Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom

• In Event: Roots, Realities, Refusals, Reinventions: Critical Reflections on the Histories and Futures of Liberation Education

Abstract

In this paper, Derrick Alridge shares findings from an ongoing oral history project with teachers in the Civil Rights Movement, entitled “Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom.” Drawing from interviews with elementary, secondary, and university teachers and educators about their efforts during this era, his project explores teachers’ ideas and pedagogy inside and outside the classroom. From teachers themselves, we learn how their pedagogy, curricula, and community work were instrumental forms of activism that influenced the movement. Alridge also chronicles the aspirations, strategies, and efforts of civil rights era educators and shows how educators of different races and classes contributed to pedagogies of freedom and liberation.

Alridge's work is guided by several questions: Who were the teachers in the movement? What, how, and why did these teachers teach? How did notions of freedom (i.e., equality, democracy, self-determination, fair play, self-respect, respect for others) manifest themselves in the teachers’ pedagogy? Why did teachers infuse notions of freedom into their teaching? How can recovering teachers’ stories inform contemporary teaching and schooling and impact teaching today? These teachers, he reminds us, also participated in a wide range of efforts to promote democracy, reform curricula, organize communities, and mentor young civil rights activists. He also unveils a repository of videotaped interviews and primary sources collected from civil rights era teachers, which will serve as a resource for those hoping to build on past efforts as they resist the damaging direction of public education reform today and attempt to (re)invent education in the likeness of past liberation movements.

Author

• Derrick Alridge, University of Virginia