THENCE Editorial Team
In her recent post on THENCE.us, contributor Ashley Causey-Golden, not only introduced us to Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Book “Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy“, she also mentions and highlight themes from Dr. Muhammad’s follow on book “Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum and Instruction” which picks up and delves into how to foster joy within and among the students in our classrooms.
Dr. Muhammad adopted the starting point that all children are geniuses, an approach and philosophy put forward by Dr. Asar Hilliard, III a scholar of developmental psychology, education and history. He famously stated:
“I have never met a Black child who isn’t a genius.”
“I have never encountered any children in any group who are not geniuses.”
“There is no mystery on how to teach them. The first thing you do is treat them like human beings and the second thing you do is love them.”1
Ashley is a practitioner of pedagogies that align with Dr. Gholdy, and many other subject matter experts, but she also incorporates ideas from Montessori into her practice and thus came to establish Afrocentric Montessori, a partner company collaborating with THENCE to design print-outs and other classroom guides. In addition to working for more than a decade in the public school system in Atlanta, Georgia, Ashley has also co-founded her own forest school, and an after-school program.
So what does applying the ideas from cultivating genius mean to Ashley? Here she shares how she applies some of the above ideas and pedagogies to her own thinking and classroom practice. Enjoy this excerpt, and add your thoughts. Join our conversation in the discussion section below!
