On Definitions and Language
[Children] don’t have the vocabulary to express what they see…
- James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers”
…young people learn through research about complex power relations, histories of struggle, and the consequences of oppression. They begin to re-vision and denaturalize the realities of their social worlds and then undertake forms of collective challenge based on the knowledge garnered through their critical inquiries.
- Cammarota and Fine, “Youth Participatory Action Research: A Pedagogy for Transformational Resistance”
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The selections above describe two markedly different ways of being politically conscious in America. And, in many ways, they are distant points in the development of a political consciousness. The first expresses how children, often children of color, recognize their surroundings without the linguistic arsenal–terms like “patriarchy” and “structural inequalities”–with which to analyze them. The second features informed, learned action.
This begs the questions: What bridges the two? What influence results in the type of activists Cammarota and Fine describe?
In the context of this course, the answer is culturally relevant education.
During the inaugural meeting of EDUC 245, I introduced myself—first, as Kaneesha—by saying that, for me, the course was the culmination of a certain journey. I’ve been involved with Ase Academy since I was a second-semester freshman, when I’d just decided that Civic House organizations just weren’t for me, and my responsibilities were limited to the morning hours: tutoring during Learning Center and brunch with my mentee(s) at 1920 Commons. Since then, I’ve taken steps to conflate my ideas about service with my education at Penn.
But, my brief introductions omitted years of experiences and self-education. This journey truly began in my own childhood when, much like Baldwin’s claims, I didn’t have the vocabulary to express what I saw or experienced as one of very few children of color in my majority Roman Catholic, Italian- and Irish-American, middle-class Long Island village. My education there was by no means culturally relevant but, by the time I was a fifth-grader, asking my (very uncomfortable) teacher questions about the systematic rape of enslaved black women, I’d learned what it meant to educate oneself.
Because of a lifetime love of literature, I define culturally relevant education through the lens of literary study. In other words, in order to develop a critical lens in children of color, educators must expose them to diverse “histories,” encourage a critical “vocabulary,” and allow students to apply both to their personal “narratives.”
To continue, Culturally Relevant Education…
- expands the definition of American literature and the English language
To me, this means not only celebrating the works of Edwidge Danticat alongside that of Ernest Hemingway, but also recognizing the strength of linguistic traditions like African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
- redefines the canon, but does not rest on token figures, and
In other words, limiting the study of Diasporic history to Martin Luther King, Jr., Marcus Garvey, and Nelson Mandela leaves much to be desired.
- is about recognizing your own narrative and its significance.
Students of color should recognize their stories as worthy of analysis.
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I conclude with more questions.
In keeping with my very literary perspective, I wonder about “culturally relevant” as a descriptor, and the implications of such a term. “Culturally relevant” qualifies traditional “education,” analyzing rather than ignoring power dynamics, engaging marginalized voices. What are the goals for such a movement?
Does, or can, “culturally relevant” education ever blend into “education”?
Until next time,
kaneesha cherelle parsard
