Tag: Spark Series

Spark Series: Jeff Duncan-Andrade (1.26)

Posted on | by Sam

What is the purpose of public schools? 

For Jeff Duncan-Andrade, a lifelong educator, school founder, and professor of Latina/o Studies and Race and Resistance at San Francisco State University, the answer depends on which sort of society you envision.

But if you take the last 200+ years of American history as our collective answer to that question, the one we have envisioned is, simply put, the one we now have — a social (dis)order marked by radical inequality, mass incarceration, and entrenched social apartheid at every turn.

For Andrade, a proper education is one that “teaches kids they can transform things. They not only learn to think for themselves, they learn they can define new limits for themselves.” That sort of education, however, is rarely the one that is available to students of color. 

By contrast, in those schools, the emphasis is on “order, control, compliance and accepting your station in life. What’s pounded into these kids is that to do well in school you don’t challenge, you don’t question, you don’t get too excited and demonstrate your passion for learning by jumping out of your seat. If you’re a good student, you contain yourself.” 

How, then, can we transform the systems that hold us prisoner? 

And what can each of us do to support a system of public schools that are equitable, vibrant, and alive?

Join us for a special Spark Series event with Jeff Duncan-Andrade this week — Wednesday, January 26th, at 3pm EST (note the earlier start time) — and if you want a sneak preview (and a better understanding of the distinction between equality and equity, and why it matters so much), see below.

This is how we #changethestory . . .

Spark Series: Rulan Tangen TONIGHT

Posted on | by Sam

How do you inhabit your body?

In what ways does its use connect you to the world that surrounds you — people, earth, & sky?

How might you inhabit it more intentionally?

Rulan Tangen has been exploring these questions for years, and in our next installment of the Spark Series — public conversations about the future of humanity, using nature as our guide — we all get to join her on that journey.

An internationally accomplished dance artist, choreographer, and director with over three decades of experience in multiple movement genres, Rulan is the Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer of DANCING EARTH, a company that creates contemporary dance and related arts through Indigenous and intra-cultural relationships centered in ecological and cultural diversity.

Her work explores movement as an evolving language of global Indigenous and inter-cultural relation building, rooted in inclusion of diverse cosmologies from her own experience and those of the artists with whom she co-creates.

And TONIGHT —Wednesday, November 10th, at 8:00pm EST(via this link) — Rulan will invite us to consider how the movement of our bodies can (re)connect us to the cosmic system of which we are all a part.

This is how we #changethestory . .

Spark Series TONIGHT: Annie Murphy Paul

Posted on | by Sam

Annie Murphy Paul has been writing about the intersection between the biological and social sciences for a while now.

Her TED talk has been seen by millions.

Her first book, Origins, explained how our time in utero helps shape the rest of our ex utero lives — for better or for worse.

And her newest book, The Extended Mind, suggests, provocatively, that the way we’ve thought about how people learn has largely gotten it all wrong “We think best when we think with our bodies, our spaces, and our relationships,” she argues while weaving together research from a variety of fields. “The demands of the modern environment have now met, and exceeded, the limits of the biological brain.

The smart move, therefore, is not to lean even harder on the brain; it’s to think outsidethe brain. But how?

What does it mean to transcend the biological limits of that three-pound lump in our skulls? What would an intentionally-designed school (or workplace) look like if it took all this research to heart? And which aspects of our most familiar ways of thinking about learning, if any, should we keep?

If those questions are of interest to you — and/or if you have questions of your own, join us tonight, October 6th, at 8pm EST, when Annie stops by the Spark Series for a vibrant, free-wheeling conversation about the future of humanity — and how we can use nature as our guide.

See you then, via this link. 🙂

#changethestory