Anti-Racist Teaching Practices and Learning Strategies

By Warren Chalklen and Gcobani Qambela

Building anti-racist, anti-oppressive and decolonized teaching and learning practices through transforming knowledge, lesson preparation, classroom management, teaching strategies and assessment.

 

Why Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Practices? Why Now?

"In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist" - Angela Davis

"Justice is what love looks like in public" - Cornel West

 

This workbook is a tool of love and justice. We compiled this text to honor the lives of those before us, those with us, and those to come who continue to struggle for a dignity-centered world. The workbook is deeply imbued in our own research, teaching experiences and learning strategies developed over two decades between us. The reader is presented with theories, practices and personal narratives that reveal our own embodiments and commitments to an anti-racist and love ethic in education. We do this to encourage deep reflection through various exercises, theory and lived realities.

 

Anti-racism, as opposed to non-racism, is measured by the extent to which the presence of racism is challenged or maintained. We developed this workbook for those who have a basic understanding of anti-racism and for those who have an acute sense of their practice in challenging racism. It is designed to equip you with skills to think through an anti-racist lens, practice from an equitable foundation and build socially just relationships. This workbook is useful to think about and practice teaching that dismantles the systems that degrade all human beings.

 

This work is not original. The struggle of Black, Indigenous, People of Color and White activists for justice has laid the foundation for all anti-oppressive work. This workbook is a conduit for their brilliance and encourages every reader to seek and read the original texts mentioned throughout this book. However, while the workbook builds on this genealogy of anti-racist and anti-oppressive work globally, we do hope to offer new insights and contemporary examples of everyday practices and strategies for anti-racism and anti-oppression in your spaces.

 

We drew from a generous and wide-ranging body of work and thinking. We are informed by scholars, activists, students and various other knowledge producers in formalized institutional settings and outside mainstream learning institutions. Thinkers such as Danai Mupotsa (Mupotsa, 2017), bell hooks (hooks, 1994) and Pumla Gqola (Gqola, 2018) among others remind us that pedagogy doesn't only exist in the ivory towers of the academy, but rather that pedagogy is everywhere. Pedagogy is in public transport conversations, popular cultures and many other social spheres of society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warren Chalklen
• Release date: Jun 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201434526

Book preview

Anti-Racist Teaching Practices and Learning Strategies Workbook

Building anti-racist, anti-oppressive and decolonized teaching and learning practices through transforming knowledge, lesson preparation, classroom management, teaching strategies and assessment.

First Edition

By Warren Chalklen, PhD & Gcobani Qambela, PhD

Copyright © 2021 by Warren Chalklen and Gcobani Qambela. This document, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Warren Chalklen or Gcobani Qambela.

Anti-Racist Teaching Practices and Learning Strategies by Warren Chalklen & Gcobani Qambela is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 image003 image005 image007 image009

Dr. Warren Chalklen

[e-mail]

www.warrenchalklen.com

Join an anti-racist educational email list here or scan the code below:

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Dr. Gcobani Qambela

[e-mail]

University of Johannesburg: https://www.uj.ac.za/contact/Pages/Gcobani-Qambela.aspx

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, Oxford University: https://torch.web.ox.ac.uk/people/Dr.-gcobani-qambela

Cover by Khutso Dithejane ( [e-mail])

Other books in the series:

What Does It Mean To Be Anti-Racist? A Workbook

Accessibility

This book contains video transcriptions and image descriptions of all the videos and images

used throughout the text. These resources are provided to assist those who encounter difficulties in using the media contained in this work. The transcriptions and descriptions appear in the same order that they appear within the workbook. You can access them here.

Table of Contents

Why Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Practices? Why Now?

Special Thanks

Warren’s Story and Limitations

Gcobani’s Story, Background and Context

Chapter 1 - Education as Reproduction or Education as Liberation?

Chapter 2 - Self, Relationship, School and Community Analysis

Chapter 3 - Content Knowledge

Chapter 4 - Lesson Preparation

Chapter 5: Virtual and In-Person Classroom Management

Chapter 6: Teaching Strategies

Chapter 7 - Assessment

Conclusion

Further Resources

References

Why Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Practices? Why Now?

In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist - Angela Davis

Justice is what love looks like in public - Cornel West

This workbook is a tool of love and justice. We compiled this text to honor the lives of those before us, those with us, and those to come who continue to struggle for a dignity-centered world. The workbook is deeply imbued in our own research, teaching experiences and learning strategies developed over two decades between us. The reader is presented with theories, practices and personal narratives that reveal our own embodiments and commitments to an anti-racist and love ethic in education. We do this to encourage deep reflection through various exercises, theory and lived realities.

Anti-racism, as opposed to non-racism, is measured by the extent to which the presence of racism is challenged or maintained. We developed this workbook for those who have a basic understanding of anti-racism and for those who have an acute sense of their practice in challenging racism. It is designed to equip you with skills to think through an anti-racist lens, practice from an equitable foundation and build socially just relationships. This workbook is useful to think about and practice teaching that dismantles the systems that degrade all human beings.

This work is not original. The struggle of Black, Indigenous, People of Color and White activists for justice has laid the foundation for all anti-oppressive work. This workbook is a conduit for their brilliance and encourages every reader to seek and read the original texts mentioned throughout this book. However, while the workbook builds on this genealogy of anti-racist and anti-oppressive work globally, we do hope to offer new insights and contemporary examples of everyday practices and strategies for anti-racism and anti-oppression in your spaces.

We drew from a generous and wide-ranging body of work and thinking. We are informed by scholars, activists, students and various other knowledge producers in formalized institutional settings and outside mainstream learning institutions. Thinkers such as Danai Mupotsa (Mupotsa, 2017), bell hooks (hooks, 1994) and Pumla Gqola (Gqola, 2018) among others remind us that pedagogy doesn't only exist in the ivory towers of the academy, but rather that pedagogy is everywhere. Pedagogy is in public transport conversations, popular cultures and many other social spheres of society.

Special Thanks

Our deepest gratitude goes to those who continue to shape our posture towards justice. Thank you to Bhekuyise Zungu, Dr. Norvella Carter, Stephanie Leichtle, Christiana Sherill, Moshe Rachidi, Khutso Dithejane, Kgomotsto Lebakeng, Russell Chalklen, Dr. Marcus Ingram and Dr. Marcelle Mentor and our valued reviewers for pouring your energy and experiences into this text. We acknowledge Kopano Ratele’s book, The World Looks Like This From Here: Thoughts on African Psychology. The cover for which inspired our own book cover. A special thank you to Nikki Milnes for transcribing the audio descriptions and enhancing the accessibility of this work. We would like to thank our students, former teachers and mentors who have variously strengthened our theoretical grounding, narratives and knowledge. To those whom we