Angela Jones, Black Future Co-op Fund
Dr. Cynthia Dillard is a scholar and leader in education, with a focus on critical and creative pedagogies and liberatory leadership used by Black women teachers
On behalf of the Seattle Medium, Angela Jones, J.D., co-architect of the Black Future Co-op Fund and director of the Washington State Initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, interviewed Dr. Dillard about education, teaching, and creating spaces for joy and genius to arise for Black children.
Jones: What made you choose education as your life’s work?
Dr. Cynthia Dillard: Not sure that I chose education; it feels more like education chose me. I started out as a communications major at the University of Washington! But every time I had a chance to work with young people, and we would figure something out or learn something new together, I always felt so happy, content even. Eventually, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I kept coming back teaching. I have taught all over the world and, over four decades later, I still feel that joy as a dean of the College of Education at Seattle University. As one of our faculty said the other day: “You may be our dean, but you are always teaching!”
Jones: Who are the women that have had the most impact in your life?
Dr. Dillard: There are so many. All of the sisters and brothers on those transatlantic slave ships and on plantations in the U.S. who chose to survive. Mrs. Jones, the one and only Black teacher I had in my life as a student at Coleman Elementary here in Seattle. My mother, who raised me, and my siblings, loved us fiercely and taught us lessons I still use today. All of the intellectual and activist women like bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Sweet Honey in the Rock who set the foundation for the endarkened feminist/womanist I am today. And all the Black women that I have had the blessing to teach all over the world: They were and still are my teachers, too.
Jones: You’ve written several books and I would love to chat about your newest book, The Spirit of Our Work: Black Women Teachers (Re)member. In the first chapter, you referenced the “invisible labor and burden that Black women teachers bear every day.” Can you unpack what you mean by the invisible labor?
Dr. Dillard: That would take ages to unpack, Sis! I speak of the labor of living and working within the intersections and structures of racism and sexism and all the other identities we carry heavily in the U.S. and around the world. As an everyday part of our lives, we are asked to carry expectations and burdens that are not ours to carry, as they are a part of a worldwide system designed for us to be burdened, to not have the space and time to move forward because white supremacy and patriarchy want to live. These are not our burdens to bear and Black women are sitting them down!
Tricia Hersey’s book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto speaks to how powerful it is to make the choice not to use our labor in this way but to take care of our bodies, minds and spirits, to move toward liberation from these structures and ways of being to those that give us life as Black people! This (re)membering stance is especially true for our teachers because their work is to share that life with our young people and they cannot do so with the kind of exhaustion that invisible labor requires.
Jones: You and your husband established a school in Ghana about 20 years ago. Why did you all choose to do so?
Dr. Dillard: We chose to build the school for two reasons. The first is that there was literally no school for children K12 in the community where our school is now. No school whatsoever. And as an educator who believes that access to formal education is a basic human right no matter where you are born on the globe, this was something I could not live with. So we started to build one, classroom by classroom.
Today, we have about 150 children from grades pre-K through junior high school. And my students and colleagues from the U.S. have benefitted, too, in that we connected our school in Ghana with various teacher education programs where I have taught. In this way, our U.S. teachers have the opportunity to bear witness to the kind of education that is full of genius and joy and creativity for Black students at all grades. This full circle work is something we are very proud of. We have also learned tremendously lessons of our own African heritage through this labor of love.
Jones: I had a chance to visit your school in Ghana in 2022. What really struck me was that there was so much Black joy present. How do we ensure our Black students in this country get to experience joy in their education?
Dr. Dillard: We have got to begin with three of the most important places in a child’s life: Their home, community, and school contexts. Part of what allows that joy to bubble up and out is that children in Ghana are deeply rooted in both of these things. Everything they see, do, and are allowed to be at school emerges from home and community. Then we have to know and love Black brilliance and creativity. So many who teach our children today do not know them or believe in their creative genius. And that is where joy comes from!
To create the space for joy and genius to arise for Black children in U.S. schools, we have to ask a different set of questions: Do I love Black children? Do I see it as my responsibility to create a space worthy of their creativity and brilliance and ignite my own as well? Am I willing to (re)member what I have learned to forget about Black people all the way back to the continent of Africa in schools like the one you visited, Angela. These are places where parents and community are a crucial part of the development of their children’s education. Where economic and professional development are a part of the school’s work with parents and elders. Where Black art and creativity are central to the curriculum and teaching because it is central to Black culture and knowing. I have seen schools where this type of rigorous Black joy is invited and it is cherished. But those schools are too few here in the U.S.
