For what is a tortilla a pedagogical prop?: Nuancing food for food justice and culturally sustaining pedagogy in classrooms

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

Abstract

In our site visits as part of our regular Networked Improvement Community meetings, each university selected an exemplar school and teachers who demonstrate strong classroom pedagogy embodying culturally sustaining (Paris & Alim, 2014) practices. Yet, we observed culturally sustaining pedagogical interventions that reinforced the systemic inequities that students in these spaces continue to navigate throughout their schooling experiences. In this paper, we elaborate on two examples, both of which involve food, to critique the use of food as a pedagogical prop that can have harmful consequences despite its good intentions. For example, to teach fractions in a third-grade classroom, a teacher of Color used tortillas to assist students in solving scaling problems, ultimately resisting the dominant mathematical culture in which word problems or manipulatives rely on cultural essentialism or assumptions (Gutierrez, 2015; Solorzano, 1997). Consequently, we observed that this could be the seed for a potential learning session in which we engaged in a conversation about food insecurity and anxiety.

Theory
Harro’s (2000) cycle of socialization and liberation both seek to frame young people’s socialized experiences in a continuity of encounters with normalization of dominant ideologies and hegemonic practices. Within these are ample moments in which young people encounter essentialized or instructive messaging shaping how they are expected to express or engage with one or more identity markers within their social positionality (Aoki; 2005; Love, 2019; Solorzano, 1997). In a step towards building critical consciousness (Freire, 2009) towards the harm imposed upon young people’s socializations, Harro (2000) proposes a framework for young people to not only recognize the systems of power and paradigms into which they were socialized, but to actively intervene in those unfolding processes, which she called a cycle of liberation. Teachers, not just students, are in an ongoing process of self-reflection and unlearning, which means that teachers may inadvertently draw on problematic narratives or practices which, we hope, can yield opportunities for even exemplar teachers to deeper their praxis and add further facets to their culturally multidimensional pedagogies (Carter Andrews, 2021).

Methods/Sources
We used observations and memos from our site visits, followed by instructional debriefs about how to nuance and build with those exemplar teachers’ practices instead of merely critiquing or policing them. These discussions led to members of the research team engaging in critical dialogue with those teachers to design further professional learning to model the nuance while mitigating harm to students.

Findings and Significance
During the debrief, the teacher argued that using tortillas was culturally relevant to students in her classroom and school, which included undocumented migrant students, DREAMers, and other newcomers. While the tortilla was what the teacher perceived as culturally sustaining, we also saw an opportunity for further conversation about the tortilla not only as a cultural touchstone, but as food itself. When positioned as food that cannot be consumed for nourishment, students’ food insecurities are made visible, which can inadvertently expose class inequities between students in the classroom. We conclude with recommendations for teachers looking to provide more intentional cultural references for their students.

Authors

• Terrance Burgess, Michigan State University

• Terry K. Flennaugh, Michigan State University

• Kyle L. Chong, Michigan State University