Change starts with understanding how you exist in the world and then working to imagine what a more equitable world looks like. Once you can envision that world, begin to plan backwards. What are the different things that need to happen in order to make that world real? That is where you start. Envisioning is only half the work, there also needs to be actions taken in hopes of actualizing this new world. This work is not easy nor will you see the world you imagine in your lifetime. But if you document your process of working to actualize a better world, and keep envisioning, it will manifest. The work of change must be one filled with hope and action.
My Curriculum
For me when I started thinking about inequity and the lenses through which I see the world, I realized where my interests and seeds of change are. I began thinking about the roots to some of the systems that we as a society have normalized. School is one of those roots. Everything has a foundation. You start with learning – school is where students begin to develop their understanding of themselves, with each other, to the larger world. If we change on a fundamental level how schools’ function, why they function the way they do and what people are actually spending time learning, then things can begin to change.
The poem below is a metaphor for the way I am orienting myself to the problem and how i am thinking about change
When a sunflower does not bloom
Do you give it extra love and light?
Do you remind it of its worth and help it thrive?
Do you nurture it, or do you blame it for not blooming?
When a blk girl does not blossom
Do you give her extra love and light?
Do you remind her of our worth and help her thrive?
Do your nurture her or do you blame her
for not blossoming with the world stacked against her?
Here is finding new and more loving roots
Here is to extra love
Here is to extra light
Here is to blossoming
This poem is about place and value. It is about individuality and learning how to care for people in unique ways. We don’t blame a flower for not blooming. We change its soil, we offer it more light, and we take care of its needs. When Black students fail, we blame them and hold them and only them responsible. Why not change their environment? Why not give them better more tailored resources? Why not change their surroundings? How could a flower ask for something it does not know it is missing? I wrote this curriculum as the intersection of inequity, my positionality, and the world I imagine. This curriculum is meant to provoke some questions for educators. In order for this curriculum to be useful and helpful, you need to adopt critical race theory as a framework. The curriculum is not meant to try and convince people that the world is burning. This curriculum is meant to hold space for kids to develop the tools to put out fires and dodge the fires that already exist, and then to build new worlds in their place. The power of the curriculum is less academic and more nurturing. It helps to reaffirm quieted voices. For me as the person who wrote the curriculum, it has helped me amplify my own voice. We spend a lot of our time, energy and resources theorizing about problems. I have been in so many college classes that have used my lived experience as a thought exercise or as fodder for a debate about the state of the world. What people keep failing to realize or notice is that we (black and brown folk) are in the room. We are not far away, we can speak, our voices work. There just needs to be an opportunity. I am grateful for this project and that it doesn’t just continue to reiterate that the world is burning. We already know that. I want to spend time talking about love and community. I want to learn about healing and reflection. I want black youth to know they are loved every day. I want them to be hugged every day. This is for them, this is for me. This is for young people of color who feel overwhelmed by the weight of this world’s disappointment. It is important to name the things that cause us pain. It is as important to find a way past it to name things that bring us joy. Not only has this journey been at the intersection of theory and practice it is also at the intersection pain and joy.