Teaching, curriculum and blackness: (re)existing paths of affection and dissent in literacy practice

Abstract

The curriculum, understood as a territory and locus of power disputes, is configured as a colonized and colonizing instance by highlighting and legitimizing knowledge and practices rooted in oppressive hegemonic patterns based on white-centric foundations. Seeking to (re)construct another logic in the face of this scenario, the school, by opting for paths of resistance, configures itself as a space for recognizing and valuing diversity through dissident pedagogical, ethical and political interpellations. Through (self)narrative letters, this article presents reflections on Afrocentric curricular practices in the early years of elementary school. The experience of black teachers at a federal basic education school has shown, through actions linked to the Africas and Me teaching and research project, the opening of curricular gaps for the valorization and emancipation of blackness, breaking with the logic of the objectification (Césaire, 2020) of African and Afro-Brazilian bodies and knowledge. We conclude that highlighting black protagonism and power in reading, writing and orality practices with children in the literacy process is an act of (re)existing in the face of dehumanizing power structures and patterns. Thus, paths are opened for other voices to echo and constitute narratives of emancipation of the different ways of existing in the world, with humanization as the primary matrix, based on an Afrocentric and affectionate curriculum.