Reimagining the Future of Teaching With Black and Brown Male Educators

• In Event: Unforgetting Stories in Education and Reimagining the Future: Intersections of (Auto)biography, Learning, Teaching, and Empowerment

Abstract

This paper explores the creative process of a short documentary as a method of biographical and arts-based research. Centering the Future Teachers Collective, an initiative supporting Black and Brown male teacher candidates, the film captures lived experiences often erased in educational narratives. We illustrate how documentary filmmaking can serve as a collaborative, ethical, and performative research praxis through selected clips and behind-the-scenes reflections. Grounded in narrative inquiry and performance ethnography, the project explores how visual storytelling enacts “unforgetting” and educational futuring. Participants will engage with the methodological possibilities of film to generate knowledge, challenge dominant discourses, and reimagine who belongs—and leads—in our classrooms and schools.

Authors

• Valentina Alpuín, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Decoteau J. Irby, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Ceily Moore, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Jeniece M. Fleming, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Duane Bernard Davis, University of Chicago