A 4-Part Framework for Teaching

My brain is changing. And that’s a good thing. Not the part about finding the toothpaste in my sock drawer, that’s not a good thing. But the part where I read a novel I’ve taught many, many times, and suddenly see a perspective I’ve never seen before—that’s a good thing. This week I was preparing to teach Alan Paton’s classic South African novel Cry, the Beloved Country, and I read these sentences: 

Down in the valley below there was a car going up to the house. He recognized it as the police-car from Ixopo, and it would probably be Binnendyk on his patrol, and a decent fellow for an Afrikaaner. (132)

I stopped, stunned, to let my heart absorb what my brain had just noticed. James Jarvis, the white English farmer, recognizes by name the local police on their regular patrol with a friendly feeling. Turns out it’s actually a special trip to respectfully notify Jarvis of a family tragedy in the big city. Meanwhile, no such friendly official support system had existed for the Black pastor Stephen Kumalo in the neighboring village of Ndotsheni. 

This is just one of the many broken systems and relationships the novel portrays, and that I have noticed one more will not radically transform my teaching of the novel. That I noticed it, though, says something has changed in me. Months of following the news out of the US after the killing of George Floyd, the resulting conversations about race and inequality, the flood of people’s stories that were very different from mine, and undeniably full of pain, and reading books to gather more perspectives, more understanding—this has been a journey, and I am beginning to arrive some place. Where? What now?  

As I pondered this, I came across a 4-layered framework for Historically Responsive Literacy proposed by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad: identity, skills, intellect, and criticality (Jennifer Gonzales. “Historically Responsive Literacy: A More Complete Education for All Students.” Cult of Pedagogy). I found this exciting because it affirms a lot of what I already do, and it directs me to where I can continue strengthening what I do. Skills and intellect are the familiar stuff of traditional teaching. Identity and criticality are the purpose-giving frame, so I’ll expand on those. 

Identity, the author explains, involves knowing not only yourself, but also how to understand people who are different from you. I’ve often used the through questions “Who am I?”, “Who is my neighbor?”, and “Why does it matter?” Since I started teaching World Lit in an international Christian school 15 years ago, I’ve been on a quest to find literature that reflects the varied ethnic and national identities of my students as well as introduces them to a world of other voices. I can keep building on this.

Criticality is critical thinking plus doing. Gonzales’s blog post explains it like this: “‘Criticality is helping students to read, write and think in active ways,’ Muhammad explains, 'as opposed to passive—when you ask a question and there’s one correct answer, and you just take it in. We don’t want them to be passive consumers of knowledge. We want them to question what they hear on the news.’…This fourth layer is essential ‘because oppression exists in the world. Period. We want students to leave our schools not contributing to more oppression or wrongdoing and hurt in their relationships and with strangers. We also don’t want them to be silent. If they see oppression, we want them to actively respond to it.’”

That, too, is something I’ve always wanted my students to do. And now that I am more aware of the persistence of racial inequality issues in the US, as I continue educating myself on them, they join the panoply of issues that I want my students to also be aware of—along with all the places God’s image is dishonored when his image bearers are mistreated—from the Rohingya to the streets of Minneapolis to the halls of our school.  

At least, those were some of the thoughts I had reading the blog post. Now I’m reading the full book—Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad. I’m hoping I’ll learn even more!