Becoming critical: Exploring the confluence of justice, belonging, and love with 6th grade youth

Abstract

This paper recounts stories of a sixth-grade teaching team’s efforts to help each other in the becoming of critical social educators. Struggling against the conditions of oppression in schools and the toxicity of what we call “copy room conversations” requires a kind of support and solidarity we created through our small collective that was grounded in vulnerability with and commitment to one another. This piece tells our stories in the hope that others who share our values might come together in their own school communities to form collectives like ours. We hope to provide a model for building solidarity with those who also aim to become critical educators and to reject the white supremacist politics of schooling.

Keywords: Critical love, collective-building, humanizing, anti-oppressive pedagogies