Utilizing African Oral Traditional Storytelling to Counter Racist Pedagogy

Abstract

This article shares powerful narratives of the lived experiences of an African (Shona) immigrant family as they navigate racialized experiences of their children in the U.S. educational system in the Midwest. These empowering counter narratives were constructed through the African Oral traditional storytelling Framework (AOTS Framework) that centers the African oral traditional storytelling and cultural worldviews of the collaborators (i.e., the Shona family). Shedding light on the insidiousness of colonialism in schools, these narratives expose the need to go beyond the classrooms to make such mundane situations into objects of focus in the curriculum to take advantage of such pedagogical moments in order to create what I am terming a Curriculum of de-micro-colonization.