The Student Empowerment through Narrative, Storytelling, Engagement, and Identity Framework for Student and Community Empowerment: A Culturally Affirming Pedagogy

Abstract

For people from communities experiencing poverty and oppression, education, particularly higher education, is a means to ensure upward socioeconomic mobility. The access to and attainment of education are issues of social and economic justice, built upon foundational experiences in primary and secondary settings, and impacted by students’ cultural and socio-political environments. 6. The 2020 murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, ongoing discourse around immigration, and COVID-19-related hate targeting people of Asian American descent prompted national calls to dismantle social and systemic racism, spurring diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, particularly in education. However, these efforts have faced opposition from teachers who have told students that all lives matter, and racism does not exist in many American classrooms Loza. These comments negate students’ experiences, suppress cultural and identity affirmation, and negatively impact student wellness and academic performance. Forged in this polarized environment, two longtime community organizers and educators, an indigenous person living away from her ancestral lands and a multiracial descendant of Japanese Americans interned during WWII, whose identities, experiences, and personal narratives shape the course of their work in and outside of the physical classroom, call on fellow educators to exercise y (2018) component of the archeology of self, a “profound love, a deep, ethical commitment to caring for the communities where one works”, by adopting a framework to encourage this profound love in students, acting not just as a teacher, but as a sensei. The word sensei is commonly understood in reference to a teacher of Japanese martial arts. The honorific sensei, however, in kanji means one who comes before, implying intergenerational connection. Sensei is an umbrella expression used for elders who have attained a level of mastery within their respective crafts—doctors, teachers, politicians, and spiritual leaders may all earn the title of sensei. The sensei preserves funds of knowledge across generations, passing down and building upon knowledge from those who came before. The Student Empowerment through Narrative, Storytelling, Engagement, and Identity (SENSEI) framework provides an asset-based, culturally affirming approach to working with students in and beyond the classroom. The framework builds on tools and perspectives, including Asset-based Community Development (ABCD), the Narrative Theory, Yosso’s cultural community wealth, cultural continuity, thrivance, community organizing tenets, and storytelling SENSEI provides a pedagogy that encourages students to explore, define, and own their identities and experiences and grow funds of knowledge, empowering them to transform their own communities from within. The SENSEI framework begins by redefining a teacher as not simply one who teaches in a classroom but rather one who teaches valuable life lessons that transcend colonial conceptualizations of the teacher. In colonized contexts, teachers function to maintain hegemony and assert dominance over marginalized populations. In the SENSEI framework, teachers are those who disrupt colonial patterns and function to reclaim the strengths and voices of the communities they serve. In the SENSEI framework, students are not relegated to those enrolled in classrooms. As with a sensei, a student exists to counter hegemony by embracing and enacting their cultural wealth Educators must help counter harmful narratives and encourage students to identify the strengths that lie within themselves and their communities. Collective forms of narrative that value identity can ensure the continuity of a community or a people. The stories of students’ histories, traditional practices, and resilience can help disrupt harms, many that have lasted for generations, so they may not just survive, but thrive.