People’s Education Movement Bay Area Chapter
Friday, Dec. 1, 5:30-7:30 P.M.
Location: MetWest High School, 314 E 10th St, Oakland, CA 94606
Vision
As a collective, we recognize our unique role as educators to love, serve, and join the communities that we serve. We root ourselves in the teachings of our ancestors from many lineages; honor the wisdom, legacies, and lessons that came before us; and engage in continual praxis toward a world where all people thrive.
Mission
Our collective recruits, develops, sustains, and inspires educator-teacher-organizers of color, from and for the communities that we serve. We work to transform systems of oppression and advance the struggle towards liberation.
Transformational Resistance (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal)
& Self/Community Care
Resistance theory proposes that students actively or passively resist learning as a way of responding to the oppressive school system. “Resistance theories demonstrate how individuals negotiate and struggle with structures and create meanings of their own from these interactions.” (Bernal & Solorzano, 2001, p. 315).
There are four types of oppositional behaviors and resistance; reactionary behavior, self-defeating resistance, conformist resistance, and transformative resistance. The difference between oppositional behavior and resistance are based on Giroux’s basis of two intersecting ideas that qualify resistance: 1) Students must have a critique of social oppression, and 2) students must be motivated by an interest in social justice.
Reactionary behavior is not defined as a type of resistance because it lacks both (1) a social critique and a (2) social justice motivation. Reactionary behavior can be seen as disruptive behavior, “acting out” or challenging authority figures “for kicks.”
Self-Defeating resistance is when students have a social critique of the systems that oppress them, i.e.; school, but are not motivated by any interest concerning social justice. As a reaction to their social critiques they engage in resistant behavior, i.e.; dropping out of school, which is self-defeating because this behavior and resistance does not transform the system or the oppressive state that they are in. This type of resistance is considered self-defeating because despite the student’s sense of agency, their actions cause harm to themselves and possibly unto others depending on the situation.
Conformist resistance occurs when a student understands the need for social justice but lacks a critique of the oppressive systems. For example, if a student sees that many of her peers are dropping out of school, she will offer to tutor other students after school. This form of resistance is simply a “bandaid” solution for the systemic issue. This is referred to as conformist resistance because the student continues to operate within the oppressive structures instead of transforming them, but it is still considered as a form of resistance because the student exhibits one of Giroux’s qualifying ideas of resistance; the motivation by an interest in social justice.
Transformative resistance is when a student possesses both of Giroux’s qualifying ideas of resistance; (1) a social critique of the systems and structures which oppress them, and (2) the motivation for social justice. Because of this deeper knowledge and motivations, these students have the most potential to create social change or transform the oppressive situations and systems they exist within.
Transformative Resistance (Solorzano & Delgado-Bernal)
through a Self/Community-Care Lens
Self-Defeating Self-Care
NOT working towards Social & Self Change
+
Questioning oppressive systems
that produce injustice
(and physical/mental illness)
Transformative Self-Care
Working towards Social & Self Change
+
Questioning oppressive systems
that produce injustice
(and physical/mental illness)
Reactionary Behavior
NOT working towards Social & Self Change
+
NOT questioning of oppressive systems
that produce injustice
(and physical/mental illness)
Conformist Self-Care
Working towards Social & Self Change
+
NOT questioning oppressive systems
that produce injustice
(and physical/mental illness)
Quadrant Activity:
During this time, we will think back on times in which we exhibited (1) Reactionary Behavior, (2) Self-Defeating Self-Care, (3) Conformist Self-Care, and (4) Transformative Self-Care in response to loss and/or isolation, due to our oppressive conditions as Educator-Organizers of Color.
Step 1: Using the post-its, please write down one example for each of the four quadrants.
Step 2: Place your post-its onto the posters on the floor, that represent these four different quadrants.
Step 3: Gallery Walk and Discussion.
Writing Reflection Questions:
When you feel physically and/or emotionally depleted due to the impacts of legacies and present day realities of colonialism and systemic oppression, which quadrant do you most often find yourself occupying in this period of your life and why?
What is one way you aspire to practice transformative self-care before, during, and/or after the Winter Break?
Peoples Education Movement - Bay Area 