power, politics, and critical race pedagogy: a critical race analysis of black male teachers’...

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Power, politics, and critical racepedagogy: a critical race analysis ofBlack male teachers’ pedagogyMarvin Lynn a & Michael E. Jennings ba University of Illinois at Chicago , Chicago, USb University of Texas at San Antonio , San Antonio, USPublished online: 24 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: Marvin Lynn & Michael E. Jennings (2009) Power, politics, and critical racepedagogy: a critical race analysis of Black male teachers’ pedagogy, Race Ethnicity and Education,12:2, 173-196, DOI: 10.1080/13613320902995467

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Race Ethnicity and EducationVol. 12, No. 2, July 2009, 173–196

ISSN 1361-3324 print/ISSN 1470-109X online© 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13613320902995467http://www.informaworld.com

Power, politics, and critical race pedagogy: a critical race analysis of Black male teachers’ pedagogy

Marvin Lynna* and Michael E. Jenningsb

aUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, US; bUniversity of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, USTaylor and Francis LtdCREE_A_399718.sgm10.1080/13613320902995467Race Ethnicity and Education1361-3324 (print)/1470-109X (online)Original Article2009Taylor & Francis122000000July [email protected]

In this article, the authors explore the analytic connections between thescholarship on Black teachers and the development of the concept of criticalpedagogy. In particular, the authors conduct a detailed analysis of both of thesediscourses and then explore the work of two African-American male teachers inan urban school in Los Angeles. The findings reveal that the links between criticalpedagogy and the scholarship on Black teachers is stronger than the existingliterature would suggest. Additionally, it is suggested that Black male teachers inurban communities embody qualities outlined in both critical pedagogy and thescholarship on Black teachers.

Keywords: African-American teachers; critical race pedagogy; Critical RaceTheory; African-American education; critical pedagogy; critical theory

Introduction

In this article, we discuss two important areas of study in the research on African-American education: the development of critical pedagogy and the emergingscholarship on Black teachers. In particular, we conduct an analysis and critique ofcritical pedagogy and then we examine how Black feminist thought and critical racetheory have been used as frameworks to examine the work of politically consciousteachers of African descent.

There have been numerous critiques of critical pedagogy as a discourse that theo-retically gives shape to the practices, beliefs and dispositions of teachers who fostersocial criticism in their classrooms. There is also an existing literature that discussesthe specific practices of Black teachers. However, there are few studies that haveexplicitly examined the links between critical pedagogy and the scholarship on Blackteachers. When referring to ‘the scholarship on Black teachers’ we are referring to theentire body of studies – past and present – that describes and typifies the experiences,beliefs, characteristics and practices of Black teachers in the US and abroad.1

While scholars who conduct research on Black teachers have often been explicitabout the influence of critical theory (Foster 1992; Ladson-Billings 1994) in theirwork, critical theorists have not been as willing to admit how their work has, in turn,been influenced by the ongoing scholarship on Black teachers. Specifically, explora-tions of how Black teachers prepare Black children (and others) to become highlyliterate and culturally competent social critics (Lynn 2004), has been overlooked bycontemporary critical theorists.

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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174 M. Lynn and M.E. Jennings

We problematize this issue in several ways. First we explore what we believe tobe the ‘true roots’ of critical pedagogy. The discussion is further supported andaugmented by examples of the work of ‘critical pedagogues in practice’ who happento be African-American male teachers. As we will explain later, these men theorizeand employ many of the strategies that are commonly accepted as part of the criticalpedagogical discourse. Of prime importance however, is an understanding that theseteachers also differ in significant ways from other socially conscious teachers who arerepresented in the work of researchers such as Weiler (1988) and Kanpol (1992).These differences, as we explain, are explored and discussed, to some extent, in theworks of Foster (1997), Henry (1998), Irvine (2004), Ladson-Billings (1994) andothers who explore the unique contributions of Black teachers. However, as we willshow, African-American male teachers offer a unique contribution to teaching that isunder-theorized and must be explored further.

We begin by providing a brief overview of critical pedagogy and its theoretical andhistorical foundations. Next, we review some of the more recent empirical examinationsof Black teachers’ work and show how these areas of study cohere by cross-referencingillustrative themes. Lastly, these themes are used to explore the work of two African-American critical pedagogues who have taught in urban schools. As is consistent withprevious studies, we find that these critical pedagogues teach in ways that reflect thetenets of critical pedagogy as well as those issues addressed in the scholarship on Blackteachers. Furthermore, we conclude by showing how their work is in line with theseways of thinking and discuss implications for further research and policy.

Origins of critical pedagogy within critical theory

Critical theory seeks to understand the origins and operation of repressive social structures.Critical theory is the critique of domination. It seeks to focus on a world becoming lessfree, to cast doubt on claims of technological scientific rationality, and then to imply thatpresent configurations do not have to be as they are. (Gordon 1995, 190)

Not only do critical theorists attempt to discover why oppressive structures exist andoffer criticisms of their effects; they also explore the ways in which we can transformour society.2 In this sense, critical theory is not simply a critique of social structures,but an analysis of power relations. Such questions as: ‘What constitutes power?’ and:‘Who holds it?’ and: ‘In what ways is power utilized to benefit those already in power?’are central to critical theory. These theoretical underpinnings of critical theory providethe foundation for our contemporary understanding of critical pedagogy. In a recentarticle (Jennings and Lynn 2006), we explored the connection between critical peda-gogy and critical theory and discussed the influence of decades of theorizing about therelationship between society’s educational structures and their relationship to the socio-cultural positions of individuals in society. In short, critical pedagogy echoes criticaltheory by calling for a re-examination of the links between knowledge and power andhow power in particular is constituted and maintained through educational institutions.

Critical pedagogy in the US

Many contemporary educational theorists have adopted a highly interdisciplinaryapproach to the study of critical pedagogy. This contemporary critical pedagogy (asconceived in the academy) is often viewed as an idea largely grounded in the research

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Race Ethnicity and Education 175

of scholars such as Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Stanley Aronowitz, Michele Fine,Michael Apple and numerous others. The term ‘critical pedagogy’ was in fact firstused in text by Henry Giroux in 1983 (Darder, Baltodano and Torres 2003). Theapproach to critical pedagogy taken by Giroux is of special importance because of theprimacy of his contributions to educational theory and research throughout the shift-ing intellectual and historical scenes of the past thirty years (Morrow and Torres1995).

Giroux has displayed a strong interest in sociology and critical thinking. His workfollowed the research of Bowles and Gintis (1976) who strongly argued that schoolswere closely linked to the industrial order through their reproduction of inequality insociety (Giroux 1983). McLaren (1989), Aronowitz (1981), Kanpol (1991), Kincheloeand other key thinkers also subscribed to this school of thought. This ideology was instark contrast to many other educational theorists who believed school primarilyprovided a means by which students could gain power and status in American society(Cubberley 1919; Cremin 1961).

Collectively, these theorists challenged such assumptions by emphasizing schoolsas sites that embody the elements of both domination and liberation. By doing so,schools became contested spaces rather than simple sites for reproducing dominantideology. This view of critical pedagogy rejected the idea that individuals werepassive beings whose fate was subservient to the dominant powers of society. Instead,they combined a focus on domination and oppression with an examination of howindividuals exercise agency to counter such forces. The resulting critical pedagogyrequired both a critique of society (particularly in relation to issues of power) and anattempt to develop the ‘critical abilities’ of students and teachers so they might worktowards the positive transformation of society (deMarrais and LeCompte 1999).Central to this ideal was a focus on teaching/learning practices that are ‘intended tointerrupt particular historical, situated systems of oppression’ (Lather 1991, 121). Forcritical pedagogues in the US, this means fostering a view of both students andteachers as ‘transformative intellectuals’ who engage in critical dialogues that viewclassrooms as sites where they can challenge basic assumptions about the relationshipbetween power and knowledge (deMarrais and LeCompte 1999).

Critical pedagogues were also interested in the links between structure and agency.In examining this link, they paid particular attention to the role of human beings asboth reproducers and producers of culture who could actively resist oppressionthrough pedagogical work. In short, critical pedagogues:

(1) Question the links between knowledge and power.(2) Recognize the dialectical nature of oppression as a dehumanizing force that

requires some level of ‘participation’ from their students.(3) Believe that dialogue and reflection are key ways to empower students in the

classroom.(4) View their students are ‘producers’ of knowledge with the ability to transform

oppressive social and cultural structures.

These four tenets will be instrumental to helping us establish a view of criticalpedagogy ‘from the bottom’.

While critical pedagogy has been a key discourse on emancipation in US class-rooms, it has been critiqued widely (Ellsworth 1989; Gordon 1995; Gore 1990; Lather1991; Hytten 1998; Jennings 1999; Jennings and Lynn 2006; Lynn 2004; McCarthy

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and Apple 1988; Murillo 1999). These critiques suggest that critical pedagogues haveminimized or ignored the reality that oppressed groups in America have produced‘critical’ ways of knowing and learning that have been transformed into practice byoppressed people themselves (Jennings 1999). Perhaps even more importantly, criticssuggest that specific examples of ‘critical theory in practice’ can be found in diversesocial and philosophical movements worldwide (Leonard 1990, xv) and that thisknowledge has not been sufficiently attended to by critical theorists who believe thatthe classroom can be both a site of liberation and oppression (Gordon 1995; Jenningsand Lynn 2006). The research on Black teachers illustrates this clearly.

Black education research and Black feminist/womanist teachers

African-American scholars and educators have explored the differences between‘schooling’ as a process of hegemonic control of African-American self-determinationand ‘education’ as a liberatory process of obtaining and utilizing community-sanctioned forms of knowledge in order to improve society (Shujaa 1994). Knowledgeof this distinction is important for a more complete understanding of the socio-culturalcontext and uneven power dynamics that have shaped the African-Americaneducational experience (Jennings and Lynn 2006). Schooling is a formal process thattakes place within institutions that are directly (or indirectly) linked to the state(Aronowitz and Giroux 1994). This process is ‘intended to perpetuate and maintain thesociety’s existing power relations and the institutional structures that support thosearrangements’ (Shujaa 1994, 15). In contrast, education is a broader and often lessformalized process (often taking place outside of formalized educational institutions)that represents a ‘collectively produced set of experiences organized around issues andconcerns that allow for a critical understanding of everyday oppression as well as thedynamics involved in constructing alternative political cultures’ (Arronowitz andGiroux 1994, 127).

This is not to say that schooling and education (or schools and non-schools) aremutually exclusive in their existence and goals. It is possible for the two to overlap.There are certain aspects of schooling that can serve the common interests of an entiresociety regardless of the particular ‘position’ (as related to race, class, gender, etc.) ofany given individual or group in that society (Shujaa 1994). However, thesecommonalities are often overshadowed by the fact that the common mutual benefitsof schooling and education are contextualized within a particular set of experiencesshaped by the race and class distinctions of American society. For African-Americans,these experiences speak closely to how issues of race, identity, and resistance arenegotiated in America. Despite this realization, it must be understood that the formal-ized learning process engendered within schools is an important component foranalyzing and understanding critical pedagogy. However, limiting this analysis to theformal structures of schooling has left other educational venues un-examined andunder-theorized (Jennings 1999).

A careful review and analysis of the research on Black teachers in the US andabroad reveals that Black teachers use their classrooms as spaces to: (1) question thelinks between knowledge and power; (2) encourage their students to become activeagents of social and cultural transformation through their participation in civic andcommunity-based organizing and activism; (3) strategically use dialogue as a meansto ‘dig out knowledge’ (Ladson-Billings 1994) and incite their students to act on theirown behalf as agents of democracy and freedom; and (4) illustrate the ways in which

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they value their students as ‘producers of culture’ by using their contextually andregionally specific cultural/linguistic knowledge as a means to inform, and createcurriculum in the classroom (Foster 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995a, b, 1997).Research on Black teachers has been informed by multiple theoretical viewpointsincluding critical theory (Casey 1993; Henry 1998), multicultural education (Ladson-Billings 1994, 1995; Lynn in press), Black feminism/womanist thought (Beauboeuf-Lafontant 2002, 2005; Dixson 2003; Johnson 1999; Henry 1990, 1992, 1998), criticalrace theory (Lynn 1999; Jennings and Lynn 2006; Morris 2001) and Afrocentricity(King 1991; Lee 1992). Of special note is research in the critical race and womanist/Black feminist traditions, which draws from critical pedagogy in significant ways.Black feminism/womanism with its outwardly political stance against racism, sexismand classism closely resembles both critical pedagogy and critical race pedagogy insignificant ways. We will explore this concept further in the next section.

Black feminist and womanist3 research raises ‘questions about how Black womenteachers’ consciousness and understandings at the intersections of race, class, gender,and culture contribute to and shape their pedagogical practice’ (Henry 1998, 3). Inother words, womanist research on teaching explores how Black women’s multipleidentities and their understanding of that identity influences their pedagogies.4 Theirpedagogies also reflect intersectional identities that call attention to racist, sexist andelitist schooling practices in fundamentally transformative ways (Beauboeuf-Lafon-tant 2005). Womanist teachers, according to Henry (1998) ‘work toward the cultural,political, educational, and spiritual survival of Black children’ (3) and embody manyof the beliefs and principles discussed in critical pedagogy. First, they employ ‘oppo-sitional’ political, social and educational standpoints. They offer criticisms of inequi-ties in the broader society and participate in efforts to organize movements againstforms of political and economic tyranny that disenfranchises Black communities. So,while they speak from an authoritative Black woman’s standpoint and take up strongpositions against sexism in their communities, their ultimate goal is ensure thesurvival of all Black children. Henry’s womanist teachers also have strong beliefsabout the use of culturally appropriate practices for Black students living in Canada.They are critical of teaching methods that purport to be progressive while ignoring thecultural realities of African descended students. In that sense, they vehemently opposemethods and practices that they believe are harmful to Black children irrespective oftheir intent. Their pedagogical practices are tied to their political beliefs about the needfor Black Canadians to foster freedom from the political and pedagogical constraintsthat confine them.

Womanist teachers are also activists who participate in, critique, resist and workto transform the political process in many different ways. According to Beaubeouf-Lafontant, they ‘locate themselves in the traditions of female activism’ and embracethe notion of ‘politicized mothering’ as a form of caring activism (2005, 440).Expounding on the notion of politicized mothering, one teacher in her study ofAfrican-American womanist teachers commented:

Blacks have always escaped from the plantation, returned to help others get Freedom.Escape from the community, the ghetto, what, return and help those that will get out…I see my role to step back and help those that will come out. [Original author’s empha-sis.] (Beaubeouf-Lafontant 2005, 440)

In this way, the act of mothering is not only a deep expression of caring, it is deeplypolitical act; one that is part of one’s responsibility as a member of the African-American

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community (Casey 1993). Mothering becomes a key method through which womanistteachers not only provide safety and security to children in need of love and protectionbut it is a key way in which they ensure the survival of the community. Dixson, in herstudy of Black feminist teachers (see our previous endnote regarding Collins’ 1990 arti-cle ‘What’s in a name?’), argues that ‘African women teacher’s [community-based]political activities are part of a broader conception of pedagogy’ (2003, 219). In otherwords, activism is teaching and teaching constitutes an ‘act of love’ (Darder 1998).African-American women teachers don’t love simply for the sake of loving they alsotie their love to their personal and political commitments. This combination of the polit-ical and personal is a hallmark of Black feminist research and theory (Collins 1991).In other words, the act of ‘othermothering’ could be described as a form of ‘politicallyrelevant teaching’ (Beaubouef-Lafontant 1999); she argues that ‘because of the politicalunderstanding of education held by these educators, their actions are sensitive to andsupportive of the antiracism and anti-oppression struggles of students of color generally’(704). In other words, it is these teachers’ understanding of the political crises facedby the African community that drives their work. In short, Black Feminist and/or woman-ist teachers see teaching as a deeply political act; one that is ultimately about communitytransformation.

Within the context of American education, the mothering done by Black teachershelps to affirm the multiple identities of their students as part of the process of ensuringthe survival of the African-American community. Their teaching is shaped and influ-enced by their own experiences with race, gender and class subjugation. Their indig-nation about social inequality is fueled by their very personal experiences withhegemony and domination. This indignation fuels their political work in and out of theclassroom. They often work beyond the four walls of the classroom to include activistwork in progressive community-based political organizations. This may also includeaggressive forms of resistance to school structures and policies that unnecessarily hurtAfrican-American children (Henry 1998). In summary, African-American womenwho are driven by a Black feminist or womanist ethic embody the previously discussedfour essential qualities endemic to critical pedagogues in a multitude of ways.

First, these teachers engage in a broad questioning of the links betweenknowledge and power. Not only do they ask questions about who holds the key toknowledge and why, but they ask important questions about the political purposesand functions of certain forms of knowledge. Even more important, they attempt tosituate knowledge within its historical context and connect it to their students’ livesrecognizing the extent to which African descended students are indeed ‘producers ofculture’. Second, these teachers also recognize the extent to which oppression isdialectical in nature and requires some participation from the oppressed. They workto foster a critical consciousness in their students about race, class and gender oppres-sion so that students do not remain complicit in their dehumanization. Third, Blackfeminist or womanist educators believe in the power of dialogue as a liberating forcein the classroom. However, they do not ‘give up’ their authority in the classroom inorder to facilitate their students’ freedom. They are deeply critical of classroom prac-tices that promote freedom without providing students with the proper guidance.Lastly, Black feminist and womanist teachers view their students as producers ofknowledge who posses the ability to transform oppressive social and cultural struc-tures. These teachers often model this behavior through the cultural act of ‘talkin’ andtestifyin’’ as a form of pedagogy. This act often involves elements of storytelling andnarrative that utilizes African linguistic styles such as Ebonics or Jamaican patois.

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Many Black feminist/womanist teachers see this as a culturally appropriate way tohelp raise students’ consciousness about their own development as well as thedevelopment of their communities. Students participate in this form of pedagogy by‘talking back’ in their own language through the sharing of their own stories anddrawing relationships between their stories and those of others (Ladson-Billings andHenry 1992; Henry 1998).

They illustrate of critical pedagogues are strongly evident in the work of Blackfeminist/womanist teachers. These characteristics illustrate the integral connectionbetween these teachers and the communities they have come from as well as thecommunities in which they teach. Their love for and commitment to these communi-ties often extends from the personal relationships they have with their students and thecommitments they have to the broader Black community. Next, we will explore thepedagogy of African-American male teachers – whom we identify as critical racepedagogues – that embody both similar and different characteristics.

Positioning our positionalities

Black feminist and womanist research has served as a guiding framework for criticalrace research on teaching.5 This research has expressed a commitment to socialchange and utilized critical methodologies as lens through which to enact that socialchange. Henry’s expression of her agenda is a key example. She expresses solidaritywith and a sense of political commitment towards other Black women who choose tostruggle against what hooks (1998) refers to as a White supremacist patriarchy. Thequestion we must ask ourselves is: what does it mean to be a Black man strugglingagainst similar systems of dehumanization and oppression? How can Black men chal-lenge systems of race, gender and class domination while articulating and perhaps re-articulating their subjectivities as dominated people who also have the power todominate? How do we ‘sing our sacred song’ (Lee 1990) in a land that positions us asanti-intellectual, oversexed, violent, misogynistic, and emotionally distant and cold?How do we overcome even Afrocentric representations of Black masculinity that cansometimes present us as homophobic and one-dimensional? Is it possible to challengethe notion that caring is essentially a feminine quality and that men who care aboutchildren are pedophiles or perhaps simply less masculine than ‘real men’ who leavethe task of teaching to women (Sargent 2001)?

In what ways does critical race theory provide possibilities for engaging thesequestions? Like Black feminist thought, critical race theory (CRT) centralizes theBlack subject as both narrator and subject. However, CRT removes feminist/womanistparadigms from the central focus of analysis and permits a re-focusing on the uniquepositionality of African-American male teachers. This positionality embodies a dual-ity that stems from the position of African-American males as both privileged malesin a patriarchal society and as racialized ‘others’ in a society that historically supportsthe maintenance of racial oppression.

CRT as a critical theoretical guidepost

CRT as a critique of racism in law and society emerged as a race-based critique grow-ing from the National Critical Legal Studies conferences that took place at the Harvardand UC-Berkeley Law Schools in the early to mid 1980s (Crenshaw et al. 1995;Lawrence 2002). This group of law professors and students began to question the

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objective rationalist nature of the law and the process of adjudication in US courts.They criticized the way in which the real effects of the law served to privilege thewealthy and powerful in the US while having a deleterious impact on the rights of thepoor to use the courts as a means of redress. Out of this evolving critique of the roleof law in society, a second strand of critical scholarship emerged through the writingsof Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, Richard Delgado, Angela Harris, and KimberleCrenshaw. These scholars argued that the critical legal studies movement did not gofar enough in challenging the specific racialized nature of the law and its impact onpersons of color. These young legal scholars of color, many of whom eventuallybecame the architects of critical race theory as a political scholarly movement, madeseveral distinct claims that gave shape and emphasis to their arguments:

(1) Racism has been a normal daily fact of life in society and the ideology andassumptions of racism are ingrained in the political and legal structures as tobe almost unrecognizable. Legal racial designations have complex, historicaland socially constructed meanings that insure the location of politicalsuperiority of racially marginalized groups.

(2) As a form of oppositional scholarship, CRT challenges the experience ofWhite European Americans as the normative standard; CRT grounds itsconceptual framework in the distinctive contextual experiences of people ofcolor and racial oppression through the use of literary narrative knowledge andstorytelling to challenge the existing social construction of race.

(3) CRT attacks liberalism and the inherent belief in the law to create an equitablejust society. CRT advocates have pointed out the legal racial irony and liberalcontradiction of the frustrating legal pace of meaningful reform that has elim-inated blatant hateful expressions of racism, yet, has kept intact exclusionaryrelations of power as exemplified by the legal conservative backlash of thecourts, legislative bodies, voters, etc, against special rights for raciallymarginalized groups (Bell 1988; Crenshaw et al. 1995; Delgado 1987;Matsuda et al. 1993).

As CRT has evolved, it has begun to take up new discourses and offer newchallenges to legal doctrine in American jurisprudence. Critical race feminism, forexample, has emerged as an area of study with respect to women of color and theirconnection to the law and public policy’s impact on their lives as women, both in theUS and in an international context of race, gender and nationality (Berry and Mizelle2004; Wing 2000). In particular, critical race feminism examines the impact of thatlaw on women of color in terms of a more interactive and intersecting gender/race/social class analysis. Critical race feminism calls on women to form coalitions withartists and activists in local communities to push for change that will benefit womenof color and their families in local contexts.

Critical race scholars in education have worked over the past decade to explorethe theoretical and methodological significance of CRT and its role in as well as itslinks to education theory and practice. CRT literature that examines teaching looks atthe practices and beliefs of teachers in K-12 classrooms. They have used CRT as ameans through which to explore the experiences of teachers and students of color inUS classrooms. They have also used the knowledge that teachers of color of possessto construct ‘critical race pedagogies’ that construct a critique of racism in educationwhile also putting forth some ideas about how to address race and racism in the

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classroom. In general, critical race studies of teaching and teacher education callattention to racist classroom practices that not only marginalize students of color butthey address the ways in which local and national policies impact teaching inAmerica’s diverse classrooms. They ask important questions such as: ‘How doesracism shape and influence how teachers interact with minority youth?’ and: ‘Howcan a critical interrogation and understanding of race and racism transform our class-room practices?’ Hence, the development of a critical race pedagogy is a way ofaddressing inequalities in classrooms as well as providing some information aboutthe best way to move forward in order to transform our classrooms into places whereminority students might thrive.

Framing the study

Studying the work of teachers (and African-American teachers in particular) has beena continuing challenge to educational researchers. This challenge is especially evidentin studying the complex and multi-layered (Weiner 1993) dynamics that teachers faceboth in and out of the classroom. For researchers of African-American teachers thishas been made even more problematic due to their exclusion from many historicalrecords and the resulting lack of research related to their own experiences (Foster1997). Foster (1997) quotes Margaret Meade in asserting that teachers are still viewedalmost exclusively as White, middle-class women in the popular imagination. Makingthis challenge more difficult is the fact that teachers work within dynamic school envi-ronments that contain students, administrators and other educators. Thus researchrelated to the work of teachers invites a broad range of research methodologies thatcan be instituted to illuminate particular phenomena in the context of teachers’ expe-riences. This particular study seeks to examine the knowledge and dispositions ofAfrican-American teachers. Specifically, this study asks, ‘What is unique about thepedagogy of African-American teachers, especially as related to African-Americanstudents?’

To fully explore this question, a methodology based primarily on acquiring,analyzing and interpreting narrative data was sought. Direct contact with a purposefulsample of African-American teachers was utilized to create access points that wouldfacilitate an understanding of the daily lives of African-American teachers. In meetingthese teachers and pursuing knowledge about their pedagogy and their relationship tothe school community we encouraged individual teachers to ‘tell’ their own stories butalso remained cognizant of our place as co-constructors of the narratives thatunfolded. Our purpose in seeking the teachers’ narratives extended beyond a mererecording and analyzing of information and instead amounted to what Dixon,Chapman and Hill (2005) have described as a ‘search for goodness’. This search is amethodological hallmark of ‘portraiture’, a narrative methodology developed by SaraLawrence-Lightfoot in her ongoing in-depth studies of education in socio-culturalcontext (1983, 1997, 1995). The notion of searching for goodness informs our moveas researchers to go beyond the traditional emphasis on pathology that has been ahallmark of research surrounding the African-American experience in educationalinstitutions (Dixon et al. 2005; Lawrence-Lightfoot 1983, 1997). Despite this, ourwork with African-American teachers differs from portraiture in that it is framed bythe more explicitly political context of critical race theory.

In our study of African-American male teachers, critical race theory is utilized asa lens to develop a set of counter narratives that challenge prevailing ideas about

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African-American educators. This methodological approach utilizes aspects ofportraiture framed by critical race theory that informs social context allowing for amore nuanced understanding of the experiences of African-American teachers. It alsoprovides further insight regarding the pedagogies that have been shaped by theseteachers’ experiences. Solorzano and Yosso (2005) have extensively explored theconcept of ‘critical race methodology’ and its importance as an analytical frameworkfor educational research. In developing this line of inquiry, Solorzano and Yosso(2005) distinguish critical race methodologies from ‘… deficit informed research thatsilences and distorts’ (23) the unique experiences and epistemologies of people ofcolor. Tillman (2002) adds to this discourse by specifically discussing the importanceof culturally sensitive research in the African-American community and points toresearch on Black teachers and students as prime examples for a culturally sensitiveresearch framework. It is within such a framework that we have undertaken our exam-ination of African-American teachers and how their narratives reveal a critical peda-gogy of resistance that seeks to challenge hegemonic structures in the African-American educational experience.

The study

This study of the work and lives of Black urban schoolteachers was conducted duringthe 1999–2000 school year. Across the nation, the majority of Black teachers taughtin large urban school districts where the majority of students were Black (Frederick.D. Patterson Research Institute 1997). This was also true for California. Black teach-ers constituted nearly 16% of Los Angeles Unified School District’s teacher popula-tion during the 1998–1999 school year (Los Angeles Unified School ITD 1998). Thestudy was conducted in a small working class African-American community nestledat the northern edge of South Central Los Angeles; a community that has traditionallybeen home to the area’s African-American population.6 The community was calledStrivers Point because it had developed a reputation over the years for being the siteof political and social action for African-Americans in Los Angeles. As visits wereconducted in the community over a period of nearly two years, it was found thatpeople in the community were always ‘striving’ to make the community and the citya better place for those who were the most disenfranchised. All of the schools in thestudy could be considered ‘Black schools’ because more than 75% of the students ineach school were Black. In both cases, the majority of teachers (65% or more) werealso Black. In addition, the majority of students in these schools were also eligible forfree and reduced lunch. One of the schools, Strivers Point Middle School was nestledin the midst of this community. South Central High was located outside of the officialcommunity boundaries but it was the school most often attended by children whograduated from Strivers Point Middle School. Two teachers, one from each school,participated in this study. See Table 1.

Table 1. Study participants.

Name Age Subject/grade Years of experience

Mr Teranishi 34 Seventh and eighth grade English, math 7 yearsMr Green 54 Accounting 10 years

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Each teacher was chosen on the basis of several criteria. First, they were to beworking as full-time classroom teachers. Second, since past research on Blackteachers often illuminated these teachers’ commitment to making certain that African-American children could attain academic success while instilling in them a critique ofinequality and thirst for social change (Henry 1998; Ladson-Billings 1994), it wasimportant to find teachers who met this criteria. In other words, the goal was to findteachers who were committed to helping children develop a critical consciousnesswhile attaining academic success. It was also important to find teachers who not onlyhad a love of teaching but a love of African-American children. In order to do this, weconstructed a short interview protocol and conducted a formal classroom observationas a means to determine whether or not teachers were ‘culturally relevant’ in theirsocio-pedagogical7 thought and actions (Ladson-Billings 1994). For example, LadsonBillings (1994) compares the traits of culturally relevant teachers to assimilationistteachers. Culturally relevant teachers see themselves as part of the community inwhich they teach; assimilationist teachers do not. Culturally relevant teachers believein African-American students and have high expectations for them. Assimilationistteachers, on the other hand, promote deficit-based thinking about the ability ofAfrican-American students to achieve. Black male teachers, who agreed and wereavailable to participate in the study, were asked questions about their identity and theminority achievement gap. Teachers who expressed a commitment to the communityin which they taught and had a strong belief in the potential of African-Americanstudents to succeed, were further considered for participation in the study. On theother hand, teachers who indicated a lack of faith in their students’ ability to achieveacademically were not considered further. Third, the final candidates were selectedbased on their overall contribution to a diverse pool of candidates who would vary interms of subject area, grade level, age and years of experience. The portraits providea description and analysis of the practices of two Black male teachers equallycommitted to the preservation and advancement of the African-American community.

Portraits of critical race pedagogy in context

In this section, we present brief portraits of two Black male teachers – one from themiddle school and another from the high school. In general, the portraits address theirentree into teaching, their views on pedagogy, and offer an illustration of their peda-gogical practice. The portraits illustrate poignant examples of what might traditionallybe considered ‘good teaching’. Both of the teachers, through their work and theirideas, expressed a commitment to African-American children in working class andpoor communities. As the portraits will illustrate, each teacher expressed theircommitment in different ways.

Leon Teranishi: seventh grade math teacher, Strivers Point Middle School

Leon began teaching seventh grade at Brett Harte Middle School in the mid 1990s.After six years, he felt dehumanized and emasculated. Here, he describes in detailwhat happened:

They had me misplaced. They had me teaching ESL. All my credentials and all myexpertise, I should have been in mathematics. I would teach sixth, seventh and eighthgrade. I would teach four bilingual classes to English. I would teach classes, all Latino.

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And, so, I felt like I was their packhorse for years. They’ll write you up for stupid things.I get pulled out of my classroom to see my roll book – no warning, nothing. Theyviolated my union contract. Most males left.

Not only was he teaching in the wrong subject areas, but he was teaching severaldifferent grade levels. More than that, when he spoke up about it, they punished himby writing him up and demanding that he meet them on short notice. As I, the leadauthor, sat across from him in this slightly disheveled second floor classroom, Iremembered my own struggles with school administrators. As this conversation drewto a close, I reminded him that I – in fact – experienced the same thing. ‘Something’sgot to be done about that, brother’, he said with a sense of urgency. ‘I know, I know’,I uttered in response. We walked out of the classroom with the sad recognition thatpublic schools were, in some ways, hostile territory for Black men who were commit-ted to improving the lives of African-American children. While I knew this was trueat an intellectual level, I was deeply saddened by this news, however. After all thedifficulties he faced in school, as a child, why should he be forced to endure suchhardship as a working professional in the same schools? Mr Teranishi talked about achallenging childhood where he transferred from one school after the other because hewas continuously attacked by gang members. He also suffered abuse at the hand of analcoholic father. After six years of strained relationships and ‘write-ups’ at Brett HarteElementary, he left the school in search of more hospitable environs.

After leaving this school, he began working as a substitute. A year later, he endedup at Strivers Point Middle School where he taught seventh grade math at the time ofthe study. When we met, he had been teaching there for almost two years. Althoughhe was happy with his position at Strivers Point, conditions are less than optimal. Leondid not have a classroom of his own. Because he was new, he shared a classroom withtwo other teachers, both of whom are Black men. Yet, and still, he viewed his admin-istrators as ‘fair and committed to the intellectual development of the students’. Inshort, Leon did not outwardly express outrage at having to travel to three differentclassrooms; one of which was located in a different building entirely. Instead, headapted. He rolled around a suitcase on wheels that allowed him to carry his booksand personal belongings from one location to another without the frustration of havingto carry everything. Perhaps this adaptation was a form of survival. I could not becertain. What was certain was that he shared these classrooms with two other Blackmen teachers. This meant that not one but three Black men in the school were forcedto share their classrooms with others. I did not investigate the extent to which thisphenomenon was particular to Black men or if it was more widespread. At any rate,Leon and I spent a good deal of time in the hallways as he moved from one destinationto the next one.

As I walked from classroom to classroom with him, we often talked about thecrisis in urban education or the problems experienced by Black boys in the US. It wasduring those times that he began to express his disappointment in a system that wasfailing our children. Often, when he talked about issues of poverty and racism, hisdisposition changed from that of a happy-go-lucky young man who smiled ateveryone to that of someone who was quite angry about the state of affairs for BlackAmerica. These enriching conversations helped me to better understand the sense ofurgency that he brought to his teaching practice.

In various sessions I observed, I found that while the subject was formally mathe-matics, his students were often given a lesson in social justice. In one session, he gave

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students a relevant example regarding the extent to which they must support and‘check their facts’. ‘They want facts. In the South, Black boys were lynched. Theypulled boys out of the river. It was a common practice. I must encourage you to under-stand the history’. Here, he is making a point about how Blacks could not prove thatthe boys had been lynched until they could get the financial support to have the bodiesexhumed from the water. This, according to Leon, is what provided the proof thatthese atrocities had occurred. The only way to provide proof was to keep a runningrecord of the number of lynchings that had occurred over a period of several years. Inconclusion, he states ‘I want you to use mathematics to learn how to get your factstogether’. Not only did he provide them with a lesson about the importance of ‘check-ing their work’ and ‘knowing their math facts’, he taught them about the severity ofJim Crow racism in the South. Although it was apparent that Black men were beingkilled at alarming rates, Black communities were still forced to bear the burden ofproof when trying to prove that such atrocities had actually occurred. Black peoplethen had to find ways in which to support claims of racism through the consistentdocumentation of events that led up to ‘lynchings’ or other more serious acts ofviolence against the community. Such documentation eventually led to the creation oflaws that outlawed such heinous crimes, he pointed out. While teaching Blackchildren to ‘check their work’ and ‘support their suppositions with fact’ is, in and ofitself, a valuable tool, he situated the discussion within an historical analysis of Blackdomination in a racist society. One must do the same in mathematics, he argued.

In addition to providing students with important historical knowledge about theability of African-Americans to utilize their observation and analysis skills to supportclaims of racial injustice, he also provides them with concrete examples of the way inwhich mathematical concepts are often utilized in everyday life. In the next session,he asked students to consider the dubious ways in which numerical data are tossedabout in the media:

You see, you have to know your numbers. I heard a report the other day that said that thejoblessness rate in the country had gone down. I knew that that didn’t make sensebecause there’s a large percentage of people in my community who are unemployed. Thenumbers don’t add up. 50% of African-American males do not have jobs, yet they saythe jobless rate is down.

In the previous example, he warned students that they should critically examine theways in which numbers get utilized in an unjust society. For example, ‘lower rates ofjoblessness’ as professed by the White media do not necessarily translate into greaterprosperity for the majority of African-Americans, particularly African-Americanmales. Students were asked to examine such issues by becoming social archeologistswho explore in greater detail that which was presented to them as truth. In that sense,he implored them to be critical of taken-for-granted notions in society (Freire 1970).His commitment to raising the children’s social consciousness about the uses andabuses of mathematics was not overshadowed by his willingness to be responsive tothe emotional needs of his students.

In another session, I watched as he began his class: ‘This is what we’re going todo. I’m gonna write 15 problems. You must copy it down in 3 minutes’. Without thebenefit of an adequate supply of mathematics textbooks, he was forced have childrencopy math problems on paper. He wrote the same problems on the board. I took a seatin the back of the room. As he monitored the students, he noticed that one of hisstudents was upset. He then asked the student, a Black boy, to step outside of the

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room: ‘What’s the problem?’ You’re teary-eyed and you look upset’. The boy breaksdown and begins to talk sadly about something that had occurred just prior to enteringTeranishi’s class. Before asking him to rejoin the class, he tried to reassure the studentthat his situation would improve and that he would provide whatever support deemednecessary. The boy calmed down, took his seat and immediately began activelyparticipating in class.

The student seemed to be very pleased that Mr Teranishi had taken the time to talkto him instead of demanding that he ‘suck it up’ or ‘get with the program’. His demon-stration of caring saved the day for this young man. As I sat there that day, I wasstunned because I, for one, never noticed that the student was not in a good mood.More than likely, the student would have sulked quietly as Leon attempted to illumi-nate some important connection between math and life. For most teachers, this wouldhave been acceptable. Leon chose instead to respond compassionately to theemotional needs of a Black male student who was visibly saddened by an experiencehe had just prior to coming to class. By doing so, he not only acknowledged the boy’semotions as real and worth attention, he helped to create better conditions for learning.Perhaps Leon’s response to this student has much to do with his own experiences asa child whose emotional needs were unmet. Perhaps the educational neglect heexperienced makes him more sensitive to the needs of others in need of a similar kindof support.

A portrait of Mr Green, accounting teacher at South Central High School

I wasn’t sure at that point what I was going to do. But I had been in Junior Achievement,volunteering my time with them. So in 1990, a teacher was here, suggested that I reallyconsider teaching. So, young Black children really kind’a took hold of me and before Iknew it, the teacher had convinced me. She went on sabbatical and convinced me to takeover the classes every day. And, you know, one year passed, two years passed when Istarted to take classes, and some how…I only intended to stay a couple of years. Now,it’s been eight or nine years here.

Like some of the other men in the study, Mr Green was encouraged by an olderBlack woman educator to consider teaching full-time. Teaching was supposed toprovide him with a much-needed one to two-year hiatus from the taxing world ofbusiness. Instead, it ‘took hold’ of him and he has not been able to leave. Becausehe came to the schools after having lived in the community as a high-profilebusiness leader for many years, he approached the district differently. Here, heexplained:

I went to the superintendent of the schools and I said: ‘I would like to come and teach’.When I was in business, I gave schools in this district an awful lot of money. So, whatyou could do for me is let me come and teach economics a couple days a week and thatwould be OK. I had to go take a test and I had to take these classes. I wasn’t really upfor all that.

Needless to say, his clout and his superior educational background got him nowherewith the district administration – even though knew some of them personally. Whenhe began teaching at South Central he had to work for several years with emergencycredential until he completed the requirements. This, of course, meant that he had totake exams and classes, complete portfolios and do student teaching like everyone

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else. To him, much of this training was useless. It did not provide him with the skillsneeded for competently teaching economics and accounting at an urban school in themiddle of South Central! According to him, it simply legitimized him as one of thefew ‘certified’ teachers in a school where a large number of teachers lacked the propercredentials.

Because Mr Green’s classes were advanced in nature, the majority of hisstudents were juniors and seniors who took the class as an elective. For the mostpart, he taught students how to start their own businesses by teaching basiceconomic and accounting principles. In addition to that, students learned how tomanage budgets for personal and business purposes. They also learned how todesign a marketing strategy and execute it. Students worked in teams to create abusiness concept and then worked throughout the semester to concretize their ideas.Students become so engaged in this activity, that they often spend a great deal oftime outside of class perfecting the marketing strategies and business plans. Onseveral occasions, I observed students – most of them Black males – sitting inMr Green’s room during lunch periods discussing the various ways in which toimprove their mock corporations. In this sense, the connection to ‘the real world ofwork’ as Mr Green always says, became apparent. As these examples illustrate‘work experience’ was not simply a code word for vocational education, it imbibedin students an ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. They saw themselves as people with thepotential to successfully create, market and maintain corporations that impacted thelives of their community. Sometimes, these mock corporations turned into reality.One earlier class started a business designed for the purposes of collecting anddisseminating food to the needy. Housed at South Central High School, the success-ful business was ‘owned and operated’ by students.

In addition to engendering in students a sense that they could and would be theauthors of their own fate, his courses provided students with an opportunity to reflecton the ways in which they utilized money in their own lives. One of his students, a16-year-old African-American female student who lived by herself in her own apart-ment, used the skills gained from the class to help her budget her very limitedfinances. His extremely honest and subsequently emotionally charged class sessionsoften addressed these issues.

In a number of class sessions, he talked with students about ‘opportunity costs’.An ‘opportunity cost is the value of the next best thing given up’, according to MrGreen. In other words, he was trying to get the students to apply a basic businessprinciple of considering the impact that one’s spending can have on his or her ‘oppor-tunities’ to buy or have access to other valuable resources. Mr Green turned theconversation away from financial budgetary issues and begins to focus on life: ‘Whenyou watch TV, are there any opportunity costs?’ A student responds, ‘Studying’. Atthat point, the class gets into a debate about whether or not watching TV necessarilyforces one to give up studying. One student exclaims: ‘You can do your homeworkand watch TV. I always do that’. The conversation moved on: ‘It’s the same thing withmaking yo’ college choices. If you become a manager at a fast food corporation, youmight be doing that for the rest of your life because you don’t have a college educa-tion’. The students became actively engaged in the practice of applying the theorypresented in class to their own lives. Even more important, they considered how thespecific choices they made as teens could affect their entire lives. Among the manylessons that needed to be learned by teenagers, this one was key. Green makes theexample even more concrete:

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Suppose you could make $8.50 an hour coming out of high school? My nephew makes$10 an hour. He just had a baby. His girlfriend lives with him. They add up the pay.$1600 is his monthly. He takes home about $1120. They subtract rent. $620 left.

Before he could finish the scenario, the students began to engage in a vigorousargument about how much one should pay for food. He tried to convince them thatone should pay at least $100 for food. The polyphonic screed mounted to a fever pitch.‘Hold it! Hold it! Do you really want toilet paper from the 99¢ store?’ Mr Greenretorted. He got their attention. He then talked with them about all the necessary costsinvolved in managing a household. They attempted to figure out ways to cut costsalong the way. ‘You could eat at your mother’s house’, a student suggests. It is, at thispoint, that the students begin to realize how difficult it would be to live on a verylimited amount of resources. While some still attempt to argue that Green’s notionsregarding what is necessary to manage a household are beyond reach, many of themseem to be thinking very differently about this issue. The most vociferous growquieter as he begins to explain the importance of considering the ‘opportunity costs’involved in making various decisions that will affect their lives for years to come. Theconversation continued in another session.

Having felt frustrated by the remarks made by students in previous sessionsregarding their lack of understanding or even concern about tending to ‘opportunitycosts’ he began to talk to the class about values. ‘Crystal is pregnant. She says shebought shoes instead of school supplies and NOT diapers!’ he said with a hint ofindignation. The students laughed loudly. He continued: ‘Some of the other studentscome and they are dressed and they ask me for a pencil. Our values lead us to make adecision about what’s important’. He gave examples of how college can, in fact, bebeneficial for a host of reasons. He also pointed out that college without directioncould lead one toward financial ruin. Again, students provided counterexamples: ‘Iknow people who never went to college and they make a lot of money’. Instead ofdisagreeing with the student, he added more weight to the comment by saying, ‘Yes.Bill Gates dropped out of college after the first year. He is very successful’. He thenwent on to tell that it is still true that: ‘A high school diploma doesn’t give you a lotof weight’. He provided them with examples of students in his various classes that, forone reason or another, opted not to vigorously pursue their educational goals. Again,trying to push the envelope, he says: ‘The reality is sometimes different from what youthink! One of the things you don’t wanna do is be surprised about how much it willtake to live’. They begin to respond. In jest, a student says: ‘Go on welfare’. This time,he pushed back: ‘You’re dependent on MY tax dollars to pay for your lifestyle!’ Anumber of students began arguing with him. After the class ends, some of them standin the front of the room and argued with Mr Green in an attempt to get him to see theirpoint of view. Others rushed as they continue their conversations about what it wouldcost to live in a one-bedroom apartment as opposed to a two-bedroom or buy genericas opposed to name-brand products. As they hastily moved about, I walked over to avery despondent Mr Green who began to tell me how disappointed he is with themindset of the students. I reminded him that I found his class discussion invigoratingbecause I enjoyed watching Black children get fired up about the realities of life.While I was excited about their enthusiasm about the issues, I was also very privatelyconcerned about what sounded like ‘conservative capitalist rhetoric’ on the part ofMr Green. I asked him about this. He said that African-Americans should ‘learn howto operate in the current system’. This view coincided with a notion regarding the

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pervasiveness of culture of poverty among his students. This, I decided, wassymptomatic of an ever widening gulf between the poor and the middle classes (Bell1992a ; Freire 1993). Had his ‘$100,000 a year’ income and his Ivy League degreesput a considerable degree of distance between him and his students? I never resolvedthis question because while he, at times, subscribed to cultural deprivation theories, heseemed absolutely committed to improving education for students at South CentralHigh School.

What was most compelling about Richard’s professional life was his level ofinvolvement in school change efforts. Having studied other Black male teachers whowere ignored and rarely noticed except when they did something exceptionally goodor exceptionally bad, it was a nice change. Richard was recognized and respected byhis colleagues. At the time of the study, he was head of the committee that approvedof the school’s budget for the fiscal year. South Central, designated as one of the‘Super 8’ poorest high schools in the city, was part of school reform strategy referredwhich requires that they reorganized in such a way as to increase the level of decision-making among faculty. The budget committee, which consists of both teachers andadministrators at the school, is one such organization. Because of his financial exper-tise, he had been given the responsibilities of leading this group. I watched once as heengaged in a very tense conversation regarding his reasons for not approving a budgetthat ‘was not in the best interest of the students’. To that extent, he was willing to riskhis professional livelihood in order to make certain that students were going to receivethe best education possible. Even more important, he spent a great deal of time nego-tiating business relationships with nearby companies in an effort to get them to cometo South Central High School to hire students. part-time and in the summers. Not onlydid he want them to hire students, he wanted them to provide on-the-job training forstudents interested in business management. Many days, he was absolutely exhaustedfrom all of the hard work inside and outside of the classroom. ‘I could really use somehelp in here’, he would often lament. Watching him perspire one day, I said ‘Do youregret leaving the business world for this?’ Assuming, he would immediately respondaffirmatively, I was somewhat taken aback when he shouted: ‘Oh, no! Not for oneminute!’

African-American male teachers’ critical race pedagogy

Drawing from children’s lives

As both Mr Leon Teranishi and Mr Richard Green illustrated, they use their student’slives as texts through which to build curriculum in the classroom context. Mr Teranishisituated his math instruction within the Black experience in the US and helps hisstudents understand how math can be used to improve their lives. He also used hisclassroom as a platform to discuss important equity concerns in the broader society.Mr Green used his classroom as a way to help his students learn the fundamentals ofbudgeting. For him, it was important for African-American children to learn this skillif they were going to lead fulfilling lives. He was deeply concerned about the financialstate of the community – with African-Americans, as whole, having either too fewresources or not knowing how to properly utilize those they have in order to buildcommunity wealth. While he did not experience immediate success with his students,he did awaken their minds and their spirits to a major problem in our community. Inaddition, students were excited about using numbers as a way to construct their ownlives. They were no longer passive observers but active participants in the making of

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their own lives. Even more important, rather than shut down conversations by provid-ing boring lectures about the importance of financial solvency, he allowed the studentsto engage in serious debates with him and each other about the best approaches toliving. These spirited discussions forced students to think seriously about the directionsof their own lives and whether their career goals were in line with their desired lifestylechoices. It was, in many, regards an awakening for some students who were headed inthe wrong the direction. He didn’t know it, but he was probably saving lives.

Developing and practicing a pedagogical sensitivity

Black male teachers committed to the development of Black youth expressed aprofound belief in the notion that one has to be sensitive to the particular needs ofBlack students who live in economically depressed communities where violence is aregular occurrence. Describing what happens after his students have witnessed a fatalshooting or some other violent act, Leon talks specifically about how teachers mustbegin to respond to students who are living in traumatic situations:

[Sometimes], they come to school traumatized. How can you teach that child? I don’t seea psychological team coming into South Central when there’s a shooting. I’ve taught inSouth Central for seven years, and I have witnessed shootings. No one showed up. So,sometimes when the students act out, I have to take my time and ask them what’s goingon. Not talk at ‘em. Talk to ‘em and see if we can come to some type of agreement towhere, okay, take some time out to work this out.

Not only does this urban schoolteacher begin the process of getting us to rethinkhow we respond to children living in violent worlds, he is also critical of a system thatignores the psychological trauma of African-American children. As we havewitnessed fatal shootings at White middle class high schools all over the nation, wehave also had the privilege of watching teams of counselors, psychiatrists, andpsychologists rush in to ‘ease the pain’ of grieving White students. In response, heasks the important question ‘Why don’t they come here?’ As I spent time in the hallsof Strivers Point Middle School, I learned that the school did not have a counselor whocould address the emotional needs of students. To that extent, the responsibilitybecame that of the teacher. As Leon suggested, this calls for teachers to have a morenuanced and balanced understanding of Black student misbehavior. In his view, their‘acting out’ often stems from the emotional distress that comes from living under theconstant threat of violence. While teachers typically interpret any misbehavior as a‘threat’ to their authority, he suggested that teachers try to work ‘with’ students tounderstand the problems with which their students are faced and then agree on somemutual terms of communication. In other words, Leon is promoting a form of peda-gogical sensitivity and understanding that considers the specific emotional needs ofthe individual student. For Richard, developing this sensitivity means that one mustmake wholehearted attempts to ‘understand their students’ and ‘respect their points ofview’. This sensitivity leads to a good deal of understanding regarding the ways inwhich to pedagogically meet the needs of students. This sensitivity and understanding,in turn, begets a kind of mutual respect between teacher and student. This, they argue,is essential to teaching effectively. While sensitivity to children’s emotional needs isimportant, an understanding of their living conditions and a healthy respect for theirhumanity and individuality is key to effective practice in urban schools, it must alsobe an integral part of one’s teaching practice.

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Why they teach: a compassion for African-American children and a commitment to community

‘I teach ‘cause I keep seeing me’. Leon explained as he recounted his experience as achild growing up in a gang-infested community in South Central Los Angeles. Forhim and others, the experience with race and class oppression had created a degree of‘empathetic regard’ for others similarly situated. He elaborated:

Maybe it quiets some of the pain in my soul about bad experiences I’ve had. And, maybe,just maybe, I can help someone. When your souls hurt and your mind and emotions arehurting, sometimes it’s hard to study.

His experiences, as tragic as they might have been, prepared him in a special wayto be able to deal with the particular needs of his students – many of whom lived inthe midst of on-going violence and hopelessness. The commitment to teach in urbanschools in the community was a ‘way of being able to have some significant impacton our future as a community’. Green elaborated on this point when he said:

I realized that there are very few African-American men who are willing to make thatleap in our community given the challenges of what you can earn in terms of incomeas well as the challenges of dealing with youth and young people. You have to kind’ahave a commitment to stay and work with them [because] our ability to learn thelanguage of business and economics relates to our ability to rise up from the ranks ofthe disenfranchised and into an area of prosperity for our community.

In this way, his expertise as an Ivy League-educated former businessman withskills in applied economics becomes directly tied, in his view, to the economic wellbeing of the African-American community.

Conclusion

A critical race pedagogy challenges the traditional claims that the educational system andits institutions make toward objectivity, meritocracy, color-blindness, race neutrality, andequal opportunity. Critical race educators argue that these traditional claims act as acamouflage for the self-interest, power, and privilege of dominant groups in US society.(Solorzano and Yosso 2005, 598)

As we have shown, the pedagogical practices of African-American male teachers whoexpress a compassion for Black children and a commitment to the African-Americancommunity are reminiscent of the pedagogies practices and beliefs of Black feminist/womanist educators and critical pedagogues. Embedded within these teachers’ analy-ses of schooling and society are critiques of racist relations in the broader society.Their critical race analysis of the conditions of the African-American community leadthem to construct both pedagogies of dissent and affirmation. Teranishi’s pedagogy ofaffirmation is both political and personal. He politicizes his teaching while attendingto the socio-emotional needs of students. Through their pedagogies of affirmation,both men provided safe spaces for African-American male students in their class-rooms. These students felt safe to voice their concerns, express their desires, andcontemplate the larger questions of life. As avid dissenters, they voiced concernsabout policies both locally and nationally that endangered the livelihood of African-Americans. Green’s constructs a pedagogy of dissent that rejects racist beliefs about

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the ability of African-Americans to lead productive lives that are based on healthyknowledge about budgeting. These notions also affirm his students because it helpsthem make better decisions about their futures. Mr Teranishi actively participated innational organizations that were connected to the African-American reparationsmovement. Mr Green was an active participant in school-based committees that wouldaffect the lives of his students. As the portrait illustrated, his often a vociferous oppo-nent of zero tolerance policies that actively sought to further marginalize his students.A critical race pedagogy, in this sense, is as much about dissent as it is about affirma-tion. Teachers who affirm the culture of their students and fail to oppose unequalschool policies or speak out against unfair social policies illustrate a kind of passive-ness that is necessary for a White supremacist patriarchy to thrive. While it oftencomplicates the lives of those who are engaged in it, resistance is key to social change.Teachers who resist structures of domination model this important quality forstudents. Equally important, we recognize that teachers dissent but don’t affirm theirstudents cannot successfully teach African-American students. In this way, a criticalrace pedagogy must attend to the relational aspects of teaching since the building ofrelationships is essential to effective practice.

One of the things we find consistent throughout is the narratives of Black feminist/womanist and critical race teachers is an insistence on using their classrooms as aspace to promote community healing. Leon’s arresting statement: ‘When I see them,I see me’, helps capture the essence of the notion of racial uplift and communityempowerment that is tied to their work. Mr Green defines this is very real terms whenhe suggests that helping African-American children develop expertise as entrepre-neurs could go a long way toward re-building and transforming the African-Americancommunity. In this sense, critical race pedagogies are grounded in based on a visionof healthy and whole community. The work of critical race pedagogues help to makethis vision into a reality. As we surveyed the literature on African-American educa-tion, we have these themes to be present in the work of African-American educatorsand intellectuals throughout history.

Charting the critical race tradition among African-American educators

African-American thinkers like W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper andCarter G. Woodson led principled scholarly struggles against the systematic dehuman-ization of African-Americans (Gordon 1995; Ladson-Billings 2001). As a result, theytheorized about the nature of the conditions for people who were racially and culturallysubjugated. The pedagogies of resistance theorized by African-American researchersand practiced by African-American educators and activist African-American thinkerssuch as W.E.B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, and Alexander Crummell expressed criticalideas in relation to the state of African-American education in the late nineteenth andearly twentieth century (Watkins 1996). These thinkers were part of an important intel-lectual tradition that emphasized education and reform tradition, however they are rarelyviewed as part of the historical legacy of critical pedagogy (Watkins 1996). The African-American intellectuals of the early twentieth century developed a scholarly/intellectualtradition that was different from their White counterparts. White social scientists wereapproaching their research through the development of academic disciplines thatemphasized the compartmentalization of knowledge (Ross 1991). African-Americansocial scientists were often trained in specific subject areas but developed a generalistscholarship based on their desire to critically examine the African-American experience

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in the US (Watkins 1996). While mainstream (i.e., ‘White’) educational theoristsbecame more focused on specific educational movements (Kliebard, 1987 cited inWatkins 1996), African-American educational theorists established themselves througha more general focus on sociological inquiry (Watkins 1996). Watkins (1994) and Shujaa(1994) both point out that the schooling and education of African-Americans has beenheavily shaped by the complex interplay of power and politics in American society.Marginalized groups within the US have created and maintained institutions and ideol-ogies that represent powerful critiques of society’s dominant paradigms. As discussedpreviously, this study of pedagogy conceived and conducted from the margins representsthe possibility of a critical paradigm that has been envisioned and practiced by African-Americans for many years has gone largely unexplored by mainstream educationalresearchers (Watkins 1996).

Notes1. We will not attempt to address all studies on Black teachers. Rather our mission to focus

on more recent research based on empirical examinations of Black teachers’ beliefs, theirteaching practices and their personal lives as they relate to the schooling of African-Americanchildren.

2. For more detailed analyses of critical theory and its relationship to Critical Pedagogy, seePeter McLaren’s ‘Life in schools’ (1998).

3. In this article, we do not make a clear distinction between Black feminist and womanistthought. In fact, we use the two concepts interchangeably. In a seminal article thataddresses the questions of the differences between the concepts of womanism and Blackfeminism (see Collins 1996). She argues that while both terms operate from slight differenthistorical standpoints, they essentially support Black women’s right to self-determination.In the final analysis, she suggests that we should be spending less time playing the namegame and more time trying to understand how to frame and transform racism, sexism andclassism.

4. According to Murrell (2002), ‘instruction and pedagogy are by no means synonymous…Pedagogy… includes teachers’ awareness of their own culturally mediated values andbiases, as well as an understanding of how success and failure are rooted in larger societaland institutional structures’ (xxiii).

5. In a 1999 article, Lynn argued that Black feminist/womanist research on teaching was, insome way, an inappropriate tool for analyzing the experiences of both men and women inschools. Michael Awkward (1995) has illustrated that men can use feminism as a lens forexploring important questions around race and gender.

6. The research was conducted by the lead author.7. The term socio-pedagogical refers to the nexus between teachers’ beliefs on teaching and

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power, politics, and critical race pedagogy: a critical race analysis of black male teachers’...

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