The Power of Dignity in Education with Charles Payne | The LP: EP 9
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Does your image and definition of dignity align with our educational reality? This question lets us explore equity and examine the opportunities and obstacles that exist in schools, and how we can contribute to them. Research activist Charles Payne has spent decades citing dignity and indicting indignity in education, highlighting both so the people and the profession can make righteous choices about the ways we teach our kids. Join us as we discuss Dr. Payne’s co-edited and authored book Dignity Affirming Education: Cultivating the Somebodiness of Students and Educators. Together, we explore the impact of dignity-affirming programs and individuals, past and present, and their potential to shape the future of education.
Key Takeaways
- Whole child education is a powerful concept, one that if destined to be a buzzword, let it be one where those who happen to do the buzzing, work together to develop the sweet honey of freedom, pollinate equitable practices, and sting oppression.
- One of the root meanings of the word dignity is holding an “honorable estate or office.” What does our instruction say about the estate of our students? Do we say that it is an honorable one? If not, why not? We must work to avoid undignified or “unhonourable” approaches to instruction from the estate or office from which we deliver it.
- The conversation about the International Baccalaureate made me realize that one of the greatest struggles in American education is expanding, duplicating, and improving programs that work. Finding and eliminating the roots of this challenge will permit the growth of grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful instruction to take place regardless of student zip code or identity. With scholar-activists like Charles Payne showing us models in the past and present, this opportunity continues to exist.
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Charles Payne
Director of the Cornwall Center, Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University–Newark, and co-editor of Dignity-Affirming Education: Cultivating the Somebodiness of Students and EducatorsDr. Charles M. Payne directs the Cornwall Center and is the Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies. His interests include urban education and school reform, social inequality, social change and modern African American history. His books include So Much Reform, So Little Change, (Harvard Education Publishing Group, 2008) which examines the persistence of failure in urban schools, and a co-edited anthology, Teach Freedom: The African American Tradition of Education for Liberation (Teachers College Press, 2008), which is concerned with education as a tool for liberation from Reconstruction through Black Panther Liberation Schools. He is also the author of Getting What We Ask For: The Ambiguity of Success and Failure in Urban Education (Greenwood, 1984) and I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (University of California, 1995). The latter has won awards from the Southern Regional Council, Choice Magazine, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
He is co-author of Debating the Civil Rights Movement (Rowan and Littlefield, 1999) and co-editor of Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850 -1950 (NYU, 2003). His most recent book is a co-edited anthology, Dignity-Affirming Education: Cultivating the Somebodiness of Students and Educators (Teachers College Press, 2022). He has been named to Edu-Scholars’ list of scholars “contributing most substantially to public debates about education” every year from 2015- 2020.
In 2022-23, he expects to complete a collection of essays, When the World Comes For Your Children: Defending Black Children in the Age of Trumpism. His next book project, Schooling the Ghetto: Fifty Years of “Reforming” Urban Schools is a continuation of the discussion from So Much Reform, an attempt to synthesize what we should have learned about improving the schooling and life outcomes of children from disenfranchised communities. He is also working on an exploration of how schooling for minorities in France, the United Kingdom, and Hungary compares to the United States.
Payne is one of the leaders of the Freedom School Project which advocates the creation of educational spaces, which are affirmative, dignity-centered, agency-building. He was among the founders of the Education for Liberation Network. He co-directed the Carter G. Woodson Institute, which involved University of Chicago faculty in the professional development of Chicago Public School teachers.
He has won a number of teaching awards, including being named to the Bass Society of Fellows for Excellence in Teaching and Research at Duke University and holding the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern. In 2021, the University of Chicago Committee on Education established the Charles M. Payne B.A. Thesis Prize for the best undergraduate thesis submitted by students enrolled in the Education and Society program. He chaired the African American Studies departments at Northwestern and Duke. He served briefly as Chief Education Officer at Chicago Public Schools.
Payne grew up in South Jersey, graduating from Millville High school. He is inordinately proud of the fact that he earned one of the country’s first bachelor’s degrees in African American Studies, from Syracuse University in 1970. His doctorate in sociology is from Northwestern.
About Charles Payne
Dr. Charles M. Payne is a distinguished professor of Africana Studies and the director of the Cornwall Center. His expertise includes urban education, school reform, social inequality, and modern African American history. He has authored several books on topics such as the persistence of failure in urban schools and the organizing tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Payne is a respected scholar, featured on the Edu-Scholars' list of top education contributors. He is actively involved in initiatives promoting affirmative, dignity-centered education. With numerous teaching awards and prestigious positions at universities, Dr. Payne is recognized for his contributions to academia. He holds a bachelor's degree in African American Studies from Syracuse University and a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University.
About The LP: Literature in Practice
UnboundEd's goal is to instill the GLEAM™ (Grade-Level, Engaging, Affirming, and Meaningful) instructional framework into classrooms across the nation with professional development, curated programs, and now with a brand new podcast series, The LP: Literature in Practice. Host Brandon White interviews the authors of today’s thought-provoking educational literature and connects the text to GLEAM.
About Brandon White
Brandon White is a former middle school ELA teacher and Restorative Practices educator for the Rochester City School District. He has worked for seven years as a servant leader intern and site coordinator for Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Summer Literacy Programs in Rochester. He has also advocated for these practices through his participation in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Teacher Advisory Council and through providing professional development at BMGF-sponsored Elevate and Celebrate Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2) Conferences.
Episode Extras
Resources:
- Book: Teach Freedom: Education for Liberation in the African-American Tradition edited by Charles M. Payne, Carol Sills Strickland, William Ayers, Therese Quinn (Editors)
- Video: 50 Years On, Freedom Schools Still Teaching Most Vulnerable by PBS NewsHour
- Report: Transcending borders: The International Baccalaureate’s systemic approach to educating the whole person by Whitney Hegseth and the Brooking Institute
- Documentary: Citizenship Schools: They Say I’m Your Teacher by The Zinn Education Project and The Literacy Project