Cracks in the Curriculum: Countless Ways of Knowing

Cracks in the Curriculum was a workshop series and publishing platform initiated by the Serpentine Galleries in 2017. It aims to bring artists and educators together to think about how to address pressing social issues in the classroom.

Barby Asante contributed series 3: Countless Ways of Knowing – A Mixtape on Education as a Practice of Freedom, which aims to open up a space for teachers and students to talk about race and racism in the classroom.

How do we as educators develop discursive and creative opportunities to support understanding about why Black Lives Matter? How can we create safe spaces for students from BIPOC backgrounds to feel confident enough to speak their experiences, verbally or creatively? 

Using the mixtape as a method, Barby invited participants to source online images, news stories and videos, in order to generate multi-layered narratives. Through collecting and curating digital material participants explored truth and fiction, creating space for POC, Black and Indigenous experiences and histories, exploring different notions of social, cultural, and knowledge production.

A resource pack was also produced to be used beyond the workshops by anyone who works with children or young people. The resource features a series of questions for critical discussion, activities for the classroom and a reading list for further study. The different sections of the resources fold to A4 so they can easily be photocopied and used in the classroom. On the reverse of each resource is a poster that can be displayed in the classroom or study room.

Click here to download Resource number 3: Barby Asante, Countless Ways of Knowing – A Mixtape on Education as a Practice of Freedom

Click here to view the full series.