Professional Book Recommendation

“Our students … envision and create the worlds they deserve. May we work beside them, together. Don’t let them down.” (Parker, 2022: p. 150)

Literacy is liberation: Working toward justice through culturally relevant teaching by Dr Kimberly N. Parker is a timely work of genius. The text is contextualized in the time of its writing during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. What many of us already knew about our nation’s failure to adequately, in the words of Gholdy Muhammad (2020), cultivate the genius of Black children, was made plain to society-at-large as brick and mortar schools shut down and systemic failures and inequities became more visible. At the same time, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Toni McDade and a number of other Black folx galvanized people of myriad races and ethnicities to protest. Parker begins the book wondering, “What next?” How can educators teach through this moment and the harrowingly oppressive and anti-Black moments to come? She then posits that culturally relevant teaching is the answer.

By relaying her personal experiences with assimilation and decolonization, Parker models the necessity of beginning with ourselves as we undertake the work of culturally relevant teaching and the vulnerability it requires. She challenges readers, inviting them to reflect on their biases and the role white supremacy culture plays in their lives. This reflection leads Parker to five beliefs that are the foundation of Literacy is liberation:

Humanity is not up for debate.

Literacy is liberation draws significantly on the scholarship of Black academics, especially Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay, as she provides readers with a deep dive into the theoretical underpinnings of culturally relevant and responsive pedagogies. This guides readers through the remainder of the book as Parker describes how educators can build Culturally Relevant Intentional Literacy Communities (CRILCs) that invite children to experience the tenets of culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy – academic success, cultural competence, sociopolitical/critical consciousness - making learning accessible using cultural frames of reference.

In defining CRILCs, Parker describes related instruction as: “being asset-based, encouraging and nurturing vulnerability, and being driven by collectivism and sociopolitical change” (p. 63). Furthermore, she lays out how educators can embody these values in their everyday actions by eliminating traditional barriers to literacy, addressing and healing reading trauma and curriculum violence, explicitly teaching how to achieve high levels of literacy, and deliberately releasing power and responsibility for collective and individual literacy growth to the children.

Those of us who work with young children are well aware of the importance of child-centered pedagogy. However, in order to center children, we must first invite them to co-create classroom communities in which they can interact and engage as the most authentic version of themselves. However, for Black children, schools are often places where they must shed their identities and endure affronts to them in order to pursue academic achievement. Their schooling experiences are so disconnected from the lives they lead in their communities, it is as if they are living two separate lives. This need for a double consciousness weaves the tangled web of a colonized identity Black children will spend their entire lives untangling. Surrendering identity is too high a price for Black children to pay for an education.

Literacy is liberation should be required reading for early childhood educators who are dedicated to teaching Black children, but searching for how to value the languages, cultures, and rich literate histories Black children bring to school and who want to provide contexts wherein children perceive themselves as intellectuals who value literacy as a liberating force. From engaging educators in self-reflection and deep learning about culturally relevant pedagogy to focusing on the practical aspects of building CRILCs, Parker guides readers to do just that.