Elementary and Early Childhood Education (Marrielle Myers)
A Light for Our Path: Using the Black Teacher Archive to Unpack Excellence & Articulate
Change in Educational Practice
First-Year Scholars: Aryanna Finch, Aubry Robertson, & Ah'Zaiah Rolle
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As America's classrooms become more diverse, the teaching population remains essentially
unchanged. Data from a 2021 study by The National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES) reported that over 80% of public school teachers are white. This is in stark
contrast to the K-12 student population, where over 50% of students identify as Black,
Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, or bi-racial. This mismatch in the teacher and student
population has persisted for several decades, and research indicates the need for
change to ensure that students from historically marginalized groups experience academic
and social success. For example, Black students taught by Black teachers are more
likely to be placed in gifted classes (Barshay, 2016), less likely to be suspended
from school (Lindsay et al., 2017), and experience deeper teacher-parent-community
relationships (Gomez et al., 2008). Several studies have reported that teachers who
are Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) consistently show increased learning
gains for all students, regardless of the students' racial identities (Brayboy & Maugh,
2009; Gist & Bristol, 2022; Howard, 2003; Klopfenstein, 2005; Marin & Bang, 2015;
Pham, 2019; Santoro et al., 2011). These findings make us curious about why these
teachers experience success, particularly the well-documented impact of Black teachers.
This project presents a unique partnership opportunity for an undergraduate scholar
to work with a KSU faculty member and The Black Teacher Archive Project (BTAP) at
Harvard University. This archive, which boasts over 50,000 resources from Colored
Teachers' Associations (CTAs), "makes public the intellectual, political, and cultural
contributions of Black educators during the Jim Crow era through the Civil Rights
era."
Undergraduate scholars matched with this project will engage with the following research
questions:
- How does the Black Teacher Archive support understanding of educational practices
from the Jim Crow era through the Civil Rights era?
- How does the work of Colored Teachers' Associations align with current Black-focused
educational reform (e.g., Black Lives Matter at Schools Week, The Black Teacher Project)?
- How can we draw upon the Ghanaian (Akan) principle of Sankofa in using the Black Teacher
Archive to understand the current educational landscape?
- How can we draw upon what we learn from questions one through three to support current
and future educators in developing an identity of advocacy and excellence?
The research team will collectively study primary documents research in the Black Teacher Archive to answer these questions.
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- Students will learn to conduct research on primary sources using a digital archive.
- Students will learn to organize data, look for themes, and raise questions using a
notice/wonder protocol.
- Students will learn critical competencies, including problem-solving, cooperative
learning, academic writing, and digital literacy.
- Students will learn to write and submit conference proposals.
- Students will learn to design and deliver local and state-level conference presentations.
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Weekly duties include:
- Conducting independent research in the Black Teacher Archive
- Saving and organizing findings
- Recording keywords in a shared research file
- Participating in meetings with the project leader
- Completing a research log and structured reflections
- Preparing conference proposals and presentations
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Modality (Face-to-Face, Hybrid, Online)
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