Cherrel Miller Dyce, associate professor of education and executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education, Ms. Marlene Harrison-Reid, a teacher with Guilford County Schools, and Deanna Townsend-Smith, senior director at the Dudley Flood Center, facilitated this summer experience for participating teachers.
Sparked by a session at the Color of Education Summit, the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity in partnership with Elon University’s Black Lumen Project offered a summer series to provide a critical dialogic space for classroom teachers to examine their pedagogy, positionality, and potential to increase student social and academic success through an examination of the writings of James Baldwin, including “The Fire Next Time”.
The Educator Summer Collaborative is a part of the Flood Center’s Equity Incubator Program to address recruitment and retention efforts in North Carolina. This Educator Summer Collaborative supports educators in the pedagogical struggles of teaching and engaging race in the classroom and to build educators capacity to make sound and culturally relevant instructional decisions.
Cherrel Miller Dyce, associate professor of education and executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education, Ms. Marlene Harrison-Reid, a teacher with Guilford County Schools, and Deanna Townsend-Smith, senior director at the Dudley Flood Center, facilitated this summer experience for participating teachers.
Participants in Educator Summer Collaborative engaged in reading and discussing the text during the summer which concluded with a day-long learning experience hosted at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Dudley Flood delivered an inspirational message to the teachers detailing their responsibilities to nurture the individual “brilliance and potential” of every child.
“The Educator Summer Collaborative created a dynamic engaged learning opportunity for our K-12 educators to explore how to integrate the writings and teachings of James Baldwin, a prolific scholar that centers the Black American experiences throughout his work. The summer collaborative provided an additional pathway to foster connections between our K-12 educators and Elon, while concurrently contributing to our ongoing efforts that support inclusive pedagogical design,” stated Buffie Longmire-Avital, director of the Black Lumen Project.
The Summer Collaborative will continue in 2024 based on the success and responses from our pilot cohort. Among the feedback from participants:
“I loved having a space for conversation and dialogue to pick out important parts from the book. Every activity was modeled well”
“I’d love to do another of the studies with the books and then pull together to create a session for Color of Learning based on our work and time together. Paying it forward, sort of.”
“I would absolutely LOVE to continue my work with this summer collaborative and anything the Flood Center would have me help with.”
“The collaborative has so much potential and has such a big impact, bringing different educators together”
The Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity (Flood Center) serves as a hub to identify and connect organizations, networks, and leaders to address issues of equity, access, and opportunity in education across North Carolina.