Grassroots Community Pedagogies in the Classroom: Decolonizing Latina/o Education in the U.S

• In Event: Un/Learning: Latinx Praxes

Abstract

Throughout the U.S, traditional learning in inner city Latina/o communities has continued to fail in establishing a cultural environment of raising consciousness and student participation of critical thinking. In the long term, Latina/o students begin to lose the desire to learn from a curriculum that lacks cultural engagement of creativity. This lack of desire has caused many inner city Latina/o students to perform low in most public schools. Most scholars in education have provided a misunderstanding research of blaming the student’s Latina/o culture and immigrant parents. In this paper, I argue that the lack of desire to learn from inner city Latina/o students is not their cultural background but rather the institutionalize education system that continues to be a model that limits knowledge to mostly the middle class Anglo experience. Testing, exams, and the academic profiling of intelligence all come from middle class Anglo knowledge which oppresses other knowledge’s from other ethnic groups and minorities.
Teachers fall short to centralize the personal experience of their students by creating a hierarchy of knowledge that oppresses there voice and other forms of learning. American public education in inner city Latina/o communities must be decolonized by implementing grassroots knowledge, popular education, and community pedagogies. Decolonizing education is the practice of expanding the classroom into the community and exchanging grassroots knowledge with academics. Furthermore, removing the traditional form of learning provides a space of caring in which popular education can create an environment of love. Grassroots knowledge can also play a role of training teachers to better establish healthy dialogues on community issues that impact Latina/o students directly.
Selected literature from scholars in education such as Dr. Gilda Ochoa and Dr. Tara Yosso will be addressed to support my argument. Grassroots activist interviews in public education will be included to explain the bridging of community and classroom. Theories on race and decolonization in education will also be included to examine the stereotypes of Latina/o cultures and immigrant parents. My paper hopes to contribute on Latina/o education and the practice of community pedagogies in the U.S.

Author

• Arturo Zepeda, California State University, Los Angeles