CHAPTER 1: THE FORCE AWAKENS

The power of true co-creation

For Olivia, it all started with AP English at Manual High School. Well, technically, it started at CU Boulder in the INVST Community Studies leadership program. After graduating, Olivia spent 5 years teaching English Language Arts courses at Manual. In 2015, she partnered with 13 students to cofound the Mardale Jay Writing Center, the nation’s first student-led and co-directed writing center. Students pitched and won a $10,000 grant from the DPS Imaginarium to launch! In its first year, the Writing Center at Manual High School connected 58% of Manual students (160 of 279) to three or more sessions of peer support. Those 161 students showed an average growth of 12% on scores for the PARCC/PSAT writing section. Additionally, the 23 students designated as English Language Learners (ELL) showed an average growth of 55% in the same area.

“From hosting our first event to renovating a space in the community to planning our first ever staff retreat. We have come a long way and we don’t plan on stopping now.” - Rose

#legacy #transformationtuesday #studentpower #mardalejay

“Educators need to be genuine. You can’t just expect students to trust you because you’re the teacher. Your intentions need to be clear from the jump... kids already come in feeling like teachers approach students on the first day negatively by giving a bunch of rules and expectations of how students will misbehave. Instead, we want teachers who will meet us where we are and trust us to know how and what will learn.”
#brilliant #studentleaders #droppingtruthbombs

Ultimately, Olivia was unable to continue this work at Manual when the center was pushed out of Manual by a chaotic school administration. Still…those students turned a $10,000 initial investment from the DPS Imaginarium into a full-fledged community center attracting $150,000 in just 2 years. Take a look at the graphic (left) for a snapshot of their accomplishments in…2…years.

What did they learn from this?

Dope educators + Dope students = MAGIC
Innovation must be protected
It is possible for antiracist white educators to do authentic work
Power belongs in the hands of those most impacted

For Wisdom, it started with a Socratic Seminar class in Montbello…trying to transformatively resist a school structure grounded in oppressive practices. Though, technically, it started while he was at CU Boulder. As a Junior, he started teaching a different Seminar. For the last two years in college, he taught a recitation class for a leadership program at CU Boulder called the Presidents Leadership Class. After graduating, Wisdom taught in Montbello through Teach for America. His teaching praxis earned him the 2015 Sue Lehman Teaching & Learning Fellowship, an award reserved at that time for the top 4 transformational classrooms across all 51 regions in Teach for America.

As a result, this video (above) was produced by Teach for All and shared across their global network of partner organizations spanning 59 countries on six continents. The video highlights Wisdom’s approach to co-creation and unleashing student genius grounded in culturally and community-responsive pedagogy. This video continues to inspire educators in various cultural contexts to radically rethink their approach to education. It is now embedded in the curriculum across Teach for America’s regional institutes and shown as an exemplar.

Ultimately, Wisdom was unable to continue teaching this class when it was cut to add yet another block of ELA or Math for 8th graders in this charter network. Definitely not a crime, but an example of differing values and what happens when decision-making is not in the hands of the stakeholders most impacted (students, parents, and teachers).

What did they learn from this?

Shifting paradigms is possible
Vulnerable storytelling is a powerful tool for inspiration
Power belongs in the hands of those most impacted

Chapter 2: For Us, By Us

The birth of Empower Community High School

Tragedy

There’s heartbreak and then there’s this.

The kind of loss you never really fully heal.

We all know about the roses that grow in concrete.

We stand in awe at the sheer…resilience. The miracle of surviving a place like America as a young black teen.

There is no preparation for losing a young one.

Especially when the child walked with X’s committment to truth and Cornel’s brilliance.

Pushout + Tragedy = Inspiration.

The love and heartbreak is what fueled this small tribe to go…nuclear. They wanted to become…dangerous…to the systems responsible for this much pain, misery, and trauma.

Ya Basta!

Olivia, Wisdom and one of the co-founders of the Writing Center, Ariana Villalovos, met for coffee at Whittier Cafe and got to work imagining a school that would have understood the genius and power of Mardale, Seminar and the Writing Center.

Starting in October 2017, a Community Design Team of students, families, educators, and community members met bi-monthly to design an innovative school for the community and by the community. Members of the CDT traveled to Boston, Idaho, Oakland, San Francisco, Manhattan and New Zealand to visit truly innovative schools and remix components of those models for our Wakanda in Aurora.

On Juneteenth 2018, the charter to open Empower Community High School was approved by the Aurora Public Schools Board of Education to open in Fall 2019. Click here to view the model designed by the CDT and in implementation.

Power + Love = Inspiration/Hope/Magic

The timing for this little community couldn’t have been better. 8 months into their first year of operation…a little known novel coronavirus was beginning to take center stage with the most abrupt disruption to the status quo seen in a century. They fought to sustain the school through the pandemic and transitioned out as burned-out founders in August 2022. 8 months later, they returned to ask the school’s board to close Empower. That’s how quickly the organization collapsed. Many factors contributed to the closing of Empower. most importantly: an unethical leader at the helm + broken systems of accountability and support. We are always happy to share our perspective if others want to learn from our failure.

What did they learn from this?

The environment/ecosystem is soil. Without the proper soil conditions, plants die.
A public charter within a very traditional public school district is not the best route to develop and sustain innovation in education.
About 1,000 spiritual lessons.

CHAPTER 3: The MaTRIX RELOADED

The Rise of Liberatory Systems

“At no point in this journey have we been romantic or anemic about the challenges of building something new inside of violent interlocking systems of oppression. Armed with this level of critical consciousness about systems, we cannot divorce our work from the larger ecosystems impacting our tribe. The next evolution in our movement is developing an ambidextrous organization that can provide a robust economic engine to sustain the wellbeing of our tribe. This is how we’ll keep birthing the liberatory systems that will bridge the gap between 2021 and 2121.

I am spending the rest of my life actually building Wakanda - a space free of colonial violence where love reigns supreme.

First, we are defining and refining an economic model grounded in our passions that can fuel this vision.”
-Wisdom