Do your lessons love your students?
A really great question for parents, teachers and community facilitators. Also, a book that you should rush out to find. Hold it with a friend over time, as pages flip, notes taken + artworks made.
This post holds a heartfelt connection to the writers and the participants in this work that I am incredibly proud to call my friends, educators, colleagues and artists. To any of you outside of this orbit, welcome to a slice of what is next.
We are on the cusp of many things, in response to the layers of confusion there is a new awareness that holds the urgency with a remarkable beauty. I feel it is essential for us to respond with curiosity and grace in this particular moment in time to stretch into a new understanding. This book will help us get there together.
What is cool about this book?
Of the many people I would like to read this book, I invite you to begin with highlighting the language that is unfamiliar and then spend some time with it. Hold a curiosity about context and then do some of the work of decoding and fostering new habits and structures of care and belonging. After your first read, sit with a friend or colleague and re-read several chapters. Land on a piece, choose one protocol or new lens to try. While continuing to think about the remaining chapters and the arch of content, visit the work of one of the contemporary artists referenced. How are they questioning patterns, shifting narratives and holding liberation in their work?
Although this book if filled with language of pedagogy and somewhat daunting to anyone new to the practices of teaching and learning it is my dream that communities at the county and state level will begin to shift towards the changes that are mapped out in the work presented by Jessa Brie Moreno and Mariah Rankine-Landers of Studio Pathways.
Who is this book for? An invitation and a call to action for:
Any and all educators leading teacher credentialing programs and all existing faculty in higher educational settings.
Superintendents, Principals and members of State Boards of Education.
Anyone who still believes that standardized testing is a useful tool.
Anyone on the committee at each school and in every school district who is in a position of power connected to the envisioning and scheduling of professional development for the year and years ahead.
Any educator, teaching artist, administrator, after school care provider, coach of any sport, summer camp facilitator or counselor, buy this book.
And finally, If you are a nonprofit, a corporation, a collective or a group, and/or any organization that relies upon human interactions, buy this book.
In my opinion, while our educators continue to be spectacular and brilliant, the systems in place that govern TK-12 public education are currently in an extreme state of disrepair. This is especially true if students live in a community with a low tax base, a community without additional fundraising and support for robust extracurriculars, a community with a high percentage of families who are working to master a second language and/or a new life in a strange new place, most frequently an urban public school system doing their best to support and nurture a community under stress.
Educational systems are in enough of a dysfunctional state and tangle, that it is an open door invitation to do something or everything entirely differently. Let’s begin moving the desks around. Let’s begin by disrupting patterns. Let's begin with spaces that nurture belonging. And, love, let’s begin with LOVE.
for Bay Area folks - book release celebration October 13th
Are you nearby the greater SF Bay Area? Please join in the Book Release Event at The Oakland Museum of California October 13th. It’s first Fridays so there will be food trucks, entertainment and open gallery spaces. No rsvp necessary. Find the Studio Pathways crew in the upper outdoor atrium (in front of the big chalkboard)
5-6pm book talk and panel discussion
6-7pm workshop sessions (you will find me leading one of these!)
6-7pm book signing and mingling celebration
Abstract contour drawing on a mirrored surface with educators from Roots International, Oakland CA during a daylong retreat at a youth dance studio, Destiny Arts. A lesson in looking closely, this is what professional development can ( and should) look like. Teachers, smiling, taking risks, building their community while recognizing and holding their own creative practice. It is such an honor to work with educators and it is essential that we support them with the tools and resources they need and… love. Of course, love. (plus a robust budget for art supplies and studio practices).
Order Do Your Lessons Love Your Students? More about Studio Pathways