pedagogy
pedagogy [pe-də-ˌgō-jē]
n. the function of the work of a teacher, teaching; the art, science, or profession of teaching, education, instructional methods
Why a Different Pedagogy
In our quest to center women-identified people of color pedagogically, we sought out models that disrupt the traditional “expert-learner” dynamic by trusting, valuing, and integrating their wisdom into a reciprocal process of teaching and learning. This meant building and maintaining spaces that could hold complexity, bring women-identified people of color into solidarity, and instill a practice of reflection (thinking about ideas, information and experiences) and reflexive thinking (about one’s self).
Vertical Development
Pedagogy needed to be present everywhere - in our stories, our bodies, our communities. When designing our programs, we sought out a developmental framework that could flexibly contain our ethos and be applied to varied topics and activities. Vertical Development, a model coined by the Center for Creative Leadership, became the heart of our pedagogy.
Women-identified people of color leaders, we know, grapple with issues affecting their lives, families and community while organizing to solve them in an environment where movement building is increasingly multi-faceted and globalized. Presently and in the future, their work requires a sharp political analysis and the ability to maneuver through volatile and unpredictable situations. It has been shown that leaders operating at higher levels of development will perform better in complex environments such as these. By complementing traditional training or “horizontal development” (focused on developing new skills, abilities, and behaviors), we believe a “vertical development” approach offers a pedagogical framework that gives women-identified people of color an important advantage in strengthening their minds’ and bodies’ ability to identify, wrestle with, and push through complex challenges.
We incorporate a vertical development framework into session design and facilitation to move participants through three points of ever evolving awareness:
Awaken (the what): Participants become aware that there are different ways of making sense of the world (diverse worldviews) and that doing things in new ways is possible.
This phase often uses intentional provocation and normalization of “heat” experiences to generate breakthrough thinking. Facilitators are advised to 1) carefully and responsibly introduce “heat” and 2) employ a trauma-informed approach to help center participants and offer healing.
Unlearn + Discern: Participants’ old assumptions are analyzed and challenged, while new ones are experimented with as new possibilities for one’s day-to-day work and life.
Colliding perspectives (the who) are generated from the diverse insights within a cohort and exposure to readings, guest speakers and site visits.
Elevated sense making (the why + how) is generated by opportunities for direct experiences and by analysis and reflection.
Advance: After practice and effort, a person develops more complex ideas that start to dominate previous, less nuanced ones and they build new leadership logics. Even when we attain deep insights and strong leadership capacities, we can grow further.
Active experimentation (the how) is generated by application and demonstration of one’s increased effectiveness.
See our session on Intro to Vertical Development here.
"I organized with an organization that worked with clergy to pass legislation, but I wanted grassroots leaders —like the tamale lady down the street —to have a say in our demands. I was told to make sure the clergy was at a meeting and not spend time on grassroots folks. Knowing it would be hard, I honed into my vision and muddled through to come up with a hybrid approach. I got the clergy AND five grassroots leaders to attend. The clergy took the lead but the others gained a deeper political education while contributing. Our demands were ultimately met.
By the last Power 50 session, our visions had grown. We could imagine reparations in our lifetime knowing we could have the vision first, then muddle toward solutions. Vertical Development helped me lead in a different way."
Arleen Vargas, Power 50 participant
OR
I was born to make spaces
For my people
For my people
I was born to make spaces
For my people
For my people
For my people to win
Joleen Garcia and Ayema, chant inspired from Joleen's cohort member's vision
Transformative Organizing
Working specifically with women-identified people of color organizers, we also wanted to create opportunities for leaning into models of organizing that align with the liberatory vision we foresaw participants carrying into their communities. We sought to achieve this by blending the constructive tools of traditional organizing with space for deep emotional and spiritual healing, not as an aside or marginally, but as integral to advancing local, state, and national policy change.
We understand transformative organizing as:
Liberation is realized by ending both systemic oppression (from the external extractive political economic system) and from personal suffering (the internal response to external conditions we face). Therefore a structural analysis must act in tandem with self-inquiry.
- Social Justice Leadership
Similar to more transactional organizing, transformative organizing teaches political education, mobilization, and strategic power building as methods to address injustice. It differs from transactional organizing, however, in its emphasis on long-term vision, self-awareness, naming and addressing oppression that is replicated in our strategies, and the healing of personal suffering. Transformative Organizing is an outgrowth of community organizers’ dissatisfaction with the short term wins, political setbacks, and the struggles of organizers to maintain balance and fruitful relationships within their personal and professional lives.
- Zuri Tau, evaluator and core team member
Our programs and sessions are rooted in these principles and practices of Transformative Organizing:
Begins with self-awareness in recognizing habitual behaviors that influence how we show up and create positive impact.
Practices: Acting from center using somatic practices, mindfulness, healing justice frameworks
Requires the intentional practice of new ways of being.
Practices: Sustaining one’s high performance including achieving short-term goals while attending to personal and organizational well-being to advance long-haul needs
Requires envisioning the kind of society we seek in the long-term that traverses the personal, organizational, movement or field, and societal
Practices: Deepening ideology including clear vision, purpose and worldview Supporting other leaders to identify and practice their authentic centering practices
Requires ideological, strategic, and mass-based organizing
Practices: Deepening one’s ideology to develop a clear vision, purpose and worldview; Building power strategically including developing the leadership of women-identified people of color with a long-term, non-transactional orientation
Learning Stance
In addition to the vertical development and transformative organizing frameworks, our pedagogy borrows from a number of sources that harmonize with our work and have demonstrated results. Although our team had knowledge of organizing, structural racism, patriarchy, leadership development, and trauma-informed methods, we continually steeped ourselves in new materials and research, exchanging information with each other and frequently reviewing it together. To get the most from this guide we advise you to work similarly and that your team also simultaneously position themselves as informed teachers and learners, responsive facilitators and engaged participants.
