This curriculum was born of the need for hope and healing to be centered within the classroom. As more educators have begun to embrace social justice pedagogies in their classrooms, and as curriculum materials focused specifically on racism, bias, and injustice have become more widely available, students have the opportunity to learn about the ways that systems of power interlock to create and maintain injustice.
While the ability to name and understand systemic oppression is a prerequisite for being able to address it, we must also consider the emotional and spiritual burden this poses for those students for whom these important discussions extend far beyond just a lesson plan. If we are merely illuminating the myriad of ways that systems and institutions seek to harm, disenfranchise, and silence them without also providing the proper context and tools to combat them, then we are not setting our students up for success. And so it was in service of these students that the Teaching Resistance Curriculum came to fruition.
This curriculum guide was collaboratively developed by over 100 elementary, middle, high school, and post-secondary educators across the nation. Organized and led by Pedagogy of Resistance, this diverse group met virtually over the course of 14 weeks in the Spring of 2020, having had no way of predicting the social uprisings that will forever color our memories of that time period. Even still, the unfolding of events that Spring and their subsequent aftermath continue to illuminate the need for a focus on personal and collective resistance as a tool for dismantling systems of oppression and achieving liberation for all people.
NOTE: Pedagogy of Resistance is a Black- and woman-led organization that seeks to equitably provide teachers with the tools they need to best serve students. It is for this reason that this workshop and the Teaching Resistance Curriculum are offered to individual educators through a donation-based, pay what you can model. Due to the growing difficulty of sustaining this model in the current economy, each workshop is dependent upon an internal donation threshold to prevent its cancellation. It is our hope that the value added to your personal growth and your teaching practice will be well worth your contribution. Thank you for your support!
