One of the most important criteria I have for professional development programs is whether or not the facilitators actually practice the sort of pedagogy/andragogy they promote. Many of us teachers have attended (been subjected to?) professional development where the leaders simply lecture or present a PowerPoint. I wish I could say I was exaggerating. I'm not. I don't need anyone to read me a lecture or recite from slides, regardless how brilliant the ideas. I want to experience the ways successful teachers create classroom climate. I want to observe their philosophies in action and to experience the sort of lessons the experts advocate (Note to self: I need to live up to this standard, too!).
If today, the first day of the UMOJA Summer Learning Institute (SLI), is any indication of what to expect, I will be heartily pleased. Today's program manifested deliberate intention on the part of the organizers to demonstrate the sort of classroom culture and pedagogy/andragogy they expect us to create and deliver next semester.
I wrote yesterday about the two texts we were to read in advance of the SLI: bell hook's Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom and Joy DeGruy's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. The opening activities did not directly refer to particular pages or passages of either book. The program did, however, hit the same content, but from a different angle. More importantly, the organizers created the conditions for us to experience the kind of teaching practices they want us to learn from our readings.
A significant section of DeGruy's book outlines the devastating experience and ongoing effects of the African Holocaust. Her words provide an competent outline of the historical facts, a solid primer on the legacy of American-style slavery and the abuse suffered by kidnapped Africans.
