Browsing by Author "Kazembe, Lasana D."

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Book Review: African-Centered Education: Theory and Practice
    (Sage, 2021-06) Kazembe, Lasana D.; School of Education
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Curriculum Studies and Indigenous Global Contexts of Culture, Power, and Equity
    (Oxford Research Encyclopedia, 2021-02-23) Kazembe, Lasana D.
    For historically marginalized groups that continue to experience and struggle against hegemony and deculturalization, education is typically accompanied by suspicion of, critique of, and resistance to imposed modes, systems, and thought forms. It is, therefore, typical for dominant groups to ignore and/or regard as inferior the collective histories, heritages, cultures, customs, and epistemologies of subject groups. Deculturalization projects are fueled and framed by two broad, far-reaching impulses. The first impulse is characterized by the denial, deemphasis, dismissal, and attempted destruction of indigenous knowledge and methods by dominant groups across space and time. The second impulse is the effort by marginalized groups to recover, reclaim, and recenter ways of knowing, perceiving, creating, and utilizing indigenous knowledge, methods, symbols, and epistemologies. Deculturalization projects in education persist across various global contexts, as do struggles by global actors to reclaim their histories, affirm their humanity, and reinscribe indigenous ways of being, seeing, and flourishing within diverse educational and cultural contexts. The epistemologies, worldview, and existential challenges of historically marginalized groups (e.g., First Nations, African/African American, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific) operate as sites and tools of struggle against imperialism and dominant modes of seeing, being, and making meaning in the world. Multicultural groups resist deculturalization in their ongoing efforts to apprehend, interrogate, and situate their unique cultural ways of being as pedagogies of protracted resistance and praxes of liberation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Furious Flowers: Using Black Arts Inquiry and Pedagogy to Engage Black Males
    (Journal of African American Males in Education (JAAME), 2014) Kazembe, Lasana D.
    Knowledge and ways of knowing derived from African American history and traditions have typically been marginalized or excluded from the learning landscape of African American students. This essay urges a turn to ways of knowing, valuing, and meaning making based on inquiry and teaching around cultural ideas espoused during the Black Arts Movement (1965-1976). As an alternative paradigm, Black Arts inquiry and pedagogy is presented as a functional extension of African American cultural knowledge and life praxes. The author draws from two sources: (a) the ideological mission undertaken by the cultural architects of the Black Arts Movement and (b) his extensive experience as a teaching artist. Both sources are interpreted and situated as modalities to encourage: (a) critical resistance to ideology and psycho-cultural models imposed by the dominant culture; (b) development of culturally based aesthetic and materialist approaches that make worthwhile use of African American cultural knowledge; (c) culturally-situated curricula to engage the intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities of Black males; and (d) the development of an apprenticeship tradition to appropriately interpret the African American intellectual genealogy to successive generations.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    I prepare aspiring teachers to educate kids of color – here’s how I help them root out their own biases
    (The Conversation, 2020-08-20) Kazembe, Lasana D.
    It is essential today that all K-12 teachers develop the cultural awareness, empathy and anti-racist disposition to effectively teach students from diverse backgrounds.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A New Music Screaming in the Sun: Haki R. Madhubuti and the Nationalization/Internationalization of Chicago’s BAM
    (Chicago Review, 2019) Madhubhuti, Haki R.; Kazembe, Lasana D.
    This interview was first conducted with Haki R. Madhubuti in his home on May 16, 2017, and revised in March 2019. As one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), Professor Madhubuti has, for several decades, distinguished himself through letters, publishing, teaching, and developing independent Black institutions in Chicago. This extensive interview locates and centralizes Madhubuti’s national and international influence among generations of artists, scholars, and activists. The title of this interview is adapted from In the Mecca (1968), Gwendolyn Brooks’s last publication with Harper & Row publishers. In the final line of her first poem about a young Don L. Lee (Haki R. Madhubuti), Miss Brooks describes him as wanting “a new music screaming in the sun.”
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Reading the World: Toward a Praxis of Inquiry, Critical Literacy, and Cultural Knowledge
    (Wiley, 2017) Kazembe, Lasana D.; School of Education
    Most people have struggled with reading in one situation or another, depending on their appreciation for the content, their prior experiences, and the texts. This department column shares ways for educators to help literacy learners unlock their potential with instruction anchored in their skills, knowledge, ways of learning, interests, and attitudes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Social and Racial Justice in Teacher Education: An Africana Womanist Mandate
    (Cambridge, 2022-08-17) Kazembe, Lasana D.; Jackson, Tambra O.; School of Education
    This essay discusses the concept of social and racial justice in teacher education in tandem with core tenets drawn from Hudson-Weems’ theorizing on Africana Womanism: spirituality, respect for elders, family centeredness, mothering. As Africana people continue to grapple with reverberating crises within education, it is increasingly clear that we need to embrace and articulate a theoretical lens, philosophical stance, and praxis rooted in Africana perspectives and in the centrality of our culture in order to move us toward mental and cultural liberation. Aside from parents, educators represent the largest group of socializing agents who directly and consistently impact the lives of children and youth. Thus, if Black educators operate from a colonized ontology and epistemology, then Black children are likely to be seen as empty vessels in need of fixing. In order for our social and racial justice project to flourish, it is critical that we engage in a constant shedding (i.e. unlearning/relearning) of non-Africana knowledge hierarchies while simultaneously re-orientating and re-rooting ourselves in liberating paradigms and practices drawn from Africana culture and traditions of educational excellence. The result is a restorative approach to teacher education, informed by the liberatory theoretical vision and generative possibilities of Africana Womanism.