This article was written by Henry Instructor Nafeesah Muhammad
The 2020-2021 school year was a struggle for both educators and students. We struggled to adapt to new ways of building a cohesive learning community in cyberspace. We showed up online in spite of what was going on in the outside world. There were a number of legitimate distractions that could have kept students from prioritizing school, like helping out in their homes, experiencing loss, protesting, and struggling with depression from isolation. And yet, learning still happened. Educators found meaningful ways to connect what students were feeling to what they were learning in the classroom. Although some students were at home with their families they still spent a lot of time by themselves. Students have discovered more about themselves and how they prefer to learn.
The Genius and Joy grant provides resources for educators to capitalize on the real-life learning that is happening in our students’ lives while building community and a sense of belonging.
With support from the Phillips Foundation, Patrick Henry High has the opportunity to offer one or two weeks of culturally responsive summer programming to students. This is a chance for all educators (teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators and support staff) to create experiences that cultivate learners’ language and literacy development while keeping identity, joy, critical thinking and cultural affirmation at the center.
The Phillips Foundation community advisory board was inspired by Dr. Muhammad’s internationally acclaimed book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. This book will be the central reference point for educator coaching and other professional development. Dr. Muhammad’s framework is essential for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies and classroom practices.
The framework promotes five learning goals or pursuits inspired by the literacy legacy of free and enslaved African American ancestors. Literacy was essential to their liberation because it empowered them with thinking routines, knowledge and skills needed to navigate and liberate themselves and their communities from chattel slavery. We asked educators to keep those five learning goals in mind. They are identity development: defining self; making sense of one’s values and beliefs; skill development: developing proficiencies through reading and writing meaningful content; intellectual development: gaining knowledge and becoming smarter; criticality: developing the ability to read texts to understand power, authority, and oppression; and joy: developing students’ happiness by elevating beautiful and truthful images, representations, and narratives about self and others while centering belonging, self-acceptance, and a love for learning.
Henry High School educators are cultivating joy and genius for Northside youth by centering positive experiences with their Joy, Healing, and Justice Summer Camp. This camp will offer all-day seminar workshops that are meant to cultivate joy, identity, skill and intellect.
These seminars include: Basketball Clinic, all genders welcomed; Food and Wellness, where young people will learn to grow and cook their food; Saving Ourselves, which focuses on healing through joy and art; and Field Experiences and Exploration, in which youth will explore Minneapolis through a critical lens.
All of the students and educators who participate in this end-of-summer programming will take these experiences with them into the fall and hopefully advocate for more joyous, relevant, validating and affirming learning experiences in the present and the future.