by Adele Leon
The challenges facing K-16 teachers across the United States regarding their agency and classroom autonomy have become complicated and tediously interwoven into state politics about identity and culture. In the current climate of Florida, teachers’ opportunity for and access to professional development in literacy learning and critical pedagogies is being removed from public schools, and the National Writing Project offers the structure and framework needed to provide these teachers with a dedicated environment to come together to learn from each other, find news ways of educating their students, and build a trusted community of like minded educators whose passions and experiences are under threat.
Nationwide, there was a loss of teachers due to the pandemic; however, specific to Florida, more teachers have been leaving the state due to the contentious nature of the political climate: “The Florida Education Association, which counts teacher vacancies posted on Florida school district websites, said the January 2023 vacancies — a total of 5,294 — represented a steep rise from five years ago when 1,492 openings were counted.” We know that when teachers are affected, students are, too. The same investigation found that “more than 100,000 students are now missing out on a full-time teacher, as classes are filled by substitutes, covered by other instructional staff or shared by remaining teachers” (Postal).
The current situation in Florida schools is partially a result of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, proposed and passed by Ron DeSantis in 2021, which “specifically bans critical race theory, and the New York Times’ 1619 Project, a collection of essays and literary works that aims to reframe Black Americans’ history and highlight their contributions to society.” This attack on literacy also led to the College Board’s decision to ban AP African American Studies from high schools, and “Gov. Ron DeSantis has also signed other bills, mandating librarians keep critical race theory out of instructional materials used in schools” (Pendharkar). Because of the “intentional vagueness” (qtd. in Sarasota Magazine) and all-inclusiveness of this law, teaching and discussing nearly all of American history and thus our literacies put teachers and students at risk of losing opportunities for learning.
Alongside these challenges, the state of Florida is lacking in available opportunities to support K-12 teachers in pedagogical training, leadership growth, and professional development (Florida Education Association). I founded the SoFlo Writing Project to respond to these issues through a curriculum that focuses on socially-just teaching practices, culturally relevant learning, and the politics of literacy and language instruction.
On three afternoons, SFWP staff and participants will take field trips from the site location to local area museums to engage in place-based writing and learning (Ellsworth):
These off-campus learning experiences directly relate to the importance of localized pedagogy and place-based writing that influence teachers’ understanding of their student populations and of their own understanding of how individuals are influenced by environments outside of school (Ellsworth). Additionally, with these three locations, participants will bring together the historical elements of South Florida education with their current student populations and their knowledges. Together, these experiences will promote the culturally-relevant and socially-just space that the SoFlo Writing Project site intends to embody – a site of resistance.
It is my hope that our first summer institute will establish a space where teachers can expect to be equipped with the pedagogical, theoretical, and research skills they want and need to not only teach topics from a critical perspective, but also to do so strategically and in ways that bolster classroom learning. Further, because my home institution, Nova Southeastern University, is a private non-profit university, we do not have the same constraints surrounding Florida public school systems and their teachers regarding critical race theory and critical approaches to teaching. SFWP participants will have the opportunity to benefit from open discussions about and curriculum development toward integrating critical approaches to teaching, writing, and researching.
Adele is founding director of the SoFlo Writing Project and an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts at Nova Southeastern University. Her background is in community writing, critical feminist pedagogies, and anti-racist programmatic restructuring.
Writers Who Care 