Photos: Jamela Joseph\Howard\YouTube
If all teachers are under duress in the American education system, then the issues preceding the current teacher crisis take a complex form for those vulnerable to the country’s discriminatory history.
Connecting the dots may seem far-fetched, but Jamela Joseph (above), a second-year PhD student in the Howard University School of Education’s doctoral degree in education program, draws direct lines from colonial slave laws to how Black women teachers are treated today, a concept she defined as “American K-12 Parasitic Syndrome (APS).”
During Howard’s Research Month in April, Joseph shared her findings that determine the harmful systems in place that impact Black teacher’s experiences. “In terms of indoctrination and monitoring and conditioning, I saw a lot of alignment that occurring in the colonial era and how those same adaptations are similarly aligned and packaged,” she said.
Identifying Joseph’s American K-12 Parasitic Syndrome
Joseph angles her research into four comparable aspects: denial of personhood, bodily autonomy, labor exploitation, and violence and punishment. In her research, Joseph creates a comparative analysis of policies and practices that create her definition of “American K-12 Parasitic Syndrome (APS).”
“The American K-12 education system takes on the form and function of a parasite reinforced by the American education system’s policies and practices that benefit from the exploitation and unpaid labor of teachers, resulting in the mental and emotional harm, drained energy, passion, and motivation of educations within the American system.” READ MORE…
