Decolonizing Your Curriculum & Pedagogy

Do you recall why you decided to become a teacher? Most likely it was a desire to make a difference in the lives of children. As educators, we know the best way to accomplish that is to create spaces where students can discover their passion for learning and are inspired to positively impact the community around them.

In a perfect world, each student would experience that magic every year. Many of us work to create a sense of belonging for the entire class by focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But what if the work we do to prepare a diversified curriculum doesn’t include intentionally reducing or eliminating anti-oppressive content? Simply put, we fall short of creating a sense of belonging for each and every student. Some will learn with confidence, but there will be others who never know the feeling.

The road to decolonizing curriculum is long and winding but It starts with each teacher examining their own white perspective and how it shapes pedagogy. Without that hard work, becoming an effective antiracist educator is nearly impossible. And make no mistake, becoming an antiracist educator is a lifelong practice. On top of the reflective work is the development of one’s ability to spot colonized content and then be able to call in others when the topic needs to be addressed.

“What we need is to develop our resilience,” notes Gardy Guiteau, an accomplished educator and a co-facilitator of East Ed’s popular “Decolonizing Your Curriculum & Pedagogy” workshop. “There’s a lot of fear around giving and receiving feedback but how amazing would it be if, during a team meeting when discussing a student who is not adjusting well, colleagues were comfortable with raising the flag and highlighting the curriculum barriers to belonging? Let’s face it, the quality of education would be so much stronger.”

The two-session, virtual workshop gives attendees time to walk through the process of decolonizing content and actually practice doing it. “One of the exercises we do with participants takes a look at a lesson plan together and determine what might need to be taken apart, investigated, and repurposed to create an accurate account without blame and bias,” said Jenna Chandler-Ward, workshop co-facilitator and co-founder of Teaching While White. “Our hope is that institutions will give people the time to do this work consistently. It really needs to be prioritized if we ever want to truly honor the diversity of experience and achieve inclusive engagement.”

Registration is open for the winter 2023 offering of Decolonizing Your Curriculum & Pedagogy. For more information and to register, visit https://www.easted.org/decolonizing-your-curriculum-and-pedagogy