Exploring the Radical Love Pedagogies of Black Women Early Childhood Educators Through Endarkened Poetic Inquiry

• In Event: Rhythms of Resistance: Black Aesthetics, Sensorial Literacies, and the Architecture of Educational Liberation

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: This paper aims to illuminate how Black women early childhood educators’ lived experiences informed the development of pedagogies rooted in radical love and is guided by the following question: How do Black women early childhood educators bring themselves into their classrooms fully to enact radical love with their students?

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: This inquiry was grounded in the lived experiences of Black women early childhood educators as understood through the lens of endarkened feminist epistemology (EFE) (Dillard, 2000).

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: Based on the findings from a previous narrative inquiry on the impact of five Black women early childhood educators’ lived experiences on their pedagogical development, the current work offers endarkened poetic inquiry (EPI) as an arts-based methodological framework to highlight the radical love pedagogies of Mimi and Bobbi, two Black women early childhood educators.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: Data in the original study was gathered over a three-month period from life history interviews, sister circle gatherings, Photovoice artifacts, and researcher-produced life notes. Mimi and Bobbi’s narrative portraits from the initial study were then thematically analyzed through the lens of EFE (Dillard, 2000) and used to craft found constellation poems. Findings are presented as radical love letters that exhibit the power of poetic inquiries that provide us with details of individual Black women’s storied lives within the context of society (Cutts, 2020; Davis, 2021).

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: The constellation poems offered in the present inquiry provide a small glimpse into Mimi and Bobbi’s radical love pedagogies demonstrated through both their words and actions with students and caregivers. In “Radical Love Letter #1”, I examined the prevalence of butterfly symbolism in Mimi’s pedagogical development and the impact of authenticity on how she engaged with young children. “Radical Love Letter #2” traces Bobbi’s understanding of her community and her ancestors’ influence on her growth as a woman and a culturally sustaining early childhood educator. Mimi and Bobbi demonstrated radical love pedagogies guided by (1) intergenerational knowledge; (2) communal (re)membering; and (3) a spiritually affirming ethos of care.

Scientific or scholarly significance: Dillard (2021) maintained that (re)membering does not refer to recalling information about lived experiences for the first time, rather it refers to the need for Black folks to acknowledge what we have always known to be true. By utilizing endarkened poetic inquiry, I aimed to reimagine more just futures for Black children and educators through an artistic examination of Black women educators’ authentic stories of their triumphs and truths with culturally sustainable teaching. Evans-Winters & Baines (2024) cited the value of a commitment to intergenerational teaching and learning in Black women teachers’ pedagogical stances. Witnessing Mimi and Bobbi’s enactment of radical love pedagogies with young Black children has affirmed my belief in the necessity of care in the act of loving.

Author

• Meghan L. Green, Erikson Institute