African-Centered Pedagogy: Developing Schools of Achievement for African American Children

CHAPTER FOUR. OVERVIEW OF THE PEDAGOGICAL THEORY

CHAPTER FOUR OVERVIEW OF THE PEDAGOGICAL THEORY In sum, there is a theoretical tradition, part of Western history, institutionalized in Western schooling, in which teaching/transmission is considered to be primary and prior to learning/internalizing culture. What is transmitted is assumed to be received in an unproblematic fashion , while processes of instruction and learning are assumed to be general and independent of what is to be learned. Let’s call this a functionalist theory and note that it offers explanations of how school works and of what is the matter when it doesn’t work, and that it is embedded in a theory about relations between society and the individuals who pass through and are socialized into it. —Jean Lave, “The culture of acquisition and the practice of understanding” This chapter lays out the remaining conceptual framework and the theoretical underpinnings of the African-centered success pedagogy. This discussion will entail explanation of several key ideas in the internal circle of the theoretical model depicted in Figure 3—activity setting, practice, accomplished practice and community of practice. This chapter introduces the key theoretical formulations from cultural psychology, human development, and the social sciences and reinterprets them as they are manifested in the African American epistemologies and cultural pedagogies. PEDAGOGY AS THEORY A pedagogy is an instructional theory of that is realized as a system of practice. It is a theory of teaching-in-practice. By this I mean to say that a pedagogy is both an interpretive and generative framework. That is, it is a theory that informs how you make sense of activities, behaviors and all manner of human expression in your classroom. On this account the theory is interpretive in that it is a system of ideas that permits the teacher to make good sense of the classroom scene and what transpires in the activity of learning. But on the other side of the coin, it is also a system that is generative, because the teacher applies that good sense in the generation of effective teaching practices, such as the orchestration of classroom life and the design of instruction to bring about real learning achievement and personal development of the students. A pedagogy is an interpretive framework and generative framework. The interpretive framework of the African-centered pedagogy helps the teacher to incorporate the cultural patterns of African American children and construct learning experiences that provide developmental scaffolding for them. The generative framework of the African-centered pedagogy will help the teacher ensure that he or she organizes learners’ experience in a familiar and supporting cultural and social fabric. I have presented five component practices (Table 3) of African-centered pedagogy by which you can recreate your classrooms with cultural fabric familiar to your African American students so that you can draw on their lives, experiences, and culture to generate an enabling learning environment. PEDAGOGY AS KNOWLEDGE-IN-PRACTICE In the previous chapters, I have defined pedagogy as a holistic, active-reflective theory of teaching and learning. But now I want to add the idea of pedagogy as knowledge that is put to use in systems of activity that constitute accomplished practice. Accordingly, a pedagogy is not merely a blueprint or map for educational practice—but more like a script for accomplished practice that leads to the development and achievement of children—intellectually, socially, and spiritually. At this juncture, these are the working descriptors of the notion of pedagogy: • An active-reflective theory of teaching and learning; • Knowledge-in-practice; • A system of organizing human systems, instructional materials, and human resources that promotes the learning and development of children; • A rich cultural content—in this case the literature, recovered narratives , and cultural works of African Americans; • A socioculturally, linguistically, and historically grounded system of teaching. 60 AFRICAN-CENTERED PEDAGOGY The African-centered pedagogy consists of five essential practices, which form the basis of a teaching system. The remainder of this chapter will explain and illustrate this system. AFRICAN-CENTERED PEDAGOGY AS WORKING THE SYSTEM OF ESSENTIAL PRACTICES Developing one’s pedagogy involves grappling with a trio of concerns for effective teaching—human nature, human institutions, and human values. I have presented these concerns as a challenge—how to find the right content and right mix of these qualities of human experiences in the constitution of your classrooms and your schools. Later, I will address how the five essential principles form the pedagogical basis for meeting...