When dreams take flight: How teachers imagine and implement an environment that nurtures Blackness at an Africentric school in Toronto, Ontario

Abstract

State schooling in North America has drastically under-served Black communities, and much educational research has explored visions of schooling that might provide a more relevant and socially just educational experience for Black students. Toronto’s Africentric Alternative School is the product of just such a vision. This article explores the aspirations, experiences, and practices of the first cohort of teachers at the Africentric Alternative School as they exercise agency to implement this vision. Findings demonstrate several key features of the teachers’ work, which they offer as their understanding of Africentric pedagogy: (1) they cooperate with each other, parents, and community to establish a familial environment for all school stakeholders; (2) they endeavour to establish classrooms that affirm students’ lived and political Blackness, that value the diverse ways in which Blackness is lived, and that help students to challenge oppressive practices among themselves; and (3) they persevere through sometimes challenging conditions created by historical and ongoing educational injustice, endeavouring to preserve the dignity of all members of the school community. Teachers, students, and parents consistently contrast these conditions to those they find in other school settings, which therefore positions these teachers’ pedagogies as a response to antiblackness embedded in public schools in Toronto.