Reserve Spot Now For The Xicanx Institute For Teaching And Organizing

XITO's 4th Annual Summer Institute promotional poster

Educators can now reserve a spot at the Xicanx Institute For Teaching And Organizing XITO’s 4th Annual Summer Institute to be held in Tucson June 30 through July 2. The three day program, Huitzilopochtli’s Imperative will be held in downtown Tucson, at City High School.

XITO’s 4th Annual Summer Institute “is a call to action for educators, adminIstrators, (sic) community organizers, and artists to focus on Huitzilopochtli’s imperative. We call on those who labor to resist the current wave of destruction impacting our schools and communities and in that resistance embrace the will to act, la voluntad” according to the Xicanx Institute For Teaching And Organizing website.

Attendees will have “an opportunity to engage in and learn about the decolonizing and rehumanizing theories and methodologies behind the successes of the former Tucson Mexican American Studies Program.”

As Arizona continues to expand school choice, educators have more choices now than ever to participate in training to learn how to best push their political agendas whether Left or Right in the classroom. Not only can they learn how to indoctrinate students, they can earn college credit for it:

XITO: Teaching Justice & Decolonial Pedagogy – A Graduate Credit Offering Through Prescott College

Description

XITO’s 3-day institutes are an opportunity for educators, activists and community organizers throughout the country to engage in and learn about the theories and methodologies behind the successes of the former Tucson Mexican American Studies Program. This gathering is not a conference but rather an intensive professional development opportunity that participants can bring back to their own communities. XITO facilitators will share the liberatory, research-based pedagogy and community organizing skills that led to the success of K-12 youth of color and communities of color in general.

Institute participants have the option to enroll in graduate credit for attendance at the event.

Institute Learning Targets:
1) I can identify and explain the national and local conditions that necessitate culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy in K-12 schools.
2) I have an understanding of how Xicanx indigenous and decolonizing epistemologies can frame curriculum and pedagogy in K-12 settings and how those methods have been successful with youth of color.
3) I can describe the importance of building on students’ funds of knowledge and cultural assets.
4) I can name/use specific methods and strategies to build culturally responsive and sustaining units and lessons.
5) I can identify and explain the concept of “activist oriented pedagogy”

Credit Options Available

1 Grad Credit – $75 / 2 Grad Credit – $150 / 3 Grad Credit – $225

Assignments for 1 Graduate Credit:

A. Attend the entire 3-day XITO institute.
B. Choose five of the sessions and write a brief reflection of each. Summarize the session in 150-250 words. Cover the following topics: What can I apply to my teaching? What are two concepts or readings that were highlighted?

The Huitzilopochtli’s Imperative program will feature offerings from former and current Tucson Unified School District staff.

According to Wikipedia:

In the Aztec religion, Huitzilopochtli (Classical Nahuatl: Huītzilōpōchtli [wiːt͡siloːˈpoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi], modern Nahuatl pronunciation Listen), is a Mesoamerican deity of war, sun, human sacrifice and the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan. He was also the national god of the Mexicas, also known as Aztecs, of Tenochtitlan. Many in the pantheon of deities of the Aztecs were inclined to have a fondness for a particular aspect of warfare. However, Huitzilopochtli was known as the primary god of war in ancient Mexico.[citation needed] Since he was the patron god of the Mexica, he was credited with both the victories and defeats that the Mexica people had on the battlefield. The people had to make sacrifices to him to protect the Aztec from infinite night.[1] It is important to remember that the defeat of their patron deity meant the defeat of his people. This is one of the many reasons why they were concerned with providing exquisite tribute and food for him. Not only was it important for him to survive his battles, but the fate of the Mexican people would have rested in the victory of Huitzilopochtli.

Attendees will have an opportunity to listen to Dr. Anita Fernández, who will present Counter-Storytelling as a Method of Decolonizing Pedagogy and Embracing Student Activism: Critical Self-reflection, Love & Resilience.

Fernández is currently the Director of Prescott College, in Tucson.

“Fernández’s areas of teaching and research include social justice education, critical multicultural education and teacher education.  As a former high school English teacher in Tucson, she is devoted to preparing activist teachers who are both compassionate and critical and put their students’ lives at the center of their curriculum.  Dr. Fernández is locally and nationally involved in community and professional organizations that focus on Latina/o rights, social justice activism, critical pedagogy and transformative teacher education.  Her publications include works in Multicultural Education, Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education, Journal of Association of Mexican American Educators and Rethinking Schools,” according to the Prescott College website.

Her publications include:

Resistance & Resilience in Tucson: The Xican@ Institute for Teaching & Organizing.  In T. Buenavista, J.R. Marín, A. Ratcliff, and D. Sandoval (Eds.), White Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies.  Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishers.

Barrio Pedagogy: Praxis Within the Tucson Social Justice Education Semester. Regeneración: The Association of Raza Educators Journal. 5(1), 4-11.

Red Scare in the Red State: The Attack on Mexican-American Studies in Arizona and Opportunities for Building National Solidarity.  Journal of the Association of Mexican American Educators. 6(1).

Whitening Arizona: Teacher Education In a Time of War Against Our Students” (Winter 2010-2011).  Rethinking Schools.  

Sean Arce will present The Implications, Imperatives and Possibilities of the National Ethnic Studies Movement and The Nahui Ollin: Pedagogy, Organizing and Principles to Live By.

Arce and Auggie Romero, who currently works in TUSD as principal of Pueblo High School, developed Barrio Pedagogy. Arce is now in California working at Azusa Unified School District. There he teaches Xicana/o Studies classes. Arce received his Bachelor’s of Arts in Mexican American Studies from the University of Arizona and his Master’s in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University. He is currently working towards his doctorate in Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona.

TUSD’s Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Instruction Program Coordinator Norma Gonzalez will present Operationalizing the Nahui Ollin in the Classroom. Gonzalez “has been an Indigenous Studies Critical Educator for over 20 years focusing her work with students utilizing and Culturally Humanizing Pedagogy. Professionally Norma was a curriculum specialist with the K-12 Mexican American Department for ten years where Norma wrote curriculum that is culturally relevant and implements it with all students utilizing critical pedagogy from an indigenous epistemology. Another curricular focus for Norma centers on ecology, environmental justice and Indigenous Traditional Earth Knowledge,” according to her biography on the the Xican@ Institute’s website.

Her work includes:

Nahui Ollin: Bringing Harmony and Balance Through an Understanding of Tezcatlipoca, a lesson plan that was offered through TUSD’s Mexican American Studies Department. The lessons underlying goal “guiding this unit is to begin to transform the negative impact of colonization and the tragic effects it has had on indigenous people of this continent for the past five hundred years.”

​Jose Gonzales will present Tezcatlipoca In the Secondary Classroom. Gonzalez “is in his twenty-sixth year of teaching and currently works for Tucson Unified School District teaching the Culturally Relevant (CR) American History: Mexican American Perspective and CR American Government Social Justice Perspectives classes at Tucson High Magnet School,” according to the Xican@ Institute’s website. “As a practitioner and a student advocate, José anchors his instruction by implementing a Xicanx Critical Race Theory, simultaneously interweaving a humanizing pedagogy, which at its core is grounded in an indigenous epistemology. He operationalizes this indigenous epistemology to foster and facilitate within his student’s a strong sense of identity (ancestral and academic) and student’s voice while infusing a self-discipline approach to life. José received his bachelor’s from Emporia State University; a master’s from Northern Arizona University and is currently pursuing his doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Arizona.”

His work includes:

Quetzalkoatl: Mi Cuate, Mi Otro Yo A Journey Towards Self Love and Towards Love For Others, which was part of TUSD’s Mexican American Studies curriculum. Intended for grades K-5, students would be “introduced or re-introduced (genetic memory) to an ancient way of knowing or being.” The work is based on the premise that the “Mexica (Aztec) people believed that to practice the energy of the Quetzalkoatl (your twin) in ones (sic) daily life, was to love not only yourself and your Hermano/Hermana as your sibling, but also to love the beautiful energy inherent within all living entities.”

​Attendees can relax a bit while learning to build Xicanx Pop-Up Books taught by Elias Serna, Ron Espiritu, and Johnavalos Rios.