Decolonizing the Classroom and Resisting Curriculum: Centering a Pedagogy of Love.

This thesis is a celebration of critical, decolonial practices in the classroom. Through the lens of critical pedagogy, as written by Freire and several others, it becomes clear that we are in need of loving, caring, compassionate teaching, especially in the historical and political context that we now live in. Historically, education has been turned into a tool for controlling young minds, and most traditional education settings still perceive it as just that. I argue that we must form a type of pedagogy that does not replicate these violent power dynamics, keeping the child at the center. This can be done through classroom practices of resisting curricula, multilingualism, centering non-Western perspectives, promoting intercultural dialogue as well as critical thinking and agency through play, building community, and valuing diversity. I then focus on the idea of pedagogy of love as an act of resistance.