Burford Natasha V 201406 MA thesis - University of Toronto ... · ! ii! NatashaBurford!...

DECOLONOZING PEDAGOGY: Critical Consciousness and its impact on schooling

for Black students by

By: Natasha Burford

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Master of Arts of Education

Humanities, Social Sciences & Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

© Copyright by Natasha Burford (2014)

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Natasha Burford Decolonizing Pedagogy: Critical consciousness and its impact on schooling for Black students Master of Arts degree, June 2014 Humanities, Social Sciences and Social Justice Education University of Toronto ABSTRACT In this thesis, I consider the ways in which classroom teachers develop critical

consciousness and implement it within their pedagogy in the context of effectively

teaching Black students to achieve academic success. The process of critical

consciousness is complex and is mainly studied outside of teacher education. The

findings of this thesis fall into three main themes: self-‐awareness; analysis of power;

and inquiry of assumptions. The research also demonstrates that the spirituality of

the teacher is an important contributing factor in one’s transformation. With this

work, the hope is that teacher education programs dialogue about the importance of

critical consciousness, and integrate it into the recipe that makes up “quality

teaching” so that all students can have the opportunity to succeed in an equitable

schooling environment.

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DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to all the teachers who really want to make a difference in

the children who seem unreachable and to the students who long to have a teacher

understand everything they cannot express in words.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge all my amazing professors at OISE for putting me on the

journey of self-‐discovery and taking me under their wing to push me to excellence. I

thank my family for their patience and understanding of all the late nights I spent

completing this work and my students (all girls class 7F at Smithfeild 2013) for

encouraging me and giving me an experience to share and to believe that learning

together makes “good teaching” possible. Lastly, I am thankful to the spirit for

strength and wholeness. It is the one thing that keeps me positive and moving

forward because I know I am loved.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: IMPLEMENTING CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS ........................................................ 4

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? ..................................................................................................................... 9 Subject Location ..................................................................................................................................... 11 Significance of Study .............................................................................................................................. 15

CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................................. 16 Specific Context ...................................................................................................................................... 29 Reframing Critical Consciousness ......................................................................................................... 30

OVERVIEW OF THESIS ................................................................................................................................. 32 Notes ....................................................................................................................................................... 32

CHAPTER 2: THEORY AND LITERATIRE REVIEW ........................................................................ 33

GENERAL CONTEXT .................................................................................................................................... 33 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................................... 34

Theorizing Critical Consciousness ........................................................................................................ 36 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................................. 38

CHAPTER 3: METHOD ............................................................................................................................ 53

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 53 KEY SOURCES LISTED ................................................................................................................................. 55

Criteria for text selection of Critical Consciousness ............................................................................. 63 METHOD ...................................................................................................................................................... 67

Analysis of Data ..................................................................................................................................... 68 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 71

CHAPTER 4: DATA FINDINGS - 1 .......................................................................................................... 74

REFLECTION ................................................................................................................................................ 76 IDENTITY FORMATION ................................................................................................................................. 80 ANALYSIS OF POWER AND INEQUITY ........................................................................................................... 83

Understanding Domination .................................................................................................................... 87 Interrogating Racism and Oppression aligns with the notion and understanding of Whiteness ........... 89

COLLECTIVE EMPOWERMENT ...................................................................................................................... 92 INQUIRY OF ASSUMPGTIONS: ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS ...................................................................... 96

Critiquing Knowledge ............................................................................................................................ 97 Questioning Reality ................................................................................................................................ 99

CHAPTER 5: DATA FINDINGS – 2: MAJOR THEMES ................................................................... 103

TRANSFORMATION – THE SPIRITUAL CONNECTION .................................................................................... 103 Spirituality as an entry point to critical consciousness ....................................................................... 105

CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 110

INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING THE COURSE ..................................................................................................... 110 IMPLICATION FOR TEACHERS .................................................................................................................... 112

Expanding our tools ............................................................................................................................. 114 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 115 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................. 119

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CHAPTER ONE: Is it really just good teaching? Implementing Critical Consciousness Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.

Nelson Mandela INTRODUCTION

Teachers are often viewed as leaders, preparing their students to be

contributing citizens in the larger society. Due to this important responsibility, the

teaching profession is highly regarded in our Canadian context, hence must be taken

seriously. After all, teachers produce future generations of society. Thus, as the

above quote from the late Nelson Mandela states: “Real leaders must be ready to

sacrifice all.” The second part of this quote explains why this sacrifice is necessary:

“…for the freedom of their people.” This philosophy can be applied to the context of

teaching. As teachers, we must do whatever is necessary through our work in the

classroom to develop a more equitable and just society. Through our sacrifices, we

must allow and encourage all our students to move toward the freedom Mandela

speaks of. I believe that the sacrifice of teachers is the process of continuous

learning, professional development, interrogation of systems, disruption of the

status quo, and movement toward transformation of self and students so that more

schools and students can benefit from good teaching practices within our Ontario

classrooms. This process, leading ultimately to “good teaching,” is enacted through a

teacher’s critical consciousness.

However, why does so little “good teaching” seem to occur in classrooms

populated by Black students? This was a question that Ladson-‐Billings (1992) posed

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over 10 years ago in her book Dreamkeepers and this question is still very relevant

in Ontario classrooms today. Is it students who hinder good teaching from

happening? Or is there something lacking in today’s teachers that prohibits them

from achieving the pinnacle of teaching success? Why do some students receive

quality teaching while others get sub-‐standard teaching? What is the dividing factor

or criteria used to determine where students will be placed? Differential teaching

strategies are even apparent in a class where there is a group of Black students

among non-‐Black students. For instance, some teachers will send mixed messages of

what is expected and tolerated from different racial groups in the same class. I

believe that we must look at the critical consciousness of teachers toward their

students. We cannot ignore the dynamics of power relations between the teacher

and student that must be analyzed and interrogated if students are able to succeed.

For teachers to be leaders, they must not only be able to guide their students

toward academic success, but also toward a greater goal of transformation and

liberty. Not seeing this often as an educator, I struggled to know why many of my

teacher colleagues felt frustrated or lost when dealing with Black students. In the

teacher’s classroom are not all students considered “the people” who Mandela

speaks of in the above quote? Why is it that teachers find it easy to teach certain

students while ignoring, merely tolerating or distancing themselves from others?

Gary Harvard (2006) states that it is hard for teachers to teach what they don’t

know, which refers to an absence of cultural knowledge when teaching students

who do not share the same culture, ethnicity, language or racial identity as the host

teacher.

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...” Hosea 4:6 ESV (Bible)

In addition, as a member of the Black community and the mother of three Black

boys, I needed to research why Black students, particularly boys, are seen and

treated differently within a system that toots “equity for all.” Ladson Billings (1994)

believes, “Teachers do not consciously deprive or punish Black children on the basis

of their race, but at the same time they are not unconscious of the ways in which

some children are privileged and others are disadvantaged in the classroom. Their

‘dysconsciousness’ comes into play when they fail to challenge the status quo, when

they accept the given as the inevitable.”1 Joyce E. King first introduced the concept

of ‘dysconsciouness racism’ in her research on teacher education (1991) where she

discusses the controversial fixed belief of Black people as inferior by White pre-‐

service teachers who do not ever interrogate that belief. With this position, there is

a growing debate as to whether a teacher’s behavior toward racialized students can

in fact be attributed to dysconsciousness or to something more inherently

conscious. Bearing that in mind, how does a teacher’s critical consciousness work to

impact their teaching practice? How can a teacher be conscious of unfairness yet be

unwilling to do anything about it, especially when it is their role to lead all students

in their class to success? How do the different elements of identity and the personal

characteristics of a teacher intersect with their ability to teach all students

effectively? These are important questions that guide my research. In order to

understand the teaching practice, it is necessary to go beyond the surface features of

1Ladson-‐Billings, G. (1994). Dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-‐American students. San

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teaching “strategies” (Bartolome, 1994). The philosophical underpinnings of such a

practice—i.e., how one thinks about oneself as a teacher, how one thinks about

others (i.e., students, the students’ parents, and the community), how one structures

social relations within and outside of the classroom, and how one conceives of

knowledge—are crucial in determining quality teaching and connecting with

racialized students for academic success.

The pedagogical excellence I have described above is good teaching, but it is

much more than that. Throughout this thesis, I explore a concept I have come to

know as “critical consciousness” (Dei, 2000; Delpit, 1988; Fanon, 1967; Freire,

1970; hooks, 2003; Ladson-‐Billing, 1994) and argue for its centrality within a

teacher’s pedagogy, grounding it in spirituality and pointing to how it impacts the

academic success of Black children who have not been well served by our Ontario

schools. “Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-‐depth understanding of

the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political

contradictions. It also includes taking action against the oppressive elements in

one’s life that are illuminated by that understanding”2. Hence, a teacher’s critical

consciousness is a necessary tool that enables their pedagogy to be more effective

through a process of transformation that they go through to help in working with

diverse students. In rethinking critical consciousness, I propose a three-‐step

process that can be conceptualized and operationalized in teacher education.

However, I also needed to think of how this process would be packaged in order for

both new and experienced racially diverse teachers to acknowledge, accept and 2Mustakova-‐Possardt, M. (2003). “Is there a roadmap to critical consciousness? Critical consciousness: A study of morality in global historical context.” One Country, 15(2).

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implement it within their practice, which brought me to spirituality: a higher calling

toward the self. The essence of spirituality is the search to know our real self, to

discover the true nature of consciousness3. Hence, I attempt to advocate for

spirituality in teacher education and to rethink how it can be used in developing

critical consciousness. This thesis will “unpack” notions of spirituality and offer an

alternative way of coming to terms with the implications of this concept for

effectively teaching Black students. In looking at grounding critical consciousness in

spirituality, I had to recognize the possibility of the framework being disregarded as

too religious, fairy-‐tale like or only for a particular cultural group. Consequently, my

aim was to position this radical paradigm shift with Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

(CRP) success criteria and other new waves of teacher reform. The spiritual process

of critical consciousness enables a teacher to bring the connection of their mind,

body and soul into the classroom in order to display more of a human perspective to

their students, to embrace diversity, and to reach for meaningful and effective

connections with all their students, particularly those who are racialized.

Focusing on the underpinnings of spirituality meant challenging the

dominant narrative and advocating for a new paradigm of critical consciousness

that could be considered as part of the reformation of teacher education. This thesis

considers educational theorizing about the practice of teaching itself, rather than

looking at programmatic reform. In this study, I attempt to build on the educational

literature and suggest a new perspective to address the specific concerns of

educating teachers for success with Black and other racialized students. I also

3 Russell. P. (2006). Spirit of Now. Weaver blog

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examine how a spiritual consciousness comes to enter into one’s teaching practice.

Therefore, an important research focus was to bring spirituality into the dialogue of

critical consciousness and advocate for its necessity in inviting teachers toward a

transformative journey. I aimed to examine how elements of identity, spirituality

and transformation could be produced for teachers in the classroom. The first goal

of my research was to rethink critical consciousness and develop a space within

teacher education where critical consciousness could be acknowledged, dialogued

and embraced using spirituality as an entry point, pointing to the transformation of

the teacher toward working more consciously with diverse students.

My second research goal was to encourage and assist teachers—after

transformation—to implement an anti-‐racist, decolonized pedagogy in their

classroom while using innovative pedagogical approaches with their Black students.

This work is important in order to challenge the view that the technical

requirements of teacher education are sufficient, especially when it comes to

teaching racialized students. I argue that a next step for effective pedagogical

practice is promoting a critical consciousness that not only includes the link to race,

history and teacher practice but also enables teachers to affirm spirituality while

developing the critical perspectives needed to acknowledge bias and resist

structural inequity.

Where do we go from here?

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles... You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled…, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5: 12-‐14, KJV Bible

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Teachers must “know the territory” of teaching, which is comprised of both

the tools of the trade and the contextual conditions that either facilitate or inhibit

teaching efforts. To understand the processes of schooling, teaching and learning

we can look at the empirical research in the areas of teaching, learning and human

development, as well as the normative, philosophical and ethical foundations of

education (Shulman, 1987. p. 9-‐10). The normative and theoretical aspects of

teaching’s scholarly knowledge (the processes of schooling, teaching and learning)

are often viewed as the most important in assessing quality teaching. However, in

this paper I want to look at the philosophical and ethical aspects of teaching (i.e.,

what constitutes good teaching or what a well educated student might look like if

provided with appropriate opportunities and stimulation) (Shulman, 1987).

The area of teaching I will discuss is led by my key research questions: How

do we understand the development of a teacher’s critical consciousness, coupled

with spirituality, so that it is integrated into teacher education? Is the development

of critical consciousness in teachers sufficient to effect systematic change of the

colonialist, imperialist, capitalist institution of schooling for Black students? Will the

development of critical consciousness encourage teachers to be aware of their

biases and critically reflect on their pedagogy in working with diverse students?

How do we advance spirituality as a reflective process for classroom teachers and

an entry point to critical consciousness, harmonizing mind, body and soul, without

being dismissed as advocating for religion and being condemned by others as

“unprofessional”? Many notable scholars have advocated for critical consciousness

(Delpit, 1988; Freire, 1967; hooks, 2003), but how is it developed? How do we move

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critical consciousness away from the dominant narrative? How does transformation

come into existence, beyond just simply awareness? When developed, how would

transformation work to make a difference for Black students? Recognizing that I

have many more questions than can reasonably be answered in a limited space, I

hope to explore a few of these questions further throughout this thesis.

Subject Location

As a Black female teaching in urban schools and the mother of three boys, I

have become increasingly interested in how racialized students engage in their own

learning: first, because I have witnessed how the institution of schooling has

affected Black students—including my sons and myself, as well as how race, class

and gender are social determinants of how a teacher teaches and how a student

engages; and second, because of my desire to improve upon my own teaching

practice and investigate why I was unable to reach the few Black students in my

classroom, whom I so desperately wanted to see succeed. I often felt frustrated in

an environment that was neither conducive to their cultural, collective and

individual needs, nor to my own. As a new teacher, I lacked the tools and the

knowledge to resist the “system” and bring about change for those students.

Consequently, I believe I missed the opportunity to positively impact the few Blacks

students I taught. Though my heart was yearning to liberate both them and me, my

eyes were not yet opened. It took leaving my school for a few years, teaching in the

community and pursuing my Masters degree for real transformation to be realized

in my life. Today I write through the eyes of a critically conscious teacher, a mother

and Black feminist, researcher and community member. Learning about Fanon’s

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ideas of identity in my graduate studies compelled me to explore my own history.4

Hence, I began my journey of resistance, individually and collectively, within a

Eurocentric schooling system of learning that implicates me today as an educator

and a parent. Using a Fanonian perspective, I was able to explore my childhood,

damaged by the notion of “lactification”—unconsciously wanting to be White to

belong to the dominant group—that Fanon describes5 and how that experience

impacted how I saw myself and shaped my identity later on in life. With this

knowledge, I was able to interrogate the space of schooling as a socializing agent

and examine its very real impact on specific peoples, as well as the violence or

privilege bestowed on groups by virtue of their race. I was committed to further

educating myself—as a way to liberate my children as well as myself—using anti-‐

racist principles to encourage critical thought among racialized youth and

colleagues. Furthermore, I advocate for decolonization as a necessity for

revolutionary change and as a means by which to liberate generations of racialized

students to come. My version of decolonization in the context of schooling is

“undoing the effects of colonial practices. It is what we do, as teachers and students

in the face of colonialism not just to survive but to thrive despite the atrocities and

results” of the continuation of a colonial schooling system.6

The process of critical consciousness engagement is a complex one that is

often understood outside of teacher education. So what does it mean to speak of

critical consciousness within the realm of teacher education? The craft of teaching is

4 Dei. G.S. (2012). Fanon lecture, n. 3 2012, HSSJE, OISE/UT. 5Fanon. F. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, p. 37. 6Sajnani. N. et al. (2012). Decolonizing “social justice” work: Stories to support organizations, facilitators, and youth working against oppression. Montreal, QC: Girls Action Foundation.

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often understood as being regimented and technical, rather than fluid and artistic.

In addition, teaching is often boiled down to a science, where the onus of “meaning

and connection” often points to the curriculum and the class environment, and

teachers are viewed simply as the messengers for information provided by the

board. This thinking removes the burden of “making meaning” from the teacher,

who is often just “doing their job.” However, I believe that it is the way teachers

teach, beyond all of the external factors, that makes the difference. Furthermore, a

teacher’s methods and demeanor have the greatest ability to impact students for

educational excellence.

Nonetheless, it is no secret that there currently exists a Eurocentric

curriculum in Ontario schools, which in turn breeds a Eurocentric pedagogy passed

down and used by even the best of teachers.7 Our schooling system is based on

White supremacist beliefs, which is detrimental to all students, despite efforts for

diversity and inclusive schooling throughout the board. Until teachers acknowledge

this problem and interrogate issues of inequity enough to take action to reverse

them, certain students will always get the short end of the stick in terms of

education. Hence the title of this thesis: Decolonizing Pedagogy. Throughout this

thesis, I use the term “decolonization” to emphasize the process of subverting our

colonial curriculum by helping learners, both teachers and students, come to

recognize and question the structures of colonization and its implications, while

engaging in activities that disrupt those structures.8 This process is where one’s

7Aoki-‐Barrett. J., Baker. P., Hallman-‐Chong. S., Morgan. V., & Walker. P. (2001). Blurred vision: Rethinking the Ontario curriculum. ETFO. 8Decolonizing Pedagogies: Teacher Reference Booklet for the Aboriginal Focus School, Vancouver.

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journey for truth begins. Through Fanon’s work, I began to think about systems of

colonization and the violent indoctrination of schooling that still carry on in schools

today. Fanon propels us to interrogate knowledge and power in order to “rupture

historical master narratives.” Dei often claims: in order to begin to do anti-‐racist

work, we must start with knowing one’s self. In coming to know one’s self, there is

a hope that we can then begin to “remove the chains from around our mind.”9

Within teacher education, this is an unlearning of everything that we are taught as

“dominant” and a relearning of multiple knowledges. Fanon’s work guides us to

bring the new ideas of critical consciousness into schooling and education. The

question must then be asked, “Can a colonial education system help us to decolonize

ourselves and our students?” If Fanon could answer this question, he would

definitely say yes. The same education that has colonized us must be used as an

“enlightened education” to liberate us. If we as teachers are committed to seeing

our students succeed, we must not give in to the dominant methods of teaching;

rather we must pursue justice and excellence at all cost. This is an act of resistance

where one explores spaces of individual and collective opposition to the culture of

inherent racism in our education system. Fanon described this colonialist system as

a Manichean world built by the colonist, where all that is White is good and all that

is Black or other than White is bad. Many teachers assimilate into this system, even

if only within their minds, and it soon becomes “us and them.” What happens to a

student’s identity, which is constantly defined by his struggles, when the teacher is

indoctrinated with lies and distorted images of a particular group, and that student

9Dei, G. S. (2013). Education and anti-‐racism lecture 13, HSSJE

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is then made to feel inadequate? Education is about the search for truth, ideas,

values and identity, but also about links to how we are socialized. We must then

look at the production of knowledge and how that links to the power and privilege

of specific groups and oppression of others.

Significance of Study

With the growing diversity in our schools, the question of how teachers begin

to assess their own practice in order to effectively impact Black and other racialized

students to achieve academic success becomes crucial. The purpose of my thesis is

to rethink critical consciousness by grounding spirituality in teacher practice and

pointing to the implications for pedagogy and Black student achievement. Though

the term spirituality lacks a clear definition, I conceive of spirituality as the search

for personal well-‐being and development. I will advocate that spirituality within the

teachers’ critical consciousness is necessary to influence their pedagogy by enabling

them to reflect on their own journey of learning about themselves, their personal

history and their respective role in society. Most of the literature explores the

practice of teachers. However, in an attempt to move away from the dominant

narrative of critical consciousness, I will explore the spiritual side of critical

consciousness among classroom teachers, and how it affects their practice—a key

component that neither CRT nor Friere’s concept of critical consciousness

thoroughly address. What happens when a teacher moves from the necessary

technical requirements of the teaching profession to a deeper critical consciousness

of equity through spirituality? I believe that we as teachers not only need to

decolonize the Eurocentric curriculum that has been given to us as a tool for

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teaching, we also need to decolonize and liberate ourselves in order to ultimately

liberate our students.

CONTEXT:

A critical look at the related research uncovers that schools have focused

more on students’ social conditions rather than on the system that serves these

students, which includes the critical relationship between teachers and students.

For decades, sociologists have looked at ways to develop a meaningful, effective

connection between teachers and their students. In the current attempts to improve

pedagogy, several notable scholars have advanced well-‐conceived conceptions of

critical consciousness within pedagogy. This work, within the educational

literature, has contributed to my conception of critical consciousness. Definitions of

critical consciousness center on key concepts of identity reflection, analysis of

power, and inquiry about assumptions. These concepts include: the social process

of questioning one’s assumptions about reality (Freire, 1973); active participation

in the critique of knowledge (Ladson-‐Billings, 1995); and gaining the means to

understand “domination and its modalities” (Fairclough, 2001, p. 3).10 Although

many theorists mention the importance of the knowledge of educational contexts,

the literature generally minimizes the spiritual analyses of the teaching that

embodies it. This thesis aims to look more closely at the notion of the critical

consciousness of classroom teachers and how its various components serve to bring

about true transformation for both teacher and student in order to create effective

10 McDonough. K. (2009). Pathways to critical consciousness: First year teacher’s engagement with issues of race and equity. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(5).

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schooling. I attempt to build on the educational literature and suggest a new

perspective to advance critical consciousness within teacher education, specifically

teachers of Black students.

What role does critical consciousness play in teacher education? Shulman

(1987) builds his foundation of teaching reform on an idea of teaching that

emphasizes comprehension and reasoning, transformation and reflection. Shulman

justifies this by the resoluteness with which research and policy have so blatantly

ignored those aspects of teaching in the past. Shulman asks, what are the sources of

the “knowledge base” for teaching? According to Shulman, the knowledge base is

explained as a codified aggregation of knowledge, skill, understanding, technology,

ethics and disposition, and collective responsibility, as well as a means for

representing and communicating this aggregation. Though Shulman’s work

neglected the importance of recognizing and implementing indigenous knowledges

as well as advocating for inclusive schooling, as Dei, James, Karumanchery, Zine and

Wilson’s (2000) work does, it was to be a major redirection in how teaching was

understood. The rhetoric regarding the knowledge base that Shulman speaks of,

however, rarely specifies the character of such knowledge (Shulman, 1987). On the

other hand, Dei et al. (2000) add to the ideal that education should produce

knowledge for social action. Given the strengths of developing critical consciousness

in teaching practice, the issues of knowledge production continue to play an

important role. That being said, it is crucial to understand how to begin to

encourage this important transformative journey for teachers in a profession that

may be very resistant to change.

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How can the concept of critical consciousness be brought into the realm of

teacher education? According to Freire (1973), critical consciousness is a state of

awareness, activated through dialogue, where one engages in analysis of context

and power (McDonough, 2009). Freire proposes a pedagogy with a new

relationship between teacher, student, and society, in his book Pedagogy of the

Oppressed (1970). Freire brought forth the notion of “conscientization,” which is “a

process that invites learners to engage the world and others critically” (McLaren,

1989, p. 195). However, Freire’s work in Brazil is mainly based on a class analysis

and speaks of “oppressed” people from an economic, materialistic viewpoint. Freire

always maintained that class was an important factor in our understanding of

multiple forms of oppression. Similar to Freire, who appreciated the theoretical

complexity of multifactor analyses while centralizing class, I look at the role race

plays as a central marker of oppression within the educational system, recognizing

that Freire resisted this essentialist approach of reducing all analysis to one

monolithic entity of race. Unlike Friere, who claimed that race itself is not

necessarily a unifying force, I argue that within the education system, race becomes

the central element that is used to discriminate against an entire group of people.

My theoretical analysis of Critical Anti-‐Racist Theory does not collapse the

multiplicity of factors into just race, however: I use race as an entry point to the

intersectionality of oppression among class, gender, culture and the other forms of

oppression, in order to challenge the prevalence of racism in schooling. However,

race has become a four-‐letter word in schooling despite the growing diversity and

call to equity. Putting race on the table has been a challenge to those who are

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determined to disrupt the status quo. Similarly, critical consciousness must also be

put on the table when discussing teacher education and the development of quality

teaching. Critical consciousness is the beginning step to moving toward a deeper

transformation and enlightenment.

What does transformation look like? The term “critical consciousness” is

originally derived from Frantz Fanon’s (1952) coinage of a French term,

conscienciser, in his book Black Skin, White Masks. Similar to Freire, Fanon speaks of

people as uncompleted beings and describes their attempt to be more fully human.

This notion is expanded on within the transformative process toward a critical

consciousness of teachers and advocates for a more active component of awareness.

Fanon’s ideas of individual and collective resistance—specifically in the context of

both teachers and students—compelled me to explore critical consciousness toward

liberation in schooling as the human, social, and cultural consequences of

decolonization, interrogating the status quo that exists in schooling. Using a

Fanonian perspective, I recognize and acknowledge how the psychiatry of racism,

psychology of oppression and the importance of identity all work in barring the

development of critical consciousness among teachers. Resistance to analyzing

power dynamics and questioning the status quo can often manifest in silence, denial

or guilt (Gay & Kirkland, 2003). Feelings of discomfort may result in retreat from

engaging in critique and consideration of one’s identity (McDonough, 2009).

However, if transformation and dialogue are the catalysts to awaking one’s critical

consciousness, this avenue would be a necessary path to bring about reason and

“good teaching” in the classrooms populated by African Canadian students.

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This concept of “good teaching” was introduced by Gloria Ladson-‐Billings,

who adds to the research by advocating for culturally relevant teaching (CRT) and

defines CRT as a pedagogy of opposition (1992c) not unlike critical pedagogy but

specifically committed to collective, not merely individual, empowerment. Culturally

relevant pedagogy rests on three criteria or propositions: (a) Students must

experience academic success; (b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural

competence; and (c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which

they challenge the status quo of the current social order. Recognizing that these

criteria are filtered through the students’ perspective, this thesis intends to

implicate the teacher as well in this significant process, shedding light on the power

and privilege that exist in these relationships. What happens if the teachers do not

develop the cultural competence and critical consciousness Ladson speaks of?

Similar to Freire, Ladson-‐Billings states that “beyond those individual

characteristics of academic achievement and cultural competence, students must

develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique the

cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social

inequities” (Ladson-‐Billings, 1995, p. 195). I challenge that this development must

first come from the classroom teacher if we expect students to achieve a broader

consciousness. We cannot ask our students to do what we, ourselves, are unable or

unwilling to do.

“Critical awareness and engagement” was the new term for critical

consciousness, developed by hooks (1994). hooks extended Freire’s work by

focusing on the formation of engaged pedagogy to support students to take a

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reflective stance that involves interrogating “one’s location, the identifications and

allegiances that inform one’s life” (Florence, 1998, p.36). In addition to engaged

pedagogy, hooks advocates for democratic education in her book Teaching

community: A pedagogy of hope (2003). hooks writes about the struggles to end

racism and White supremacy within education. She also discusses the need to

uncover the pervasiveness of racism in our larger society that devalues us all.

Building upon hooks’ work, I aim to engage discussions about difference and

struggle in the classroom. hooks’ research strengthens the anti-‐racist theoretical

frame this work employs by addressing agency and power, as well as curriculum

and representation. With the insidious racism that is engrained in the fabric of

schooling, I challenge that we move away from the institution of schooling and bring

agency into relationships within the schooling environment. I also strive to

understand ways such agency is fostered through resistance. How do we subvert an

established system of racism? What does it look like to reform teacher education

programs and prepare teacher candidates for diverse populations interrogating the

“knowledge base” and character that Shuman speaks of? How do we engage

teachers in critical thought? hooks’ engaged pedagogy highlights the idea that

critical consciousness is counter to traditional and damaging educational practices

(McDonough, 2009). These damaging practices, or miseducation, foster

“dysconsciousness” (King, 1991): a misinformed way of thinking about society and

inequality that limits our ways of knowing (Brandon, 2006). Enacting critical

consciousness as a teacher in a continuous social process of multiple insightful

moments (Sleeter et al., 2004) can alter this state of dysconsciousness and, as noted

19

by McDonough (2009), may positively affect teaching practice. Due to the multiple

teaching responsibilities and pressures, many teachers may state that it is

challenging to sustain the performance of a “critical educator” (McDonough, 2009).

However, why must being critical be a “performance?” A critical consciousness is

inbred within one’s character and way of being. This is the fundamental difference

between White and racialized teachers. One’s critical racial consciousness

(McDonough, 2009) comes naturally, rather than being something that can be

switched on and off, and should be used to enlighten all students. Whereas teachers

from the dominant group can choose whether or not it is “time” to have courageous

conversations in their class, racialized teachers are constantly tasked with

addressing race or equity concerns with their colleagues and their students.

Developing critical consciousness as a way of interrogating racism and

oppression aligns with the notion and understanding of Whiteness that many

significant scholars have written on (Baldwin, 1963; hooks, 1992; Morrison, 1993).

Solomon, Portelli, Daniel and Campbell address Whiteness in their article “The

discourse of denial: How White teacher candidates construct race, racism and

‘White privilege’” (2005). Their research on White teacher candidates highlights the

experiences, beliefs, and assumptions that many new teachers bring into the

classroom. It is essential to build on this literature—especially in this era when a

colour-‐blind ideology signifies postmodern support for the racial status quo.

(Bonilla-‐Silva, 2001, p.139). Though the article speaks predominately of White

teachers, my research includes all teachers moving into a critical consciousness,

20

with the understanding that, as a student once told me, “being Black does not

automatically make you relevant.”11

Research related to teachers engaging in critical consciousness is limited

mainly to single course experiences in teacher education programs or within urban

local settings, with a scarcity of research that explores classroom teachers and their

practice. Annette Henry (1995) contributes to the emergent literature of critical

consciousness using teacher biographies, where she examines how the experiences

of marginality among Black female teachers at the intersections of race, gender and

class inform their current practice in predominantly African Canadian, low-‐income

settings in Southern Ontario. In her ethnographic study of five Black female

teachers’ lives and practices, Henry uncovers the narrow inclusion of Black women

educators’ voices in Black educational theory literature. She proposes that

contemporary Black feminist and African-‐centered discourses be practically tailored

to the pedagogical realities of teachers, as well as Canadian Black students in order

to help achieve success. This study notes the importance of engagement in

reflexivity as part of consciousness-‐becoming.

While much has been written about the need to improve the self-‐esteem of

African Canadian students (e.g., Brathwaite& James, 1996), students must first

demonstrate academic competence. Throughout my research I argue that it is

imperative that teachers demand, reinforce, and produce academic excellence in all

of their students, not despite their differences but because of their differences. This

is a clear message given by Lisa Delpit (1988) in her article “Silenced Dialogue” 11This was a male student I worked with in a community setting where I managed an educational program with Black adolescents who left high school early.

21

where she talks about the culture of power. Through this she speaks of the silence

that people of colour experience from White people when trying to teach African

American children. Delpit’s work in the United States is not radically different from

work that is being done in the Canada (Brathwaite & James, 1996; Dei, 2000) to

educate and empower African Canadian students who are disenfranchised;

however, I use her work to debunk the belief that having a Black teacher is not

necessarily beneficial to the success of Black students.12 Like the student quoted

above, though being Black may not make a teacher automatically successful in

teaching Black students, I believe that Black teachers, as well as community

members, are instrumental in understanding how to work with Black students

effectively. This view aligns with Michele Foster’s (1998) significant contribution to

this area of study in her book Black Teachers on Teaching, where she discusses the

politics and philosophies involved in the education of Black children. Similar to

Delpit and Henry, Foster sheds light on the techniques to teaching Black students

effectively, which starts with believing in their potential and success. Foster then

presents the inspiring experiences of Black teachers and highlights the issues of

mixed-‐race classrooms, the losses and gains accompanying desegregation, repeated

cycles of attempted and abandoned reform efforts, and the differing attitudes

toward and perceptions of Black students among Black and White teachers. These

accounts of Black teachers’ experiences are important even today, in order to

understand and learn how to work effectively with Black students, which adds to

12 Hunt, W. (2012). Black students don't achieve more with Black teachers. The Teachers Corner Journal.

22

the development of a critical awareness in teachers which may not be similar to that

of their students.

Sandra Patricia Anthony (1998) also contributes significantly to the

scholarship of Canadian Black female experiences of students by debunking the

myth of unruly behavior when showing how academically-‐oriented Black girls in

Toronto secondary schools interpret, perceive and cope with issues related to their

gender and race. The study participants revealed the desire to see more Black

teachers and administrators and more caring White teachers who will take the time

to know them and be less afraid. It was also revealed that racism and sexism, though

downplayed by the participants, was a real issue in the schooling experience, where

bright Black students adopt anti-‐school coping strategies to resist dealing with these

oppressions. Mogadime’s study (2000) about Black teachers as “Other Mothers,”

which exposed gender and racial inequities in the public school curriculum, focused

on examining the counter-‐hegemonic process by which Black young women in

Southern Ontario and their South African/Canadian Black female teacher connected

with Black women centered texts. Their engaged readings of texts authored by

writers of the African Diaspora were part of an emancipatory process that the

participants actively claimed while working toward confronting gendered racial

exclusion in their experiences within the school curriculum.

Throughout my research, I ask: what makes certain teachers, such as these,

so caring? What was the impetus that allowed them to make the extra effort for

their Black students? How do we similarly create community in the classroom?

23

Echoing the voice of Foster, another scholar whose work has contributed to

my research, Milner (2006), outlines some of the best practices of Black teachers as

well as their success with Black students that can be insightful for all teachers

interested in teaching Black students. Milner’s study’s purpose was to explore what

we know about successful Black teachers of Black students in order to contribute to

the literature about successful teachers of Black students for the benefit of teachers

from various ethnic backgrounds. She also aimed to outline several salient

suppositions that may help in advancing the research and theory about successful

teachers of Black students. However, among these suppositions, critical

consciousness was not acknowledged as necessary. Milner felt that outlining some

of the effective practices of Black teachers and their success with Black students can

be insightful for all teachers interested in teaching Black students. The study found

that a teacher of any ethnic background can be a successful and effective teacher for

Black students; however, much can be learned from Black teachers about how they

engage and empower their Black students. It is evident that this study does not

include the direct voices of Black teachers, and instead relies on the second hand

information of ’experts’, which is probably why critical consciousness was not

addressed anywhere in the study.

Milner’s study also closely relates to the research of Lisa Delpit in her book

Other People’s Children (2003), where Delpit discusses the need for learning from

the Black community and Black teachers in order to work effectively with Black

students. Delpit speaks of the resistance to assimilate and the importance of the

student voice advocated by scholars who argue that students need to be “centered”

24

(Asante, 1991; Tate, 1994), or need to be the subjects rather than the objects of

study. Delpit and many others have made note of the value placed on developing in

teachers the humility required for learning from the community when entering a

culturally different setting.13

Dei, Mazzuca, Zine and McIsaac (1997) studied the disengagement of

students in their study, which was a critical ethnography of the dynamics of Black

students. The purpose of this study was to show that effective change can be

realized through knowledge and understanding based on research into how the

structural processes of delivering education seriously affect Black students. The

delivery of education, through the lens of culturally relevant teaching, requires that

teachers attend to students’ academic needs, not merely make them “feel good” or

in certain instances “feel devalued.” The pinnacle of change is to get students to

“choose” academic excellence (Ladson-‐Billings 1995). Dei, Mazzuca, Zine and

McIsaac conducted a three-‐year study of Toronto dropout rates, interviewing more

than 150 Black students, including early school leavers. Their findings revealed that

the intersections of race, gender, class and other social factors impact educational

delivery. Among Black students, who suffer the higher dropout rates, racism heavily

contributes toward academic disengagement. Other interview subjects included

teachers, specifically Black teachers, and the integral role they play in a student’s

success. But what happens when we function with White supremist values in a

setting that is no longer predominantly White? This is the oppression—the

psychiatry of racism that Fanon speaks of. The call for dialogue of a critical 13Delpit. L, Other people’s children. New York Press

25

consciousness among classroom teachers advocates for the awareness that teachers

understand the need for Black and other marginalized students to operate in the

dual worlds of their home community and the “White” school community.

Critical consciousness involves reflection on the complexities of multiple

identities (Nieto, Bode, Kang, & Raible, 2008) and multiple relations of power, and

linking identity to schooling and knowledge production. Some scholars focus the

process of consciousness-‐becoming on attention to race (McDonough, 2009), such

as Milner (2003b), who calls it “race reflection” (p. 175). A focus on race and

culture is highlighted in Gay and Kirkland’s (2003) definition of the formation of

critical consciousness, which they name “cultural critical consciousness” (p. 181).

They ground teachers’ ability to engage in culturally relevant teaching with a

willingness to be self-‐reflective about their identity and culture, explore power and

privilege in micro and macro contexts, and question assumptions. This reflection

process is an act of unlearning through several various elements that I will explore

further.

Milner notes that critical consciousness is continuous, evolving and impacted

through social context. The findings of my analysis reveal some of the complexities

involved in engagement with critical consciousness by highlighting three themes:

self-‐awareness, professional development and socialization. These findings, which

emerged across most of the research suggested that, like my thesis proposes, Black

students need teachers who are willing to step outside of their box, reflect on their

practice, and use creative means to engage their students by getting to know what

helps their students learn. Teachers must work creatively to help students engage in

26

their learning. They must develop a “critical consciousness” in order to know the

history of their students, as well as their own. However, there is an absence in much

of the literature of critical consciousness, and it is that of spirituality.

Specific Context:

Many teachers initially enter the teaching profession with the desire to help

students succeed academically, and are equipped with the notion that

transformation comes through “good teaching.” This idea of transformation is

usually directed to communities who are “in need” and share similarities with the

teacher. For example, some Black, well-‐intentioned teachers go into teaching

because of altruism, aspiring to ensure that Black and other racialized students

achieve educational equality.14 However, this principle of self-‐sacrifice is not evident

in all teachers: other teachers’ objectives may simply be to perfect the mechanics of

teaching, regardless of student difference. Others meet up on the challenges of

engagement (McDonough, 2009) and experience a disconnect between how they

imagined schools to function and the reality of working in urban schools. Bearing

this in mind, much of the way students are taught alienates many learners by forcing

upon them a dominant culture to which they cannot relate, generally “force fed” by

teachers with whom they also cannot relate. This is seen among many racialized

students, particularly African Canadian students, who historically have had

challenges with the educational system, shown by the high “drop out” rates of Black

students, low motivation, teachers’ low expectations of some students, stereotyping

of Black and working-‐class students and their families, and lack of respect for

14Foster, M. (1998). Black teachers on teaching, New Press Education Series, p. 129

27

authority15. Consequently, many parents of Black students complained about the

school system failing their children, which continues to be a problem. One possible

solution is to look at the importance of teachers and their pedagogy in successfully

teaching racialized students.

In the specific context of Ontario, much of the existing research and scholarly

writing promoting the idea of critical consciousness in urban schooling focuses on

various elements of linking race, history and teacher practice. Other educational

literature that discusses school-‐community relations views schools, and specifically

teachers, as having the primary responsibility for education. However, one must

ask, what is the consequence of those teachers who lack the desire or ability to

“transform” students who may not be similar to them? How does transformation

come? What role does spirituality play in the critical consciousness of many

committed teachers working with our Black and other racialized students, and what

other tools are necessary to overcome this teaching dilemma? How is “good

teaching” espoused for all students? I hope to explore a few of these questions

further throughout my thesis.

Reframing Critical Consciousness:

Throughout this thesis, many fundamental questions are posed regarding

critical consciousness and how its development impacts Black students, with the

hope of changing the landscape of teacher education and furthering the reach of

quality teaching. Among those are: how can pedagogy promote the kind of student

success that acknowledges diversity in a critical way? How do teachers move critical

15 Dei, G, S. (2000). Removing the margins. The challenges and possibilities of inclusive schooling. p. 9

28

consciousness into action? Can a teacher truly connect with their students without

seeing themselves as part of the community? What are the implications for teachers

who pursue the path of critical consciousness? A classroom is often dominated by

the teacher’s cultural frame of reference, ignoring the student’s understandings and

cultural reference point. However, many teachers are now realizing that something

has to change and are beginning to challenge the inequities that exist in schools.

This sudden awakening often manifests in small acts of resistance and subtle

questionings of unfairness. No matter how small, this work is important for its break

with the dominant culture of Whiteness which leads to “us vs. them.” The first step

for positing effective pedagogical practice is the development of critical

consciousness that addresses student diversity and helps to affirm cultural identity

while developing critical perspectives that challenge the inequities that schools

perpetuate. As teachers, we do not really see through our eyes or hear through our

ears, but through our beliefs. To put our beliefs on hold is to cease to exist as

ourselves for a moment—and this is not easy. It is painful as well, because it means

turning ourselves inside out, giving up our own sense of who we are, and being

willing to see ourselves in the unflattering light of another’s gaze. Though it is not

easy, it is the only way to learn what it might feel like to be someone else and the

only way to start the dialogue.16. Hence, the teacher’s journey as mentor, coach and

communicator to students and parents is an important one. In order to be

successful with students, so that students can be successful, the teacher must first

recognize and accept the challenge to be open, reflective, critical and transparent.

16Delpit. L, (1998). Other peoples’ children. New York Press.

29

These are all the things we ask of our students. Ultimately, we must be humble

enough to become whom we seek to develop…a student.

Overview of Thesis

In this research, the primary method consisted of content analysis in which the data

was analyzed to find consistent themes across the educational literature I employed.

The first chapter, Introduction, (a) states my purpose and delineates the study’s

broad research questions, and (b) presents the rationale for this study. The second

chapter, Theory and Literature Review, provides the theoretical frameworks I

employed to organize my investigation and places the study within the context of

existing research. The third chapter, Methodology, describes content analysis in

greater depth, and details the data collection and analysis guiding the study. The

fourth and fifth chapters provide the study’s major findings. The sixth chapter

presents (a) discussion of findings and themes, (b) implications for research and for

practice, and (d) concluding thoughts.

Notes:

I use the term racialized throughout this thesis as an understanding of a process of

extending racial meaning to a social meaning. Using Dei’s work I see racialization

not simply based on skin color, but also on culture, language and religion, which can

also be used to racialize a group as “the Other.” There is also the whole issue of the

use of power to construct these differences. It’s not simply that differences exist, but

also that some people have the power that allows them to use culture, language,

religion, or skin color to categorize people as different and subject them to

differential or unequal treatment.

30

CHAPTER TWO: Critical Consciousness and Teacher Education: Theory and Literature Review After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb Nelson Mandela General Context

In 2009, the very first Africentric School in Toronto was opened with 85

students. Concerns about the problems of Black youth in the education system,

including the dismal educational statistics for many Canadian African students17 and

the increasing youth violence18, propelled the school’s creation. Community groups

and activists desperately turned to education as a possible solution. Ironically,

while education was viewed as a means of helping children and youth of the Black

community, a bureaucratic, oppressive, Eurocentric schooling system did not

answer the call as the Black community had anticipated.

The current climate

Throughout the last several years, we have witnessed that many racialized

students continue to sit on the margins of their schooling experience. A 2006

Toronto District School Board (TDSB) report found that the graduation rate for

Black students was 44 percent.19 Five years later, the TDSB released their 2011

Census report, with data highlighting that approximately 40% of Black students are

not graduating from high school, with 22% of non-‐graduates leaving school before

17UofT Magazine, Autumn 2009 issue. 18Ministry of Children and Youth Services. (2010). Review of the roots of youth violence: Community perspective report, 3(3). 19 TDSB Research Report—Secondary Student Success Indications 2004-‐2005.

31

graduating.20 Not so evident in these reports are the possible causes of the

disparities between racialized students and their counterparts. The general pattern

“is that students born in the English speaking Caribbean, Central/South

America/Mexico, and Eastern Africa tend to be more highly ‘at-‐risk’ than the

average, while students born in Eastern Europe, South Asia and Eastern Asia tend to

be less highly ‘at-‐risk’ than the average.”21 A plethora of academics, community

activists and educators have set about trying to diagnose this conundrum.

Racialized students’ academic challenges can be attributed to a number of reasons

including: schooling structure, the make-‐up of teachers, the lack of effective

resources and/or external societal forces, to name a few. However, according to one

theory, advanced mostly by a handful of scholars, racial discrimination is at least

partly to blame.22 If that is truly the case, a closer examination of how to address,

critique and hopefully eradicate this problem is paramount to the academic success

of those who are most affected. Later in this chapter, I will discuss some of the

broad themes emerging from the literature around the education of Black youth and

the teacher’s responsibilities.

Theoretical Framework

“Anti-‐racist education is good for everyone…” George Sefa Dei, 1999

In order to create a more just and equitable schooling system, anti-‐racist

education needs to be a priority for all educators.23 I attempt to integrate anti-‐racist

20TDSB 2011 Census report —Graduation rate patterns (Fact Sheet No. 2). 21TDSB Research report—Secondary Student Success Indications 2004-‐2005, p.28 22http://maisonneuve.org/article/2012/09/1/little-‐portugal/#sthash.VMtDyokp.dpuf 23Rawnsley, S.F. (2003). “Good for everyone”: An anti-‐racist education resource for teacher educators.

32

education, critical consciousness and culturally relevant teaching (CRT) as key

concepts to effectively employ a synthesized, critical theoretical framework to be

applied to all aspects of teacher education and reform in Ontario. Anti-‐racist

education, as best described by educational theorist, Enid Lee (1985), is “a

perspective that permeates all subject areas and school practices.” I chose to

integrate anti-‐racist education with CRT and critical consciousness because anti-‐

racist education is not limited to one teaching method (Rawnsley, 2003). Rather,

anti-‐racist education is “engaged pedagogy and the practice of freedom” (hooks,

1994). It is “critical pedagogy that reflects intellectual frameworks and political

commitments” (Cochran-‐Smith, 1995). It is, simply put, the responsibility of all

educators (Rawnsley, 2003). Culturally relevant teachers utilize cultural education

as a vehicle for learning. Thus, like anti-‐racist education, CRT must be critical and

accepting of the diverse cultures that exist within the classroom but can also be

viewed as simply a “method” of teaching or a “culturally responsive” attitude

(Irvine & Armento, 2001). Ladson-‐Billings demonstrates how academic

achievement and cultural competence can be merged in order to heighten student

success. CRT has maintained success in teacher education by emphasizing cultural

competence, as well as the value of racial identification in schooling that requires

students to maintain some cultural integrity and racial pride as well as academic

excellence (Ladson-‐Billings, 2005). These two perspectives, coupled with critical

consciousness, cannot be “taught” in the traditional sense. They are not a list of

characteristics of groups of teachers that can simply be ticked off in an interview or

Simon Fraser University.

33

an attitude that can be turned on when desired. Critically conscious teachers with

an anti-‐racist, culturally relevant perspective approach teaching as an art and are

culturally, racially and critically responsive to the growth of their students, their

success and the innovative ways to decolonize or subvert the status quo. Equally as

important, these teachers are reflective and consistently view themselves as

learners in the classroom. Points of agreement among these theories are: the

teacher’s and learner’s shared responsibility and authority as co-‐producers of

knowledge(s), the value of intersectionality, and the devotion to expressive change

shown in participatory learning experiences. Hence these questions guide my

research: How do the few “critically conscious” teachers impact their colleagues so

as to articulate the significance of race and culture in schooling, and challenge the

status quo in order to revolutionize current teaching practices? Is it naïve to expect

the change within an oppressive system to come from the “dominant group” that

benefits from White privilege and therefore may resist any change? How can the

charge for liberation be transferred to those who suffer from oppression, yet are

“powerless” within the system? These are all questions that call for a disruption in

the status quo of schooling.

Theorizing Critical Consciousness

When rethinking critical consciousness, a framework integrating anti-‐racist

education with CRT and critical consciousness is most fitting because of the action-‐

oriented component that these theories emphasize their ability to address the

relations of domination and power in educational sites. Anti-‐racist education

involves the practice of opposing racism through belief, action and policy. An anti-‐

34

racist framework is intended to promote an equitable society where people do not

face discrimination on the basis of trace. This framework asserts that racism is both

pernicious and socially pervasive, and that particular political, economic, and/or

social changes are required to eliminate it.24 Dei further notes that “oppression

must be understood by those in positions of privilege before systematic

transformations can succeed”. He believes in a proactive, process-‐oriented

approach in which we look at how to address anti-‐racism debates with a focus on

Canadian schooling.25 This proactive process leading to systematic transformation

can be realized through teachers who engage in critical consciousness. However, I

also acknowledge the integrative anti-‐racism lens undergirded in this research in

order to recognize the intersections of difference through a race-‐centric analysis.26

When looking at a student’s identity, I recognize that it is fluid and complex,

intersecting with class, gender and sexuality, which influence how they engage in

schooling, as well as how teachers relate to students. Dei asserts that anti-‐racist

education is good for everyone, not just minorities. Due to the inter-‐dependent

nature of our world, we need to make all education anti-‐racist in order to create a

just and humane world.27

Many teachers do not have a theoretical framework to unpack the role of

racism in past history (Howard, 2004), which affects their ability to analyze the

intersection of racism in contemporary events. As teachers try to make sense of

24Dei, G.S. (1996). Anti-‐racism: Education, theory and practice. Canada: Fernwood Publishing. 25Dei, G.S. (1996). Anti-‐racism: Education, theory and practice. Canada: Fernwood Publishing. 26Gismondi, M. (1999). Aurora interview with George Sefa DEI. Aurora. 27Dei, G.S. (1996). Anti-‐racism: Education, theory and practice. Canada: Fernwood Publishing.

35

race, power and oppression in their teaching, critical consciousness will be non-‐

linear, contested and complex, shaped by varying social contexts. How do teachers

negotiate their critical consciousness process around race while trying to teach

equity to all students? Dei argues that race should be looked at separately from

class and gender, and that the social practice of racism is the problem, not the

theoretical conception of race.28

The primary objective of my thesis is to add to the concept of critical

consciousness by creating a space where spirituality is recognized and discussed as

one of the many key elements of critical consciousness that I explore, specifically

among classroom teachers. I aim to answer the question, how is spirituality

recognized as a way of knowing? Dei et al. (2000) speak of how spirituality acts as

an entry point for many teachers and enhances learning for students. Bearing this

in mind, spirituality, as a component of critical consciousness, must enter the

dialogue of educators if our Black and other marginalized students are to truly

achieve academic success.

Literature Review

When the door is closed, you must learn to slide across the crack of the sill. ~Yoruba Proverb

An important research focus for scholars has been to explore ways of

improving teacher-‐student relationships and teacher expectations for Black and

other racialized students (Irvine, 1990). This work had a variety of labels including

“culturally relevant teaching” (Ladson-‐Billings, 1994), “culturally congruent”

28Rawnsley, S.F. (2003). “Good for Everyone”: An anti-‐racist education resource for teacher educators. Simon Fraser University.

36

(Mohatt & Erickson, 1981), “culturally responsive” (Cazden & Leggett, 1981;

Erickson & Mohatt, 1982) and “culturally compatible” (Jordan, 1985; Vogt, Jordan, &

Tharp, 1987). This work has also attempted to locate the problem of the

disengagement Black students experience as well as their low academic

achievement within the interactions between teachers and students. Scholars have

suggested that if students’ identities are acknowledged and valued in the classroom,

students are more likely to experience academic success. Hence, this theory points

back to the teacher and their mindset and has contributed to my conception of

critical consciousness.

I am looking at critical consciousness as the philosophical and ideological

underpinning of one’s pedagogy, and as a necessary teaching tool for

transformation or cultural awakening that causes teachers to consider: how they

think about themselves as teachers; how they think about their students; how they

structure social relations within the classroom; and how they conceive of knowledge

and knowledge production. Given the racial politics that exist within schooling, I

sought to make sense of what I was researching by using a discursive theoretical

framework. As a Black, female teacher it is impossible to separate myself as the

researcher from the cultural context that defines my framework. Thus my

interpretation of the issues that affect Black students within schooling is not a linear

understanding and while I address the intersectionalities of oppression throughout

my thesis, I also address the journey of struggles for teachers to come to

acknowledge and interrogate these oppressions.

37

Consequently, my goal is to systematically address and investigate a

predefined problem of teacher “dysconsciousness” with Black students. This is a

lack of consciousness of White privilege, observed in both White and non-‐White

teachers (King, 2006). Many teachers have a limited and distorted understanding of

inequity in schooling, hence rarely promote cultural and racial diversity unless

prompted to by holiday celebrations, while all along accepting White norms and

privileges as mainstream; this makes diversity superficial. Dysconsciousness, which

denies equal opportunity for Black students, makes it difficult for teachers to act in

favour of truly equitable education. The task of developing critical consciousness is

that of teachers, whose mandate is to educate every student who walks through the

door regardless of race, cultural, linguistic, economic, or family circumstances;29 to

“choose” continuous professional development that deals with issues of race; and to

obtain the skills and “knowledges” required for quality teaching of all students. As

a teacher I wanted to know how I could learn better in order to teach better. How,

in a profession that is notorious for “individuality” and “domination,” can teachers

be encouraged to be part of community, realizing that we must be learners in order

to be proficient in teaching all our students? It is a complex process that many

teachers fail to ever experience. To clarify, many of the theoretical and practical

concepts discussed in this thesis were informed by critical educational research that

focuses on critical consciousness as a process of identity, analyses of power and the

inquiry about assumptions. In addition to those important elements, I wanted to

29Ladson-Billings. G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-American students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 177

38

rethink critical consciousness as a heightened experience—a spiritual process

whereby one yearns to be more human. It is a calling to know more in order to help

more people.

It was my contention that a combination of factors—ranging from a lack of

diverse knowledges, a Eurocentric curriculum, and a dominating White supremacist

school environment coupled with personal teacher bias—contributed immensely to

the issue of many teachers being unwilling or unable to teach Black students

effectively. There is a growing realization that in spite of some teachers professing

“colour-‐blindness,” there are also many “dreamkeepers” (Ladson-‐Billings, 1995)

who exist within and throughout the system. These success cases emerge out of

exemplary practices of Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) and other similar

concepts. However, I advocate for a deeper awareness that is consistent with the

development of “self,” rather than a strategy or method that can be used sparingly

or only when working in urban settings. I believe success cases can and should

provide the context for starting the discussion required to rethink teacher reform so

that it includes critical consciousness. As noted by Fanon (1952), teachers must

enter the calling to educate others by becoming learners first, acknowledging their

“uncompleteness” and embarking on a journey to be more fully human. Teachers

must be open to learning, and allow themselves to be affected by alternative voices

(Delpit, 1988). There are numerous examples of dedicated teachers actively

interrogating the status quo, which should be the beacon for all teachers moving

forward.

39

Taking a deeper look at the major data sources from my research dealing

with the teacher’s role and responsibility, the structure of schooling, meaningful

connections and policy changes brings forward four consistent themes: the

perplexity of differences among teachers and students (but also between

classmates); caring teachers as role models; the institutions of schooling vs.

community; and teacher education and reform. These themes will each be

discussed in greater detail throughout this chapter.

Differences in the classroom can range from cultural backgrounds, race,

language, gender, religion and even learning styles, to name a few. These differences

play a crucial role in how interactions take place in the classroom between

individuals and groups, and may distance a teacher from a student because they do

not understand each other. Teachers must thus work harder to get to know their

students personally and perhaps see past what students present as merely unruly

behaviour or low academic achievement. This can be a huge challenge for teachers

who believe that strengthening their relationships with students is not a

requirement for establishing good teaching practices or for students to be able to

learn. However, the school board and the Ministry have attempted to implement

differentiated instruction to address barriers to learning such as English as a second

language (ESL) and English literacy development (ELD) programs for newcomer

students. However, differentiated instructional programs have not been extended

to take into account racial or cultural differences that may also impact learning. In

fact, as a hierarchical society based on difference, we are carefully taught not to

recognize race and the inequities that exist within our curriculum and are

40

entrenched in our schooling institutions. Ladson Billings uses accounts from the

book White Teacher, where Vivian Paley speaks of the teacher’s important journey

toward acknowledging and valuing differences. “Teachers must not ignore colour by

treating all the students ‘the same’.” Difference must be recognized as a comfortable

and natural part of one’s being. Ladson-‐Billings goes on to say “these attempts at

colour-‐blindness mask dysconscious racism, 30 an uncritical habit of mind that

justifies inequity and exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as

given.”31 What does it mean then to acknowledge race, especially in the context of

schooling? This is an issue that I too have struggled with. As a Black teacher of 26

South Asian students, I often observe the students’ reluctance to acknowledge racial

differences, including my own, due to fear that they may be seen as racist or

because, in their minds, being Black is somehow viewed as bad. Our class has

critical discussions on why this is, especially because there are three Black students

in my classroom who rarely interrogate this belief of their peers. I encourage the

students to acknowledge race and to interrogate their perceptions and sources of

knowledge; however, this must be a clear message given by teachers in all

classrooms. All teachers must demand, reinforce and produce these critical

conversations in their classrooms. The current and popular term used in schools

and throughout the literature is “courageous conversations” (Delpit, 1988; Ladson-‐

Billings, 2005; Linton & Singleton, 2005), though I am unclear as to why many

30King, J. E. (1991). Dysconscious racism: Ideology, identity and the miseducation of teachers. The Journal of Negro Education. 31Ladson-Billings. G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-American students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 20.

41

teachers that deny the very presence of racism need a protocol around courage to

address the myriad manifestations of “racial issues” in schools. This concept of

courage denotes a silence around race as well as a reluctance to address race issues,

while assuming that educators must develop the will, skill, knowledge, and capacity

to sustain and deepen the dialogue about the impact of race on leadership, learning

and teaching.32 If school is about preparing students for active citizenship, what

better citizenship tool than the ability to critically analyze differences in schooling

and society? How can we get past our reluctance to talk about racial issues to even

discuss them? And what about all the other questions our children and we as

teachers have about race? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the

psychology of racism, asserts that we do not know how to talk about our racial

differences: Whites are afraid of using the wrong words and being perceived as

“racist” while parents of colour are afraid of exposing their children to painful racial

realities too soon. In her book, Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the

cafeteria? And other conversations about race (1997), Tatum presents strong

evidence that straight talk about our racial identities—whatever they may be—is

essential if we are serious about facilitating communication across racial and ethnic

divides.33 As a school system claiming equitable practice, we have waited far too

long to begin our conversations about race. Thus, to be effective, teachers must

exhibit a passion for what they are teaching and be willing to engage in critical

conversations about what is meaningful and real to their students. I will address

32 Singleton. G. E. (2012). More courageous conversations about race. 33Tatum, B. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race.

42

this issue more deeply when discussing CRT and other concepts in chapter five, and

when examining how teachers interrogate power and inequality.

The root of all moral action is the Heart. All good and evil are born out of the Heart. And their hearts are sealed so that they do not understand.

Surah at-‐Tawbah, 9:87 (Quran)

The second broad topic that stands out in the literature review is the

importance of exploring the effective practices of many caring teachers. This

analysis is crucial in discerning what “good” teachers are doing to help Black

students and in learning how to emulate these practices. In fact, this was a

consistent theme throughout the literature review in all of the selected texts that I

employed in my research. The findings revealed that sincerity and caring help to

form role models, which are important for both students and teachers as a means of

support. Caring teachers are invaluable to students who really need someone willing

to go the extra mile to understand what they are going through. The literature also

showed that students are motivated to put more of an effort into their academics

when they feel a teacher knows them and supports their learning. Other similarities

revealed that lasting change in Black students can be realized through knowledge

and understanding of the student as well as through research into how structural

processes of delivering education seriously affects Black students. Furthermore, the

student-‐teacher relationship is better positioned when it is horizontal and can be

reciprocated.

Though the literature emphasized that a caring teacher working with Black

students does not have to share the same racial background as the student, there

were many studies pointing to the importance of Black educators, as well as Black

43

parents and community members, contributing to the ways in which Black students

obtain success. Delpit and Foster, in particular, speak of the silence that people of

colour experience when trying to teach African American children from White

educators. Delpit advocates for ethnographic analysis as a way to listen to each

other sincerely. When teachers claim “I want the same thing for everyone else’s

children as I want for mine” (1988. pg 285) it is a statement that must be decoded. To

provide schooling for everyone else’s children that reflects liberal, middle-‐class

values and aspirations, is to ensure the maintenance of the status quo. It is to ensure

that power, and the culture of power, remain in the hands of those who already have

it.34 Hence, for caring teachers to be successful with Black students, there needs to

be that trust and understanding between both teacher and student, acknowledging

and embracing their differences. The research also showed that the critical

consciousness of the teacher—regardless of race—is an essential factor that exists

in the transformative journey35 toward becoming a caring teacher. However, I

argue that critical consciousness is often overlooked as a necessary component in

highlighting the effective pedagogy of the teacher who is successful with Black

students. Consequently, my point of departure from the literature is looking at

critical consciousness from a different lens, that of the transformative spiritual

journey that has enabled teachers to teach Black students effectively to ensure that

these students achieve academic success. In rethinking critical consciousness, the

research showed a bias and privilege of the teacher’s impact on a student’s learning

34Delpit. L. D. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), p. 280. 35Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed, New York: Herder & Herder.

44

experience, which must be addressed and carefully interrogated if we are to

equalize the educational front.

It takes a whole village to raise a child. African proverb

The third theme talks about the relationship between schooling as an

institution and the power of community. Much of the research speaks about the

ability for youth to navigate between school and community, and the school’s ability

to recognize community as a crucial aspect of a student’s learning.

Schools are built to standardize everything: kids, knowledge, experience,

behaviour, learning styles and culture (Hearn, 2003). For many, it is a space that

brings shame of being “the other” to anyone not from the dominant group, resisting

the embrace of languages and cultures that are not main-‐stream. This act of

dehumanization contributes to many of the devastating effects of colonial schooling

forced on the psyche of oppressed peoples (Antrop-‐Gonzalez, 2003). However,

through resistance, youth have found ways to constructively push back against an

institution inherently rigged to see specific groups fail (Davis, 2003).

Youth build solidarity within groups of people, especially those who are

typically marginalized to form communities. Connecting with community helps

those whose schools have dehumanized them to feel more fully human again. Many

youth speak of the power of their communities to provide them with the necessary

tools to name and transform their social conditions. These intellectual tools

encourage youth to make sense of their worlds. The collective effort of the

community helps to shape the student. This form of solidarity directly challenges

45

the dominant culture of individualistic narcissism. The above proverb speaks to the

need for support and positive influences. This ancient African proverb teaches that

no man is an island. Members of the community pitch in to help each other. Deep

bonds of friendship and mentorship come from one’s community, allowing youth to

move forward. Strength is rooted in each other as well as in committing to the

liberation of minds and beings to battle all forms of oppression (Miller-‐Deale, 2003).

This isn’t always what students experience in schooling. Instead of community, they

find alienation. Furthermore, in schooling, community isn’t viewed as a relevant

teaching tool or used by teachers as an important aspect of the student’s learning.

Regardless of the potential of the community to empower Black and other racialized

students, community is relegated to the margins of a child’s learning experience. In

order to develop better teaching practices, teachers are encouraged to respond to

the needs of their students by embracing the community that helps these students

to be successful.

A man who is advised and he takes it, is still a man who acts from his own free will. Nigerian proverb

The last theme is teacher education and reform. Fenstermacher (1978,

1986) argues that the goal of teacher education is not to indoctrinate or train

teachers to behave in prescribed ways, but to educate teachers to reason soundly

about their teaching as well as to perform skillfully. Teacher education must work

with the beliefs that guide teacher’s actions, and with the principles and evidence

that underlie the choices teachers make (Shulman, 1983. p. 13). When advocates of

teaching reform suggest that the requirements for the education of teachers should

46

be augmented, and periods of training should be lengthened, they assume that there

must be something substantial to be learned. Policymakers and teacher educators

have agreed that teaching requires basic skills, content knowledge and general

pedagogical skills, in order for teachers to be deemed competent. In this manner,

Shulman argues, teaching is trivialized, its complexities ignored and its demands

diminished. This view of sources of content knowledge necessarily implies that the

teacher must have not only depth of understanding with respect to the particular

subjects taught, but also a broad liberal education that serves as a framework for old

learning and as a facilitator for new understanding (Shulman, p.9).

He who learns, teaches. Ethiopian proverb

The image of teaching involves the exchange of ideas, which cannot be seen

as a passive act solely on the part of students, but as a vigorous interaction between

both teachers as students. To teach is first to understand! We expect teachers to

understand what they teach and, when possible, to understand it in several ways. In

the best teachers, new learning is constantly required for teaching (Shulman,

(1983). p. 13). The goals of education transcend the comprehension of texts,

curriculum, etc. As teachers, we also strive to balance our goals of fostering

individual excellence with more general ends involving equality of opportunity, as

well as equity among students of different backgrounds and cultures. But the key to

determining the true knowledge base of teaching lies at the intersection of content

and pedagogy, in the capacity of a teacher to transform the content knowledge he or

47

she possesses into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the

variations in the ability and background presented by each student.

In analyzing these four themes it is important to address the structural

changes in education. Educational structural change refers to a long-‐term shift in

the fundamental structure of schooling, which is often linked to growth and, in the

context of my research, the increase of diversity. There appears to be a growing

realization of the need for change in the educational system among researchers

(Barth, 1990; Fullan, 1993; Sergiovanni, 1994). Numerous calls from society for

increased school effectiveness and advanced student achievement imply that a

cooperative management team within a school is a fundamental ingredient for

school improvement (Devereaux, 1997). The research pointed to a collaborative

approach to the decision making of educators, parents, students and community

members (hooks, 1994). In surveying the way that educational structures have

changed over the past 25 years, there appear to be certain cyclical tendencies.36

However, there has been evidence of de-‐structuring.37 This is evident in the creation

of alternative programs and the extension of learning opportunities. In the process

of education itself, the curriculum has been less rigidly conceived, and evaluation

has given way to form on internal assessments. Such changes have been

characterized by a more inductive pedagogy and a shift in the role of the teacher.

Despite these “changes” there has also been a continued prevalence of formal

schooling and traditional methods. Despite expansion of educational provision, the

36Gillette, A. (1979). Structural changes in education since 1954: A slow-‐motion explosion. International Review of Education, 25(2), p. 267-‐296. 37Hern, M. (2013). Stay solid: A radical handbook for youth. Edinburgh: AK Press.

48

under-‐privileged groups are not better served.38 Even in the movement to a more

relevant curriculum, the present colonial and oppressive forces tend to slow change

down.

Throughout the research, all scholars spoke about the importance of

acknowledging and interrogating race in classrooms. Though this is an old

conversation, I argue that it hasn’t been picked up in schools like scholars

anticipated; perhaps in theory, but definitely not in practice. Teacher educator and

researcher, Enid Lee, speaks about putting race on the table in order to promote the

“quality of teaching” that addresses teacher reform. This outcome can be achieved

in a process that recognizes three elements:

• Schooling (the mastery of skills and knowledge of the current society to

operate successfully)

• Education (the ability to think critically and to ask questions)

• Socialization (the ability and desire to build the community of students and

lift up their communities)

Lee, (2011) further notes that the professional development of educators has to do

with the issues of race. However, we need to ask: what do teachers take up? Who

knows about the learning of their students? How do teachers embrace their

students’ communities? Quality of teaching is about building up, making sure

teachers obtain the skills and knowledge of quality teaching. Excellent, high quality

teaching has to happen for all races. History, race and teacher practice must be

38Gillette, A. (1979). Structural changes in education since 1954: A slow-‐motion explosion. International Review of Education, 25(2), p. 267-‐296..

49

linked in the work, which is deeply rooted in structures, legislation and systems.

Teachers must ask, what is working? Professional development must connect to

families and to student voices. It is evident that, like students, teachers need

working on; teachers can learn to teach better! 39

In preparing to develop this thesis further, my research will examine the

notion of critical consciousness grounded in spirituality, and what this does for a

system’s most important resource: its educators. The schooling system has been

marked by inequity and the failure of specific racial groups, namely its Black

students. As a student in this system I was not taught my own culture; hence I was

never at the center of my learning. Though consistently on the margins of learning, I

was fortunate to struggle through the process; my community, my pursuit for higher

education and my spirituality started my decolonization process. Through much

reflection, I came to realize that it is impossible to give to our students what we

ourselves were never given: the opportunity to come into our own critical

consciousness—a consciousness that is only achieved through a critical and deep

interrogation of self, and not through what someone tries to enforce on us. I explore

three ways of coming into consciousness: self-‐awareness (knowing your history and

the history of others), interrogating power (decolonizing your mind and

imaginations) and inquiry of assumptions (acknowledging your privilege). I then

explore using this knowledge to impact one’s pedagogy, grounded in spirituality.

The implication of this process is that an understanding of a teacher’s own history

and privilege allows teachers to become more fully aware and understand how they

39Lee, E. (2012). Putting race on the table, Washington Conference.

50

interact with all their students and thus provide the critical pedagogy that asks

questions while acknowledging the teacher’s own bias. In the following chapters, I

will also discuss transformation as the action or the resulting outcome of the critical

consciousness journey.

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CHAPTER 3. Method: “The recipe of a new critical consciousness” “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Nelson Mandela INTRODUCTION

The long history of African Canadian educational struggle and achievement is

well documented in educational literature (Lee, 1998; Dei, 1996; James, 1991;

Thomas, 2006; Henry, 1995, Solomon, 2005; Milner 2006). These historical records

contradict the belief that, “Black people do not value education.” The educational

struggle of Black children has become a general and universal pattern that identifies

our Ontario school system. However, patterns of struggle do not just happen

randomly and arbitrarily. Hence, there must be something deeper that needed to be

addressed. Consequently, I chose to employ a content analysis approach to uncover

the issues or patterns that contribute to this dilemma. In researching possible

methods that can be applied to my research, I was guided to content analysis,

defined as “the analysis of the manifest and latent content of a body of

communicated material through classification, tabulation, and evaluation of its

themes in order to ascertain its meaning and probable effect40” because of it reliable

ability to decode meaning in relationships. Content analysis is “a systematic,

replicable technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content

40 Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Sage Publications, United States

52

categories based on explicit rules of coding.”41 However, in deepening my research

of the content analysis method I came to realize that content analysis is much more

than simply coding. For my research it involved building and applying a fixed

vocabulary of terms on the basis of which words were extracted from the textual

data. The method of content analysis enabled me to include large amounts of textual

information and systematically identify its properties, such as the frequencies of

keywords by locating the more important structures of its communication content42.

The information was then categorized to provide a meaningful reading of the

content under scrutiny. Content analysis has become an increasingly important tool

in the measurement of success in public relations, which is why I felt it was a fitting

method to analyze the relationship between teachers and students and how the

development of critical consciousness of the teacher impacts that relationship. I

sought to analyze the data in an attempt to gain self-‐understanding. In this

circumstance, content analysis was used as an element of evaluation for teaching

practices. Today, symbolic phenomena are institutionalized in education and all

disciplines within the humanities and the social sciences, including those that seek

to improve the social conditions of life and are concerned with the effects of

meanings and messages43. Contemporary content analysis seeks valid knowledge or

practical support for actions and critique and examines data in order to understand

what they mean to people, what they enable or prevent, and what the information

41 Berelson. B. (1952). Content Analysis in Communication Research. New York 42 Busch, C., De Maret, P.S., Flynn, T., Kellum, R., Meyers, B., et all. (1994 -‐ 2012). Content Analysis. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University 43 Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Sage Publications, United States

53

conveyed by them does. This method aims to capture the contingent logic observed

in teacher pedagogy by focusing on the repetition and innovation of themes

sustained in educational literature. Using this approach, data from content analysis

combined with research data (content knowledge, diversity of students, frequency

of challenges) was used to identify trends.

The qualitative content analysis that I employed focused on the intentionality of

teachers developing critical consciousness and its implications on their pedagogy. I

asked myself:

1. Which data must I analyze?

2. What sources am I going to use? Why? And how will I use them?

3. What is the population from which they are drawn?

4. What is the context relative to the analyzed data?

5. What are the boundaries of my analysis?

6. What is the target of the inferences?

The assumption was that words, phrases and concepts mentioned most often

in my selected texts were those reflecting important concerns. To make valid

inferences from the text, it was important that the classification procedure was

reliable in the sense of being consistent throughout my work.

KEY SOURCES LISTED

Like other content analysis research, these data were collected solely from

selected texts and focused on coding and interpreting processes and cultural

meanings. I coded reoccurring concepts or thoughts within the literature for

common themes. I focused on the key text selected for in-‐depth content analysis of

54

the study, looking for evidence that highlighted classroom teachers developing

critical consciousness and their journey to transformation. I wanted to analyze how

this journey impacted their pedagogy and if spiritually was a valid avenue to help

further this process. The following keys texts were the main sources of my

research:

Dei, G.J.S (2000). Removing the Margins: The Challenges and Possibilities of Inclusive Schooling. Canadian Scholars Press, Toronto

The authors in this book address the philosophical and theoretical bases for

inclusive schooling, which holds that education should be about producing

knowledge for social action. Similar to the other texts, this book promotes a diverse,

learning environment rather than our current dominant structure. Also similar

throughout the data, the authors of this book encourage collaborative decision-‐

making, calling for the union of parents, educators, community, and students in

order to make learning effective. Where this text diverges is the welcoming of not

only indigenous knowledges but also the spirituality that students bring with them

in order to make schools transformed from sources of oppression into places of

social transformation. This book clearly addresses issues of spirituality and

education, including theory and practice. “Removing the Margins” identifies

spirituality as one of the seven domains of inclusive schooling. The perspective of

inclusive schooling is linked to my idea critical consciousness because it shows that

inclusivity is intrinsically tied to how schools and teachers respond to the needs of

all students from diverse racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, class, religious, linguistic, and

cultural backgrounds. Since it is written within a North American educational

context, it is relevant to education in Ontario. It addresses thought-‐provoking ideas

55

such as: why spirituality is marginalized in schooling, and how would centering

spirituality transform our ways of knowing. The authors attempt to answer these

questions in the terrain of knowledge production and worldviews that permeate the

Western schooling culture and by providing some preliminary ideas on the question

of epistemology.

(1988). The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children. Harvard Educational Review. New York: The New York Press.

Delpit argues that educators need dialogue and communication so that

children are taught effectively according to their culture and community meaning.

Like Dei, she points out that schooling reflects liberal, middle class values, which

maintain the status quo. Similarly, Delpit calls for social and educational reform and

a true look at what diversity means in our educational movements and the

classroom. The unifying theme is how to create equitable classrooms where all

students have a voice. However, Delpit provides readers with a closer look at the

notion of power. She introduces the “culture of power” and the power “codes” that

are represented in schooling. Delpit points out many ways to help in this process of

accessing and redistributing power, including teacher education.

hooks, b. (. (2003). Teaching Community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.

Like all the other authors, hooks believes in engaged pedagogy, or education

as the practice of freedom. Engaged pedagogy means that students share in the

process, their voices are heard and learning is constructed together through

dialogue with others. Strengthening my argument of critical consciousness for

56

classroom teachers, hooks argues that “engaged pedagogy” is a way of teaching that

anyone can learn. She looks at the complex issues of race, class and gender in

education. She argues that theory and practice must be combined in order to create

social and educational change. This book combines theory and practice effectively,

and like “Removing the Margins” bell hooks looks at spirituality in the classroom.

Combining critical thinking about education with practice and writing about

struggles to end racism and white supremacy, she makes the useful point that

“Schooling that does not honor the needs of the spirit simply intensifies that sense

of being lost and that conventional education teaches us disconnection is organic to

being” (p. 180). These are just some of the major points that are made in this book

that can be linked to my research. In addition, “Teaching Community” highlights the

importance of creating community in the classroom. Democratic education,

inclusivity, caring teachers, and commitment, along with the ideals of shared

knowledge and shared learning are the values that hooks points to that motivate

progressive social change.

Ladson-‐Billings. G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-‐American students. San Francisco: Jossey-‐Bass.

Ladson-‐Billings espouses culturally relevant teaching practices, which she

argues empowers students “by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills

and attitudes” (p.18). Culturally relevant teaching “uses student culture in order to

maintain it and to transcend the negative effects of the dominant culture” (p. 17).

Cultural relevant teaching, she notes, is about questioning and teaching students to

question the structural inequalities and injustices, such as racism, that exist in

57

society. Like “Teaching Community” this book effectively inter-‐connects theory

with practice. Ladson-‐Billings highlights teachers who are highly effective when

working with African American students and who approach teaching as artistry

where they are critical and reflective of how they engage diverse students. Each of

Ladson-‐Billings’ teachers were said to have a “transformative moment”, which

forced them to reassess the way they did their work. It is this transformation that

brings them into a critical consciousness. These teachers had some life experiences

that forced them to look closely at their lives and the lives of those less fortunate

then they (p. viii). I used this book as a key text because it was helpful in examining

the concept of critical consciousness and how it can improve the educational lives of

teachers and students alike by looking at its cultural aspect. Cultural Relevant

Teaching can positively augment critical consciousness by applying the principles of

CRT for racialized students. These include:

1. Teachers with culturally relevant practices have high self-‐esteem and a high

regard for others.

2. Teachers with CRP see themselves as part of the community, see teaching as

giving back to the community, and encourage their students to do the same.

3. Teachers with CRP see teaching as an art and themselves as artists.

4. Teachers with CRP believe that all students can succeed.

5. Teachers with CRP help students make connections between their

community, national and global identities.

6. Teachers with CRP see teaching as “Digging Knowledge Out” of students.

58

7. The teaching-‐student relationship in the culturally relevant classroom is fluid

and “Humanely Equitable.”

8. CRT involves Cultivation of the relationship beyond the boundaries of the

classroom.

9. Teachers with CRP are careful to demonstrate a connectedness with each of

their students.

10. Teachers with CRP encourages a community of learners.

11. Culturally relevant teaching encourages students to learn collaboratively and

expects them to teach each other and take responsibility for each other.

12. Culturally relevant teaching views knowledge as something that is

continuously re-‐created, recycled, and shared.

13. Culturally relevant teaching views knowledge critically.

14. Culturally relevant teaching is passionate about knowledge .

15. Culturally relevant teaching helps students develop necessary skills.

16. Finally Culturally relevant teaching sees excellence as a complex standard

that takes student diversity and individual differences into account.

Many of these principles are essential concepts in critical consciousness towards

transformation and change the perspective of the teacher, rather than provide a

rigid recipe of cultural awareness. However, it is important to analyze how CRT has

been successfully taken up in teacher reform by providing a specific context for it,

helping teachers to gain understanding of its relevance when teaching culturally

diverse students.

59

In coding these texts I began to see the meaning of democratic education in

relationship to the political self-‐discovery of oppressed and colonized peoples, both

teachers and students. I saw the points of convergence among texts between the

effort to be better teachers and the effort to have better schooling. However, my

analysis shows the divergence on spirituality and its reluctant acceptance in the

education climate. Overall, three themes emerged: identity reflection, analyses of

power, and the inquiry of assumptions. Challenges that teachers face to sustain

critical consciousness, once developed, reiterating that critical consciousness is a

continuous process, were also coded and highlighted. For the analysis, I wrote for

three months, scoping through between one to two selections on a weekly basis,

totaling over 15 texts.

Further, I wanted to interrogate these issues from the viewpoint of teachers.

The primary research objective for this work was to examine critical consciousness

of classroom teachers and how, when effectively developed, their pedagogy impacts

Black students to achieve academic success. This thesis proposes to highlight the

development of critical consciousness that teachers endure that particularly

enhances learning outcomes for Black students. This thesis also gives way to a new

perspective being undertaken, which is the underpinning of spirituality in critical

consciousness. The findings illustrate the “miseducation of schooling” for teachers

via teacher education programs, distorted messages and a Eurocentric curriculum.

Over the last six months I examined literature in order to answer the

question that I posed at the beginning of this thesis (originally posed by Ladson-‐

Billings): why so little of good teaching seems to happen in classrooms dominated

60

by Black students? Because this is an observation that is still very apparent today, I

needed to know what contributes to this phenomenon. The primary learning

objective was to understand the impetus for a teacher’s “powerlessness” in

classrooms with Black students from the vantage point of teachers. In this thesis, I

argue that there needs to be acknowledgement and dialogue around the concept of

critical consciousness that can revolutionize a profession to benefit a group of

worthwhile students. At the risk of sounding cliché, doing the same things that have

always been done will continue to get the same problematic results for Black and

other racialized students within our schools. While some critical conscious teachers

are capable of engaging Black students, many other teachers don’t have that same

aptness, hindering them from the potential to connect meaningfully and effectively

with the Black students in their class in order to lead them to academic success.

In analyzing the literature on critical consciousness, the goal was to learn

how teachers could move from “dysconsciousness” to critical consciousness in a

way that is accessible and fundamental to all teachers, regardless of race or

experience. It is from a teacher perspective that several appropriate methodologies

were considered in order to better understand the lived experiences of teachers.

Consequently, a content analysis method was employed in my thesis, which is a

systematic study of the content of several works, rather than their structure, in

order to learn about a society44. The advantage of this approach was the ability to

look at communication via text in order to get at the central aspect of social

interaction. Critical analysis also provides insight into complex models of human

44 Krippendorff. K. (1980). Content Analysis: an introduction to its methodology.

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thought and language use. Furthermore, to better understand the pedagogy of

teachers in the process of teaching Black students, an anti-‐racist approach to

research was employed to connect educational issues with questions of racial

difference. Through a critical content analysis of the research, I sought to identify

salient themes as they arose. My research highlights the elements of the

transformative process of teachers in developing one’s critical consciousness

towards the implication of one’s pedagogy. I feel this methodology opens research

to possibilities, specifically around spirituality that could not be found in traditional

research methods. This methodology has a great deal to offer by helping to bring

forth the voice of teachers and their practice through anti-‐racist research. The

approach used in this research considers that the relations of domination and power

in educational sites must be dissected and addressed. As a researcher I

acknowledge my biases and limitations in developing this thesis.

CRITERIA FOR TEXT SELECTION OF CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

I conceptualize critical consciousness as a continuous process of

transformation, grounded in spirituality, that one goes through enabling a teacher to

connect with their soul, in order to display humanness, to show empathy, and reach

for cultural meaning with their students. Delpit and many others have made note of

the value placed to develop in teachers the humility required for learning from the

community when entering a culturally different setting45. In addition to humility,

effective critical consciousness is undergirded with spirituality and is always

45 Delpit. L. (1988). Other People’s Children. New York Press

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evolving 46, seeking to address issues of inequity and injustice. The characteristic of

humility in educators has been a consistent theme throughout the data and one that

many of the scholars emphasized. Delpit notes: “It is learning to be vulnerable

enough to allow one’s world to turn upside down in order to allow the realties of

others to edge themselves into the consciousness that is ever changing. In other

words: we, as teachers, must become ethnographers in the true sense. Teachers are

in an ideal position to play this role, to attempt to get all of the issues on the table in

order to initiate true dialogue. This can only be done, however, by seeking out those

who perspectives may differ most, by learning to give their words complete

attention, by understanding one’s own power, even if that power stems merely from

being in the majority, by being unafraid to raise questions about discrimination and

voicelessness with people of colour, and to listen, no, to hear what they say” (Delpit,

1988, p. 297).

The rationale behind my thesis topic is that pedagogic problems in our

school system are rooted in a greater injustice and societal inequality, but for the

purpose of my research is to show that it is also of insufficient information about

something more than just technical teaching strategies. Thus, my approach to

research has been to explore the reluctance to spirituality, while rethinking critical

consciousness towards a transformation that must be developed, encouraged,

necessitated in classroom teachers throughout the system. What I have tried to

highlight in this thesis is a decolonizing of personality and of a teacher’s mind. I

46 McDonough. K. (2009). Pathways to Critical Consciousness: First Year Teacher’s Engagement with Issues of Race and Equity

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have tried to stress the transformative journey that is necessary for a “critical

racialized consciousness” (McDonough, 2009) in practice and good teaching. Getting

Black students to choose academic excellence requires recognizing race and

“questioning the structural inequality, the racism, and the injustice that exists in

society” (Ladson-‐Billings, 1995, p. 140). I believe that the dilemma is not really in

the debate over instructional methodology, but rather in communicating across

cultures and in addressing the more fundamental issue of power, of whose voice

gets heard in determining what is best for children of color.” (Delpit, 296) Of equal

importance is the principle of “CRT” which seeks to empower students

intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to

impart knowledge, skills and attitudes and encourage students to learn

collaboratively, teach each other, and be responsible for each other's learning

(Ladson-‐Billings, 1995 p.20). Texts that included these indicators and principles

were selected in order to examine the critical consciousness concept and how it

intersected with race in greater depth.

I did not want to focus simply on the linear process of developing a deeper

sense of thought, namely the paradigm that teacher education proposes that “all

children are different and therefore should be taught using differentiated learning

methods.” It is much more than tools from a toolbox. It is learning to question

images, beliefs, history and knowledge. “If a teacher looks out at a classroom and

sees the sons and daughters of slaves, how does that vision translate into her/his

expectations for educational excellence? (Ladson Billings, 1995 p. 36)” To be a

teacher is to be critical enough to look back at ways we were taught and question its

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validity. It is also being willing to unlearn and to take pride in relearning with your

students, recognizing that students are experts in their own lives and the way they

learn best. It is helpful when teachers see themselves as a part of the community

and teaching as a further process to learning. Teachers should keep the relations

between themselves and their students fluid and equitable. They should encourage

the students to act as teachers, and they themselves can function as learners in the

classroom. Hence, my research was to take a higher focus of this dynamic and

dialectic relationship.

In rethinking critical consciousness, grounded in spirituality, I looked at

models of education that endorse and sustain dominant privileged understandings

of the world. However, research showed that an anti-‐racist perspective views

marginalized knowledges and experiences as valuable resources to be centered in

processes of schools. Spirituality is a concept that is often viewed existing in

indigenous cultures and has been mainly reverted to the outside of education, as

something that is not considered in teacher education. Bearing this in mind, I want

to clarify critical consciousness is not only for the dominant folk. All teachers need

to move toward a deeper sense of self and other in order to be aware of the diverse

students in their classrooms and move them towards academic excellence. The

promotion of critical consciousness is crucial to the practices of classroom teachers

in order to engage in critical pedagogue when working with Black children. To

effectively promote critical consciousness, it is crucial that teacher reform recognize

the importance of spirituality as a universal concept.

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METHOD

The Methodology is based primarily on the following key selected texts:

Dreamkeepers: Successful teaching for African-‐American students (1994); The

Silenced Dialogue: Power and pedagogy in education Other People’s Children

(1988); Teaching Community: A pedagogy of hope (2003); and Removing the

Margins: The Challenges and Possibilities of Inclusive Schooling (2000). These texts

were selected because they are significant works in contributing to the concept of

critical consciousness, inclusive schooling and spirituality, as well as teacher

education and reform. They speak to the importance of these themes specifically

within an urban educational setting. These key texts and theories have been

selected to reflect the context of inclusive schooling for minority students and to

interrogate white supremacy within our educational institutions. In these texts, I

looked for how these theorists conceptualize critical consciousness and how they

see the importance of critical consciousness among classroom teachers in urban

settings. These texts also reflect the issues and accountability of teachers in an

effort to advocate for a new approach to developing effective pedagogy from an anti-‐

racist/inclusive perspective. Two of these texts link to my desire to bring

spirituality to the forefront of critical consciousness, when working specifically with

Black students. My hope was to advocate for the reunion of mind, body and soul

within the teaching profession, so we, as educators, can awaken to the inequities

that currently exist and change our practices to effectively promote educational

equity and academic excellence for all students. With all of the problems that have

existed for racialized students in schools, why is change so difficult? I acknowledge

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that I have more questions than I have answers. I do not suppress my primary

critical subjective experience (Lawson, 2006). Rather, I am aware that my

perspective has its biases and I acknowledge that throughout my thesis. The

primary objective of my thesis is to create a space where spiritually is recognized

and discussed as one, of many key components of critical consciousness, specifically

among classroom teachers. Spirituality, as a component of critical consciousness,

must enter the dialogue of educators, if our black and other marginalized students

are to truly achieve academic success.

My limitations in my research analysis were first geographical. I chose to

focus solely on Ontario schools because much of the research is taken from an

American context or general to North America and though it made my data harder

to find, I wanted to create dialogue around what was specifically happening within

Ontario schooling practices. Secondly, as an elementary school teacher, my

experiences and therefore biases are directed to elementary and intermediate

schooling experiences. Lastly, I often use the phrase “Black and other racialized

students” to denote that though my research focuses primarily on the achievement

of Black students, I assume that the experiences of other racialized students are

similar, but in no way want to claim expertise in the experiences in any other

cultural group, including my own. My subjective experiences, though not unique,

are personal and are not without ere.

ANALYSIS OF DATA

This thesis employs an in-‐depth analysis of selected texts, leading to the

dissemination of the research findings. Research data was analyzed for general

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trends and principles of successful teaching practices. I developed a code system to

identify salient themes within the paradigm of critical consciousness. Several

operational domains of best practices emerged from the themes highlighted through

the coding procedures. These findings offered valuable lessons for rethinking

schooling education in Ontario and Canadian contexts. To help re-‐conceptualize

critical consciousness and spirituality, specific themes were identified throughout

the research. Among the relevant findings that form the basis of a new perspective

of critical consciousness are the following domains:

Identity

· Reflection: an active component of self-‐awareness (Shulman, 1987)

· Multiple insightful moments (Ladson-‐Billings, 1994)

· Development of knowledge base (Shulman, 1987)

· A state of critical awareness, activated through dialogue (Freire,

1970)

· Uncompleted beings / attempt at being more “fully human” (Fanon,

1952)

· Develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-‐Billings,

1995)

· A process that invites learners to engage the world & others critically

(Freire, 1970)

· Analysis of power

· The culture of power (Engaging in analysis of context and power)

(Delpit, 1988)

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· Understanding domination (Delpit, 1988)

· Interrogating racism & oppression, and the understanding of

whiteness (Dei, 1999)

· Towards liberation of the human, social, and cultural consequences of

decolonization (Fanon, 1952)

· Collective empowerment (Delpit, 1988)

· Inquiry about assumptions

· Questioning reality (Delpit, 1988)

· Critiquing knowledge (Shulman, 1987)

The notion of critical consciousness has often been taken up as purely

theoretical. Through these findings, I wanted to explore the practical side of critical

consciousness and question its development in classroom teachers, which often

hides inequity in their pedagogy. I also wanted to investigate the ways education

can marry spirituality to promote holistic education and enhance self-‐development.

Spirituality brings an innovative new approach to critical consciousness from an

anti-‐racist perspective by providing access in the educational realm to the thinking

and findings of deeper meaning and purpose. A consistent theme that arose in the

literature was the need to know one’s self and interrogate one’s beliefs, ideas, and

standpoint. How can that be gained without a component of spirituality? Delpit

speaks of “learning to be vulnerable enough to allow our world, as educators, to

turn upside down in order to allow the realties of others to edge themselves into our

consciousness.”47 The findings consistently pointed to this principle of vulnerability

47 Delpit. L, Other people’s children. New York Press, p. 297

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within teachers, which takes risks. However, displaying humility was also often

noted throughout the research as a prerequisite to the journey of transformation

and hence I believe that spirituality is instrumental in beginning that journey!

Discussion

As a Black female teacher, self-‐reflection and identity have been difficult but

necessary for me towards my own transformation and seeing how I can help Black

students succeed. It was higher education and my spirituality that enabled this

process to happen.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Matthew 5:6 ESV (Bible) My spirituality opened up a space to come into myself. Thus, I use my own journey

as a teacher for seven years and now a Masters student, going through a process of

self–discovery to really understand how developing my critical consciousness

helped my transformation and what that process looks like, but more importantly

how it can be replicated. My self-‐discovery inevitably related to my pedagogy; how I

teach and what I choose to highlight when I teach. It also began to answer a lot of

questions as to my experiences with specific students throughout my teaching

career.

How do we know when we come into critical consciousness? I recognized I

had entered into critical consciousness when I looked at myself as more than simply

a teacher with predetermined tools and subject knowledge. I asked more questions

that wasn’t necessarily in the curriculum and began to enter into critical dialogue

with my students that challenged us to think critically and engaged our minds. I

wanted to learn more about developing pedagogy and being a more effective

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teacher with all my students. I saw and appreciated the transformation that was

taking place through me and in my teaching practice. I yearned to truly help all my

students, but particularly the Black students by equipping myself with a strong

knowledge of curriculum, alternative teaching methods, and indigenous knowledges

so that I could subvert the dominant knowledge and create spaces for indigenous

knowledges of my students. My teaching style became more than just making

students “feel good”-‐ it was about empowering myself so that I could empower

them, and in turn, they could empower me. This cycle helped transform my

classroom from teacher-‐centered to student centered, which was truly liberating

because the lessons and learning was no longer solely dependent on me.

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ~ African proverb

The students took ownership of what they learned, how they learned and

questioned why they were learning certain things. I was open to being challenged

and in fact, I welcomed it because I knew they were engaged. The entire classroom

took on a life of its own and I simply became the facilitator. It was my

understanding and strategy of using the Masters tools to fight in a “system” towards

our own liberation. I felt like as a class, we were actually addressing the

achievement gap.

The practical applications associated with critical consciousness help to form

new implications for teacher educational development in Ontario classrooms. It is

impossible to separate myself, as the researcher, from the cultural context that

defines my framework. As teachers in urban schools, we must move past toleration

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of difference to acceptance and interrogate the system that perpetuates racism and

discrimination for so many of our Black students. This thesis hopes to encourage

teachers to work towards social justice through ongoing reconsideration of personal

biases, and critical examinations of systemic oppressions. In the following chapters,

I discuss the above findings with a particular focus on spirituality and its

implications for decolonizing pedagogy and classroom instructional change.

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CHAPTER 4. Data Findings -‐ 1 INTRODUCTION: “Learning to learn: Self awareness in order to move forward”

A leader who does not take advice is not a leader. Kenyan proverb

The purpose of this chapter is to present the findings of my research in terms

of the general themes that were formulated and how they linked together to explain

the development of critical consciousness. In outlining the characteristics of critical

consciousness, I begin by looking at self-‐awareness, the analysis of power and

inequity, and the teacher’s ability to ask the right questions. I begin by presenting

how classroom teachers engaged in self-‐discovery can impact their pedagogy by

reflecting on their own personal journey of learning about themselves, their history

and their respective roles in society. Ideally, self-‐reflection will influence how

teachers approach their teaching practices and engage with their students. Like we

tell our students, in order to learn effectively, we must be alert and open to receiving

instruction, and we must critically ask questions. As the above quote states, as

leaders, we must learn to take the advice of our mentors, colleagues and parents as

well as our students. More importantly, unless teachers turn inward to challenge

themselves by disrupting their own knowledge base, and then turn outward by

questioning the status quo, they will perpetuate the very inequalities that exist in

our school system and larger society by further marginalizing specific students and

consciously or unconsciously giving privilege to other students.

In order to initiate this journey of self-‐discovery, there are several steps that

are necessary and meaningful. The state of awareness is activated through dialogue

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(Freire, 1970) or an “out of body” experience. An “active” component of awareness

involves consciously recognizing multiple insightful moments, questioning and

embracing the learning from each experience. This is a pivotal time when one

connects with their inner self, listening more to one’s thoughts, analyzing one’s

behaviour and questioning one’s choices. The teacher will also begin to question and

expand the development of his or her knowledge base by unlearning and relearning

new things. This important process invites learners to engage the world and others

more critically. The teacher then develops a broader sociopolitical consciousness

that allows them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores and institutions that

produce and maintain social inequalities (Ladson-‐Billings, 1994). Awareness of self

is significant for teacher development, as it will aid the journey of unconventional

ways of learning to be a better teacher. This awareness is more complex than the

explicit tools we are given in our profession and thus requires a deeper encounter

with one’s inner self, uniting the mind, body and soul; these tools will not suffice in

bringing teachers to a point of transformation and revolutionary change. In order to

connect meaningfully with all of the young impressionable and diverse students in

our classrooms, who are calling for more “down to earth” teachers we, as teachers,

cannot be afraid or ashamed of enlisting the elements of our deeper selves.

No one can speak on these topics other than God Himself in which text book you find the science of soul. Bhagavad Gita (Hindu)

Consistent with the findings of identity and self-‐awareness, my thesis

confirms that critical consciousness is an important tool to begin the process of self-‐

awareness within teachers to improve their pedagogy. Critical consciousness goes

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beyond a sole focus on the mechanics of teaching and encourages the exploration of

the beliefs and attitudes of teachers, considering the transition from

dysconsciousness to the evolving process of critical consciousness, particularly

around inequity and its impact on one’s pedagogy.48 The literature’s findings point

to the importance of getting to know one’s self in order to enter into a process of

true reflection and transformation. Transformation can be the catalyst that sparks

the awakening of one’s critical consciousness, but it is also the end point, impacting

and transforming one’s pedagogy so that the teacher gains a new perspective of his

or her practice. Many of the case studies I read about throughout the selected texts

highlighted the beginning steps of awareness, identity and reflection, inevitably

leading to action-‐oriented transformation. Each of Ladson-‐Billings’ teachers in her

1994 study were said to have a “transformative moment” which forced them to

reassess the way they did their work, and this transformation brought them into a

critical consciousness. These teachers had some life experiences that forced them to

look closely at their lives and the lives of those less fortunate than them.

Fundamental to their beliefs about teaching was the notion that all students could

and must succeed. Consequently, they saw their responsibility as working to

guarantee the success of each student (Ladson-‐Billings, 1994, p. viii).

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6 ESV

Reflection

What makes the goat stink is inside its body. Igbo of Nigeria Proverbs

48McDonough. K. (2009). Pathways to critical consciousness: First year teacher’s engagement with issues of race and equity.

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Reflection is what a teacher does when he or she looks back at the teaching

and learning that has occurred, and reconstructs, reenacts and/or recaptures the

events, the emotions and the accomplishments (Shulman, p. 19). It is that set of

processes—highly connected to evaluation—through which a professional learns

from experience. Thus we arrive at the new beginning, the expectation that through

acts of teaching that are “reasoned” and “reasonable” the teacher achieves new

comprehension, both of the purposes and the subjects to be taught, and also of the

students and the processes of pedagogy themselves. However, there is a good deal

of transient experiential learning among teachers, characterized by the “aha” of a

moment that is never consolidated nor made part of a new understanding or a

reconstituted repertoire (Brodkey, 1986). New comprehension does not

automatically occur, even after reflection.

I want to clarify: to reflect on one’s self does not automatically lead to change

or even to awareness. As previously noted by Ladson-‐Billings, “dysconsciousness”

claims there are teachers who recognize the existing inequities but are unwilling to

do anything about them. Furthermore, there are teachers who themselves have

been confronted with the questionable actions they have committed, thus forcing

them to reflect on their actions, beliefs and behaviours, but if they lack an intact

critical consciousness, the change for better rarely comes. The Igbo quote at the

beginning of this section speaks about the connection between a person’s inner self

and what comes out of them. The pedagogic lesson of this saying is that an

individual’s character lies deep within his or her personality. Character is what one

is and what makes up one’s whole being, and conveys much about a person. It is for

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this reason that no matter how much one may try to hide it, one’s true character will

eventually be revealed. If one has a bad character, the negativity stems from inside

the heart and soul; thus, a change of character requires first examining what is in

one’s heart and soul. Moreover, building one’s personality also means building one’s

character and morals. In regards to schooling and pedagogy, this Igbo proverb

teaches us that change begins from the inside and that we must always look deeply

within ourselves to truly understand our character.49 A critical pedagogic and

instructional engagement of this proverb requires us as teachers to ask questions

about the extent to which our social environment, including our history and beliefs,

has shaped what is inside of us, and then drill even deeper to acknowledge the cycle

that occurs from us shaping others. In other words, a linking of the inner self to the

outer environment in terms of prevailing structures as well as social and political

conditions is required. Taken literally, the proverb focuses on personal

responsibility. While the proverb is certainly note-‐worthy and is greatly applicable

to our educational system, it cannot be engaged in a way that places a great deal of

the responsibility for success on the student’s shoulders. Teachers must first begin

by looking at themselves and questioning their knowledge base, learning style and

perceptions of others. Furthermore, they must interrogate their identity—how they

see themselves in relation to how they see others. This exercise is instrumental in

developing one’s critical consciousness and impacting one’s pedagogy. This proverb

has deep moral and pedagogical relevance in the face of today’s schooling

complexities and time of increased racism and discrimination. Racism is pervasive

49Dei, G.S. (2012). African proverbs group SHHRC publishing project.

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throughout the fabric of schooling—racist actions are insidious and happen subtly

on a regular basis. So why should adversity and inequity drive people to behave in

ways that they would not normally behave? It is in such instances that this proverb

reminds us to be who we are, to trust our innate humanity, even when adverse

situations provide us the opportunity to behave otherwise. It reminds teachers to be

fair and humble, and to remain true to themselves at all times even when the gaze of

colleagues and students is absent or briefly turned away, which bring us to the

characteristic of self-‐awareness.

You can learn a lot about someone by observing him when he is hungry. African Proverb

Self-‐awareness encourages teachers to accept their incompleteness, which

Fanon (1952) speaks of. Teaching is a learned profession—the problem is that

many teachers feel they have become experts and learned all there is to know, and

therefore, have stopped being open to learning and asking questions. Thus we as

teachers often stop looking for resources to improve our pedagogy or researching

the new ways of engaging students. However, we must look at where we have

become dehumanized, when parts of the true self and all its potential in fact, die, and we

are unconsciously in survival mode. Fanon propels us to embrace our incompleteness

and move toward being “a new human” by interrogating knowledge and power in

order to “rupture historical master narratives.”50 Through self-‐awareness, it is then

we are prepared to form a new identity of ourselves, when we have come to

recognize our true reflection and take action to change it.

50 Fanon, F. (1967). Black skin, White masks. New York: Grove Press.

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Identity formation

We teach...who we are. Parker J Palmer

Though Fanon has been understood more outside the field of education, it is

crucial to look at a Fanonian perspective of knowledge production, colonial

education and representation to explore the undercurrent of the dilemma of identity

and how it relates to teacher education. It was through the pedagogy of Fanon that

my understanding of education radically shifted. I began to see education as a

process inclusive of everything: knowledge, power, curriculum, and instruction, a

coming to know, act and engage the world (Dei, 2009). The Fanonian perspective is

thus holistic and transformative. Education is about ideas, values and identity and

links to how we are socialized. We must look at the production of knowledge and

how that links to the power and privilege of specific groups and oppression of

others. I also look at small and greater forms of resistance as a way to decolonize

ourselves, and “enlightened education” in its holistic approach as a way of liberating

ourselves. I frame my discussion by asking critical questions such as: Furthering

Fanon’s perspective, how do we extricate ourselves from this violent process of

schooling? If the school system is a microcosm of society, how do we learn to

navigate the system and build a revolution to change the system as a first step to

changing larger society? How do we develop as experts of our own epistemologies?

How do we use the challenges of our struggle to liberate us rather than hinder us?

How do we stop the violence among youth with no identity within our own

communities and turn our efforts to the real enemy of neocolonialism? And how do

we identify in this current climate of new colonizers who our enemy is?

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In reading Fanon and beginning my journey of coming to know myself, my

history and my schooling experiences, I not only thought of myself as a parent but

also as an educator. I used my own journey as a teacher for six years and now a

Masters student, going through a process of self–discovery of my indigeneity,

culture and history as I become aware of who I am. This process inevitably

related to my pedagogy—how I teach and why I teach the way I do in the

classroom—and helped me begin to answer a lot of questions as to my

experiences with specific students throughout my teaching career. In this paper,

I explore the power of teachers and the effect of their ideologies, giving privileges

as prizes, the liberation of personal growth, and possibilities of decolonization. As

a grade seven teacher, I am constantly striving to improve my pedagogy for the

benefit of students. However, I have had to take a reflective look at my pedagogy

and see how my personal journey impacts schooling by helping to create critical

thinkers of my students and disrupt the racial order that exists. Inevitably, I am a

product of the school system and it is only now in my Masters through courses

like Fanon that I have been able to find out who I truly am and how that impacts

how and what I teach. However, I realize that this is only the beginning. Unless I

am able as a teacher to disrupt my own knowledge of self and question the status

quo of society, I will continue to perpetuate the very inequalities that exist in

schooling and society today.

Through the work of Fanon, I have explored ways of developing my identity:

relearning my history and decolonizing my mind. I humbly admit that as a Black

female teacher involved in the community for a number of years and as someone

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aware of the importance of education for our Black kids, I thought I was a “good”

teacher. I cared about students and wanted the best for them. I did not realize that

the “best” was my best in the sense that it was what I had learned was good and

acceptable. I never questioned where my notions of excellence came from.

However, in all honesty, as good a teacher as I thought I was, there was always a

tension that existed in my pedagogy. It wasn’t until I started my Masters program at

OISE that I stepped into a space where I was encouraged to explore my own history

(and biases) rather than what was taught to me throughout my schooling. It was the

first time that I was challenged to question my own learning in an environment that

allowed me to do so. Through relearning, I realized that I myself was the major

obstacle for connecting with some of the students that I taught and sincerely wanted

to help. My journey of finding who I was and coming into critical consciousness as a

teacher showed me how my “own” knowledge influences those that I teach.

The process that invites learners to engage the world & others

When you discover who you are, whether Black or White and the privilege you have, you are in a position to challenge the system or maintain it. And if you do so, you do so knowingly. (Portelli, 2005)

This chapter of self-‐awareness and identity reflects my personal story of coming to

know who I am. Working in the community with inspiring students, I became

conscious that there was an element in me that I was not engaging in the classroom.

When I entered into my OISE graduate program, professors gave me the tools to

discover that element and question my identity, and thus encouraged my “whole”

self to be engaged when teaching. They did not just give me instructional tools, but

also provided tools with which to develop my mind, nurture my soul and interrogate

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my beliefs. That is when my instructional teaching began to transform. As Portelli

quotes above, I had to recognize my privilege. My class with Professor Dei was the

first time I learned that as a Black person in university I too had privilege. It was

only when I discovered and acknowledged that (because I was in major denial at

first) then I entered into a position to challenge my beliefs. I was able to work

toward my liberation, in view of employing a conscious awareness to liberate others

who may be still chained by the indoctrination of a Eurocentric curriculum or

because of alienation within the “system.” OISE invited me, not as a teacher, but as

a learner, to engage the world differently. Now open to learning, so that my

teaching could transform and I could more effectively engage my students, I

embraced the tools of self-‐discovery and thus began my journey to critical

consciousness, subverting the famous proverb to now understand: “When the

teacher is ready, the students will appear.” With self-‐discovery and my identity

intact—yet not completed, nor perfected—I was now ready to further my

revolutionary process to transformation.

Analysis of power and inequity Being free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Nelson Mandela

Throughout the many lectures I attended with professor Dei, I often

remember him saying, “It is not that a person has entered the university that brings

about change, but rather it is what a person does when they get here.” Dei often

asked: How have they ruptured the status quo? How have they made it possible for

many more people to enter the institution? We must never feel that we have paid

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our debt to community but must continue to fight for the freedom of us all. The

power that we acquire must be used to gain greater equity and freedom for others.

Delpit (1988), hooks (2003), Fanon (1967), Dei (2000) and Freire (1970) all write

about the notion of power and how power intersects with inequity. In analyzing

power, it is important to start with deconstructing the idea of the “culture of power”

(Delpit, 1988) that exists within schooling and discuss the importance of teachers to

understand how it works in an educational context with their students, as well as its

varied consequences. The teacher’s ability to analyze power starts with

understanding their own power, even if that results in being in the majority (Delpit,

1988). This understanding is important in developing their critical consciousness

and inevitably impacting their pedagogy. However, the concept of power is complex

because the notion of “power” is fraught with deep-‐rooted issues of privilege and

opportunity. In Lisa Delpit’s article “Silence Dialogue” (1988), she writes about the

“culture of power” while examining the teaching debate on skills-‐oriented versus

process-‐oriented writing teaching strategies. According to Delpit, “The dilemma is

not really in the debate over instructional methodology, but rather in

communicating across cultures and in addressing the more fundamental issue of

power, of whose voice gets heard in determining what is best for poor children and

children of colour.” To engage in a critical analysis of power and context teachers

must acknowledge the power imbalance that exists in schools between certain

groups. Teachers must begin to ask critical questions that unveil the mask of

inequity and interrogate the status quo. To clarify, my understanding of the status

quo is the current educational system in which students’ socioeconomic

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backgrounds predict their educational outcomes and opportunities in life. 51

Currently, in Ontario schools, many Black students lag academically far behind their

White counterparts.52 Fanon addresses this issue in his idea of the Manichean

divide—the “us versus them,” or in the educational context, the struggle between

good and bad, or between races. When teachers reward individual merit, they

foster competition among students, creating a hierarchy based on marks and many

times disregarding a student’s background, style of learning, language or cultural

barriers and other exceptionalities. This evaluative approach fails to address how

these important components contribute to the academic success of some students

while hindering others, allowing some students to perceive themselves as smart and

others as unintelligent. This perception plays into the notion of having a “fixed

mindset” rather than a “growth mindset,”53 and psychologically traps students into

believing that their efforts are futile in attaining academic success.

Contrary to this belief, Delpit states, “We (teachers) must take the responsibility to

teach, to provide for students who do not already possess them, the additional codes

of power” (Delpit, 1988, p. 293). The codes of power that Delpit refers to include:

linguistic forms, communicative strategies and presentation of self. Understanding

various ways of speaking and when to use language is seen as “code-‐switching,”

(Smitherman, 1981) which few students recognize. Delpit states that when teachers

explicitly tell their students the rules of the “culture of power” it makes it easier for

them to acquire those skills. Delpit further suggests that “students must be taught

51Beard. E.V. (2013). How I define the status quo. Teach for America Blog. 52Centre for Literacy at Nipissing University. (2010). Closing gender gaps in student achievement. 53Briceno. E. (2012). The power of belief – Mindset and success.

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the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life…they must

be allowed the resource of the teacher’s expert knowledge, while being helped to

acknowledge their own “expertness” as well: and that even while students are

assisted in learning the culture of power, they must also be helped to learn about the

arbitrariness of those codes and about the power relationships they represent”

(1988, p. 296).

But how can teachers share these rules of power with their students, if they

themselves do not know them or are unaware of their importance?

The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.

Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)

Fanon’s above quote points us to some challenges that may exist for teachers when

tasked to prepare their students for society. However, Delpit provides an entry

point for teachers to analyze power by helping them to recognize and acknowledge:

1. Issues of power are enacted in the classroom.

2. There are codes or rules for participating in power, that is, there is “a culture of power.”

3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.

4. If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told

explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.

5. Those with power are frequently least aware of—or least willing to acknowledge—its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.

In order for the teacher to move toward a critical consciousness, these five aspects

of power must be acknowledged and addressed first implicitly on the teacher’s

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journey to self-‐awareness, then explicitly in a teacher’s pedagogy, thus helping

students to understand and analyze the culture of power. Teachers must also work

with the notion of power as transformational. Binary thinking on the part of the

teacher creates “dominator practices” and must be acknowledged and named by the

teacher in order to resist and transform the classroom. Understanding how the

culture of power plays out, on a macro level in our society and schooling and on a

micro level in the classroom and, more importantly, within one’s self contributes to

the process of decolonization by psychologically acknowledging the privileges that

have been bestowed upon or denied to certain groups and unraveling those

meanings. No doubt, this process of “new learning” will be uncomfortable for the

teacher tasked with this burden; however this is what we ask of our students

everyday when we encourage them to take on learning that may be foreign to them.

…Those who are most skillful at educating Black and poor children…help students to establish their own voices, but to coach those voices to produce notes that will be heard clearly in the larger society. (Delpit, 1988, p. 296)

Understanding Domination

A large chair does not make a king. Sudanese proverb

The word “domination” is rarely employed in the context of schooling, though its

presence is apparent in many of the halls and classrooms of our schools among

peers, in teacher-‐student relationships and even among colleagues. Despite the

efforts to move toward student-‐focused learning, many of our classrooms still

remain teacher-‐centered and perpetuate a “dominator culture” (hooks, 2010).

Teachers exercise control over students by dominating what is taught in class, how

the material is presented, when certain subjects are focused on and which students

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participate. How does domination become the norm? Teachers command or at

times force, through humiliation, participation via the methods they use to govern

their classroom. A classroom that is democratic and community driven will

encourage more students to feel welcomed and safe, thus students will engage more

positively in their learning. Furthermore, when teachers create a system of sharing

and caring among classmates—encouraging peer learning and support—that helps

students to be accountable to each other and influence each other’s learning. Yet the

school system trains teachers to focus on individual merit. Teachers enter the

profession adopting this way of thinking which, if not recognized, will effect how a

teacher conducts their classroom and impacts the learning environment. This

individual approach fosters competition among students and inevitably creates a

hierarchy. Some students will rise to the top, many will stay in the middle and those

few students who most require the teacher’s help will fade to the bottom, employing

silence or behavioural issues to cover their lack of understanding. Teachers,

unconsciously or consciously, govern this replica of society as the one with

authority, not understanding why they only have a commanding influence over the

“academically high” students. The other students show resistance to the class

structure and to the teaching methods by simply defying the teacher. As the above

proverb states, the teacher will not have an effective command over all the students

simply by being the teacher.

As teachers, we are taught technical skills and how to “control or minimize”

behaviour issues, overlooking how to create effective learning environments for all

our students. It seems like many educators have perfected the science of teaching

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but have disregarded the essence of the teacher-‐student relationship. Thus

developing one’s critical consciousness recognizes the “need for students to

experience excellence without deceiving them about their own academic

achievement” (Ladson-‐Billings, 1995). Such consciousness also implies defining

success broadly. Rewarding students for a wide array of activities ensures that they

understand that hard-‐and-‐fast rules do not exist for determining excellence. It also

underscores the students’ understanding that the teacher has high expectations for

each of them. These high expectations can also be encouraged between classmates.

When students move away from competing against each other and toward helping

each other to achieve academic excellence, both parties are affected positively and

everyone wins! Therefore, ending domination in all its forms requires heightened

awareness (hooks, 2010). This awareness calls for us to subvert the system of

domination within our schools and create alliances, not only with our colleagues,

but also with our students. Speaking truth to power, creating a climate of education

as a practice of freedom, ensures that unenlightened individuals come into critical

consciousness by dismantling the “dominator culture” that is perpetuated within

our schools. In this way, “mindful awareness” of power brings us closer to the

transformation that will impact pedagogy for our Black and other racialized

students.

Interrogating Racism and Oppression Aligns with the Notion and Understanding of Whiteness

I find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my

existence. James Baldwin, 1955

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Numerous scholars of history across many disciplines have analyzed the

social construction of Whiteness, including W. E. B. Du Bois (1890), James Baldwin

(1963), Toni Morrison (1992) and bell hooks (1992). Baldwin wrote and spoke

extensively about Whiteness, defining it as a central social problem and insisting

that it was a choice, not a biological identity.54 hooks speaks about challenging the

prevailing notion of Whiteness in her work “Representing Whiteness in the Black

Imagination,” where she builds on the work of Baldwin and many others. hooks

addresses the way Whiteness exists without the knowledge of Blackness, even as it

collectively asserts control, a notion observed in the above quote from Baldwin. As

teachers move toward developing critical consciousness, especially in working with

Black students, it is important to acknowledge how the ideology of Whiteness plays

out in the classroom. Even throughout urban settings, in classrooms that may not

have any, or few, White students, there still exists a presence of Whiteness that

controls the minds of many racialized students, “coercing them to internalize

negative perceptions of Blackness, to be self-‐hating” (hooks, 1992, p. 338). Thus

Whiteness must be interrogated to get to a place of open dialogue where

deconstruction can begin to happen. Even in elementary classrooms students

observe, consciously or unconsciously, the powerful and “mysterious” effects of

Whiteness, though they may not have the language to describe what they are

observing. Black students associate Whiteness with “the terrible, the terrifying, the

terrorizing” (hooks, 1992). However, to many racialized students, Whiteness is most

often an uncomfortable imposition: a mysterious power that wounds, hurts,

54 Baldwin. J. (1963). The fire next time. Penguin Books Limited.

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tortures, fosters competition and that disrupts the fantasy of equality in diversity.

In schools—as in society—Whiteness is represented as goodness, intelligence,

industriousness and leadership. Whiteness has created the notion of “the Other,”

making the majority of students in our urban schools feel oppressed and displaced.

hooks (1992) talks about the oppression spurred by the notion of Whiteness,

which compels Blacks to assume the mantle of invisibility. Many Black students fade

away to the back of the classroom or skip classes altogether, rather than compete

with their counterparts who often get more recognition and privileges in class.

Resistance is also shown in defiant behaviour toward the teacher or toward peers

for outshining them. Not being able to abuse the teacher, frustrated students often

blame each other for the inequity observed in many classrooms. Moving past the

ideology of blame for Black and non-‐Black students, to the ideology of

accountability—which is much more complex—hooks says that all White people

benefit from the privileges accrued from racist exploitation, past and present, and

are therefore accountable for changing and transforming White supremacy and

racism (hooks, 2010). White supremacy informs the structure of schooling and

therefore must be the responsibility of those with privilege and of all of us to

interrogate it so we can dismantle the system for a better schooling experience.

In our dominator culture of imperialism, patriarchy and capitalism, a major

research area of Whiteness is White privilege—an advantage granted to or enjoyed

by White persons beyond the common advantage of all others and an exception, in

most cases, from certain burdens or liabilities. hooks moves that we look past

stereotypes of White people and turns to the impact of racism. Understanding how

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racism works is crucial for teachers to stop the underlying oppressive methods that

may exist in the classroom. There is a need for systemic change, which does not give

teachers license to cease from struggling against the oppressive and inequitable

institutions in which they work. In many ways the teachers’ struggle is similar to

what legal scholar Derrick Bell calls the struggle against the permanence of racism:

“Not that we legitimate the racism of the oppressor. On the contrary, we can only

delegitimize it if we can accurately pinpoint it. And racism lies at the center, not the

periphery; in the permanent, not in the sentimental caverns of the mind.” There is

collective agency, the student’s capacity to share in changing the classroom

environment, and self-‐agency, the teacher’s capacity to make the moral, conscious

choice to decolonize his or her pedagogy and to engage in changing the structure of

the class. Asserting agency is always the first step toward hope and transformation.

Teachers must name Whiteness so it can be resisted and transformed. As teachers,

we must move away from a dominator schooling culture, which is a replica of our

imperialist, patriarchal and capitalist society that perpetuates racism and

oppression, toward a liberating culture where partnership and mutuality are valued.

Only then can we create a culture of love (hooks, 2010).

Collective empowerment

Brothers love each other when they are equally rich. African proverb

Where does spirituality come into play in understanding power? As the

above proverbs states, equality enables brothers to truly love each other. I have

witnessed this first hand in my class. In September, my class of 30 young women,

predominantly from South Asia, started (like many other classes) with an automatic

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hierarchy. They had come from their previous class already streamlined into high,

academically low and average, and the students knew their rankings and the

rankings of their peers. This is common and the dynamics are apparent in any

“undeveloped” classroom setting. Some well-‐meaning teachers claim they don’t

read the labels of students from their records. However, teachers claiming not to

want to know previous teachers’ rankings or diagnoses is as detrimental to students

as claiming colour-‐blindness. Just by the mere hours spent in classrooms and with

teachers, schooling has a powerful effect on students. Children have already

internalized the “labels and rankings” placed on them and it is up to the teacher to

disrupt the negative self-‐perception these children often hold. If teachers don’t

acknowledge the previous rankings of their students, inevitably they will be

reproduced in the classroom. However, rather than letting the history of my

students’ rankings be perpetuated, I subverted the knowledge and allowed it to help

the class functioning. I created leaders in every subject so that the students saw all

their peers as experts in something and learned from each other. Even the so-‐called

“academically high” students lagged behind in drama, music or social studies, and

enjoyed learning from their peers who shined in these subjects. With this model,

students had to lean on each other, and were accountable for their classmates’

learning in a sort of “knowledge-‐bartering” system. If the “high-‐end” students

wanted to succeed, they had to rely on the “other” students to help them. It was a

humbling and rewarding experience for all.

Many hands make light work. Haya (Tanzania) proverb

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Freire also addresses collective empowerment through his empowering

education theory. His model suggests that participation of people through group

action and dialogue efforts directed at community academic targets enhances their

sense of control and belief in the ability to change people’s lives. Freire’s popular

approach to education is compatible with the “community of learners” philosophy

outlined above, which proved successful in my classroom. With all the increased

responsibility and accountability that teachers have recently been tasked with, it is

not only beneficial to the students to have a shared responsibility for learning in the

class, but it also greatly helps the teacher, who can make the students accountable to

each other and create a more healthy democratic classroom. When teachers

observe the characteristics that have been engaged to encourage peer-‐learning and

uplift student morale, they will begin to see how spirituality has been working in the

classroom all along.

Toward liberation of the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization Children have the right to their own language, their own culture. We must fight cultural hegemony and fight the system by insisting that children be allowed to express themselves in their own language style. (Delpit, p. 297)

Throughout this chapter, I have discussed the importance of the teacher to

analyze the notion of power and how it plays out in our schools and classrooms.

Pedagogic problems in our school system are rooted in a greater injustice and

societal inequality; therefore it is imperative for the recognition, acknowledgement

and analysis of power to be necessitated by teachers throughout the system.

Teachers need to step back from the system in order to truly see the effects of

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misplaced power and then begin to work within the system from a new perspective,

subverting the way power plays out. Rather than working to uphold the status quo,

we as teachers should recognize that we work for our students and therefore need

to adapt to our students’ needs in order to ensure their success. We need to

dismantle the power structure that begins with the belief that we must dominate

our classroom and that all students, regardless of background or learning style,

must assimilate to “our” teaching environment and “fit in” to the larger group.

Furthermore, teachers must acknowledge the culture of power that reverberates

among the school walls and deconstruct it so that all students can critically analyze

this culture and know that its benefits are accessible to more than just the dominant

class. The goal of effective teaching is to make meaningful connections with our

students. However, in order to do so, we must acknowledge our power, share it, and

be humble enough to take advice and ask for help from our students and those who

can truly help with effectively teaching our Black students. Delpit, (1988) says,

“Both sides need to be able to listen, and I contend that it is those with the most

power, those in the majority, who must take the greater responsibility for initiating

this process. To do so takes a very special kind of listening, listening that requires

not only open eyes and ears, but open hearts and minds.”

Listening is the most difficult skill to learn and the most important to have.

African Proverb

As teachers, we strive to make our students better individuals, but what

about ourselves? When did we stop listening to what we tell our students? Teaching

is still often viewed as a recipe of mechanical instruction. There is no space for

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feeling, much less spirituality. But what happened to love? The goal of teaching is to

develop humanity, for it is the only profession that has the power to change our

society through education for our future generations. Teachers need to learn to

listen again, and to step back from the mechanics of teaching, toward the humanity

of our profession. Delpit helps in this transition by stating specific guidelines for

helping to listen to each other: “We must keep the perspectives that people are

experts in their own lives. There are certainly aspects of the outside world of which

they may not be aware, but they can be the only authentic chroniclers of their own

experience. We must not be too quick to deny their interpretations, or accuse them

of “false consciousness.” According to Delpit we must believe that people are

rational beings, and therefore, always act rationally. We may not understand their

rationales, but that in no way denies the existence of these rationales or reduces our

responsibility to attempt to apprehend them. Teachers are able to teach students

successfully by ensuring that their students learn that which is most meaningful to

them. We all have an obligation to challenge ourselves continually in the interest of

the improvement of our students. We must achieve standards without using the

iron fist approach, and we must be careful that the abuse of power and domination

does not continue to be reproduced in the classroom.

Inquiry of Assumptions: Asking the right questions

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 (NKJV)

Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-‐depth understanding of the

world and allowing for perception of social contradictions. It is a process of

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disrupting our knowledge base, our beliefs and many of our assumptions. It is an

unlearning and relearning of our views of the world and the views of others. For

teachers to move toward a process of transformation through critical consciousness,

we must be vulnerable enough to rupture all that we have “known” to make room

for other knowledges. The danger in teaching is accepting everything we have

learned as fact and then, without interrogating it, teaching “it” to our students, thus

perpetuating false information. Teachers must seek for “truths.” We do that by

beginning to ask critical questions.

Critiquing knowledge

No one has a monopoly over knowledge. No matter how much knowledge

teachers have acquired in teacher education courses, there is always still so much to

learn and, more importantly, unlearn. Teachers must begin by critiquing their own

knowledge and asking questions of themselves such as: Why do I do the things I do?

What are my true beliefs? Where did I learn that? How do those beliefs influence my

teaching? How do those perceptions impact the students in my class? Where can I

learn more? Critical consciousness also includes taking action against the oppressive

elements in one’s life that become illuminated through asking questions, by

receiving a new understanding. When teachers begin to question their own “reality,”

the process of identity, self-‐awareness and ultimately transformation takes place.

Teachers begin to unveil the roots of inequality that may be present in the

knowledge that was taught to them, that they now reproduce through their

pedagogy, either consciously or unconsciously. With this unveiling, there is an

impulse to stand back from what has been learned throughout life and critique that

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knowledge in search of meaning and significance,55 not only for one’s self but for

their students.

As a short broom is being used to clean the bathroom, it also gets cleaned Akan of Ghana Proverbs

The African proverb above is about humility in our claims to know, and

recognition of the limits of our own knowing (Dei, 2012). Teachers require humility

in this process of critiquing knowledge if they are to be effective in disrupting their

knowledge base. No one has the entire repository of knowledge. Hence, through the

act of teaching others, the teacher must be receptive to learning as well. This allows

the teacher to learn through the learner, which in turn influences the teacher. The

proverb teaches about mutual benefits in the spirit of reciprocity and reciprocal

relationship. I must emphasize here that the teacher must be open to learn from all

learners. Many times the teacher looks for ideas from the top students and can

often be observed in dialogue with the high academic performers, while silencing or

dismissing the lower academic students. When teachers recognize that all students

have something important to contribute to the class and to the teacher’s

professional development, this recognition helps to create equity and a positive

environment. The learning process is a collective journey of the teacher and all

students. The teacher’s humility makes room for diverse students to feel welcome

in approaching the teacher with their suggestions of how to make the class more

inclusive, as well as to take part in the success of their learning. Teachers must

recognize that they are not all knowing and that students can teach them as part of a

55Thorton, B. (2006). Critical consciousness and liberal education. In B. Watson, Civic education and culture.

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collective learning undertaking (Dei, 2012). Knowledge creation must be accorded

to all students, so they can become co-‐producers of knowledge in the classroom. Co-‐

creation of knowledge dismantles the presence of domination inherent in a teacher-‐

centered classroom. Dei goes on to write:

This allows for an appreciation that learning has no limits and that we all continually learn

from each other daily. Teaching and learning are processes of self-‐discovery of knowledge

for both teacher and the learner. The classroom teacher can engage students as part of

classroom instruction to empower students and build in them a sense of power to know and

to produce their own knowledge which others can learn from. Sometimes we may not

recognize how much others have impacted upon our own knowledge base until we realize

that learning is a collective undertaking and every social practice continues the seeds of

knowledge that is shared and can be impacted upon multiple bodies in the learning and

educational process. There is a causation for every human action, and teachers must

understand that nothing exists in isolation or is mutually exclusive from everything else

around them.

Questioning Reality

A teacher’s beliefs and perception of people, whether real or imagined, plays

a dominant role in why, how and what is taught in the classroom. With the rise and

saturation of technology in our society and recently in our schools, it is impossible

to be untouched by stereotypes of groups of people. Stuart Hall (2005), a cultural

theorist and sociologist, states that the media plays a significant role in how people

see and understand the world. Many media images today give a false understanding

of the world in which we live. Furthermore, the presented world’s “view” is often

the interpretation of the dominant group that holds power and strongly influences

our schooling institutions and curriculum. Living in a White supremacist society

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and being inundated with media images, coupled with learning from a Eurocentric

curriculum, has shaped the way many of us see the world. As stated earlier, when

teachers have been taught to see racialized students as “the Other,” this perception

plays out in the interactions between colleagues, as well as between the student and

teacher. One cannot analyze power and question assumptions without questioning

the effects of colonialism, oppression and hierarchies of race in our schools. To

disrupt our assumptions the teacher must ask: What kind of images of Black people

are ‘we’ (teachers) presented with? What have I been taught in school, teacher

education courses and in the school that I work in? How are racialized students

represented in my school? Representation determines whether an image is the

depiction of something accurate or a distorted reflection. Hall says, “Today,

representation has a much more active role and communication is more complex in

how it is received.” Teachers must understand the complex ways that meaning can

shift among various groups of people. However, in schooling, images of certain

groups of people, such as Black students, have become so consistent to the point

that they almost appear permanent. Unfortunately, teachers rarely question the

images that are presented to them of Black and other racialized students; therefore

they unconsciously receive representations as being true or normal and those

distorted beliefs impact they way the teacher treats Black students in the class.

When teachers begin to ask questions about representations and

stereotypes, their own learning is disrupted. They become educated about various

interpretations of “the Other” and the mutual responsibilities of all learners in the

classroom to contribute to meaning-‐making of ideas and knowledge. Hall states that

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“ideas matter” and hence, through intellectual work, teachers can disrupt the status

quo of a White supremacist schooling institution. Teachers begin to explore how

images produce knowledge about the world and the diverse students in their

classroom. They ask the questions, what knowledge is really produced as

‘dominant’ and to whose benefit? As teachers open themselves to learn more about

representation and question their assumptions, they begin to view and receive ideas

differently. Ideally, they no longer teach and learn as passive consumers of images,

allowing their assumptions to guide their teaching, but rather have an awareness of

the “knowledges” that exist and a willingness to incorporate these knowledges in

their teaching, to the benefit of all their students.

In this chapter, I discussed how the teacher’s ability to self reflect, analyze

power and ask the right questions is crucial on their journey to developing critical

consciousness toward transformation. Asking critical questions becomes a

byproduct of developing a critical consciousness. In critical consciousness, one of

the central elements is questioning one’s assumptions. Teachers begin to critically

think about how their assumptions impact their pedagogy. Using an anti-‐racist

approach, they question their knowledge base, their reality, and their perspectives

of “the Other” in order to create a more equitable classroom. Educator Enid Lee

believes that a multicultural or anti-‐racist education is simply a perspective. She

states, “It’s a point of view that cuts across all subject areas, and addresses the

histories and experiences of people who have been left out of the curriculum.” She

believes it is a way for us to understand why things are the way they are in terms of

power and equality. When she speaks of anti-‐racist education she is talking about

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equipping students with the tools needed to combat ethnic discrimination and

racism, and to build a society where all people are equal.56 In the next chapter, I will

look at critical consciousness in the context of transformation.

56 Lee. E. (2007). Taking multicultural, anti-‐racist education seriously in rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice (Vol. 1).

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CHAPTER 5. Data Findings – 2: Major Themes

Transformation—The spiritual connection

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:36-‐40(NIV) INTRODUCTION: Unifying the “whole self” in teaching.

In this chapter, I identify the major themes of my research and begin by

arguing that in order to work toward developing critical consciousness, teachers

must be open to spiritual transformation. Transformation is a marked change in

character, encouraging one’s own growth and awareness, usually for the better.57 As

illustrated in my thesis, several aspects contribute to a teacher’s transformation:

disruption of a teacher’s core belief system, inquiry of epistemologies, community

connectedness, responsibility and accountability to all students, acknowledgment,

embrace and implementation of diverse knowledge(s) and the interrogation of

power. However, in the context of teacher education, transformation must take into

account the practical aspects of engaging diverse students. Shulman (1987) notes

that the forms of transformation also include:

1. Preparation

2. Representation of ideas

3. Instructional selection of methods

4. Adaptation

5. Tailoring adaptations for individual students

57 The transformation of education, FGB.. pcrest3.com

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According to Shulman (1987), the teacher’s goal is to transform understanding,

performance skills and desired attitudes or values into pedagogical representations

and actions so that the unskilled can become adept. Throughout this thesis,

however, I argue that in order to reach this goal the teacher must first go through a

personal transformation. To clarify, this transformation itself will not automatically

create good teaching; rather, through transformation, a teacher’s desire to master

the skills needed to bring about better teaching practices for a broader range of

students will grow. In other words, transformation occurs when teachers come into

critical consciousness, which in turn has the ability to impact a teacher’s pedagogy

and effectiveness in the classroom.

However, there also exists a spiritual element that undergirds this process of

transformation. As previously mentioned, “the essence of spirituality is the search

to know our real self, to discover the true nature of consciousness.” How spirituality

is being taken up in the context of teacher development is challenging the notion of

“teaching [as] a performance.” Teaching is often seen as an act or performance

(McDonough, 2009; Shulman, 1987), with a prevalent view that one must reason

through teaching (teaching as thinking, teaching as planning), thus encouraging

teachers to disconnect their true selves from their work. The research of teaching

practice is heavily unbalanced to focus on the explicitness of it, ignoring or

dishonouring the spirit and the sense of unity of mind, body and soul that is

necessary to be effective in connecting with our students. In advocating for

spirituality in teacher development I am advocating for “teaching as feeling.” To

know our students we must first know our real selves. hooks states that we are not

103

only teachers in the classroom, we are always teachers, so to honour ourselves we

must be true to our work and to our students. hooks described teaching as “a

catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged.”58 Exploration of the

spiritual dimension of critical consciousness in contemporary education aims to be

as inclusive as possible. When teachers allow spirituality to govern the process of

returning to their “inner self” they become engaged in the pursuit of self-‐

development, united by a common concern for the integrity of education in our

Ontario schools. A spiritual orientation enables teachers to seek a deeper personal

dimension. As the above quote states, the greatest commandment of any human

being is to love with mind, body and soul. Whether or not one believes in God, the

instruction to unite one’s whole self is emphasized throughout the research (Dei,

2000; Fanon, 1967; hooks, 1988; Ladson-‐Billings, 1994). As teachers, we must

engage all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls, to reach the pinnacle of

academic success with our Black students. This reconciliation of the true self is

necessary to successfully achieve transformation and approach teaching in

unconventional ways.

Spirituality as an entry point to critical consciousness

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. Galatians 5:22 (ESV)

Much research exists on spirituality in the educational realm (Dei, 2000;

hooks, 2003; Wright, 2000) due to the growing importance of and resurgent interest

in spirituality. The widespread acceptance of spiritual perspectives in mainstream

58hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge, p. 11.

104

society has certainly had repercussions for educational pedagogy and practice.

Although research suggests that spirituality might improve the schooling experience

for youth, there is a reluctance to engage with spirituality as a viable pedagogical

tool. This hesitance is directly related to both the pervasiveness of “individualism”

in Western belief systems and the mainstream’s refusal to interrogate educational

paradigms that glorify logical thought. These philosophical paradigms sustain false

dichotomies that demarcate spiritual knowledges as irrational in relation to sensible

science-‐based knowledges.59 Further, the research of teaching practice is heavily

unbalanced to focus on the explicitness of teaching, overlooking the implicitness of

spirituality that is described as mysterious and elusive. Regardless, we can’t begin

to talk about spirituality in education until we talk about what it means to be

spiritual. We must thus begin with interrogating how we interpret and understand

the concept of spirituality.

Spirituality is quite distinct from organized religion. Definitions of

spirituality are varied, as can be observed in several sacred texts or scriptures as

applied throughout this thesis. To this end, I examine spirituality’s appropriateness

and potential in educational contexts. In addressing the possibilities of a spiritual

orientation toward education, I am particularly engaged with the ways in which

spirituality can be applied to teacher transformation in a broad sense, and how the

body, mind and soul are implicated for teachers throughout education. How do

teachers become liberated by spirituality? By providing multiple strategies for

developing critical consciousness, it is my hope that the discussion in this chapter 59Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Removing the margins: The challenges and possibilities of inclusive schooling. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press

105

will encourage teachers to rethink spirituality within the culture of teacher

development. In Nurturing the Spirit in Non-‐Sectarian Classrooms, Aline Wolf helps

us to understand the relevance of spirituality by stating:

…the essence of spirituality is difficult to comprehend because it cannot be

perceived by our physical senses or proven by our intellectual powers. We

use our physical senses to experience the physical world and our mental

powers to access ideas, but spirituality eludes these faculties. While it

manifests itself in a person’s mental and physical activities, the spirit itself

cannot be seen, heard, touched, analyzed or proven. Yet from the dawn of

civilization, some form of spirituality has been inherent in every culture that

is known. (Wolf, 1996, p. 20)

Spirituality is universal, and therefore can be defined as inclusive by its

ability to cut across most cultures, and perspectives such as: Creator/Mother earth,

connections of self and group, sense of meaning and purpose of existence. Members

of the Summit on Spirituality (1995) assert that spirituality is a capacity both innate

and unique to all people regardless of religious affiliations or spiritual leaning.60

hooks writes about the community element of spirituality and its power to make us

seek to be in community with those who differ from us. Nonetheless, I observed that

teachers college and other educational institutions continue be places of

disconnection and alienation. Many students come to schools already feeling a

profound sense of disconnection which fosters separation between body and soul 60Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Removing the margins: The challenges and possibilities of inclusive schooling. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press

106

for both students and teachers. The dehumanizing nature of survival is damaging to

students who cannot relate to the fashion that has dominated education for

centuries. Schooling that does not honor the needs of the spirit simply intensifies

one’s sense of being lost, of being unable to connect. It is important at this point to

share my personal spiritual journey as a teacher in an environment that is averse to

spirituality or where colleagues distance themselves from you if they believe you

are “too spiritual.” I grew up in a very religious household and believed that religion

and spirituality were synonymous. However, it was not until I entered graduate

school—having already distanced myself from dogmatic religion—that I embraced

spirituality from a different and new perspective, allowing its presence to seep into

all areas of my life. In the context of teaching, my ineffectiveness with certain

students, coupled with my spirituality, led me to self-‐actualization. This process

opened me up to learn and grow, and to want to teach better. hooks (2003) testifies

to the meaning of spiritual practice that sustains and nurtures progressive teaching

and politics, and enhances the struggle for liberation.

Dei and a group of other scholars write about spirituality and classroom

teaching in their book, Removing the Margins. They understand spirituality to be a

naturally occurring aspect and function of life, rather than a lifestyle. As noted by

Dei et al. (2000), spirituality is what moves us in our everyday lives. It is the engine

that fires our search for knowledge, love, meaning, hope and transcendence; it is the

wellspring of human emotion. Spirituality is also our creative center, the basis for

morality, and ultimately, that which allows us to grow as human beings (p. 71).

107

It is vital to rethink the concept of critical consciousness and ground it in

spirituality, taking it out of the dominant realm where it is only accessible to a few

teachers and shunned by others. Spirituality is an invitation to develop critical

consciousness, which embraces the openness of self and the calling toward the

understanding of others. If it is our job as teachers to understand the structures of

subject matter as well as our students’ needs, then it must also be a requirement

that in education, as with any other changing sector, we understand how to bring

about the success of our students, making any needed sacrifices to do so.

108

Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusion

INTRODUCTION: Shifting the Course

Throughout this thesis, I have attempted to redefine the concept of critical

consciousness in the context of teacher education and argue for its centrality within

a classroom teacher’s pedagogy while grounding it in spirituality and pointing to

how it impacts the academic success of Black children. At the same time, I have

interwoven my own experiences, for it is difficult to understand the teacher’s

journey of critical consciousness without describing my own. The journey of critical

consciousness is real to me because of my own challenges as a Black teacher

teaching Black students. In this final chapter, I will address two simple ideas:

classroom teachers’ responsibility to bring about real change and their ability to

carry it out.

Teachers remain in a unique position in the educational arena whereby they

can move Black and other racialized students toward success. Given the myriad of

postcolonial challenges facing young people today such as: cyber bullying and drugs,

education intellectuals must keep themselves abreast of the current direction of

educational changes. Teachers have a responsibility to adapt to popular educational

trends that will help design the future success of young people. Thus teachers must

use a variety of sources to listen to and really hear what students are saying. This

paper borrows from the philosophy and ideas of resistance of Freire and Fanon

using popular education methods as we rethink how Black youth can contribute to

designing their own futures in the areas of schooling and education. Furthermore, I

center the possibility of spirituality as a base structure of the critical consciousness

109

on which rests the achievability of transformation for both teachers and students. I

focus on spirituality as resistance to the dominant narrative of critical consciousness

and the disembodiment of teachers in the schooling context. In so doing, I also seek

to draw connections between the struggle of teacher development and critical

consciousness to highlight the challenge and promise of agency when working with

Black youth. The internal conflict of teachers, though masked by lack of knowledge

of diverse cultures and increased bureaucracy, is even more detrimental with

teachers competing with each other for statistics of success and for the purpose of

earning professional accolades in order to be promoted. With both internal and

external tensions and competing interests, the passion of many teachers needs to

shift from materialist vanity to a deeper spiritual calling for transparency and

transformation. As leaders, teachers must acknowledge the common enemy for the

failure of racialized students: a colonized system. We must interrogate the system

that has been set up to dehumanize and fail so many students. Again, the group that

suffers from this vicious, oppressive cycle the most is the very one that teachers are

hired to support, transform and liberate. However, without first decolonizing

ourselves, this mandate is unrealistic. The cycle of injustice and oppression of

hegemonic practices will continue unless a revolutionary change is made to stop the

system from further destroying the spirits of Black students.

Every race will have disagreements amongst themselves, but we must put aside our differences, and work together for the advancement of that race. Sandra Forsythe

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Implication for Teachers

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-‐control, and self-‐control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours

and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful. 2 Peter 1:5-‐8 (ESV)

A teacher’s broad liberal education (or limited conservative ignorance)

serves as a framework for teaching as well as learning; furthermore, it serves as a

facilitator for new understanding. The manner in which subject knowledge and

understanding is communicated by the teacher conveys to students a teacher’s

beliefs and biases. The investigations, deliberations and debates regarding what

teachers should know and know how to do have never been more active. Most of

the current reforms rest on the call for greater professionalization of teaching.

Implicit in all these reforms, however, are conceptions of teacher competence. The

emphasis on the integral relationships between teaching, the scholarly domains of

the liberal arts and the greater community makes clear that teacher education is the

responsibility of all persons, children, parents and community leaders, not just the

schools or departments of education. The concept of pedagogical reasoning places

emphasis upon the intellectual basis for teaching performance rather than on

behaviour alone. However, teacher education programs can no longer confine their

activity to theoretical and practical preparation without recognizing something

deeper.

An emphasis on spirituality and critical consciousness needs to permeate the

teacher preparation spaces. The focus should be on the teacher’s ability to reflect

on their teaching and evolve it, and to base their actions on premises that consider

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oppression and race, and uphold social justice. We all have an obligation to

challenge the standards of teachings in the interest of the improvement and reform

of our Black students, but we must avoid the creation of rigid religion. That is to say,

we must achieve standards without standardization (Shulman, 1987). We must be

careful that the technical standards do not continue to produce an overly technical

image of teaching: a scientific enterprise that has lost its soul. Shulman (1987, p. 14)

describes:

The serious problems in medicine and other health professions that arise

when doctors treat the disease rather than the person, or when the

professional or personal needs of the practitioner are permitted to take

precedence over the responsibilities to those being served.

The majority of research related to preparing teachers for diverse learners

takes place in the realm of higher education. What is needed is more research

focused on the practices of classroom teachers engaged in critical pedagogue

working with Black children—a new Dreamkeepers in an Ontario context. Many

teacher education programs and pedagogical theories like CRT have the goal of

raising students’ cultural awareness and also influencing practice. What then

happens to teachers who enter schools wanting to have conversations about

identity, power and equity, and who want to take on a critical education stance? The

connection between knowing and doing needs further exploration.

Finally, the majority of the research related to preparing teachers for diverse

learners is conducted by teacher education programs as self-‐studies and

practitioner inquiry. There are few studies on the beliefs and attitudes of teachers

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themselves or the teacher educators who prepare them for classrooms. Cochran-‐

Smith (1995) points out that there is often a difference between what we as

teachers, say, and what we do. She challenges us to examine our own assumptions,

listen for the ways we talk about “others” and take a close look at which

perspectives and knowledges we include in our classroom lessons. Teachers need

to “unflinchingly interrogate the explicit and implicit images of their pedagogy and

then work to alter our lessons; otherwise it is unlikely that we can help students to

do the same” (McDonough, 2009).

Expanding our Tools

In this thesis I attempt to answer: How can I “package” critical consciousness

in a specific context where teachers will want to apply it to their professional

development repertoire? What I have attempted to show throughout this thesis in

using various proverbs is the broad range of indigenous knowledges important to

Black youth undergirded with the sacred texts of various spiritual cultures. African

proverbs offer wisdom and poetry in just one sentence. I felt it was important to

implement proverbs throughout my thesis because proverbs play an important part

in African cultures all across the continent. The beauty of proverbs is the

universality of their meaning—everyone can relate to them in some way, on some

level. Yet they are also uniquely African and help us gain an insight into African

culture. This is a small example of how teachers can use aspects of students’

cultures to create meaning in their learning. Acknowledging indigenous knowledges

helps create an inclusive classroom and enables students to be co-‐creators of

knowledge and experts in their own lives.

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Needed change cannot occur without risk, however. The current incomplete

and trivial definitions of teaching held by the policy community comprise a far

greater risk to good education than does a more serious attempt to formulate a

process for critical consciousness. Spirituality presents a pathway to enter into

pedagogical excellence that should become the basis for new reforms. A proper

understanding and sincere acceptance of critical consciousness undergirded with

spirituality, along with the complexities of the pedagogical process, will make the

emergence of “good teaching” much more likely for all students (Shulman, 1987, p.

20).

CONCLUSION

What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help him to learn. African proverb

Armed with humility, we as teachers must be courageous enough to become

students once again and relearn what we are expected to teach. This relearning will

allow us to be aware of what it means for our diverse students to be centered in

their learning and to critically examine how Black students are represented in the

curriculum content, in the classroom and in our own minds. I have attempted to

ensure that in our role as educators we open ourselves to rich dialogue and create

spaces of change, which necessitates the examination of multiple contexts and the

inclusion of multiple voices. Therefore, it is increasingly important to have teachers

explore their personal attitudes and understanding of the ways in which their racial

ascription and social positioning inform their actual practices and interactions with

Black students (Solomon & Portelli, 2005). I argue that until we do something

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radical to equalize the playing field for Black learners and demand a transformed

schooling system, which starts with decolonization, we cannot praise ourselves for

being a school board that strives for equity, racial diversity and social justice. If we

talk about racial equality, but don’t take action to implement it, all our dialogue is in

vain and the attempts to change become a farce, ultimately adding to the psychiatry

or racism that Fanon describes.

Fanon speaks of a “new humanism;” accordingly, I view critical

consciousness as a new way of teaching for educators and its impact on Black

students, a subversive discourse that I hope will be further explored. As teachers,

we must encourage critical thinking not just for our students, but also for ourselves.

We must also address and deconstruct racism in our schools and in society. For the

sake of all the students who are schooled in our Canadian education system, I hope

that this notion of a new and widespread critical consciousness is a practice to

which all teachers will pledge allegiance for the betterment of all students and for a

more equitable future.

Whether power causes injustice or injustice causes power it does not matter, power needs to be in the hands of the correct people. (Fanon, 1967)

What empowers the teacher intellectually, socially, politically and

emotionally? Themes of agency and power are seldom addressed in the classroom,

a space that rarely resembles the community of the learners. This research calls for

further studies in two different arenas: one in the realm of teacher education and

the other in gauging the outcome of the actions of classroom teachers. As teachers

college programs have recently extended to two year programs, it is my hope that

115

teacher educators will engage teacher candidates in critical awareness in addition to

teaching inclusive schooling and interrogating the status quo. Further research is

also needed to measure the actions taking place in the classroom and to understand

the supports that all teachers require to continue this crucial journey of critical

consciousness and transformation. This journey of teacher transformation is

endless and this paper is just a stepping-‐stone to the discussion of critical

consciousness revolving around the integration and centering of spirituality within

schooling toward the academic success of Black and other racialized students. When

teachers can unlock their critical consciousness and are open to learning, I assure

you that no child will be left behind because every teacher will be moving forward.

The questions that further this analysis include: How do we as teachers allow

ourselves to be vulnerable when there is a risk of students and colleagues preying

on our weaknesses? How do we move the culture of dominant thinking of a large

majority of European female teachers toward a more cultural perspective so that

critical consciousness can take root in the teacher profession? How do we navigate

and work within a school system and society that is averse to discussions of

spirituality?

In the meantime, I will continue my personal journey of decolonization. It is

difficult but necessary journey, and also a spiritual one. I am thankful for the higher

education that has allowed thought-‐provoking professors to mentor me and

introduce me to theorists like Fanon and Freire, who have all been the catalyst to

this journey of hope, change and transformation. I know that as a parent, as a

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teacher and as an activist I have begun to receive liberation for myself and for all the

Black students who make my work so extremely important!

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