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BEdA Handbook
Decolonizing English Instruction

Description for program track

We are excited to announce an exciting opportunity for BEdA's Black, Indigenous (America’s First Peoples), and other faculty of color who teach pre-college and college English in the Washington community and technical college system.  For BEdA Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) English faculty at predominantly white institutions, discourses about anti-racist pedagogy are consistently designed for our white peers and held in white spaces that often harm us or use our personal experiences and insights as teaching tools. This space seeks to center BIPOC faculty's unique struggle to reconcile our systematically-marginalized racial and ethnic identities with hegemonic practices of teaching English writing.

We resist and disrupt the concept of outcomes and in its place, we advocate and demand a community of care and a village of resilience. Our intention is to lift and speak to the burdens of teaching a colonizer’s language from inside our Black and Brown skin, of being BIPOC English instructors teaching English, making space to breathe and invite rest.

Guiding Light

    • Identify how individual race and ethnicity has evolved over time and assess what that means as a BIPOC English professional and in practice.
    • Examine the historical context
    • Focus on anti-coloniality and transformation in curriculum design and classroom and institutional practices.

As a BIPOC person "existing" in predominantly white spaces, racial and ethnic identities are viewed as hot topic dialogue due to anti-black and white supremacy culture. In this space, we relish in our whole being and engage in safe and brave dialogue about race and ethnicity in the classroom environment and instructional design. In addition, we discuss BIPOC faculty's personal and professional views surrounding the avoidance of race and ethnicity as pre-college and college teachers of the English language.

Time Commitment:
·         Canvas: July 8, 2022 - 1:00-3:00 pm

Presenters: 
·        Zahra Alavi
·        Caro Forero-Moreno
·        Stephanie Khan
·        Inés Poblet
·        Sajonna Sletten
·        Dr. Suhanthie Motha 

Register

"English has been convinced of having adverse consequences or shaping identities and futures in negatives ways." -Dr. S. Motha

In this session, we examine the historical context of how we perpetuate colonization through our instructional practices as English faculty. In addition, this session aims to dismantle the structural arrangements of ESOL, "which are neither innocent nor neutral to deficit practices."

Time Commitment:
·         Canvas: July 15, 2022 - 1:00-3:00 pm

Presenters: 
·        Zahra Alavi
·        Caro Forero-Moreno
·        Stephanie Khan
·        Inés Poblet
·        Sajonna Sletten
·        Dr. Suhanthie Motha 

Register

In Anti-Coloniality in Practice, the presenters will challenge faculty to create and employ a "Global Vision" as an outcome of their instructional practices. Faculty must remember that "engaging critically with the education processes is relevant to the student and their teachers." -Dr. S. Motha

Time Commitment:
·         Canvas: July 22, 2022 - 1:00-3:00 pm

Presenters: 
·        Zahra Alavi
·        Caro Forero-Moreno
·        Stephanie Khan
·        Inés Poblet
·        Sajonna Sletten
·        Dr. Suhanthie Motha 

Register

*The conference track Decolonizing English has been built as a Black, Indigenous and Persons of Color (BIPOC) space.  This space seeks to center BIPOC faculty's unique struggle to reconcile our systematically-marginalized racial and ethnic identities with hegemonic practices of teaching English writing.  Participants who are non-BIPOC are asked to register for other conference track areas. Non-BIPOC colleagues will be removed from this intentionally built space.

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Last Modified: 4/7/23, 12:08 AM

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