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Free LA High School & Youth Justice Coalition

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Free LA High School & Youth Justice Coalition

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The Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) is working to build a youth, family, and formerly and currently incarcerated people’s movement to challenge America’s addiction to incarceration and race, gender and class discrimination in Los Angeles County’s, California’s and the nation’s juvenile and criminal injustice systems.
We use transformative justice and community intervention/peacebuilding, FREE LA High School, know your rights, legal defense, and police and court monitoring to “starve the beast” – promoting safety in our schools, homes and neighborhoods without relying on law enforcement and lock-ups, preventing system contact, and pulling people out of the system.

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Camp Common Ground, Oakland: lead with empathy

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Camp Common Ground, Oakland: lead with empathy

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Camp Common Ground is a two-year, leadership program. We bring racially and economically diverse middle and high schoolers together. We equip them with the leadership, social-emotional, and cultural competencies that they’ll use to develop meaningful relationships with each other.

Once admitted, youth embark on a 2+ year leadership journey. After the 2 week overnight camp, they participate in school-year Leadership Academy where they complete a project to make change in their schools and communities.  Then, they return for a second summer and mentor in a new group of Commoners!

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Youth Justice Coalition

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Ladera Vista Junior High School of the Arts

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Ladera Vista Junior High School of the Arts

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Arts Middle School in Fullerton, CA

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A "nature school" on Vashon Island, WA, for ages 5-11, on 7 acres of farm, wetlands & woodlands. Outdoor learning all year long. Arts and science based sustainable solutions, centering multiple intelligence theory and perma-culture design projects. Care for goats, sheep and chickens built into the day. Spanish fusion program. Music & yoga daily.

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Meet the students of Vashon Green School as they receive their nature names and directions for the year in a ceremony that marks the beginning of a ten month long learning journey together. Students choose (or it chooses them) nature names and a direction. The direction is their place in the circle every morning and afternoon. It is connected to the idea that each direction in the wheel of the year holds energy related to the seasons and life-cycles. Their chosen species becomes one of their allies and mentors as they learn about it and themselves. (note: Mei, Vaughn, Angelo, and Eduardo are missing from these introductions and we will add them as soon as we have them)

For the previous 12 years, we have gathered in community to celebrate the balance of night and day, gifts of the harvest and create a container for our children as they cross this particular threshold of entry to the year. The container is made of all of our families loving all of our students and witnessing them. This year, as we adapt to the redesign of our community celebrations, we acknowledge the depth of importance of the way we have created a basket to hold the children and we aspire to bring that commitment and spirit to the new way of being in community while unable to always do it in the same time and place as one another.

Because we are adapting together, we ask that all families meet all of the students and collaborate on creating this container in a new way. And we encourage each family to support their child i n learning about their chosen species and their direction. And engage them in the conversations about what it all means and who they are in the circle and in the community.

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Meet the students of Vashon Green School as they receive their nature names and directions for the year in a ceremony that marks the beginning of a ten month long learning journey together. Students choose (or it chooses them) nature names and a direction. The direction is their place in the circle every morning and afternoon.

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Filmmaker Karen Black has researched the effects of modern education on indigenous, sustainable cultures in her film, Schooling the World. She says, "In non-WEIRD societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich democratic), children grow up in mixed-age communities embedded in adult activity, free to play, move & exercise their bodies, and able to participate in adult work as they become developmentally ready... Research shows that gifted scientists, writers, artists & entrepreneurs often did most of their learning through experimentation, keen observation, real play and real work- in contextualized, real-world activities."
-From a talk at the Economics of Happiness conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyoBBROgUsQ

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What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning.

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This "unschool" questions the structure of school and promotes the idea of free learners, while using the resources of schools in the service of students' needs and interests.

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No matter how you are doing school during COVID--at home, on-line, in the school building or virtual--its time to get creative. Things are strange. Many of the everyday aspects of life before COVID are just not available. So let's face that fact. Let's avoid the temptation to try to make 'school as usual' work in these strange new circumstances. Instead, let's focus on what is truly important and think outside the box about how we can provide it.

1. Prioritizing wellness and healthy relationships

2. Nurturing the inherent love of learning

3. Encouraging students to take responsibility for becoming educated

This website is a resource centre and support group for parents, students and educators, providing the tools and encouragement they need to bring about change in how we "do school'.
Unschooling School is about bringing people together, people who understand that some of the structures and assumptions of the current education system are not necessarily nurturing every child. Unschooling School is about giving parents and youth the help they need to work with teachers to create a better, more flexible system, by insisting that every child has the right to participate in public education, in a way that works for them.

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No matter how you are doing school during COVID--at home, on-line, in the school building or virtual--its time to get creative. Things are strange. Many of the everyday aspects of life before COVID are just not available. So let's face that fact.

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Offers martial arts and hip hop dance classes to ages 5-18, with the least access to high quality arts education. Their teen dance company and junior dance company create & perform original work. Now offers an elders program as well. "When we are successful, young people live meaningful, connected, creative lives, and become advocates for a just and equitable society."

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THE BEGINNING

In 1988, two martial artists opened a small storefront dojo on San Pablo Avenue in North Oakland, envisioned as a safe space where young people could learn and grow. A few years later, these young visionaries were joined by a professional dancer with a drive to create socially engaged dance theater. What they discovered is that movement, storytelling, and collaborative creative process could transform young people's lives in profound ways. Destiny Arts Center was born.

OUR LEADERS

Our founders-Kate Hobbs, Anthony Daniels and Sarah Crowell-laid Destiny's foundation for developing peaceful, powerful and creative young people through a unique combination of self-defense training and movement arts practice. Throughout the years, they have been joined by a skillful, diverse corps of professional teaching artists who, together with the support of a dedicated administrative team and a loving extended community, now engage over 2,600 young people each year in arts practices at our North Oakland center and in public schools and community centers throughout the East Bay. We are committed to reaching young people with the least access to high quality arts education, and the movement arts practices we teach reflect the cultural diversity of the communities we serve. The Destiny community is socio-economically, racially and culturally diverse, and deeply committed to our values of welcome, inclusion and safety.

DONATE TODAY!

Help Destiny Arts Center to continue moving for peace!

Donate

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In 1988, two martial artists opened a small storefront dojo on San Pablo Avenue in North Oakland, envisioned as a safe space where young people could learn and grow. A few years later, these young visionaries were joined by a professional dancer with a drive to create socially engaged dance theater.

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Reggio Emilia: Creating Environments that Foster Creativity

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Reggio Emilia: Creating Environments that Foster Creativity

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The Reggio Emilia approach to learning promotes inquiry and project exploration at very young ages, honoring the child, the environment for learning, the parent and the teacher, all in dialogue with each other. The atleier is a central space that acts as a creativity lab, nurturing free play with art materials, recycled parts, light, sound and props for enacting stories.

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A central figure in the history is Loris Malaguzzi, who together with the Municipality and several local administrators and citizens, especially women, contributed to the birth and development of Reggio Emilia's network of municipal Infant-toddler Centres and Preschools.
Loris Malaguzzi
The history of Reggio Emilia's municipal infant-toddler and preschools is profoundly woven...

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Reggio Children - Reggio Emilia Approach

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The Reggio Emilia Approach® is an educational philosophy based on the image of a child with strong potentialities for development and a subject with rights.

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This 7-day immersion journey is the longest running, Civil Rights & social justice moving-classroom program in the US.

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"...Before Sojourn,...I was closeminded and judgmental. My grades were suffering and I was lacking inspiration. From Sojourn, not only did I learn about the Civil Rights Movement, I learned about myself. I began to realize that I was capable of succeeding...I now attend college and am interested in becoming a lawyer or police officer..."

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The Gatekeeper- a documentary by local filmmaker, Vicki Abeles, follows the stories of passionate educators who are working to create more engaging, effective and equitable methods for teaching math.

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There is a math crisis in America. By middle school, two-thirds of our students will fall behind grade level in their math classes. By high school graduation, fewer than half will be prepared for college-level courses. And yet, success in math remains a powerful gatekeeper-the door not only to coursework and college but also careers in science, medicine, technology, and engineering. Equally powerful is the myth that math skills are fixed and inborn: the idea, persistent across decades, that some students are good at math, and that those who aren't can't be taught.The film takes aim at this belief, asking why so little progress has been made to make even basic math accessible to all students. Drawing on the innovative ideas of experts like Stanford professor Jo Boaler, civil rights leader Dr. Robert Moses, UC Berkeley Professor Alan Schoenfeld, DePaul University Professor Akihito Takahashi, and Mills College Professor Catherine Lewis, the film examines how our traditional approach to math education favors rote performance over problem-solving and imitation over creativity-even among high-achieving students.

Beyond examining the roots of our math crisis, The Gatekeeper follows the stories of passionate educators who are working to create more engaging, effective and equitable methods for teaching math. It creates a vivid portrait of what powerful math classrooms look and sound like, and it advocates for change through the use of success stories and collaboration rather than critique.

By shining a spotlight on the groundbreaking work being done by bold educators across the country, The Gatekeeper points us toward a new reality: a classroom where every student can succeed at math.

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There is a math crisis in America. By middle school, two-thirds of our students will fall behind grade level in their math classes. By high school graduation, fewer than half will be prepared for college-level courses. And yet, success in math remains a powerful gatekeeper-the door not only to coursework and college but also careers in science, medicine, technology, and engineering.

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In this long running arts integration program, CAPE teaching artists and public school classroom teachers collaborate to integrate music, visual arts, dance, digital media, and drama into their academic lessons in order to improve academic and social-emotional outcomes such as creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration skills.

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Arts Integration is at the heart of all CAPE programs. CAPE teaching artists and classroom teachers collaborate to integrate music, visual arts, dance, digital media, and drama into their academic lessons in order to improve academic and social-emotional outcomes such as creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration skills.

HOW CAPE DOES ARTS INTEGRATION

Arts Integration can be challenging! Done well, it requires time, commitment, thoughtfulness, creativity, and flexibility from students, teachers, and artists alike. Watch this video for a quick explanation of how we approach arts integration in our classrooms.

In our practice, teachers and teaching artists collaborate. Together, they address academic and artistic questions and challenges. Building on these ideas, they plan an arts integrated curriculum that moves in and out of arts and non-arts subjects as the project progresses. The artist and teacher work together with the students, co-teaching throughout their partnership. The partners are able to see and experiment with multiple strategies of student engagement each other bring to the classroom.

What Arts Integration Accomplishes

Young people who make personal, lasting connections to what they learn in and outside of school, and who are better prepared for adulthood in the 21st century

Teachers who have a greater capacity to reach all of their differentiated learners through a wide variety of creative strategies and to assess their students in ways that generate clear understandings for teachers and generate further learning for students

Teaching artists who are more adept at supporting the needs of students, teachers, and school communities through collaborative artistic exploration

Families who are more engaged in their children's educations and wider school community

Best practices defined through experimentation and research that contribute to future arts programming supported by CAPE and similar organizations

Professional Development

Teaching is often an isolated profession, with little chance for dialogue around issues of pedagogy and student learning. As part of all CAPE programs, teachers and teaching artists from schools around the city come together regularly for professional development meetings. There, they can examine others' work and ideas, share their own successes and questions, and explore new possibilities for teaching and learning with CAPE staff.

The Artist-Researcher

A CAPE Learner is an Artist/Researcher. As an Artist/Researcher, she/he conducts investigations through art and collaboration in order to gain new understandings of the world. In conducting these investigations, the CAPE Artist/Researcher generates questions and reflections; collaborates with a critical eye; shifts flexibly among different roles; creates innovative work that crosses artistic and academic disciplines; and engages others in social interaction and dialogue around arts integration.

Learn More About Our CAPE Classrooms

Work from our CAPE Classrooms is regularly featured in public exhibitions and on our CAPE blog, where you can get learn more about arts integration in action.

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Arts Integration in the Classroom | CAPE

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Arts Integration is at the heart of all CAPE programs. CAPE teaching artists and classroom teachers collaborate to integrate music, visual arts, dance, digital media, and drama into their academic lessons in order to improve academic and social-emotional outcomes such as creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration skills.

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Rooted in grassroots community investment and restorative practices, this East Oakland after school program centers critical thinking, a safe space filled with Much Loves, and developing youth voice through creative expression.
http://www.oaklandleaf.org/share-your-beautiful/

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“ We cannot keep using tools of oppression and expect to raise free people,” says Akilah S. Richards, founding board member of the alliance for Self-Directed Education.

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I started out as an independent author; hired an indie publishing company to help produce my first print book in 2007. It was my first public stance on integrating authentic living with mindful parenting. Like all my books, (I've written seven more since then) it was a result of me questioning my current situation, wanting something different, and wondering how the hell I could get from my then-current circumstance to the space I wanted to be in.

I started blogging about the same topic I wrote about in the book, and in a couple years, I was featured in a major magazine. I started working with a few brands, wrote a couple more books, started doing public speaking at small events, and eventually went into life coaching, working with women looking to make shift from day jobs they hated to entrepreneurship doing work they loved, living lives that matched up with how they wanted to see themselves.

As a life coach, I was in the Emotional Wellness business, and that work was fulfilling. It taught me a lot about how our unresolved feelings, our backstories, and in many cases, our childhood experiences could serve as tools to power us up in adulthood, or hold us back from really owning ourselves and taking charge of our own lives. The work transitioned from a focus on managing and naming emotions, to exploring and expressing the things that define us, and the things that have the most powerful influence over our choices. I took to calling that work/practice Radical Self-Expression.

Through the practice, I worked with hundreds of women-in person, through books, online courses, and virtual coaching-to make space for deep self-study, including recognizing our natural patterns and core values, and getting comfortable with expressing and protecting our needs inside our relationships. For me, radical self-expression work over the past six years led me to participate in my own liberation, and that of my children, with their father, my partner, by embracing self-directed education in the form of Unschooling.

Unschooling isn't just about education and children, it's about how adults and children live together, and how adults and children get to be themselves while they learn, grow, and define themselves. My partner and I are entrepreneurs who see the importance of being producers, not just consumers. As people of color, we see the urgency in learning how to prioritize an understanding of how to provide for ourselves and contribute to our communities without relying on someone to employ us, or to fund our school district, or to see value in our lives. For my family, unschooling is a tool for decolonizing education and liberating ourselves from oppressive, exclusive systems.

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I started out as an independent author; hired an indie publishing company to help produce my first print book in 2007. It was my first public stance on integrating authentic living with mindful parenting.

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My youngest daughter attended this school. It is Grades 1-8, public charter school open to all districts. Students here are able to advance at their own pace. There are two teachers in every classroom as well as an arts teacher, an outdoor ed teacher, a music teacher, and PE. I can't speak highly enough of their program. The regular curriculum is broad and deep and experiential. It is located in Walnut Creek, CA.

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https://www.cocospa.org/

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Home - Contra Costa School of Performing Arts

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Black Panthers' Oakland Community School

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Black Panthers' Oakland Community School

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Although this school is no longer running, it was notable for its integration of peer-led justice committees, martial arts, mindfulness/meditation, nutritious food, school wide interactive check-ins, field trips, and challenge of the European frame of reference when talking about history.

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by Shani Ealey, Staff Writer
November 3, 2016

Community. It is all about community.

This was the common theme repeated at the Oakland Community School panel discussion with Ericka Huggins at the Black Panther Party's 50th Anniversary Conference. This October the Black Panther Party for Self Defense celebrated it's 50th anniversary. The four day anniversary conference was one of the many events that was held throughout the Bay in honor of the Party's work and legacy. Founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale-two students at Merritt College at the time- the Black Panther Party was created to empower the Black community and to challenge the injustices going on globally. Known as the 'Vanguard of the Movement', the Black Panther Party put into practice a vision that has forever changed Oakland's Black community and continues to inspire and politicize Black people throughout the nation.

From monitoring the excessive violence of police, to providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner to Black youth in need of food, the Black Panther Party was truly about the empowerment and upliftment of Black people. Furthermore, the importance of self-determination was present throughout everything the Black Panther Party touched. Yes, the Black Panther Party was about calling out white supremacy and the way in which it continues to exploit and oppress Black women and men for capital gain; But let's be clear, the Party was rooted in community. That commitment to community can be seen in the 60 plus survival programs that emerged from the Black Panther Party-one of those being the Oakland Community School.

The longest standing program of all the survival programs, the Oakland Community School (OCS) was established in 1973 in East Oakland, with the underlying principle being, "We serve the people everyday. We serve the people, body and soul." Directed by Ericka Huggins and Donna Howell, OCS provided youth with a culturally relevant education and challenged the public school system's perceptions of what it meant to be Black and poor. Student enrollment at OCS reached 150 and had a daunting wait list that even included unborn children. Students were taught a wide variety of subjects from math to history by members of their community. But it wasn't just about memorizing facts and dates; Former OCS students passionately stated during the panel discussion at the conference that, "they taught us how to think not what think." At OCS, Black youth were not afraid to be themselves or to ask questions. Their self-esteem and confidence was constantly reaffirmed as a result of the staff and faculty members who were led by the heart and invested in their development. OCS empowered Black youth to find their voices and help liberate their spirits.

Point 5 of the Black Panther Party's Ten Point Platform states:

"WE WANT DECENT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else."

As described on the OCS website by Ericka Huggins, a typical day at OCS went as follows:

"The students remember starting the day with a ten minute exercise program. Breakfast, followed by a short, school wide interactive check-in preceded the morning classes. A nutritious lunch at midday and ten minutes of meditation in the early afternoon was followed by classes for the older children and rest for the smaller ones. Dinner concluded the day and the school vans transported the children who could not walk to their homes."

It is important to note that it was the BPP's Oakland Community School practice of providing breakfast for students that led to the nation's requirement to provide breakfast for students in public schools. What's even more interesting is that 50 years ago, the Black Panther Party knew that practicing meditation and mindfulness had a positive impact on student well-being. OCS students also participated in martial arts classes, helped support other survival programs, and had peer led justice committees for dealing with disputes and conflict which serves as further proof that the OCS was truly ahead of time. All of this was created to make up for what the public school system failed to provide for Black youth.

The parallels to our present day realities couldn't be more similar.

Now in 2016, our public school system still leaves out the histories, experiences, and cultures of Black and brown people, pushing forth a narrative that is overwhelmingly white and European focused. In 2016, Black students continue to face assaults on their character as a result of zero tolerance policies that make using a cell phone, wearing one's natural hair, or simply talking- a criminal offense. Rather than prioritize the hiring of quality educators and counselors, our country's leaders believe that police officers should be trained as counselors and mentors- despite sweeping evidence that shows the negative and harmful interactions between police officers and Black youth. Our country's leaders are clearly missing the point. We should be taking cues from those that have come before us and use BPP's Oakland Community School as a model for what empowering and enriching academic environments look like.

What is incredible about the Black Panther Party and the creation of the Oakland Community School is that community rose up to take care of their own community. The Oakland Community School was created because there was a need. There was a need for a safe place for Black students to learn and grow. There was a need for Oakland youth to be educated by people who look like them, people who were from their community. There was a need to challenge the European frame of reference when talking about history. There was a need to liberate the minds of Oakland Black youth. If we educate, heal, protect, and liberate our youth, those teachings will be passed on to the generations to come. Taking care of each other is a model for liberation and for that we are forever grateful of the revolutionary insight of the Black Panther Party.

References

"The Liberation Schools, the Children's House, the Intercommunal Youth Institute and the Oakland Community School" Ericka Huggins, http://www.erickahuggins.com/OCS.html

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Black Panthers' Oakland Community School: A Model for Liberation

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by Shani Ealey, Staff Writer November 3, 2016 Community. It is all about community. This was the common theme repeated at the Oakland Community School panel discussion with Ericka Huggins at the Black Panther Party's 50th Anniversary Conference. This October the Black Panther Party for Self Defense celebrated it's 50th anniversary.

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Juhani Pallasmaa wrote about how the design of a building, park or garden affects our senses, and adds two more senses to the common 5 senses:
Sight: ‘retinal architecture’
Hearing: ‘acoustic intimacy’
Smell: ‘space of scent’
Touch: ‘shape of touch’
Taste: ‘taste of architecture’
Movement (vestibular): ‘images of muscle and bone’
Bodily awareness (proprioception): ‘bodily identification’
His 10-page article is here; quick summary below.

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Initiated by Lebron James to close the achievement gap in Akron, Ohio, this public school for formerly struggling 3rd-11th graders provides long term mentoring and wrap-around services including services for parents such as G.E.D. preparation, work advice, health and legal services. The school’s culture is built on “Habits of Promise” — perseverance, perpetual learning, problem solving, partnering and perspective. Features learning blocks rather than short classes, low teacher-student ratio, real-world problem-based learning approach, and trauma support. State of the art media arts lab, and a STEM program.
https://ipromiseschool.akronschools.com

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LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It’s Showing Promise. (Published 2019)

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The inaugural class of third and fourth graders at the school has posted extraordinary results on its first set of test scores.

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The musical, Hamilton, is the inspiration for this theater arts, history & language arts curriculum for high school students.

Explores concepts of democracy and citizenship

Guides students to use creative inquiry to find meaning in the past

Affirms student narratives that combat ideologies of hate and exclusion within American history and today’s political environment

Supports students' use of artistic forms such as mimicry, metaphor, and projection to develop their capacity and skills for social innovation

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Studio Pathways | Rise Up! An American Curriculum

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Rise Up! uses creative inquiry to explore Hamilton: An American Musical. Lessons help students to understand and critically examine Hamilton themes and artistry, and to express their own personal narrative through writing and performance.