and/or narratives did Africans create during the period under study? It is important to note this framework and its categories apply to all human beings. In addition, we support the paper with critical performance pedagogy (Boal, 1979; Freire, 2000).

Methods and Sources
This study uses qualitative methods to explore how embodied performance can be used as professional development for educators. The data collected for the study include responses to written reflection questions, post-performance dialogue notes, and comments about the performance experience from participants during the institute.

Findings and Significance
Some participants shared revelations and drew on ancestral roots to make sense of their experience. For example, one shared a story of her own great grandparents as enslaved people. Another participant explained how he was engaging with the play by connecting to knowledge of Haitian culture. Discussion and reflections included several questions and comments about the sources and theories that informed the creation of the play. Further, critical discussion about the challenges of preparing for and delivering a challenging performance were raised. Several audience members shared their experience of strong, often contradictory, emotions throughout the performance that contributed to their experience.

Findings suggest that movement and memory and cultural meaning-making are fundamental aspects of experiential learning contributing to professional learning of teachers. The multimodal performance was not only performative. Rather, it was preservation and development of knowledge through embodied sounds, rhythms, and movement, pedagogical dimensions that can broaden how we prepare racially just teachers beyond university spaces.

Authors

• Beth Beschorner, Minnesota State University - Mankato

• Timothy Berry, Minnesota State University - Mankato