Humanizing Collectivist Critical Pedagogy: Teaching the Humanities in Community College and Beyond

This book provides concrete examples of humanizing collectivist critical pedagogy, which creates a learning space with students, values their mutual-agency, and invites them to play a leading role in remaking higher education. It redefines student success to include an understanding of positionality, macro social structures, and agency. Each class activity shared in this book is grounded in deep interdisciplinary theory and has been tested in community college—some of the most diverse humanities classrooms in the U.S. The contributing authors present their teaching praxis with examples of program administration, extracurricular programs, and pedagogical professional development that further extend their pedagogy beyond the classroom. We hope to help administrators, staff, faculty, and students of all levels in higher education take what the authors have learnt, build upon it, and adapt pieces of it to fi t their institutional environment and structures. Given the manner in which the debilitating structures of schooling continue to reinforce the dehumanization and alienation of students worldwide, Humanizing, Community-Based, Critical Pedagogy offers educators powerful insights into how they can enact a praxis of empowerment and transformation. The volume is truly an outstanding addition to the critical pedagogy literature. —Antonia Darder, Professor Emerita of Ethics and Moral Leadership, Loyola Marymount University This invaluable book offers a range of essays in support of an engaged pedagogy designed to help students, and especially students of color, have the tools they need for agency, critical thinking, and empowerment in a world where those are necessary life skills. The combination of theory and practical advice will be invaluable to any instructor and especially those in community colleges. —Cathy N. Davidson, Author of The New Education and, with Christina Katopodis, The New College Classroom