Taking Back Control: African Canadian Women Teachers' Lives and Practice(SUNY series, Identities in the Classroom)

An alternative pedagogical perspective toward the education of Black children is explored through the narratives of five African Canadian women teachers.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Taking Back Control Part I. Black Women Teachers' Activism: Conversations And Contexts 1. Black Women Teachers Speak Ese Makeda Inez Rita Viv 2. Contextualizing Black Women's Lives and Activism "Adventure," "Opportunity," "A Better Life," and Other Myths: African-Caribbean Canadians in the Political Economy "Scrubbing Hard Someplace" "I'm a Paper Canadian" African Canadian Educational Activism: A History of Cultural Resistance Part II. Classroom Practice 3. "So You Close the Door and You Do What Works": Possibilities and Limitations of Oppositional Standpoints Hands in the Lion's Mouth Voices in the Wilderness: Black Women in White Institutions Child-centeredness Undressed Discussion 4. Literacy, Black Self-representation, and Cultural Practice: Sustaining and Re-creating Intertextual Relationships in the African Diaspora "Intertextual Crossing": Cultural Forms as Pedagogical Forms "Don't Throw Stones when You've Got Glass Windows!": Proverbs and Maxims in the Classroom "It's Jamaican, Miss! They're Jamaican Words!": Caribbean Creoles in the Classroom Discussion 5. The Dilemma of the Empty Shelf and Other Curricular Challenges for Transformative Teachers The Dilemma of the Empty Shelf "Liberating Their Minds" Discussion Epilogue: Holding on to Hope Thoughts on Pedagogies of Black Self-Representation Critically Raising the Next Generation of Black Women: Working Against Invisibility and Silence The Subject of Black Women Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Annette Henry is Associate Professor of Education at University of Illinois at Chicago.

Review :
"This book is superbly written and interesting to read. The framing of the text and the articulate development of a number of theoretical underpinnings clearly establish its intellectual contribution. Throughout Henry creates and weaves a texture that illustrates the relationship of her theorizing to previous understandings of Afrocentric and womanist views. This in itself (the application of education to such stances) is new; that she goes on to embellish and build upon such theory is even more exciting." - Toni C. King, Denison University "This book will prove vital to those who seek to understand how teachers conceptualize their work. We are just beginning to get information on how teachers of color view themselves, and this book provides that. I know of no competing book. The classroom interaction sections are extremely important and will be unique in the literature." - Lisa Delpit, Georgia State University