Academia Cuauhtli, the Eagle’s Vision, and the Architecture of Belonging: Education in the Shape of a Circle, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Academia Cuauhtli, the Eagle’s Vision, and the Architecture of Belonging: Education in the Shape of a Circle

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

February 23, 2026

In “Academia Cuauhtli and the Eagle: Danza Mexica and the Epistemology of the Circle,” co-authored with Emilio Zamora and Brenda Rubio, we examine what it means to build Academia Cuauhtli as more than a Saturday school program in Austin, Texas. We frame it as an effort to rethink education itself.

The eagle’s vision represents the ability to see in all directions at once—expansively and relationally. For those of us working in community, it reminds us that while no single person can carry all the knowledge required to sustain an ambitious initiative like Academia Cuauhtli—with its Summer School program, parent development component, and curricular writing work—together, we can. 

It also symbolizes the aspirations we collectively hold for the children, families, and community in our care, alongside the disciplined precision with which the eagle, from great heights, fixes its gaze and moves with intention. Analytical clarity. This is what we want for all children—especially in this moment of chaos and uncertainty—so that they may see their world clearly, act with purpose, and rise with confidence rather than confusion.

Access full article here.

At the heart of this work is the circle. It is best exemplified by Danza Mexica or Aztec "dance," connoting not performance, but ceremony and a way of knowing and being in the world, including in educational spaces like Academia Cuauhtli about which I have previously blogged over the years.

In Danza Mexica, individuals form into a circle or concentric circles depending on the size of the group. Movement unfolds collectively. No one stands in front. No one stands above or below. Everyone faces inward toward a shared center—toward memory, spirit, healing, ancestors, and community.

The form itself encodes reciprocity, relationality, and a shared, sacred purpose.

This stands in contrast to the dominant architecture of schooling.

Most classrooms operate through vertical authority structures. Knowledge flows from expert to novice. Students are ranked, sorted, and compared. Time is segmented into benchmarks and testing cycles. Culture is often treated as enrichment rather than foundation.

The circle disrupts this logic.

An epistemology of the circle understands knowledge as generative and co-constructed rather than extractive or subtractive. It recognizes the body as a site of learning. It treats memory as living presence. It invites families, community members, scholars, and children into shared intellectual space. It refuses the idea that culture is peripheral to academic rigor (Colin, 2014).

For us at Academia Cuauhtli, the circle is also a form of pedagogy. It is history enacted through rhythm and specific movements (dance steps) across various ceremonies preserved throughout time. It is language, philosophical concepts, and civic education carried in collective movement. It signals and affirms that children—especially those labeled as “English learners” and targeted by subtractive, deficit-driven discourses—stand within powerful knowledge systems that have survived conquest, colonization, and erasure.

The circle also carries political meaning.

In a moment when ethnic studies programs are dismantled, faculty governance is constrained, and curriculum is policed under the language of “neutrality,” the circle offers another organizing principle. Education can be structured around relational accountability (or "responsibility") rather than surveillance. It can center dignity rather than deficit.

The eagle—or "Cuauhtli," in Nahuatl—symbolizes vision and strength. Yet the eagle rises from within the circle. Aspiration without community becomes isolation. Achievement without memory becomes assimilation.

The circle is not nostalgia. It is infrastructure, a third space situated between the over-prescribed role of the school and the under-prescribed role of the home in the education of our youth.

If we take educational equity seriously, we must ask: What would it mean to organize our classrooms, research partnerships, and institutions around relational centers instead of competitive hierarchies?

The answer does not begin with new mandates.

It begins with remembering—and practicing—the circle as a way of knowing and being in the world.

References

Colín, E. (2014). Indigenous education through dance and ceremony: A Mexica palimpsest. Palgrave MacMillan.

Valenzuela, A., Zamora, E., & Rubio, B. (2015). Academia Cuauhtli and the Eagle:" Danza Mexica" and the Epistemology of the Circle. Voices in Urban Education, 41, 46-56.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1074841.pdf

Shining the Light on Academia Cuauhtli: Where Community, Culture, and Young Voices Thrive in Austin, Texas🌟🌟🌟

Shining the Light on Academia Cuauhtli: Where Community, Culture, and Young Voices Thrive in Austin, Texas🌟🌟🌟

A huge gracias to Becky Morales for sharing this super-cool 9-minute video posted below about my career journey, my passions, and—most importantly—the community-rooted work we’ve built together through Academia Cuauhtli. It’s always humbling (and a little surreal!) to see your story told back to you, but what matters most here is the spotlight on our collective vision for the program and the young people it serves.

I appreciate Morales’ focus on Academia Cuauhtli because the work of nurturing young minds, sustaining cultural heritage, and building just communities is, at its core, collective work. It draws on the wisdom of our elders, the creativity of our youth, and the steadfast commitment of friends, colleagues, and partners who share the same vision. To act alone would not only diminish the richness of what we create together, it would also erode the very values—community, reciprocity, and shared purpose—that give this work its soul. 🧘‍♀️✨🕊️

I must interject quickly here, as well, that Academia Cuauhtli is an important site for research and here is a link to our publications.

But here’s the really exciting news: The City of Austin has officially approved funding for Academia Cuauhtli! 🎉 This support comes at a perfect moment, as we prepare to settle back into our home at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC) once our brand new classroom section is completed with our official move-in date happening in early January.

Entering our 12th year of existence, this space will be more than a location—it’s a cultural anchor where our children can learn, create, and connect with their heritage in deeply affirming ways. It's also a culture and language revitalization professional space for bilingual/dual language Central Texas educators, the majority of whom are certified teachers in the Austin Independent school district with whom we are also partnered. We have big dreams and plan to share them at the ESB-MACC's Día de los Muertos opening on Nov. 1, 2025 so stay tuned. 

Special thanks to our other partner, the City of Austin and all our city champions at City Hall, especially Council Member and Mayor ProTem Vanessa Fuentes and council members Chito Vela, José Velásquez, Marc Duchen, and Zo Qadri who represents the ESB-MACC.

While this journey has truly taken a village, I joyfully honor all who have recently poured their energy and heart into our program development and fundraising, including Martha Cotera, Dr. Emilio Zamora, Dr. Christopher Milk, Rosa Tupina Yaotonalcuauhtli, Patricia Nuñez, Ana Carrasco, Aldo Frausto, and Dr. Maria Unda, whose brilliant legwork kept our vision moving forward while many of us were out of pocket this summer.

Special thanks, as well, to Michelle Rojas, Katya Guzman, and Marie Ortiz at the ESB-MACC for their awesome support, creativity, and hospitality as we prepare to make our brand new space a vibrant home. Their dedication ensures that our cultural and educational mission will flourish within the walls of the ESB-MACC, enriching the lives of our students, families, and the broader Austin community.

So here’s to the next chapter: more storytelling, more community, and more young voices discovering the power of their own stories and histories. And here’s to the people—like Becky—who help share our story far and wide. 💛

-Angela Valenzuela

Angela Valenzuela is a professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy. She is a researcher and prolific published scholar, focusing on subtractive schooling and authentic caring. Valenzuela is a community advocate and policy activist, fighting against the misuse of standardized tests and their effects on students of color. She also is the founder of the Academic Cuauhtli, a school that celebrates the linguistic and cultural capital of the Latino students it serves. and curriculum expert.

INVITATION: Aztech Kidz Code (AKC) graduation happening this Saturday, August 10th, 9-11:30 am at Mendez MS Auditorium—PLS RSVP

Dear Friends:

On behalf of our coordinator, Katya Guzman, I write to cordially invite you all to our Aztech Kidz Code (AKC) graduation happening this Saturday, August 10th from 9-11:30am at Mendez Middle School Auditorium. 

Aztech Kidz Code Summer camp is an outgrowth of our Saturday School, Academia Cuauthli that recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary.

This is the 4th annual AKC graduation. 

Our goal is to create a space where students can learn about the contributions of the Mayan, Olmec, and Aztec civilizations to STEM, while also creating a space for students to explore their own diverse identities within a supportive community. At Academia Cuauhtli and AKC, we envision mutual respect for diverse cultures and an ongoing exchange of cultural traditions as the foundation for peace in our troubled world.

At the ceremony, you will have the opportunity to witness AKC students' final coding projects, as well as performances of Danza Mexica and Son Jarocho featuring the live musicians Fandangueros de Austin. The students have been working hard to prepare and we would love to have you all there! The itinerary is down below:

• 9am-9:30am: Breakfast
• 9:30am-10am: Coding demonstration
• 10am-10:45am: Danza Mexica and Son Jarocho presentation ft. Fangandueros de Austin
• 10:45am-11:20am: Certificate ceremony (Councilmember José Velasquez [INVITED] will deliver some remarks)

Please kindly RSVP by 12pm on Thursday, August 8th, 2024 to confirm your attendance. Should you have any special dietary requirements or need assistance with accessibility, please let us know, and we will be happy to accommodate your needs.

RSVP form: https://forms.gle/1JK91MUfg7ZjSMtK7

Sending you all my best wishes, and hope to see you soon!

-- 

Sinceramente, 

Angela Valenzuela, co-founder

Academia Cuauhtli

Katya Guzman

Academia Cuauhtli, Program Coordinator

P: 512-364-0700

Invitation: Educación con Corazón: Una Plática Comunitaria/ Education with Heart: A Community Conversation—May 4, 2024, 10am - 3pm

Friends,

It's such a vast juxtaposition to be sharing with you our upcoming event, "Education with Heart: A Community Conversation," taking place this Saturday, May 4, from 10AM-3PM while simultaneously witnessing state violence and repression at this very moment at UT Austin. This is playing out on college campuses nationwide, as well, as we know.

Like my grandfather, who was a Baptist minister, used to say, "El diablo anda afuera," meaning that "the devil is running amok." 

It sure feels like it. I hear students tell me that they are fearful, that they feel bruised, that they are angry, sad, and disgusted. And let's not let it get past us that this year's undergraduate graduating class sat out the pandemic four years earlier, seriously impacting life's milestones that the rest of us have taken for granted.

Atop this, our students here at UT are literally still coping with the shock of losing their programs, initiatives, mentors, and supporters as a consequence of Senate Bill 17 (Texas' anti-DEI bill), and now they are experiencing added violence, both symbolic and real. 

So much dark, noxious emotion in the air right now. People speak in whispers, censuring themselves. Are we not still in a democracy where we all have a voice and are guided by democratic principles?

Que triste. How sad, especially when there is still so much good—and good to be had—in the world. I remain confident that there still exists a real promise of better days WHEN we commit to supporting ALL of our youth, particularly the most vulnerable. Why can't we not evolve as human beings and as a culture into an ethic that centers, instead of intentionally harms, young people? They are our future, our treasure, our joy. 

Texas parents, I know that I speak on behalf of most, if not all, UT faculty that we love your children. What we are witnessing right now is way beyond the bounds of what should ever get considered as normal.

Ok, so now I'm putting out something into the atmosphere that is super positive, namely, Academia Cuauhtli's 10th Anniversary celebration! I've blogged on it occasionally since 2014. For those of us involved, it is a labor of love.🩷

Throughout the day, we will be speaking Spanish, English, Spanglish, and translanguaging, playing with language, celebrating bilingualism, and culture (see details below). 

As the late poet and artist José Antonio Burciaga used to say, "La cultura cura," meaning that "culture heals." I can definitely say that Academia Cuauhtli is what has sustained our community through the years.

 Open to the public. Welcome all!

-Angela Valenzuela

Follow us on Twitter: @AcadCuauhtli

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AcademiaCuauhtli/

Instagram: @acadcuauhtli

Event hashtags: #LaCulturaCura #Palabra #JovenNoble #CulturalHealing #EmpowerYouth #EmpoweringYouth #strongyouth

Hope you can join us this coming Saturday morning to be in community with us as we celebrate Educación con Corazón, our tenth-anniversary celebration of Academia Cuauhtli. It’s amazing just how quickly the time has flown. 

 

Bring your babies, children, and family members. Educators doing work in the community might be particularly interested in joining us and learning about our work. We’ll have bouncy houses for the chiildren, food, pláticas, musical performances, a raffle, and other goodies. We’re showing some love to the Dove Springs community.  It’s over at 3 PM.

Academia Cuauhtli means "Eagle Academy"

 

Info below, as well as attached on who we are as a community-based initiative. Do reach out to Dr. Maria Unda (copied) if you have any questions.  Please help us get the word out, too. 

 

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

***

 

Summit Title: Educación con Corazón: Una Plática Comunitaria/ Education with Heart: A Community Conversation

Date: Saturday, May 4, 2024 | Time: 10am - 3pm

Location: Consuelo Mendez Middle School, 5106 Village Square Drive Austin, TX 78744 (not the charter school part) 

 

About the Summit:
"Educación con Corazón: A Comm(unity) Conversation" is a summit convened by Academia Cuauhtli to champion equitable access to transformative education by integrating bilingual education, cultural arts institutions, and indigenous epistemologies into public schools. In celebration of Academia Cuauhtli’s ten-year journey, this public gathering expresses a profound commitment to cultural heritage, social justice consciousness, and collective identities for educational freedom.

Bringing together educators, students, parents, school board members, and community members, we are dedicated to fostering a collaborative environment where diverse voices come together to shape the future of education. Emphasizing cultural diversity, healing, and artistic expression, we strive to create holistic learning spaces that champion educational freedom. 

 

Event Links:

City Event Landing Page:

https://www.austintexas.gov/event/esb-macc-education-heart-community-celebration-mendez-middle-school

Facebook Event: https://fb.me/e/1ZcwBUEYD 

Eventbrite:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/education-with-heart-a-community-celebration-tickets-873709006157

 

 

Register on Eventbrite

Furthermore, in recognition of AISD's support, we warmly invite y'all to join us for an exclusive VIP breakfast before the summit at 9 am. This intimate gathering presents a unique opportunity for our esteemed attendees, including keynotes, education, and community leaders, to forge connections and delve deeper into potential collaborations. Noteworthy attendees include Superintendent Matias Segura, esteemed members of the AISD School Board, distinguished members of the City of Austin Council, and influential education policymakers. Their enthusiasm for engaging in substantive dialogue and sharing insights promises to enrich the summit experience for all participants. 

 

 

Sincerely, 

 

Dr. María Del Carmen Unda 

Cell: 310-651-4558 

https://linktr.ee/maricarmenphd 

This is a very important piece on the vitality of the Spanish language in Texas. The rate of alleged "Spanish-language loss" is held up to scrutiny with not all agreeing whether this is reality or a measurement error. Another interpretation is compositional, meaning that it's not so much that Spanish is on the decline, but rather that places like San Antonio and perhaps Austin are increasingly comprised of third-generation Latinas/os that are less likely to speak Spanish. This maps on to the fact of growing cities that bring in increased numbers of non-Spanish speaking individuals. 

Still, others don't believe the numbers, saying that they're sensing a high demand, for instance, in San Antonio ISD, for dual language programs. I sense the same here in Austin, as well. Of clear concern for all is the real possibility of any decline in the aggregate, especially considering the importance of Spanish as a state and world language.

Regardless of data and interpretation, this is a historic problem that connects not just to prior legal prohibitions toward the Speaking of Spanish in our state, but also to existing structural dynamics with education policy itself—outside of dual language programs—not sufficiently supportive of fully-vested bilingualism and biliteracy. In my own work (Valenzuela, 1999), I term this "subtractive schooling," where schools are more about taking away one's fluency and culture than they are about adding and expanding upon these from an asset-based perspective. 

These concerns are felt personally, often accompanied with a great deal of anguish. It is a significant loss for children not to be able to communicate with their grandparents. It's also frequently humiliating when people expect you to speak Spanish simply because you're brown despite a long history of language oppression in our state and nation that continues into the present.

These concerns are what motivated us to start our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli here in Texas back in 2013. We are entering our tenth year of existence and know that we are making a dent in Austin, Texas, by encouraging a love of Spanish, beginning with a pedagogy anchored in children loving themselves and the multiple identities that they possess.

As a Mexican American/Latinx/o civil rights community, we have fought long and hard for our right to our bilingualism, and biculturalism. From our perspective, it's less about economic gain, and more about the wealth of our identities and pushing back against the self that so many of our schools reject. It's our God-given right. 

In fact, we should be expanding this agenda to include, as well, Indigenous tongues, especially considering the more recent waves of immigration from the Americas comprised of individuals that speak their natal tongues, many of whom are trilingual but reduced to being "Mexican," "Central American," or "South American" in society with little to no sensitivity to the cultural and linguistic wealth that they bring. Incidentally, this is not just a Texas or U.S. problem, but a hemispheric and global one, as well.

While our work is far from over, the possibilities are plentiful. At least we all cohere on the idea that language and culture are what make us interesting and strong. Indeed, bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism are our superpowers!

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: US-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. NY: State University of New York Press.

Unspoken fears: S.A.’s decline in Spanish speakers stirs community concerns

The percentage of people who speak Spanish is dropping. That may have real cultural and economic impacts on the city, local leaders say.

By Liz Teitz, Ricardo Delgado, Libby Seline,Staff writersDec 28, 2023

Students at Washington Irving Dual Language Academy cheer for Principal Mayra Gutierrez-Ibarra on Dec. 14, thanking her for implementing a "pajamas day" for students. The school is part of San Antonio Independent School District, which is seeing increased demand for dual language programs that teach students core subjects like math and reading in both English and Spanish. Josie Norris, San Antonio Express-News

Like many bilingual children, Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez lived in two worlds.

At church and at home, she spoke Spanish, her Mexican mother’s native tongue. But the rest of her world in Texas demanded English.

“I knew that I needed to talk like the white kids to be respected by my white teachers,” said Reyes-Barriéntez, who grew up in Laredo. “It’s not that I didn’t want to be Mexican. I just wanted the privilege of being white, the privilege of being in the dominant group.”

But Reyes-Barriéntez always felt pride in being bilingual, saying it was second nature to her and her two siblings. Now raising two kids of her own in San Antonio, she wants them to learn both languages, too. 

“One of the priorities in raising our children has been for them to also be fully bilingual and bicultural,” she said.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey for the political science professor and her husband, who speaks some Spanish but isn’t as fluent. When she speaks to her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son in Spanish, they can understand her, but they have more trouble speaking it themselves, she said. 

“I imagined that my children would be completely fluent by now,” she said. “They’re not, which is disheartening.” 

Reyes-Barriéntez wants to make sure her children aren’t part of a trend in the San Antonio area: A dip in the percentage of residents who speak Spanish. 

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that as the San Antonio metro area grows, the percentage of residents who speak Spanish is going down.

It’s a troubling trend for many in San Antonio, a place where Spanish language and Hispanic culture run deep, tracing back to the city’s roots as part of the Spanish empire, then part of Mexico, as well as its proximity to Latin America. Community leaders and academic experts say the shift raises questions about the region’s culture and future, and also has the potential to be a drag on the region’s economy.

“Not teaching Spanish is always a loss,” said Alfredo Avalos, coordinator for community and culture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico’s San Antonio branch. “Opportunities can be lost, along with culture.”

MORE COVERAGE: Success of National Hispanic Heritage Month stirring debate

Across all age groups

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Spanish speakers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area is gradually falling, though it remains the highest among similar-sized cities.

Between 2018 and 2022, 30.8% of people in the metro area over the age of 5 spoke Spanish at home. That was down from just over 33% between 2013 and 2017. That’s according to the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau in five-year intervals. The data show the continuation of a decline that’s been observed for the past decade: in 2012, more than 35% of metro area residents spoke Spanish. 

About 13% of people in the United States speak Spanish, while about 29% of Texans speak the language, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. 

San Antonio’s 2.45 percentage point drop in the share of Spanish speakers was the largest among U.S. metro areas with 2.25 million to 2.85 million residents. The next-largest drop was Austin, which saw a 1.59 percentage point decline.

In the San Antonio area, the largest decline was among residents age 18 to 64, where the percentage of Spanish speakers fell from 35.6% in 2017 to 32.8% in 2022. Among children ages 5 to 17, the share that speaks Spanish fell from 23.3% in 2017 to 20.7% in 2022. In the 65 and older age group, the share of Spanish speakers fell by 1.2 percentage points. 

Not everyone trusts the data: Graciela Sánchez, executive director of San Antonio nonprofit Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, questions the census numbers. Spanish speakers might not have wanted to respond or identify themselves, she said, and she said she thinks the coronavirus pandemic had an effect on responses. The Hispanic or Latino population was undercounted by 4.99%, according to the Census Bureau. 

“I’ve never spoken more Spanish in the community,” Sánchez said, especially compared with 20 years ago, when it seemed like fewer people, and young people in particular, were speaking it. She said she’s also seeing more people demand access to Spanish translators in places like San Antonio City Hall and hospitals, so they can communicate in the language they’re most comfortable in, she said.

The census data show the size of the decline has varied around the region. Within San Antonio city limits, the percentage of Spanish speakers fell by about 2.2 percentage points, and in New Braunfels, it declined by about 1.4 percentage points. In some parts of the metro area, however, the percentage increased: in Schertz, for example, the percentage of the population that speaks Spanish at home increased from about 11% in 2017 to more than 17% in 2022, and in Helotes, it increased from about 10% to about 14%. 

MORE COVERAGE:  Latino Democrats shift to open opposition to Biden’s border policies

Demographic changes

Today is my birthday and I am raising money for Academia Cuauhtli (Eagle Academy)

Friends:

Today is my birthday and I am doing something special to celebrate it. I am raising money for Academia Cuauhtli ("Cuauhtli" means "eagle" in Nahuatl). 

Located in Austin, Texas, we are a partnership-based school serving mostly elementary school children attending 6 schools in the Austin Independent School District (AISD). We are partnered with AISD and the City of Austin's Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC).

Our school is located in the heart of downtown Austin off of Town Lake at the ESB-MACC. One of the unique features of this school is danza Mexica, or traditional Aztec dance that is incorporated in both regular and summer programming. Danza invokes the ancestral and sacred spirit that guides all of our work.

Academia Cuauhtli Summer Camp students on their graduation day. Summer, 2023.

Now in our 10th year, we seek your support for our growing organization which consists of several components including a Summer school coding camp (Aztech Kidz Code), a learning collaborative (La Colaborativa Cuauhtli), and our community-based organization, Nuestro Grupo that meets regularly to plan the activities of our growing organization that gives us the honor and privilege of touching so many students' and families' lives in Austin, Texas.

We're planning a major anniversary celebration in March, 2024, and your contribution will help us to make it a success. 

No amount is too small.

Thanks to Dr. María Del Carmen Unda for organizing this! A special thanks, as well, to Texas State University Professor Dr. Chris Milk who oversees the writing of the fall curriculum and who is a regular presence on Saturdays. Abundant thanks, to our director, Katya Guzman, our maestras and maestros, and to our many volunteers without which this work would be impossible. 

This is a labor of love. 💗



During the fall, we made crafts together. It always so much fun for me to learn with them!

Friends:

I can't read enough stories like these that are so heart-warming. These young people are getting lessons of a lifetime that will carry them through the rest of their lives in a positive way. This is what actual school should already be, but the good stuff—like what we do at Academia Cuauhtli here in Austin, Texas—can only really happen outside of school in after-school, or extended day programs. Some teachers and schools notwithstanding, the general absence of such opportunities for our youth to really sink their teeth into engaging readings that mirror their experiences were already precious few even before the so-called "culture wars" took hold.

There's always a lot of silly hand-wringing about literacy and the ostensible difficulties of getting "these children" to read yet there is really no mystery here. Reading empowering texts—in this case, on the Black experience, make children feel empowered and as suggested herein, "tricks" youth into becoming high achieving. Knowing this is what has motivated many a literacy expert and those of us in the Ethnic Studies movement to set up after-school programs if possibilities within the school are few or limited. At their best, these are grassroots efforts started in living rooms, cultural centers, or other community spaces accessible to parents and youth.

Hats off to Georgetown University professor Sabrina Nero and University of Buffalo LaGarrett King for their contributions to this life-saving curriculum. We should talk someday soon as Academia Cuauhtli is also akin to a Freedom School that we know is making a big difference in the lives of our children, their families, and the teachers themselves. Check out our brand new Academia Cuauhtli Youtube channel, a work in progress, so that you can view our Aztech Kidz Code graduation ceremony from last Saturday. It's a Summer coding camp in Spanish with low-income youth in Austin, Texas, where they learn how to write code, create games, monetize their games combined with danza Mexica (Aztec) ceremony. It's cool to learn how youth evolve and develop in just three weeks of camp and how so much of this hinges on their relationships to the staff and teachers the run the program.

To deny this in the public school arena, as the current culture war agenda seeks to do, is to cut off the oxygen to youth and excellent teaching like this that the right decries, not because it's "woke," but because they do not want to empower our children or communities. After all, empowered youth and communities have a voice and they vote, too.

You can't take the politics out of education. Politics are simply about power. However, there is a difference between having power over, instead of having power with, the latter of which should be our guiding principle in a democracy. What we can and should do as communities is to create after-school or extended day programs like these where our youth can still acquire the rich texts and  precious knowledge that they have long been denied. 

We need these escuelitas everywhere!

-Angela Valenzuela

 

This After-School Program Is Improving Students’ Reading, One Black History Book at a Time

—Education Week
By Kaylee Domzalski & Lauren Santucci — July 14, 2023

As states across the country consider and pass laws that limit instruction on race and gender, it’s become increasingly challenging for educators to know how to teach topics like racism, sexism, and systemic inequality. In Waterloo, Iowa, a daily after-school program seeks to improve the literacy rates of the Waterloo Community School District’s Black and low-income students one history lesson at a time.

Waterloo, located two hours northeast of Des Moines, has some of the starkest differences in student achievement in the state. According to data from the Iowa State Board of Education, the Waterloo district has a large achievement gap between its Black and white students, as well as a long history of segregation that persists today. In 2020, the financial news site 24/7 Wall Street named Waterloo the fifth worst city for Black Americans. Black students make up 26 percent of the district’s students and, according to data from ProPublica, are on average 2.2 grades behind their white peers.

The 1619 Freedom School was borne out of the pandemic. Co-founders Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project, a New York Times endeavor focused on slavery and its connections with U.S. history, and Sheritta Stokes, a 5th grade teacher in the district, saw that students were struggling to read during their Zoom classes when schools went virtual in 2020. They launched the program in the fall of 2021 and recently completed their second year.

The 1619 Freedom School is independently funded, and the 1619 Project isn’t part of the program’s curriculum. The curriculum was developed by Sabrina Nero, an associate teaching professor at Georgetown University, and LaGarrett King, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo.

The program is entirely tuition-free and provides students with 30 books to take home to encourage them to read on their own. The curriculum is centered around Black history and is meant to help students see themselves in the lessons and therefore spark their interest and desire to read. In one unit, students read about notable Black children in history, such as Audrey Faye Hendricks, who at 9 years old was the youngest person to be arrested during the civil rights movement. Studies have shown when students are reflected in their lessons it improves their engagement and academic outcomes. It’s a concept reflected in culturally responsive teaching practices and emphasized throughout the 1619 Freedom School curriculum.

“We teach about the positive aspects and contributions of African Americans and we do that because if you’re working with kids and they’re reading about people who look like them, who have done spectacular things in the world, it’s a self-motivation,” Stokes said.

“Maybe I can do that. Maybe even though I’m struggling with reading, I just want to learn about this person, so I’m going to read this book… And before I know it my test scores and my reading scores are higher than they were and I didn’t even notice that it happened.”

The literacy program has had early success with its students. In its first year, the program went from three of its students reading at grade level to 11, Stokes said. And Stokes hopes that the program will continue to grow and help Waterloo students. This fall, it’ll partner with the Waterloo Community School District for help identifying students who would benefit from the Freedom School program. Stokes said the district will also provide the program with test scores and other student data to help those students grow.

“We’re making sure that the generations of children coming from Waterloo schools … have an opportunity to come after school to get their test scores up so they can go out in the world and be successful,” Stokes said. “You couldn’t ask for anything better as a teacher.”

Kaylee Domzalski
Video Producer, Education Week
Kaylee Domzalski is a video producer for Education Week, telling meaningful stories that impact the field.
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Lauren Santucci
Video Producer
As a video producer, Lauren Santucci produces, films, and edits meaningful, human-interest digital video and works closely with Education Week editors and reporters. Prior to joining Education Week in 2022, she produced videos for Al Jazeera, FRONTLINE PBS, and The Texas Tribune. She has a master’s degree in visual journalism from Ohio University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.