Virtual Event (Radcliffe): The Fugitive Life of Black Teaching - A History of Pedagogy and Power
As a Radcliffe fellow, Jarvis Givens completed his first book, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching (Harvard University Press, 2021). This work explores the subversive history of Black education, focusing particularly on the concealed pedagogical practices of African American teachers.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 @ 9:00AM Pacific Time (12:00PM Eastern Time)
Virtual Event via Zoom (details sent after registration)
Click here for more details and to register now!
Givens uses the life of Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950)—the groundbreaking historian, founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow—to frame this story. Interested in more than Woodson himself, however, the book recuperates the networked world of teachers to which he belonged, a world in which educators crafted a pedagogical model to challenge the hostile educational curricula, policies, and political economic forces that undermined their work. Black educators intentionally kept critical aspects of their work away from the public eye. In doing so, they developed what Givens calls a tradition of “fugitive pedagogy”—a theory and practice of Black education in America. Woodson’s life and work are presented as one of the greatest exemplars of this tradition: Woodson’s first teachers were his formerly enslaved uncles; he himself taught for nearly 30 years; and he spent his life partnering with educators, artists, and activists to fight against what he termed “the mis-education of the Negro.” Forged in slavery and embodied by Woodson, this tradition of escape remains essential for teachers and students today.
Virtual Event Instructions: