Freedom Schools Then and Now: A Transformative Approach to Learning

Freedom Schools Then and Now: A Transformative Approach to Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical and conceptual link between Ella Baker's Freedom School model and Paulo Freire's demand for critical education and emancipatory learning. Ella Baker, situated in the daunting environment of the Civil Rights Movement, saw education as a tool for social mobility for Mississippi residents in nineteen sixty-four. Paulo Freire, likewise, demanded that educational changes be made for the social plight of Brazilian citizens. This need for liberating education spanned across decades and is still needed today. Under the leadership of the Children's Defense Fund, Freedom Schools still exist today as summer literacy programs for youth. This paper will provide a historical overview of the original nineteen sixty-four Freedom Schools program and a programmatic snapshot of the current Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools program. In addition, this paper will explore the academic and social benefits that Freedom Schools offers, while outlining the imperativeness of the program's social action component for students.

Introduction

A historical overview of African American education is critically important due to many misconceived notions about Black students, Black achievement, and Black aptitude. Misconceptions about the achievement gap and IQ testing have been eradicated through contemporary studies, but the damages have nevertheless branded African American students with substandard academic abilities. Because of the many qualms and misguided aims of past research, the legacy and heritage of African people have been tarnished and heavily marginalized in school curriculums. In most districts today, the many Black students learn about their ancestral culture is a diluted, piece-milled supplement with few key people and facts. For example, the iconic conglomerate of: Martin Luther King, Junior, Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman, presumably seems to be the only triad palatable enough for public school curriculums.

Freedom Schools, through their original development in the nineteen sixty-four Freedom Summer, attempted to provide critical pedagogy to participating students. Although the Freedom Summer was situated in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a tumultuous time for racial equality in the United States, the same need for transformative curriculum continues today.

Carter G. Woodson's work, The Miseducation of the Negro, calls attention to the ignored disconnect between school and education. Here, Woodson dispels that often what students learn is not necessarily an education - and in fact is a miseducation - due to curriculum's lackadaisical content which has lulled students into a sense of false consciousness. Transformative education seeks to liberate and reverse this miseducation, by realigning curriculum and pedagogy with truth. In this context, truth addresses the historical realignment of curriculums to be anti-hegemonic and critical. In addition, it also demands for the praxis and change of its students and the existing society. Transformative education takes a broader and more holistic approach, which benefits all students who have been miseducated by current school models. Whereas traditional multicultural education seeks to incorporate various cultures into the curriculum through additive approaches, transformative education uses social, political, and historical issues to facilitate critical thinking and analysis about education's role in social mobility.

From the dawn of its inception in nineteen sixty-four to the contemporary program today, Freedom Schools have provided this described "transformative education" to students for decades. Today, the Freedom Schools program is sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund, which is a nonprofit dedicated to equalizing educational opportunities for all.

Under this program, Freedom Schools serves eighty thousand students in twenty-nine states. As a summer reading enrichment program, today's Freedom Schools program provides alternatives to traditional schooling for youth.

The need for a transformative curriculum is increasingly important for twenty-first century Black students in the United States. Whereas the steps to educational freedom have been documented in landmark judicial cases, such as: Brown versus Board of Education, widespread psychological and educational emancipation has not yet occurred for many African American students. This argument is manifested in the overarching disparities within local urban school districts, many of which underserve Black and Latino students with inadequate resources, unqualified teachers, and a lack of course offerings. Here, in spite of the Brown versus Board of Education decision, many African American students attend schools that are both separate and unequal.

Amidst these inadequacies in building infrastructure and teacher training, there is an additional component that often goes ignored but is equally as damaging - curriculum. Current curriculum models stem from recent legislatures such as: No Child Left Behind and Common Core State Standards, which are known for high-stakes testing and assessments. Here, rote knowledge, repetition, and memorization have replaced the value of critical thinking. The research surrounding high-stakes assessments has shown that students are not necessarily mastering content, nor are they producing higher test scores. In fact, the repetitive and frequent testing environments are creating the opposite - student apathy. Further, researchers have even concluded that high-stakes assessments are both physically and mentally "oppressive" for students, due to the limited curriculum flexibility teachers have when teaching to the test. Under these conditions, students are being disenfranchised and created into low-skilled laborers, not citizens who are participatory in their own liberation and education.

Another area of concern within curriculum is content. Researchers, such as Geneva Gay and Gloria Ladson-Billings, assert the need for culturally responsive teaching, which encourages teachers to design lessons that are relatable and relevant to students.

Multicultural educators demand the implementation diversity within the curriculum, and suggest supplementary, additive models to incorporate students' culture to the classroom. Still, there is a gap in literature that connects the necessity of these curriculum components to the urgency of today's dismal state of education. Moreover, there is an even wider gap of literature documenting the historical road to educational freedom, which is purposeful in improving current status of Black education today. These historical examples can provide a useful framework towards future trajectories of education.

This paper will document the historical journey Freedom Schools have taken from Ella Baker's organization during the Civil Rights Movement, to today's Marian Wright Edelman's leadership today. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of Freedom School's curriculum and pedagogy as a method of transformative education for students today. Whereas schooling within a traditional framework generally uses hegemonic learning practices, and reinforces a grand narrative that distills critical components of curriculum, this paper will aim to answer: How can today's Freedom School summer enrichment program be a beneficial model for implementing transformative education in traditional schools today? The remainder of this paper will provide a literature review, explanation of transformative curriculum, data, and discussion. Examining Freedom Schools' historic journey unveils a consistent mission dedicated to emancipatory curriculum, which is critically important for students today.