56.030 - Education Opportunity and the Possibilities of Freedom Schools for Teaching and Learning

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools movement is a national summer program and is modeled after the original Freedom Schools of 1964 that served and organized Black people in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. Staffed by college-aged Servant Leader Interns, Freedom Schools integrate reading, conflict resolution and social action in an activity-based curriculum that promotes social, cultural, and historical awareness. In this session, three participant researchers report on different investigations of the Freedom Schools program. Their collective work draws attention to and illuminates the ways in which Freedom Schools, a community-based program, can serve as a model of promise for both student learning and teacher development in more formal and traditional settings.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 1: Micro-analyses of the social contexts of teaching and learning

Chair

• Tambra O. Jackson, Indiana University - IUPUI

Papers

• Black Elementary-Aged Children's Identity Development and Engagement With Civil Rights Literature at Freedom Schools - Rebekah Piper, Texas A&M University - San Antonio

• Transfer of Instructional Practices From Freedom Schools to the Classroom - Myah D Stanford, Garland Independent School District

• Toward an Understanding of Freedom School Pedagogies and Methodologies for Teacher Learning - Tambra O. Jackson, Indiana University - IUPUI

Discussant

• Sonya Douglass Horsford, Teachers College, Columbia University