Reclaiming our stories Con Pláticas y Fotos: Pláticas as pedagogy in K-12 history classrooms

Abstract

This article documents the process I, as a teacher educator at UCLA’s History Geography Project, went through to develop my lesson for centering Salvi history, “Reclaiming Our Stories Con Pláticas y Fotos: Pláticas as Pedagogy In K-12 History Classrooms.” Inspired by the scholarship of feminist women of color who have shaped and informed my teaching practice and my views on the purpose of history education, I make the case for why Salvi communities in Los Angeles need a lesson like this to intervene in the erasures of Salvi communities in the history-social science framework for California public schools. These overt silences that I, and an entire generation of Salvi students, have faced at home and in school motivated this lesson, in which I use pláticas as pedagogy in an effort to move towards healing in our community. Specifically, I narrate how my lesson draws on the five principles outlined in the Chicana/Latina feminist plática methodology as well as the ways my lesson aimed to meet the specific needs of my Salvi community and history instruction. I conclude by reflecting on how I made this lesson accessible to educators through various professional developments and reflect on the process of working with educators.