Reality Pedagogy and Navigating the Anti-CRT Waters in the Classroom: Christopher Emdin at TEDxTeachersCollege

I have posted on Christopher Emdin previously.  I'm coming back this week to his excellent presentation delivered at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York.

In the current anti-CRT moment where some teachers may feel inhibited in their classrooms to teach the truth and to teach truthfully, Christopher Emdin's "reality pedagogy" offers a way out of this policy-contrived conundrum. Note that he not only does not say Critical Race Theory, but that he also launches a critique of the the facile, if frequently disingenuous or gratuitous, usage of such terms as "culturally relevant pedagogy," "transformative pedagogy," "social justice," and the like.

Teachers are called to respect and honor children's experiences, and in so doing, raise their voices and thusly, their possibilities. This kind of pedagogy is social justice-oriented, situated in children's lives, cultures, and experiences without necessarily ever having to say that it is—that is, CRT without being explicitly "CRT." Plus, as we all know, it's not. It's just great student-centered pedagogy.

So powerful. This is precisely what we seek in the Ethnic Studies classroom. The beauty of his framework is that it can be applied to any educational context.

Though perhaps elusive for some—as many of life's simplist truths often are—Emdin's framework, is not only bold, but achievable. Listen for yourselves.

-Angela Valenzuela