Raza Studies: The Public Option for Educational Revolution

1. Critically Compassionate Intellectualism: The Pedagogy of Barriorganic Intellectualism

14 chapter one Critically Compassionate Intellectualism The Pedagogy of Barriorganic Intellectualism Augustine Romero The following is a dialogue that took place with one of our Chicana students . I believe that it establishes the context in which our educational lucha (struggle) is occurring. In this dialogue, a student, Tina, is responding to a question about her educational experiences. Her forthright response portrays the racially hostile environment that she experienced in school and the deep and painful impact it had upon her: Tina: You don’t feel good about what is happening to you . . . kinda like something bad happened to you, and then they blame you and say it’s our fault. Then you feel, ah . . . you feel really bad, and you start feeling like you shouldn’t go back, like you need to stay away. Even though it’s not good to not be in school, at least when you are not there you don’t have that feeling, but then you start feeling guilty because you know you need education for a better life. Romero: Is there one word that you think defines this feeling? Tina: Damn, that’s hard. . . . [silence] The only word I guess is “violated .” I guess it could be like when women are raped, something is taken from them. “In school they take our minds and our souls; they violate us with the way they try to give us school” (Romero 2008, 163). Critically Compassionate Intellectualism · 15 It is horrifying to think that a young woman would refer to rape to articulate her educational experiences. This is even more egregious when one considers that this young woman in the past had been physically raped, and now she unveiled the intersectionality of physical violence and rape to psychological violence that she faced on a daily basis in our schools at the hands of the administrators, teachers, and staff members. In this chapter, I describe the experiences and understanding of how we have used critically compassionate intellectualism (CCI), a convergence of critical race theory (CRT), critical pedagogy, and authentic caring, in the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) and the raza studies classrooms. More importantly, I bring forth the voices of students as a method of conveying the impact of CCI in classroom practices. These practices are parts of three program structures that I created to counter the reality of racism and subordination within the American education system: the SJEP (in partnership with Julio Cammarota; Romero 2008; Romero et al. 2008; Cammarota and Romero 2006a, 2006b); the CCI model of transformative education (Romero 2008; Cammarota and Romero 2006a, 2006b); and CCI’s Third Dimension (Romero 2008). An explanation and description of the SJEP and CCI are forthcoming in the next section, and in the last section I examine the tridimensionalization of CCI. The Social Justice Education Project and the Critically Compassionate Intellectualism Model of Transformative Education Note: In this section I use “we” instead of “I” in recognition of the collaboration between Lorenzo Lopez Jr., Julio Cammarota, our students, and myself. Tina was a member of the SJEP’s first student cohort. The SJEP, which completed its eighth cohort of students in 2011, provides students with all the social science requirements for their junior and senior years of high school. The SJEP enhances and enriches the state-mandated standards with advanced-level readings from critical theory, Chicana/o studies , and CRT. The intent is to help students develop a more sophisticated critical lens through which their level of racial, cultural, historical, and social consciousness is elevated through a curriculum that meets state standards but yet is authentically relevant to their lived conditions and realities. Moreover, when we created this opportunity, we unapologetically did so with the intent to foster a greater sense of educational sovereignty (Moll and Ruiz 2002) for the students, parents, and the community we serve. 16 · Augustine Romero The notion of educational sovereignty was paramount within our intellectualization and construction of the SJEP. I believe that if we are going to carry the sword of critical educators, we must engender and embody the essence of liberation, empowerment, and humanization. We must do all we can to center within our own praxis the words, thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and needs of the students (as well as the parents and community) we serve. In our praxis, we also recognize the essence of educational sovereignty , which at its core is the need and the empowered state to...