William Jackson
Executive Director, Village of Wisdom
Overview
The recent impact of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic and the continued public murder of Black people by the American police have amplified the dearth of and need for culturally affirming and equitable environments for Black children. In pursuit of our mission, we are pursuing this project which will result in the creation of a Clearinghouse of instructional tactics and parent support strategies. Funding will allow us to offer the following: 1) Toolkits of instructional strategies and approaches for teachers of Black children seeking to facilitate culturally responsive at-home and online learning for Black children. 2) A digital care package for Black parents. The Clearinghouse and the validation process we will utilize for it are reflective of the work we have always done: 1) Providing learning, healing, and creating spaces for Black parents. 2) Translating the wisdom of Black Parents into culturally affirming learning frameworks, tools, and strategies. Ultimately, the Clearinghouse will feature hundreds of effective culturally affirming instructional strategies for Black children learning in various contexts. Our reach goal for the VOW clearinghouse will be to make the learning environments of the more than 30,000 Black students across the Greater Triangle Area in NC more culturally affirming by 2023 and more than 500,000 Black students across the southeast by 2025.
Bio
William P. Jackson has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a former High School science teacher. William studied self-regulated learning, online learning environments, motivation, how socio-cultural factors impact the cognitive process of children of color while pursuing his Ph.D. He has led the development of surveys, interview protocols, and rubrics that assess and facilitate culturally responsive learning environments.