DECOLONIZING THE CURRICULUM
This book calls on educators to extend the curriculum to include children's personal stories as critical pedagogy to honor their funds of knowledge and foster their historical consciousness to enable them to become the change our society so desperately needs.
McClean, M. (2019). From the Middle Passage to Black lives matter:Ancestral Writing as a Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Our story straddles countries and histories and peoples to speak through the lens of anti-colonialism to emphasize the indomitable will of a people who refuse to be wiped out; a determined people who refuse to be silenced.
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DR. MARVA McCLEAN
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AUTHOR
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RESEARCHER
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STORYTELLER
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Born in Jamaica out of the legacy of British colonialism rooted in the Transatlantic slave trade, I self-identify as an Indigenous scholar and question the pervasive failure of Black children, whom I also identify as Indigenous, in schools across the globe. As I examine this historical background with an ethnographic attentiveness to education and its cultural practices, the story of Nanny of the Maroons becomes increasingly important to my identity. It provides a blueprint to guide my path, connecting me to stories of historical empowerment within the African Diaspora. My motivation in writing this text is shaped by the need to move beyond the notion of a post-colonial world and bring to life the complexities inherent in the thrust for the civil rights of people of color within the neo-colonialist state of the 21st century. This book is neither a historical account nor an empirical study; rather, it is a theoretical/autobiographical text concerned with the socio-cultural dynamics of Maroonage and its enduring influence upon present-day Jamaica and individuals such as me. And I emphasize the imaginative and radical forms of our enduring resistance going back to the era of slavery through to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter.
NANNY OF THE MAROONS
GUERILLA WARRIOR-ASHANTI WOMAN-BLACK WOMAN FREE!
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Folklore asserts that Nanny descended from royal blood and possessed a demeanor of self-assurance and leadership. Instead of settling into a life of servitude when she arrived aboard a slaver in Jamaica, she set her sight onto the mountainous terrain and escaped into the interior to become a fierce freedom fighter intent on pushing back against the tyranny of slavery.
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This politically and historically conscious text is a must read for adults and children; teachers and students; youth and elders. Adults are encouraged to take action for social justice and equity. Students are empowered with strategies to elevate their voices and engage in ancestral writing as a pedagogy of hope.
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ELEVATE STUDENT VOICES
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HONOR CHILDREN'S FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE
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WRITE TRUTH INTO HISTORY
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