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In 2014, Animating Democracy launched an evaluation learning lab in collaboration with the Art x Culture x Social Justice Network and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to promote evaluation of arts and social justice work that measures social impact, evaluates aesthetic dimensions, and also equalizes power in evaluation. This framework grew out of that lab.

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In 2014, Animating Democracy launched an evaluation learning lab in collaboration with the Art x Culture x Social Justice Network and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to promote evaluation of arts and social justice work that measures social impact, evaluates aesthetic dimensions, and also equalizes power in evaluation. This framework grew out of that lab.

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We looked at several artists and art projects that exemplify the attributes identified here:  Disruption | Commitment | Communal Meaning | Cultural Integrity | Risk Taking | Emotional Experience | Sensory Experience | Openness | Coherence | Resourcefulness | Stickiness (sustainability&impact)

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A framework to enhance understanding and evaluation of creative work at the intersection of arts and civic engagement, community development, and justice. Features 11 aesthetic attributes including: pointed DESCRIPTION and reflective QUESTIONS to guide consideration of the attribute in Arts for Change work and illuminating EXAMPLES of creative projects.

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This is my presentation on Beware the Dandelion.

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For immediate release
contact:
ashley satorius
board chair, tamales y bicicletas
612-250-3985

Tamales y Bicicletas selected by distinctive youthprise grant

Tamales y Bicicletas chosen as one of 101 twin cities' organizations receiving funding for high-quality learning opportunities beyond the classroom.

Minneapolis, MN (June 13, 2012) - T amales y Bicicletas is pleased to announce that it has received a unique operating grant from youthprise, an intermediary in the out-of-school time field. The award was one of 101 grants totaling $2.1 million approved by the youthprise board to twin cities' organizations serving youth for out-of-school time programming.

Tamales y Bicicletas will use the grant to deepen it's assets-based youth engagement model which grounds stem career pathways like the natural sciences and sustainable technologies in an empowering frame of cultural relevancy, linguistic accessibility, and pan-indigenous traditions that equip students with the skills needed to excel in and out of school.

"We are honored by youthprise's support. This grant will help our youth leaders advance the cutting-edge projects they are working on such as the healthy living ' urban solution to pollution' festival in the phillips neighborhood, the food mapping and train-the-trainer workshops, and our ecoprenuer bicycle delivery system focusing on creating youth jobs and environmentally-friendly community development in areas that are hit the hardest by health inequities. Our work is building the next wave of diverse leaders needed by the environmental and food justice community. The self-confidence and critical thinking skills youth acquire through our activities give them a set of transferrable skills they can use in the professional world, on the streets, or in the college classroom to improve the health and well being of their community," explained Jose Luis Villaseñor who is founder and director of T amales y Bicicletas.

"Youthprise exists to accelerate leadership and innovation in the out-of-school time field," explained youthprise president Wokie Weah. "Making sure our youth have great learning opportunities during the more than 2,000 hours they have outside of school each year is a top priority. We want to see that all minnesota youth thrive - no matter their background or circumstances. The achievement gap is the result of an opportunity gap and a key task for youthprise is to fill that gap."

Youthprise's grants to expand access to quality learning opportunities are one-year investments to 101 organizations in the metropolitan area. A full list of organizations receiving funding is available at www.youthprise.org/grant-making/grantees/. Grantees will form a learning community that will advance the out-of-school time field in minnesota by leading efforts to improve program quality, expand access to a greater number of youth, promote racial equity in the out-of-school time field and mobilize communities around a shared policy agenda for youth.

More on youthprise: youthprise was founded in 2010 by the mcknight foundation to increase the quality, accessibility, sustainability and innovation of opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. Youthprise works collaboratively with municipalities, funders, policymakers, program providers, youth and parents to ensure that all minnesota youth, especially young people who are traditionally underserved, have access to affordable, quality learning opportunities during out-of-school time. For more information on youthprise, visit www.youthprise.org.

More on tamales y bicicletas: tamales y bicicletas is a latino-led sustainable transportation, local foods access, and youth development organization based in south minneapolis. The mission of the organization is to develop healthy latino and immigrant communities through bikes, local & organic foods, cultural empowerment, and environmental justice. To learn more about tamales y bicicletas visit http://tamalesybicicletas.weebly.com/

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For immediate release contact:ashley satoriusboard chair, tamales y bicicletas 612-250-3985 Tamales y Bicicletas selected by distinctive youthprise grant Tamales y Bicicletas chosen as one of 101 twin cities' organizations receiving funding for high-quality learning opportunities beyond the classroom.

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Presentation of Gasland film and Artistic Attributes

- Sadie Scott

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Hc9sQE_poHMd6Zi5I00vDuKqs6PHVkJUehivvTFgNU0/edit?usp=sharing

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. . .is a peace process initiated by Dr. Hal Saunders, former Assistant Secretary of State under President Carter, and Yevgeny Primakov who became the Prime Minister of Russia in 1988. In 1999, Students at Princeton University adapted the process to improve race relations on campus.                                                             Sustained Dialogue keeps evolving and was adopted by Pomona College in 2018 to help identify pressing issues on campus and come up with actionable solutions.                                            V                        V                       V 

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. . .is a peace process initiated by Dr. Hal Saunders, former Assistant Secretary of State under President Carter, and Yevgeny Primakov who became the Prime Minister of Russia in 1988. In 1999, Students at Princeton University adapted the process to improve race relations on campus.                                                             Sustained Dialogue keeps evolving and was adopted by Pomona College in 2018 to help identify pressing issues on campus and come up with actionable solutions.                                            V                        V                       V 

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. . .is applying theatre in spaces that are not necessarily traditional theatre spaces. Applied Theatre is used especially for community building, problem-solving, healing, and peace-making. We learned about the forms: Theatre of the Oppressed and Playback Theatre

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. . .is applying theatre in spaces that are not necessarily traditional theatre spaces. Applied Theatre is used especially for community building, problem-solving, healing, and peace-making. We learned about the forms: Theatre of the Oppressed and Playback Theatre

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An alternative to the hero narrative

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Center for Theater & Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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Center for Theater & Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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center for theater and pedagogy of the oppressed

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Due to COVID 19, we are not offering facilitation trainings to the public.

For community groups and educational institutions, contact us with any requests or inquiries about in person or remote support. If you request an in person offering, please include all relevant COVID protocols.

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center for theater and pedagogy of the oppressed

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Due to COVID 19, we are not offering facilitation trainings to the public. For community groups and educational institutions, contact us with any requests or inquiries about in person or remote support. If you request an in person offering, please include all relevant COVID protocols.

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The last best small town response and reflection 

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The last best small town response and reflection 

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At first glance, what struck me immediately about the show was the set. I was enamored with how both houses (that of the Millers and the Gonzalez families) were set up in a dollhouse point of view where the audience was forced to look inside the lives of suburban families. The Millers most of all, as the family tried its best to put on a face of perfection for the rest of the town. Maya even said so herself, explaining how the birthday party wasn't even for her, but instead for the image of the family. From here the dichotomies between the two families is born. The Millers, so obsessed with appearance while the Gonzales family wanted to achieve relative financial stability and see their son go to college. The families are introduced with very stark, surface level differences, only connected by their children and the superficiality of neighboring. Either way, the beauty of this play wasn't in the differences, but within the similarities. The two families struggled financially, they wanted to keep up appearances, they had hopes and dreams they had to give up for various reasons. Especially as it seemed the main discourse in this play surrounded expectation and reality. There was no happy ending, the family that had everything seemed to lose it all in a second. And the family who barely scraped by patched themselves together again and moved on. Thus the message is clear, life goes on and it doesn't wait for anybody. It takes a great deal of courage to do what you want and how loving someone involves a conscious choice to give a part of yourself up.

In a more contentious notion, I do believe there were too many symbols in this play that clouded the trajectory of the story. It felt unfinished almost. I understood the main points, but the slice of life nature of this play allowed it to move very slowly and predictably. There was definitely some character development missing, Elliots plot line ran EXTREMELY flat and he was the main character. Actually, all of the characters felt like background. Nobody seemed to develop at all. Perhaps that was the beauty of it; the realism of the whole situation. Sure Elliot bought the house of the rich white family showcasing upward mobility but he still married at 20/21 and ended up working at the car shop so he is in the same position as his father DESPITE having the opportunity to leave the town. Maya left, the exact thing she wanted to do, but returned after graduating because despite all of her privilege she was still unhappy. So, in a very similar position as her mother: disillusioned.  The play made a huge circle and I do not feel like I have been moved or changed at all by the play itself much less so than the performance itself.
In a more personal manner, another bone I have to pick is with the graduation scene. And as much as it pains me to say, In the Heights had a much better story when it came to generational expectations when attached to college. As a child of a Mexican immigrant myself, I was all but pressured into an economics degree or one with "value", I was pushed into lucrative careers and told to work hard just like my dad. It is debilitating, but you do it for your family. Elliot making a circle despite making it out is not the symbol the play thinks it is. In The Heights highlights Nina's dropping out of Stanford because the expectations on her quite literally broke her, and it was from that rock bottom that she was able to make a choice for herself. Elliot did NOT have this. A simple conversation with your grandfather does not constitute rock bottom or a life changing moment. It is okay to strive for your goals and miss, it is okay to achieve mediocrity and be okay with that comfortability. I just wish that the play delved further into the effects of Elliot's choice on his parents and how their lives didn't actually change that much despite him doing ALL of that for them. At least then, there would've been some movement.

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Claremont McKenna Prof has epiphany: He was wrong to oppose "safe spaces"

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Claremont McKenna Prof has epiphany: He was wrong to oppose "safe spaces"

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Conservative Prof: I Was Wrong to Oppose Safe Spaces | RealClearEducation

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Conservative Prof: I Was Wrong to Oppose Safe Spaces | RealClearEducation

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For me exhaustion is definitely a sign!

Or I might experience DEPERSONALIZATION;
some signs of this  are:
- I feel annoyed with other people more quickly
-I immediately assume that other peoples' intentions are bad
-I feel ineffective
-I feel disconnected from myself or like my mind, body, and spirit are disconnected

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My area is watching sessions from the annual White Privilege Conference. One on Tuesday and one today. The first was led by @vernonAwall about myths of Social Justice and the second was by Dr. Rev. Ben Boswell on confronting Whiteness. Both were excellent. Wanted to share the 10 from the first though:

* Social justice is a "vague" concept with no real scholarly basis
* Social justice is just "diversity" and "multiculturalism" renamed
* Talking about SJ moves us away from conversations on racism, sexism, homophobia, etc
* SJ is about winning an issue debate.
* There is no difference between "intersectionality" and "intersecting identities"
* The concepts of spirituality and SJ are not compatible.
* SJ focuses on "action" rather than "personal work"
* Students who have studied abroad are more aware of SJ issues
* Students aren't interested in SJ issues.
* SJ is a "liberal" cause for idealists

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A seminal text explaining the need for affinity spaces first published in 1997 and then revamped in 2017 . . a best seller in "Medical Ethnopsychology" - what?!?!?

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A seminal text explaining the need for affinity spaces first published in 1997 and then revamped in 2017 . . a best seller in "Medical Ethnopsychology" - what?!?!?

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Cool interview with Julian Boal, Augusto's son, about where Theatre of the Oppressed is now!

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Cool interview with Julian Boal, Augusto's son, about where Theatre of the Oppressed is now!

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What Now for the Theatre of the Oppressed? Julian Boal

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The next PT Leadership will be in Mexico from July 25 to Aug 6, 2022.
There are limited spaces available. Registration deadline is Feb 2, 2022.

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Noteworthy Quotes from Jo Salas' "Stories in the Moment: Playback Theatre for Building Community and Justice"

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Noteworthy Quotes from Jo Salas' "Stories in the Moment: Playback Theatre for Building Community and Justice"

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- “This theatre would release drama’s magic from the rarefied world of proscenium stages and the finely crafted stories of fictional characters, and return it to its place as an accessible part of ordinary life”
- “Creating safety along with the artistic embrace of the unknown has been a major focal point of training”
- Robert Wright defines the moral imagination as “the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of other people, especially people in circumstances very different from our own”
- “The artfulness enables the dialogue; the dialogue in the basis for the art”
- “When my experience is reflected accurately in the spontaneous, artistic, and physical expression of others, I have the kinesthetic conviction that I have been understood”
- “Theatre as a memory-creating process can invite people to transform traumatic personal memory into collective historical memory and consequently help society to move on”
- “These spectators became witnesses and co-owners of each other’s stories through the very act of listening”
- “PT honors the subjective account of the teller”
- “You have to know… where your own self ends and the other begins”
- “A socially contained but artistically unlimited space”

Sadie

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I was really inspired by our activity on Wednesday and exploring how we can embody emotions. When I direct this is something that I think about a lot in trying convey a certain character's feeling to an audience, and this is an exercise I might use in the future to help actors unlock how exactly to do this (though it is a slightly scaled up/more explicitly stated than it might be in a play)

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In thinking about SEL and performance/experimental theater, I decided to check out information about drama therapy. Though the practice itself seems very dependent on the individual and their needs, it essentially uses embodied movement for psychological healing (or at least, from what I gathered). People can explore emotions, situations, and trauma by focusing on the psyche, body, spirit, and relationships by doing improv, visualization, meditation, or even group scenes. I wonder if there are aspects from drama therapy we can incorporate to make our final project even more engaging (without venturing into anything triggering of course!). Perhaps we could focus on many aspects of a person's being (mind, body, soul, relationships, etc) and help people fully engage with our material.

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As it is currently the first ever International Dramatherapy Week I thought I would do some, back to basics, blogging and look at what dramatherapy is. Dramatherapy is the use of drama with a heali…

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As students are exploring potential classes to take this upcoming fall, "Effective Learning Across the Lifespan" may be the experience they didn't know they were looking for. An upper-division psychology course, the class's roster will not only include 5C students, but also local Claremont community elders.

An intergenerational learning opportunity that connects undergraduates to elders, this course is part of the broader Napier Initiative founded in 2010. Although this is the first Napier course at Claremont McKenna College, the classes have been running for 11 years at the 5Cs and are just one aspect of the broader Napier Initiative - a partnership between Pilgrim Place (a local senior community) and the 5Cs. In addition to the Napier courses, the program consists of mentorship and fellowship components, in which two student fellows can win the Napier award which provides them with funding for social impact projects.

Taught by Associate Professor of Psychology Sharda Umanath, the upper-division psychology course is open to all 5C students by PERM and will be the first Napier course taught at CMC. The course will delve into evidence-based strategies for learning and retention of knowledge, in the classroom and beyond.

"I'm really excited to bridge evidence-based work on learning to what it means to be a lifelong learner," Umanath said.

Umanath runs the Memory & Aging Laboratory at CMC, where she conducts research on how knowledge functions in memory and is maintained with healthy aging. She first discovered the Napier Initiative through a colleague and later attended a banquet where she learned more about these intergenerational courses. While preparing to write a National Science Foundation Career Award grant, Umanath developed the idea of creating a Napier class as part of the teaching initiative required for the grant.

"One of the things I wanted to do, in terms of taking the research I was going to do and actually pulling it into the classroom and community, was to teach a Napier class," Umanath said.

Unlike past Napier courses that have explored a wide variety of topics, such as religion and women in science, this course is directly tied to aging and evidence-based strategies for learning that are relevant to both undergraduates and elders. The class will contain about 12 undergraduates and six elders and involve dynamic group work and civic engagement, as well as smaller projects that undergraduates and elders collaborate on. Umanath is planning on presenting information in the format of both popular science books and journal articles, so the knowledge can be accessible to everyone.

Umanath hopes her course will allow both students and elders to become critical consumers of science.

"We are constantly being asked to learn new things, and not only knowing evidence-based strategies but understanding how that evidence works, are skills that students are going to be able to use across the lifespan," she said.

Paula Hui PO '67 has participated in two past Napier courses and described the environment as one where everyone - undergrads and elders alike - participated and shared their life experiences. Both her previous Napier classes incorporated diverse speakers and field trips, as well as reading and writing assignments.

"We [elders] were involved in everything," she said. "We were treated just like the undergrads and did the work."

Nikodem Bisaga PZ '22 is currently enrolled in "Political Economy of Food," a Napier course being taught by Professor of Politics Nancy Neiman this semester. The class has spent the semester discussing topics like food system inequalities on a global and national scale, as well as unraveling ingrained structures that perpetuate these issues. The course is divided into affinity groups, which are "small groups of about five students who meet for an hour each week outside of class to discuss readings for the class" with one elder, according to Bisaga.

"It was through my discussions about these particular topics that I developed a newfound appreciation for elders who are open to these world view-shifting conversations despite decades of internalized ideologies," Bisaga said.

Through these affinity groups, Bisaga has not only developed a friendship with the elder in his group but also become more open to having meaningful conversations with older generations. He described this course as "eye-opening and emotionally impactful," despite going into the semester with no prior knowledge about the Napier Initiative.

For undergrads, this course will pave a way for students to stay involved with the Napier Initiative and form long-term relationships with elders who serve as their mentors. Both Umanath and Hui stressed the importance of Napier courses unraveling stereotypes and biases in society around older people and generational divides.

"I'm excited for students to see that elders have so much to contribute," Umanath said. "They have a wealth of knowledge and experiences to share and will hopefully make it easier for students to engage with the community."

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CMC set to offer its inaugural Napier Initiative course this fall - The Student Life

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As students are exploring potential classes to take this upcoming fall, "Effective Learning Across the Lifespan" may be the experience they didn't know they were looking for. An upper-division psychology course, the class's roster will not only include 5C students, but also local Claremont community elders.

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Attended a Consent Workshop with Tyby Reddy tonight following Mia Schachter's Yes-2-No Spectrum

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Attended a Consent Workshop with Tyby Reddy tonight following Mia Schachter's Yes-2-No Spectrum

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STICKER || Yes-to-No Spectrum — SHARE THE LOAD. • Mia Schachter

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I wanna see these in every coffee shop bathroom stall, every public mailbox, on walls, and anywhere else they don’t belong. Leave a trail behind you. Contact me to buy in bulk. 4”x4” Shipping and tax included. Please consider donating to anise’s transition fund ! Items ship once a week usua

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Here's a link to Bioneers' Indigeneity Curriculum

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Here's a link to Bioneers' Indigeneity Curriculum

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If you sign up, you can also get updates!

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The Bioneers Indigeneity Program is the go-to source for accurate and contemporary information about Indigenous science, media, and curriculum for social change. To support the use of Bioneers’ original content in the classroom, we’ve developed thematic discussion guides and curriculum bundles align…

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Sharon Day, AIDS activism, & culturally responsive health care

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Sharon Day, AIDS activism, & culturally responsive health care

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hi all, here's the article i was referencing during our convo yesterday.
"What upsets me the most today is how all of the care and treatment have been taken over by the medical profession. You have to have medical case management. In the early days, we could take people on a retreat. We had funding where we could take them on a retreat with our traditional healers. We could build a sweat lodge, we could take them in the woods and show them different plant medicine. You know, it’s like, can we do that today? Hell, no. Because everything has to be evidence-based and based on Western science, not based on what we know.

The thing that kept Carole laFavor alive when the doctor said, “Go home and prepare to die,” was Indian medicine, Indian plant-based medicine. And unless they can study it and put it under—even like with our sweats, this doctor once said to me, “It’d be really great if we could look at the blood cells before they went into sweat.”

So that’s the thing that irritates me today is, the cultural groups that we used to be able to do, those are all gone. All we can do now is test and navigate. And there are no more people living with HIV who are working in programs. You know, it’s all MSWs [Master of Social Work degrees], and even the doctors. Everything we did in the beginning was based on a movement, and everything we do today, you know, is based on medicine, Western science. So me, I long for those old days, where people with passion worked in this field. Now it’s just another—it’s like diabetes, and it’s not like diabetes."

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Ojibwe Lesbian Sharon Day on HIV Care and Activism From the ’80s to the Present

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Day, an Ojibwe lesbian and lontime AIDS activist, has had a long history of helping people in her community with HIV, including her own loved ones.

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Learning Styles of American Indian/Alaska Native Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Practice

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Learning Styles of American Indian/Alaska Native Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Practice

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I haven't read the entire article, but it looks at learning and education styles in indigenous Alaskan communities. The main difference compared to standard US education systems is the social structure. Elders have a higher social status and their knowledge is therefore valued more. The article is somewhat old, but the theories are still relevant.

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"Given that most college environments could be classified as 'Western' and therefore operate on linear time, the current study attempts to explore how . . . ."

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Time Perception Among Navajo American Indians
and Its Relation to Academic Success

Paper presented at the annual meetings of the 119 th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, August 4-7, 2011, Washington, DC

(Narrative: Introduction: Method: Discussion: Narrative: References)

My journey with this study began in the fall of 1989 shortly after I enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles. Sitting in one of my freshman classes, the professor was reviewing the syllabus with us. She asked us to specifically note the date of our mid-terms, exams and papers. She informed us that she expected all work to be completed on time and no excuse would be accepted. Period.

Coming from a multi-racial family (my mother is of Dutch/American heritage and my father is Navajo), I thought I understood well what it meant to live between two worlds. I attended a private Christian school from first grade through twelfth grade. I was a good student and had successfully navigated the western educational system that I experienced up to that point. But I also had experienced "Navajo Time." The term "Navajo Time" was used frequently around my community as an off-the-cuff way to explain why events that were hosted, planned or attended by Navajo people always seemed to start late and go long. It was very similar to the way people used traffic in Los Angeles to explain why they were late to an event. "Got stuck in traffic" was as frequent of an excuse to explain tardiness in the city, and "I'm running on Navajo time" was used to explain tardiness in and around the Navajo reservation. However, when I heard my professor's comments I was taken by surprise, and those words stuck with me all throughout my college career. I could not recall being in an environment where the deadlines were set so rigidly. NO excuse would be accepted for turning work in late. Period. Those words seemed very empty to me and didn't make much sense.

Three years later, I enrolled in a class called the Social Psychology of Higher Education. College had become challenging for me. Not just the academics, but also the relationships. My relationships with fellow students, professors and even student club leaders had all become strained as there was a perception that I was rude and undependable. I had gained a reputation for being late because, to me, timeliness did not communicate value. Therefore, it was not a high priority. However, the relational tension it caused bothered me, and I struggled to understand the root of it.

One of the assignments in this class was a research paper. The topic was very broad; we could research anything we wanted as long as it was in regards to higher education and pertained to us personally. I decided to write my paper on "The Navajo perception of time and how it affects students coming off of the reservation and attending large universities."

In writing this paper, the first task I had to tackle was the definitions of the Navajo and Western perceptions of time. Here is a very brief summary:

Western Perception of time:

2. Strict starting and ending points.

3. As one moves across this timeline, events and milestones are passed.

4. Once an event is passed, it is complete and cannot be revisited.

5. In this perception of time, life is organized by creating a schedule.

6. Value and importance is communicated by keeping and honoring the schedule.

7. E.g. If I make plans to meet someone for lunch at 12 PM and do not show up until 12:30, then I owe that person an apology because my tardiness is offensive. I did not honor our schedule and did not value their time.

Navajo Perception of Time:

2. If an event is passed or missed, then there is not as much reason for concern. The understanding is that the event will usually come back around again.

3. In this perception of time, life is organized by completing tasks or events.

4. Value and importance is communicated not by starting/arriving on time, but by staying until the interaction is over or the task is complete.

5. E.g. If I make plans to meet someone here on our reservation at noon and do not show up until 1 pm, there is usually no need for me to apologize. But, once we are talking, if I am constantly looking at my watch or suddenly announce that I need to leave, I have committed an offense. I did not allow the interaction to come to its natural completion.

Even before I had administered any surveys, this project was a benefit to me. It suddenly made sense why my Western friends, peers, leaders and instructors found me rude. They were expecting me to value them by being on time. Instead, I was communicating my value for them by staying until our interactions were over. They thought I was rude because I was always late. However, they did not notice that I was almost always the last one to leave an event. I was constantly encouraging and inviting people to stay so we could complete the tasks and interactions we had begun.

This research project ultimately led to more questions than it answered, but it did give me a foundational understanding of some of the key differences between the Western and Navajo time perceptions. While my research did not conclusively show that my Navajo Perception of Time adversely affected my success in college, just acknowledging the different perceptions of time and understanding which one I tended to follow helped me tremendously.

The current study focuses on two different perceptions of time: linear and cyclical. It is a collaborative effort between Mr. Mark Charles from the Navajo Nation and researchers from Brigham Young University.

There has been much research and documentation regarding difficulties of Native Americans in college (Steward, 1993). These difficulties include low rates of attending college, low persistent rates, and overall academic success (Jackson & Smith, 2001; Jackson, Smith, & Hill, 2003; Reddy, 1993; U.S. Department of Education, 1998). In trying to explain possible reasons for these difficulties among Native Americans in college, sociocultural factors are often suggested (Jackson, Smith, & Hill 2003; Wilder, Jackson, & Smith, 2001). Wilder, Jackson, and Smith suggest that when "the particular culture of a student varies significantly from the culture of the school system or the workplace, the result can be confusion, misunderstanding, or even hostility" (2001).

Pinxten (1995) suggests that one aspect of culture is the way that one sees and views time. Linear time is marked by timelines (strict starting and ending points). Once an event has passed it is over and cannot be revisited. In this view of time, importance is placed on punctuality and specific events (Crossan, Cunha, Vera, & Cunha, 2005). Linear time can also be understood as "clock time" (Ancona, Okhuysen, & Perlow, 2001). Linear time is most related with Western culture (Slife, 1995). By contrast, cyclical time does not have the same strong emphasis on starting and ending points. Subsequently less importance is place on punctuality and specific events (Cossan, Cnha, Vera, & Cunha, 2005). In a cyclical view of time, events repeat themselves over and over, and therefore less concern is placed on missed opportunities, but instead more care is placed in relationships and completing events (Pinxten, 1995). Cyclical time is usually related with non-Western cultures (Slife, 1995).

Given that most college environments could be classified as "Western" and therefore operate on linear time, the current study attempts to explore how adhering to a more culturally traditional sense of time affects the academic achievement of Navajo college students. This will be accomplished by measuring Navajo students' degree of adherence to and ownership of the "cyclical" perception of time, and then compare that to the students' success in college as measured by self-reported GPA, academic self-efficacy, and positive academic behaviors such as turning assignments in on time, keeping up with homework, and preparing for exams. The hypothesis of this study is that students who adhere to cyclical time will have lower academic achievement.

This is a replication and continuation of a study done by Mark Charles, B.A. Mr. Charles is a member of the Navajo Tribe and conducted the study while an undergraduate student at UCLA. Mr. Charles developed an instrument he believed would measure Navajo tribal members' adherence to a more traditional, cyclical time perception.

This study was conducted in two parts. In Part I, the researchers administered the original Navajo Time Perception questionnaire (NTP) to a group of Navajo college students. The researchers conducted a factor analysis of the original Navajo Time Perception questionnaire in order to create a more statistically sound instrument. In Part II, the researchers administered the new NTP to a second sample of Navajo college students and compared their perception of time to the students' success in college as measured by self-reported GPA, academic self-efficacy, and positive academic behaviors such as turning assignments in on time, keeping up with homework, and preparing for exams.

The original NTP was administered to students attending two two-year institutions in the southwestern United States. IRB approval was obtained at the respective colleges, and subjects were contacted through the Native American Centers on both campuses. For participating in the study subjects were entered into a drawing to receive one of two IPod Shuffles. Two IPods were offered on both campuses.

Instrument. The original NTP purported to measure a Navajo tribal member's endorsement of a more traditional circular time perception or his/her endorsement of a more Western time perception. The NTP also included questions on observance of traditional Navajo practices and on study habits. These items dealing with identification with traditional Navajo culture included: (1) upbringing and exposure to grandparents and extended family; (2) Navajo language acquisition and understanding; (3) participation in traditional cultural events and religious ceremonies; (4) involvement in broader Navajo community functions such as social ceremonies, Chapter House meetings, weddings, etc. These areas are included under the assumption that students who more closely identify with traditional Navajo culture will also have a more cyclical perception of time (Pinxten, 1995).

The original NTP consisted of 52 items. The author's goal was to create one instrument he could use to measure cultural identity, time perception, and positive academic behaviors. While the original instrument contained several different scales and types of questions, for the purposes of part one this study, the authors decided to use this same instrument without modification.

Subjects. Subjects were 108 members of the Navajo Nation, ages 17 to 54 (mean age 35) who attended school at the two-year colleges. GPA (self-report) ranged from 1.0 to 4.0 (mean GPA 3.08). 95 subjects reported that they were full-blooded Navajo. 13 reported that they had at least one parent who was full-blooded Navajo. All subjects were raised on the Navajo Nation or in a border town. There were 59 females and 49 males.

Procedure. Prior to taking the NTP, researchers briefly explained the study to each participant, though they were not informed as to what the instrument was measuring. The subjects then filled out a demographics questionnaire and an informed consent form. Subjects took the NTP in the student center on one campus and in the Native American Center on another campus.

Data analysis. An exploratory factor analysis was completed on the original NTP.

Results. Results suggest four predominant factors with Eigen values greater than two. Factor one consisted of 10 items dealing with following Navajo traditions. We named this factor Traditions. Factor two consisted of six items having to do with positive school behaviors. We named this factor School Behaviors. Factor three consisted of three items describing subjects' adherence to western religious values. In his original study, the first author believed it would be important to identify Navajos who were more westernized. Since the present study was designed to examine the relationship between Navajo cultural values and academic achievement, this factor was not included in the new instrument. The final factor consisted of three questions dealing with time perception. We named this factor Time Perception.

Each of the items identified by the factor analysis was graded on a five point likert scale. Those items dealing with traditions and time perception were ordered from one (more westernized) to five (more traditional). The items dealing with positive academic behaviors were ordered from one (never) to five (always). After examining the factor analysis and discussing which factors would be most helpful in the second part of the study, 19 of the original 52 items were retained.

The new 19-item version of the NTP was administered to students attending a four year college in the Southwestern United States. This institution has a large number of Navajo students attending. As with the first part of the study, IRB approval was obtained from the college, and potential subjects were contacted through the Native American Center. For participating in the study subjects were entered into a drawing to receive one of two IPod Shuffles.

Instruments. In his original study the first author attempted to measure time perception and adherence to Navajo traditions surreptitiously. After discussing this with the researchers from BYU, it was determined that subjects could know what the authors were attempting to measure without adversely affecting the outcome. Thus, the first author included a brief description of traditional and western time perception in the revised instrument. The authors also added one item to the Time Perception factor. This item asked participants to grade their adherence to western or Navajo time perception. This was included immediately after the description of the concept.

A second instrument measuring academic self-efficacy was added to the NTP. This instrument is the Self in School (SIS) (Smith, 1988; Downs, 2006). The authors believed that academic self-efficacy would conceivably have some relationship to time perception and/or traditional Navajo values. The SIS is a 15 likert-type item instrument. Participants rank their degree of agreement from completely false (one) to completely true (seven) on items such as I have the ability to do well in my schoolwork. This instrument has been used in several studies with Navajo students (Downs, 2006; Golightly, 2007). It has consistently positively correlated with items such as high school GPA and SAT scores. It has good internal consistency with Chronbach alpha scores from .89 to .94.

Subjects. Subjects were 43 members of the Navajo Nation, ages 18 to 46 (mean age 23) who attended school at the two-year colleges. GPA (self-report) ranged from 1.0 to 4.0 (mean GPA 3.3). There were 26 females and 17 males.

Procedure. Prior to taking the NTP, researchers briefly explained the study to each participant. The subjects then filled out a demographics questionnaire and an informed consent form. Subjects took the NTP in the student center on one campus and in the Native American Center on another campus.

Data analysis. Both parametric (Pearson) and non-parametric (Spearman's rho) correlations were conducted on the three factors from the NTP, the SIS, and self-reported GPA.

Results. Significant correlations were found between academic self-efficacy and School Behaviors with both the Pearson (r=.675; p<.01) and Spearman's rho (r=.738; p<.01). Significant correlations were found between Time Perception and Tradition with both the Pearson (r=.434; p<.01) and Spearman's rho (r=.397; p<.01). All other correlations (academic self-efficacy with time perception and tradition; positive school behaviors with time perception and tradition; and GPA with time perception and tradition) were non-significant.

The present study had two goals: (1) create a reliable instrument to assess Navajo American Indian's time perception, and (2) use the instrument to examine the relationship between academic achievement, academic self-efficacy, adherence to Navajo traditions and adherence to Navajo time perception.

Correlations between traditions and time perception may support the validity of the NTP. However, more research must be done. Correlations between the SIS and academic behaviors appear to provide some validity for the academic behaviors section of the NTP. Nonetheless, more research must be done.

While no significant correlations were found between time perception, GPA, academic self-efficacy, and positive academic behaviors, it may be that a different sample would show some significant correlations. The students from the institution in the second part of the study have shown good academic achievement in order to get into the school. It is likely that these students have acculturated to the western way of life demanded by most post-secondary institutions.

A future study investigating students who are college drop-outs may show some relationship between Navajo time perception and negative academic outcomes. Another study that may prove useful is testing students after their first semester in college. It is at this time that more traditional students may have struggled adapting to the demands of college.

The three institutions sampled in both parts of this study have each had a higher than average Navajo student population and are located in close proximity to the Navajo reservation. This context could mean that the institution's adherence to strict linear time may be somewhat dampened. Future research investigating students studying at institutions that have reputations for being academically rigorous and that are located a greater distance from the Navajo reservation (200+ miles) may demonstrate a more significant correlation between time perception and academic success.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that a majority of people are not aware that they have a time perception. Instead, I have observed that most people think they have a time truth. Because of this, we tend to judge people according to the values of our perception of time. If I continually turn work in late or ask for extensions on projects, the first inclination of someone with a Western perception of time is to conclude that I am lazy, undependable or inconsiderate. Likewise, if someone from another culture visits the Navajo reservation and runs from one event to another, always arriving on time but never completing interactions, our community will conclude that they are rude and uncaring.

Because of this, I have invested significant time and energy in the past several years to help people understand that they have a time perception and not a time truth. For people, groups or institutions that want to visit or work on our reservation, I describe for them the various aspects of the Navajo perception of time and explain how it is different from the Western perception of time. I particularly focus on the different ways value and importance is communicated in each time perception. I also remind them that they are coming to our land and will be among our people. Therefore, they should not expect us to change for their benefit. Instead, I invite them to embrace the cross-cultural experience and do all they can to adhere to our perception of time.

For our Navajo students and young people who are preparing to leave our community to attend school or find work off of the reservation, I describe for them the differences between the Navajo and Western perceptions of time. I try to make them aware that their tendency will be to want to finish a task or an interaction before moving on to what is next. But I tell them that their bosses, professors and friends will not understand the value they are trying to communicate in this way. Instead, they will be expected to arrive at events and appointments on time and to do all that they can to maintain and honor the schedule. I tell them that if they want to be successful off of the reservation, they will need to learn to live by the rules of the Western perception of time. They should not expect the institutions they are attending or the people they meet to adapt to their Navajo perception of time.

Over the past few years, these conversations have begun to take a very interesting turn. I have reached out to smaller colleges throughout the Southwestern United States that have higher percentages of Navajo students enrolled, and I have described to them the definitions I am using for the Navajo and Western time perceptions. Most of them have agreed with me, and then gone on to ask how they could adapt the educational model of their school to better serve the time perception of their Navajo students.

At first, this question took me off guard. I had never seriously thought about how the educational system could be adapted to better serve the learning models of the Navajo perception of time and culture. Throughout my tribe's history with the United States government, education has always been used as a tool to assimilate our people to the English language and the Western culture and worldview. However, as this research on time perception continues, I am now pondering how Navajo students can be educated in a way that allows them to retain and utilize the unique characteristics of our language, culture, worldview and even our perception of time.

The world is becoming more and more integrated and assimilated. Education, television, the internet and the Global Marketplace are bringing people together in ways that were never imagined even 25 years ago. Unfortunately, as we are being drawn 'together' we are also being stripped of many of the things that make us different and unique. Aspects, such as language, cultural traditions, dress and time perceptions, are being brushed aside in an effort to succeed by assimilating to the majority culture.

However, I believe that the future leaders of the Navajo people, our country and even the world will not just be those who have successfully assimilated to and navigated through the academic, economic and occupational paths laid before them by the majority culture. Our future leaders will also have a deep understanding of their own identity and a strong connection to the communities from which they come. These leaders will know who they are both within, as well as separate from, the Global Marketplace. They will know how to navigate through it, but will not allow it to define them. They will understand that time is not a truth, but rather a perception. These leaders who comprise this new assimilated global community will, at their core, communicate and receive value and honor differently (Charles, 2008).

Ancona, D., Okhuysen, G., & Perlow, L. (2001). Taking time to integrate temporal research.

Academy of management review, 26: 5122-529.

Charles, M. (2008, December). When I grow up I want to be a shepherd. Retrieved August 2,

2011 from http://www.wirelesshogan.blogspot.com/

Crossan, M., Cunha, M., Vera, D., & Cunha, J. (2005). Time and organizational improvisation.

Academy of management review, 30(1), 129-145.

Downs, Paul A. (2006). Student and parent perceptions of academic efficacy, abilities and

support: Their relationship to Navajo American Indian high school students' academic

achievement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Brigham Young University, Provo,

Golightly, Thomas R. (2007). Defining the components of academic self-efficacy in Navajo

American Indian high school students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Brigham

Young University, Provo, Utah.

Jackson, A.P., Smith, S.A., & Hill, C.L. (2003). Academic persistence among Native

American college students. Journal of College Student Development, 44(4),

Jackson, A. P., & Smith, S. A. (2001). Postsecondary transitions among Navajo Indians. Journal

of American Indian education, 40(2), 28-47.

Pinxten, R. (1995). Comparing time and temporality in cultures. Cultural dynamics, 7 (2),

Reddy, M. A. (Ed.). (1993). Statistical record of native North Americans. Washington, DC:

Gale Research

Slife, B. (1995). Information and time. Theory & psychology, 5 (3), 533-550.

Steward, R. J. (1993). Two faces of academic success: Case studies of American Indians on a

predominantly Anglo university campus. Journal of college student development, 34, 191-196.

U.S. Department of Education. (1998). American Indians and Alaska Natives in postsecondary

education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Wilder, L. K., Jackson, A. P., & Smith, T. B. (2001). Secondary transition of multicultural

learners: The Navajo Native American experience. Preventing school failure, 45 (3),

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Time Perception Among Navajo American Indians and Its Relation to Academic Success Paper presented at the annual meetings of the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, August 4-7, 2011, Washington, DC (Narrative: Introduction: Method: Discussion: Narrative: References) Mark Charles, BA Navajo Steven A. Smith, Ph.D. Aaron P. Jackson, Ph.D.

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Community Sing Along w Wendi Moore Oneal

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Community Sing Along w Wendi Moore Oneal

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The websites we were checking out reminded me of this community activist/healer and singer from New Orleans who would do community sing alongs as a collective healing practice

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Wendi Moore ONeal - Letter from the Porch

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"Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom"

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"Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom"

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By Asao B. Inoue
Copy edited by Don Donahue. Designed by Mike Palmquist.

In Labor-Based Grading Contracts, Asao B. Inoue argues for the use of labor-based grading contracts along with compassionate practices to determine course grades as a way to do social justice work with students. He frames this practice by considering how Freirean problem-posing led him to experiment with grading contracts and explore the literature on grading contracts. Inoue offers a robust Marxian theory of labor that considers Hannah Arendt's theory of labor-work-action and Barbara Adam's concept of "timescapes." The heart of the book details the theoretical and practical ways labor-based grading contracts can be used and assessed for effectiveness in classrooms and programs. Inoue concludes the book by moving outside the classroom, considering how assessing writing in the socially just ways he offers in the book may provide a way to address the violence and discord seen in the world today.

Table of Contents

Open the entire book: In PDF Format In ePub Format
Front Matter Introduction. Laboring Toward Grading Contracts and the Inner Dikes Chapter 1. Problematizing Grading and the White Habitus of the Writing Classroom Chapter 2. How I Came to Labor-Based Grading Contracts Chapter 3. What is Labor in Labor-Based Grading Contracts? Chapter 4. What Labor-Based Grading Contracts Look Like Chapter 5. Why I Use a Charter for Compassion with My Contract Chapter 6. What Concerns Are There of Labor-Based Grading Contracts? Chapter 7. How Effective Can Labor-Based Grading Contracts Be? Coda. Assessing English So That People Stop Killing Each Other Works Cited Appendix A. Grading Contract for First Year Writing Appendix B. Sample Charter for Compassion Appendix C. Sample Labor Log Appendix D. Labor Instructions for Drafting Your Personal Narrative
About the Author

Asao B. Inoue is Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Director of University Writing and the Writing Center, a past member of the Executive Board of Council of Writing Program Administrators and the 2019 Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Among his articles and chapters on writing assessment and race, his article, "Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments" in Research in the Teaching of English, won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection, Race and Writing Assessment (2012), won the 2014 CCCC Outstanding Book Award. His book, Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future (WAC Clearinghouse/Parlor Press, 2015) won the 2017 CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph and the 2015 CWPA Outstanding Book Award. In November 2016, he co-edited a special issue of College English on writing assessment as social justice.

Publication Information: Inoue, Asao B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2019.0216.0

Web Publication Date: January 4, 2019
Print Publication Date: September 2019

ISBN: 978-1-64215-021-6 (PDF) | 978-1-64215-022-3 (ePub) | 978-1-60732-925-1 (pbk.)
DOI: 10.37514/PER-B.2019.0216.0

Contact Information:
Asao B. Inoue: asao@asu.edu

Reviews

Review by Shane A. Wood, University of Southern Mississippi, 2020.

Perspectives on Writing

Series Editors: Susan H. McLeod, University of California, Santa Barbara; Rich Rice, Texas Tech University

This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). It is also available in a low-cost print edition from our publishing partner, the University Press of Colorado.

Copyright © 2019 Asao B. Inoue. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License. 354 pages, with notes, illustrations, and bibliographies. This book is available in print from University Press of Colorado as well as from any online or brick-and-mortar bookstore. Available in digital format for no charge on this page at the WAC Clearinghouse. You may view this book. You may print personal copies of this book. You may link to this page. You may not reproduce this book on another website.

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Labor-Based Grading Contracts - The WAC Clearinghouse

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By Asao B. Inoue Copy edited by Don Donahue. Designed by Mike Palmquist. In Labor-Based Grading Contracts, Asao B. Inoue argues for the use of labor-based grading contracts along with compassionate practices to determine course grades as a way to do social justice work with students.

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511970701624483

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Holistic Grading: Are all Mistakes Created Equal?

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The following article discusses holistic grading as implemented in a first‐year undergraduate calculus course. The intent of this manner of grading is to distinguish both students that truly master...

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Here's a really interesting psychology research article I read about developing emotional competence in schools!

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Because I missed my interview regarding Student Emotional Learning (over the break), I interviewed someone today. They said that they did know about SEL and that their high school implemented it for many years. He said it was useful but did not solve the student health crisis (which I will not go into). This was mainly caused by social pressure, induced by parents and the education system as a whole. Even with training, he said that students still talked about how many AP classes they were taking or how their tests went. The culture did not change with students knowing about SEL.

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This articles says that emotional intelligence is a better predictor of GPA success than standardized tests. However, there is an inherent problem with arguing that GPA=success.

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*Great Article on SEL with and Equity Lens!

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*Great Article on SEL with and Equity Lens!

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The first ordained monastic of African heritage in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village speaks on climate change & racial healing & spirituality

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The first ordained monastic of African heritage in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village speaks on climate change & racial healing & spirituality

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Description Transcript

Welcome to episode 27 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh 's deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.

In this episode, journalist Jo Confino is joined by much-loved international mindfulness teacher and author Kaira Jewel Lingo, to talk about her practice and community work, both as a monastic and subsequently as a lay practitioner and spiritual mentor.

Together, they further discuss the intersection of racial, climate, and social injustice; privilege; denial; white awareness; hate and embedded white supremacy; deep listening; and spiritual practices for a world in crisis.

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher who has been practicing mindfulness since 1997. She lived as an ordained nun for 15 years, during which she trained closely with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Speaking five languages, she shares Buddhist meditation, secular mindfulness, and compassion practice internationally, providing spiritual mentoring to individuals and communities working at the intersection of racial, climate, and social justice. Her teaching focuses on activists, educators, artists, youth and families, BIPOC communities, and includes the interweaving of art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice. She teaches in the Plum Village Zen tradition and in the Vipassana tradition.

In this episode, Kaira Jewel expands on the journey of her name - Jewel - and her route to the Plum Village practice; being the first ordained monastic of African heritage in Plum Village; Thich Nhat Hanh's guidance and support; embodying Thay's teachings; learning to take care of suffering; deciding to disrobe; her mission as a lay dharma teacher; practice as a way of life; deep relationships; and her plans to open a Buddhist-Christian practice center with her partner.

She also dives more deeply into spiritual bypassing; healing racialized trauma; the importance of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) retreats and teachers; the story of the first Plum Village retreat for people of color; collective consciousness; adapting the Five Mindfulness Training to different ethnic groups; and her first book: We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving through Change, Loss, and Disruption.

The episode ends with a short meditation guided by Kaira Jewel.
[This episode was recorded on February 18, 2022, via Zoom.]
Co-produced by the Plum Village App:
https://plumvillage.app/

And Global Optimism:
https://globaloptimism.com/

With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:
https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/

Kaira Jewel Lingo https://www.kairajewel.com/

Plum Village
https://plumvillage.org/

Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha
https://www.parallax.org/product/old-path-white-clouds-walking-in-the-footsteps-of-the-buddha/

Ram Dass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass

Brahmavihārā
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara

James Baldwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin

Melina Bondy
https://www.melinabondy.com/

Joanna Macy
https://www.joannamacy.net/

Resmaa Menakem
https://www.resmaa.com/

The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation's Upheaval and Racial Reckoning
https://www.harvard.com/book/the_quaking_of_america/

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
https://shop.harvard.com/book/9781942094470

The Civil Rights Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement

We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving through Change, Loss, and Disruption
https://www.parallax.org/product/we-were-made-for-these-times/

The Five Mindfulness Trainings
https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/the-5-mindfulness-trainings/

Deep Adaptation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation

Schumacher College
https://campus.dartington.org/schumacher-college/

Buddhist-Christian Community of Meditation and Action
https://www.kairajewel.com/teaching/buddhist-christian-community-of-practice-and-action
Quotes
"What's so powerful about Thay's teaching in the community is this huge heart of inclusiveness. Thay and sangha are always reaching wider; the reach is like the brahmavihārās - the loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity. They are immeasurable minds of love."

"Part of freeing ourself on the spiritual path is to undo and unravel these delusions and lies that our society has created, that history has wound around us, about who has value and who doesn't - including patriarchy, or sexual orientation, or gender identity, or age; all these different ways that we are privileged or not."

"If you find yourself uncomfortable, or embarrassed, or triggered, or not sure what to say or do, really stay in your body and let yourself dwell in that experience of what it's like to be uncomfortable. I think so many of our problems come from not being willing to be uncomfortable."

"Black is beautiful."

"James Baldwin has this quote, something like, 'The reason why white people are so afraid to not hate, to stop hating, is that if they feel what's beneath their hatred, it will be so uncomfortable.' They don't want to feel it. So the hate is a kind of protection."

"If we can be with what is happening in the present moment, and we can, if we can not resist it, not push it away, not judge it, but embrace it with mindfulness, with kindness, with friendliness, with curiosity, with a clear mind, with presence which can be cultivated in every moment - then we have at our disposal so much more to meet the difficulties than we would if we were resisting and pushing away and fighting what is."

"What this time calls for - with so much change, with so much disruption, with so much at risk - is more and more of us holding down the fort, who are really doing the deep spirit work of seeing interbeing. And you need to slow down to do that. You need to have less. There needs to be space for that kind of consciousness to emerge."

"Anyone of any privilege needs to be in a space where that history is acknowledged and integrated into our practice."

"And if you think there's something wrong in society, you are right. So it's an inner and an outer affirmation of, 'Yes, white supremacy exists and it is deadly.' And here are dharma practices that can help us as individuals in our relationships and our families, but also in our world, in our institutions, systemically, to see that everyone is being deceived by this story."

"We're all learning. White folks have a different journey than many folks of color, but we're all learning to wake up from this and we can help each other, we can support each other, and that looks different. It doesn't necessarily mean doing the work together, but sometimes it can. And then maybe having affinity spaces where we have a chance to speak with our own groups."

"I feel what Thay taught is love, and he loved his disciples, every one of us, everyone who came to us; I felt he was radiating love and that's healing. And so if you're in a community where you are recognized for who you are, you're not asked to be something else. And then the people there are practicing to love; it's going to be a healing space. Love in the spiritual sense of each of us working to purify our minds and hearts, to see ourselves more clearly, to love ourselves, and then to really see each other clearly."

"These are times no other human generation has had to face: profound structural dissolution, and, really, the last days of what Joanna Macy calls late capitalism. This isn't going to stand for very much longer as it is. And so these are times of apocalypse, right? Where the veil gets pierced - that's the meaning, in Greek: being able to see through an illusion into what's more true. So these are times of a lot of potential collective awakening. And these are also times of great suffering, separation, and illusion."

"All we have to do is be in the present. All we have to do is meet what's happening now. We get so immobilized and drained of our energy by trying to meet what's coming - but that's not here yet. All we are required to do is meet what is here. And we can do that; we are all in the present moment."

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Kaira Jewel Lingo on White Supremacy and Racial Healing (Episode #27) | Plum Village

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Description Transcript Welcome to episode 27 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh 's deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.

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I have always envisioned the links between mental health and the arts as fairly clear, but I hadn't thought about the triangle of power relations, health, and the arts. This program feels like rehearsal for invisible theater—what is embodied in a theatrical space is intended to be brought into the world outside of it.

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In a recently published article, faculty and staff in the UF Center for Arts in Medicine and UF College of Education present best practices for utilizing theatrical arts to reduce social isolation and improve health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth.

Jeffrey Pufahl, research assistant professor at the Center for Arts in Medicine, emphasizes that LGBTQ+ communities face a lot of barriers and discrimination in society.

"These barriers lead to health outcomes that include increased anxiety, increased depression, and, especially for youth, increased suicidality," he says.

In a recent report by the Trevor Project -the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning young people-42 percent of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.

To offer resources for the local community, Pufahl partnered with the UF Health Youth Gender Clinic in 2017 to start Theatre Connect, a theatre group for LGBTQ+ teenagers in the Gainesville area.

The program is presented in seasons-typically every spring, summer, and fall-where participants engage in a variety of activities that combine games and exercises with storytelling and discussion to build a safe, friendly, and creative community.

The theatre-based activities emphasize play and skill-building rather than LGBTQ+ topics, according to Camilo Reina Munoz, co-director of Theatre Connect and an alumnus of the UF Master of Arts in Arts in Medicine program.

"The games help us to focus on the participants as just being kids and building social connections," Reina Munoz says. "We work on gaining confidence, taking risks, putting on characters, thinking off the top of your head, getting used to the sound of your own voice and using it in new ways."

One of the most popular activities they play is called "emotional taxi." The improvisational game involves one player performing the role of a taxi driver while others act as passengers whose characters are informed by a specific emotion. As each passenger comes into the cab, they take on their character's emotion.

"The agility needed to take on different emotions challenges actors in a really fun way," Pufahl says, "and this kind of activity opens up realms of expression that participants might not have on a day-to-day basis in their lives."

While LGBTQ+ topics arise naturally as part of the participants' identities and lived experiences, Reina Munoz says he and other facilitators are careful not to invite participants to process trauma or stress through the activities.

This unique "theatre-first" approach differentiates Theatre Connect from drama therapies and support groups. Still, Reina Munoz says it's important to have mental health professionals as partners in the program. Counselors are always present to co-facilitate activities and are available to provide mental health first-aid, confidential on-demand counseling, and referrals as needed.

"It was groundbreaking at the time we started Theatre Connect," Reina Munoz says. "We couldn't find a lot of literature demonstrating this kind of partnership, so we knew we really struck on something special."

Theatre Connect, which is co-hosted by UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine, has presented eleven seasons since its inception and now partners with Dr. Hannah Bayne and the UF College of Education Mental Health Counselor Training program.

Bayne, assistant professor in the School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education, originally reached out to Pufahl seeking opportunities to integrate theatre into counselor training. She was interested in engaging counselors in improvisation exercises and using actors to roleplay as clients. In her conversations with Pufahl, she learned about Theatre Connect and begged to be a part of it.

As a mental health professional, Bayne praises Theatre Connect's ability to create a safe space for participants to be themselves. While research shows increased rates of suicidality, anxiety, and depression among LGBTQ+ youth, Bayne attributes these to external factors, something that the program offers an escape from.

"These statistics associated with folks who hold LGBTQ+ identities are true, but they are true because folks are being victims of oppression, of discrimination, of bias, and that's what is creating the symptomology," she says. "It's not something internal. It's something external. What I love about Theatre Connect is it offers a space that's affirming, a space for youth to come and just be youth."

During rehearsals, Bayne or another mental health counselor is always present, but their role isn't like their traditional clinical practice. Instead, they apply their expertise to attend to the energy of the room and observe behaviors. If they notice participants in a state of distress, they can offer on-site counseling and refer them to mental health resources.

"This may not be drama therapy or targeted interventions for specific therapeutic purposes," Bayne says, "but I think that there are therapeutic gains happening."

Bayne also plays a crucial role in crafting the curriculum with Reina Munoz and Pufahl. The team meets after every rehearsal to debrief on group dynamics, levels of enthusiasm and participation, and social connectedness.

The trio recently published an article in a first-ever arts in health supplement of Health Promotion Practice, a peer-reviewed journal by the Society for Public Health Education. In the article, they stress the value of having theatre professionals, mental health counselors, and local LGBTQ+ organizations as partners.

Pufahl says this points to work happening across the Center for Arts in Medicine in defining arts in health as a field of research and practice.

"I think what we're really developing in this program is how to create partnerships that can integrate the arts more fully into health practice," he says. "Social cohesion is one of the determinants of health that the arts are really good at addressing, and that's what we find is a really wonderful outcome of Theatre Connect."

Bayne finds Theatre Connect offers an alternative intervention to traditional clinical practice. In her line of work, Bayne might sit with a client struggling with social anxiety and focus on discussing the roots of anxiety and a plan for tackling it. But in Theatre Connect, participants are learning to explore emotion through performance and receiving positive feedback for doing so.

"That's work towards addressing social anxiety, but it doesn't feel like work because it's fun," Bayne says. "Both interventions have their place, but I see Theatre Connect like swimming in the Florida heat. It's work and you're sweating, but you don't feel like you're sweating."

Theatre Connect is supported by the Bradley S. and Marta E. Pollitt family, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Satchel's Pizza, and UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine.

Learn more about Theatre Connect.

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How theatre programs can build community and affirmation for LGBTQ+ youth

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In a recently published article, faculty and staff in the UF Center for Arts in Medicine and UF College of Education present best practices for utilizing theatrical arts to reduce social isolation and improve health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth.

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In SEL right sees more critical race theory

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In SEL right sees more critical race theory

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Fifth-grader Aylin Gomez and other students race across the lawn during recess at Patrick Henry Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., in May. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Administrators in Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District were already looking for ways to support students' mental well-being before the pandemic, driven in part by a string of student deaths, including some suicides. Then covid-19 and remote schooling inflicted fresh emotional damage.

So, this past fall, the district implementeda social-emotional learning (SEL) program - a curriculum geared at helping students manage emotions, develop positive relationships and make good decisions. Schools have worked to develop these skills for decades, and in recent years, formal programming has proliferated coast to coast. In Anoka-Hennepin, elementary schools focused on themes such as respect, empathy, gratitude, kindness, honesty, courage, cooperation, perseverance and responsibility each month. Students learned how to ask for help and spot someone having a bad day.

The complaints began immediately, often from parents already upset about remote schooling and mask mandates. Minnesota's Child Protection League, a group active on conservative issues, said social-emotional learning is a vehicle for critical race theory, an effort to divide students from their parents, emotional manipulation and "the latest child-indoctrination scheme."

Conservative activists who have battled schools across the country over issues of race and gender have a new target: SEL programs that until recently were noncontroversial. The pushback is not yet as widespread as protests around critical race theory, the teaching of history and efforts to ban books. But it is being driven by similar forces and is spreading in familiar ways.

"It's a lack of trust about the schools indoctrinating people. Anything they don't understand they assume is detrimental to kids or their own personal beliefs," said David Law, superintendent of the Anoka-Hennepin School District outside Minneapolis. "If you tell people we're teaching interpersonal skills and we're teaching resiliency, they say, 'Absolutely.' If we say we're teaching SEL they think, 'What are you doing to our students?'"

At least one school district, in Utah, has jettisoned its social-emotional learning curriculum in response to attacks, and school leaders across the country are worried that pressure will intensify on them to do the same.

Tell the Post: Teachers and parents, tell us how race is being taught at your schools

Many SEL programs have nothing to do with the identity-politics debates that have galvanized parents and activists. But critics have focused on programming that does involve gender and racial equity, that helps students identify their own biases and prejudices, and that encourages student activism.

Their criticism is traced, at least in part, to an approach called "transformative SEL," an idea promoted by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or Casel, which has worked to advance the field for many years. Transformative SEL explicitly promotes "issues of culture, identity, agency, belonging, and engagement" as ways of expressing the core tenets of social-emotional learning, according to a 2019 paper by Casel's leaders.

Individual communities have to decide what version of social-emotional learning is right for them, said Timothy P. Shriver, chairman of the Casel board of directors. In some communities, he said, talking about race is central to students' lives, and it's crucial to translate the pain they are feeling into something meaningful. But that might be controversial elsewhere.

In any case, he said, overall support nationally for SEL is strong and growing.

"There's the story of the loud voices on the extreme, screaming and yelling and demanding change," Shriver said. "It appears the river is full of venom, when I don't think that's the case."

Social-emotional learning seeks to treat children as human beings with feelings, life goals and even traumas, not just students learning to write essays and solve math problems. It grew in popularity after the No Child Left Behind law's push for accountability made schools more reliant on standardized testing, which failed to lift test scores. Many in education concluded something different was needed to improve academic outcomes.

The lessons are embedded into day-to-day teaching and offered on their own, in kindergarten through high school. Sometimes it's as simple as a daily check-in, circle time or face-to-face greetings for every child. It could mean encouraging children to take a mindful moment or a deep breath when they are frustrated. For older students, classes might work on setting goals and creating road maps to achieve them. Done well, supporters say, SEL raises academic achievement, reduces discipline problems and brings joy into learning.

A mock funeral aims to help students bury their pain

With billions of dollars in federal rescue funding available, spending on social-emotional learning has spiked, as schools confront students struggling with mental health deficits and behavior problems created or exacerbated over the course of the pandemic. About a third of districts analyzed by Burbio, a data tracking firm, planned to spend some of the federal covid relief money on SEL, including curriculums and training, according to a report by FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University.

Total spending on social-emotional learning grew about 45 percent to $765 million between November 2019 and April 2021, according to a study this past fall by Tyton Partners, a consulting firm, in collaboration with Casel.

But in recent months, a fierce backlash has unfolded, centered on the nexus between social-emotional learning and racial equity.

Parents Defending Education, a group that collects stories of programming that it deems liberal indoctrination, has called out at least seven incidents of social-emotional learning programs it finds offensive. An Indiana parents Facebook group warned that mindfulness is part of social-emotional learning, and also a tenet of Buddhism. "Christian parents should be aware of what is happening," one post said.

The Daily Caller, a conservative news site, has published more than 15 articles sincethis past fallcritical of SEL, which it often links to critical race theory, an academic construct that looks at the consequences of systemic racism and serves as a catchall term conservatives have adopted for lessons about race that they find objectionable.

In recent years, many states have enacted legislation to promote or require social-emotional learning in their schools, and at least 19 states have set standards for teaching SEL, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But this year, lawmakers in Indiana and Virginia considered bills restricting use of these programs, and a bill in Oklahoma is pending that would bar use of state or federal funding for SEL.

And in districts across the country, parents have begun to question or outright oppose these programs. Challenges have popped in Idaho, Texas, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Rhode Island and Utah, among other states.

New critical race theory laws have teachers scared, confused and self-censoring

The Canyons School District in Sandy, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, began a formal social-emotional learning program a few years ago, aiming to help students develop character traits of resiliency, empathy, respect and kindness, and skills such as emotional regulation and goal setting, said district spokesman Jeff Haney. For elementary and middle schools, they used a curriculum called Second Step.

Lisa Bruns, whose children attend the district,became concerned that academic class time would be used to teach values and beliefs that she found objectionable, she said in an email. This past summer, she and another mom pored over the Second Step curriculum and then detailed 25 pages of objections.

Among their concerns: the curriculum included "narratives of white power and white privilege," which teach students that some people experience power or privilege based on race, gender or class. They said the curriculum encouraged students to defend the "ideologies" of "gay and transgender issues" and sought to turn children into "social justice activists."

They also objected to a lesson urging students to "disrupt" and to challenge attitudes that "make bullying and harassment socially acceptable." The term "disrupt," they wrote, is "often associated with movements like Antifa and Black Lives Matter."

At a school board meeting in October, Bruns, who sometimes identifies herself as Lisa Logan, said she was trying to protect her children from "very harmful ideologies" and accused the program of seeking to "indoctrinate" students.

"It is extremely clear that Casel and curriculum like Second Step want to use SEL to reprogram our children into social justice activists for particular causes, causes that make them question objective reality, reject familial cultural or religious beliefs, favor socialism over capitalism, and push them to believe that racial, gender or class identity matters more than unifying as a human race. And that's not good for them or for our country," Bruns said.

She succeeded. The district dropped the Second Step curriculum, citing one particular objection: a slide provided a link to a website about healthy sexual relationships that included tips on having sex for the first time, including the need to feel safe, protect your health, prevent pregnancy and be clear on consent. The website also advised users to clear their browser history after visiting.

And while the district was specifically concerned about only the link to that one website, the matter became so controversial in the community that the school board and the superintendent concluded they could not continue with the curriculum, said Haney, the district spokesman. The board vote to discontinue the program was 4-to-3.

Social-emotional lessons are required in Utah, and the district is now working to develop its own version, he added.

Second Step responded to feedback from Utah parents by removing links and references to outside resources, said Polly Stansell, vice president of product for the Committee for Children, which created the curriculum. She said the program was developed by experts based on research and community feedback.

"Parents and caregivers are our children's lifelong teachers and support system, and play an indispensable role in their development - social-emotional learning in the classroom is aimed to strengthen, not counter, that support," she said in a statement.

In the Penn-Harris-Madison schools in northern Indiana, controversy erupted last spring over the district's SEL program. Some parents objected because the high school program included three lessons related to diversity and equity - one about microaggressions, one on implicit bias and one on anti-racism. Some also became upset about how these matters were addressed in a professional development session.

The district responded to the uproar with community meetings over the summer where administrators explained the program and parents broke into small group discussions, said Lucha Ramey, director of school communications.

As a result, the district now posts SEL lessons online every quarter and allows parents to opt their children out of particular lessons. (Those students can read a book of their choice in the library instead, Ramey said.) The program now is focused only on noncontroversial subjects such as insight, regulation, connection and collaboration - concepts taken directly from the state instructional guidelines.

"We follow the Indiana standards," Ramey said. "These seven standards they feel strongly will make students of Indiana more employable."

Many parents don't understand what social-emotional learning really is, said Aaliyah A. Samuel, president and chief executive of Casel. "They are seeing misinformation on websites, social media," she said. "My friends, they are like, 'What exactly do you do?'"

Social-emotional learning used to be considered something of a unifying idea, and one with substantial bipartisan support. Leading advocates of SEL went out of their way to court conservative buy-in. The Aspen Institute assembled a bipartisan National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development that issued a report in early 2019 casting SEL as crucial to academic success and a way to move beyond divisive education debates of the past.

"After two decades of education debates that produced deep passions and deeper divisions, we have a chance for a fresh start," the report said.

The bipartisanship was part of the report's power, said former Michigan governor John Engler (R), who served on the Aspen commission.

"We worked very hard to make sure it wasn't something that leaned to the right or to the left," he said in an interview. "This was focused on the children, and what are their needs, and what are the barriers to learning."

But SEL has faced criticism from the left that it did not directly address racism faced by many students of color, and that its focus on management of emotions was a way of controlling students' behavior - including their legitimate reactions to racism and poverty - rather than addressing the underlying problems.

"What's the point of teaching children about conflict resolution skills if we're not talking about the conflicts that exist because of racism or white supremacy?" Dena Simmons, an expert in the field who works with schools on SEL and race, said in 2019. She said SEL could be seen as "white supremacy with a hug."

New transparency bills would force teachers to post instructional materials

Casel, which evaluates SEL curriculums and has worked for decades to define and promote the field, addressed this by incorporating messages about race and identity into its framework guiding SEL programs. It also introduced "transformative SEL," which explicitly promoted equity.

The work on identity and equity had been ongoing for some time and was not specifically in response to Simmons, but it stemmed from similar concerns that were broadly shared, said Robert Jagers, vice president of research at Casel, who co-wrote an influential paper on transformative SEL.

The shift has provided fodder for critics, particularly amid rising conservative pushback against teaching and talking about race in schools. SEL is now routinely referred to as another form of critical race theory.

Nova Biro, co-director at SEL4US, a network of alliances that support SEL programs, said Republicans have supported SEL programs as one answer to mass shootings at schools that does not touch on gun restrictions. So the recent pushback caught her off guard.

"We had enjoyed bipartisan support for quite some time," she said. "We were a bit blindsided."

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In 'social-emotional learning,' right sees more critical race theory

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Administrators in Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District were already looking for ways to support students' mental well-being before the pandemic, driven in part by a string of student deaths, including some suicides. Then covid-19 and remote schooling inflicted fresh emotional damage.

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In our class, we identified and focused on the following problems that students face:

The pressure neoliberal capitalism places on "success" that encourages individualistic and exclusive, or competitive behaviors that can undermine the success of less privileged students

Lack of adequate and equal access to spaces and other resources, like mental health care

Lack of Social Emotional Learning (we learned this is more emphasized in K-12 and then assumed to be known in higher education), especially in terms of healthy boundary setting

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This is a survey we made to gauge campus climate in relation to the challenges we identified. If you're a student at the 5Cs, please fill it out. We will use the information to write a report at the end of May 2022:

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This is a survey we made to gauge campus climate in relation to the challenges we identified. If you're a student at the 5Cs, please fill it out. We will use the information to write a report at the end of May 2022:

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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS7205lHNjHe75_3tO0pHfgPJReWtxZnVY4F8N_dMR4Wcn5g/viewform?usp=sf_link

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Hosted by Nicolas Savard, the Gender Euphoria podcast aims to amplify the voices of trans and gender nonconforming theater artists in the United States

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Can Power Cause Brain Damage? Research shows it can!

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Can Power Cause Brain Damage? Research shows it can!

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Researchers have found that CEOs and other leaders may suffer damage to their brain as a result of what they have to do to rise to power. The damage results in the loss of the ability to read other people's emotions, which could explain why people who achieve great power lose their ability to feel empathy for the less powerful.

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How leaders lose mental capacities-most notably for reading other people-that were essential to their rise

If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he's sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?

When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a congressional hearing last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. But it was Stumpf's performance that stood out. Here was a man who had risen to the top of the world's most valuable bank, yet he seemed utterly unable to read a room. Although he apologized, he didn't appear chastened or remorseful. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number. Even the most direct barbs-"You have got to be kidding me" ( Sean Duffy of Wisconsin); "I can't believe some of what I'm hearing here" ( Gregory Meeks of New York)-failed to shake him awake.

What was going through Stumpf's head? New research suggests that the better question may be: What wasn't going through it?

The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as "a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies." But that's not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury-becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people's point of view.

Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University, in Ontario, recently described something similar. Unlike Keltner, who studies behaviors, Obhi studies brains. And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, "mirroring," that may be a cornerstone of empathy. Which gives a neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the " power paradox ": Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.

That loss in capacity has been demonstrated in various creative ways. A 2006 study asked participants to draw the letter E on their forehead for others to view-a task that requires seeing yourself from an observer's vantage point. Those feeling powerful were three times more likely to draw the E the right way to themselves-and backwards to everyone else (which calls to mind George W. Bush, who memorably held up the American flag backwards at the 2008 Olympics). Other experiments have shown that powerful people do worse at identifying what someone in a picture is feeling, or guessing how a colleague might interpret a remark.

The fact that people tend to mimic the expressions and body language of their superiors can aggravate this problem: Subordinates provide few reliable cues to the powerful. But more important, Keltner says, is the fact that the powerful stop mimicking others. Laughing when others laugh or tensing when others tense does more than ingratiate. It helps trigger the same feelings those others are experiencing and provides a window into where they are coming from. Powerful people "stop simulating the experience of others," Keltner says, which leads to what he calls an "empathy deficit."

Mirroring is a subtler kind of mimicry that goes on entirely within our heads, and without our awareness. When we watch someone perform an action, the part of the brain we would use to do that same thing lights up in sympathetic response. It might be best understood as vicarious experience. It's what Obhi and his team were trying to activate when they had their subjects watch a video of someone's hand squeezing a rubber ball.

For nonpowerful participants, mirroring worked fine: The neural pathways they would use to squeeze the ball themselves fired strongly. But the powerful group's? Less so.

Was the mirroring response broken? More like anesthetized. None of the participants possessed permanent power. They were college students who had been "primed" to feel potent by recounting an experience in which they had been in charge. The anesthetic would presumably wear off when the feeling did-their brains weren't structurally damaged after an afternoon in the lab. But if the effect had been long-lasting-say, by dint of having Wall Street analysts whispering their greatness quarter after quarter, board members offering them extra helpings of pay, and Forbes praising them for "doing well while doing good"-they may have what in medicine is known as "functional" changes to the brain.

I wondered whether the powerful might simply stop trying to put themselves in others' shoes, without losing the ability to do so. As it happened, Obhi ran a subsequent study that may help answer that question. This time, subjects were told what mirroring was and asked to make a conscious effort to increase or decrease their response. "Our results," he and his co-author, Katherine Naish, wrote, "showed no difference." Effort didn't help.

This is a depressing finding. Knowledge is supposed to be power. But what good is knowing that power deprives you of knowledge?

The sunniest possible spin, it seems, is that these changes are only sometimes harmful. Power, the research says, primes our brain to screen out peripheral information. In most situations, this provides a helpful efficiency boost. In social ones, it has the unfortunate side effect of making us more obtuse. Even that is not necessarily bad for the prospects of the powerful, or the groups they lead. As Susan Fiske, a Princeton psychology professor, has persuasively argued, power lessens the need for a nuanced read of people, since it gives us command of resources we once had to cajole from others. But of course, in a modern organization, the maintenance of that command relies on some level of organizational support. And the sheer number of examples of executive hubris that bristle from the headlines suggests that many leaders cross the line into counterproductive folly.

Less able to make out people's individuating traits, they rely more heavily on stereotype. And the less they're able to see, other research suggests, the more they rely on a personal "vision" for navigation. John Stumpf saw a Wells Fargo where every customer had eight separate accounts. (As he'd often noted to employees, eight rhymes with great.) "Cross-selling," he told Congress, "is shorthand for deepening relationships."

Is there nothing to be done?

No and yes. It's difficult to stop power's tendency to affect your brain. What's easier-from time to time, at least-is to stop feeling powerful.

Insofar as it affects the way we think, power, Keltner reminded me, is not a post or a position but a mental state. Recount a time you did not feel powerful, his experiments suggest, and your brain can commune with reality.

Recalling an early experience of powerlessness seems to work for some people-and experiences that were searing enough may provide a sort of permanent protection. An incredible study published in The Journal of Finance last February found that CEOs who as children had lived through a natural disaster that produced significant fatalities were much less risk-seeking than CEOs who hadn't. (The one problem, says Raghavendra Rau, a co-author of the study and a Cambridge University professor, is that CEOs who had lived through disasters without significant fatalities were more risk-seeking.)
"Hubris syndrome," Owen writes, "is a disorder of the possession of power."
But tornadoes, volcanoes, and tsunamis aren't the only hubris-restraining forces out there. PepsiCo CEO and Chairman Indra Nooyi sometimes tells the story of the day she got the news of her appointment to the company's board, in 2001. She arrived home percolating in her own sense of importance and vitality, when her mother asked whether, before she delivered her "great news," she would go out and get some milk. Fuming, Nooyi went out and got it. "Leave that damn crown in the garage" was her mother's advice when she returned.

The point of the story, really, is that Nooyi tells it. It serves as a useful reminder about ordinary obligation and the need to stay grounded. Nooyi's mother, in the story, serves as a "toe holder," a term once used by the political adviser Louis Howe to describe his relationship with the four-term President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom Howe never stopped calling Franklin.

For Winston Churchill, the person who filled that role was his wife, Clementine, who had the courage to write, "My Darling Winston. I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner; & you are not as kind as you used to be." Written on the day Hitler entered Paris, torn up, then sent anyway, the letter was not a complaint but an alert: Someone had confided to her, she wrote, that Churchill had been acting "so contemptuous" toward subordinates in meetings that "no ideas, good or bad, will be forthcoming"-with the attendant danger that "you won't get the best results."

Lord David Owen-a British neurologist turned parliamentarian who served as the foreign secretary before becoming a baron-recounts both Howe's story and Clementine Churchill's in his 2008 book, In Sickness and in Power, an inquiry into the various maladies that had affected the performance of British prime ministers and American presidents since 1900. While some suffered from strokes (Woodrow Wilson), substance abuse (Anthony Eden), or possibly bipolar disorder (Lyndon B. Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt), at least four others acquired a disorder that the medical literature doesn't recognize but, Owen argues, should.

"Hubris syndrome," as he and a co-author, Jonathan Davidson, defined it in a 2009 article published in Brain, "is a disorder of the possession of power, particularly power which has been associated with overwhelming success, held for a period of years and with minimal constraint on the leader." Its 14 clinical features include: manifest contempt for others, loss of contact with reality, restless or reckless actions, and displays of incompetence. In May, the Royal Society of Medicine co-hosted a conference of the Daedalus Trust -an organization that Owen founded for the study and prevention of hubris.

I asked Owen, who admits to a healthy predisposition to hubris himself, whether anything helps keep him tethered to reality, something that other truly powerful figures might emulate. He shared a few strategies: thinking back on hubris-dispelling episodes from his past; watching documentaries about ordinary people; making a habit of reading constituents' letters.

But I surmised that the greatest check on Owen's hubris today might stem from his recent research endeavors. Businesses, he complained to me, had shown next to no appetite for research on hubris. Business schools were not much better. The undercurrent of frustration in his voice attested to a certain powerlessness. Whatever the salutary effect on Owen, it suggests that a malady seen too commonly in boardrooms and executive suites is unlikely to soon find a cure.

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How leaders lose mental capacities-most notably for reading other people-that were essential to their rise If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he's sexually magnetic.

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Embodied gratitude / eco therapy / drama therapy / reconnection

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Embodied gratitude / eco therapy / drama therapy / reconnection

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A woman named Marianne Marcote is a dramatherapist whose work is intended to reconnect the self with self, other, and world. Through creative, gratitude-forming practices, she encourages those she works with to embody what they are feeling and to let their subconscious come to light. She does individual and collaborative work. I was interested in the differences between a practice like forum theater, which feels "therapeutic" without being therapy... and 1-1 drama therapy. I am generally a person who feels most grounded when in the presence of one or a couple other people, so I feel like her approach would resonate with me more than a large-group or audience-facing activity. I'm curious what other drama therapy-adjacent practices are considerate of the different conditions that make space for vulnerability.

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This is Resmaa Menakem's [resmaa.com] way of seeing the issue. He's a social worker, somatic experiencing professional, and trauma consultant:

"Clean pain is pain that mends and can build your capacity for growth. It's the pain you experience when you know, exactly, what you need to say or do; when you really, really don't want to say or do it; and when you do it anyway. It's also the pain you experience when you have no idea what to do; when you are scared or worried about what might happen; then when you step forward into the unknown anyway, with honesty and vulnerability.

Experiencing clean pain enables us to engage our integrity and tap into our bodies and inherent resilience and coherence, in a way that dirty pain does not. Paradoxically only by walking into our pain or discomfort - experiencing it, moving through it, and metabolising it - can we grow. It's how the human body works.

Clean pain hurts like hell. But it enables our bodies to grow through our difficulties, develop nuanced skills, and mend our trauma. In this process, the body metabolizes clean pain. The body can then settle; more room for growth is created in its nervous system; and the self becomes freer and more capable, because it now has access to energy that was previously protected, bound, and constricted. When this happens, people's lives often improve in other ways as well.

Dirty pain is the pain of avoidance, blame, and denial. When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent, or physically or emotionally run away, they experience a dirty pain. They also create more of it for themselves and others." (pg19-20)

*Menakem got this terminology from his mentors Dr. David Schnarch and Dr. Steven Hayer, but defines the terms now in his own way . . . .

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I presented on Sins Invalid: "a disability justice based performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. Led by disabled people of color, Sins Invalid’s performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body, developing provocative work where paradigms of 'normal' and 'sexy' are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all bodies and communities."

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I presented on Sins Invalid: "a disability justice based performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. Led by disabled people of color, Sins Invalid’s performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body, developing provocative work where paradigms of 'normal' and 'sexy' are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all bodies and communities."

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OUR VISION

Sins Invalid recognizes that we will be liberated as whole beings-as disabled, as queer, as brown, as black, as gender non-conforming, as trans, as women, as men, as non-binary gendered- we are far greater whole than partitioned. We recognize that our allies emerge from many communities and that demographic identity alone does not determine one's commitment to liberation.

Sins Invalid is committed to social and economic justice for all people with disabilities - in lockdowns, in shelters, on the streets, visibly disabled, invisibly disabled, sensory minority, environmentally injured, psychiatric survivors - moving beyond individual legal rights to collective human rights.

Our stories, imbedded in analysis, offer paths from identity politics to unity amongst all oppressed people, laying a foundation for a collective claim of liberation and beauty.

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Sins Invalid is a disability justice performance project that centers people of color, queers, nonbinary and trans people with disabilities.

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thinking about how the setting would inform the practice. for such a liberating art, how would the process differ (especially when the outcome is set)?

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The Power of a Theater Performance in Prison

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As Charles Moore surveyed the room, the small black stage lit by late afternoon light streaming through the wall of windows overlooking the Hudson, he felt a mess of emotions. About 240 people, including staff from Senator Cory Booker's office, choreographer Bill T.

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Will be coming back to this reading over & over

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Will be coming back to this reading over & over

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Read this piece recently and makes me think about the analogy of visual art:museum :: theater:playhouse

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This writing responds to artist Marta Rodriguez Maleck's exhibitions Morir es Vivir and Vivir es Morir mounted at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the New Orleans Public Library, respectively. As the Community Engagement Curator at the New Orleans Museum of Art, I worked with her in different capacities on both exhibitions and through her provocative prompt that is the foundation of both exhibitions - "What must die to thrive?" - I developed my own answer.
Art and artists need to die.

When I say that "art and artists need to die," I mean the concepts and foundations of these two things as manifestations of imperial-induced greed and elitism need to die, in order to be reborn. Prior to the term "art" being defined as "skill resulting from learning or practice" in 13th-century Middle English (which was in turn derived from the Latin ars meaning "skill" or "craft,"), art in communities such as Ifẹ̀ ( an ancient Yoruba city in southwest Nigeria) was simply a translation of a feeling or experience into a physical object to be shared with others - sometimes having a royal or spiritual significance. Through this lens, art was understood without the pretense of pseudo-superior thought and existence.

Several years ago I learned that instead of the term "art," in many African and Indigenous languages there are words that describe beauty or creative expression and those who engage in this practice. One of my favorites is amewa, from the Yoruba people of Africa. Amewa translates to "connoisseur" or "knower of beauty," beauty within the ideal of iwontúnwonsi: that sweet spot between not too much or too little (i.e., not too short or too tall). These types of words and roots are what I believe to be more resonant with prioritizing what is good for the collective and communally shared experience and understanding.

Before there were "curators," there was amewa. Before there was a multi-trillion-dollar unregulated global art industry there was empathy and humanity. Before there was greed, hypercapitalism, and gaudy overabundance, there was iwontúnwonsi.

New Orleans is a prime location for a revolution that challenges artists and curators to return to more humanistic roots. Through New Orleans' existence as the most African city in North America, our collective pathway back to the essence of the "art" within our humanity is much clearer here than other places. To get there, institutions within this field will have to adopt the thinking of New Orleans native artist and legend John T. Scott. He once said, "I am not an artist until the community tells me that I am. I can't call myself an artist." This quote resonates with me through time and can be applied to not only artists, but anyone who works in the art world - be it a curator, art handler, program manager, gallery attendant, or museum director.

Perhaps museums can't be museums until we in the community tell them they are that.

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When "Art" Dies, the Community Will Thrive

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This writing responds to artist Marta Rodriguez Maleck's exhibitions Morir es Vivir and Vivir es Morir mounted at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the New Orleans Public Library , respectively.

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Theatre for Living's Forum Theatre production on Mental Health Care (2013)

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Theatre for Living's Forum Theatre production on Mental Health Care (2013)

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"To everyone involved in this remarkable piece of theatre, piece of reality, piece of life itself, I send my heartfelt congratulations and thanks for maladjusted. I found your work compelling. I came to the theatre Saturday evening and then sat through the entire webcast again tonight because I was enthralled by what happened. I was in tears more than once both evenings as I watched the characters struggle through their experiences. I know that when I understood about my own anxieties and fears I was able to support my family and myself so much more."
Pamela Galloway

"We are used to theatre that exposes. We are used to theatre that points a finger and says, "This. This is a problem." And we are all used to theatre, films, art, and events that "raise awareness". With maladjusted, Theatre for Living takes this process further, beyond the pointing of the finger and the raising of the awareness. They say, "This. This is a problem. Now what would YOU do about it?" And most importantly, they let us answer.

My own understanding of the issues was heightened, my ability to empathize was increased, and I felt that my role in the evening was empowered. Instead of passive audience members, we became actors in our own right (some on the stage, and some within the human transactions and interactions we'll be having in our own lives). I left the theatre that night feeling, somehow, that I had done a good and necessary thing. I didn't feel powerless against the huge issue I'd been presented, though I had a better appreciation of the challenges and the stakes."
Lauren from www.niftynotcool.com

"I was privileged to attend maladjusted last night with a colleague. I'm a social worker based in a Vancouver Coastal Health mental health team. I found the evening immensely stimulating! What a wonderful concept and method for influencing change at all system levels. I was wholly impressed by the actors as well as the superb facilitation skills of David. I hope this project will continue long term and get the world attention it deserves. Thank you for this most unique and rich experience."
Melanie Parkinson, Vancouver

"Theatre for Living's maladjusted webcast tonight was the greatest thing I've ever legally streamed."
Sarah Maitland, via Twitter

For more information about the project, please call Theatre for Living (Headlines Theatre) at 604.871.0508 or email outreach@theatreforliving.com

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Theatre for Living :: Past Work :: maladjusted 2013

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"To everyone involved in this remarkable piece of theatre, piece of reality, piece of life itself, I send my heartfelt congratulations and thanks for maladjusted. I found your work compelling. I came to the theatre Saturday evening and then sat through the entire webcast again tonight because I was enthralled by what happened.

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Upon the opening 30 minutes of the play, I immediately felt something very familiar. From the vignette style action blurbs to the audience participation, to the rawness of the human condition, I was able to draw a connection to another show I had the pleasure of being in around 4 years ago called Brainstorm. Brainstorm was a compilation of personal stories, anecdotes, passions, dreams, and experiences both from on stage and audience where actor and spectator alike were confronted with the trials and tribulations of adolescence and relationships with parents/ourselves. This 4th wall translucency is something I would like to incorporate in our devised piece. I also appreciated the walking through of each theme and checking in with the audience throughout. Ultimately, it is a conversation with moving examples. I almost forgot how much I loved this style of theater. Although this is a little more serious than the participation of the audience in Brainstorm, the idea is there. This is about entering the space, placing people you know (or yourself) into the shoes of those acting. These are real stories, real experiences. I remember when my friend Julia, in our production, gave this phenomenal monologue about generational pressure that brought the audience to tears every night. There was no need to question the audience because they felt it, they replaced Julia with themselves, Julia wasn't speaking to them but through them. The moment was amazing. That is what this piece felt like.

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This was the first time I watched a full-length forum theatre production and I found it super interesting and inspiring. I loved the real-life problem solving, audience engagement, collective exploration, the ties to public policy, and the way in which there's an underlying message that there is not one single correct answer to things.
I was especially captivated by the prompts that the facilitator used to move the action forward and further explore motivations/unspoken emotions/desires, etc. For example:

What are "her real thoughts" or the character's "secret"

"Take an action to get what you want"

"What does ______ need to conquer?"

"Make the shape of the strongest emotion"

Lastly, this quote really stood out to me, "You don't have to agree, just understand."

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Projection Mapping - The Next Step in Public Art - Musart Boutique

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Musart Boutique Gift Shop - Museum Shop and Unique Gift Ideas

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As a relatively new field of artistic expression, Projection Mapping has gone from an interesting gimmick to gaining more and more traction in the art community at large as the years go on, and has become a fantastic contemporary showcase of talent and design choice. By utilizing the space in everyday life - from buildings to sculptures and even nature itself - and mapping moving, projected imagery onto them, one is able to transform an entire landscape into something wholly alien and original.

By utilizing everyday video projectors, Projection Mappers can project their work onto all kinds of different surfaces instead of, say, a blank white screen. This allows the artist to map light onto any surface and can turn any object into an interactive display. Formally, the definition for the art form is, "the display of an image on a non-flat or non-white surface."

Also known under the titles of Video Mapping and Spatial Augmented Reality, this new Projection mapping is quickly becoming one of the most vibrant and interesting ways to display a public exhibition. It delights and interests any passerby that happens to see the show. Used by advertisers as well as artists, the form has an astounding potential to add a technical aspect to any place, on any surface.
Not only this, but artists can decide to add an audio element to their work to perform an entire experience for their audience. Sound heightens the effect and greatly expandis the range of expression for their work.

Projection mapping is relatively new, but the history leading up to the current trend is fascinating and dates back little ways previously. In the 1960's, Video Mapping was utilized, for example, at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride where they used the technique to animate disembodied heads - a perfect use for a spooky ride!

Human Face - Video Mapping By Samsung (2012)

Even with these humble beginnings, the genre has grown into a huge advertising space for many name-brands, such as Nokia, Samsung, Unilever Pakistan, Pakistan Tobacco company, Bank Alfalah, Brighton Paints, Benson & Hedges, John Players Gold Leaf and BMW. The spectacle and interactivity of the form are almost impossible to ignore, leaving passersby with an intense urge to watch the show and take part in the spectacle.

The Ongoing Artistic Legacy

Of course, Projection mapping has been utilized by serious artists as well as a significant form of self-expression. All new technologies bring to them artists creative, adventurous, and eager to use them, and Projection Mapping is no different. Urban centers, such as prominent locations in New York and London, have been the hosts to many impromptu art exhibitions. Utilizing this method is actually a perfect way for an aspiring artist to been seen and experienced - because the artist is merely using light, they can 'paint' their art onto any conceivable canvas with absolutely no repercussions at all: this enables anyone to have, essentially, free gallery showings anywhere, at any time.

This has been used in recent years not only for art, but for activism. The Occupy Wall Street movement has recently projected a display onto the Verizon Wireless building in order to show people that the movement was still alive in New York. Certainly, we will be seeing more of this kind of artwork as the technology becomes more and more available to the general public.

Projection Mapping Displays

All around the world cities have been using projection mapping displays for their citizens. Some of the most dramatic have been recurring festivals that are definite crowd pleasers, but there are more somber and intimate ones as well. Not only that, artists continue to utilize the medium for all kinds of specific needs.

The Sydney Opera House

Every year, one of the most famous opera houses in the world hosts a brilliant event that decorates the entire structure with beautiful, moving artwork. In 2015, for instance, the Opera House enlisted the aid of Universal Everything, a UK-based animation studio, in order to perform their show. Universal Everything decided to utilize 22 different artists, each showcasing 30 seconds of individual animated material. The Projecction mapping was seen as a kind of visual Fantasia-like feast and delighted everyone in the vicinity.

Speaking of the event itself, Universal Everything Founder Matt Pyke told press that, "due to the use of traditional animation techniques, this film could have existed in 1920, albeit with a 21st-century twist - bringing our influences of global pop culture, modernist graphics, and physics simulations into a playful exploration of this iconic building."

Interconnection

The distinguished winner of the Jury's Choice Award and the People's Choice Award at iMapp 2016, one of the largest international Projection Mapping competitions - this brilliant display brought an intricate fusion of design and contemporary art direction onto the Romanian Parliament Palace, where it covered a total of 22, 000 meters of surface. The piece combined elements of architecture, physics, chemistry, sacred geometry, and more, and presented the audience with a unique and gorgeous five-minute display.

Box

This brilliant short film by Bot & Dolly presents the viewers with a unique, robot-powered projection mapping onto moving objects. The results are stunning and the blending and transporting of objects and shapes is absolutely stunning to behold. The intricacy of the machinations behind the exhibition is a marvel in itself and the short film is a great example of the power of the Projection Mapping medium.

A combination of various different technologies and styles, including robotics, mapping and computer generated imagery, Bot & Dolly has created a mechanical, artistic, and design-oriented wonder that truly shows the power of this new art form. This mixed-media presentation is one of the many different ways which Projection Mapping can manifest itself.

Dr Blighty

Inspired by a World War 1 story wherein the Royal Pavilion Estate became a military hospital, this beautiful, free, public show depicts the tale of the thousands of wounded Indian soldiers that were brought to the temporary hospital from the Western Front. A touching and important tribute, this historic showcase is a brilliant way to blend technology, art, and history in order to tell a story that's important to Brighton's history. "Visitors to Royal Pavilion Garden can experience a dreamlike environment of immersive installations," the festival details, "inspired by the letters the soldiers sent back home." This installation is truly an interesting way to envision history and a touching tale.

One of the most interesting things that Projection Mapping is capable of is speaking to a large audience all at once, making installations like Dr Blighty not only a spectacular sight to behold but also tell a story to thousands of people all at the same time. Truly, this unique story would be much more difficult to tell if not for this technological medium.

Speed of Light

This clever projection uses the artists' desks and office space for their work - showcasing the fact that one doesn't need to use an entire building to make great art! Having created the presentation, "Address is Approximate," Sharp & Jenkins have established a great way to utilize Projection Mapping and have cleverly visualized a story involving an escaped convict, a stubborn policeman, and a police helicopter - all contained in an inches-wide projection over their office!
The projections were filmed on a Canon 5d MkII and an HD MiniCam and truly do look like miniature versions! This clever display is a perfect example of the power of the medium - you don't need to blow up a presentation to building-sized proportions when a simple desk will suffice.

Omnicron

Seen exclusively at the Hala Stulecia Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, Poland, this installation is one of the few permanent Projection Mapping installations in the world and can be seen all throughout the year. This re-imagining of the space and the building itself is a worthy and artistic tribute to the architectural prowess that went into the construction of the building and to the style of architecture itself.

The minimalistic themes in the projection mapping presentation are seen throughout, and heard in the alien and surreal music that accompanies it. By utilizing a palate of black and white (and a splash of red), the presentation does much with very little, transforming an aged dome into a vibrant and stimulating display.

An ongoing and vibrant artform

The varied and unique uses of Projection Mapping are merely beginning and the art form as a whole is very young. It gives it ample opportunity to grow into its own significant force in the art scene. Artists have been utilizing technology to push the boundaries of their art for millennia and it is certainly no different in contemporary times. By giving artists more tools to hone their vision, we all benefit - especially if they decide to make a public presentation! Projection Mapping is one of many burgeoning art forms and will continue to make impressions around the world, astounding and entertaining entire crowds at a time. At the same time, it simply showing a few people something amazing on an office desk space.

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Projection Mapping - The Next Step in Public Art - Musart Boutique

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Projection Mapping is one of many burgeoning art forms and will continue to make impressions around the world, astounding and entertaining entire crowds at a time. At the same time, it simply showing a few people something amazing on an office desk space. Read the full article...

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This week I have been interested in the Invisible Theatre concept. I have always thought of Theatre as a one way performance, with occasional 4th wall situations; however, in the invisible theatre concept, the audience is not just acknowledging their own presence (like a classic production breaking the 4th wall) they are inundated in the production. I am tempted to say that this is not theatre, because the audience has no knowledge of it. It seems more like a live case study. I am also skeptical of the morals of the audience not being told they are in a production. I would want to be told I am in a production that would potentially be filmed.

During the play on Wednesday, I loved the way the narrator interacted with the audience, and I want to imagine the audience being more involved. So, in another sense--contrary to my previous skepticism with the invisible play-- I want to be in an invisible theatre production.

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In the forum theatre piece we watched, violence and disruptions of the process of meeting basic needs felt completely ubiquitous. It was clear that interpersonal and systemic conflicts resulted in inequitable differences in treatment. It was hard to watch conflicts between two individuals play out and satisfying to watch them get untangled ever so slightly by audience members. But how would such a process work on a national scale, where the needs are so much more varied on a person to person basis and the operative power does not necessarily lie in one person’s hands? How would this process differ for something like a UN conference room when there are so many players?

Sadie

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Mostly what I've been thinking about is why image/forum theatre are so under utilized. Despite having done theatre for many years, this was the first I'd ever heard about this style of performance. I'm trying to think of ways to incorporate forum theatre into what I do, especially as I am planning to do lots of directing in the future. I think it could be really revolutionary if the department started teaching/performing less traditional styles of theatre.