The Spirit of Our Work

Black Women Teachers (Re)member

Foreword by Bettina L. Love
An exploration of how engaging identity and cultural heritage can transform teaching and learning for Black women educators in the name of justice and freedom in the classroom

In The Spirit of Our Work, Dr. Cynthia Dillard centers the spiritual lives of Black women educators and their students, arguing that spirituality has guided Black people throughout the diaspora. She demonstrates how Black women teachers and teacher educators can heal, resist, and (re)member their identities in ways that are empowering for them and their students. Dillard emphasizes that any discussion of Black teachers’ lives and work cannot be limited to truncated identities as enslaved persons in the Americas.

The Spirit of Our Work addresses questions that remain largely invisible in what is known about teaching and teacher education. According to Dillard, this invisibility renders the powerful approaches to Black education that are imbodied and marshaled by Black women teachers unknown and largely unavailable to inform policy, practice, and theory in education. The Spirit of Our Work highlights how the intersectional identities of Black women teachers matter in teaching and learning and how educational settings might more carefully and conscientiously curate structures of support that pay explicit and necessary attention to spirituality as a crucial consideration.
Foreword
Bettina L. Love

INTRODUCTION
For Those Who Chose to Survive: Our Promise to (Re)member the Ancestors

CHAPTER 1
My Spirit (Re)members Me Whole: The Importance of Black Women’s Knowing, Memory, and Spirituality

CHAPTER 2
“I Was Missing Something, Something So Important”: (Re)searching

CHAPTER 3
The Evidence of Things Unseen: (Re)visioning

CHAPTER 4
A Change of Mind and Heart: (Re)cognizing

CHAPTER 5
The Truth Will Set Us Free: (Re)presenting

CHAPTER 6
The Invitation, Sanctuary, and Living Legacy: (Re)claiming

CHAPTER 7
(Re)membering Is Not Optional: A Love Letter to Those Who Teach

Afterword
Gholdy Muhammad

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Cynthia B. Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa) is incoming dean of Seattle University’s College of Education and the former Mary Frances Early Professor in Teacher Education and chair of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. Two of her books, On Spiritual Strivings and Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget, were selected as Critics’ Choice Book Award winners by the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). Connect with her at cynthiabdillard.com and on Twitter @cynthiabdillard.

About

An exploration of how engaging identity and cultural heritage can transform teaching and learning for Black women educators in the name of justice and freedom in the classroom

In The Spirit of Our Work, Dr. Cynthia Dillard centers the spiritual lives of Black women educators and their students, arguing that spirituality has guided Black people throughout the diaspora. She demonstrates how Black women teachers and teacher educators can heal, resist, and (re)member their identities in ways that are empowering for them and their students. Dillard emphasizes that any discussion of Black teachers’ lives and work cannot be limited to truncated identities as enslaved persons in the Americas.

The Spirit of Our Work addresses questions that remain largely invisible in what is known about teaching and teacher education. According to Dillard, this invisibility renders the powerful approaches to Black education that are imbodied and marshaled by Black women teachers unknown and largely unavailable to inform policy, practice, and theory in education. The Spirit of Our Work highlights how the intersectional identities of Black women teachers matter in teaching and learning and how educational settings might more carefully and conscientiously curate structures of support that pay explicit and necessary attention to spirituality as a crucial consideration.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Bettina L. Love

INTRODUCTION
For Those Who Chose to Survive: Our Promise to (Re)member the Ancestors

CHAPTER 1
My Spirit (Re)members Me Whole: The Importance of Black Women’s Knowing, Memory, and Spirituality

CHAPTER 2
“I Was Missing Something, Something So Important”: (Re)searching

CHAPTER 3
The Evidence of Things Unseen: (Re)visioning

CHAPTER 4
A Change of Mind and Heart: (Re)cognizing

CHAPTER 5
The Truth Will Set Us Free: (Re)presenting

CHAPTER 6
The Invitation, Sanctuary, and Living Legacy: (Re)claiming

CHAPTER 7
(Re)membering Is Not Optional: A Love Letter to Those Who Teach

Afterword
Gholdy Muhammad

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Author

Cynthia B. Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa) is incoming dean of Seattle University’s College of Education and the former Mary Frances Early Professor in Teacher Education and chair of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. Two of her books, On Spiritual Strivings and Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget, were selected as Critics’ Choice Book Award winners by the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). Connect with her at cynthiabdillard.com and on Twitter @cynthiabdillard.

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