National PAR: Cohort 1
What is PAR?
For more information on participatory action research (PAR) as a methodology, please click here
Study Context & Design
The 1st cohort (following the pilot cohort) included Black teachers from 6 different cities: Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis, Bay Area, Boston, and the Twin Cities. We kicked off our time together with an 8-week summer institute during which we engaged in collaborative learning about the research process, as well as the teacher-researcher’s specific city contexts, followed by the design and implementation of our PAR study.
Credit: https://ncte.org/blog/2018/01/collaborative-learning-democratic-practice-history/
To explore these ideas and others, the team crafted the following research questions:
What factors and systems of support are needed to retain and sustain Black educators in K-12 schools
How do Black educators define and understand these factors and systems of support?
How do Black educators situate themselves within a larger education and racial justice movements seeking to transform schools?
How do Black teachers understand and experience the reproduction of racial capitalism in schools?
How do Black educators describe the impact of the exploitation of their labor on their experiences in the profession?
How do administrators (of any racial/ethnic background) understand the reproduction of racial capitalism in schools?
1.
What factors and systems of support are needed to retain and sustain Black educators in K-12 schools?
- How do Black educators define and understand these factors and systems of support?
Our Findings
Key Finding #1: Black teachers make invaluable and unique contributions.
They:
- Utilize strengths-based, rather than deficit-based, pedagogies
- Take intentional approaches to building community, both inside and outside the classroom
- Protect, affirm, and uplift the entire personhood of their students
- “I’m not going to let you get away with whatever you want, but I do. I am protective over you.”
– Bay Area Black teacher
- “I’m not going to let you get away with whatever you want, but I do. I am protective over you.”
- “I can’t lift up the culture of one student without lifting up the culture of all students, and just protecting their voice.” – Memphis Black teacher
Credit:
Key Finding #2: Black teachers face systemic mistreatment.
They endure:
- Exploitation of their labor through financial, social, and emotional undercompensation
- Anti-blackness and other, intersecting systems of oppression that affect themselves and their students
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For example, one teacher shared:
“they come to you as little seedlings, and you got to pull the weeds, you got to tend to it, you got to nurture, you got to scrutinize and watch and be vigilant. And I guess a classroom’s like my garden, that I get to tend to. And oh, it’s going to make me start crying, because I just love it so much and it brings me so much joy watching the young people grow, and the love. And that’s the thing I’m trying to tell these mean teachers, these teachers who aren’t invested in their kids, and punishers, and just neglectful of their responsibilities, they’re missing out. They’re missing out on all this reciprocal love, all the love that you get to pour into them, they get to pour it to you back.”
Key Finding #3: School administrators can improve or exacerbate Black educators' experience
- Positive Impacts of Administrators
- Provide supports such as offering leadership opportunities and equitable pay
- “Well, I mean just our principal, she gives us the freedom to create stuff like whatever we want. If we tell her we want something, you got it. She listens to us. Her door is always open. I could call this lady on the phone right now. I could text message her on the phone right now, she’s going to get right back to me. And also, she is a Black woman, so she just makes sure that our voices are heard, and she also makes sure that our Black children feel heard and that they’re taken care of. Any programs we want to have, we can put it on. We can tell her, “Principal X- Hey, I want to do this thing.” She’s going to say, “Go ahead. Yep. How much money do you need? When are you want to do it?””
- Provide supports such as offering leadership opportunities and equitable pay
- Negative Impacts of Administrators
- Exacerbate challenges Black educators face by: pushing them out of the classroom, not supporting their efforts to address student behavior, and creating hostile work environments
Study participants also spoke of this hard work going unacknowledged and underappreciated and the toll that takes on them. They also spoke of the burden of both systemic and interpersonal racism and the additional labor they take on to shield their students from racial harm and trauma in schools. Finally, the importance of and continued need for affinity spaces arose as a theme to offer opportunities to support Black teachers’ well being and sustain them in the profession. We will add much more content from our findings in the coming weeks!
Key Finding #4: Black teachers must advocate for and take care of one another on both the systemic and interpersonal levels.
They need:
- Affinity spaces where they can self and collective care
- Tools and supports to navigate the traumas they face on the job
- Community to disrupt feelings of isolation
- “Also, free therapy, there needs to be more mental health services provided. Teachers are very often triggered in their own PTSD or trauma, working in classrooms or taking on second-hand trauma from the students, especially if you’re working in marginalized communities. And so, more self-care and therapy services… And I would also say allowing teachers to take a sabbatical or take leaves of absences and not have to plan them a year in advance because that’s really unrealistic. So allowing for teachers to have space to grow and learn and bring that knowledge back to their school community. ”
Taking Action!
We’re currently in our action phase. The teacher-researchers identified the creation and support of existing affinity spaces for Black teachers as an essential need in order to sustain and support Black teachers within the profession. Our cohort is beginning to develop a toolkit that educators can use to host affinity-based events, advocate for policy, and seek out or build community in their own contexts. Once it’s ready, we will distribute the toolkit through our networks and it will also be available on our microsite so that Black teachers can easily access it along with other resources. We have also begun power mapping to advance our understanding of the education landscape and opportunities for collaboration among education networks and allies.
Based on the findings, Cohort 1 teacher-researchers identified the creation of affinity spaces as essential to sustaining and supporting Black teachers within the profession. As such, they developed a toolkit resource that educators can use to host affinity-based events, advocate for policy, and seek out or build community in their own local contexts.
Why Create an Affinity Space Toolkit?
- Lack & Importance of Black Spaces Outside of anti-Black Institutions for Teachers
- Space for Celebration & Joy
- Space for Healing and Recovery
- Space to Receive Collective Wisdom
- Space for Freedom Dreaming, Solidarity, and Advocacy
Study participants also spoke of this hard work going unacknowledged and underappreciated and the toll that takes on them. They also spoke of the burden of both systemic and interpersonal racism and the additional labor they take on to shield their students from racial harm and trauma in schools. Finally, the importance of and continued need for affinity spaces arose as a theme to offer opportunities to support Black teachers’ well being and sustain them in the profession. We will add much more content from our findings in the coming weeks!
While many affinity groups exist for Black teachers and other teachers of color, not everyone has equal access to them for various reasons including a lack of awareness or their zip code. We believe magic happens when Black teachers gather in solidarity outside “the white gaze.” Joy. Healing. Inspirational wisdom. Creative solutions to endemic problems. These spaces renew Black teachers and can ensure they keep blessing students and school communities with their gifts. As our research shows, the problems Black educators face are systemic. Affinity spaces can also serve as vessels for advocacy, where teachers can mobilize their collective power to realize a more just school, district, and/or educational system.