This chapter is a personal narrative that shares my lived experiences of “othermothering” and “sistering” as a teacher in a high school in Florida. As a Black female educator, I taught for 12 years at a school where students hailed from low-income homes where parents lacked the tools to educationally support their children and where Black teachers were few. In this chapter, I recall these experiences and how through my pedagogy and practice, I showed love to my students who were mostly immigrant, financially poor and Latin American and where I received support from my “sisters” who were colleagues. While the term “othermothering” is relatively new, the action of othermothering has been practiced by African women for centuries. The term refers to a form of love that Black women show to children who are not biologically theirs. This love extends to the classroom and can be observed in relationships between Black female teachers and their students. In my reflexive personal narrative I show how “othermothering” is somehow intuitive among Black women and in this case, among Black female educators whose students benefit from her form of love and care. Finally, in addition to othermothering, the chapter recalls the sisterhood that I experienced in a school where the faculty was predominantly non-Black. The support that a Black teacher gets from women of the same racial and cultural backgrounds in a workplace cannot be replaced by mere camaraderie. My “sister circle” in the same school, supported and sustained me in several ways as I othermothered my students.

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Pedagogical Love Through Othermothering and Sister Circles: A Black Educator’s Experience in a Predominantly Latino School in the United States

  • Christine Smithson

摘要

This chapter is a personal narrative that shares my lived experiences of “othermothering” and “sistering” as a teacher in a high school in Florida. As a Black female educator, I taught for 12 years at a school where students hailed from low-income homes where parents lacked the tools to educationally support their children and where Black teachers were few. In this chapter, I recall these experiences and how through my pedagogy and practice, I showed love to my students who were mostly immigrant, financially poor and Latin American and where I received support from my “sisters” who were colleagues. While the term “othermothering” is relatively new, the action of othermothering has been practiced by African women for centuries. The term refers to a form of love that Black women show to children who are not biologically theirs. This love extends to the classroom and can be observed in relationships between Black female teachers and their students. In my reflexive personal narrative I show how “othermothering” is somehow intuitive among Black women and in this case, among Black female educators whose students benefit from her form of love and care. Finally, in addition to othermothering, the chapter recalls the sisterhood that I experienced in a school where the faculty was predominantly non-Black. The support that a Black teacher gets from women of the same racial and cultural backgrounds in a workplace cannot be replaced by mere camaraderie. My “sister circle” in the same school, supported and sustained me in several ways as I othermothered my students.