Refers to the toxic, divisive, social violence of the world which spill over into our classrooms sending a message to our students that all is not right, and act as agents of detractors and obstacles to learning.
Published in Chapter:
Back to My Roots: Utilizing Hair to Build Student-Led Learning in the Classroom
Patricia O'Brien-Richardson (Rutgers University, USA)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4360-3.ch014
Abstract
This chapter explores the use of hair, a common yet complex object, as an entry point to student-led practice. As students bring their personal, past, and present experiences into the classroom in a safe, supported space on a topic everyone can relate to, so they are able to engage in complex, opposing viewpoints. Students are supported by the educator who serves as a facilitator, and various outside guests from diverse backgrounds established in their careers via Zoom, a technological, virtual space who also share their experiences with hair in their career environment. In this setting, students are led by their own hair stories, collaboratively discuss and debate viewpoints, and are supported by professionals in their own workspaces. Combined, this multi-level layer of culturally based learning is both student-led, technologically supported, and provides opportunities to achieve both hard and soft skills, all through the lens of a single, unifying artifact, hair.