The content is organized topically around three key themes: (1) Understanding Cultural, Educational, and Personal Trajectories, (2) Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students Using Humanizing and Critical Pedagogy, and (3) Teaching Critical Consciousness to Students with Higher SES. Each theme is allocated one week, consisting of four 2-hour sessions, totaling 8 hours per theme and 24 hours overall. The course content includes discussions on the role of schooling in modern society, particularly in capitalist contexts, and introduces key theoretical frameworks such as cultural and social capitals, Funds of Knowledge, and Community Cultural Wealth. The content also emphasizes cultural philosophies like Ubuntu and critical consciousness, aiming to illuminate how educational trajectories intersect with systemic inequities and how asset-based approaches can facilitate transformative learning in multilingual and multicultural settings.
Flexibility and Adaptability
In addition to the pre-organized sequence, the curriculum is designed to be adaptive. We acknowledge that teachers’ interests and contextual needs may shift, so facilitators are encouraged to adjust pacing and incorporate additional resources as relevant. Each week concludes with a one-hour reflection session where teachers review key concepts, discuss applications in their contexts, and identify areas for deeper exploration in the following week. Core concepts, such as critical pedagogy, Ubuntu, and Funds of Knowledge, are introduced in the first week and woven throughout the program. For instance, the community mapping exercise from Week 1 serves as a foundation for community-based projects in Week 2 and critical inquiry projects in Week 3, ensuring thematic continuity while allowing for evolving complexity in content and skill development.
Role of Teacher and Student
Teachers are positioned as facilitators and co-learners, drawing on their experiences and those of their students (in this case, in-service teachers) to co-construct knowledge. The role of the student is reframed from passive recipient to active contributor, whose cultural and linguistic assets are integral to the learning process. Instructional strategies emphasize mutual learning, critical dialogue, and reflective practice, reinforcing the Ubuntu principle that 'I am because we are.' The learning environment is structured to foster dialogue, reflection, and peer collaboration. Classrooms are arranged to facilitate face-to-face interactions, supporting peer-coaching and storytelling workshops. Activities are designed to be culturally responsive and contextually relevant, allowing teachers to connect course content to their specific educational settings and student populations. We believe our pedagogical styles will have a profound influence on teachers’ practices with their students, given that teachers teach how they are taught, sometimes more than what they are taught.