INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGY: DOING SPACE AND SOUL WORK IN THE

COMMUNITY, CLASSROOM, AND CURRICULUM

Victoria Singh Gill

A DISSERTATION

in

Reading, Writing, and Literacy

Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Education

2021

Supervisor of Dissertation:

_______________________________________
H. Gerald Campano, Professor of Education

Dean, Graduate School of Education:

______________________________________
Pamela L. Grossman, Dean and Professor

Dissertation Committee:

H. Gerald Campano, Professor Education

Vivian L. Gadsden, William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Associate Professor of Education

INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGY: DOING SPACE AND SOUL WORK IN THE

COMMUNITY, CLASSROOM, AND CURRICULUM

COPYRIGHT

2021

Victoria Singh Gill

This work is licensed under the

Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
License

To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
 DEDICATION

To 


to the ancestors
my mother’s mother, Phang Sy
And my mother’s father, Sy Suksaly
And their mothers
who survived oceans and wars, political and personal.
I may be their wildest dreams
but they are my life’s roots,
my soul’s source.

1
 (Lao/Thai): Pronounced “khun mae” which means honorable mother.
iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This dissertation was incredibly intense physical, mental, emotional work, spanning
many years, continents, and souls. This was work that was vulnerable and raw, that
required being armed with hopes and dreams, and work that utterly shattered and healed
me. This work could not and did not happen in isolation; my community is everything. I
thank the collective soul.

Above all, I thank the students, past and present, that I have had the privilege of learning
and growing alongside with. Working with students and our community’s youths is to
have a hand in the future, possibilities for creating ripples in the tides of change. Working
with my students has restored hopes and dreams for future legacies. I would also like to
thank the schools, colleagues, and guardians I have worked with because without them, I
would never have witnessed and experienced the power of the people, the power in the
collective. In a world where we are told our worth through competition, being with
families in the communities prove that unlike everywhere we’ve learned from this
colonialist and capitalist country, is that love matters, not the zero-sum game white
imperialism oppresses us with. I am deeply indebted to the students, schools, colleagues,
and communities that I’ve worked in for this work would not exist without them.

As a student, I must acknowledge my  2 Dr. Gerald Campano, thank you for
always believing in me and creating a space for me to exist where few like me have been
before. Your faith in me is both humbling and inspiring. I believe it is truly kismet that
have brought our paths together from Stockton, California on the West Coast to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the East Coast. What are the odds?! I could not have asked
for a more perfect advisor in that you always work from a compassionate stance. Dr.
Vivian Gadsden, thank you for your incredible wisdom and perspectives. I think I know
things and then I have one conversation with you and my mind expands, which leaves me
utterly grateful for your knowledge. Dr. Ebony Thomas, without you, I would not have
even heard of the theory of intersectionality! You fueled my passion, you inspire me to be
brave when I see how you’ve taken on the world through social media and changed “the
game” in the Children’s and Young Adult Literature world through your scholarship. I
sincerely hope to follow in your footsteps. Gerald, Vivian, and Ebony, I am the teacher
and scholar I am today because of your love, guidance, and support.

During this process and program, I truly felt that, for the first time in my life, I came into
my authentic self and I realize that it is because of my comrades who made it safe and
acceptable for me to bring my whole soul. Grace Player, you are a soulmate. How is that
by knowing you, I know myself? Life will never be the same now that I’ve met you and I
am in awe of how the universe aligned our paths. You know how sometimes when you
doubt something is real because it almost feels like it’s too good to be true? That’s you. I
2
 
(Lao/Thai): Pronounced “ah-jahn” is a title of respect for those who are a teacher, spiritual
leader, a guide towards enlightenment.

iv
am grateful and honored to continuously learn and grow with you. Thank you for your art
and activism, your fire, and most of all your radical resistance/love. Cassie Lo, you are
the sister I wish I had. I made it through the program because of you! You are there for
all the tears, laughs, and frustrations. Mostly, thank you Cassie for your realness and your
badass-ery. Can I say that here? Well, it’s true. You are my heroine, getting things done,
going places, taking down names, all while lifting your sisters with you, never sacrificing
time to build love and life with us. Josh Coleman, look at us, from frenemies to forever
family. Having you and baby girl, Penny, over for family night on a weekly basis is just
what the kiddos and I need: a calm and cool kind of love. You are family. The kiddos are
incredibly lucky to have you as their uncle! I’m honored to have had the privilege to
grow with you as a colleague but also as a human being. We have a piece of each other’s
heart, like a horcrux ;-) See you soon at the next family night (bring dessert again)!
Giselle Clemens, thank you for showing me the true meaning of friendship, for providing
unconditional, nonjudgmental love and support. Thank you for booking a hotel room for
the weekend so I could make it to the end, to finish this dissertation and achieve my goal.
There is supportive and then there’s you, making calls, booking hotels, or searching for
local therapists. What have I done in my past life to deserve you? A thousand thank-yous
for your openness, for your fierce loyalty and light, for your insightfulness, for watering
my soul. I know that we are to be connected for the rest of our lives and I look forward to
being in service of each other’s growth.

Ryan Miller, thank you for your countless of hours of support in the dissertation process.
You were there before there was even a word on the page. More than that, thank you for
your patience, your vulnerability and humor. You’re my role model, dude. Watching you
hold down a full-time job, building a family with two babies, all while dissertating left
me in awe; it gave me the strength and resolve to finish, to keep moving forward now that
I am in a similar situation, so thank you! Jennifer Phuong, thank you for your focus
during our many work sessions, and for opening your home/heart to my family when
we’re in town. There’s a kinship between us, not just from being friends/colleagues but
through our South East Asian ancestry, our histories are intertwined starting from our
mothers. I also greatly admire your authenticity in that you are unapologetically you; it’s
also very endearing how many umbrellas you lose and bananas you squish in your
backpack. I’m telling you girl, get a case for your poor bananas! David Low, I recall
vividly the day I met you and how you unexpectedly marched me over to PennGSE and
introduced me to Gerald. You literally got my foot in the door and over half a decade
later, you’re still doing it. Thank you for being “one of the good ones,” for consistently
being a co-conspirator. But duh, above all else, thank you for introducing me to the world
of comics! Grace, Cassie, Josh, Giselle, Ryan, Jenn, and Dave, I am deeply humbled by
all your generosity and consider my life richer having you in it. You all give me hope for
the present/future and I look forward to a lifetime of kinship with you.

I would also like to thank my family. My sister Sonia Gill, thank you for being a good
aunt to the babies and watching them for the times when I needed some time alone to

v
hear my thoughts, to read, and to write. Thank you to my mother, Saliwart Singh,
ขอบคุณแม่สาํ หรับอาหารอร่ อย ๆ ทีดูแลฉันเหมือนลูกของคุณทีแสดงให้ฉนั เห็นว่าการเป็ นผูห้ ญิงทีเข้มแข็งฉัน
รักคุณมากกว่าทีฉนั พูดได้หมายความว่าอย่างไร.Thank you to my father, Jaswant Gill,  
             
!

Lastly, to my partner, my love, Christopher Rodriguez: I do not know if reincarnation is

real but if it is, I pray that I meet you again lifetime after lifetime. Thank you for raising
Milo and the babies with me, for your truly unconditional love, all your sacrifices and
support in helping me achieve my dreams, for building a life with me. You are the sun
mere jaan, the light in my life. With you by my side, life is a world of opportunities and
possibilities. May it be for eternity, soul to soul, you and me.

vi
 ABSTRACT

INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGY: DOING SPACE AND SOUL WORK IN THE

COMMUNITY, CLASSROOM, AND CURRICULUM

Victoria Singh Gill

H. Gerald Campano

This practitioner and critical ethnography research study explores the possibilities

of an intersectional literacy pedagogy through a yearlong inquiry into my teaching and

learning as a 6th grade English teacher for minoritized and first-generation students in an

urban public charter school. Multicultural education is often reduced to superficial

inclusion (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995); however, engaging in an intersectional practice

is social justice work (Collins & Bilge, 2016) and resists “a single overmastering

identity” (Said, 1999). To better understand the utility of an intersectional pedagogy, I

ask: What happens when I adopt an intersectional lens to inform my teaching and

learning in a secondary English Language Arts classroom? What does it look like to

engage in an intersectional pedagogy to build criticality through young adult literature?

Data collected includes lesson plans, researcher memos and field notes, audio interview

recordings, classroom photos, and student artifacts. The data was analyzed using iterative

emic coding and through an intersectionality lens. The findings of this project spotlight

intersectionality’s capacity to reshape how we conceptualize and create our communities,

our classrooms, and the curriculum itself, all with the aim to confront the power

imbalance in our social reality. The first implication of this work includes how

intersectionality can be employed to uncover and interrogate how neoliberal and

vii
capitalistic conceptions and practices of justice in schools impact our teaching and

learning experiences in oppressive ways in our school community culture. Secondly,

another finding is that to build a truly intersectional classroom, we must honor and value

both the teachers and students’ mental health as part of their identities; there is an urgent

call for adequate trained professionals (counselors not cops) to support these issues. The

last finding shows how to build an intersectional curriculum that centers historically

excluded voices and critical analysis of power. This work displays how I worked

within/against systems and how I utilized/conceptualize intersectionality to enact an

alternative vision of justice that is more equitable. Extending multicultural pedagogy,

critical race, and literacy scholarship, this work demonstrates the need for intersectional

reading and teaching practices that authentically and rigorously engage students’ lives

and our learning.

viii
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xi
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 2.1 Model of Intersectional Pedagogy (Case, 2016).............................................27

Figure 3.1 Outside Alma College Prep sketch..................................................................46
Figure 3.2 Self-Identification of Student Racial Demographics ……………………......50
Figure 4.1 Inside Sketch of Alma College Prep ………………………………………...73
Figure 4.2 Testing Propaganda from Principal ....…………………………………..…102
Figure 4.3 More Testing Propaganda from Principal ………………………………....106
Figure 5.1 Outside Wall with Bulletin ……………………………………………...…116
Figure 5.2 Outside Classroom Wall …………………………………………………...117
Figure 5.3 Family Literacy Night ……………………………………………………..119
Figure 5.4 Classroom/Community “Hopes and Dreams” Tree ………………………..126
Figure 5.5 Critical Vocabulary Word Wall ……………………………………………128
Figure 6.1 Text Conversation with Colleague on Curriculum and Capitalism ………..153
Figure 6.2 Space and Soul work in an Intersectional Curriculum …………………….155
Figure 6.3 Student’s Stanford Reflection ……………………………………………...158
Figure 6.4 Audrina’s Stanford Reflection …………………………………………......159
Figure 6.5 Jasmine’s Stanford reflection …………………………………………...…160
Figure 6.6 Safe to Come Out ………………………………………………………….162
Figure 6.7 Angelina’s T.H.U.G Reflection…………………………………………….163
Figure 6.8 Kimberly’s T.H.U.G Reflection ………………………………………...…164
Figure 6.9 Gill (2018) 4 T’s Unit Plans for T.H.U.G ……………………………...….166
Figure 6.10 Checklist for Book Selection (Jiménez, 2021, p. 157) ………………...…168
Figure 6.11 Vocabulary Acquisition through Frayer Model ………………………......172
Figure 6.12 Mini Lesson in A.C.E. Strategy Workshop ………………………………173
Figure 6.13 A.C.E. Example for T.H.U.G …………………………………………….174
Figure 6.14 Hailey’s Ms. Marvel Reflection ……………………………………….....177
Figure 6.15 Jazlyn’s Presentation on Brazilian’s Indigenous Peoples …………….......178
Figure 6.16 Mariajose’s Identity Map Analysis of T.H.U.G’s Protagonist ………...…180
Figure 6.17 Student’s Intersectional Analysis of Part-Time Indian ……………...…...182
Figure 7.1 Hasan’s Intersectional Identity Poem …………………………………...…185
Figure 7.2 Space and Soul Work in Intersectional Pedagogy Summarized ………......191
Figure 7.3 Students’ Empowerment Survey ………………………………………......192
Figure 7.4 Understanding Intersectional Analysis Student Survey ………………...…193
Figure 7.5 Student Survey About their Identities …………………………………......194
Figure 7.6 Student Survey on Future Employment of Intersectionality …………...….198

xii
 CHAPTER 1: TOWARDS AN INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGY & LITERACY

#32 Whose Muse

Sun slides into the sky,

pale teachers pass out pale poems
with their menagerie of creatures:
Dickenson’s hope bird
Blake’s innocent lamb
Shakespeare’s exit bear
Whose muse
They do not claim me
Whose muse
Greek and Romans are not all origins
Yet I am to carry them
Whose muse
For who do I carry
You muse

Maybe in the midnight moonlight

cradle of my mind, heart to home—India
the mystic, creator of bhakti,
condemner of caste—Kabir,
my muse, is in the mud of the lotus
uncontaminated, uncolonized.
Whose muse
You muse

When they make me

carry their sonnets,
oh, how my Sikh Sufi suffers
Make space for our people’s songs:
Kabir’s chakora, lovesick moon-bird
Nanak’s nibbling deer
Tagore’s human tiger
for all sides of the soul
Whose muse
You muse
Who’s this all for
Who
You
Introduction

My poem “#32 Whose Muse” questions the American education I received,

centering European ideology and authors. Ultimately, with this poem, the message is one

1
of rejecting the white domination in our curriculum and instead calls for making space for

souls of the Other. Black educational philosopher and scholar-activist, David Robinson-

Morris (2018), poignantly writes:

American compulsory education is constructed socially and culturally through the

apparatus of the State, which governs which knowledges can be and how they are
taught. Ultimately, these knowledges are used to construct a more democratic
citizenry and a more Western minded populace; they serve as sites of
reproduction of the cognitive imperialism of Western colonization (Basttiste,
1998). p. 31

Inspired by the problems of the past and hopes for the future, this work aims to embody

intersectional teaching and learning. This work was born out of so much sadness, anger,

confusion, and shame. Sadness because to survive poverty, my sisters, parents, and I were

split up among different caretakers and locations for years. Confusion because as an 8-

year old I did not know why, my elementary school had me do regular shifts in the

kitchen washing food trays so that I may be allowed to have seconds for meals while

others just afforded that without work. Or the deep shame for secretly wishing I was

blonde, blue-eyed, or adopted by a Full House family. Or the raging anger for being spat

at and called a “sand n*****”3, or my picture branded “terrorist” in student yearbooks by

my school peers. Or the combination of sadness, anger, confusion, and shame, like tar,

not only felt but seeped into my skin because of the unrelenting look of regret in my

father’s eyes of not being male. How can I be satisfied or take pride when through a

lifetime, he can only muster this: “you’re a girl but I love you like a son.” As I reflect on

my life experiences, I can now articulate how structures of power and history

influence(d) my identities and others around me; how that even though as a child I did

3
Racial epithet and slur for Brown, Middle Eastern (“looking”) peoples
2
not have the language or frameworks, I still intuitively understood (internalized) racism,

sexism, and colorism. Because I wrestled with these issues and emotions, I know that my

students do too. Once of age, young people are in school most of their waking hours for

many years of their life, making school and school life a foundational part of their

formative years. In my years as a student within the public school system, I was rarely

taught to think critically of the world around us, and even more rarely did I ever see

people like myself or my families doing anything to change our world in the curriculum.

The work may have stemmed from great pain but this work has also developed into

naming it all, analyzing the systems of multiple and overlapping layers of oppression and

that alone can be a form of power. A power that assists towards resisting and actively

working to build a better, equitable space for myself and for others; thus overall healing

the soul4.

My Positionality and Soul Connections with this Work

Understanding and more importantly accepting my identity was an enormous part

of my adolescence in that, in my position as a demiflux woman, from a low

socioeconomic background, first-generation, bi-ethnic, bisexual, and Laotian/Indian-

American and child of genocide survivors, finding my place within a white

heteronormative, male, middle-class hegemonic society was extremely challenging and

often isolating. What remains is the constant conflict between wanting to conform and

4
Soul as in one’s spirit. Soul work, in my conceptualization, is devoid of religion yet more about
deepening the understanding of people involved in education and how they exist in certain spaces. For
example, I find typical terms used to refer to teachers, parents, administrators, and students as
“stakeholders,” “bodies,” or “agents” as cold capitalistic terms that enact erasure. The term “soul”
humanizes and allows for fluid and limitless possibilities of people’s identities at any given point in time
and space.

3
resisting it by staying true to my personal and cultural identities. The more I inquire into

my own identities and life experiences, the more I recognize how history, politics, class,

religions, familial legacies, and other social factors play an interconnected role. Although

both parents are Asian, they are vastly different in that they were born and raised in

completely distinctive countries. My father is from India and my (ethnically Laotian)

mother is from Cambodia. Having slowly worked his way from India to Italy and then to

the United States through Mexico, my father’s narrative of a hopeful immigrant looking

to escape crippling poverty and take their chance in “the land of the free” instills in me an

identity of being a child of an immigrant. As a teenage mother to my older sister,

surviving civil war and genocide in her home country, and fleeing to the U.S., my

mother’s lived experiences as a refugee impress upon me of our family’s Southeast Asian

legacy. With that kind of rich, historical, and cultural background from both sides of my

family, it was at times difficult to fully feel one identity or the other. In addition, I was

born here in the U.S. during a time when my parents were struggling economically and

socially. Wanting to be successful forced them to the reality of assimilation.

Growing up, it was a constant battle of how much to assimilate and how much of

my “cultural baggage” to keep. It begins with the need to honor culture and tradition, but

not too much for fear of being “othered”. Then, there is the desire to be socially accepted,

be Americanized which opens (some) opportunities otherwise denied, but not too much

for fear of betraying one’s own, never the traitor. Then there’s the hard truth of the fact

that no amount of assimilation or proximity to whiteness we achieve, will ever make us

equal. This is especially overwhelming in schooling environments where there are

4
absolutely no reflections of myself in the curriculum or teaching force. Or worse, I saw,

both as a student and later as a teacher, how schools became enforcers of the status quo,

soldiers (whether knowingly or not) of upholding white supremacy. Now, through years

of struggling and resisting, I finally am feeling freer to accept, explore, to critically

inquire, and understand all the aspects, evolutions, and intersectionalities of my self,

because of the constant soul work.

A goal that has emerged from these struggles and experiences is to work to create

safer and more inclusive learning environments where students not only develop their

literacy repertoires but also link these literacy engagements with inquiries into their own

identities—identities that are multiple and overlapping. The focus for my research is to

understand a way for which students and teachers can build on employing an

intersectionality lens at the way we look at the curriculum, pedagogy, and structures of

power around and in their schools. I want the school, classroom, and curriculum to be

spaces where the students can authentically connect with themselves, to each other, to the

texts and the world. Spaces where soul work can happen. Spaces where they see

themselves as powerful, as complex, as stereotype breakers, disrupters, as their ancestors’

wildest dreams. To me, it has become crucial for educators, administrators, and students

to look at themselves, each other, institutions, and the world with an intersectional lens,

to find a place for their identities and with that challenge dominant hegemonies.

Acknowledging Intersectional Identities as Practitioner

Before entering the classroom, I reflect on my own identities openly and honestly

because I know who I am and how I have lived impacts what/how I teach and respond to

5
the children. First, I feel confident because I have a couple of years of teaching

experience in public schools with low-income, minoritized student populations from

Reno, Nevada. With that came all my teaching materials for the classroom ready to go up

which is a privilege too because that meant that I had more to start with and less money

required to invest. Another advantage this time around was knowing that I had carte

blanche as an educator and the autonomy and respect to teach what/how I liked; meaning

before, I was constrained with teaching a set curriculum that did not reflect the students’

cultures or knowledge bases and had to work under policies that were dangerous like the

“zero tolerance” policy. This new school that I conducted my research in was free from

those constraints which were a privilege. However, unlike when I first began teaching as

a 24-year-old, now as a 30-year-old with an infant child, I knew that it was going to be

grueling being a full-time teacher while also being sleep deprived whether it was because

of my baby’s painful teething at night or the postpartum depression. Thus, I needed to

reconcile with the fact that I would be adjusting to my new identity as a mother while I

went into this teacher research year. In these ways, I acknowledge that I am drawing

inspiration from both personal experiences and problems of practice.

Significance and Rationale of the Study

Intersectionality as a social theory of identity has, since the 2000s, been taken up

broadly by many various practitioners such as academics, policy advocates, and activists

(Collins & Bilge, 2016). As a theory, intersectionality is generally understood to be a lens

for critically studying how identity, power, and oppression from multiple perspectives

and categories of social, political, and historical locations interact and impact people in

6
any social context (Crenshaw, 1989, 1994). Intersectional pedagogy as it relates to

education is central because “Schools…are venues where intersecting power relations of

race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, ability and age routinely privilege

some students over others” (p. 165). Intersectionality work is inherently social justice

work. Intersectionality is important to education since it allows for an additional way to

examine and potentially challenge the intersecting power relations present. Education

scholar Vivian Gadsden (2017) reports that “Intersectionality is still not as widely used as

we might expect to identify and address the problems of schools” (p. 26); thus, having a

theoretical lens that attends to multiple margins has become a powerful influence on

research of and about intersectional pedagogy which further works to support education

as a means of resisting dominant power structures. There exists an emerging body of

empirical work and resources and research around intersectional pedagogy in post-

secondary settings yet there remains a lack of empirical research of intersectional

pedagogy in secondary contexts. With that fact, I argue for an intersectional pedagogy

specifically in the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom at the secondary level that

combines literacy practices inclusive of reading Young Adult Literature (YAL) with

multiple literary theories.

While in higher education contexts, educators have already begun to produce

research and work on intersectional pedagogy, at the secondary level, there exists

literacies and pedagogies that resemble intersectional pedagogy. Despite the current

models of teaching, this section reasons there is still a need for intersectional pedagogy in

that intersectionality as a framework allows for a more multifaceted and authentic

7
understanding of diversity. The first related pedagogy would be multiculturalism (Banks

& Banks, 2009; Nieto, 2002; Sleeter & Grant, 1999), since like intersectionality, it takes

an approach of multiplicity within peoples’ identities. Although multiculturalism in

education began as a response to reclaiming race and ethnicities, there remains limits in

the paradigm. It is true that the multiculturalism umbrella in contemporary times has

enlarged to include more categories than cultures such as gender and sexual orientation;

however, the issue lies in that: “Current practical demonstrations of multicultural

education in schools often reduce it to trivial examples and artifacts of cultures such as

eating ethnic or cultural foods, singing songs or dancing, reading folktales, and other less

than scholarly pursuits of the fundamentally different conceptions of knowledge or quests

for social justice” (Ladson-Billings and Tate, 1995, p. 61). Instead, scholars and

educational researchers such as Ladson-Billings, Tate, and Said (1991) argue for teachers

to construct a curriculum that truly validates students' backgrounds, identities, and respect

their different ways of expressing and acquiring knowledge. Engaging in an

intersectionality framework can center on valuing students’ backgrounds and identities in

non-essentializing ways.

Another way in which intersectionality can provide more than current pedagogies

would be as Longstreet (2011) reveals, they employ “intersectionality as a heuristic

means towards an open and affirming classroom and as a model grounded in a larger

history of calls for anti-oppressive pedagogy” (p. 21). Longstreet details the critical

pivots that background intersectionality as a theory in terms of its relationship to

education. First being Paolo Freire (1970) who connected social justice to pedagogy and

8
passionately urged educators to develop critical consciousness of structures of privilege

and suppression. Then Henry Giroux (1981) with his critique of pedagogy being tainted

by the socio-political, economically privilege elites as employing education as a means

for social reproduction of maintaining the status-quo. On top of that feminists and critical

race theorists such as bell hooks (1994) and her transformative book Teaching to

Transgress, and queer theorists of color like Kumashiro (2002) advocated for an

education to be truly inclusive of social justice rights for all to mean one that considered

multiple and all aspects of one’s identity. Based on those roots, it is evident “Critical

education and intersectionality have enjoyed an intertwined relationship that has

enhanced the critical inquiry and praxis of both” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 160).

Intersectionality has a place in education because there is a convergence already in

existence. For example, while not normally categorized as so, Freire’s (1970) book can

be “read as a core text for intersectionality. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire rejects

a class only analysis of power relations in favor of the more robust power-laden language

of the ‘oppressed’” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 160). Those who were oppressed in the

social context of Freire’s time in Brazil included women, homeless and poor people,

sexual minorities, indigenous, disabled, immigrant and black people. To sum up:

historically, intersectionality and critical education seemingly share three

similarities: both areas draw from broader philosophical traditions of participatory
democracy; both work primarily in schools and formal education as primary
institutional location for their praxis; and for each, navigating difference is an
important part of developing critical consciousness. (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p.
169)

With that in mind, even though there are multicultural and diversity pedagogies, they do

not remain enough. This is due to the slippery slope that is happening across many

9
educational institutions where there are “watered-down understandings of diversity”

(Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 184). As Ahmed (2012) claims, “Diversity is often used as

shorthand for inclusion, as the ‘happy point’ of intersectionality, a point where lines

meet. When intersectionality becomes a ‘happy point,’ the feminist of color critique is

obscured. All differences matter under this view” (p. 14). Here, intersectionality

framework and pedagogy does the authentic labor of navigating all differences and resists

a “watered-down” approach.

Research Questions, Results, and Summary of Chapters

Using intersectionality as a theoretical framework, I created my dissertation

project around the following questions:

• What happens when I adopt an intersectional lens to inform my teaching and

learning in a secondary English Language Arts classroom?

• What does it look like to engage in an intersectional pedagogy to build criticality

through young adult literature?

The results of this research, after coding the data, is as suggested in the title: that

intersectional pedagogy means to be doing space and soul work in various contexts such

as the community, classroom, and curriculum. This idea of space and soul work was not a

conceptual or theoretical framework that I employed going in. It did not inform my

methodology of the study. Instead, through the practitioner inquiry and critical

ethnography study, the idea of taking the space and souls around us seriously into

consideration in my evaluation of my pedagogy, teaching, and learning emerged

organically from the data. Space and soul work can just as easily be replaced with the

10
terminology of place and persons. I choose the terms space and soul instead as poetic

metaphors, as meanings that are open and can be transcendent, as ideas resisting

commodification and capitalism. I use “soul” instead of student, teachers, stakeholders,

and so forth as a stance against a market-led education where pedagogical interactions

and education models are veiled systems that promote personal and national economic

success. Further explanations are provided below.

Space Work

By space I mean the literal and physical spaces of the school, the surrounding

community and city, and my classroom. In terms of space in the curriculum, I mean

metaphorically in that the local and global spaces present in our texts and curriculum.

There is an enormous gap in educational spatial analysis research outside of higher

education contexts and in ethnic and cultural contexts (Talbert & Mor-Avi, 2019) thus

the current literature on spatial analysis is not useful for primary and secondary school.

While there have been spatial analysis research done, mostly in higher education settings

around the concept of Active Learning Classes, where the researcher analyzes how the

instructor is using up the classroom space during a lesson; like if she is just pacing the

front of the lecture room versus how walking around her classroom space and measuring

how that may or may not impact learning. In contrast to that, my research focuses on

issues of equity and justice as reflected in the physical features of the school itself and my

classroom as provided to the students. In addition, my research takes space into account

in a cultural and emotional way, invoking the idea of sacredness and respect in teaching

spaces, a space for the souls of those inside of it to feel honored and allowed

11
opportunities for growth and joy however that may look like. As in my Asian cultures,

we take a great deal into maintaining a level of respect for our physical spaces and are

extremely mindful of the levels of respects for the individuals/souls with us. In this way, I

think about how curating and nurturing our spaces can be beneficial to our teaching and

learning, by minding our environment to reflect our identities and values, by minding

who/what can and cannot be allowed to exist in our spaces is part of an intersectional

pedagogy.

Soul Work

As for the term soul, John Miller’s (2000) book Education and the Soul: Toward

a Spiritual Curriculum, I do not mean what he means by soul. In his conception adapted

from religions and philosophies, soul is watered down to look like social emotional

development and mindfulness. Those are all great things, just not what I mean by soul

and soul work in my curriculum. By soul, it is devoid of religion but rather simply means

the person’s self, in any and all iterations of self, not spirituality. Soul work can look like

engaging in simultaneous and multiple layers of oneself, of others, and the intersections

of self and society. I conceptualize soul as a response to educational systems of

dehumanization of individuals and groups, so this term of soul that I use foregrounds the

overt expression of care, love, and responsibilities. It is like when as a teacher, I often

refer to my students as “my babies” or “my kids.” My use of the term soul is a move to

recognize that students are more complex and our relationship is centered and moves

beyond the label of “student.” Furthermore, Qualitative Research scholar Kakali

Bhattacharya (2020) writes how considering the soul of a person in (auto)ethnographic

12
work is necessary because: “any engagement in justice work is an engagement with

personal and collective trauma. Daily immersion in such work creates fatigue and

corrosion of one’s soul, and autoethnographic work, be it traditional, critical, or

Anzaldúan, offers healing possibilities” (p. 200). This also goes to show that, orienting

intersectional justice work as also soul work, means to move beyond “theory of

oppressions” but also include possibilities for healing. Soul work, to me, comes to mean

the social justice and healing work done with/for the self/peoples (the individual and

collective soul).

This dissertation will explore the impact of using an intersectional lens in

teaching/learning through close examination of the school community, my classroom,

and my curriculum. The chapters will unfold to reveal the ways in which intersectionality

was used to uncover issues of power and oppression as my students and I embarked in

this study. To be clear, doing intersectional praxis led me to consider the ways in which

as a practitioner worked within the community, classroom, and with curriculum. The first

finding is understanding that an intersectional pedagogy happens and is inclusive of the

community, classroom, and curriculum. Taking the analysis further, I intersectionally

analyzed our school community, my classroom, and curriculum which led me to

understand that doing an intersectional pedagogy looks like doing “space” and “soul”

work. Thus, the remaining pages of this work aim to describe and detail what doing space

and soul work looks like in various contexts like the community, classroom, and

curriculum.

13
 Chapter 2 delves into the literature that this dissertation builds from, starting with

the theoretical frameworks and then the conceptual framework. I conceptualize

Intersectionality as a theory born of both Feminist (for examining identities/feelings) and

Critical Theories (for examining power). I examine specific aspects of these larger

traditions and how they contribute to this work with an intersectional angle. Moving into

the conceptual framework, I first cover the intersectional pedagogy that currently exists

and highlight the gap of for empirical data at the K-12 levels. In regards to the

dissertation, I relate the specific details of my conceptual framework for an intersectional

pedagogy for the English Language Arts classroom by using intersectionality as a reading

analysis tool with Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

Chapter 3 discusses the contexts and methodology of this dissertation project. In

detail, this chapter will provide the political and social context of the school, a visual of

the space and environment, as well as the demographics of the souls (students and staff).

As for methods, using a practitioner inquiry and critical ethnography methodology, my

data collection included field notes, research memos, photos and audio recordings, as

well as student artifacts. This chapter will expound upon the ways in which I

conceptualized intersectional pedagogy as doing “space” and “soul work” for and with

first generation students of color.

Chapter 4 is all about looking at the school structures and community culture

through an intersectional lens. The findings in this chapter revolve around the lived

experiences of what it means to be a teacher of color in this school system, from the

double lens of the physical space and the souls present. The data reveals how the

14
community capital and schedule was used to control property and persons, and the how

the larger role of capitalism and neoliberalism bred deleterious savior, martyr, woke, and

testing cultures. As an intersectional pedagogue, I describe how my intersectional

feminism is incomplete unless I consider critiques of capitalism and neoliberalism.

Chapter 5 discusses what it meant to look at my classroom through an

intersectional lens. I discuss how I used my physical classroom spaces to build an

intersectionally inclusive environment through the walls, breaking the dichotomy of

home and school literacies by having family and guest speakers in our classroom and

curriculum. In this way, I discuss being mindful of the souls allowed to take up space in

our classroom which in turn impacted the learning and aims for equity/safety. The other

half of this chapter discusses the urgent call for mental health support for both students

and teachers. This matters because “Frankly, teachers are not conditioned to think of their

own needs; teachers are conditioned to think of the students’ needs” (Dunn & Garcia,

2020). I argue that in fact, educational preparation programs and schools implicitly

demand that teachers are self-sacrificing and self-effacing. There is literature around

“social emotional learning” and “trauma informed pedagogy” however, none of it

includes time and space for the teacher. Students at least are part of the conversation in

terms of including and nurturing their emotions, teachers are not. I share critical incidents

from my classroom that point to the dire need for trained professionals (counselors not

cops) in our school systems.

Chapter 6 is the last findings chapter focused on discussing how I built my

intersectional curriculum and how students responded to it. Breaking down the process, I

15
start with my conceptualization of an intersectional pedagogical model including space

and soul work and what that looks like in the curriculum. From a pedagogical standpoint,

I show how the critical and cultural work can be done alongside Common Core State

Standards. I cover which texts and the relevant critical lens I explicitly taught. Each

lesson and every day was about explicitly teaching students about oppression, privilege,

power, and providing examples of resistance. With many student artifacts included,

students could not only grasp intersectionality as a theory and utilize it as a reading lens

for their texts, themselves, and their world(s) but also use it to resist and create change in

their own lives.

Chapter 7 concludes with a discussion of how embodying an intersectional

pedagogy means working within and against systems. The implications for teachers and

teacher educators are that they can use these findings to build a more just education and

literacy practices. Suggestions for future research directions will be covered around

normalizing intersectional pedagogy and employing it (in our classrooms, communities,

curriculum, teacher education programs) to uncover issues of power in educational

policies and practices as a first step towards dismantling oppressive systems. Finally, I

will end with my reflections on this work and address my continued commitment of

advocacy for and with historically excluded students as a practitioner and researcher.

16
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW INTERSECTIONALITY AS LITERARY

ANALYSIS

Now

Woman power
is
Black power
is
Human power
is
always feeling
my heart beats
as my eyes open
as my hands move
as my mouth speaks

I am
are you

Ready.
-Audre Lorde (1974), p. 121

Introduction

This dissertation research project aims to embody intersectionality, as in Audre

Lorde’s poem, to feel it, see it, speak it, and move with it. From another Black woman

bell hooks (1994), we know that “the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so

forth…inform how and what we teach” (p. 37). In the field of literacy over the past 30

years, the idea that education is never neutral or void of other social ideologies has

become a more prominent and impacted theory, research, and practice; the idea that

literacy is a social practice (Street, 1995). The theory of Intersectionality addresses the

multiplicities of ideologies and is a practice in examining issues of power and identity.

Thus, my conceptualization of intersectionality is a combination of both critical theory

17
(to investigate power) and Womanist/feminist theories (to investigate identity). In this

section, I will concisely discuss contributions of critical and feminist theory and the ways

in which they resist the western traditional idea of social science research and teaching

practices as “objective” and predominantly positivist oriented. The move against

neutrality and objectivity in literacy research and practice made way for a turn inward,

arguing for the validity of identities. I also touch upon how the basic tenets of critical and

feminist epistemologies challenge dominant structures and work to reveal the operation

and the construction of power, ultimately providing tools for us to examine ourselves and

the world around us. In the end, I discuss current research around intersectional pedagogy

and provide points on how my conceptualization of a secondary intersectional literacy

builds and adds to existing literature. With this research project, I intend to embody

intersectionality as a practitioner, like Lorde whose power is aligned with her heart, her

eyes, hands, and mouth.

Theoretical Frameworks

Critical Theories to Examine Power

In their co-authored 1947 book, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, Frankfurt School

philosophers Max Horkheimer and Ted Adorno criticized positivists for assuming our

world is governed by and functioning with impenetrable objectivity and universal truths

instead of realizing that everything we have come to believe as “normal” is influenced by

social constructs. This is relevant to education and literacy practices in that, “It is

misleading and even dangerous to justify our own pedagogical values by pretending they

are grounded in some objective, transcendent Truth” (Kohn, 2003, p. 3) and yet:

18
“Students have been taught to believe that objectivity is an attainable virtue that should

be practiced by everyone involved with education. They have never been exposed to the

argument that education is never neutral” (Kincheloe, 2008, p. 35). Horkheimer and

Adorno’s (1947) work posits that what is deemed as “objective” is “the experience of

those who possess more societal power, while the experiences of marginalized others are

downplayed or outright ignored” (Mirra et al., 2016, p. 17). Moreover, it is crucial for

teachers and researchers to understand that there is no neutrality and that we frame

everything theoretically and pedagogically (Hesford, 1999, p. xxxvii). Recalling hooks’

quote of politics informing what and how we teach, the turn towards including

examinations of the personal and of power shifted the research paradigm. Indeed, it was

revolutionary for this approach “provoked fury and indignation” (Hesford, 1999, p.

xxxii). Nevertheless, positivist frameworks began showing cracks, through which critical

and feminist pedagogy eventually broke through.

Critical theories examining power are crucial in literacy for they “make these

workings of power visible, to denaturalize ‘common sense’ assumptions (Gramsci, 1971)

and to reveal them as constructed representations of the social order, serving the interests

of some at the expense of others” (Janks, 2010, p. 36). Relating to this idea, Freire’s

(1970) model of critical pedagogy is a literacy aimed for liberation and subversive of

oppressive powers. Foucault’s (1970) concept of power is important to critical literacy

because it shows us that discourse(s) create our reality and through which the power

ideology is built. Other critical education theorists such as Althusser (1971), Bourdieu

(1974), and Giroux’s (1983) work critique education’s complicity with theories of

19
reproduction. In their theorizing, critical education is one that has the potential to be a

means for resistance. Practicing critical pedagogy also involves utilizing literary theories,

which are constantly evolving. Some literary theories include poststructuralism, which

“emphasizes the historical and cultural contextual contingencies of all human experience”

(Kincheloe, 2008, p. 52); postcolonial, which examines how people are “othered” by

those in power (Said, 1978); and queer theory, which “think[s] about how school and

literacy education work to heterosexualize and gender people and texts” (Cherland &

Harper, 2007, p. 85). Ultimately, Hesford (1999) explains:

The primary goal of critical pedagogy is to empower students to understand the

links between knowledge, history, and power and to use this knowledge to resist
hegemonic structures and dominant ideologies. Critical pedagogy…is concerned
with both the structural aspects of oppression and individual and collective
resistance. (p. xxxvi)

I have begun work in this realm by conceptualizing how educators might use

intersectionality as a literary theory to examine oppressive structures of power and

identity in texts (Gill, 2016). With our understanding of critical and literary theories,

educators can create a curriculum that works towards deconstructing oppressive relations

of power.

Feminist Theories to Examine Personal Positionalities

Feminist theories are also critical and literary theories that investigate power

through the lens of gender while also disrupting positivist traditions. Like many critical

theories, feminism evolves and is constantly changing. First-wave feminism was largely

suffragettes of the late 19 and early 20 century and were primarily concerned with
th th

extending the citizenship of white women. Second-wave feminism included the women’s

liberation movement in the 1960s, which shifted their focus to social and political rights
20
through intense political activism and theorization. During this period of its evolution,

feminists engaged in theories such as liberal humanism, Marxism, and psychosexual

developmental theory to be critical of patriarchy. Third-wave feminism, starting in the

1990s, engaged in theories such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis,

and postcolonialism. Chandra Mohanty (2003) lists the issues with current concepts of

US-based feminisms: class gap, the focus on “careerist academic feminism, capitalist

feminism, essentialist identity politics” (p. 6). From other women of color feminists and

theorists (e.g., Crenshaw, 1989, 1994; Collins, 2000; hooks, 1981; Lorde, 1984; Spivak,

1988; Minh-Ha, 1989; Ahmed, 2017; Anzaldúa, 1987; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981) there

was a call for feminism that was intersectional and inclusive to other identity categories

such as race and sexuality, for those cannot be ignored and are not separate from

womanhood. Basically, because of this wave we have: cultural feminism, radical

feminism, and intersectionality. Feminists and postfeminists would now agree there is no

essentialized female experience.

As for feminism’s role in disrupting the status quo like critical theories, this is

done with feminism’s critique of positivism for its patriarchal and colonial belief that “In

trying to become ‘objective,’ Western culture made ‘objects’ of things and people when it

distanced itself from them thereby losing ‘touch’ with them” (Anzaldúa, 1987, p. 59).

Moreover, Anzaldúa (1987) writes that this kind of binary thinking is “an absolute despot

duality that says we are able to be one or the other. It claims that human nature is limited

and cannot evolve into something better” (p. 19). Another famed feminist theorist Audre

Lorde (1984), would agree that “living in the european (sic) mode” (p. 37) confines our

21
humanity and undermines those of non-western cultures and societies as mere objects.

Decolonization, dismantling western and European models are part of transnational

feminism, building off Franz Fanon’s (1963) idea that decolonization requires a “whole

social structure being changed from the bottom up” (p. 35). In this way, Fanon argues

that decolonization happens at all levels, beginning with the self, then community, and

ultimately the larger institutions and structures. Fanon’s ideas of decolonization heavily

influenced transnational feminists like Mohanty and hooks. Feminists like Lorde (1984),

instead urge us to get in touch with our “non-european (sic) consciousness of living” and

once we decolonize our minds, “we learn more to cherish our feelings, and to respect

those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting

action comes” (p. 37). Here it is critical to see how feminism takes feelings as a valid

source of power and knowledge, and that in doing so we can resist individuals and

institutions that marginalize through multiple forms of domination. In feminist

classrooms, educators are “striving to create participatory spaces for the sharing of

knowledge” (hooks, 1994, p. 15), a place where ideas learned in the classroom are being

connected to students’ lives. Although Cantu and Barbara, (2012) were speaking on

Anzaldúa’s concept of “border consciousness,” I would argue that intersectional

feminism is also about understanding that every person is able “to hold multiple social

perspectives while simultaneously maintaining a center that revolves around fighting

against concrete material forms of oppression” (p. 7). Indeed, life and people are more

complex and nuanced than positivists would have us believe, and feminists reject their

logic of “strict binary discourse of self/other, real/virtual, [and] reason/emotion”

22
(Ellsworth, 2005, p. 3). This line of theorizing is where I make my home and hope my

dissertation work contributes by creating an intersectional pedagogy for the secondary

ELA classroom.

Kincheloe (2008) writes, “The positivist educator…sees only one correct way to

teach, and scientific study can reveal these methods if we search for them diligently. This

is the logic, the epistemology on which top-down standards are based. Everyone is

assumed to be the same regardless of class, race, or gender” (p. 28). However, we know

that research and pedagogy are political; feminist and other critical theories examine

contextual positioning’s such as gender as it relates to race, class, colonization, ethnicity,

religions, and sexuality. We also know that, like critical pedagogy, feminist research and

pedagogy assumes that power impacts knowledge and culture, values equity, and the

fight for social justice to subvert oppressive powers (Cherland & Harper, 2007). It has

become clear that “it is impossible to be a teacher of language and literacy today without

taking into account identity, power, privilege and access because these issues are at the

very heart of language and literacy” (Nieto, 2009, p. xi). I choose to ground my

dissertation work in intersectional, critical, and feminist research and pedagogies because

their basic principles strive for more egalitarian relations and social justice outcomes,

where humanization and liberation are the heart of everything.

Conceptual Frameworks

Intersectionality as Theory

Feminist and critical race theorist Patricia Hill Collins (1998) defines

intersectionality as “an analysis claiming that systems of race, economic class, gender,

23
sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age [are] from mutually constructing features of social

organization” (278). Although it is assumed that intersectionality began when it was first

coined by famed legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) and solely from Black

Feminist Theory, others would take issue and argue that intersectionality as a social

movement and the elaboration of the core ideas development began in the 1960s and the

1970s with women of color feminists (Collins & Bilge, 2016). Crenshaw’s naming of the

phenomenon of black women experiencing not only racism, but also sexism and classism

(also known as RCG for race, class, gender) in 1989 is notable, but it is equally valuable

to understand that others before and after have contributed their own social theory of

identity with this same concept. Before Crenshaw, Black feminists Audre Lorde (1984)

and bell hooks (1984) wrote of simultaneous and multiple identities as well. For example,

Lorde (1984) stated, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not

live single-issue lives” (p. 138). In some circles, Black Feminist Theory is still

synonymous with intersectionality. In addition, there have been many narratives or

elaborations of intersectionality including Chicana feminism (Anzaldúa, 1987; Moraga &

Anzaldúa, 1981). Anzaldúa is credited with bringing the mestiza concept along with the

postcolonial, immigrant, and queering of the theory. Chandra Mohanty (1984), Esther

Chow (1987), and Gaytri Spivak (1988) were among the Asian American and

international Asian scholars who also contributed to the concept of intersectionality

before being coined. Deborah King (1988) elaborated on the concept with the term

“multiple jeopardy” and later, for Collins (2000), intersectionality became a paradigm

that “remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that

24
oppressions work together in producing injustice” (p. 18). Others still have their own

brand of intersectionality whether it be queering settler colonialism (Driskill, Finley,

Gilley, and Morgensen, 2011; Rifkin, 2011) or building off the initial theory to create a

new one like Michael Hames-García’s (2011) theory of multiplicity, which he claims

“can account for how social identities take shape through processes of racial and gender

formation, mutually constituting one another. That theory seeks to analyze the necessary

social interdependence of identities and, therefore, to enable the creation of deep relations

of solidarity across differences” (p. ix). Like intersectionality, the theory of multiplicity

draws its roots from a variety of other theories including women-of-color feminisms,

queer of color critique, critical race theory, ethnic studies, and theories of coloniality; all

these theoretical frameworks combined are meant to interrogate structures of power and

identity in new ways. As a theory, it can be generally understood that “intersectionality is

a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in

human experience” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 25).

As one can see, the foci of intersectionality have expanded greatly to include

many other social identity categories such as sexuality, nationality, and others not named

above; for example, (dis)ability, age, and religion. In the recent decade, practitioners

across many disciplines are forging pathways of taking intersectionality from the realm of

(legal) theory and applying it in practice. This is done by considering intersectionality’s

key theoretical tenets; which are “six core ideas…when people use intersectionality as an

analytic tool: inequality, relationality, power, social context, complexity, and social

justice” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 25). Furthermore, it is important to note how the

25
terminology evolves in its usage about intersectionality throughout this work. To start, it

can be understood that intersectionality is adopted in practice as a “framework” and is

often also referred in scholarship as a “tool.” As a tool, intersectionality serves as “(1) an

approach to understand human life and behavior rooted in the experiences and struggles

of disenfranchised people, and (2) an important tool linking theory with practice that can

aid in the empowerment of communities and individuals” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 36).

Additionally, scholars interchangeably describe intersectionality’s use from theory to

practice by using it not only as a framework and tool, but also as a “lens” to “look at how

power works” (p. 27).

Intersectionality as Pedagogy

In 1986, scholars Grant and Sleeter wrote an article making the case for an

“integrative analysis” of education research after looking back at almost a decade worth

of research only to realize those identity categories of race, class, and gender were

“treated as separate issues in education literature” (p.195). Since then, it is clear, that

intersectionality as a theory has grown in the amount of theoretical scholarship and

expanded greatly. However, there is still a lack of effective pedagogical tools for teachers

and only now in the recent years is there a visible increase of educators that are seeking

resources, research, and support on how to translate this particular theory into praxis

(Banks & Pliner, 2012; Ferber & Herrera, 2013). Empirical research detailed in this

section all came out of higher education settings and therefore is crucial to note that

intersectional pedagogy scholarship currently exists exclusively in post-secondary

settings. Additionally, before delving into the details of intersectionality’s pedagogical

26
tenets it is critical to acknowledge that intersectionality is highly contextualized and thus,

methodology for different practices and pedagogies will not look the same as scholars

Collins and Bilge (2016) remind practitioners: “Intersectionality as a form of critical

inquiry and praxis gains its meaning within specific social contexts” (p. 199).

Intersectionality is contextual but there are some tenets that cut across fields and

disciplines. Kim Case’s (2016) book titled Intersectional Pedagogy: Complicating

Identity and Social Justice is an edited volume of articles collected from professors

throughout multiple disciplines at the post-secondary level. As Case complied these

empirical sources, 10 major

tenets make up the fundamental

structure or model of

intersectional pedagogy. A

reproduced table of the Model

of Intersectional Pedagogy

(Case, 2016) is provided on the

right:

Figure 2.1 Model of Intersectional Pedagogy (Case, 2016)

To paraphrase, these are the 10 methodologies for employing intersectionality as a

literacy tool: first, one must understand that intersectionality is a complex analysis of

both privileged/oppressed identities that interact to create systemic inequities, and

secondly, intersectionality must be taught across a wide variety of oppressions and not

just the standard RCG model. Thirdly, your study of intersectionality should aim to

27
uncover invisible intersections that are not otherwise explicit, and this the fourth and fifth

components which are a privilege and power analysis. Next, intersectionality can be

considered a multidirectional macro (social structures) and micro (individual lives) type

of theory which involves educator personal reflection on intersection identities and

encourages student reflection. Moving from reflection and deep-dive analysis,

intersectionality is about promoting social action and this is done by valuing the voices of

the marginalized and oppressed. Finally, an intersectional pedagogy is one that goes

across the curriculum (p. 9). In other words, abolitionist teaching scholar Dr. Bettina

Love (2019) succinctly summarizes the value of adopting intersectionality for the

classroom:

Intersectionality also allows educators to dialogue around a set of questions that

will lead them to a better sense of their students’ full selves, their students’
challenges, the grace and beauty that is needed to juggle multiple identities
seamlessly, and how schools perpetuate injustice. When teachers shy away from
intersectionality, they shy away from ever fully knowing their students’ humanity
and the richness of their identities. (p. 7)

All of this put together, we know that when put into action, intersectionality as a practice

is about required reflecting on students’ and teachers’ identities, analyzing privilege and

power, and works “across the curriculum” borders, all to affect positive social change.

Intersectionality as Pedagogy as Imagined in Secondary ELA classrooms

In the past 18 years, 10% of children’s books contained multiracial content and of

that, over 50% of that content was not written by POCs (lecture, Muhammed, 2018). This

reflects the need for diverse books in our curriculum, especially those with marginalized

28
characters written by BIPOCs5, and thus making a case for why YAL is needed in the

classroom. As a genre, YAL is fairly young (around a few decades old compared to

literature in the English “canon”) and has been taught in American schools since the

1970s and read by young adults since the 1960s. With books like S. E. Hinton’s The

Outsiders (1967), Go Ask Alice (Sparks, 1971), other books like Lois Lowry’s The Giver

(1993) and Louis Sachar’s Holes (2000), they have increasingly been taught with more

instructional materials. Books with certain awards geared towards young adult readers are

frequently picked up in schools as well. Further legitimization occurred when scholars

began to recognize the popularity of YAL and thus started publishing articles in literary

journals such as the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy and the ALAN Review

(Aslup, 2010; Bucher & Hinton, 2009; Garcia, 2013).

There has been steady scholarship and research about the benefits of curriculum

inclusive of YAL in classrooms as a resource for complimenting the “classics” (Herz &

Gallo, 2005; Monseau & Salvner, 2000; Bucher & Hinton, 2009). It is likely more

educators are normalizing YAL in the ELA curriculum due to the general recognition that

“today’s young adult literature is sophisticated, complex, and powerful…it deserves to be

part of the literary tradition in middle and high schools” (Stallworth, 2006, p. 59). Most

importantly, Children’s Literature scholar, Ebony Thomas, and Digital Literacy scholar,

Amy Stornaiuolo, make the case for going beyond the canon “working from postmodern,

critical, feminist, and critical race perspectives, we note that women, people of color, and

5
Black, Indigenous, People of Color or BIPOC will be used to describe generally students of color because
this is more inclusive and respectful. This is a political move to decenter whiteness in that it resists the use
of the term “non-whites.” Also, this term pays respect in that it distinctly forefronts the original experiences
of Blacks and Indigenous peoples in this country from other peoples of color who immigrated or sought
asylum.
29
other marginalized readers have always had to read themselves into canons that excluded

them” (emphasis in original, p. 317). Of course, YAL is not a panacea for multicultural

texts, in fact, research shows that some texts that are diverse can provide representations

of marginalized groups as caricatures and stereotypes that are not humanizing (Bradford,

2001; Forest, Garrison, & Kimmel, 2015; MacCann, 2013; McGillis, 1999). For the

reasons mentioned above, I hope to explore an intersectional pedagogy through a YAL

infused curriculum and to “Build your lesson plans around diverse books, so that it is part

of everyday literacy instruction and assessment (Thomas, 2016, p. 117). In doing so, the

selection of certain YAL texts matters in that they can show authentic and humanized

representations (Thomas, 2016) for students to relate to. The next section details how I

plan to work with students to further critically examine YAL texts through intersectional

literary analysis.

Antero Garcia (2013) specializes in YAL in education and argues that “Teaching

with theory not simply about theory is an important resource for educators to better

reflect and challenge the lived experiences and expectations of young adults today” (p.

10, emphasis in original). Over the last few decades, there have been many texts that have

suggested how teachers can utilize literary theory in their ELA classes and have in-class

student discussions about complex theories to critically understand the multiple meanings

of a text (Appleman, 2000; Hinton-Johnson, 2003; Lee, 1993; Moore, 1997; Soter; 1999).

However, in these texts, the theory of intersectionality is missing and although there are

arguments of providing students with multiple literary lenses, there are no lessons on how

to employ them in an interconnected manner. Hinton (2006) laments, “few scholars seem

30
to discuss or encourage the use of African American literary theory, particularly black

feminist theory, in middle and secondary classrooms” (p. 60). In addition, I would add

that the current construction of intersectionality as literary theory (Hinton, 2004; Gill,

2016) is also left out of major conversations of literacy practices and pedagogies in the

same context. Hinton (2004), Blackburn & Smith (2010), and I (Gill, 2016) have argued

for the usefulness of an intersectional reading of YAL. Mollie Blackburn and Jill Smith

(2010) reflected on their own practices realized a need for going “beyond the inclusion of

LGBT-themed literature” in ELA classrooms and demand for a more intersectional

perspective that does not separate sexuality from other aspects of identity such as RGC.

Literacy scholar Dr. Laura Jiménez’s (2021) very recent article discusses how they used

children’s picture books in a second-grade classroom to teach about intersectional social

justice work through Dr. Rudine Bishop’s (1990) “mirrors and windows” framework.

Bishop’s metaphor is that books can be as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors into

the lived experiences or worlds of others. In Jiménez’s article, it wonderfully explains

how to choose certain books that qualify as intersectional and the conversations that took

place with the elementary students.

What I find missing from the current books on teaching literary theory to

adolescents is the concept of intersectionality as a literary theory. This is significant to

young adults reading in ELA courses because “black feminist literary theory offers tools

that teachers can use to initiate discussions around issues of race, class, gender, inequity,

and social action that surface in texts” (Hinton, 2004, p. 60). In this way, intersectionality

is unique and has much more to offer than what was previously understood about ELA

31
teaching and literary analysis. There are two cases where intersectionality for the

secondary and one in primary classroom (Jimenez, 2021) has been taken up in

methodological conversation. First is Hinton’s (2004) conceptual and an empirical study,

in which she advises a group of future secondary teachers in the teaching of

intersectionality, rooted in black feminist theory, as literary analysis: “I ask students to

form groups, choose a theory, and become experts on that theory in preparation for

leading class discussions about the theory and a novel that lends itself to that particular

lens” (p. 61). Hinton (2004) proposes a set of questions for her class of future teachers

when considering an intersectional reading of a text:

1. How are the interlocking oppressions of race, class, and gender at work in the

lives of the characters?

2. How do characters resist race, class, and gender oppression?

3. How do characters express a philosophy of liberation by assisting and

encouraging themselves and others in efforts to prevail over multiple oppressions

(racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth)? (p. 63).

Highly relevant to the teaching of intersectionality as a literary analysis tool in the

secondary classroom and yet still conceptual, I (Gill, 2016) also proposed guiding

questions in which teachers and students can maintain an open and multifaceted

discussion and analysis of a text. There is a similarity in the centering of identity and

structures of power in both sets of intersectional guiding questions:

1. What issues of difference or sameness are being displayed in the text or
visual?

2. How do the issues of difference/sameness interact with each other?

32
 3. In what ways does power affect the issues of difference/sameness?

4. In what ways do political, social, or historical contexts interact with the issues

of difference/sameness? (p. 70).

To clarify, I use the terms “issues of difference or sameness” not as binaries but

contrarily leave it open for the reader/learner to identity and name the oppression or

privilege. Intersectionality is a fluid theory that resists categorization. I carefully chose

the terms “different” and “sameness” as a starting point for young learners. For students

who may not have the linguistic framework or vocabulary to name sexism, racism,

ableism, and such, so I ask them to look at a passage or image and analyze how perhaps a

character is being “othered” for a certain difference, whether it be about race, queerness,

religion, ability and so on. Or to look at the image and see how some characters have a

certain sameness that are being talked about or shown; this way I leave it open for the

students to figure out what exactly is at stake. Once the issue(s) are named, the next step

is to analyze how the issue interacts, interrogate how does power play into it, and

examine/connect how outside constructs impact that issue.

These sets of guidelines for an intersectional literary analysis are relevant and fill

a gap in that although identity is present in other literacies and pedagogies, “identity

politics have been eschewed in favor of a flattened understanding of difference…In turn,

this ‘flattening’ underscores the pressing need for different approaches that disrupt

conservative multiculturalist readings which obscure and deny systemic inequalities and

prejudices” (Schlund-Vials, 2011, p. 108, emphasis in original). This is what

intersectionality can offer beyond and in addition to the other pedagogies and the current

practice of using one literary theory in exclusion of any other. Hinton’s guiding questions
33
provide a wonderful start on intersectionality in its early conception of Crenshaw’s

(1989) RCG (race, class, gender) framing of identity. Hinton names specific oppressions

to get started on thinking in the traditional framework, whereas I broaden those to simply

have the reader define what those oppressions might be by using the terminology of

“difference/sameness.” Hinton and I both stress the “interlocking” or interacting aspect of

social categories, thus staying true to intersectionality’s theoretical and pedagogical

tenets instead of the additive and “flattening” approach. While I call for visuals and

characters to be read intersectionally, Hinton embraces a “philosophy of liberation”

within an intersectional reading. Furthermore, my intersectional reading comprises

connections made to and between “political, social, or historical contexts.” Both models

contain similarities and the differences add to, rather than contradict each other’s

frameworks. Hinton’s “philosophy of liberation” simulates a tenet of intersectionality as a

theory mentioned earlier in terms of promoting social action. In reading a text with an

intersectional lens, Hinton probes how we can not only make visible the oppressions

characters are experiencing but also how they work to “liberate” or dismantle those same

oppressions. This is relevant to the structure of intersectional pedagogy at the collegiate

level in that students are also asked to work towards the empowerment of marginalized

communities. My invitation to inquire into ways of the political, social, and historical,

signal intersectionality as a theory that moves “across borders” to connect identity

construction to structures of power. This is affirmed by Kim Case’s (2016) comments on

why employing an intersectional framework as part of a citizen’s education is

fundamental: “to understand how historical and contemporary manifestations of identity,

34
difference, and disadvantage continue to shape life chances and outcomes” (p. ix). I

would argue, both Hinton’s and my frameworks used simultaneously, are completely

applicable and manageable, providing an advantageous entry point into engaging

intersectional pedagogy at the secondary level ELA classroom.

Currently, there is a gap of published scholarship on how secondary teachers are

employing intersectionality in their pedagogy and literacy practices. What does exist are

a few conceptual pieces on how to adapt intersectionality into the classroom and some

empirical pieces about using intersectionality as a framework when working with

students outside of the classroom context. For out-of-school contexts, research and

literacy frameworks that draw from social identity theories of intersectionality and

multiplicity are necessary when doing work with youth in regards to examining lived

experiences and investigating structures of power (Campano et al., 2013, Muhammad,

2015; Player, et al., 2016; McArthur & Muhammad, 2017) otherwise, “resulting

understandings will only be partial as well” (Campano et al., 2013, p. 322). These

educational researchers have worked with youth in academic contexts independent of

traditional classrooms and collectively argue that when youth are given the space and

time to explore and narrate their intersectional identities, this correlates with actions

towards social justice, self and political awareness, empowerment, and a means of

resistance or anti-oppressive pedagogy. Williams (2009) makes the argument after her

work with adolescent girls in an out-of-school context, that developmental issues around

age should also be a component of intersectional pedagogy. For Williams, an

intersectional pedagogy in her specific context meant having a curriculum that “allows

35
for the participants to consider the intersections of their physical, social, emotional, and

racial identity development” (p. 87). I include the knowledge and lessons from these

scholars who used intersectionality to guide their pedagogy with students in the outside-

of-school contexts into a full-time ELA classroom setting.

Conclusion

With intersectional pedagogy dominating collegiate and out-of-school contexts,

the question is still how do we move intersectionality into the classroom with a specific

content area? One of the paths in which I argue intersectionality can be part of ELA

classrooms is by teaching literary theories to analyze YAL as a first step. Educational

theory scholar Bettina Love (2019) writes,

teachers must embrace theories such as critical race theory, settler colonialism,
Black feminism, dis/ability, critical race studies, and other critical theories that
have the ability to interrogate anti-Blackness and frame experiences with
injustice, focusing the moral compass toward a North Star that is ready for a long
and dissenting fight for educational justice. (p. 12)

I propose there can be a dialectic between the conceptual for intersectional literacy

practices in secondary schools and the empirical work that has developed at the collegiate

level in terms of the current model of intersectional pedagogy. Altogether, there could

exist a new framework of an intersectional pedagogy for the secondary ELA classroom.

Drawing of course, from Case’s (2016) model of intersectional pedagogy, the previous

section displayed how both sets of guiding questions stay true to the model as well as the

theory. As mentioned above, the framework for using intersectionality as a literary theory

aligns with the pedagogical model in that they conceptualize intersectionality as a

36
complex analysis of simultaneous identities and oppressions, promotes social action, and

infuses intersections across other disciplines and dimensions.

37
 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS COMPOSING

INTERSECTIONAL LITERACY RESEARCH

What about me

What about me is different

why do I have to speak English
And not Spanish
I have to speak English to fit
In with society so people
Can accept me

What about me is different

that am Latina
And am too “dark”
To be Mexican or Latina

What about me is different

that cops have to come to
My neighborhood
Almost everyday

What about me is different

that you have to call me a “chola”
And a “gangster”

What about me is different

that I may live in a poor neighbor
Hood or rich

What is different
I’m like you
but what about me
-Josephina Reina6 (2019), 6th Grader

6
An anonymized name for my student who wrote this poem as part of our Intersectional Identity Poems
project, the last unit of my curriculum.

38
 Introduction

Looking at herself and her world through race, class, gender, linguistic lenses,

Josephina shows us her complex identities but also her lived experiences with oppression.

Intersectionality is a powerful tool when taught explicitly because “intersectionality not

only provides a way in which to think about the communities we belong to but also a

means to discuss all of our communities in ways that are inclusive of how oppression

intersects our everyday lives inside and outside of school (Love, 2019, p. 6). Just like

Josephina’s identities, all the identities of the community and school matter too. In this

chapter, I provide details on the context of this project including the macro perspectives

which are the sociopolitical circumstances and an intersectional analysis of micro

perspectives which are the literal and physical spaces of the school, and the souls in and

around the community (the charter school organization and the specific school site), and

classroom (my cohort of students). Moving on from there, details on the methodological

frameworks, methods of data collection, and analysis will be discussed. In the end,

limitations of the study are briefly shared.

Context

Political Context

This project was conducted during the 2018-2019 school year and much was

happening on our national and global stages which in turn impacted our daily lives. In

this section, I provide a summary of critical local and world events that we have lived

through. The national political context, much like it is today, is one where there is a

deeply divided government leading to a full shutdown in January and February 2018.

39
There is also the obvious racist, sexist, ableist, capitalist, sexual predator, fascist (45th)7

president of the country. School shootings are commonplace and gun violence an

unsurprising plague on the country; in fact, it is the highest it has been in 50 years

(Mervosh, 2018). In 2018, the most notable school shooting this year was the Parkland,

Florida shooting resulting in 17 deaths at a high school and after hundreds of thousands

of “March for Our Lives” protestors in our nation’s capital followed. 45 separating

children from their parents and putting them in cages due to his “Zero Tolerance”

immigration policies while he travels to the fascist and dictatorship country of North

Korea and shakes hands with their authoritarian leader. Then our state of California was

on fire in November (exacerbated by global warming which many of our political leaders

deny) which left us and our children unable to play outside for many days, leaving

school, students, and staff scrambling to adjust to environmental hazards/crises. In the

same month, yet another mass shooting, this time closer to home, in Thousand Oaks,

California (Pauley, 2018). Then around the end of the school year, there was yet another

white bigot terrorist shooting at the Walmart near our southern border in El Paso, Texas.

All this boiling over because of 45’s “Build the wall” racist campaign, and anti-

immigration, xenophobic politics.

Globally, during our school day, we were shaken to learn about the Islamophobic

terror attacks in New Zealand. Happily, Taiwan legalizes same-sex marriage.

Unfortunately, conservative and Hindu-supremacist Modi was elected into his second

7
Donald Trump. He will from here on throughout this work be referred to as 45 as he is the 45th president
of the United States. Invoking his name is triggering and not worthy of more space because of all the
violence he has enacted on many marginalized communities. In addition, culturally, invoking someone’s
name gives them power and honor which will never be extended to 45 in this work.

40
term as India’s Prime Minister, an example of an increasing number of morally corrupt,

fascist world leaders. At the end of the school year, there were the devastating Amazon

fires in Brazil (MSN News, 2019), tied to eco-fascism and capitalism leading to the

destruction of Indigenous peoples’ lands and the remaining rainforests on Earth. I include

this social, historical, and political context of the school year because I believe an

intersectional education must be based in criticality civics, to know ourselves and our

world(s) is intersectionality praxis. Educators must know the social, historical, and

political contexts of the community because not only is it imperative for curriculum

building, but also coupled with critical theories, teachers and students can understand

“that educational justice can happen only through a simultaneous fight for economic

justice, racial justice, housing justice, environment justice, religious justice, queer justice,

trans justice, citizenship justice, and disability justice” (Love, 2019, p. 12).

Educational Context of First-Generation, Low-Income, BIPOC Students

The site that this project was conducted at is a school within a charter school

system that centers first-generation low-income (FGLI) students increasing their access to

college. According to the Center for First-Generation Student Access (2019), as of 2015-

16 over half of the student population in colleges are first-generation students; the

definition of “first-generation” here is one where the students’ parents have not obtained

a bachelor’s degree. However, knowing the student population that I was working with, it

went deeper in that many, like myself, have parents with no postsecondary education at

all and we were first-generation Americans with immigrant or refugee guardians. That

number drops to around a quarter of the student population. Further analysis shows that

41
within these numbers an even smaller percentage of these first-generation students are

BIPOC. Then among the first-generation students, the median income is $41,000 while

the median income in 2015 was $55,775 (U.S. Census Bureau). All this data points to the

fact that the specific category of students, FGLI-BIPOC students, is a real group of

students that need to be highlighted and supported throughout educational research and

institutions. This leads us to the motivations behind the research site in that the charter

school system that I conducted this critical ethnographic and practitioner study in, existed

to explicitly target this educational gap in our nation. The primary mission of the school

was for the educational advancement of first generation BIPOC in our local community.

Espacio Preparatory Charters8

This charter school system was created in 2000 first which “started in the hall of a

Methodist church9,” then later to one small class in a rented portable to now 20 years

later, being in a $30 million newly constructed building, with an $18 million budget. The

local school district approved this charter system in 1999 and then in 2000 officially

became the first charter school system in the city. The city is the most diverse in the

South Bay Area. The local paper in 200910 writes:

Using good work done over many years by the Coalition of Essential Schools and
Stanford Education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond’s work on school design
and student success, [EPC] operates from the following premises:
• Students learn best in a culture of high expectations for all.

8
Espacio Preparatory Charters (EPC) is the pseudonym for the entire school organization. When referring
to the specific school within EPC where I conducted my teacher research, I will refer to it as Alma College
Prep (ACP).
9
For anonymity purposes, the exact citation for this will be redacted for legal reasons including a Non-
Disclosure Agreement. Including citations of research from local newspapers and books reveals the identity
of the school and their staff.
10
See anonymity statement above.
42
 • Students learn best when they are able to spend extended time with
teachers and build multi-year relationships with the same adults. [EPC]
utilizes looping strategies (teachers stay with students for at least two
years in the same academic subject) and advisories as integral components
of their structure.
• Students learn best when families and communities are involved and feel
welcomed at school.
• Students learn best when a school puts “culture before curriculum.”

The mission of this organization began and continues to support and increase the

number of first-generation (anticipated) college students for they say, “[EPC] prepares

first-generation students for college success.” Although, this definition of “first-

generation” has a double meaning: 1) being the first in their family to go to college 2) the

first generation to be born in the US. For most of the student demographics there were the

intersections of both the definitions for “first-generation” who like me, were “first-

generation” Americans, and “first-generation” college students. It is clear in their

mission statement, in the way the spaces of the schools are decorated with college

pennants and flags, pictures of student graduates holding up signs with which college

they gained admission to, along with their families, this is an institution that is heavily

concerned with fighting against the low numbers of FGLI students going and graduating

college. Overall, it prides itself on a social justice and equity model and mission.

Espacio Preparatory Charters consists of two middle schools and two high schools

that currently serve 1850 students in grades 5-12 across a diverse and heavily populated

South Bay Area city. This charter system focuses on creating, developing, and nurturing

their students’ college-going identities, which starts from their middle school experiences

(5th grade), through their high school experience, and even throughout their college

education. To serve this mission, the EPC recruits FGLI students and families, has

43
supports for families about the college application process and financial aid

opportunities/options. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

(2019), nationally only 14% of low-income students graduate from within six years after

high school. Whereas, EPC boasts a 56% graduating rate of their FGLI students after

leaving their charter school system.

Alma College Prep

Off a busy city street, Alma College Prep (ACP) is one of the middle schools (5th

to 8th grade) which is located inside a formidable building, repurposed from the town’s

old lumber yard. Now remodeled, complete with modern 21st-century architecture, the

building is painted largely in stretches of the school’s colors blue and gold.11 ACP school

has been operating for five years at this point, and it would be in its second year

particularly navigating schooling in this specific building and location. No one can miss it

despite being on the corner of a busy intersection, across from Denny’s, next to a gas

station, with a huge shopping center behind which includes big name brands like

Walmart, and fast food places like Jack in the Box and Wendy’s located across the street

to the left of the entrance. All of this makes the neighborhood and surrounding area of the

school a very populated and busy street, full of foot and vehicular traffic.

This building housed 50% of the entire EPC system. Meaning, out of the 4

schools, 2 of them share this building. There is a middle school that I taught at and is the

main context of this study, and the other is their high school which our middle schoolers

were expected to matriculate into. In other words, this giant single building held 2

11
Changed to increase anonymity
44
schools, 5th-12th grades, with students of the ages 10 to 18 sharing the same space. In

prior years, this meant 18-year-olds and other teenagers would race to class

simultaneously and in the same space as 10-year-olds. This year though, the

administration realized it was “chaos” and decidedly built a glass door partition

separating the two-storied school building with the left side of the school being strictly

for the high school (9th-12th grades) and the right side for the middle grades (5th-8th).

The physical space of the school is built to model a building in a community

college, with varying sizes of classrooms and lecture rooms. With the total number of

students enrolled in this one building, it was around 1000 and everyone had to share the

same building inside and outside. The school had a long and tall black gated fence around

it to protect itself from strangers wandering on campus. Teachers and staff had keys to

the gate to enter as a person but not access to the gate for a cars to be in the parking lot.

The parking lot was very small and despite the gate, there were thefts since a colleague

that year had her locked bike stolen during the school day. Strangers still wandered in

because the gate for cars remained opened during business hours. To access the building

itself, teachers and staff had keys whereas parents, students, and others had to be

“buzzed” into the building.

A small gymnasium existed outside of the building and was its own building and

was less used for sports and more for a lunching space for students plus one odd

classroom that was perhaps mean to originally be a storage room for physical education

materials and gear. The cafeteria is located at the end of the school building towards the

blacktop and recess area. A standard industrial kitchen open to the school with a large

45
window; however, the food was served from cafeteria carts, reminiscent of the ones in

hospitals. Students would line up outside on the blacktop and need to have their “pin

numbers” memorized for lunch. The blacktop area was enclosed with a tall and thick

black metal fence. Students would line up along this fence when they came out for lunch.

There is no playground for the little ones at all. There are two tall, standard sized,

basketball hoops for the older kids, concrete steps for students to lounge around on, and

then a tiny AstroTurf soccer space that had a waist-high, thin black fence around it, with

a running track on the ground surrounding it. Half of the outdoor area was prohibited to

the students either as “punishment for destruction of property” or for development for

future features like a school garden and rock sitting area. For better reference of the

school space, I have created a basic sketch of the layout which is provided below:

Figure 3.1 Outside Alma College Prep sketch

46
In the next chapter, I will discuss how the physical layout of this school caused many

problems for the systems and schedules of how the school was run, how the physical

space was a situation where we worked within and against it. Much of our frustrations

were connected to this physical space which impacted our teaching and learning. This is

clear through an intersectional analysis of the physical space, provided in Chapter Four.

The Participants

Maxwell (2013) explains that, “Selection decisions should also take into account

the feasibility of access and data collection, your research relationships with study

participants, validity concerns, and ethics” (p. 99). After applying to multiple schools and

school districts, I was left with only two options that would accept me as a teacher

researcher. The first was a KIPP charter school that asked I delay my research to first

support the organization to found their English department. KIPP also asked me to

dedicate 10 hours minimum a day at work and the interviewing Principal scoffed at me

when I asked her how she maintains “work-life balance” within her staff. The other was

ACP that hired me within 15 minutes of our interview and had only the condition of

signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), which was legally binding to keep them

anonymous in my work. It was extremely easy for me to decide to go with Alma College

Prep and their NDA because I would be given more autonomy and respect as a

human. KIPP was abhorrent in their inhumane working conditions.

The 2018-2019 6th Grade Teacher Cohort

Teaching is not done in isolation and how and what others do or do not do,

impacts everyone else; thus, I include my colleagues explicitly as participants because

47
they do play a part in everything that happens in and out of my classroom. Identities of all

those involved in the research and teaching process are significant in that, “simply put,

[our] presence, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and relationship to others in the context of a

research study matter” (Green, 2014, p. 153). My team included three other people and

with myself totaled to four teachers for the 6th grade class cohort. The entire 6th grade

teaching cohort was new to ACP and/or new to teaching. The rest of the school teaching

teams would perhaps have one new team member but we were the only team on campus

that were completely new to the school. There was Ms. Mia, a Latina, had 2 elementary-

aged half Black daughters, was in her early 30s, and South Bay Area native. She was

tasked with teaching both Math and Science. This year was her first year ever teaching

and she was pushed to teach two subjects. Prior to this year, she had served the school as

an office aid but it was known by her peers that she aspired to go to nursing school and

continue her studies meaning she had taken science courses before at the collegiate level.

Another member of the team included, Mr. Sancho who was a Latino, mid-30s, like me, a

new parent. His daughter, half Chinese, was born a few weeks before school started. Mr.

Sancho had just returned from teaching 6 years in an International School in China.

Despite having teaching experience, it is not recognized in the United States and so he

had to simultaneously work on getting credentialed and working with the state to get

licensed. Next, we had Mr. Huck, a Jewish white male in his late 40s, no children, very

large body that made it difficult for him to stand for extended periods and decreased his

mobility around the classroom. Also, he had taught at various schools in the district for

15 years making him the more “senior” teacher. Besides myself, he had a teaching

48
credential and was especially liked by the Principal because Mr. Huck had an elementary

credential. What brought him to ACP was never disclosed. He did not last very long and

was subsequently fired (details in Chapter 5). After many months of a rotating roster of

random substitutes, his position was filled by a permanent substitute who we shall call

Ms. Shellgrove, who also happened to be the Principal’s nanny. Ms. Shellgrove was in

her early 20s, white, thin, fresh out of undergraduate school with a degree in Dance. Like

Ms. Mia, she had no credential, license, or experience in teaching 6th grade Math or

Science and was operating on an “California Emergency Teacher Certification.”

According to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), a person needs

a Bachelor’s degree and take the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST)

(which has an 86% passing rate) in order to be granted an emergency certification.

The 2018-2019 6th Grade Student Cohort

The student demographics of the 6th-grade cohort consisted of over 80% Latinx

FGLI children, with 99% of them on the Free and Reduced Lunch Program. My

participants were recruited naturally from my 6th grade English classes that I taught for

the school year. When I asked them to self-identify racially, the students were a little

confused with the overlapping categories in that many students who wrote in answers

with “Mexican” or another Latin country, it did not count towards the larger “Latina/o”

scale. The graph provided below shows how the students racially identified:

49
 Figure 3.2 Self-Identification of Student Racial Demographics

As a full-time teacher with 4 classes of around 35 students (overcrowded classes), I

started the school year with an introduction of who I am, what my curriculum was about,

and why I was conducting research. First, I gave a quick presentation with all that

following information, clarifying what the “research” would look like, in terms of me

taking notes in my notebook, taking pictures of some of the classroom and work, and

recording class conversations when we talk about books, all while keeping everything

anonymous. Once this presentation was completed on Day 1 of the school year, I also

sent permission slips to both students and parents. I made sure to have everything

available in both English and Spanish. See the appendix for the letters of permission for

research. Out of the total 120 students who remained my students for that year, half of the

students returned their permission slips and agreed to participate in my study. 60 students

in total were active participants in the study which was an average of 15 students

50
participated in each class. To be clear, around half of the class for each class had agreed

to participate in this study.

Researcher Role in Reflexivity

How I situate myself as a researcher in this space is through multiple roles

depending on different spaces and contexts. For example, I was asked to be the Team

Leader of the cohort because of my past experiences leading a group of teachers. Setting

and executing team meetings was my responsibility and I also acted as the “go-between”

the team and administration and vice versa. Being a Team Leader also meant that I had a

“seat at the table” when all leaders of the school met with the administration to make

whole-school decisions. However, the majority/priority of my role was being the

students’ 6th grade English Language Arts teacher. In that position, I was entering the

classroom for the first time again in 4 years, as a researcher too, and being a new mom to

an infant child. While also reflecting on my role as an educator, I worked hard to center

other voices like colleagues of color, guest speakers, and people from the community.

Research Design

Methodological Frameworks

With the focus on closing the “achievement gap,” which is more disparate in

schools with students of color, efforts made by policy makers and educators focus more

on controlling student behavior and teaching to the test: “In short, the education offered

to many youth of color, who will soon compose the majority of students in public

schools, can be aptly described as dehumanizing and oppressive” (Irizarry & Brown,

2014, p. 63). In response to this view on literacy, educators and literacy scholars have

51
pushed back and argued for a “new tradition in considering the nature of literacy,

focusing not so much on acquisition of skills, as in dominant approaches, but rather on

what it means to think of literacy as a social practice (Street, 2003, p. 77). New Literacy

Studies (NLS) recognizes multiple literacies as interconnected to varying contexts and

relations of power. The positivist idea of true knowledge is absent from the personal

experience can be understood as “settler colonial knowledge… [that] refuses the agency,

personhood, and theories of the researched…and it also sets limits (limits the

epistemologies of the colonized/colonizable/to-be colonized)” (Tuck & Yang, 2014, p.

245).

On the other hand, some researchers who acknowledge BIPOC students’

personhood, emphasize aspects of identity with a deficitized lens or, worse, with an

insensitive display of speaking for their pain. Gayatri Spivak (2010) calls this “the left

intellectual’s stock-in-trade” (p. 27) and critiques the researcher “who is invested in the

ventriloquism of the speaking subaltern…and for the ways in which intellectuals take

opportunity to conflate the work and struggle of the subaltern with the work of the

intellectual, which only serves to make more significant/authentic their own work” (as

cited by Tuck & Yang, 2014, p. 226). The major research paradigms in literacy such as

practitioner inquiry (PI), critical ethnography, and humanizing research, resist positivist

traditions and aim towards a liberatory and social justice goal that genuinely centers

students of color, “for those whose experiences include histories of oppression and

marginalization, that act of literacy must also be tied to the work of personal and social

emancipation” (Mirra et al., 2016, p. 22). I align myself with these research paradigms

52
because of their relational and cultural characteristics as well as their call for

intersectional social justice action.

Humanizing Research

Before anything else, I aim to do research that is humanizing (Campano, Ghiso, &

Welch, 2015; Paris & Winn, 2014). I centered my methodologies on human relationship,

mutual respect, and care because they impact the research and when taken seriously, can

potentially be transformative (Paris & Winn, 2014). Also, doing humanizing work means

resisting positivist notions of research and knowledge; it means not treating my

participants as subjects but rather as producers of knowledge, cosmopolitan intellectuals

(Campano & Ghiso, 2010) and agents of change. Conducting humanizing research means

privileging the co-construction of knowledge and “human agency and voice, diverse

perspectives, moments of vulnerability, and acts of listening” (San Pedro & Kinloch,

2014, p. 23).

Other ways that I enacted humanizing research included looking at identities

through storying, building dialogic relationships, sharing of feelings, and critical listening

(San Pedro, Carlos, & Mburu, 2017); these play a critical function because doing so

provides nuanced understandings and growth (Ball, 2006). Another example of doing

humanizing research included respecting when participants or researchers ourselves

refuse to “traffic theories that cast communities as in need of salvation” (Tuck & Yang,

2014, p. 245). Ultimately, I align my work “toward a stance and methodology of research

that acts against the histories and continuing practices, ideologies, and accompanying

dehumanizing policies of discrimination and unequal treatment based on the race,

53
ethnicity, and belief systems of Indigenous peoples, other U.S.—born people of color,

and people of color who immigrate to the U.S.” (Paris & Winn, 2014, p. xvi).

In the testing era where students are reduced to a score, and pedagogical models

have succumbed to “skill-and-drill” (Bruner, 1996) it is increasingly crucial to recall

Freire’s (1970) ideologies of resisting the system of “banking education” and against the

dehumanization of the high stakes assessments culture of education today, of working

towards having “efforts [that] coincide with those of the students to engage in critical

thinking and the quest for mutual humanization” (p. 56). By not treating students as

receivers of knowledge but as problem solvers, a people with full histories and multiple

identities, I engage inquiry and work towards humanization.

Practitioner Inquiry

To achieve this aspect of humanizing research, I worked as a full-time ELA

teacher and doing practitioner inquiry (PI), as conceived by Cochran Smith and Lytle

(2009). At the heart of PI, there is a shift away from the deficit model and instead an

assumption that students possess valuable “funds of knowledge” (Gonzalez et al., 1995,

p. 455) and that the practitioner is the researcher who builds knowledge and social

transformation alongside students and with community collaboration. In other words,

there is no outsider and/or sole savior with all the answers to “fix” anyone or anything.

Instead of valorizing conceptual models, PI is about focusing more on creating the best

conditions for students to thrive (Simon et al., 2012). Being counterhegemonic, PI is a

democratic commitment to inquiry, a “political and policy critique, challenge to

university culture” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 2) and operates with the idea that

54
teachers and students are capable of theorizing their own lives. PI subverts the dominant

paradigms by having the teacher researcher acknowledge and affirm stories, identities,

and cultural heritage by building a “second classroom” (Campano, 2007, p. 40) and true

relationships with the students/community where they are safe to grow and explore their

intellectual identities.

The conceptual framework also includes practicing reflection, empathy, and

analyzing literacy as a varied set of social practices. All this is connected to the teacher

researching significant forms of engagement between themselves and what they are

teaching to guide each lesson (Ballenger, 2009, p. 68). PI is “relational knowledge

production” (Campano, 2007, p. 120) and crucial to how research is done, with who it is

done, and how it is done. Further, Campano (2009) shows how practitioner research

works to empower through literacy for it is the “collective struggle for humanization…

[and] many localized pedagogical revolutions where communities of educators are

theorizing from practice and creating educational arrangements ‘from the ground up’ that

are more conducive to the fuller human potentials of their students” (p. 340). “From the

ground up” I theorized by interrogating my own practices as a teacher and the ways in

which intersectionality could be enacted in our community, our classroom, and my

curriculum.

Critical Ethnography

The last research methodology employed in this dissertation project was critical

ethnography which I argue are parallel to the goals and praxis of intersectionality. Those

who are critical ethnographers define ourselves as:

55
 all concerned about social inequalities, and we direct our work toward positive
social change. We also share a concern with social theory and some of the basic
issues it has struggled with since the nineteenth century. These include the nature
of social structure, power, culture, and human agency. We use our research, in
fact, to refine social theory rather than merely to describe social life. (Carspecken,
1996, p. 3)

Here we can already see how critical ethnography elements align quite perfectly with

intersectionality on a theoretical level in that they both center critical theory (Noblit,

Flores, & Murillo Jr., 2004) to uncover issues of power within social and political

structures (Thomas, 1993), are both culturally responsive, and focused on social justice

action. Additionally, scholars Joe Kincheloe and Peter McLaren (1994) clarify the main

points of criticalist as qualitative researchers who use their work as a form of

social/cultural criticism and accept that everything is mediated by power relations that are

socially and historically constituted; that it can never be isolated from social relations of

capitalist production and consumption (which is proven in the findings of Chapter 4).

They even include the idea of intersectionality in their definition but phrase it as

“oppression has many faces” and that we must focus on “the interconnections among

them” (139-140).

Black activist, Postcolonial theorist, and Performance Studies scholar Soyini

Madison (2005), in her book Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance

provides a few central questions when conducting critical ethnographies including: “How

is the specificity of the local story relevant to the broader meanings and operations of the

human condition?” and “How—in what location or through what intervention—will our

work make the greatest contribution to equity, freedom, and justice?” (p. 4). Throughout

the findings chapters, I have made connections to the experiences and phenomena in the

56
context to the broader sociopolitical systems as well as convey urgent actions to

intersectional social justice praxis through my curriculum and practice. Through a critical

ethnographic framework, I was able to interrogate into “the role of schools in the social

and cultural reproduction of social classes, gender roles, and racial and ethnic prejudice”

(Anderson, 1989, p. 251).

Data Collection

Using ethnographic and qualitative methods, I collected from a variety of data

sources including lesson plans, researcher memos, student artifacts, and transcribed audio

recording of group and class discussions.

Lesson Plans

Practitioner inquiry is wonderful in that its design is flexible enough for

“structured improvisation” (personal communication, Campano, 2018) which was

required on the planning and executing of daily lesson plans. First, I had the entire year’s

goals mapped out which included: class novels, essential learning targets, supplemental

texts, guest speakers booked, and “big makes” (end of the unit projects), for each unit.

Within my lesson plans, I collected iterations of them as evidence of employing

intersectional literacy practices. Along with that, supplemental resources or materials

required and used for the curriculum such as videos and field trips were planned and

collected.

Student Artifacts

Items such as parents’ “hopes and dreams” leaf assignment, classwork produced

by students in and out of class in the form of worksheets, videos, writing samples both

57
prose and poems, and their assessments were collected. These student artifacts are

important in that they may reveal some unspoken beliefs (Marshall & Rossman, 2011)

not explicitly stated verbally by students in class. Also, they assess where they are in their

learning of the concept of intersectionality and their developing critical consciousness.

By collecting documents and artifacts in a non-obstructive way, I can gain a deeper

insight and nuanced understandings of the students’ perspectives and learning.

Teacher Researcher memos

It is important to note that, “As teachers and teacher educators we need to be

engaged in studying ourselves as part of our efforts to transform our own teaching”

(Mitchell, 2000, pg. 112). Thus, I carved out time to reflect and write often, almost as

much as once a week, as this was an ongoing and iterative process of reflection and

analysis. By the end of the year, I had a total of 41 teacher researcher memos. I started

with simply keeping a “record of events and impressions captured in key words and

phrases” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011, p. 29) throughout the lessons or period and at a

later time, in order to expand on emerging ideas, surprises, questions, anomalies, for

further action. These memos also served as a first level of analysis of my lessons, student

feedback, and other related interactions. This process supported me in noticing patterns

and critical incidents that emerged while doing the study (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995;

Maxwell, 2013). On top of that, since my work aims to contribute to existing theories of

intersectional pedagogy, memoing was used to sketch out the process of formulating a

theory from the ground up (Creswell, 2013). This iterative process of reflecting in the

memos served me best as I responsively planned future lessons and problems of practice

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all which ultimately informed me how to best support the needs of my community,

pedagogy, and students.

Transcribed Student Audio Recordings

During instructional periods, I took audio recordings to capture the students’

discussions on their responses and analysis of the YAL readings, literary theories, and

their interactions with one another and their texts. This piece of data added nuanced

understandings of how students are making meaning of the texts, their selves, and the

world around them by revealing their individual and collective processes. Unlike memos,

these recordings will be transcribed verbatim which adds another layer of “reliability”

because they become “real-time data” and not mediated by memory (Ravitch & Carl,

2016). Without transcripts, “it’s difficult to engage in intensive, iterative data analysis”

(p. 159). Ultimately, my audio recordings of how students responded to my curriculum,

pedagogy, and text selections, better gleaned how to add to intersectional literacy

practices.

Data Analysis

When constantly analyzing, I often referred to my research questions of what

happens when I employ intersectional to my teaching and learning. Beyond the initial

analysis done relatively in the moment with teacher researcher reflections and memos, I

also analyzed all the data collected in a way that reflects “a delicate balancing act

between drawing on prior knowledge while keeping a fresh and open mind to new

concepts as they emerge from the data. This means using the literature differently as the

process evolves, getting closer to direct sources as the conceptual categories take shape

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and gain explanatory power” (Goulding, 2005). Practitioner inquiry requires that I engage

in a reflexive and iterative process to make meaning of my data. I drew upon literature,

my experience and knowledge, and the guidance of my advisor and committee,

participants, and critical thought partners to support my understandings and meaning

making process.

Coding

Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2013) argue that coding is analysis because

“coding is deep reflection about and, thus, deep analysis and interpretation of the data’s

meanings” (p. 72). Specifically, the three types of coding methods I employed included in

Vivo, Emotion, and Values coding. The first type of coding, in Vivo, is particularly

applicable to me because this method focuses on “prioritiz[ing] and honor[ing] the

participant’s voice” (p. 74). My students would use words or phrases repeatedly, which

made it easy to capture one of the subcodes within a major theme. Secondly, Emotion

coding is relevant in that it “provides insight into the participants’ perspectives,

worldviews, and life conditions” (p. 75). This also aligns with feminist theoretical

framework in that feelings are validated as a source of power. Throughout my analysis, I

work to do Emotion coding for myself, my students, colleagues, and involved

parents/guardians. Lastly, since students will be answering questions detailing their

perspectives, identities, and life experiences with race, gender, and religion and so forth,

Values coding is another way to analyze the data collected. Miles et al. (2014) explain

that “Values coding is appropriate for studies that explore cultural values, identity,

intrapersonal and interpersonal participant experiences and actions” (p. 75). After

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completing the First Cycle of coding (Miles et al. 2014), I elaborated on the codes and

identified patterns by using jottings. This step was crucial to my analysis after coding

because of the fact that “Jottings can strengthen coding and pointing to deeper or

underlying issues that deserve analytic attention” (p. 94). First, I coded all my researcher

memos by doing a read through and within each one, concepts, issues, or methods that

stood out to me were coded. There were subcodes within codes and afterwards, it was

clear there were three major codes of Intersectionality as it relates to: community,

classroom, and curriculum and consequent subcodes were space and soul.

Intersectionality as Analytical Lens

Intersectionality provides the ultimate interpretive framework for this research

because feminist research approaches are the primary lens applied. However, with the

flexibility of intersectionality being open to its context, the interpretive work will be

dynamic and inclusive of other forms of thought. My approach to this research will be

much like the approach that explained here:

Feminist research also embraces many of the tenets of postmodern and

poststructuralist critiques as a challenge to the injustices of current society.
In feminist research approaches, the goals are to establish collaborative
and nonexploitative relationships, to place the researcher within the study
so as to avoid objectification, and to conduct research that is
transformative. Recent critical trends address protecting indigenous
knowledge and the intersectionality of feminist research (e.g., the
intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, able-bodied-ness, and age).
(Olesen, 2011, p. 29)

The ways that this research take on a postmodern and poststructuralist approach is that,

during classwork throughout the year, students’ narratives of their lived experiences

around identity, stories of oppression and marginalization surface. Through the

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curriculum and pedagogy, students used their narratives (if/how/when they wanted) as a

call for action against the “injustices of current society” (Creswell, 2013, p. 29).

Limitations

For threats to validity, I will employ two strategies with the first being collecting

rich data and using a critical inquiry group. Maxwell (2013) lists rich data and respondent

validation as part of his validity tests checklist. Rich data will include researcher memos

and students’ artifacts. Additionally, I obtained transcribed interviews, transcribed class

discussions, surveys, student artifacts, memos, and lesson plans, which would all

constitute as rich data. Furthermore, critical colleagues are an effective strategy because

they were identifying any biases and misunderstandings of what I observed. (Maxwell,

2013). My inquiry group of peers were useful for pointing out my “blind spots” as well as

any area where I may have been leading students in my questioning and in my lesson

plans or demonstrating assumptions and biases in my language and interpretations. For

this analysis, I sought support from my cohort, which consists of former educators and

now university professors, who can draw upon their own prior experience and intellectual

knowledge. With both the rich collection of data and an inquiry group with my peers,

these reviews or debriefings are an external check of the research process (Ely et al.,

1991; Erlandson et al., 1993; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam,

1988 as cited by Creswell, 2013, p. 251).

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 CHAPTER 4: INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE COMMUNITY

#33 Femme Teacher of Color

Being a femme teacher of color means

being everything for the students’ whole self
while putting me
on
the
lowest
shelf
it means to work till my bones ache
for the students, my babies
they are the only beauty
for them, this I do solemnly.
it means being a tree with heavy branches
in advocacy and equity
roots deep in love and humility.
it means nurturing the flowers of their soul,
cultivating the seed and soil
of their/our futures.
it means being a shield against menaces:
hunger, violence, and scarcity.
it means being their guiding light.

but who takes care of the darkness

beneath the candle that is me
Why does teacherhood try to martyr me

How can I survive

when we are asked of everything
all empathy no boundaries
toxic conditions
unsustainable and skewed systems
prejudiced policies
It means being on a relentless
path of self-destruction.

Admit it: it’s not for our babies,

Exploitation is the name of the game
How can we stay
“Change the world!” they cry
How, when you have our hands tied.

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 Introduction

As this poem’s theme suggests, this chapter is about struggles as a teacher within

an oppressive educational system; one that requires its teachers to martyr themselves and

considers students secondary to school property/profits. The conditions for teaching and

learning as set by the school community will be analyzed through an intersectionality

lens and what comes up the most are the issues around the physical space of the school

and the soul(s) who created the institution. In this chapter, research and critical incidents

will reveal that neoliberalism and capitalism are the dominate oppressive structures

impacting the school’s community. No matter how much social justice oriented our

mission statement is, or how many extra hours teachers sacrifice for the school, or how

much culturally relevant pedagogies employed, none of that addresses the larger systemic

oppressions functioning in our society.

In order for there to be true intersectional social equity to occur in our school, we

must break away from the current model of schooling, burn it down and begin anew. I

imagine a future educational system that is anti-capitalist, rejects neoliberal ideologies,

and focuses on financial, linguistic, racial, gender, and disability justice for students,

families, and teachers. As of right now, this charter school has wrapped themselves with

liberal/progressive language assuming they are a pretty package, but when I used

intersectionality to unravel the wrapping, it was very clear that very little has improved;

everyone is still just surviving, “hands tied” from working within and against these old

systems.

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 An Intersectional Analysis of the Community at the Organizational Level

From the Roots of the Organization

The Co-Founders

Starting from the top of the hierarchy, the roots of the organization, and turning

the clock back 20 years ago to the year of 2000, the beginnings of Espacio Prep Charters

(EPC) as an organization began with two white people, former teachers in an

overcrowded high school, with a dream to start a new revolutionary school that would

address the achievement gap. The former teachers, one male and one female, conspired to

start a new school together, when they realized that although their current school was

working on a full reformation, teachers and staff could not effectively agree on topics and

that the school was too big for proper implementation of reforms. Flustered with the

system, they quit and focused on creating change through a smaller setting, with the idea

of smaller class sizes that would allow them to reach every single student, teacher, and

parent. The co-founders met while at a church and shared their dream with the priest

who, with his dying wish, granted them a space down the hall to begin their first year of

their school with a handful of students.

With personalized attention to first-generation and Latinx students, the small

school was rapidly growing as more people became aware and admired their mission

towards centering the marginalized. Inspired by the grassroots and grittiness of these two

white teachers’ ambitions, they were starting to garner attention from the city. Even the

local school district kept them in their peripheral, concerned they would poach their

students and teachers. When the two co-founders attempted to formally become a charter

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school, with the local school district’s disapproval, the city rejected their request. It was

only with the advocacy of the Latinx parents, students, and local citizens, calling for a

change and new opportunity, that these two co-founders were able to finally attain charter

status a few years later, making EPC the first charter school ever in the area.

The Culture Colonizer

With this new hard won status as the first charter in their city, the organization

and specifically their co-founders, were subject to local prominence. They were quickly

becoming reputable with many news articles featuring them. That was further helped

along by a former local newspaper editor, who resigned from her long-time position in

order to write a book on their school and how they “beat the odds.” In this book, the

author’s methods were ethnographic in that she shadowed the co-founders, sat in on

classes, and attended school events for the first two years of their existence. In this text,

there is much revealed about the personal perspectives of the co-founders and it addresses

the roots of who they are and why they created the charter school.

The author tells us of the first co-founder, who throughout this work we shall call

Ms. Spain12, and how she was an apathetic student, born in the suburbs to white parents.

It was not until her year abroad experience in Spain did she realize she wanted to take her

education seriously. What motivated her, through her own admission, is that while with

her host family in Spain, she noticed how politically engaged they were and it deeply

embarrassed her that she could not even speak to them in regards to politics in her own

country. From then on, she was focused on school, studied at a community college while

12
Most names of participants referenced in this study shall be anonymized to protect their identity.
66
working as a waitress, all to transfer to the local university and be the first in her family

to earn a college degree. Of that year, Ms. Spain explains “In Spain, Andalusians had

praised her lisp...In honor of her life-changing year, she chose to be [Ms. Spain], and

began her new life with a new name” (p. 22)13.

As admirable as it was for Ms. Spain to become a first-generation college

graduate and thus able to connect that to her key demographic of Latinx students, her

name change remains problematic. 18 years later, at the beginning of the school year,

during whole organization professional development days, I was excited to meet what I

assumed by her name, the Latina co-founder who took part in creating change in her

community. Upon seeing Ms. Spain, I reasoned to myself that perhaps she is just a very

pale-skinned, white presenting, Latina. Perhaps she possessed some ancestry or married

into a Latinx family. I must admit a sense of betrayal when the origins of her last name

were enthusiastically shared with the staff, and even more so when she presented her

name change as evidence of her profound admiration and commitment to the Latinx

culture and by extension, to the student population. The ethics of this questions whether

those who are historically and socially privileged, like the white, middle-class, Ms. Spain

here, can consume/assume a Latinx name and identity as if it is theirs for the taking. This

claiming of someone else’s culture is a kind of colonization. Despite being presented as

kind and loving, it is still colonizing nonetheless. At best, this is appropriation in the

name of appreciation and at the worse it trivializes historical oppression.

13
For anonymity purposes, the exact citation for this will be redacted for legal reasons including an Non-
Disclosure Agreement. Including citations of research from local newspapers and books reveals the identity
of the school and their staff.
67
 Ms. Spain may believe she is demonstrating her love inspired by an international

trip she once took in high school, however, there are many Latinx and Hispanic peoples

who are still being discriminated against for their ethnic names today. It is well

documented that those with Hispanic names are discriminated against in rental, sales, and

labor markets, and are even recommended for lower status jobs and receive fewer job

callbacks (Gaddis, 2017). The same is true with other ethnic names. A personal example

would be how my own father, who upon recognizing racial systemic discrimination in all

areas of American society, gave me an Anglo name, a British colonizer’s name as if

somehow that imbibes me with some power. I also know many friends and families who

were forced to adopt Anglo names for survival and in an attempt to escape these kinds of

discriminations.

Perhaps this historical and current realities were lost on Ms. Spain, and yet we

have a white woman who took a Hispanic name all with having the privilege to skip out

on the discrimination. In other words, Nigerian American writer Ijeoma Oluo (2019)

explains it best: “But what actually is not fair, is the expectation that a dominant culture

can just take and enjoy and profit from the beauty and art and creation of an oppressed

culture, without taking on any of the pain and the oppression people of that culture had to

survive while creating it” (p. 151). Intersectionality shows us that this is an issue of race

and class, it shows the power dynamic of her just freely staking claim to another culture

because she has the power to take what she wants and not have to experience the

sociohistorical and political oppressions.

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The White “Savior”

The other half of the organization is led by white, male, upper-class, co-founder

who we shall name Mr. Whitman. Having attended private schools his entire educational

career, Mr. Whitman was neither Latinx or first-generation. When interviewed for his

story on what motivated him to do this work of creating a brand-new school specifically

for first-generation, Latinx children, the writer records:

[He] thought he wanted to be a novelist, but he was rejected three times when he
applied for admission to a creative writing seminar. So, he chose an unfashionable
career for Princetonians: high school teacher. “I had ‘O captain, my captain’
fantasies of going into a ghetto neighborhood and saving everyone,” he says.
(p.22)

Mr. Whitman’s fantasy is in reference to the 1989 teen drama film Dead Poets Society,

that shows the story of a passionate teacher inspiring his students through poetry. Putting

together the two co-founders’ statements, it is clear that this charter school began with

their fantasy of being the white saviors for “ghetto” children of color. The word “ghetto”

is a racialized word, extremely loaded with historical significance to the living spaces

called ghettos that the Nazis and their white supremacist agenda put Jewish people in

where they were oppressed during World War II, starved, sickened, and eventually

murdered. Today, ghetto is a place marker for the poorest parts of cities where mostly

BIPOC exist, as Mr. Whitman may imagine, in misery and perpetual violence. Social

Justice Education scholar Jamila Lyiscott (2019) confirms that “an ego-driven approach

to justice that is rooted in a white savior complex or an internalized inferiority complex

that low-key reiterates white supremacy” (p. 16). With this historical and political

baggage, labelling our demographics of students as “ghetto” and its being an extension of

69
white supremacy, means “that the narrative of white supremacy has authored Blackness

as dirty and delinquent, Indigenous as uncivil and cannibalistic, Latinx as parasitic, and

the list goes on and on” (p. 19). So much of this ideology of being a white savior is

connected to problems larger ingrained versions of white supremacy including

oppressions of paternalism (Love, 2019), colonialism, imperialism; these oppressions

assume as if “the communities of students [are] eternally in need of institutional

sanctioning” (p. 35). Intentions of “saving” as good are never to be considered when the

impact is oppression of another’s life. Intention is insufficient, inconsequential, and

without thinking of the impact, it’s downright insulting.

Our communities do not need/want another a rich, white, man to “save” them

from themselves. The white savior complex that Mr. Whitman reveals of himself is

rooted in white supremacist ideology in that he regards himself to be most potent,

aligning himself with Abraham Lincoln who is the so-called captain in the poem “O

Captain! My Captain!” All of this in contrast to the “ghetto” students who are

conceptualized as souls without agency and power themselves and thus in need of

saviors. The reality is so far from this in that:

Students navigate powerful spaces of learning every single day in their homes
and communities, especially when it comes to students of color, the skills,
experiences, and rich knowledge that shape their voices are devalued in the
classroom but are still powerful and have absolutely nothing to do with our
‘salvation.’ (Lyiscott, 2019, p. 35)

The Board of Directors

Beyond the two co-founders, once becoming an official chartered organization,

Espacio Prep Charters (EPC) was required to also be governed by a Board of Directors,

70
which is a policy-making board that oversees the fundamental aspects. The company

website touts: “The Board consists of directors from a variety of professional and

academic backgrounds to ensure that [EPC] has the necessary expertise to maintain a

high-quality program. Our Board members have experience in education, government,

law, business, finance, public relations.” Further analysis of the website shows only one

board member possessing the expertise and background in education with the remaining

being in business-related fields. This shows that this charter school system is structurally

set up and run by business like-minded folks, and that although there are social justice

aims of the organization, it is still within the confines of capitalism. Educational Theory

and Practice scholar Dr. Bettina Love (2019) informs us that “The boards of directors

operating these charter schools are typically composed of wealthy philanthropists,

corporate foundations, and Wall Street hedge fund managers who believe dark children

need discipline, character education, rudimentary academic skills, and full submission to

White economic demands” (p. 30). There is a cognizant attempt at justice in the

leadership makeup of the organization with the explicit rule of making sure there is at

least a 40% rate of leadership and teacher force that is of BIPOC backgrounds. At first

this seemed wonderfully forward thinking, however in comparison to the city itself being

74% BIPOC, it proves once again, there is a huge imbalance between the power dynamic

within the organization as a whole culture. The actual board does not look as if it has

maintained the 40% BIPOC rule and this is further exacerbated by the fact that the souls

who do occupy the board are not people who have experience in education. As a teacher

in the educational system using intersectionality as a lens, it became critical to note that

71
as a part of the larger context of schooling, the very roots of this charter institution is

based on racist, classist, white imagined supremacy fantasy. This is important to know for

it makes clear the understanding that teacher work is never done in isolation, it does not

exist just in our classrooms and curriculum, or just between us and students, but also

outside of us, that we are also working within and against these insidious and interlocking

systems of racism, colonialism, and classicism.

An Intersectional Analysis of the Community at the School Site Level

The 6th Grade “Neighborhood” Space

For the first time, ever, the 6th grade cohort at Alma College Prep (ACP) were

designated to be in the space that was also known as the “Neighborhood.” This section

will provide thick description of our schooling/working environment and its impact on us

as educators and the students. In doing this work, I never thought I would have to think

intersectionally about the literal physical school building and how much of an impact that

would have on our teaching and learning. For example, Dr. Jamila Lyiscott (2019)

realized that space matters when she was doing a social justice education project with

incarcerated young men at the infamous Rikers Island facility. A space analysis was

important because it revealed to her that “within the physical, psychological, and

emotional confines of this space that [the students] navigate daily…[are] deep constraints

of internalized social attitudes and perspectives about young Black and Brown men, who

they are, what they need, and how they should be engaged within the context of the

classroom” (p. 33). In the same way, my finding for doing an intersectionality critique of

72
the physical space of the school reveals how the system assumed what my students and I

“needed” and enforced how we engaged with the spaces of the school and classrooms.

The year prior to our teaching year for this study, the school had one of each

grade working in that space. Those same teachers this year were happy to leave the space

and we quickly learned why. The “Neighborhood’s” architecture was designed so that

each room had only three solid walls and the fourth wall was to be removable to create

one larger space or for the possibility of co-teaching situations. In the middle, connecting

all four of our square shaped classrooms was a large oval built of large slabs of Plexiglas.

This functioned as our third walls and are represented in the figure below in dotted lines.

For the teaching and learning purposes of limiting distractions, however, we kept them

closed and covered throughout the year. That did not always work though, for instance, in

Mr. Sancho’s class the covered paper would be often torn off and in Ms. Mia’s class, one

of the Plexiglas slabs eventually broke and so students (from and not from her class) were

slipping in and out during all times of the day. This left my colleagues feeling physically

vulnerable and emotionally frustrated for this lack of a solid fourth wall.

Figure 4.1 Inside Sketch of Alma College Prep

73
Despite everyone else calling it the “Neighborhood,” we 6th Grade teachers joked that it

felt more like a cave to us actual inhabitants since it was a space physically isolated from

the rest of the school. Being as that were, this meant we rarely saw any other students or

teachers outside of our cohort and space. Each of us were separated from each other by

three doors: first the building entrance, then the second door to enter the neighborhood

space, and then finally the third door of our classrooms. My cohort and I were feeling

doubly removed from the rest of the community culture in that not only were we new to

the school site, but the school site made it so we remained couched and closed off to the

rest of the school. Even for our students, who spent 7.5 hours of class time, they were

limited to only 3 classrooms. Since students had math and science class in the same

classroom with the same teacher, then English with me, and Social Studies with Mr.

Sancho, that meant that students spent their entire instructional time in just 3 classrooms.

The space quickly felt stifling for all souls. It was as if we were fighting with everything

we had just to maintain the spaces to feel like classrooms and not a cage.

Once we as a cohort became more comfortable with the 6th grade culture and

understanding of whole school culture, with a couple of months we became more

confident to claim the space as our own. As the team leader, I asked my team to do

weekly Friday whole grade meetings in the oval part of the Neighborhood. We would

have up to 140 students sitting on the floor and we’d do “Students of the Week”

celebrations and any announcements for field trips or big projects. As a team, we made a

conscious effort to decorate the space and eventually, it became effortless to do our own

weekly honor assemblies. In this way, although the 6th grade cohort had the space

74
constantly vexing us, we also managed to find a way to build community and our own

world of belonging.

How the Community Capital and Schedule was Used to Control Property and Persons

In this section, an intersectional analysis of the space within the school

community reveals that how we could utilize or not be allowed to utilize and engage with

our spaces were dictated by issues of capitalism14. Alma College Prep’s (ACP)

administration always said their decisions were motivated by the fact that they “do what’s

best for the kids first;” however, it seems that it was much more like capital first. This

was most evident in the dilemma of the bathrooms and their limited access to which then

in turn had domino effects on teaching and learning. This very painfully played out in a

couple of ways with the first being the refusal to make outside playground bathrooms

accessible to the kids the entire school year. This denial of bathroom rights was based on

“punishment for property damage” from the previous school year, with no possible idea

of which students (the high school or middle school side) had caused the damage. During

Team Leader Council meetings, I had multiple heated discussions about this until finally,

the Principal, a first-generation Latinx man with family from Spain, who we shall call Dr.

Corona, admitted that the reason for not opening the outdoor playground bathrooms is not

really to punish the kids and thus teach them to value their surroundings and treat it with

respect as I was previously informed. But rather he refuses to make them accessible this

14
Capitalism’s definition is one that traditionally refers to a free market, where there is privatization, and
owners control prices of products and property for profit. In many situations described throughout this
dissertation, capitalism simply refers to the ideology of profits over people, in the case of decisions being
made towards the goal of what is best for the making or saving of money as primary, even at the cost of
benefit to people. Capitalism’s true ideology does not ask what is best for the peoples and the community
for its only concern is increasing capital.

75
year because he almost got fired over those very same bathrooms when the $100,000 bill

for damages from last year landed on his door. Recall from Chapter 3 that the building is

newly constructed and on a $30 million loan, and this was only their second year into

occupying the space. Since the building is shared with the high school, neither school

wanted to take responsibility for said property damage and decided to accuse the other as

perpetrators. Principal Corona insisted that our little middle schoolers did not do the

damage even though the “buck was passed down” to him and that money was to be taken

out of the middle school budget. This infuriated him and thus caused much tension

between him and the upper management back at “Central Office”. All this occurred after

their first year on site, which made him flat out refuse to open it this year so that he can

definitively exonerate the middle school side and thus, protect the money of the school.

Meanwhile, kids were anxious and frustrated, because the bathroom policy of the school

was very minimal and restrictive; it was heavily policed, and it was draining on all souls

involved.

The bathroom closures due to capital recovery negatively impacted the teachers’

teaching and learning as well. Even when it came to creating the bell schedule, it was

done so with keeping the idea of capital and control at the forefront. The middle

schoolers were expected to attend 4 core subject classes and 1 elective class, of 90

minutes each, 4 days of the week with early release 1 day of the week for teacher

professional development (PD) meetings. The classes begin around 7:30 in the morning

and are followed by 5-minute transition times in between classes. After the first couple of

classes, there is a 20-minute teacher supervised outside break, then another class,

76
followed by a 25-minute lunch break. After lunch, there were two more classes with the

school day ending around 4pm. According to the National Center for Educational

Statistics, the average number of hours a child spends in school in the state of California

is 6.24 hours. Here at ACP, students were spending 7.5 hours. The lengthy and unrealistic

class times became unbearable for the 10-11 year olds. It is imperative to also note that

not only were break times limited, there also was no Physical Education class for the

students which meant that their options for physical play and bodily engagement was

limited to rough housing each other throughout the day. Accordingly, I adapted with the

understanding that I needed to not only attend to the intellectual, emotional, and cultural

needs of the students but also their physical needs, whether it be play time or bathroom

time. This looked like playing music and dancing at the beginning of class everyday and

having activities that required physically moving (ex: musical chairs) around the

classroom.

With the forced lengthy hour and a half class times and required heavy

surveillance to prevent any further damage to property, there was extremely little time for

both students and teachers to use the restroom. It was undignifying for us teachers to have

to constantly text the whole school teachers’ group chat to announce the need to relieve

ourselves and thus require coverage to have a bathroom break. With each class being an

hour and a half long with only 5-minute breaks in between, there was not enough time for

either students or myself as a teacher to utilize those breaks for the bathroom. For

students, it was not enough time because they would be competing with their entire

cohort (possibly up to 120 souls) to use one set of indoor bathrooms (6 stalls) within 5

77
minutes. On top of that, for us teachers, we were mandated that those 5 minutes of break

time must be spent supervising students to decrease chaos, disorderly behavior, and

physical damage of persons and property. Of course, students could use the restroom

during class time which meant writing their names down somewhere to keep track of who

went and because the responsibility to monitor their behavior extended from our

classroom, we had to write down the time they left too and make sure that if the child did

not return in a reasonable time, we were to call and alert administration in the office.

Students have been known to use “bathroom break” time during class as a way to walk in

and disturb other classes or smoke in the bathroom. After a while, the constant task of

taking down names, times, and calling in becomes disruptive to our teaching and

learning. In short, students spent most of their time in our little classrooms, which were

overcrowded, taught by inexperienced teachers, and given limited time for

recess/play/rest/bathroom. Us teachers were right along there with the students, just

trying to survive each day, hour by hour.

When I first brought this issue of unsustainability and an unhealthy school

schedule for my 10-11 year olds, at the end of the very first week of school to Principal

Corona, he in a patronizing tone first asked me “to calm down.” I guess my being a

woman made him feel like it was acceptable for him to think I was hysterical or hormonal

and thus needing of a verbal reminder to control myself; while I was merely discussing

with him my analysis of the unsustainable schedule. Then he simply said, “research tells

us that the longer children spend in school the better they do in school.” This rationale

assumes that with a longer than average class time, the students will have more time to

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grapple with school work and concepts and thus “learn more.” This logic is predicated on

the assumption that there is across the board ahighly effective and quality of teaching.

From the context of the school’s faculty and staff, I know that the majority of teachers

were inexperienced and untrained. The result here is that, when it comes to the education

of our children, of course we would want quality over quantity.

But don’t just take my logic/word for it. Researchers Figlio, Holden, and Ozek

(2018) conducted a study in a school with an additional hour of literacy instruction and

according to their findings, the students did score higher on reading tests which is

considered a successful benefit. However, Figlio el al. also began their explanation with a

caveat of this success being contingent in certain cases and contexts of schools. They

write:

Additional instructional time for low-achieving students certainly has intuitive

appeal — struggling students may simply need more time to learn. On the other
hand, such policies are expensive, and the costs may outweigh the potential gains
in achievement if the benefits of additional instructional time are mitigated by low
teacher quality, disadvantaged school settings, or failure to efficiently use the
additional time. (p. 171)

Other researchers Llach, Androgué, and Gigaglia (2009) conducted their study in

Argentina which concluded that “Our outcomes emphasize that the content of the

additional hours is even more important than increasing the duration of the school day”

(emphasis in original, p.27). It is more relevant to question the quality of instruction

rather than the extra length of it. ACP certainly struggled with “low teacher quality” and

“disadvantaged school settings” which will be further detailed shortly in the next section

of this chapter.

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 Since administration could not or would not get more external adults to support

lunch or break times safely and smoothly, this was trickled down to a shorter break and

lunchtime, to students being separated in longer class times, with more forced work on

teachers to do the supervision duties. Even for the Vice Principal, his main purpose in the

community literally became directing students all day during the rotating lunches and

breaks and managing discipline issues for the whole school throughout the entire day, the

entire year. For all souls involved in this situation, we were set up for an environment that

created anxiety, tension and indignation. Sensing all this boiling up, I constantly

advocated for the reopening of the outside playground bathrooms during lunch to

alleviate the pressures. To put an end to this discussion, Principal Corona admitted with

finality to me in a Team Leader meeting, “Look folks, we’re not trying to be oppressive

but we can't afford to open them.” The school and all the souls inside can never escape

the more pressing oppressions of capitalism; and whether they knew it or not, this school

system was designed to fail.

Intersectionality of the Souls in the Community at the School Site

Souls of the School: Students versus Capitalism

After the intersectional space analysis, here I provide a section on looking at how

doing an intersectional analysis of the community at the level of souls, impacts teaching

and learning. Another example where “capital before kids” occurred was in the striking

story of Mateo, this beautiful boy who had just immigrated from Mexico. He was such a

soft, smiley, and sweet soul. He was led into my classroom one day, tall and smiling

shyly, I shook his hand and introduced myself and he responded in Spanish.

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Unfortunately, I do not speak Spanish and so my communication with him was strained

but not limited. Mateo explained to me, by the help of my other babies and his fellow

classmates translating, that he was growing up on his uncle’s fields and never formally

been to a school. Now that he has come to the United States to live with his grandmother,

Alma College Prep (ACP) seemed to be the first school he has ever attended. Although

his age puts him at the 8th grade level, because of his lack of formal education, someone

(he was assessed without any consultation or knowledge of my team and me) had decided

it would be best to put him in 6th grade. I waited for support in regards to creating an

individualized education plan (IEP) or a Multi-Tiered Support System (MTSS) for

Mateo, since it is obvious to anyone that he would require a more intensive set of

supports. Also, it is imperative to note that the school had no counselors and social

workers present or available and yet there was a revolving door of police officers on site.

At first, the school Instructional Coach pulled him out of class for a couple of weeks to

work with him individually but that halted as quickly as it began. After that, further

institutional support never came. Mateo became another just another student in the school

system and any support was left as an individual burden on us teachers.

With the little resources I possessed, I did the best I could within my capacity; he

was 1 out of a whole cohort of 120 souls and 1 out of 35 in class. Overcrowded

classrooms was another issue even though ironically was one of the main reason the

institution was co-founded in the first place: to have “smaller class sizes to create more

effective change.” That was not a reality that was afforded to us and would always be a

topic of contention between us teachers and the administration. Accepting that no

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external support was coming, it was up to myself and the rest of my team of teachers (2

others) to create a plan and be the community support for him. I got Mateo started on

learning his English alphabets, letter sounds, common words, and an account with

ABCmouse.com15. Also, I got Mateo the Spanish audiobooks version of the class core

texts so he can have context of what we were studying and be up to date with his peers on

the subjects of conversation. I worked with his Social Students teacher, Mr. Sancho, who

himself was a local native and Spanish speaking Latino male, with translating any of his

oral and written work. With his math/science teacher, Ms. Mia, we planned how best to

arrange his seating in her class (since it was double the length of time) to develop healthy

and safe social skills.

My team and I discussed repeatedly during our lunch breaks, eating in my

classroom on one of the kids’ tables, how Mateo may or may not be progressing and it

was an iterative process of checking in with each other about him. Then in preparation of

meeting his guardians during conferences, I researched dual immersion programs, talked

to local colleagues about the best bilingual programs in the city and presented the

findings to Mateo and his grandmother. I reassured his guardians that I absolutely adore

him and would be sad to see him leave but that he would benefit academically and

socially most from a bilingual education or dual immersion program which at that point,

neither myself or ACP could offer. After that meeting had passed, I continued building

the foundational work of reading, speaking, and writing with Mateo, satisfied that I had

15
An online academic learning platform with preschool and kindergarten curriculum. Monthly
membership comes with access to their lessons, games, and personal accounts for students. I had advocated
(badgered) to the Principal to pay for this using the “company credit card” so Mateo can have another
stream of support for him. Later, I realized the Principal was fine to use this in lieu of an actual English as a
Second Language (ESL) program for Mateo.
82
done my best to provide an inclusive path of success for this soul that was sweet Mateo.

Little did we know that invisible forces bigger than us were at play.

Months later at a Team Leader meeting about “student recruitment is everyone’s

obligation to the community” led by the Principal, he made it clear that he wanted every

student, including Mateo, to stay as he so cleverly communicated: “We need butts to fill

the seats so the bucks fill the bank” (personal communication, 3/5/19). This is

devastatingly oppressive in that Mateo’s best interests, his future, learning, his joy and

desires, and social well-being were blatantly ignored so that the capital of the school may

increase. Fast forward a few months later, as I walked by the Principal’s office one day, I

saw Mateo and his guardians meeting with police officers. We made eye contact and I

saw Mateo’s shadowed gaze immediately turn downwards. Somehow, our sweet Mateo

had lost his soft side and was in trouble, enough to see that the administration called in

the city police to occupy our school spaces. Later, his teachers were informed of his

suspension. Sadly, Mateo was getting bullied and in order for the bullies to relent, he

attempted to appear “tough.” He used social media, went on Snapchat16, and posted a

picture of himself posing with a gun. Word got out and so the administration called in

guardians and then also cops. This series of events is most certainly upsetting in that one

wonders how different the outcomes would have been if Mateo was in an environment

that was designed for him to flourish, to dream, to play, to grow instead of left alone to

his own devices, to break down linguistic and cultural barriers, to just survive. As an

16
Snapchat is a social media platform popular among teens and young adults that allows users to share
pictures and videos that last 24 hours and then disappear. People still can save content by taking a
screenshot.

83
intersectional teacher researcher I oppose English-Only education and although I was

able to find another route for Mateo, ultimately the system got to him. For him, and

countless other Mateos, we must dismantle capitalistic, linguistic oppression in our

schools.

Souls of the School

Martyr Culture

This section of examining the souls of the school through an intersectional lens

will discuss how this country’s continual divestment of education led to a less than living

wage for teachers, which led to teacher burn out and turnover, which led to those that

stayed in the profession, to exist in the toxic and exploitative environment I call martyr

culture.

State of Emergency due to Teacher Shortages

Three weeks before the school year started, teachers were required to gather for

professional development (PD) and it was during this time that we learned most about

each other and worked to plant seeds of trust and community. Like many educational

organizations, ACP used this beginning to inundate staff with icebreakers, team-building

activities, and quick tricks and tips (gimmicks), all in hopes of a strong start of prepared

and confident educators for the year. From the types of PDs that were being held and the

kind of basic lesson/unit/curriculum planning information that was disseminated, I

deduced quickly that many of my colleagues were not only inexperienced but also

uncertified teachers. Over half the teachers in my school site had no credentials and were

operating on a “Provisional Internship Permit” (PIP) which according to the California

84
Teaching Commission “allows an employing agency to fill an immediate staffing need by

hiring an individual who has not yet met the subject matter competence requirement.”

PIPs were like “emergency credentials17” but without the credentials, while still getting

paid teacher (low) salaries. After the one year is up, staff were expected to be enrolled in

a credentialing program or find another role to serve the school. This issue of unqualified

teachers working or being assigned to mostly communities with a high number of

minoritized students is a tired truth. Per the Learning Policy Institute (2018), in my state

of California, the percentage of uncertified teachers in “high-minority schools” are three

times higher than the percentage of uncertified teachers in “low-minority schools.” On a

positive note, ACP is credited with employing the most teachers of color on a staff I have

ever seen with close to half of the teaching staff being BIPOC whereas the state average

is 33% and the national average is worse, at 20% (Learning Policy Institute, 2018). The

administration’s work to recruit and retain BIPOC educators is commendable and should

be a priority for school leaders everywhere.

Terrible Teacher Turnover Rate

On a micro level, to provide a snapshot, my 6th grade teaching cohort consisted of

four people total, three who are POCs and only one (myself) was certified to teach. To be

truly intersectional in my teaching and learning I had to include understanding the

intersectionalities of my team and the context of our profession. Why was it that the most

marginalized group of students were saddled with the least trained and qualified teachers?

When I asked the Principal, he had only two words that explained everything: “teacher

17
Emergency credentials were phased out the CTC in 2005. People only need a baccalaureate degree and a
passing score of the California Basic Educational Skills Test, which has a passing rate of over 80% to get
one.
85
shortage.” My cohort consisted of “new” teachers to the school and/or teaching because

the cohort that preceded us had “notoriously” made a stand about the conditions of the

school and together as a team decided to leave the school to teach somewhere else or

leave the profession entirely. This issue of teacher turnover felt like a tangible plague

hovering over us throughout the entire year. Statistically, the turnover rate for teachers is

70% in schools with minoritized children (Carver-Thomas, Darling-Hammond, 2017)

which certainly explained why this led to the employing of uncertified18 and

inexperienced teachers19 for me to work with and for students to learn from. This is

absolutely egregious and unacceptable for our BIPOC babies; yet another reason why we

were set up to fail. We must imagine a new way for the profession of teaching to exist.

The school was so hard pressed to find replacements that there were questionable

ethics employed to get teachers. For instance, administration knowingly overwhelming

new and unqualified teachers; or such as hiring the Principal’s babysitter to replace a

fired teacher. Teachers are over and over again put into impossible situations. Take for

example, my 6th grade cohort team member, Ms. Mia, who was an office aide the year

before. Three weeks before school started, her exact position on the team was still “up in

the air” because technically she did not possess a teaching credential and the school was

still in the midst of hiring one more person for the team. In the meantime, somehow, Ms.

Mia was talked into teaching both Math and Science. That meant two courses to prepare

18
Uncertified teachers have not met state certification requirements in the field they are teaching, and
include those teaching while still finishing their preparation, or teaching with a PIP.
19
An inexperienced teacher is defined as one in his/her first or second year of teaching. Source: LPI
analysis of the Civil Rights Data Collection, Public-Use Data File 2015-16, National Center for Education
Statistics.

86
for, each day, for an inexperienced and unqualified person. Citing reasons of

credentialing, the administration explained that they need two people teaching both Math

and Science instead of having one Science teacher and one Math teacher. Recalling that

students are in 90 minutes classes and since she and another teacher were being asked to

teach 2 subjects to the same set of students, they would be required to be in their class for

180 minutes total. This exploitative, oppressive, and ill-conceived situation begged for all

sorts of issues of teaching and learning for all parties involved. Ms. Mia was

understandably overwhelmed and burnt out and the children were doubly tense, feeling

devalued, and frustrated which resulted in countless instances of unwanted reactions and

community struggles.

Exploitative Teacher Wages

The predicament that Ms. Mia was thrusted into (and gracefully handled by her),

was explained away by the problem of “teacher shortage.” There is no denying that

currently a teacher shortage exists. But is there really a shortage of teachers available to

teach or because the teacher turnover is alarmingly high? To reframe the issue

intersectionally, including historical and social context, it seems this is a byproduct of a

much bigger issue of our government’s perpetual divestment of education as a whole.

Once again, to reframe the issue, it is not so much of an issue of “teacher shortage” as it

is more of a shortage of people who are not willing to be exploited to make less than a

living wage. Many teachers that I worked with that year had a second job or a “side

hustle” so that they could pay rent, their mortgage, or provide for their families. Ms. Mia,

for instance, had a second full-time job just to be able to make rent for her apartment and

87
provide for her two daughters. The second it was allowed for her to contractually leave

the school, she bolted out of the door to get to her other job. This obviously impacts her

ability to teach and learn. As educators, we are asked to put in 9 hours a day officially,

and then unofficially, we have to take work home for grading and/or lesson planning, all

while simultaneously doing the work to care for our children and maintain healthy and

fulfilling relationships with our families and maybe if we are extremely lucky, rest or

shall I say more accurately, recover. Not having a living wage provided in this profession

is a sure way to becoming burnout and having a national teacher shortage.

Let’s do the math because I have receipts (paystubs). There is a vast amount of

labor that is exploited in education and not fairly compensated for. For example, let’s

take a look at my pay; with my Master’s degree, I was offered $62,053 for the 2018-2019

academic year. However, as reported by the calculations of Dr. Glasmeier (2020) of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology20, a person in a 2 working adult household with 1

child like myself in my exact county, would require for a living wage an annual income

of $85,555. Others may retort and point out the daily “prep periods” are available for

planning and grading and in response I would counter with the fact that we all know the

common truth of the matter is that our prep or “free periods” are often stolen by

meetings. These meetings are in regards to meeting with your instructional coach, your

whole grade level team, perhaps with administration or guardian, and some that are

incredibly important and legally required like IEPs and BIP21s. Unfortunately, because

20
https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06085

21
Behavioral Implementation Plan
88
we are so starved for proper time and money, some teachers choose to do their lesson

plans rather than go to IEPs meetings. Those who may not consider the larger picture of

teacher shortage, teacher turnover, and pay inequity, would of course paint teachers as

“lazy” or “uncaring” of their students when really, the structures of the school, force

everyone into survival mode. Scholars Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond (2017)

have a robust report on the recommendations to address these issues which states: “To

stem teacher turnover, federal, state, and district policymakers should consider improving

the key factors associated with teacher turnover: compensation, teacher preparation and

support, and school leadership.” (p.vi) It is no wonder that with low pay, and

unsustainable working conditions, and lack of support there is a high turnover

rate/teacher shortage.

Teachers Are Not Your Martyrs

Low and underpaid teacher wages are normalized and expected but this too takes

a toll and makes a huge impact on our practices and souls as teachers. The natural

consequences of people going into education knowing it is not for the pay, means that it

requires us to view ourselves as doing this work for some other reason. Usually this

reason is tied to a moral cause or call of “changing the world.” These economic

inequalities caused the staff at ACP to operate at a burnout pace which together everyone

rebranded that action (possibly to cope) as resilience. The warfare discourse which was

constantly used by administrators and perpetuated by the staff was perhaps language that

stems from the phrase “social justice warrior22.” For example, during our PDs, at the end

22
Social Justice Warrior (shortened mostly as SJW) means a person who actively speaks on politically
progressive ideas however became a pejorative by the far-right wing and even sometimes by the left wing
89
of meetings there is space and time for people to praise their peers. This was most likely

intended to inspire community and collegiality. Most times, the praises were from

colleagues to other colleagues calling each other warriors for coming in while they were

sick, sacrificing time and money from their personal lives for the school, and their overall

tolerance of “being in the trenches.” This acceptance from educational staff of toxic

working conditions, of an overworked and overwhelmed culture, of performing and

producing for the school at the expense of ourselves as valid “for the cause” is what I call

martyr culture. Society has forced martyrdom on education and educators, by asking us to

solve all the social problems that exist. Scholars have traced down the historico-religious

roots of our profession as such: “It’s not just that teachers seek to imitate Christ, but that

society (in the messages it send; in the respect it withholds; in the money it fails to give)

expects them to” (Burke & Segall, 2015, p. 9). From an intersectional lens, Christianity

has been used as a tool to oppress and colonialize entire countries around the globe for

over centuries. It has even been pervasive in the field of education where we are both the

propped to be the sacrificial lamb and the savior. Perhaps now, this also adds another

layer of analysis to how and why the male co-founder (mentioned earlier in the chapter)

so openly and proudly sought to create this school to “save” our “ghetto” kids. This

ingrained thinking needs to be rooted out, disrupted for the sake of everyone involved

(teachers, students, communities). Last time I checked, I did not sign up to be anyone’s

martyr and I do not use it as a blanket to cover up the extreme exploitation that the

educational system in U.S. society expects as normal.

as people who fight for causes superficially to gain more clout for themselves and in a way to signal their
moral superiority.

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 The martyr culture impacted my teaching and learning in that any time I

questioned a policy or method, it was met with quiet derision and contempt for my

supposed “weakness” or inability to “warrior” through situations. As if every issue I

dared vocalize to the community was singularly a “me” problem and not an institutional

problem. This type of thinking goes along with the “pull them up by the bootstraps” and

“grit” (Angela Duckworth, 2016) narrative which research has shown is racist/classist

and puts the onus unfairly on those oppressed without addressing systemic oppressions

(Love, 2019). Reflecting on ACP’s Mission and Vision statement from their state grant

application, they state: “[ACP] utilizes...current research around principles of learning,

grit, resilience, and perseverance and particularly what informs the [ACP] program is

the USDOE23’s Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance (2013).” This is ridiculous

in that no amount of “warrior-ing” by pushing ourselves to the physical, mental,

financial, emotional limit is going to provide equitable pay, humane working conditions,

and time for family or mental health care.

At one point, when the burnout was becoming tangible, some PDs were converted

into informational sessions on the importance of self-care. We were advised to spend

money on spa days, therapy, and even drinking alcohol (not a joke) all so that we may

course correct through these methods of self-care. Once again, the onus on change is put

on those beings at the bottom and not on the structures that keep them down in the first

place. The heart of the issue in this scenario is best explained as: teachers are being

spread way too thin and no amount of manicures or martinis is going to change the causes

23
United States Department of Education. This citation for this direct quote is redacted for legal and
anonymity reasons.
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for teacher shortage and exploitation. How about instead of shouting “self-care!” we

address the structural violences that impact our educational systems, our living wage

issues, our over-policing of Black and Brown children, or manufactured scarcity? I

suppose as workers in a capitalistic educational model we were expected to “toe the

company line” and as “warriors” of the school we needed to “fall in line.”

Looking at the staff and school through an intersectional lens as a teacher has

shown me the pervasive martyr culture that plagued and begs the question: Why do we

keep praising and putting those who are forced to use excessive resilience on a pedestal

and thus perpetuating martyr culture without asking why we must burn in the first place?

How can be asked to look at our students holistically, to acknowledge all they carry and

bring into our schools and classrooms and yet, deny ourselves the same humanity and

dignity? Instead of praising martyr culture and people for choosing their work over their

physical/mental health, social well-being, families, and live with wage inequality, we

must work to “redesign the systems that inherently make people suffer” (Bilal, 2020). As

a teacher, I resented the implicit daily sacrifice I was being asked to make with myself,

my family, and my biological children. We need to make our teaching profession humane

for all souls, students and teachers.

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Woke Signaling24

Authentic Adaptation

During the staff community building activities at the earlier PDs, I noticed many

cultural inclusions (sometimes synonymous with liberal and progressive or appropriation,

depending on implementation) into the structures and procedures of the school. We were

taught that at the end of each and every staff meeting, we perform a unity clap. First we

stand, then we clap once, then twice, then faster until there is a frenzy of clapping then

suddenly we are motioned to pause for one last large slow clap, and in that second of

silence someone yells ISANG BAGSAK! In Tagalog, it means “If one falls, we all fall,”

a call for solidarity and unifying action. This unity clap is historically relevant to the

sociopolitical background of the area in that it originated from the migrant farm workers

in the central valley of California, about 70 miles from the site of this school. Forgotten

hero Larry Itliong, a Filipino American, farm worker, and activist from Stockton,

California contacted César Chávez to get Mexicans to join him and around 2000 Filipinos

to strike oppressive working conditions (Roberts, 2020; CalAsian Chamber, 2020;

Mabalon & Romasanta, 2018). With fidelity, this unity clap was performed at the end of

each gathering and was even taught to the students. Filipina American author Gayle

Romasanta (2019) shows us that history is usually written by the colonizers and

unfortunately, this legacy of the Filipino migrant farm workers starting the entire striker’s

movement was left out and only César Chávez’s story lived on in our history books

24
I based this concept from the similar phrase and concept “virtue signaling.” Virtue signaling
(Bartholomew, 2015) is when someone says or does something to enhance their social image or with the
intention of displaying moral correctness.

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(small history but at least included). Asian American history is basically non-existent in

schools unless we are talking about lightskinned, East Asians like the Japanese and the

internment camps or the Chinese during the Gold Rush and Exclusion Act. That’s it. Due

to white supremacy and colorism, for the Brown, South, and South East Asians, what is

most visible is only the Vietnamese War and nothing else. I know this on a personal level

because I was born and raised in Stockton, CA and our city celebrated César Chávez in

that we had a library, school, and street named after him. His legacy is honored in schools

and yet I had never heard of Brown Asian, Filipino Labor Leader, Larry Itliong until I set

out to do an intersectional analysis of this practitioner and critical ethnography

dissertation project. From this, I only just now, learned that Larry Itliong is my

hometown hero! I deeply appreciated ACP amplifying a marginalized voice and

incorporating this grassroots movement into our practice. Honoring ancestors and

practices of those historically oppressed is a form of resistance and restorative justice.

This small yet meaningful structure of community meetings matters because “Reflecting

on our own heritage and studying how our ancestors participated in restorative practices

can be helpful in grounding teachers in the philosophy of restorative justice and

connecting them to present-day efforts and practices” (Winn, Graham, & Alfred, 2019, p.

20). As we teachers stand in the room, all from different perspectives, racial and

economic backgrounds, and we do this clap with the call and hope for solidarity and for

this, I applaud ACP’s authentic adaptation.

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Woke Performance

Other attempts to include cultural practices were not so impactful and were what I

called earlier, woke signaling. Being “woke” means to be aware of social injustices and

conscious of social issues. Thus, my definition of “woke signaling” is the display of

being conscious of social injustices for the intention of enhancing social image but not

actually doing anything towards fighting against said social injustices (or worse, actually

perpetuating it). During staff meetings, the Principal, Dr. Corona, a Latinx man,

sometimes explained how the drum he brought in for us to beat on which he called “The

Grandfather” along with the sage he burnt in an abalone shell, were sacred and that he

has a right to them because he went through an intense experience with a shaman or

medicine man for a week once. Then we were given school staff jackets with a stitched

image of a dreamcatcher that took up the entire space on the back, and not any one of us

identified as Indigenous and there certainly was no land acknowledgement of our local

Ohlone tribe. These may be considered as harmless inclusions of Indigenous practices

and cultural art but other practices can have seriously deleterious repercussions of woke

signaling. For example, ACP administration and some staff talked often of their record of

60% less suspensions the last year and thus connected it to their conscious effort of

breaking the “school to prison pipeline” all because of their Restorative Justice (RJ)

implementations. They even hired one staff member to be the RJ coordinator. This is a

shift in a positive direction but the issue remains that when students are deemed

troublesome, cops are called and not counselors. I saw the administration and

instructional coaches talk about trauma informed pedagogy but gave no support or

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training to teachers, and yet still, if they acknowledge there is trauma, why would they

still allow for no counselors? And if they truly cared about breaking the “school to prison

pipeline” why would they call the cops often then? Their most egregious woke signaling

revolved around their adapted model of discipline, the Indigenous practice of Restorative

Justice.

Restorative Justice and the Mis-Implemented Model.

Early in the semester, during one of my shifts to supervise lunch, I stood on the

blacktop, managing to scarf down some edible thing as my lunch, trying to make sure

between myself and the Vice Principal (VP) who I will call Huy, that all was safe and

sound while 200 kids played, talked, ate, in the small outdoor space. As I was walking

around, a group of 6th grade girls rushed to me. Once they reached me, the girls slowly

stepped back to reveal in the center of their group was another girl, in tears, trying to sink

deeper into her school sweater hoodie. Her supportive friends informed me that she was

violated when just minutes before, a boy ran by and “slapped her ass.” Within seconds

three things went through my head. First, I was so empathetic because I am a sexual

abuse survivor myself, secondly I was stunned that they had already trusted me enough to

come to me in the moment, and then third, I kicked into my natural “problem-solving”

mode. I thanked the girls for standing up for their friend and I asked the girl specifically

what happened and she pointed to the boy, in her own words told me her truth, and while

doing so, I noticed how she began to become more agentive. Wanting to address this

immediately and seriously, I asked and she agreed that we go together and inform

administration. Knowing that RJ requires repairing harm and one of the main ways to do

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this was through circling and family conferencing, I was hoping perhaps we could have a

guardian sit-down. It was crucial to restore her sense of safety and feel like she matters.

Quickly after, we all walked up to VP Huy, who was preoccupied with guarding

the gate to make sure students stayed within the playground area. The VP is a tall and

largely muscular Vietnamese man, decked with tribal tattoos on his sleeves and is known

for his jovial demeanor and Hawaiian shirts. I politely asked if he had a moment to point

us in the direction to take appropriate action on the situation. Going to him directly as a

person within administration and supposedly a practitioner of RJ, I assumed he would be

the person to go to since I had not formally held a restorative healing circle myself,

because I was neither trained or qualified to take my own action with this specific model

of discipline. I asked, “So what’s the process here? Should we go to the office and call

parents or home?” I deferred to his position and experience. Everything happened so

quickly that I hardly had time to process and respond. He hurriedly asked for details and

then he proceeded to assume control by asking the girl to point out the boy then

commanding a nearby student to bring that boy over. The boy came jogging up to us and

then as recorded from my fieldnotes, this happened:

while we were still ALL on the playground during the recess, the boy
caught up with us and the VP explained that the boy needed to understand
how he made the girl feel and that he owed her an apology. The girl was
mortified to be facing her aggressor25 again and instead just started crying

25
Originally in my field notes I had written “assaulter” however, after reflecting and thinking of the
intersectionality of word choices, I realized that “assaulter” could be on par of criminalizing language and I
did not in any way want to attach that to my students, especially because they are Latinx. After speaking
with my critical colleague in the Educational Linguistics field, Dr. Jennifer Phoung suggested that
aggressor may be more appropriate because it provides us the action still with all the gravity of the
situation but without having a loaded term that further perpetuates stereotypes and criminalization of our
BIPOC souls.

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 heavily. I imagine that she had finally, along with her friends’ help, got the
courage to come up to me, a teacher they trust and hoped to find empathy
and resolve, but instead got a male VP forcing her to face the boy who
hurt and violated her for a forced and stale apology. After the boy tersely
said, “Sorry” the VP concluded the matter within minutes. The kids
wasted zero seconds dispersing from this farce; the boy continued his
playing on the field, and the girl ran off crying with her friends following.
This happened so fast, that all I could do was be incensed and shocked by
the mishandling and traumatizing methods. (Researcher Memo #9,
9/26/18)

Unfortunately, these methods of appropriating Indigenous methods were a sick

reoccurrence throughout the school year and set the tone for the rest of the administrative

and school practices.

To be successful, restorative practices first and foremost relies on consent and

voluntary participation (Belinda Hopkins, 2003). The way Mr. Huy forced mediation

only served to contribute to the larger virus of patriarchal violence. He completely took

away the girl’s agency in the situation rendering her powerless. Having already had her

space and privacy violated, Mr. Huy “held court” and conducted this entire exchange in

public, in front of prying eyes of her peers thus compounding the girl’s sense of space

and privacy violations. The witnessing souls involved in this situation and those around

us learned many things during this quick span of a few minutes: 1) Boys can get away

with little to no consequence for violating girls 2) Girls bodies and souls are of little

consequence 3) Adults are more concerned with keeping order/control than genuinely

restoring justice and reducing harm and 4) Men ultimately decide how girls’ bodies are

treated.

With the limited time at lunch, I can understand how Mr. Huy deduced this course

of action may have been the best option, but this in no way even began to “repair” or

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“ameliorate” the injustice and pain that affected the community of 6th graders; in fact, it

actually exacerbated it. Throughout the semester, this type of behavior revealed itself as a

game among some children, with each day of the week a corresponding method of

physically nonconsensual touching/aggression. For instance, on Tuesdays, also called

“Titty Tuesday,” some students were sexually molested by their peers around their

breasts and on Friday, it openly was known as “Slap Ass Friday.” A boy student ran into

my room before school started and I told him I was not ready to receive students yet and

he begged me to let him stay in my classroom because that is where he knew he would be

safe from “Slap Ass Friday.” When I conveyed this issue with Principal Corona, he

decided to come to one of our assemblies and he gave a stern talk to the children using

words such as “sexual assault” and “criminal charges.” Immediately, I regretted having

gone to these “higher ups” who not coincidentally happened to be men, for any support

regarding this issue. With an intersectional lens, I understand now that RJ cannot be

implemented in this school because the structures of power negate how RJ is supposed to

operate. RJ’s main principles include affirming, repairing, and rebuilding (Morrison,

2007), not coercion and policing language and threats. Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz and

Judy Mullet (2005) tell us that:

Restorative Justice promotes values and principles that use inclusive,

collaborative approaches for being in community. These approaches validate the
experiences and needs of everyone in the community, particularly those who have
been marginalized, oppressed or harmed. These approaches allow us to act and
respond in ways that are healing rather than alienating or coercive. (p. 15).

There was no collaboration, no asking of how can we as a community work to heal. RJ

cannot exist where there are power hierarchies, which means until there are hierarchies in

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schools, RJ cannot not be effectively included in whole school discipline models. This

could have been an opportunity for social engagement instead of social control

(Morrison, 2012).

Perhaps Principal Corona lectured with criminalizing language to “be real” with

the kids, by preparing them for how the “outside adult world” would handle this. But

that’s just it. I do not want our schools and classrooms to be little microcosms to the

outside world and their oppressive systems. We must be more creative than this, more

imaginative than this. We must engage intersectional feminism and decolonization,

starting with the idea of the whole social structure being changed from the bottom up

(Fanon, 1963; Mohanty, 2003). Otherwise, essentially, we are just perpetuating

oppressions, we are part of the educational survival complex (Love, 2019) “in which

students are left learning to merely survive, learning how schools mimic the world they

live in, thus making schools a training site for a life of exhaustion” (p. 29). What

happened here was not restorative or justice, it was lecturing with criminalizing language

to Black and Brown kids who already are profiled by this white, racist, super-predator

country, and minimizing the girls’ trauma by forcing one second apologies to Black and

Brown girls who are already 40-60% sexually abused before the age of 18. Kendall

(2020) writes: “And then those [Black and Brown] girls face having their trauma ignored

or minimized while the systems that are supposed to protect them sacrifice their safety for

respectability” (p. 77). Rape culture is already a pandemic in this country and we cannot

let control of the student body be more important than the students’ bodies.

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 I wonder what outcome would have happened if I had walked those girls into the

office and got a guardian on the phone, instead of “following the chain of command.”

Was this a mishandling or a purposefully performance of RJ to avoid legal retaliation

from guardians? I question this and more: How do we do conflict resolution

intersectionally? How does intersectionality function within the frameworks of RJ and

how can it be ethically/realistically/and with fidelity be employed in schools and

classrooms? How can we mobilize intersectionality to respond to patriarchal violence in

schools? For a true intersectional education, one that is equitable, a students’ holistic self

should be centered, their souls should be centered, not woke performance to move along

with the daily schedule. The administration and staff love to preach their vocabulary use

of “trauma informed pedagogy” and other woke signaling educational phrases but that

really meant nothing when they had no actionable programs or effective systems in place

to support that. Hiring one “Restorative Justice Coordinator'' to handle all the RJ circles

and conferencing for an entire school of 1000 young souls is hardly realistic, restorative,

or just. Perhaps utilizing the one RJ coordinator to train and support the teachers during

weekly PDs for every week is a small step in the right direction. A new policy brief by

the National Education Policy Center conclude that there needs to be a long-term,

ongoing, implementation plans on sustainability and professional support (Gregory &

Evans, 2020). This cannot be just another gimmick in education. It seemed that this was

mostly a ploy to look good on paper. But in praxis it was like that apology: stale and

forced. Of course, I do not expect RJ in schools and classrooms to fix centuries of

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patriarchal violence. However, I do know that intersectional social justice education is

more than just what we say in language but what we do in action.

Testing Culture and Neoliberalism

On April 1st, 2019, the entire Alma College Prep staff received this email from

the Principal in our inboxes:

Figure 4.2 Testing Propaganda from Principal

The organization called the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress

(CAASPP) set the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) as the high stakes

standardized test for the state. As reported by the CAASPP’s (2020) website, “students in

grades three through eight and grade eleven will receive full-length summative tests for

both English language arts/literacy and mathematics, with approximately seven to eight

hours of total testing time for each student.” The Team Leader Council (TLC) consisted

of the department leaders like myself who were required to work out a testing schedule to

accommodate this computer adaptive test. From the Principal’s e-mail, you can see, a

top-down policy to us teachers where we are to explicitly prep students for testing. We

were tasked with the expectation that each day for the next two weeks, we would teach a

new skill and then students practiced that skill.

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 A month earlier on March 7th, 2019 I had an awkward moment during PD as the

subject of “test prep” came up in our ELA professional learning community (PLC). A

fellow teacher (credential status unknown) Ms. Hailey is a young, white woman, who

taught 8th grade ELA, spoke of her excitement of her created “testing units” which were

explicitly teaching the skills and standards that would be directly assessed on the test. I

sat in silence. Another teacher, credentialed and with 15+ years of experience, Ms. House

is a middle-aged, white woman who taught 5th grade, spoke next. She did so in a way

that quite diplomatically expressed both her understanding of the task of creating testing

units and her reluctance. I sat in silence. Ms. House and I have a mutually respectful

working and personal relationship; we quickly bonded over being the new teachers in the

building and both Team Leaders of our grade level cohorts. In her ambivalence, she

called on me to share my thoughts on testing units. This direct call-on surprised everyone

else and soon I had everyone’s full attention. Cognizant of my positionality as a Brown

woman, I kept my voice cool and calm, so as to not be labeled “angry.” Truthfully, I

relayed the research and historical facts of standardized testing as a racist and classist tool

and thus functions as another piece in a larger context of systemic oppressions (Ravitch,

2010; Love, 2019). Rooted in that understanding of resisting an oppressive system of

power and acting fully on the idea of an intersectional pedagogy, on principle, I openly

refused to create and teach testing units.

Upon hearing my public rejection of standardized testing, Ms. House sighed in

relief while Ms. Hailey and the school’s Instructional Coach (who also was her mother!)

regurgitated their spiel, red faced and loudly, that their “testing units” were not teaching

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to the test but rather they were “sticking it to the man!” Repeatedly and aggressively,

testing culture was justified with this lie: testing units are empowering the young souls

since they would be required to take tests (SATs/ACTs) to gain admittance into college

anyways; therefore it is in their best interest we equip them with the knowledge they

need, otherwise we would be negligent. This was a clear and classic confrontation about

the access paradox (Lodge, 1997). To paraphrase Hilary Janks’ (2010) explanation of the

access paradox, if you provide students with access to the dominant culture, you are also

perpetuating and contributing to the dominant culture; however, if you deny students

access, then you perpetuate their marginalization. There hardly seems to be an answer to

this paradox until I took time to reflect how taking an intersectional framework applied to

the issue of standardized testing and realized it was as I had spoken earlier, a piece within

a much larger context of systemic oppression: neoliberalism.

In Pauline Lipman’s (2011) book titled: The New Political Economy of Urban

Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City a critical and concise definition

and summary are provided of neoliberalism and education:

the neoliberal agenda is to bring education, along with other public sectors, in line
with the goals of capital accumulation and managerial governance and
administration...the neoliberal turn marks a shift to ‘human capital development’
as the primary goal. In this framework, education is a private good, an investment
one makes in one’s child or oneself to ‘add value’ to better compete in the labor
market, not a social good development of individuals and society as a whole...the
overarching theme is that schooling is to be dominated by the knowledge and
skills privileged in the (stratified) economy, and teachers and schools are to be
held accountable to standards and performance targets (Rizvi & Lingard, 2009).
On the assumption that the private section is more efficient and productive than
the public sector, neoliberal policy promotes education markets and privatization.
Privately operated but publicly funded charter schools (USA) or academies (UK)
and their global counterparts, private school vouchers, and privatized education
services have opened up a whole new arena for capital accumulation (Burch,

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 2009; Satlman, 2007). School administration is geared to management techniques
designed to meet production targets (e.g., test scores). Teaching and learning are
driven by performance indicators such as benchmark scores, narrowing the
curriculum and producing a new regulatory culture of ‘performativity and
fabrication’ (Ball, 2004). (p. 15)

Once again capitalism comes into play and so insidiously manifests in the requirement

and obsession with testing culture in schools. If capitalism is about the accumulation of

wealth through “coin” (money), neoliberalism is about accumulation of capital through

humans, making humans the new coin. In other words, students in the larger framework

of capitalism and neoliberalism have a value in the labor markets outside of their

identities, their souls. It is as if schools are the companies, teachers are the

machines/workers, and students are the products we create for the market. Furthermore,

the capitalists (creators and owners of the companies), evaluate products (e.g. students)

quality (e.g. proficiency) and features (e.g. skills) and thus determine the products’ value

(job opportunities and life outcomes) in the system. Based on this breakdown, through

testing culture, capitalism, and neoliberalism, we systematically perpetuate the

dehumanization of our children, of our souls. The deleterious impacts on our babies’

souls happens when they see their worth measured this way, their lives, experiences, and

knowledge valued this way. Even Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs (2011) once

wrote:

At the core of the problem is an obsolete factory model of schooling that sorts,
tracks, tests, and rejects or certifies working-class children as if they were
products on an assembly line. The purpose of education, I said, cannot be only to
increase the earning power of the individual or to supply workers for the ever-
changing slots of the corporate machine. Children need to be given a sense of the
unique capacity of human beings to shape and create reality in accordance with
conscious purposes and plans. (p. 137)

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In praxis, it proved difficult to escape the clutches of capitalism especially when

everyone and everything is commodified. When we stop caring about the people and only

the profits, we put everything at risk, including our humanity, our souls. The free market

will never solve our social problems only exacerbate them, threatening our livelihood and

even the livability of this planet. Neoliberalism is a tool of oppression for BIPOC groups

and it must be rooted out of our educational systems.

Two weeks later after the first email on testing, on April 15, 2019 we received

another email regarded as the final push for prioritization of creating and implementing

testing units as test preparation:

Figure 4.3 More Testing Propaganda from Principal

Sitting at my desk, alone afterschool, rereading this propaganda, I asked myself a series

of questions: Why is this a zero-sum game26? Why play the game at all? How can we

undo education as a business? Is there a model of learning where everyone can be a

champ? It is commonly known that schools must produce a certain level of scores or they

risk being labeled a “failing school” and subsequently lose their funding. On the other

end, being labeled as a “high performing/scoring” school is great for recruiting more

26
Zero Sum Game is a game and economic theory, represented mathematically, it says in order for
someone to win (+1), someone must lose (-1) which equals 0.

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students and means “more butts in the seats, more bucks in the bank.” All the while the

testing industry is getting billions in the bank (Love, 2019). Whether the Principal truly

believes this or views testing as a means to an end, a necessary evil, I do not know for

sure. However, what I see is the Principal, educated with a doctorate, despite

acknowledging all the inequities of testing for BIPOC, he was poised in this precarious

position doing theoretical somersaults, twisting, turning words to perform what I call his

“woke signaling” with phrases such as “an act of social justice,” and “break through the

institutionalized oppression,” all while knowing he needs high scores to secure more

capital for the organization. Even if the Principal did not believe in or want to subject the

community to standardized testing, he would have been forced to do so anyways as a

chartered public school, as a cog in the capitalist machine, leaving him little choice of the

matter.

By taking an intersectional and justice stance, I learned how capitalism,

neoliberalism, racism, and classism are interlocking systems of oppression of

standardized testing. Standardized testing is not going to save any souls. Standardized

testing will never be the means of advancement for BIPOC, for low-income individuals,

or first generation students, so our teaching and learning should never involve or revolve

around it. We need not concern ourselves with this “game” or impose ways to “beat the

champ on his home court!” for as renowned intersectional feminist, writer, and civil

rights activist Audre Lorde (1984, p.113) said, “This is an old and primary tool of all

oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns.” Lorde said it

best:

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 Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of
acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of
difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black,
who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill... It is
learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the
master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us
temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to
bring about genuine change. (p.112)

Why are we wasting time on testing culture when we can/should focus on teaching ways

for students to resist, disrupt, and dismantle systemic oppression? “With all Black and

Brown youth at risk of being profiled as criminals, all marginalized people likely to be

treated with disrespect and, increasingly, dehumanization, the space to actually examine

and correct these issues inside the community is limited” (Kendall, 2020, p. 75); so that is

why schools are critical spaces to do this kind of intersectional justice work. I resisted the

oppressive school system by not wasting a single minute of school time with my babies

working on preparing for the standardized tests. Instead, we learned how to identify and

confront issues of sexism, colonialism, classism, and homophobia in our communities,

we laughed, loved, taught each other, and created intersectional poetry; “instead, talk[ed]

about what can be done to create a space for kids of color to thrive” (p. 83).

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have addressed the school’s community culture through an

intersectional analysis of their spaces and souls. This kind of space and soul work

revealed that the school system is plagued with white savior complexes, martyr culture,

and woke signaling, due to the larger racist, capitalistic, and neoliberal structures of

education. Each of these issues are interconnected to our teaching and learning. Each

aspect of society impacts its citizens in different ways just as the entirety of the school

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and its micro-communities impact all the souls involved in various ways. With little

resources afforded to public schools, administration was left to make unethical choices

when it came to staff and students and so “Instead of adequately funding schools,

ensuring teachers have the resources and support to teach dark children beyond survival,

and increasing teacher pay, school districts and city governments sustain the educational

survival complex” (Love, 2019, p.145). As an educator, when I looked at my school’s

community spaces and the souls involved through an intersectional lens, I learned that my

intersectional feminism and pedagogy must include issues of capitalism and critiques of

neoliberalism. I understand that the original intentions for creating the charter school

systems were to be these beacons of educational reform and hope but what

intersectionality has helped me uncover is that these schools perpetuate what Dr. Love

(2019) calls the education survival complex where “Education reformers take up space in

urban schools offering nothing more than survival tactics to children of color in the form

of test taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education” (p. 10) and in turn this

leads to what she calls “spirit murdering” of our babies’ souls. The only way to move

towards equitable education is to reimagine schools where all souls are thriving not

surviving, and the certainly starts with dismantling current systems.

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 CHAPTER 5: INTERSECTIONALITY IN THE CLASSROOM

Social Services

It was a cold night when we

where taken from the room we called
home, not sure why we called
it home it seemed more like
a prison. Lonely and cold.
My terrified brother looking at me for answers
but i had none. Those days i spent
in a house full of people i didn’t know
made me feel so alone.
-Maria Alvarado (2019), 6th Grader

Introduction

As in Maria’s poem, space has meaning and power. I argue that an intersectional

pedagogy takes this idea of doing space work into account, knowing that creating an

intentional space for our students' souls fosters teaching and learning that is just, sacred,

and loving. Spaces have the power to suffocate, like a prison, or empower through a

foundation built on safety and solidarity. Fighting for the physical and emotional spaces

of the classroom was necessary in order to teach and engage students with an

intersectional lens, to honor their souls and mine. In the following sections, I share

critical incidents that narrate how space and soul work are tied to an intersectional

classroom.

Building an Intersectional Classroom Through Space Work

Oh, c’mon! We’re all on the same team!

At the beginning of the school year, energized from the three weeks of team

building and professional development, we teachers were finally able to be left to our

own devices setting up our classrooms. Having had a couple of years of teaching

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experience and classroom materials under my belt, I was excited to start putting my

things up and creating a space that would serve as our sanctuary. This was proven

difficult at first when I unexpectedly had to fight for a desk because somehow I was

robbed by colleagues. A week into working, I found my classroom almost bare, with the

teacher’s desk, chairs, and tables taken. Confused and feeling violated, the Principal

insisted we as a staff do a restorative justice circle, to model how this practice can be

used to repair the damage done. But again, ideally, these restorative circles sound

beautiful but in practice, they are tremendously difficult to execute even between 2 kids

(as we saw in the previous chapter) let alone 25+ adults with varying ego sizes.

Unsurprisingly, no colleague would come out and admit to stealing furniture and supplies

from my room and they also did not return them. This set a bitter tone for me throughout

the school year in that it was “every person out for themselves,” because we were

operating in an environment of scarcity. Compared to the humble beginnings of the

school and now in a $30 million space, we were scolded to change our perspective to one

of abundance. It is true that scarcity is a myth and illusion; the world and our society have

all the resources needed for every soul to not only survive but thrive; however, due to

capitalism and neoliberal structures, goods and services are limited and hoarded by ruling

classes. Still, this did not change our reality of scarcity and struggle with classroom

ownership.

Certainly, this was a violation of my space. In this way, I felt that it was the

community against my classroom, in that my space was perturbed and property removed

without my knowledge or consent. Even with the opportunity, the community did not

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come together to rectify or reduce harm; there was no communal discussion of solving or

resisting this issue of scarcity. Instead, the restorative justice circle made the situation

worse. Colleagues insinuated that it was for the better because having a desk would mean

that an educator would be “lazy” and more prone to sitting at the desk, instead of

constantly on their feet, engaging with the students. Now it became not only an issue of

fighting for my desk and chairs back but fighting for the right to even sit down in the first

place. From the previous chapter, it is clear that martyr culture impacts the community

and this also poignantly seeped into the classroom. From this restorative justice circle

event, teachers seemed to believe we were expected to physically push ourselves, to stand

and walk for 8 hours of the day while occasionally sitting down to eat for lunch.

Teaching today in these types of charter schools is plagued by such severe cases of

martyr culture that any kind of rest and respite was radical.

Furthermore, this was exacerbated by the fact that I had to share my classroom

with so many students (overcrowding, 35 kids a class), staff, and after-school students

(outside of 6th grade) and Boys and Girls staff. It was difficult to find ownership of the

space when the space was commandeered by multiple adults/students multiple times a

day. In the morning, the first period was my “prep period” and usually, that would be a

time when a teacher prepares materials for lessons in their empty and quiet classroom.

This was not the case since during that time, there are students in our classrooms for their

“Enrichment” period with another staff member. Then the students and I would teach and

learn throughout the school day in the classroom. Staff are by contract to stay after school

every day for at least an hour. Usually, during this time, teachers use it to reset and

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prepare for the classroom the next day, yet again, this is not the case for me (and the 6th

grade team) because the school community decided that the Boys and Girls Club for the

entire school, would operate out of the Neighborhood which also meant our classrooms.

At first, I thought to myself, “don’t be silly, these spaces are communal so we have to

share. We will do our part of sharing and then others will take their turn; it’s only fair.

It’s only for the first quarter.” The administration assured me that they would make this

situation equitable by having a rotating schedule so that everyone would have to share the

burden of hosting the Boys and Girls Club in their personal classroom/workspaces. This,

in fact, never happened despite my attempts to hold the administration and community

accountable for the equal sharing of communal classrooms. For my team and for me, that

meant we never got time alone in our classroom to just recuperate, reset, and plan. On top

of that, it meant dealing with the trashing of the classrooms and even stolen things from

students or staff outside of our 6th-grade community.

This experience left me very bitter and indignant. However, it also pushed me to

reflect on how intersectionality impacts my teaching and learning in varying spaces

specifically in this context. I questioned my assumption of “ownership.” In education, we

talk about students “taking ownership” of their learning, and teachers are encouraged to

“take ownership” of their pedagogy and classrooms. However, in this particular context, I

argue that we had the right to demand our own spaces and that setting boundaries is

healthy and not anti-community. This was more likely another oppressive demand for

martyrdom, to just give up our sacred space and thus be in constant anxiety because of it

“for the greater good.” This dilemma could have been helped if the administration and

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our colleagues honored their values of community and had worked out a way that the

BGC would operate out of a rotating schedule (as promised). Instead I was left exposed

and exploited: teachers are suffering from scarcity of time, of pay, scarcity of basic

materials, and now scarcity of space. The Principal attempted to set the tone for

community but the culture was not one of unification, it was one of survival. Educational

researchers and practitioners tell us to consider our students’ holistic selves and attend to

their needs as modeled by Maslow’s (1943) “Hierarchy of Needs,” and yet somehow fail

to translate that to teachers. Creating a community culture takes an actual community to

begin with, not disjointed by grade levels, or new teachers versus administration, or older

teachers, or teachers versus afterschool staff. I wanted to shake everybody and scream,

“Oh c’mon! We’re all on the same team!” Our charter schools that claim to change

communities need to first create one within their schools, one that is a culture of

sustainability, respect, and abundance in time, compensation, and mental and professional

support; otherwise, we will continue to see this pattern of teacher scarcity.

The 6th Grade Community Space and my Classroom

This section explores the intersectionality of working together in the space of our

personal classrooms and the larger 6th grade cohort community, side by side. Physically,

the students would be in our classroom “bubbles” and then during transitions and

assemblies, right outside the classroom was the communal area dubbed “The

Neighborhood.” In this way, we had to be cognizant that both were connected and

mattered how we managed them in regards to expectations. The classroom space was one

where there were fun and critical academics with engaging lessons and the Neighborhood

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was a space that was for resting and playing. Our colleagues quickly learned to make that

connection with the students, that we may be divided into classes/cohorts (the same group

of students stayed with each other all day, making their own cohorts) but that we were

also simultaneously a community with fellow 6th graders, beyond our classroom doors.

Outside Classroom Walls as Community Space

As a teacher, I took every opportunity of wall space on the inside and outside of

the classroom’s four walls to include the students’ identities. In previous years, the wall

space by the entrance of my classroom was taken up by lockers down the wall. So then, I

decorated the space immediately around my classroom door from the top of the ceiling to

the tiled floor, all with student artifacts and work. This time at Alma College Prep, right

outside my classroom next to the door there was a corkboard on the wall. To create a

community of readers, I utilized this space as our 6th grade community “Currently

Reading” board as pictured below. With their permission, I posted pictures of students

and myself with the books that we were currently reading. The larger pieces of paper

were a few of the book reports that students did as an assignment. Students get to see

themselves as readers, reviewers, explorers, be exposed to myriad genres and texts. This

would spark interest, curiosity, and conversations in that students would ask about a

fellow student’s book. For this board, I was intentional on the representation meaning I

reflected on the varied levels of readers, gender and race of readers, and genres of texts.

As the board became more full throughout the year, students (and other community souls)

saw themselves and each other outside of the classroom as well.

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 Figure 5.1 Outside Wall with Bulletin

Down the same outside classroom wall was where the glass movable doors were,

which I covered up and used as the 4th wall of our classroom. On there were proudly

displayed student Intersectional Identity Poems they created. The picture below reveals

that students expressed their identities through their religion, gender, ancestral nationality

as represented by flags, and their linguistic backgrounds in Arabic and Spanish writing.

Despite the class being an English Language Arts class, never do I ever exclude any

home languages for they are to be cherished, honored, and understood as the foundation

of a person’s connection to culture, to their first way of connecting to the world. I am

quadrilingual and Lao is my mother tongue, my connection not only to my mother and

that side of the family, but also my lifeline to the motherland, to the ancestors, to a

roadmap within my and our collective soul. Any teacher, school, or curriculum that

rejected this part of my identity enacted violence, a violence unto me and those connected

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roots; it would be colonialist and white supremacy in action. Literacy and Language

scholar, Tracey Flores (2017) advocates for students’ home languages as critical to

literacy and learning in that: “Through their home languages, the language of the heart,

students first learned as children — how to love, to hope to dream and to wonder. This in

itself is a powerful resource to use in our classrooms to build learning communities where

students and teachers can learn, thrive and live — together” (in Education Week). Never

complete and always growing and changing to accommodate new voices, perspectives,

and identities, these walls aimed to not only reflect but also celebrate and honor the souls

of those who occupied its spaces. The wall space was an opportunity to build community

within and outside of the classroom. In these ways, we took “ownership” of our

classroom, brought back the sacred into our spaces.

Figure 5.2 Outside Classroom Wall

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Families as Part of the Classroom Space

Language Arts Night

In the evening, we had our first “Family Literacy Night” (9/27/18) at Alma

College Prep. Proposed by the in-school humanities Instructional Coach, the goal was to

welcome families into our school, classrooms, and have students share and lead by

showing off what they have been doing or learning so far in their English classes. No

other subject teachers were asked to showcase their work. For my 6th graders, students

were so incredible in setting up and presenting, it was definitely a moment for us to show

our pride in self-growth and learning. We arranged the evening in different stations for

the guardians and families to participate. On one station, students stood eagerly with their

independent reading books ready to present and discuss it. Another station was set up

with Chromebooks so students and their families can sign up either with English or

Spanish instructions for public library cards. Lastly, there was a large table in the center

of “The Neighborhood” space that was set up (figured displayed below), topped with

many and varying middle grades novels and books. Each family got to pick one book to

take home and were encouraged to have them read it to their student or the student read it

to them as a way of bringing school literacies home. After their selections, I noticed

families were smiling and happy and to preserve the moments, I invited families to come

into my class and take photos with their newly chosen book with families in front of our

classroom/community’s “Hopes and Dreams Tree” which each guardian and student had

contributed to a couple months ago during our “Back to School Night.”

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 Figure 5.3. Family Literacy Night

The students took full ownership of this event by doing most of the work setting

up, presenting, directing others, and even helping babysitting my baby Leo! It just melted

my heart to see us all work like a family. I truly felt part of the 6th grade community when

I saw my baby being held, loved, and fed by my students and their parents. It was like a

scene within my own family. Watching the other younger siblings of my students play

with him, trying to make him laugh, trying hard to genuinely put on this event with pride.

The ACP values are ganas (desire), comunidad (community), and orgullo (pride) which

were absolutely felt this night. I felt the value and workings of comunidad when a parent

and my students helped take Leo by playing with him and feeding him while I was

working with other students to set up for the event. I saw ganas when students wanted to

be part of the event, when they took leadership and became presenters, translators, and

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hosts. There was desire in the steps the students took to reach out to families from the

community, to connect with them. I saw orgullo when they talked about their reading and

writing, their passion for learning. I saw ganas and orgullo mostly in the wonderful

Johnny, a Black Latino Special Education student, who made a poster for his own comic

series. He then brought his comic drawings, stapled them all together, and during the

evening took a poll (on a paper, people were to mark “x for don’t like”, and a

“checkmark for like”). Johnny declared that if he gets lots of likes he will publish the

comic.

My only critique of this event was that although it was named and aimed to be

“Family Literacy Night,” it was more accurately a “Language Arts Night.” Literacy is

every teacher and educators’ job, not just the English teacher. For it to truly be a “Family

Literacy Night” it would require all the teachers to be present and showcase their work.

This way families can have a holistic view of their child’s education as well. Other than

that one alteration, this type of event is easily replicated and shows to be beneficial to

connecting the classroom to the community and families. This event and the unapologetic

love and learning present in my 6th grade community was affirming, a refreshing and

much needed reminder of why I teach. The air positively sizzled with excitement,

curiosity, and camaraderie; it was positively affirming to see families part of the learning

landscape, included in their literacy. I realized that curating and creating a space like this

is when and how my soul is fed. This was a way to create a positive change and space in

my community. It was such a great “Literacy Night” because it allowed students to own

their learner identities and explicitly include families in their education and shatter the

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dichotomy of home versus school literacies. This was a day I will never forget in that this

night we solidified our relationship as a community by curating a space for families.

Guardian Conferencing

In October of 2018, the school leaders asked teachers to meet with students’

guardians to share with them their students’ benchmarked scores and discuss their

engagement in class. The school leaders recognized that every teacher will not be able to

meet every guardian so the plan was for each teacher to meet only one period’s

“parents27.” That meant, out of my 120 students, I would only be potentially meeting with

35 of their guardians. Many guardians were not privileged to leave their jobs to come in

to talk to me, even when I sacrificed time to meet later in the evening. I was able to reach

and set a meeting with most guardians though. That week of guardian conferencing was

an intense week because all week, students got out early and the rest of the afternoon and

evening was dedicated to meeting with guardians. From this experience, it was easy to

practice intersectionality because I got to learn more about my students by inviting their

guardians to share a piece of who they are outside of my classroom. For example, Gael’s

mother came into our meeting huffing (literally, she was in her third-trimester of

pregnancy) and upset that I had asked families to purchase the next class text. Gael’s

mother revealed that she and the father are going on disability and with another baby on

the way, they are financially strapped. I assured her that there will still be accessibility for

students whose families cannot obtain a copy of Ms. Marvel. I planned on projecting my

27
I use the term “parents” here because that was how the school used it, but I acknowledge that it is not
inclusive. Not everyone has parents and some, like my own family, are raised by a village of people like
grandparents, older siblings, aunts and uncles. As we know, words matter, so to be inclusive, I shall replace
“parents” with guardians.
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copy on the board as we read along, I also obtained a few extra copies from my teacher

budget, also students were agreeable to sharing with a partner. Through these meetings

there were so many stories of all these souls. David’s (a meek and quiet student) father

wanted to talk to me about how his son is seeing a therapist for his anxiety, that his lack

of participation in class is not out of defiance or ignorance. Bobby, a quiet redhead, has

sleep apnea and his guardians did not share that outright. First, they were shocked that he

was failing all his classes and then we discussed how we can as a team rectify this. This

was when mother revealed that it is already so hard on them because they spend nights

sitting up watching him making sure he does not die in his sleep; they were staying up in

case they need to resuscitate him. I told them this is a serious diagnosis and could

possibly very well be why his performance at school is impacted since Bobby is not

getting good sleep on a daily basis. This is the first and foremost need in the “hierarchy of

needs” (Maslow, 1943). I asked her if he has a sleep apnea machine to help him

automatically breathe at night, she said they could not afford it so Bobby will be

participating in a Stanford study in exchange for a sleep apnea machine. Next we worked

on steps to get Bobby officially qualified for accommodations so that throughout his

educational career, there is documentation to support him.

What I have noticed are students who are mostly failing or have IEPs have a

deeper reason for why their learning in class is suffering. Students who have behavioral

issues are having certain difficult transitions in their own home such as divorcing parents

or financial insecurity. In general, parents and guardians were very surprised to hear me

validate their experiences because they saw these admissions as family secrets and not to

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be understood as them making excuses for their students’ poor academic performance. I

found myself constantly reassuring the guardians, soothing their own worries about their

child. I said to them, “to be a good teacher, I must be able to look at the student as a

whole person and who they are doesn’t change when they walk into my door. I need to

accommodate for IEPs, medical and social circumstances. I can’t ask a fish to climb a

tree and every person is different and I shouldn’t assume they all need to be taught the

same.” Knowing more about my students’ home life gave me a better understanding of

their souls and this helped our interactions in class and with others. Bobby was not ever

able to get a passing grade in any class and it is clear that our grading systems and scales

are not intersectional and inclusive. For students who had struggles outside of the

classroom that impacted their ability to work in the classroom should not be held to a

grading standard. I should have made it impossible for students to fail. I wish I had the

radical courage and foresight to change their grades or not grade at all for the students

that were chronically absent, ill, or suspended were set up to fail since the beginning. The

students who were healthy or able bodied who could attend most days were privileged to

get a better grade. He still showed up when he could and his guardians always supported

in chaperoning every field trip which was important because I could always count on

them to volunteer. They even surprised our entire cohort for bringing in sheet cake and a

piñata to the picnic field trip in honor of Bobby’s birthday! Bobby did not need to be

lectured about grades, he needed school to be a haven, a place that would accept and

understand him and all of his capacity. The classroom became more than just learning

about similes and essay structures, it was about joy, compassion, and community love.

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Inside the Classroom Wall Space

Photo

An intersectional pedagogy demands that we literally see ourselves as a part of

the classroom and have our space match our souls. This idea first started back in 2011

when I learned from master teacher Mrs. Barbara Barker in Reno, Nevada. She would

spend 10 cents per photo and print out over a hundred pictures of the students and

ourselves just being, laughing, and learning together. Then, she would bring them out to

post in the classroom and distribute copies for students to take home if they wanted them.

Ever since I saw how much joy and community that built with the students, I realized that

I wanted to adapt this same practice as well. Building a classroom culture focused on

honoring the students and ourselves made our love feel tangible, both in those photos

(like some that were posted on the “Currently Reading” board) that were up on our walls

and those we got to take home with us.

Hopes and Dreams Tree

During the 3 weeks of PD before the school year started, the Instructional

Coaches focused on building community as co-workers but also as a way for us to do so

with our students. With that in mind, they came up with the theme “hopes and dreams”

for the year. This was done with the intention that teachers can take up the idea of “hopes

and dreams” and focus on it during the first few weeks of school as a way to indoctrinate

the children into the institution’s mission of constructing college going identities. We

were told doing this also had a bonus in that we could use this tool as a behavioral

technique for if students who misbehave, teachers can then rhetorically ask, “does

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behaving this way or these behavior choices help you achieve your hopes and dreams?”

This I did not care too much for; weaponing their dreams as a tool for classroom

management seemed twisted. I was not going to use their hopes and dreams against them.

However, I did respect the last suggestion for why this is a great tool for the classroom: it

was also a tool for teachers to hold themselves accountable, to justify what we were

teaching and why, so as to help our students achieve their hopes and dreams.

Some teachers took the theme and had some students write their hopes and

dreams on tiles and then put it together to make a road. Others had students write them on

a paper shaped like a cloud and posted them to the top of their classroom walls. I decided

that I would incorporate the theme as a tree in the classroom with each leaf representing a

student and/or guardian. When students walked into my classroom on the first day, they

saw a tree trunk made of construction paper in the front corner of the class and it was the

first thing they saw walking in through the door. During the welcome back to school

night event, I presented a little introduction of myself, an overview of my curriculum and

expectations, and proposed field trips to the students and guardians. Being conscious of

my demographics, I had a volunteer student translator with me the whole time.

Understanding that this student who had difficulty physically sitting still and who loved

talking, thus seeming like a behavior issue to others, I saw someone who just learned

differently, by moving his mouth and body, by being a relational learner like myself.

With that, I asked if he would like the opportunity to become a helper which would

require him to be up front and center. Instantaneously, we bonded and built a beautiful

partnership where we helped each other throughout the year. He took pride in translating

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all my slides and co-presenting with me. It was endearing to all his classmates and their

families. After our presentation students and their families were instructed to write their

hopes and dreams on those leaves to be posted and reminded that we are a community

and together we will foster, nurture, and water our hopes and dreams.

Figure 5.4 Classroom/Community “Hopes and Dreams” Tree

This also informed my pedagogy in that it provided a first look at the students’

writing and thinking. Thus, I was able to read through these and gauge that students

wanted more fictional readings as a class and also wanted technology to be integrated in

their learning, both of which I did. An analysis of all the students’ and guardians’ hopes

and dreams included:

1. Post-Secondary Academic Goals: Going to college or trade school

2. Literacy and Language Goals: Growing in their English skills (reading and

writing)

3. Careers Goals: Achieving careers such as becoming different types of doctors,

sports professionals (mostly soccer as is popular in their culture and context), and
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 some in the arts such as actors, singers, chef, and tech--(lots of YouTube gamers

aspirations)

4. Political Goals: For example, becoming “the first Black girl president”; “winning

the Mexican election”, and hoping for the impeachment of 45.

5. Financial/Class Goals: Lastly, their hopes and dreams included simply changing

their socioeconomic status: “want to be rich”

These collective hopes and dreams were then incorporated into the curriculum in that I

saw a hunger for political and economic change, for reading and writing, for breaking

FGLI barriers and getting into college and/or careers. More importantly, knowing the

hopes and dreams of the students and their families is validating and affirming of their

identities. We educators must never forget that we are not just teaching a subject, a

lesson, or a text, we are teaching students, souls. This also builds community for students,

guardians, and myself because we are represented on that tree, posted up front,

collectively coming together literally and metaphorically to build community. A tree

takes time and nurturing to grow and stand tall. Just like those leaves, all of our dreams

will need watering and nurturing. Those roots are bare and visible to show the families

and students that we will not forget our own roots, where we come from, and to always

acknowledge it is a part of us. Together, with the branches and trunk, a tree has the

potential to be a formidable being that is vital for the enrichment of our Earth.

Critical Vocabulary Word Wall

Around my classroom, on the walls one can see that I have posters that would

normally be seen in any English class like the Figurative Language posters, Literary

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Devices, and self-made posters for specific lessons on reading and writing strategies. The

Word Wall in particular, was a very critical part of the classroom space because

throughout the year and as we went through my curriculum, critical concepts such as

colonialism and oppression were openly defined, discussed, and repeatedly referred to.

Having a Word Wall display all these formerly esoteric words and key concepts were

doing the work of normalizing and centering an intersectional pedagogy and analysis.

Figure 5.5 Critical Vocabulary Word Wall

Creating an Intersectional Classroom Community through Soul Work

This section explores how within our classrooms, for any true and deep learning

or relationship building, it must first come from a foundation of safety and solidarity.

What I have come to learn from this practitioner research is that the roots of

intersectional soul work is love, which is shown through constant work and reflection to

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maintain and foster physical, emotional, and intellectual safety. I learned that operating as

a teacher researcher within multiple spaces and amongst multiple souls, meant

intentionally and intersectionally considering who entered our spaces and how they

existed in our spaces matters. Like in Maria’s poem, whether she felt she was in a home

or a prison depended on the space itself and the souls that occupy it. Like many

community youth outreach programs and activist groups, the basic way to start a

community within a group or classroom was to set a community agreement and

consolidate the ideas, making it a democratic process. The first day of classes, the

students and I talked about the expectations we as souls in the classroom would conduct

ourselves by, what standards we would hold, and how we would operate within this

shared space together. Having these set ideals and principles, of a shared common goal

was a wonderful and necessary starting point for us all.

Visiting Souls

Creating community in the classroom also meant intersectionally analyzing which

souls were invited (or not) to share our space and build community with us. This extends

to others who were in the classroom. For example, intentionally, I had set up for people

to come in as guest speakers for the students, one for every quarter. Their visit coincided

with certain units of study, and I attempted to balance out the guest list in terms of race,

class, and gender. They were to share with the students their own experiences so as to

provide students with multiple perspectives, to resist tokenization or monolithic

characters, to add layers/nuance to our class core text, to be exposed to more adults who

looked like them, lived like them, grappled and expressed their own intersectional

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identities like them. When these guests stepped into our classroom, students were deeply

engaged to hear their stories and to share theirs with our guests. Connecting the outside

world and community to the classroom, bringing them literally into the classroom was a

powerful experience and tool for students to learn more about intersectionality and those

underrepresented and historically excluded narratives. Specifics of the guest speakers as

related to the curriculum will be further explored in the next chapter, however, it is

important to note that there was constant intersectional analysis on who was brought in,

how, when, and why.

An Uninvited Guest

In the same light, it is crucial to protect the space of community within the

classroom even when we do not have choice into who comes in. Intersectional work takes

place when you take a stand against multiple and simultaneous oppressions, resisting so

that we may reimagine and build toward equity. For example, April 29th, 2019 there was

a substitute for my Special Education Paraprofessional (SpEd para) colleague named

Daisy who pushes in for classes. Legally, if a class has more than one third of its students

who are SpEd, then a SpEd teacher, aid, or paraprofessional must be present in the

classroom to support those students and potentially co-teach with the subject teacher. The

substitute SpEd paraprofessional for the day was an elderly white woman who we shall

call Karen, and who was particularly active and engaged with the day’s lesson and

students. The day’s lesson was in regards to gender based violence, sexism, and in

particular the current #MeToo social movement. Created by a Black woman Tarana

Burke (2006), the #MeToo movement was where people publicize allegations of sex

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crimes and sexual harassment by others. Karen pulled me aside during the independent

work part of the lesson to tell me that she has personal experience with the #MeToo

movement. Furthermore, she insisted that I read her written and published piece on the

blogging website Medium.com and give her feedback. I read it although hesitantly since I

did not want to do this extra labor for free. Immediately after reading it while the babies

were working independently, I conveyed my deepest empathy with her being sexually

harassed but that ultimately I do not and will not support her articles’ message, that it will

not be one that I will be sharing with the kids. She was taken aback that I had not

responded with accolades for her reflection piece titled “Suck it Up, Buttercup!” and how

she used her wits to successfully endure and survive the male dominated technology

industry in Silicon Valley. Karen adamantly whispered, that her idea of “sucking it up” is

what has to be done because “it’s what we have to do to survive.” Now not bothering to

keep this conversation in whispers, I told her (and to the listening ears pretending not to

eavesdrop) that my hope for the kids and the future generations is more than just “to

survive;” that my hope for the kids is that they resist oppression by naming it, confronting

it, and finding ways to thrive and create change, and lastly that this is a fiery global

movement. We, the BIPOC, are done; we do not want to just survive. We want

revolution. We want to thrive.

An Uninvited Invited Guest

As part of my poetry unit, I reached out to a personal and old friend from our

undergraduate days at UC Berkeley and he is also a prominent Vietnamese Spoken Word

poet. We met as 18 year olds volunteering for a youth outreach program that focused on

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the recruitment, retention, and mentorship of first-generation, Southeast Asian students,

from surrounding low-income communities like my hometown Stockton, California. As 1

of 2 high school students chosen (my English teacher recommended me!), I experienced

this program first from the point of view of a mentee and it was life changing for me and

is the reason why I wanted to go to Berkeley. Then as a college student, I volunteered for

the same program to do for others what it did for me. My friend, who we shall call Rong,

and I bonded and met through this program as mentors.

Thankfully, I collaborated closely with Ms. Tevy, the Lead SpEd teacher and she

was the one who brought Rong’s controversial past to my present attention. Ms. Tevy,

who was of Cambodian and Vietnamese descent immediately bonded with me, because

we both had Cambodian mothers who survived the genocide back in the 1970s. Being the

only two Southeast Asian women in the school, we worked so well together on an

interpersonal level that professionally we were able to ensure the equitability of all

students in my classroom with great ease. One day, while she was in my classroom, she

saw that I had featured songs and Spoken Word videos by Rong on the lesson plans for

that week. Privately, later that day, she text messaged me and shared her enthusiasm and

excitement for having Southeast Asian representation in the flesh and in the curriculum.

A few days later, she reached out to me again but to my dismay shared some disturbing

information about Rong. She had expressed her deep shock and demanded I reconsider

having him in the same space as the students due to a sexual-harassment allegation

towards him, specifically when we were at Berkeley and in the outreach programs where

he groped high school mentees. Despite Rong’s public apology and listed action steps of

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how he has and will continue to hold himself accountable, I was (and still am) deeply

saddened by this. Even more so, I feel betrayed. All of this came to light not too long ago,

just the year prior to his invitation to my classroom. Yet, Rong did not mention it to me

when I have been working to book him as a guest speaker in my class full of minors. Not

only was I hurt that he neglected to tell me about this, but I was also livid because

somehow, in his brain he still thought it was ethical for him to do classroom visits after

all of this. Mostly, I was embarrassed. I showed his videos to the students, I shared his

book of poems with the students, I shared my memories of him with the students, I really

hyped up this man. A couple of students bought his book, they were already planning

what they would like to say to him, ask questions of him, overall there was a general

enthusiasm and excitement to meet a true Spoken Word poet, a person of color, someone

they can relate to, in person. Now, there I was having to break their hearts.

Needless to say, I swiftly confronted Rong and terminated his visit and our

friendship. Ironically, my feelings on the matter matched how the kids felt after I shared

the Sherman Alexi sexual harassment allegations a month earlier. The lesson there was

that we did read his work because in some great ways it did contribute good, but that does

not allow for us to be complacent in our criticality, that truly, sexual assault 80% of the

time is from someone we know. The lesson there was to be aware, to remain critical. And

there I was, standing in front of the children, apologizing for not having learned my own

lesson, for not continuing to do my research. Of course, intersectionality allowed us to

understand that as a man of color, Rong, as a person who has experienced a lot of

patriarchy and trauma in his own life has affected his actions as a young man. But at the

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same time, I do not owe him anything. My students do not owe him anything. From my

own pocket, I paid back the students who bought his book, held time and space for any of

the students who wanted or needed to talk through this more. The kids asked me, “Ms.

Gill, now are you still going to be friends with him?” Vulnerably and honestly, I cried in

front of the children letting them know that my heart broke and that I terminated the

friendship and would always protect them. Who we invite and do not invite to our spaces

sends a message. The students are so used to adults in schools and maybe even in their

communities not always being present or leaving constantly. So, it is so hard for them to

let anyone into their hearts and lives, in this 6th grade cohort in particular (with a fired

teacher and a rotating sea of faces as substitutes). From my experience, here at Alma

College Prep, students at first resist building a connection and bonding because they do

not want to get hurt. I can understand and respect this defense mechanism and as a

mother, as an educator, as a human being who has gained their trust and respect, I will

not do anything to betray that.

Doing Soul Work in the Classroom

One of intersectionality’s tenets is to constantly be self-reflective, and it is true

that good teachers are, but I argue that in practice, educational systems are not good at

allowing space and understanding for teachers, who as humans also carry traumas and

histories of pain in our souls. In fact, I argue that the schools and teacher education

programs ask for teachers to be reflective and conscious of bias, but it stops there in that

schools with their martyr culture and lack of resources, we as teachers are asked/expected

to efface ourselves, to carry on other roles beyond that of a professionally trained teacher.

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Some of this work that is done in class is physical and emotional too, where we literally

are putting our bodies on the line in not so positive ways; maybe breaking up a fight, or

when a student gets upset and is in our face, or when a student forces intimate physical

contact sometimes. In this section, I discuss how intersectional pedagogy includes being

aware of the students’ and our own emotional histories and pain, and if possible, making

space for healing them. Ultimately, we do strive to cultivate and create joy, which I

believe and have felt is the majority of my experience in teaching and learning; however,

we cannot be intersectional if we ignore the psychological and mental health of all the

souls involved in the classroom, students and ourselves. Two critical incidents shared

below describe how I grappled with the emotional and mental complexity of the students

and myself as we navigated our relationship to each other, ourselves, and the world

around us.

Impact over Control

“Fuck you f*gg*t28! Fucking bitch ass c*nt!” shouted Júnior to Misa, who was

looking at Júnior from across the classroom. All year, I have been in constant contact

with Júnior’s parents, had many private and personal conversations with Júnior himself,

and it just seemed very difficult to curb his eruptions in class. Júnior and I, personally we

had a great relationship and he was never disrespectful towards me, his anger and

hostility were always directed towards his male classmates. As the teacher, I

implemented many strategies such as intentional seating to reduce any abrasion with

classmates, gave him classroom tasks to invoke his leadership skills, and modified
28
The asterisk serves as a bowdlerization for the derogatory and dehumanizing word for homosexual men.
The original slur can be triggering and having the asterisk there serves to censor and strip it of its power.

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classroom assignments. The last few months prior to this explosion, we have been

reading a novel and the protagonist’s best friend is a homophobic toxic male. In my

lessons, discussions, and work with the class, we have explored where this harmful and

dehumanizing language comes from, learned and discussed concepts explicitly such as

homophobia and toxic masculinity. Because students have these understandings they

have started calling each other out when it comes to scenes like the one above. Again,

involving Júnior, here is another scene where his oppressive language is resisted by his

peers publicly in class:

Júnior: “That’s hella gay!”

Other Student: “so what? There’s nothing wrong with being gay”
Júnior: “Uh you fucking f*g!”
Other Student: “You’re toxic!”

I am proud of my students feeling empowered enough to speak back to those oppressive

voices and reinforced their humanity in situations of conflict. Yet, something nagged at

me whispering, “you have to help ALL your students. You’re still failing because not all

of your students are feeling/doing good.” With the self-critique, I reached out to our

Restorative Justice coordinator and she connected me to her friend, a soon to be doctor in

the field of counseling and therapy, who gave me advice on how to better talk with

Júnior. After school one day, I welcomed him, Mr. Roy, into my classroom, provided

drinks and snacks so that we three could brainstorm and problem solve to support this

particular soul in our school. He was a Black man with a calm and soft spoken demeanor

just like you would expect of any therapist. Beginning the dialogue, I caught him up to

speed by saying, “I know that Júnior comes from a traumatic home situation but as his

teacher, that’s not something I can control. We’ve been studying toxic masculinity and

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homophobia and he’s just not getting it. What can I effectively have control over? He’s

just going to shut down when I talk to him.” Mr. Roy intently listened before replying,

"You can have an impact but not control. Understand the difference between impact

versus control. This is going to be a process. Try saying something like, ‘I would never

let anyone do that you. You are valuable to me. I would make them apologize to you.

They are just as important to me. We want to keep the room safe.’”

As soon as I could, I tried the script that Roy had prepped me with and it was

amazing, it worked, Júnior opened up. He told me how his mother called the cops on him,

how he witnessed his room being torn apart from a search by the cops. Angered by the

whole situation, he went out to get some space and that he happened to find safety with

the Norteños (the local Mexican gang). His parents are aware of Júnior’s inclinations and

interests in the gang, his father being an ex-gang member himself, hoping to steer Júnior

away from that life. The only thing that I regret and would count as a mistake was the

timing of all of this. Júnior and I talked, bonded over difficult childhoods, and he

understood the need to watch his language, but then it was time to go to our next classes

as he was still unloading. Having had experience in going to therapy, I know that being

vulnerable and opening up about traumatic events and experience can feel like open-heart

surgery and I did not have enough time to suture him up. I deeply regretted this in that he

went to his next class raw and agitated because our conversation brought up rough topics.

Soon after, I got a text message in the group texts that he was sent out of class again.

Thankfully, he did not erupt in rage and attack another soul or himself and I also got a

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chance to check in with him after school when he came to my class on his own volition

and we got a chance to make sure he was okay and safe.

Again, space and soul work are part of an intersectional pedagogy which includes

understanding and self-awareness of theirs and our own traumas. For example, I

remember going to therapy sessions with so much anxiety because it felt like my chest

was being pried open. That my guts were being pulled out and left bare in front of me,

oozing, slipping through my fingers. Having had that experience, I chastised and berated

myself for weeks, telling myself I should have known that this conversation with Júnior

needed a certain kind of space and time. However, with the savior and martyr complexes

heavily pervasive in the school culture, it becomes difficult and I would argue, unethical

to put the onus all on the teacher to have the deep emotional fortitude of dealing with 120

souls and their histories every day. Of course, there is empathy and compassion, but to

what extent can those be effectively and ethically practiced? Instead of feeling guilt,

hopelessness, and incompetence because of those few students who require more support

than one teacher, more than one person can give, from my professional teaching

experience and the framework of intersectionality, I allowed myself to understand and

accept my own limitations. I am not a trained and licensed therapist or counselor.

Teachers should not and cannot replace trained and licensed therapists or counselors.

With this acceptance of myself and role, I exonerate myself of guilt and hopelessness and

direct it to fighting for more resources for our students and teachers. Going back to

exactly what Mr. Roy said, when it comes to the mental and psychological health of our

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babies’ souls, there is only so much we can do, we as educators must focus on what

impact we can make and not what we cannot control.

Doubly Triggered

Early in the semester on September 27, 2018, the day started out well with

students as they became more accustomed to our classroom protocols and procedures.

Also, my relationships with students have been developing to the point of familiarity and

there is mutual love and respect. During that September day, in the second session of

classes, across the hall from me taught Mr. Huck, a large, middle aged, white man, and

the only non-BIPOC on our team. Mr. Huck had been struggling with our students

because he could not seem to connect with them on multiple levels, once relating to me

that for him, dealing with our students was like “whack-a-mole.” The tension had a

boiling point, when Mr. Huck passed out progress reports and a student Isaiah, with a

known anger issue, became physically aggressive. According to verbal accounts reported

from his other classmates, Isaiah was trying to question Mr. Huck on why he had handed

out a majority of the class a failing grade and Mr. Huck’s refusal to engage with him or

perhaps the power struggle set Isaiah off. Students and I witnessed him tearing down

everything on the windows and walls, punching holes into the walls, and flipping over

desks and causing other destruction in the classroom. Students had to be escorted out of

the room by Vice Principal Huy for their safety while a few other adults cautiously

waited close by until Isaiah was able to be calmly relocated to another part of the

building. Only then were students allowed to return in there.

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 During lunchtime, I went into Ms. Tori’s office, the Restorative Justice

Coordinator, because she sells lunch to the staff and students on Thursdays, and to

support her side hustle, I bought food from her every week. Ms. Tori is a Black woman

and such a committed staff member who worked arduously to support students’ needs

and relationship repairing. Unfortunately, she had to act most of the time as a proxy for a

counselor (untrained and not licensed) or disciplinarian (the irony!) when kids were sent

out of class. She was the step before the serious situations went to the Principal. I noticed

that the staff acted as if she was going to “deal with” or “fix” the misbehaving kids. In

reality, she used her quiet office and privacy to have students talk through their feelings

and actions, to “blow off steam” by letting them punch a punching bag (which she had set

up in her office), do push-ups with her or play some African drums. She wonderfully

worked and maintained multiple relationships with students to keep them motivated and

encouraged to “do school.” Mostly, she was a fierce advocate for those kids who were

constantly “in trouble.” She did the soul work to get to know the students and the labor to

connect with their home situations. Sometimes she would send an email to follow up and

make suggestions to teachers or administration about how to proceed and respond to the

students who eventually made it to her office. Ms. Tori brought her experience as a

community activist and founder of an after-school youth mentorship program to her role

as a Restorative Justice Coordinator. I wish every school had a Ms. Tori but with

additional support systems that did not dump all the behavioral issues on her; she

deserved so much more support and credit than she was given by our peers.

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 As I was picking up lunch in Ms. Tori’s office to support her side business, Isaiah

was in there, calm and cool with his arms behind his head, feet up on Ms. Tori’s student

chairs, all signs of aggression gone like it was never there to begin with. He was smiling

and casually chit chatting with Ms. Tori and I just wanted to grab the food and quickly go

to avoid engaging; however, Ms. Tori wanted to share what Isaiah was telling her

moments before I walked in. Ms. Tori related how Isaiah was saying that I’m a great

teacher, that he likes how organized and responsive I am on assignments. She said he told

her that being in my class is a good experience for him. In response, I expressed gratitude

but was also distant for I did not want to give him the impression that his episode of

destructive rage impacted those only in that classroom. 3 days earlier, I had sacrificed my

personal time (instead of caring for my infant) to assist Mr. Huck by covering his glass

wall. This helps with instructions by reducing distractions for the kids. Mr. Huck got the

paper and then handed me pieces of tape while I climbed on chairs, taped all the hard to

reach edges, reconfigured pieces of paper to cover everything, which took hours. His

body was not able to do such type of physically rigorous work of essentially creating a

construction paper mural. So, from my perspective, I just witnessed Isaiah destroy all that

hard work in seconds, all that physical labor and rendering my sacrifice of those few

precious waking hours I could have had with my baby, meaningless.

I regret the fact that I reacted to Isaiah instead of responding to him. In Tori’s

office, I let him know how disappointed I was and how his actions impacted not just our

community but also me personally. This caused Isaiah to be upset again, one moment we

were talking and the next there was an explosion of sound and movement. He began to

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cry, then stood up and got in my face yelling “I said all these nice things and then you

ruined it! Why did you have to ruin it!” He becomes physically aggressive by using his

body to tower over me, standing chest out, within an inch of my face and fists pulsing,

slightly raised at his sides like he was considering using them on me. I did not blink. I

stood my ground, body rigid and taut. Embracing for a potential fight, I lifted my chin to

maintain eye contact, held my face and posture in a calm and collected manner despite

his towering height and weight. At this point, his mother having just arrived on campus,

rushed in through the door and threw her body in between us. Finally feeling free to

break eye contact, I looked to Ms. Tori and asked, “Should I stay for this?” She says no

and I leave standing but shaken. The rest of the day was a blur because I was effectively

triggered. My body and soul was back with all the times that men made me feel inferior,

intimidated or assaulted me verbally, sexually, and physically. More commonly and

blatantly, this incident reminded me of the times of how men thought I owed them

something because they were nice and gave me compliments. Later, I checked in with

Ms. Tori and apologized profusely for triggering Isaiah and consequently getting him

worked up again. She gracefully shared her understanding and revealed that after I left,

Isaiah was so sad with the idea that I might hate him now. According to Ms. Tori, he said,

“That was my favorite class! We had a good relationship! Now she hates me!” His

mother was talking to him about how he can still repair the relationship and work it out.

Convinced, he agreed that he would be ready to come back to school after the October

break. But as of that day, he was suspended for causing so much physical and emotional

destruction. Ms. Tori told me that Isaiah was literally crying out for help saying he wants

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to go to therapy and “not hurt anyone anymore;” but his family is struggling financially

with getting him a therapist because of the exorbitant $600 initial diagnostic fee and he

was already on the list for the school district’s psychologist but in a ginormous line of

other children ahead of him.

This critical incident has crossed my mind and my heart with a pang of guilt,

anger, and sadness throughout the year. Even writing about it now again brings up and

requires me to relive the pain of triggering another and them triggering me. After Isaiah

had completed his out of school suspension, throughout the year we had a handful of

mediated meetings to repair the harm that was done with himself, his mother, the

Principal and I. I apologized to him and acknowledged his needs, but of course I am but

one piece of a larger puzzle. No number of apologies addresses his preexisting mental

and/or emotional health issues. At the beginning of these mediations or meetings, Isaiah

seemed to be restraining himself from having another outburst as if bringing up the

critical incident and having me present in the meeting made him feel like he was reliving

that day. He did not make eye contact with me or anyone else, his breathing got faster,

and he once slammed his fist into a tissue box, crushing it and punching it off the table.

Isaiah may have fully intended to come to these meetings for remediation but as I know

from personal experience, it is one thing to intellectually know something and another to

embody it. For instance, as a childhood physical and sexual abuse survivor, I have Post

Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and with this disorder, even when my mind knows I

am in a safe place, being triggered means my body overrides any logic or rationale and

automatically responds with a freeze, fight, or flight reflex because as my personal

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psychologist once told me, “the body remembers trauma” and I had some physical

unlearning to do. I include this critical incident to show that we all will make mistakes

intentionally or not and that we must reflect on them to do better. Even as a teacher of

color who is trauma informed, can and will, still make mistakes. My reaction to Isaiah

was absolutely regrettable. In hindsight, I should have chosen another time to talk to him

or perhaps not at all; that was not the space or time to do so. The main issue is that I was

centering myself during his emotional breakdown which was not an appropriate response

and is not intersectional. Worse, I was blinded by anger about my wasted labor and there

I was doing the exact same thing to Ms. Tori who put in the labor and soul work to calm

Isaiah down and connect with him for me to just come in there and trigger another

typhoon. What Isaiah could have benefitted from the most was a moment of grace and

deep compassion, not another announcement of added casualty.

Mr. Huck’s, the school’s and my response to Isaiah was simply put, ableist.

Punishing Isaiah for his meltdown is ableist. Punishing students for something that is out

of their control, for mental health lapses or illnesses that disrupt the classroom is ableist.

We cannot claim to value the whole student if we do not address the mental and

emotional health of our students. We cannot claim to be a social justice oriented

institution if we provide suspensions for meltdowns and not counselors. Just because we

as a field, schools, and practitioners read about being trauma informed or being anti-

ableist, does not make us anti-ableist. We must as a field, as practitioners of all levels

demand more funding, resources, time and spaces, and licensed/trained experts for the

nurturing and development of mental and emotional health and safety.

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 It is reported by the United States Department of Agriculture and Food and

Nutrition Services, children in the United States school system were able to finally have

free or reduced lunch due to the National School Lunch Act, 74 years ago; which meant

now students can all come to school and have their bellies fed and were not

disadvantaged even if they could not afford food for lunch otherwise. As a child in

elementary school, I used to take shifts in the morning and afternoon serving my peers

meals and then washing their plastic trays, just so I could have access to a second helping

of food. Without having the burden of hunger, I was able to excel in class, literally able to

focus after. Now imagine a student with trauma or mental and emotional health issues,

and the scarcity of counselors, psychologists, and social workers to support them.

According to the World Health Organization, up to 20% or 1 in 5 adolescents experience

mental health conditions globally, with depression being the leading cause for illness and

disability. With that being said, there is a need and call for action to include more school

psychologists for our students and failing to address the mental health needs of our babies

is unethical, lacking in intersectionality, and deeply ableist. The National Association of

School Psychologists primary call to action states:

Only a fraction of students in need actually receive mental health services, and
among those that do, the majority access those services in school. Nevertheless,
the availability of school-based mental health professionals remains inadequate to
meet the mental health needs of our children and youth. Schools should be
enabled to hire more school-based mental health professionals (e.g. school
counselors, school psychologists and school social workers) and funds should be
allocated specifically for hiring these professionals. The recommended ratio of
students to school counselors is 250:1; the recommended ratio for school
psychologists is 500-700:1 (NASP Model for Comprehensive and Integrated
School Psychological Services), and the recommended ratio for school social
workers is 400:1. Schools and districts should be held accountable for making an
effort to meet or at least work toward these ratios each year. Increased access to

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 mental health services and supports in schools, including the infusion of social–
emotional learning in our classrooms, is vital to improving the physical and
psychological safety of our students and schools, as well as academic
performance and problem-solving skills. Additionally, close collaboration
between school-employed (e.g., school counselors, school psychologists, and
school social workers) and community-employed mental health services providers
(e.g., professional counselors, clinical psychologists, and clinical social workers)
is critical to meeting the range of mental health needs. School psychologists play
an integral role in providing direct services to students and teachers, while
coordinating with community resources to ensure that all students receive the
support they need to be successful.

It is incredibly sad to see how mental health support in this country is only reserved for

the white and wealthy (Larson et al., 2017; Merikangas et al., 2010; Merikangas et al.,

2011) and in this field too there are issues of equity which intersects with issues of race,

class, and education (National Council for Behavioral Health, 2018). Research tells us

that mental health illness can keep our students from learning and that there is a great

need for our nation’s systems to correct this failure (Burns et al., 1995; Center for Mental

Health in Schools, 2003; Kataoka et al., 2002; Leaf et al., 2003; McLeod et al., 2012;

Cohen, 2006; Fiscella & Kitzman, 2009; Haas & Fosse, 2008; Micheal et al., 2015). It

certainly impacted Júnior and Isaiah’s learning in our school, and many other students

whose stories were not able to be shared. Yet, I have hope that with increasing pressure

for policy change and advocacy, we can invest more into our children, our schools, and

one day perhaps have a National Mental Health School Support Act. Employing

intersectionality as a lens here reminds me to have more grace for students’ mental

illnesses, to understand that racially and economically marginalized groups are barred

access to support and treatment. Understandably, as a teacher it remains extremely

complex because of my own mental health issues that I carry and, just like the souls that

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come into my classroom, I cannot check them at the door. With critical introspection,

another kind of soul work as a practitioner and researcher, I am able to understand that an

intersectional educational system shall have mental and emotional support professionals

and systems for students and teachers. An unjust system requires our souls to suffer.

Conclusion

This chapter’s significance of doing intersectional space and soul work in the

classroom contributes to literacy, teaching, and learning by creating a culture of

belonging, safety, and well-being for all souls involved, guardians, students, and teachers.

Having felt a sense of disconnect, the 6th grade “Neighborhood” which more felt more

like our “Cave,” my immediate colleagues in the teaching cohort, diligently did space

work and soul work with the aims of building our own intersectional classroom

communities. For us, we did that together and separately through our classrooms, through

the physical space of the classroom and simultaneously, the curriculum. The first part of

this chapter discusses the ways in which I did the space work in my classroom to address

the intersectional identities of our souls; both my students’ and myself had to be

represented in our mutual space. This was done in several ways, considering how the

physical space inside and outside of the classroom was set up with the furniture, the

visuals on the walls on the side and on the ceiling, the people who were allowed or not

allowed to occupy the space, were all factors in understanding the construction of an

intersectional classroom space. As educators, we must consider the ways in which we set

up our classrooms (Hopes and Dreams Tree) and how we incorporate families (Family

Literacy Night) to address the intersectionality of the students’ and our own identities.

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 The second part of this chapter discusses the urgency and utility of doing the soul

work in our classrooms and schools by demanding support for mental and emotional

health of our students and ourselves; to truly investigate how our mental and emotional

health conditions may or may not impact teaching and learning, or in ways that prevent

an ableist approach to pedagogy. For example, in terms of space when we as teachers

require students to sit for long periods of time in a classroom or limit physical time, that

is ableist. In terms of soul work, we must consider the intersectionalities of our

interactions and assignments in the classroom from the lens of ability, physical and

mental. For instance, through the stories shared above, punishing students for having

meltdowns with suspensions and no support from a school psychologist, is violence in

that it is ableist. As practitioners and schools, we must adjust to include the students’

mental/emotional health as part of their souls’ complexity, to provide support with

trained and licensed professionals. Taking a macro perspective, this generation of

students, in this year alone, are witnessing on a national level the reoccurring school and

public shootings/massacres, white terrorist attacks, severe climate change, murder,

deportation, and incarceration of BIPOC peoples, and the decline of democracy led by

bigoted and fascist 45. Any one of these let alone all of them would be cause for trauma

and required support. Our students deserve more; they deserve our teachers, school

systems, and the National Department of Education to put in the soul work.

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 CHAPTER 6: INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE CURRICULUM

Single Mom

Tired and sluggish she awakens from

her sleep
In the morning the noise is loud
The clothes she carefully ironed are
Disheveled and kind of loose
She tells me to get myself together
Fix my clothes and my barely afforded
Shoes, brush my teeth, and brush my
Hair
Now, get in the car to leave this
Nightmare on the
Eastside in the hood
Passing through big houses and expensive cars
Owned by “Gringos”
I am a girl, latina, nicaraguan, and I’m proud to show it
My mom is female, nicaraguan, low-class
She doesn’t get payed much
She sleeps late, wakes up early to give me an
education and future she could never get
Jazlyn Aguilara, (2019), 6th Grader

Introduction

As part of the last major project of the academic year, after studying multiple and

overlapping oppressions, social and historical issues, and many exposures to BIPOC

narratives/perspectives, students were finally prepared to turn their intersectional reading

of the world inward, as shown here in Jazlyn’s poem. It is evident in Jazlyn’s poem that

she comprehends the complexities of her and her mother’s Latina, low-income,

immigrant identities. How beautifully it is done through the imagery of her morning

routine to the houses they pass by of white people, and despite all this, Jazlyn reclaims

proudly her ancestral heritage with a soft and severe hope. This poem among many

others, show that my students were themselves doing the soul work, not just making a list

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of social issues or identity categories, but truly grappling with how they all coexist in

their life to impact their experiences with privileges, oppressions, and other people. In

this chapter, I discuss the pedagogical model that was mandated top down to teachers

across the charter system and how I was able to work within and against the system.

Also, is a detailed description of my process for creating an intersectionality curriculum;

this includes methods on how I chose texts, how I mapped out 4 units of study for the

year, samples of student responses and artifacts, and other crucial aspects that are

considered part of an intersectional curriculum. Lastly, I explore the benefits of building

and employing an intersectional lens to the curriculum, teaching, and learning.

Always Working Within and Against the System

Controlled Curriculum?

In this section, I must acknowledge the context in which I was teaching and

tasking myself in building a curriculum not prescribed by the school. While I was

searching for sites to conduct this research, I came across obstacles that revolved around

curriculum as well. For example, the larger public school district in the area was my first

choice of sites. The way that the hiring process works is that first, you must qualify,

interview, and be accepted into their “pool” of teachers and then afterwards, you can be

eligible to apply for specific teaching positions in the district. For the public-school

district interview and hiring process, I made it up to the very last interview with someone

within the higher rank within the district. Because I was transparent about the goals to

conduct a formal research study within my classroom, I deduced that was why I was

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denied the job opportunity. They had a specific question about implementing their

curriculum and apparently did not want any teacher to deviate from it.

Then it became clear that I had to look into the charter or private school systems

due to the rigidity of the local school districts to allow for teachers to research their own

practices. I preferred charter schools for their public status and my commitment to Title 1

schools. After that experience, I came across another obstacle with certain charter schools

like KIPP who seemed worse, for their lock-stepped and scripted curriculum, absolutely

not allowing for any deviation or flexibility. When interviewing for a research site, KIPP

would not allow for me to build an intersectional curriculum reflecting and engaging with

students’ culture and identities. Instead, I was told that if I gave them at least 3 years of

my teaching career committed only to teaching their lock-stepped curriculum, then they

would revisit the idea of me creating a curriculum that was made by a person of color for

my students of color. This was not a deal that I wanted to make. It is crucial to

acknowledge this is a reality for teachers, that we may not have autonomy or choice and

that most of the time, we are afraid and on edge because we are working within and

against the systems that contribute to our families’ livelihood. To be an activist teacher is

dangerous indeed.

As for the curricular context at Alma College Prep, the Instructional Coaches

gave us teachers direct instruction and orders to implement Lucy Caulkins’ Workshop

Model (1987) in its entirety, all day, every day, for both reading and writing. The

Workshop Model is not being critiqued here, I am critiquing the “one-size fits all”

mentality that administrations and districts have when it comes to pedagogical models in

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today’s school. To summarize, the Workshop Model was also to be implemented

simultaneously with Silent Sustained Reading which meant a lesson plan should look like

this: silent independent reading for around 30 minutes at the beginning of class, then

switch gears to a teacher led direct instruction/mini lesson for 10-15 minutes, followed by

30 minutes of independent student work time while teacher does conferencing, ending

with the last 10-15 minutes being a whole class coming to share out. As practitioners we

were required to teach a new reading or writing skill/strategy every day, making the

curriculum feel like “skill and drill” through the classic scaffolded “I do, we do, you do”

type pedagogical model.

This rigidity lacked space for authentic and deeper/critical learning. We were not

controlled or prohibited from teaching a certain text but that was mostly because

Instructional Coaches and administrators were so busy with working to retain struggling

teachers or “putting out fires” involving student misconduct. Much like my experience

teaching in Title 1 public schools in Reno, Nevada, the way it went was if you seemed

like you maintained good classroom management then you were almost entirely left to

your own devices. My experience from teaching in a public school and now a charter

school, has shown me that, as long as I connected with my students which led to better

classroom management, then administrators would be happy to leave me alone. At that

point, it was understood that I needed to “be bold and lay low” (Coleman, personal

communication on 12/13/19). I did what I had to do; I would close the door and teach

what I needed to teach: a critically consciousness and intersectional curriculum.

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Capitalism and the Curriculum?

Earlier in Chapter 4, the discussion between capitalism and the school community

was apparent in the culture and power structures but does it also impact the school’s

curriculum and pedagogical model? Reflecting throughout the year with my colleagues,

we discussed how the pedagogical model has impacted our teaching and learning for it

came to light that “The curriculum is constrained by the requirements of a capitalist

society” (Liston, 1984, p. 241). Not only does the Workshop Model at ACP implement

“skill and drill” pedagogies capitalistic, in relation to

producing for standardized testing and as a result school

funding, but also the imposed curriculum model

displays capitalistic tendencies through class sizes and

teacher employment. In continuing our conversations

“off the clock,” Mr. Sancho, who was the 6th grade

History teacher, texted me his theory of the connection

between capitalism and curriculum. From the figure on

the left, it is clear that Mr. Sancho (personal

communication, 10/18/20) is connecting how

implementing the Workshop Model as a curriculum

benefits the school’s bottom line and budget by

reserving money that would otherwise go to hiring more

(experienced) teachers and decreasing class sizes.

Figure 6.1 Text Conversation with Colleague on Curriculum and Capitalism

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 Imagining our cohort with 2 more teachers would have made a world of

difference in the students’ and our lives! It would not solve all our structural issues, but it

would improve quality of education and experience as the schedule would most likely be

a little more sustainable and realistic to the needs of our students developmentally and

cognitively. On top of that, instead of us 3 teachers having to operate in scarcity of time

and resources mode there would have been less overcrowding in our classrooms, more

time for breaks, and more adult supervision. The student intake and population of our

“small school” went up but the teacher ratio to that did not. In other words, there was an

increase of class sizes to cut costs. A study by Dr. Marguerite Roza (2009), a senior

scholar at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, reveals that school schedule and

class sizes “affects the way resources are deployed across subjects.” In other words, we

need to restructure our curriculum in schools in response to the learning needs of our

students, we want that to be the center of what drives the school in all its aspects from the

bottom and ground up, not the organizational needs of the school. As is, the situation

remains the same as it was for decades: “What is functional for Capital is included in the

curriculum and what is dysfunctional for the Capital is excluded from the curriculum”

(Liston, 1984, p. 244).

Conceptualizing Space and Soul Work in the Curriculum

In this section, a description of my methods of conceptualizing an intersectional

curriculum and pedagogy are provided. My aims for taking an intersectional stance and

lens as an English Language Arts educator were to uncover and understand ways to

enrich our spaces and souls, to help students authentically embrace the identities they

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hold as well as those of others, and build criticality in their reading and writing of the

world(s). First, I reflected deeply on the class texts set, had themed units that build off of

each other, incorporated and centered different marginalized perspectives in texts,

visuals, music, and even local guest speakers. The first half of the year was heavily

focused on building stamina in reading, independently and together as a class with the

second half of the school year adding on an intensive writing component. All the while,

my intention was not so much to teach the students about intersectionality as it was to do

intersectional analysis work, in their reading, writing, and ideally in their social

interactions and beyond. Here are the ways in which I conceptualized doing the space and

soul work in an intersectional curriculum with more details in the following section:

Figure 6.2 Space and Soul work in an Intersectional Curriculum

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Space work

Space work in the curriculum content means choosing texts that take up different

spaces figuratively and literally. Figuratively speaking, space work in the curriculum was

conceptualized as the words taking up space on the page differently, which meant

including a pure graphic novel, verse novel, traditional prose novel, and combination of

both prose and graphic. Space work was also conceptualized as terms of geographical

space which meant including local, national, and global news and struggles. For example,

we covered the #MeToo through both a verse novel we were reading (The Poet X, 2018)

and being in the California Bay Area, these lessons were also connected to the local

university’s Stanford Rapist case. On a national and global level, we connected our texts

(The Absolutely True Diary of Part Time Indian, 2007) to issues of colonialism and

homophobia here in the United States as well as places such as the Amazon Rainforest in

Brazil and their issues of deforestation and colonialism, and their very own fascist

dictator President Bolsonaro and his rampant homophobia (Preuss, 2019). Of course, with

these types of heavy and serious topics, it was important to be intentional about the

spacing of time between the class texts/units and the spacing of how deep to go into each

topic. In terms of real and imagined spaces for study and exploration, what that refers to

are the settings in our stories that are imagined, like in our comic book (Ms. Marvel: No

Normal, 2014) or the ones that the souls of the classroom dream, hope, and imagine for.

As for the literal spaces, it means also considering how to teach the students about

healthy personal space, how I as the teacher will use my curriculum to connect with

physical outside places; for example, when teaching The Hate U Give (2017) text, within

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the curriculum I intentionally planned going on a whole grade field trip to the opening of

the movie version, prompting students to consider the ELA standard of comparing and

contrasting the book and the movie. In doing space work for building an intersectional

curriculum, I also considered how much of the curriculum would be in the digital space

(Google Classroom, Google slides, etc.), in the paper text (books, posters, worksheets,

etc.) and the physical outside of the classroom space (academic and community building

field trips). Students were so amazed by this field trip after studying the book for a couple

of months with a grueling reading schedule that they were not used to. After all, the book

was 444 pages long and yet these 10-11 year olds happily and with voracity consumed

the text, because of the buy-in with the content of the story being so relevant and critical

of the status quo. I even had parents/guardians/family members who chaperoned the field

trip tell me afterward that they were so glad that I taught this book, proving to me that

book choice and field trips can have an immense impact on learning and/with the

community.

Furthermore, space work can be crucial to connecting content to the “real world”

because its benefits are multifold; first there are opportunities for joy, diverse and new of

perspectives, and they are also opportunities to disrupt and resist. For example, one of the

last field trips we took was to Stanford University and from a total of 73 student written

reflections, an analysis shows that space mattered to them for community bonding/play

and for reading a new space with criticality. The first finding was that almost all the

students were surprised by the massive size, affluence (students counted how many

Teslas were parked around), and general calming environment of the university.

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Compared to where the students are from and where we went to school, the space at the

university was a stark contrast and the students noticed this immediately and recognized

that this was important to them. The first question on the reflection worksheet asked

students to share what they enjoyed the most about visiting this new space and one

student shared a sentiment that was reflected by the majority of students “What I also

enjoyed about the field trip was how peaceful the campus seemed. I enjoyed that because

usually our campus is loud so to be in a much more calm environment was really cool.”

The most popular answer for enjoyment were the water fountains around campus that are

open for people to go into. At the end of the day, all my students were splashing and

playing in the water fountains and it was a powerful time because as Evelyn said, “we

were all just really bonding.”

In terms of noticing the intersectional identities on campus, most students were

able to read the campus and their world around them noticing that Stanford had more

rich, white, males present. A student summed it up quite concisely and accurately as

shown below:

Figure 6.3 Student’s Stanford Reflection

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Alan wrote that he noticed “there were a lot of white people looking at us and it got really

weird at first then thought that I rarely saw any Mexicans and Africans as well.” Students

were very socially conscious in their intersectional reading of the space in this part of the

world. For instance, a student named Audrina wrote:

Figure 6.4 Audrina’s Stanford Reflection

Here, Audrina recognizes that it is a space that is more tolerant and accepting of diversity

and minoritized identities. The tour guide showed the kids the student cultural centers on

campus as well which Audrina highlighted as a safe space where “alot of black and

brown people in one community without much racism and people giving hard looks.”

However, Audrina also notes the privilege of legacies and is able to hold two identities

simultaneously in her mind; that low-income students of color are still present and can

get into Stanford while also there are others who benefit from a more streamlined

process. Going back to Alan, he too notes that Stanford is a predominantly white

institution (PWIs) yet also recognizes that although there are “some of the mexicans

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(sic)” there they are of “upper middle class” completely highlighting how the

intersections of class and race play interact and how all of that operates in the world’s

higher education structures and institutions.

The other interesting finding about how space work matters in the curriculum as

related to the Stanford University space, was the opportunity to disrupt spaces. This

mattered because the students got to see themselves existing in a space like Stanford. As

teachers, we prioritize using our curriculum and texts to have our students see themselves

in the pages, but I would argue it is equally as important for the students to see

themselves in the spaces that historically exclude BIPOC students. From Jasmine’s

written reflection below, it is clear she and her classmates noticed it was important for

them as FGLI souls visit, for those Stanford students to see them in their space as well. It

is crucial in this sense to consider spaces to see but also to be seen in. Thus, writing field

trip spaces into my curriculum allowed students to both simultaneously see and be seen.

Figure 6.5 Jasmine’s Stanford reflection

Soul work

Soul work in the content of the curriculum is about connecting, humanizing, and

repeatedly reflecting. Children’s Literature scholar and expert, Dr. Ebony Thomas

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(2016), has written about the questions with which teachers can orient themselves when

building curriculum such as “whose stories are represented and whose is missing?” and

calling on Dr. Rudine Bishop’s (1990) metaphor of literature as a way for students to see

themselves in the texts either through a window looking into a different perspective, or a

mirror where students can see themselves reflected back and/or sliding doors where

students may have some connecting experiences. Also, Dr. Thomas provides methods on

how teachers can stay on top of the latest diverse books. I found myself employing the

same methods when conceptualizing an intersectional pedagogy that Dr. Thomas was

advocating for: “Build your lesson plans around diverse books, so that it is part of

everyday literacy instruction and assessment” (p. 117). When the curriculum is packed

with powerful and diverse stories, students felt welcome, included, safe, and loved. We

did not merely “cover” diverse topics, but truly took the time to explore and discuss. My

students and I were able to have peace in our souls when we shared our time together. I

apologized when I made mistakes, we reciprocated with vulnerability, and we learned

from each other; this created an environment where the possibilities were limitless.

Completely shocked and deeply honored, I had students “coming out” to me, entrusting

me with their truest selves. For example, below is an email I received from a student who

entrusted me with her soul and asked for more support outside of the classroom. The soul

work begins with the curriculum but does not end there.

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 Figure 6.6 Safe to Come Out

Soul work is doing the “check-ins” after the students have bared a piece of their

soul to you. For me that looked like, checking in with Rico after he came out to me as

gay. He started hugging me all the time because he felt safe with me, emotionally and

physically. This prompted me to continue the soul work of honoring him and nurturing

him by “checking-in” on his safety in and out of school after becoming a little more open

with his sexuality with others. It meant checking in with Hieu, a silently confident

Vietnamese boy, about his poem on having to beg for food with his grandmother; I

checked in about the issue of poverty and food insecurity, and provided him resources for

food shelters. Thankfully, Hieu was no longer in that situation. The soul work I did with

Tanny after her poem of revealing she is a sexual assault survivor meant writing to her

instantly on her assignment, revealing that I too am a survivor and available anytime to

her if she wanted to talk. After reading that comment, while I was passing back papers,

she came up to me and checked in with me when she had read my empathetic message.

We hugged and talked about whether or not she’s safe currently and she informed me that

the assaulter is in jail and although she was depressed for a while she is seeing a

counselor. Of course, throughout the year, through our texts, discussions, and reflections,

of heavy diverse topics, we were able to get to a point where we were able to empathize

without the pain and danger of feeling emotionally exposed.

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 Another focus of soul work is about what happens after the students have seen

through a window, mirror, or sliding door, made connections towards social

consciousness, and reflected inward and outwards. It is crucial that students use critical

thinking and language to name the structures and phenomena of oppression and privilege;

however, it is equally important to move that towards their hopes and dreams. The soul

work of the curriculum should inspire students towards the future. For instance, in her

reflection after the racism, classism, and sexism unit as studied through the class text The

Hate U Give (the 1st unit of the year), Angelina shares her connection for the moment

and more:

Figure 6.7 Angelina’s T.H.U.G Reflection

Notice here that Angelina identifies as Asian and although the focus of the unit was

around the study of Black history and social contexts/issues, Angelina was still not only

able to name the social issue and oppression of anti-Black racism, but also make a

personal connection and apply this criticality to the future, to the world outside of the

curriculum. Angelina through the texts and movie seen through a window into the

intersectional Black American experience. Or take Kimberly’s response as a Mexican

American girl, how this unit also impacted her soul:

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 Figure 6.8 Kimberly’s T.H.U.G Reflection

Kimberly writes about understanding the social issues historically as well as currently,

about understanding the personal connection as a Latina too, and ends her reflection with:

“Black pathers (sic) inspired us for what they did. This is passing on to the

generation[s].” As an educator, it is my honor and sacred duty to inspire and I use an

intersectional curriculum, specifically doing the space and soul work to do it. Kimberly

has said, “It’s my job to prove them (the oppressors) by showing, speaking and fighting

for what I believe in,” thus we can inspire students to move beyond the curriculum and

take up a resistance stance. This type of soul work that can be done in the classroom

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reminds me of Japanese American activist Yuri Kochiyama’s plea to the youth: “So,

transform yourself first… Because you are young and have dreams and want to do

something meaningful, that in itself, makes you our future and our hope. Keep expanding

your horizon, decolonize your mind, and cross borders.” Like Kimberly, I hear this call to

action echoed in my practice and pedagogy, it’s my job as well.

Components of an Intersectional Curriculum

Children of color attending schools that do not help them interpret the
racist, sexist, Islamophobic, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic, and
xenophobic world in which they live is not only maintaining the status quo
but also ensuring that Whiteness, patriarchy, and hate are never disrupted
and challenged. (Love, 2019, p. 86)

This section pertains to the steps with which I mapped out my entire year’s

curriculum. Understanding that intersectionality as a theory is opposed to the rigidity of a

set grand methodology, I present this not as a universal guide but as a reflection on my

own process as a literacy teacher-researcher. To begin with, I created a unit map for the

year using the format that the school’s instructional coaches required which was using the

4 T’s (Expeditionary Learning Education, 2013). This framework developed by the EL

Education group was meant to help teachers build a curriculum with tight lesson plans

aligned with the Common Core State Standards. The 4 T’s stood for Topic, Target, Texts,

and Task. From my research analysis, I realized I added an additional T for “Trip” to this

framework because space work is important for taking the learning and our community

outside of the classroom and school space once every quarter; this was important for

building our community and also provide opportunities for students to apply their

knowledge to the “real world.” To start, I prioritized text(s) selection, then thought about

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the relevant social issues and critical lenses in connection to that text, after which I

brainstormed about the summative projects that students will create in a way to show they

have learned the concepts of the unit and are applying their knowledge by making

connections to themselves and the world. After building the basics of the units, the

second half of my process was about what ways in which I, as an educator, was implicitly

teaching students to read with the lens of critical literary theories so that they may have

the tools to explicitly call out and resist social injustices in the text and then after they are

comfortable with that, to do so in their own lives. For example, here is what the first unit

plan looked like using the 4T’s model:

I titled this first unit based off of a

quote from our first novel that

summed quite accurately the

theme, “Same S*** Different

Century” which tackles the

oppression of Black peoples in the

United States. Notice the essential

questions for the “Topic” are

questions asking students to read

intersectionally by chunking with

Figure 6.9 Gill (2018) 4 T’s Unit Plans for T.H.U.G the literary theories first starting

with race, then class, and finally with the intersection of both in the specific context of

the story. From the top to bottom, there is a clear scaffolding path for students to be

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introduced to this unit’s themes of the intersectionalities of race, class, and gender. Below

is a quick overview of the components of creating an intersectional curriculum.

Step 1

To inspire students to develop a healthy and happy if not loving relationship with

reading, I made sure to be well-read and current about what is in the Young Adult

Literature world. I considered particular authors who wrote from epistemic privilege

(Mohanty, 1993, 1997) points of view, who represented authentic voices. This stance in

text selection aligns very clearly with the #OwnVoices, #DisruptTexts, and

#WeNeedMoreDiverseBooks movements aiming towards diversifying children’s and

young adult literature. However, it is crucial to note that not all diverse texts are in the

own voices of the people in literature. Specifically, the Seattle Public Library (2020)

defines #OwnVoices as: “#OwnVoices is a term coined by the writer Corinne Duyvis,

and refers to an author from a marginalized or under-represented group writing about

their own experiences/from their own perspective, rather than someone from an outside

perspective writing as a character from an underrepresented group.” Generally, I chose

books with topics, critical issues, and characters that are intersectionally relevant to the

context I was teaching in.

Actually, even if my students were all white, I would still need to expose students

to diverse and intersectional perspectives and provide opportunities for them to critically

interrogate their privileges and how they can participate in the generation that explicitly

works to dismantle structures of oppression. Whiteness is already centered in everything

in the US. There is whiteness dominating on our TVs, in our politics, in our music,

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celebrities, in especially our teaching and professorial workforce. BIPOC students are not

the only ones needing to learn about oppression and privilege, that would send the

message that only BIPOC are burdened with undoing oppression. White students do

not/should not need to be coddled. In fact, white students need intersectional curriculum

and classrooms more. Bank Street Graduate School of Education instructor Carla España

(2020) writes that the texts and pedagogy we include reveal much about our teaching

philosophies and that teachers must understand this: “We must do right by all children —

those whose identities have been oppressed and those who walk in privilege” (emphasis

mine, p. 68). This is why the #OwnVoices is critical and a move towards equity. In a

more robust explanation, Queer Latinx literacy scholar Laura Jiménez (2021) recently

published an article in how she used #OwnVoices texts to do intersectional social justice

work in the classroom with a group of 2nd graders. Below is her diagram that very

similarly communicates the same components I came up with while creating my

intersectional curriculum.

Figure 6.10 Checklist for Book Selection (Jiménez, 2021, p. 157)

The protagonists that I wanted to expose to the students not only had to be created

out of #OwnVoices, but also answer to a broader goal: "Our ultimate objective in

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learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society" (Yuri

Kochiyama). With that in mind, I choose one main class text per unit that we read (aloud)

together as a class that satisfied these goals of hope and equity through resistance. The

texts and corresponding intersectional theme selections in chronological order were:

o The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017)

 Contemporary Black American history
 Issues of race, class, and gender
 Current and historical Police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter
o The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
(2007)
 Ableism, race, and class
 Colonialism- domestic and global
 Toxic masculinity and homophobia
o Ms. Marvel: No Normal Vol 1. by Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
(2014)
 Islamophobia
 Race, class, gender
 Immigration and issues of assimilation
o The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (2018)
 Gender, race, class
 Religious (Christian) oppression
 Sexuality, #MeToo movement, and consent

A quick note on the text selection of Sherman Alexie’s novel. The controversy

around his novel inclusion revolves around the (10) sexual harassment allegations against

Alexie (Neary, 2018). From this, his honorary titles and celebrity status in the Children’s

and Young Adult Literature circles and the Native American writers and poets world,

have been officially stripped. I understand that having him in the curriculum can be seen

as continuing to uplift an oppressor and abuser. However, I was extremely intentional

about keeping him and his book in my syllabus. First, I made sure that ACP, the school,

already had a class set of these books so that no one would buy his book and thus

economically support him. Alexie received $0 that year from my students and me. They

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did however buy and support the women of color on the syllabus: Elizabeth Acevedo and

Willow Wilson's careers by buying their books/graphic novels. Of course, support and

alternatives were provided to students who were not able to buy. The other main reason

why I kept him and his book in the curriculum was to make a point.

On April 29, 2019, months after we had already read Part Time Indian I started

class like any other day with the “Do Now” activity and homework assignment displayed

on the board. The homework for April 24, 2019 assignment for that night was:

“Summarize the details of the Sherman Alexie sexual accusations. Write your response

and connect how this relates to what we have been studying.” This unit and time frame

we were discussing topics such as the #MeToo movement, gender based violence, and

consent. Before the class would even officially start, as I was greeting kids in, many

would come up to me, interrupt my check-ins to ask, “isn’t Sherman Alexie the guy who

wrote Part-Time Indian?” And when I would nod, they’re eyes grew wide and jaws

dropped in shock of this terrible news. A lot of students were upset and shocked. Anaiyah

point-blank asked, “if you knew he was a bad guy, then why did you make us read

him?!” This was a great teachable moment, one that I learned from my experience with

my ex-friend from the previous chapter. I talked to the students about how

intersectionality allows us to see the complexities of people and the world around us.

How usually we can see only one side and that allows some people to ignore other sides.

I was transparent with the students and told them that I had debated whether or not to

include this novel because of this moral dilemma, and even told them that I was given a

rough time about it at the Literacy Research Association conference when I proposed this

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curriculum back in 2017. But I made it very clear that I would not sweep anything under

the rug, that we would in fact have these critical and difficult conversations, that silence

in these situations perpetuates oppression. It was important to understand that the novel

can be great and we learned so much during that unit but we can also not turn away from

this aspect of the author, not ignore it and just refuse the reality about it, because silence

is how sexual harassment continues, how it thrives on being too taboo to even examine.

Plus, I made sure that Alexie’s representation of Natives was not the only one the

students got (I am Not a Number, 2016); I took every precaution for each unit to avoid

“the danger of a single story” (Adichie, 2009). Students did not only see oppression, they

did research projects on different Indigenous groups around the world (summative

project), they read Indigenous stories of hope and love (When We Were Alone, 2016; My

Heart Fills with Happiness, 2016) and they were able to hear and see a Navajo Native

guest speaker in the classroom talk about his nuanced experiences. These were the ways

in which I was intentional in my text selection including the more controversial one.

Step 2

Notice that the commonly repeated themes in studying literature centering

BIPOC #OwnVoices involve studying racism, sexism, and classism yet what makes it

intersectional is that within each text there are specific contexts that nuance each BIPOC

characters’ complex and specific experience with those “-isms”. Students learn that

through taking an intersectional lens that not all “-isms” are experienced equally and

universally. Also, these overarching themes provided diversity within these categories

and simultaneously practice with employing lenses of feminisms, Marxism, and

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colonialism. Intersectional feminism and Queer scholar Sara Ahmed (2017) says, “We

encounter racism and sexism before we have the words that allow us to make sense of

what we encounter. Words can then allow us to get close to our experiences; words can

allow us to comprehend what we experience after the event. We become retrospective

witnesses of our becoming...Having names for [these] problems can make a

difference...With these tools, we revisit our own histories; we hammer away at the past.”

(p. 32-33). I share this quote because some may object to intersectionality being taught or

these heavy topics introduced into classes, however we know this work can be done with

students as young as 2nd graders (Jiménez, 2021) because they know these topics, some

intimately. Recall from the previous chapter with the “Word Wall” and all the vocabulary

listed there, with that, below is an example of an assignment for teaching that critical

vocabulary explicitly:


Figure 6.11 Vocabulary Acquisition through Frayer Model

The “Vocab Squares” refers to the tried and true vocabulary acquisition technique of the

Frayer Model (Frayer et al., 1969), which has been researched to be an effective and

inclusive framework for teaching vocabulary to students with disabilities (Peters, 1974;

Wanjiru & O'connor, 2015; Zorfass & Gray, 2014). This method was employed

throughout the year with every unit for its connection to Universal Design for Learning

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(Dazzeo & Rao, 2020). On top of that, students had multiple exposures to the words and

many opportunities to use them in real time class discussions, all after they were given

simple terms. Taking these key terms and concepts into deeper examination than just the

vocabulary was planned for in the curriculum all in order to prepare students for the

world. This is why the second step was then to teach the related social issues (“-isms”),

critical reading, and critical consciousness around those books/themes.

Also, this curriculum does not sacrifice the students having to learn skills either in

that I could easily connect our critical reading back to the Common Core State Standards

(CCSS) as well. For example, in a lesson about teaching the reading strategy A.C.E.

(Rogowsky, 2013), I was able to address CCSS Reading Literature for 6th Grade (RL.6)

#1: “Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as

inferences drawn from the text,” while also using our YA novel. First I started off with

defining the strategy to the students with this visual on the digital board but also made a

physical poster for the classroom wall for students to always have a reference and

reminder. Then the mini lesson as per the workshop model, followed with a lesson

problem we did together as a class:


Figure 6.12 Mini Lesson in A.C.E. Strategy Workshop

Here, I am asking students to practice this strategy from their class novel that we have

been reading and by doing so will implicitly also teach them about critical analysis:
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Figure 6.13 A.C.E. Example for T.H.U.G

Students here are then connecting the themes of the text of how class and race can impact

one's educational opportunities and privileges. This can also spark a light into questioning

our own school, understanding our own parents for making the choice to send us to a

charter school, and how the intersections of race and class are experienced in schools.

Literacy scholar Rudine Bishop (2016) writes that “In the classroom, diverse literature

can also offer opportunities both to expand literary understandings

and to encourage critical examination of issues that plague our democracy, such as

inequities tied to race, gender, income, and disability” (p. 120). With the text set curated

above, indeed these dual goals of expansion and examination are key components of the

curriculum.

Step 3

After having configured the unit themes, texts, and lessons, it is also important to

have some kind of marker or assessment of how the students’ learning went, so that you

may address any gaps of knowledge, any misunderstandings, address any changes to your

own practice, and lastly provide opportunities for students to express their creative souls.

I brainstormed summative project assignments for students at the end of the unit with my
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colleagues during the first few weeks of professional development. It was a little odd for

me because it felt like a competition, a “dog and pony show.” ACP had certain

requirements of what they considered “big makes” or the independent unit projects. ACP

required they be “big” in that students will have something to present publicly with a

wider audience than the class itself, and it was a project that was to have civic impact.

The examples I was given from the year before were: have students present their research

in front of a panel of experts, write a letter to a public official like a Senator, or even get

on a soapbox in the middle of town and start presenting your knowledge to strangers in

the middle of downtown as a PSA (public service announcement). I appreciated the

ambition of these principles but question the methods. I can understand and appreciate

their conception of the “big make” project as an opportunity for students to create and I

believe the instructional coach might have seen this as the students having agency or

force them to become agents of social transformation. However, for me as the

practitioner, it seemed forced and maybe even woke signaling again. It seemed as if the

students would be prepped and then put on display, working towards seeking validation

from an outside source that had no relationship with my students, our classroom, or

myself. The unit projects in my curriculum prioritized more the personal, the authentic,

the act of deeper critical thinking, exploring, creating, and learning itself and less the

performance of it. Do my poems have less value or power if I do not perform them in

front of others? I wanted the students to be inspired on their own to take the next steps in

their activism, to define for themselves the routes and contributions towards the

revolution. Another issue that has come to mind after more thoughtful reflection is about

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how we as educators may perpetuate ableism, especially in our assessments. Some

examples would be marking down students for not making eye contact or stuttering

during a presentation, this is ableist. Or marking down a student for not being able to

present at all is ableist. I made sure to consider accommodations and present choices to

students so as to not limit how they participate with their fullest selves. The unit projects

to me were more focused on deep reflection of and authentic connection to the world(s)

and self.

The “Big Makes” provided in this section is after the second unit with the main

text of Ms. Marvel: No Normal, which students had the option to either “Create their own

comic book showing their protagonist overcoming oppressions” or write a short essay

answering this question: “How does Ms. Marvel resist and fight against the experiences

of multiple oppressions? Name them and describe them. Discuss what Kamala learns in

the end of the graphic novel. Write at least 3-5 paragraphs and use textual evidence to

support your answer.” The student artifact below is written by a Black, hijab wearing,

Muslim, girl and her intersectional analysis of the text. Hailey can use intersectionality as

a literary analysis tool by pointing out 2 scenes. The first is where authority figures like

the police tell the main character, Kamala (Pakistani American, Muslim, Girl), that she

does not look like the original Ms. Marvel character. Hailey is able to connect this

seemingly harmless descriptive comment to historical and social stereotype of Muslim

girls being submissive and powerless. In the paragraph following that, Hailey makes the

connection between “white blonde girl” as the dominant image of “normal,” “beautiful,”

and “awesome” girl in our society, and the connection thus to anything but that is

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considered the ugly, abnormal, and is as she says, “what some people hate in this world.”

Hailey in the end acknowledges the lesson Kamala had to learn which was that she

herself as an empowered Pakistani

girl, Muslim, brown girl is already

perfect, is a stereotype breaker, a

heroine for “saving others lives”

despite being “everything others

wouldn’t expect from a hero.” In this

way, Hailey recalls the narrative of

Kamala’s path to resistance by

rejecting assimilation, but fully

Figure 6.14 Hailey’s Ms. Marvel
Reflection
accepting and loving all of her truest

selves.

Throughout the dissertation, I have provided a selection of students’ Intersectional

Identity Poem “big make” as epigraphs for the various chapters. The “big make” before

that was an exploratory one examining the many impacts of colonialism in

communities/countries around the world. With each Big Make, I always create my own

and model for the students. This project was no different. I shared with the students that

colonialism has deep implications for my entire family, being that my father’s side of the

family in India were colonized by the British and my mother’s side from Cambodia,

colonized by the French. In the assignment, I made sure to not limit exposure to only

North American Indigenous groups but from worldwide and from historical to present

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circumstances. Below is a student presentation about the impacts of colonialism in the

country of Brazil. Notice how her analysis of postcolonial Brazil has intersectional

impacts of language, religions, and cultural traditions. Jazlyn even names the Dutch,

through their colonialization was a cultural and linguistic genocide, replaced with

Portuguese and Christianity.

Figure 6.15 Jazlyn’s Presentation on Brazilian’s Indigenous Peoples

Step 4

Intersectionality as literary theory. The last thing to keep in mind and that was a

constant topic of reflection through the entire year, was how I was planning to explicitly

teach Intersectionality as a lens. In this case, with my 10-11 years old, I decided to teach

the actual word and concept at the end of the year after all the different categories of

oppressions were already discussed. Throughout the year however, I put in the work of

building their ability to do intersectional analysis implicitly through the readings,

discussions, writing prompts, homework, and coursework. By the end of the year,

students were familiar with concepts of how race, gender, class, sexuality, and
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colonialism intersect in specific contexts providing different people experiences with

privilege and oppression. Once I had already built a solid foundation of frameworks with

the students, it made natural sense to pull everything together in the last quarter and name

it explicitly: Intersectional Analysis. After that, I wanted to give the students practice by

returning to reexamine and analyze the books, world, community, and selves through this

unifying lens. The students experienced an iterative process of reflecting on oneself, the

texts, and our world(s). Students returned to the characters in the book worlds and

explicitly do “identity maps “of them with the idea of privilege and oppression in mind as

well as the entire texts themselves. My pedagogy was as if “With each book and each

lesson, we built an intersectional vocabulary to describe” (Jiménez, 2021, p. 160) people

and our world(s).

In the student artifact below, starting off with the protagonist in our first novel,

here is an intersectional analysis of their character’s identity. Not only is the student able

to identify but also able to reflect how each identity category for this specific character

may be an oppression or privilege from them. For example, understanding that Starr (the

protagonist) speaks English is a privilege was very well noticed by my students who

spoke multiple languages and had parents like mine who were mistreated because they

did not speak English well or had accents. Students have to understand the social,

historical, and cultural contexts of the world and their communities to be able to even

simply do this activity of understanding how each category interacts with each other

within a person. Of course, there is room for growth and more critical analysis. For

instance, this student and many other students as well, had to learn that mental health and

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the concept of ableism is something to consider (which was further deeply explored in

their 3rd unit). Here, the student identifies that Starr is able-bodied and thus figures that

she experiences some privilege, but the student is still grappling with what it means to be

experiencing PTSD, which can be severely disabling, while also able-bodied. There’s

nuance here and might be the next step for students to add complexity to their

understandings.

Figure 6.16 Mariajose’s Identity Map Analysis of T.H.U.G’s Protagonist

At the end of the year, I gave a summative assessment explicitly asking my

students to do an intersectional analysis of a passage from each of the main texts (4 total).

The entire year was culminating in this skill. The framework that I used to help students

get started with their analysis is the one I created in 2016 for the Assembly on Literature

for Adolescents journal which is a peer-reviewed journal part of the National Council of

Teachers of English. In the appendix of the article, I provided English teachers with a

graphic organizer to help with the idea of first coding the visuals or texts for social

categories mentioned/alluded to in the text and then reflecting on how all of them interact
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with each other to provide an intersectional reading. A note about the graphic organizer: I

know that Intersectionality as a theory is against the idea of identity categorization and so

the visual of boxes in of itself goes against that; however, I offer this basic beginner

model as a way to get young learners to first code/identify and then examine and interpret

the meanings of the them in the specific contexts of the narrative.

Below is a student artifact from the final exam in which they were asked to do an

intersectional reading of a visual text in of the graphic novel where the main character

(Arnold) draws his ideas of the difference in experiences between himself as an

Indigenous person compared to his white classmates at the fancy school off the

reservation. The student here can code the text’s issues of race from the visual being half

“white” and half “Indian,” issues of class from Arnold not being able to “afford stuff a

white kid can,” and disability as part of his identity which they recalled from Arnold’s

condition of having “water in the brain,” which gets him to be severely bullied. All this

and the student still can take that further to understand how all this interacts with

colonialism. The students’ final intersectional analysis reveals that they deeply

understand the intersections of colonialism’s impact on Indigenous peoples’ experiences

with poverty and social privileges. As “extra” the student also acknowledges how

Arnold’s disability and his family history of poor health is connected to his oppressions,

how colonialism “gave them [Indigenous peoples in the U.S.] a reservation which was a

‘death prison’ for the[y] could rot.” This analysis done by the student shows such a level

of understanding that is critical and nuanced, revealing the true power of doing an

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intersectional reading as it can connect the identities/texts to historical, social and

political contexts.

Figure 6.17 Student’s Intersectional Analysis of Part-Time Indian

We cannot have a transformative education or any kind of change without first

reflecting on the causes of oppression. This type of soul and space work, this

intersectional curriculum, is not just to open students’ eyes to injustices “out there,” they

already have epistemic privilege in understanding the social issues that impact them. This

kind of education just provides the language to name it, to claim it, and then to change it.

It is to provide students with a framework, of historical and social contexts of how things

were created, which in turn provides a blueprint for dismantling structures and systems of

oppression. Civil Rights activist Yuri Kochiyama once said, “Remember that

consciousness is power. Consciousness is education and knowledge. Consciousness is

becoming aware. It is the perfect vehicle for students. Consciousness-raising is pertinent

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for power, and be sure that power will not be abusively used, but used for building trust

and goodwill domestically and internationally. Tomorrow’s world is yours to build.”

Conclusion

Other aspects in setting up the classroom curriculum that were also important to

me but not expanded on include aiming to create loving memories not just learning

machines. Other pedagogical moves I made in my class to meet the students’ needs

included: free student choice of independent reading, writing prompts that were reflective

and personal, offering my own personal diverse books, graphic novels, and comic book

collections relevant to students’ interests. At the beginning of the year, students were able

to put in their favorite songs in a basket and then every day, I picked a song of the day as

a way to experience a collective joy and loving connection with myself and students. We

embodied that joy and love when we sang and danced together. Also, to make learning

and our time together as fun as possible, I sought ways to infuse as much comedy into my

lesson planning and materials as possible, using humor as another way to experience

collective joy and loving connection. This was done by having openness, a variety of

materials (multimedia texts like pictures, maps, memes, videos, gifs, music) and options

in my curriculum and pedagogy (in assignments and assessments). It was also important

that we do read alouds of the 4 main texts because it builds comprehension and

engagement but more importantly community; students absolutely enjoyed the days

where we read together aloud, it was like the collective reading was an immersive

experience into the text. Having orientations around feminist teachings, it was of the

utmost importance to practice being honest, with the students and with myself, especially

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about feelings. We took time to examine them, discover the roots of whatever feeling

whether mundane or major, and practiced being in constant reflection.

In building an intersectional pedagogy, it means doing space and soul work, it

looks like using my language arts classroom and curriculum to express and value

students’ identities, to teach students to be able to name oppressive structures of power,

and lastly encouraging students to constantly reflect and resist. Students were using the

vocabulary and lessons taught in an intersectional curriculum to speak their truths, to

resist their own lived experiences with oppression. For example, one day, I had checked

in with a girl and asked how her relationship was going with another student, since she

was very excited to share this news with me before. Showing I care, I naturally keep up

with my students’ lives. She took me by surprise when she told me seriously they were

no longer in a relationship. I expressed my condolences and asked if she was comfortable

sharing why and she said: “I did not give him consent to kiss me!” I was so proud of her

for learning and taking to heart the lessons about consent and sexuality by protecting

herself and speaking out. In these ways, I was so happy to learn another benefit of this

curriculum in action, beyond the classroom in real time, is to help students build and

maintain safe and healthy relationships.

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 CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND CONCLUSION

Figure 7.1 Hasan’s Intersectional Identity Poem

Introduction

In Hasan’s poem above, see how he weaves in the intersectionalities of his

identities and shows us how his Blackness interacts with his Muslim faith, and how that

interacts with his having immigrant parents; all this connected to a larger legal (Jim Crow

laws), social (implicit assimilation), political (9/11 attack and consequent war in the

Middle East), and historical context (legacy of American slavery and genocide). Notice

also the inclusion of Arabic language along with the crescent moon symbol, thus Hasan is

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pointing us to the ancient connection of his language and the symbolism of Islamic

civilization back to the Ottoman Empire era. His art employs a flag with green which

comes to symbolize the Arab world (Arab America, 2019) and pays homage to the land,

nature, and gardens. On the left side, written in the margins “We will Overcome” (also

known as “We Shall Overcome”) is reminiscent of the protests, marches, and resistance

movements during the Civil Rights struggle (Adams, 2013). Hasan’s intersectional

identities poem is an exemplar piece of student work in that it sets the tone for the entire

research/pedagogy goal of creating an intersectional social justice framed curriculum.

Hasan provides complex expressions of his intersecting identities and, in his identities,

finds inspiration to resist, to challenge oppression and oppressors. In the sections below, I

will first summarize the findings in the data chapters building to show how Hasan got

here, and then provide implications for future practice and research.

Statement of Main Findings

Implementing a feminist praxis in education is difficult, especially in a society

where the institutional structures are capitalistic, racist, and patriarchal; yet that is exactly

why we are in desperate need for intersectional feminist praxis and research. It is as

feminist scholar Sara Ahmed (2017) says, “Becoming a feminist involves coming up

against the world” (p.19) which was very clear when I noticed how the world was

impacting my community, classroom, and curriculum. When I first set out to do this

research, I had only the curriculum in mind; however through the year-long data

collection, it became clear that embodying an intersectional feminist approach to teaching

and learning goes beyond my curriculum to include every aspect of the school.

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Everything is connected, including how we use our physical space and environment. The

first finding was that after doing an intersectional space analysis of the community, it was

obvious that our physical space and how we were allowed to exist within it greatly

influenced our community culture and ultimately our relationships with not only the

physical space but each other. The building was not built with children in mind and the

overcrowding of classes made it even more difficult to exist naturally in our school

setting. Thus, it was important to note that the idea of space and soul working together

harmoniously is part of making intersectional pedagogy effective.

The first finding was about understanding how to work in our space and how to

make the space work for us. Learning and adapting to our physical space and

environment was of the utmost importance in our survival together. Then the mission

became about understanding the souls, the people who built this community, the

colleagues who I was working with, and the souls of the community we were working

for. Two well off, white former teachers created this school and 20 years later, they went

from a small class to four full schools, serving thousands of children. When interviewed

about their motivations and intentions for starting this school, the white male co-founder

said he wanted “go into the ghetto and save everyone.” It is clear the school was created

as a product of white savior complexes. Our communities don’t need to be saved. What

we need is to root out white supremacist ideologies in our school systems. The

intersectional analysis of the community’s foundations reveals that the power structures

are indeed complicit in racist thinking. The soul work here is about acknowledging that

our systems are created out of white supremacy, rooting out the deficit beliefs, and

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replacing them with the truth that these children and communities that these schools serve

have power and agency.

This is not to say the rest of the community was like this. There were still souls

working within and against this system. Souls who were working in solidarity with the

community. For example, there was Ms. Tori, the Restorative Justice Coordinator, who is

a Black woman committed arduously to supporting students’ needs. She wonderfully

worked to maintain multiple relationships and motivate students. Ms. Tori is the example

of doing soul work in the school community in that she was not out there doing work

with the assumption of superiority, like saving the kids. She was working with them.

Intersectional soul work in the community was about understanding that these

charter schools and our educational system operate just like the United States in that they

are capitalist, racist, oligarchies. The school is just a microcosm of society and the

government at large. Those in power give the marginalized the illusion of freedom and

prevent us from realizing our power. Harmful concepts like neoliberalism were being

enacted without anyone else acknowledging or questioning it. In fact, it seemed that the

community at this school was using social justice language, being performative with their

“wokeness,” and disguising their savior and martyr complexes. Perhaps with a basic

understanding of abolitionist and intersectional praxis, the school and staff would not use

academic jargon like a Band-Aid or as deflection against accountability. As a teacher, I

acknowledge that as a worker within this system, I too was part of upholding oppression

in some form or another. The finding here was that through an intersectional analysis, we

must start anew because reform is not going to bring our BIPOC communities and kids

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justice. As it is, the system uses gimmicks such as standardized testing and neoliberalism

as a means to measure and control both teachers and students. We must burn it all down

and build with intersectional justice at the center of our actions because “To work as a

feminist often means trying to transform the organizations that employ us” (Ahmed,

2017, p. 89).

The second findings chapter was about employing an intersectional lens to the

space and souls around and in my classroom. Intersectional pedagogy in the classroom

here means doing space and soul work, making sure students basic needs are met first

otherwise we cannot reach and support everyone. Space work in an intersectional

classroom looks like being intentional about who is allowed and not allowed to take up

space in and around the classroom; meaning that teachers should be mindful of who is

allowed to be a guest speaker and how best to manage those who are uninvited but also

working on staff. Most importantly, intersectional space work in the classroom looks like

including the families into the learning spaces. This kind of intersectional soul work

challenges the dichotomy of school and home separation. It challenges the idea that

knowledge comes only from school and then down to home. Intersectional pedagogy

attentive to soul work resists the idea that schools function to only be “saving” or giving

knowledge to, as the school’s founder would say, these “ghetto” kids. This kind of work

shatters that one direction of knowledge building and instead invites the families in to

share their knowledge and love. Soul work in the classroom goes back to feminist

theories of valuing the collective.

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 In addition, focusing on the students and families and knowing their hopes and

dreams is validating and affirming of their identities. We educators must never forget that

we are not just teaching a subject, a lesson, or a text, we are teaching souls. At the end of

the year, I gave my students an anonymous survey/evaluation of the class and a student

wrote, “This class made me notice all the things I am being forced about religion and I

notice how homophobic my dad is” (personal communication, June 11th, 2019). This

student is calling on how learning to do an intersectional analysis has allowed them to

reexamine their relationship with religion and family; this student was able to apply their

criticality to their own communities (familial and religious). At the same time, using an

intersectional pedagogy in our classroom also built community. For example, other

students when asked about what they enjoyed most about this class wrote, “When we

would work together and talk to each other” and “My favorite part of the class was that

everyone had smart thoughts and smart answers.” The students here are showing how

taking an intersectional stance in the classroom has nurtured respect and community-

centered relationships.

Another finding is that intersectional soul work in the classroom looks like

attending to the students’ and teachers’ mental health needs. How can we call our charter

schools beacons of hope for educational reform when they call cops and not counselors

for moments of crisis? How can we expect our teachers to be “change agents” when we

overwork, underpay, and provide “sink or swim” training supports? This is not an issue

of burnout in our profession, it is an issue of exploitation. As practitioners and

researchers agree, “What we know is that often schools do not foreground teachers’

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humanity and are certainly not set up to help teachers through their most challenging

moments” (Dunn & Garcia, 2020). If we want to call our schools social justice oriented

then we must provide counselors for everybody—yes, for both teachers (for free or at a

reduced cost) and students (for free). We need this society and our systems to make

mental healthcare accessible because we are in a state of crisis and we all want to do

more than survive, year after year.

The last data chapter consolidates the findings for what it means to teach and

learn through an intersectional pedagogy and curriculum. What intersectional soul work

looks like in the curriculum is to choose texts that honor identity and provide

opportunities to examine issues of power. Soul work in the classroom means to explicitly

teach students critical literary analysis and social studies intersectionally. Ultimately, the

soul/space work in an intersectional curriculum is to inspire hope and change. The figure

below is an overview of the conceptual findings:

Figure 7.2 Space and Soul Work in Intersectional Pedagogy Summarized

Space work in the curriculum means making spaces for exploring multimodal and multi-

genre BIPOC work; it means creating spaces for multiple guest speakers who represent
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historically excluded perspectives; it means coordinating multiple fieldtrips so that

students may see and be seen. When surveyed about how hopeful and empowered they

felt, the students anonymously voted:

Figure 7.3 Students’ Empowerment Survey

The survey shows that the majority of the students in my class that year felt that what

they were learning had direct impact with their confidence to resist, to stand against

oppression and fight for their rights. Having an intersectional curriculum can move

students beyond the text and the classroom in this way. When surveyed a student wrote,

“My favorite parts were we learned more about the outside world and the economy”

(personal communication, June 11th, 2019). Making connections from within the

community and to the world was intersectional space work. When surveyed, the pie chart

below revealed that 62.5% very much gained an understanding on how to read the “word

and the world” (Freire, 1968) intersectionally and 33.6% have a beginning grasp of it.

This is a positive result from the first attempt at my teaching this curriculum and their

first attempt at the materials.

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 Figure 7.4 Understanding Intersectional Analysis Student Survey

These charts and students’ written responses in the survey reveal that the curriculum was

a tool they were able to use in nurturing their criticality, strengthening their analytical

muscles with an intersectional lens.

Implications for Practice

Teachers

By employing an intersectional lens to the community, classroom, and curriculum,

there are many benefits and implications for practice. Doing the soul and space work first

and foremost helps students understand a framework by which to look at their identities,

and English teachers can help students embrace their identities by actually reflecting on

their own identities and being open and honest about their privileges and

oppressions. English teachers must embrace the students’ identities by centering the

curriculum and materials around content that is relatable to students’ lives and

interests. 98% of students surveyed (out of 119 students) shared that because of this

intersectional curriculum, they gained a deeper understanding of their identities; students

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appreciated taking the time and space to learn “how to identify your self” (personal

communication, June 11th, 2019). Many students identified the culminating project of the

Intersectional Identity poems as the most enjoyable and memorable piece of the

pedagogy and class. Below, the chart shows the exact breakdown of where students stand

on the soul work they did within themselves:

Figure 7.5 Student Survey About their Identities

How does an intersectional pedagogy do this? By teaching what oppression and privilege

looks like; by teaching systems of interlocking oppression through a people’s history and

making connections to their lives as well as current politics and local/national/global

current events. Our class was about resisting the system’s obsession with increasing their

numbers (test scores, GPA, financial budget), it was about taking a stand for the self and

the collective powers. It was not just me telling students what they needed to learn,

students themselves have questions and curiosities and those were nurtured. A student

wrote:

This class made me feel meaningful because my teacher taught me a lot of

race,class,gender (sic) and she made me understand the world more my favorite
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 parts of this class was the quickwrites that we had to do research on because they
were a lot of fun and because i love doing research and i got to know more about
what she told us to research about. (personal communication, June 11th, 2019)

Students craved their own autonomy and an intersectional pedagogy creates space and

time for that. We are too often focused on developing kids who are great at filling out

“correct” bubbles instead of future people who are capable of changing the world with

their writing, creativity, and criticality.

When asked what I could have improved to make the class better, a student wrote:

“What could have been better is when we are doing stuff that doesn't relate to

intersectionality we don't do that stuff and learn more about intersectionality and

feminism.” Here a student is literally demanding that their time could have been better

off focusing on intersectionality and feminism. This signals to me that they wanted

intersectional feminism to define them, to be centered in their learning because they

know the value and truth: “feminism was a way for challenging the universal” (Ahmed,

2017, p. 29). Another improvement suggestion that many students brought up was more

discussions and inclusion on topics of sexuality. I was not surprised by this at all, because

as we’ve seen, the children are not too young to learn about sexuality, despite many

adults who cry “they are too young!” Queer folks are marginalized, even in literature, and

so in the future as a practitioner, intend to include more texts centering a queer person of

color and not just side characters.

School leaders

There were some theoretical, practical, and research based challenges of

recognizing identities and their intersections. Mostly, the challenges of structural policies

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and systems based on the educational survival complex (Love, 2019) made it

unsustainable to fully practice intersectional pedagogy in my context. The long hours,

inequitable pay, the unrealistic savior expectations, the “spirit murdering” standardized

testing were the practical challenges in this research. Theoretically, the charter school

claiming to center social justice was not intersectional, and thus was more of a neoliberal

performance of education. This of course made it difficult to practice because we need a

school system and structure that allows students to play/practice, to make mistakes and to

own their own mistakes, and that always brings back every interaction with students to

humanizing methods and not a power struggle, not a focus on production. How can we

have a Restorative Justice discipline model when the theory is based on dismantling a

power hierarchy?

The implications from this study reveal that school leaders must step away from

their white savior/martyr complexes and employ an intersectional lens to their own praxis

and systems because they are, in reality, perpetuating systems of oppression in the very

communities they are committed to changing. Intersectionality practitioners like myself

and the students, spent much time on being self-reflective and our institutions must do the

same—to examine themselves with brutal honesty and hope for imagining another way, a

more intersectionally just way of schooling.

Implications for Research

In this section, I will present implications for research in the form of future

research questions with three areas of focus: school communities, literacy

scholars/educators, and pre/in- service teachers. Future implications for research with

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families, students, communities, and schools includes studying the ways we can expand

the use of intersectionality across classrooms, throughout our communities and

disciplines at varying levels. I am interested to see more empirical research on how

intersectionality can be employed in other grade levels and other subjects such as Math,

Science, and Art. For future research with Social Studies/Literacy educators, I ask: How

can we, as educators, center intersectional justice in the classroom? How can we use

intersectionality to uncover and resist oppressive literacy pedagogy/practices/policies

towards students and teachers? This question is important to me in pointing out that we

must never forget to engage teachers and students as equals and not leave the teachers

behind to fend for themselves. Future research on preparing teachers, should

methodically seek new/improved practices for intersectional pedagogy by asking, “How

can we build critical consciousness and radical resistance through intersectional thinking,

reading, and writing?” The hope is that more teachers can take an inquiry stance in their

teaching and become teacher researchers who do the space and soul work in building an

intersectional pedagogy that best serves their communities, classrooms, and curricula.

Final Words

Doing space and soul work across community, classroom, and curricula is

intersectional pedagogy. People have pushed back on what was being done here by

insisting that kids are not ready for this kind of soul work. However, this research shows

that not only are they ready, but they are connecting their own lives to intersectionality in

sophisticated ways. In fact, when surveyed about what could have better, many students

wrote about wanting more texts and learning around topics typically considered taboo for

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children such as sex education and disability issues. Students deeply appreciated

respectful treatment that does not infantilize their intellect and emotions. In one student’s

words, “My favorite parts of this class is how we would empower eachother (sic) and talk

about deep stuff and not sugar coating whats (sic) going on in the world.”

Yes, this kind of work does attend to the Common Core state standards, but more

importantly, it moves beyond that to include other kinds of complex and contextual

learning. This data of intersectional pedagogy is empirical research, it is classroom based

and shows that students were doing cross curricula work, cross textual analysis, and using

critical vocabulary with creativity. This data shows that kids are brilliant, that they can

and do show up to do the complicated soul work. Perhaps they were doing this all along

and this intersectional pedagogy and curriculum just provided them with adult language

in which to express themselves. In the chart below, students articulated around 70-98%

likelihood of employing the theory of intersectionality in the future.

Figure 7.6 Student Survey on Future Employment of Intersectionality

In conclusion, when I centered my pedagogy around intersectionality, students

were able to uncover issues of power and privilege and examine historical and political

198
correlations. Intersectionality analysis can serve as a tool for teachers and students to

critically think about identity and systems of oppressions. Why? Because we can’t

change what we can’t see. In that classroom filled with my beautiful Black and Brown

babies, building an intersectional pedagogy meant having a literacy that is loving,

honoring of intergenerational knowledge and, lastly, a literacy that empowers.

199
 APPENDIX A: Parent/Guardian Consent for Child Participation in Research

Dear Parent or Guardian:

My name is Victoria Gill. I am an English teacher at Downtown College Prep and a

graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. I am conducting a research project in
my class to better understand as a teacher, how I can teach literacy skills better in a way
that honors students’ cultures and experiences, as it relates to the issue of equity. As part
of our class, all students will be reading, writing, and discussing novels, with a special
emphasis on diversity and representation. For those students’ participation in the study, I
will also ask them to participate in a survey (at the beginning and end of the school year)
about their experiences with identity and reading in class. With the permission of
Principal Dr. Cuevas, I will collect students’ work and observe participation in my class.

Voluntary Participation
I will be analyzing your student’s classroom work including writing samples and
observing their engagement in various normal classroom activities and informal
interactions in school. Your child’s participation is completely voluntary, and you can
request that their writing samples, responses, and participation not be recorded, noted, or
considered for the study at any time for any reason. Your student will have the right to
skip or not answer any question they prefer not to answer on the survey. In addition to
your permission, the students will be informed about the study and asked for their own
signed assent form if they agree to participate; they will also have the choice to not be
included in the data collection at any time and for any reason.

If you decide for your child not to participate in the study, your child will still be in the
class, but I will not include their classroom work or participation as part of the research.
They will also not take part in the survey. There are no consequences for your child if
they are not in the study; there is no impact on the level of attention they receive and their
grade will not be impacted.

This research is confidential. To protect students’ privacy, your child’s name and any
identifying information will be changed on all transcripts and notes, and will not be
shared in any publications or reports about this research.

Risks and Benefits

There are no direct benefits to participating in the study. Some indirect benefits may be
that students will have the opportunity to reflect on their reading experience through the
survey and connect their identities to academic learning. This study will offer insight to
educators about how to improve their classroom environment and teaching practices to
honor students’ diverse identities. Participating in this study will involve minimal risks
because I will be observing normally-occurring reading, writing, and classroom activities.
There is a minimal risk that discussing identity and power in the classroom may be

200
uncomfortable for students. To minimize the risk, students will have the option to pass on
any activity they are not comfortable completing. If any activities bring up difficult
emotions I can help your child connect with various support resources in your area.

Contact Information
The University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board has approved this study. If
there is anything about the study that is unclear to you or if you have questions or wish to
report a research-related problem, you may contact Victoria Gill at [email protected]
or my professor, Dr. Gerald Campano at [email protected]. If a member of the
research team cannot be reached or you want to talk to someone other than those working
on the study, you may contact the Office of Regulatory Affairs with any questions,
concerns, or complaints at the University of Pennsylvania by calling (215) 898-2614.

I look forward to working with your child in my English class this year. Thank you very
much for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,
Victoria Gill

You have received a copy of this consent document to keep.

(Turn to the next page to consent.)

201
Parent/Guardian Consent for Student Participation in
Research
I agree for ___________________________________________ to participate and be
surveyed.
Name of student

In addition, please consider consenting to the optional research activities below:

• I consent to having my student’s class participation recorded via digital
audiotape for accuracy.
• I give consent for the audio recording of my student’s voice to be played at
research meetings and professional events. I understand that although my
student’s voice will be heard, no identifying information (e.g., name,
neighborhood, school) will be shared.

I do not want my student to take part in the study at Downtown College Prep. I just want
my student to be part of the English class and not in the study.

___________________________________________
Print Parent or Guardian name

___________________________________________ __________________
Signature Today’s Date

___________________________________________
Relationship to Student

CONTACT INFORMATION:

___________________________________________ ________________________
Email Address Cell Phone Number

PLEASE SIGN, DETACH, AND RETURN THIS SECTION.

You can give this form to your student or bring it directly to the main office to the
attention of
Dr. Cuevas.
202
 APPENDIX B: 4T’s Protocol: Native and Indigenous Peoples

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 APPENDIX E: New Quarter New Book The Poet X Flyer

New Quarter New Book!

For Ms. Gill’s English class, families please buy your student the book The
Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. We will begin reading this as a whole class
starting April 15th. This book can be bought online on websites like
Amazon.com or in bookstores like Barnes & Nobles. If you are unable to buy
the book, it is $15 and I will be happy to buy a copy for your student.
Students will use this for classwork, homework, essays, and projects in the
next couple of months. If you have any questions, please email me at
[email protected]. Thank you!

208
 APPENDIX F: Indigenous Studies Big Make

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