Quest Labs: Questioning the Status Quo

Makēda Gershenson

Question the Status Quo is an experiential workshop that invites participants to cultivate their own AI (ancestral intelligence) as they map their various identities, identify strengths, and use a futurist lens to envision what's possible so they can become the s/hero of their own story.

Using a playful approach with a futurist lens, we'll widen our vision of what’s possible and start with what can go RIGHT. Stemming from a strengths-based approach, participants will be asked to map various identities using symbols, colors, and words. Participants will explore their identities in a more holistic way, identifying strengths and resources to draw on to move toward their visions of the future.

Next, participants will use a futurist lens to envision what's possible for themselves. They will be asked to imagine a preferred future, identifying steps toward that vision, helping them develop a sense of agency.

Participants will be encouraged to share thoughts and feelings with each other in small groups (passing of the "talking piece").

The workshop will conclude with a sharing of previous iterations of the Quest process, in order to learn from experiences of others, and glean inspiration by the multitude of possibilities that lie ahead.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of their identities.
Participants will identify their strengths and resources.
Participants will develop a sense of agency and self-determination.
Participants will envision a preferred future and identify the steps they need to take to achieve it.
Participants will practice cultivating their own AI (ancestral intelligence).

Makeda Gershenson is a futurist, innovator, educator and artist. Her key areas of expertise include Coaching & Education, Social Emotional Learning and Emotional Intelligence.

Makeda is certified as an emotional intelligence educator, academic coach for teens and a digital behavioral coach.

Her collaboration with Milwaukie High School’s after-school program received the 2016 Changemakers Award from Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. Makeda supports NYC schools as a staff developer for Morningside Center.

Makeda received dual degrees as well as a Masters in Education from Stanford University. She is a co-researcher on the Digital Positionality project (digitalpositionality.com) and currently designs Futures Labs as a Masters Candidate for Futures Research (Freie University).

PANEL SESSION: Embodiment of Healing-Centered Practices

“Embodied Pedagogy” with Dr. Rhiannon M. Kim

Bell Hooks wrote "All of us in the academy and in the culture as a whole are called to renew our minds if we are to transform educational institutions - and society - so that the way to live, teach, and work can reflect our joy in cultural diversity, our passion for justice, and our love of freedom" in Teaching to Transgress (1994). However, the Banking Model of Education (Freire 1970/2000) is rampant in higher education and professional development even in courses teaching social justice and healing-centered content. Educators and facilitators need the time and space to deeply reflect on how they are teaching and the ways they are embodying liberatory pedagogies or replicating oppressive pedagogies.

In this session, the elements of an embodied pedagogy developed through my dissertation research, the impact, and implications. True to the pedagogy, this interactive session will also utilize embodied and reflective practices.

Rhiannon Kim (she|her|hers) is mixed race Korean and white and identifies as racially and ethnically ambiguous. She holds an Ed. D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with a Certificate of Graduate Study in Resiliency-Based Approaches. She worked in public education as a K-5 Speech Language Pathologist and then as a consulting SLP PreK-12. She has served as an adjunct lecturer and professional development provider for education-based and mental health organizations for over eight years. She is the owner and operator of Love at the Roots, LLC, supporting organizations working toward integrating healing and social justice.

“Embodied Transitions: Seeking the Fertile-ness of Change by Embracing Our Nervous Systems” with Angela Carolina Garcia and Lauren Stauble

Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Time is life.” When we hastily navigate a transition, we deprive ourselves of fully experiencing life, including being fully present with one another and attuned to the communication of our own nervous system. From early childhood to higher education, we experience large and small scale transitions all the time. Imagine what it would be like to let go of the urge to get transitions over with. What if experiencing transitions together is healing? What would it feel like to fully arrive (at school, to class, to a meeting)? As organizational leaders and educators, we have an opportunity to facilitate transitions that embrace our humanity. By saying yes to getting lost together - as children invite us to do- we can experience transition as a fertile time for acceptance, connecting to lineage, expressing disagreements and entering meaningful debate, the emergence of stories, and innovation.

We’ll start the session by facilitating an arrival. Then, we’ll invite participants to excavate their relationships with learning outcomes, emotions, and/or the concept of time using the teachings of bell hooks, Gholdy Muhhamad, Esther A. Armah, Rev. angel, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Shawn Ginwright as provocation. We’ll share examples of community-oriented, mindfulness-based strategies for embracing our nervous systems and seeking the fertile nature of macro (organizational) and micro (classroom) transitions. To wrap up, participants will be asked to consider a transition in their context that they want to pay more attention to and set an intention for practice.

Angela Carolina has been playing and learning with young children for almost two decades. Most recently, she works at the systems level in early childhood and as an entrepreneur meandering her way to being more present.

Lauren has been teaching and caring for young children since adolescence. Currently she’s working to practice healing centered education in her roles as community college professor, podcaster, author, and consultant. She’s deeply inspired by the study and practice of yoga and mindfulness as well as a desire to grow as a human and in community.

PLENARY

Arlène Casimir, Dr. Angel Acosta, Dr. Ebony Green, Dr. Latise Hairston, Dr. Michelle Chatman & Dr. Kamilah Majied

Using Restorative Practices in a "Power Aware" Way in the Workplace

Alli Myatt

In this session, we will share how to adjust traditional restorative practices to be more power aware to better support healing in the workplace. Oftentimes in restorative conversations at work, differences in positional and socialized power get in the way of identifying what actions are needed to restore relationships. For example, if the person with the most power has caused harm and the person with the least power was the person experiencing harm, I’ve observed that the person with the least power will be hesitant to articulate what they need for restoration in order to protect the person with the most power from discomfort. In my practice, I’ve learned to disrupt this pattern by making adjustments to how I facilitate the restorative conversation. In the session, participants will learn how to make power aware adjustments to better support restoration. This session builds off of traditional restorative practice principles and shows participants how to apply anti-oppression and decolonizing lenses to their restorative practices. Participants will have an opportunity for practice with a case study to experience what “power aware” adjustments feel like in action.

Alli Myatt, co-founder of The Equity Practice, has over two decades of experience advising over 150 teams and organizations to reimagine their work practices. She has studied organizational development, racial equity, human connection and belonging, and is certified in several restorative practices. Alli has been published in Harvard Business Review, The Messenger, The Fulcrum, and New Thinking. Additionally, she has presented at SXSW and was featured in Diversity Woman Magazine. She has worked at The Bridgespan Group, Teach For America, and other nonprofits, and holds a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Heed our Voices! A Student Call for a Thriving Future: Celebrate 20 years of Student-Made Wisdom Murals from a Healing Centered Art Classroom in Chicago and Create Your Own Mural Action Plan to Uplift Voices in Your Community

Shana Pearlmutter and Jennifer Bloom

Witness and celebrate the journey of “The Legacy Project,” an evolving, 20+ year student-centered mural tradition guided by Healing Centered Chicago Public Schools artist/educator, Shana Pearlmutter and co-facilitated by 8th grade arts and advocacy leaders in the “Legacy Crew.” This experiential session will inspire possibilities for creating mural projects in the communities you serve.

In 2000, a “Project Citizen” mosaic morphed into a therapeutic mural movement archiving thousands of student responses to the collaborative, interdisciplinary middle school Art, Social Studies, and Literature curriculum. Guided by Facing History and Ourselves themes of Identity, Community/Membership, Us/Them, Universe of Obligation and Choosing to Participate, the murals summon us to respond to the conflicts we face in these tumultuous times environmentally, socially and equitably.

Inspired by the Acosta Institute and Flourish Agenda, Shana is now incorporating Dr. Shawn Ginwright’s, CARMA Healing Centered Principles into her work with students. We will discuss overlaps found in these student advocacy models and imagine new streams to consider. Guest collaborator, Jennifer Bloom will join Shana to co-facilitate a contemplative, co-creative experience based on their work together with the Legacy Crew.

By exploring the ways the “Crew” has shared healing at the intersections of art, identity, social-emotional learning, and contemplative/mindfulness practices within the school community, we will create a useable guide to engage youth leaders in similar projects. Participants will receive a Google Slidedeck to document ideas, find useful project resources and share pivotal takeaways and possibilities for launching a healing community mural movement.

Jennifer Bloom is a mother, facilitator, poet, singer, social innovator, philanthropist, and lifelong learner. She writes and performs poetry and music, facilitates groups, mentors creatives, and coordinates program development and evaluation for purpose-driven organizations. Jennifer lives in a magical treehouse in Austin, Texas, USA with her children and two dogs and the critters of the canyon who teach and inspire her. She is passionate about possibility and believes that well-being thrives when we recognize, embrace, and embody our interconnection with all beings and the planet.

As a heart-centered community artist/educator for over 20 years, Shana has witnessed how art profoundly transforms energy towards introspection and awareness. She has collaborated with The Acosta Institute, Circle Ways, Earth Guardians, Facing History and Ourselves, Flourish Agenda, Garrison Institute, MNDFL Intensive Training, Meena Srinivasan, Project Soar Marrakech, Single Story Inc and White Awake. Shana is a student of her students, sharing Teaching Artistic Behavior, Studio Habits of Mind and slowing down contemplative art making to uphold a soul-nourishing, brave space where the voices of youth are catalysts for authentic expression. Shana enjoys life most while being in nature with her family in Chicago, St. Louis and Marrakech.

PANEL SESSION: Narratives of Effective HCE with SEL Across Space and Time

“Promoting Female Teachers and Gender Transformative Social-Emotional Learning in Nepal to Cultivate a Healing-Centered Environment” with Dr. Bhawana Shresth

An increasing body of evidence points to the critical need to focus on young people’s resilience and emotional well-being, especially given the challenges presented (and exacerbated) by the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators across the globe have found it daunting to navigate the gravity of overcoming the trauma endured by students wracked by anxiety, grief, uncertainty, isolation, and confusion. Given the already existing structural and socio-economic inequalities, the impact of COVID-19 was particularly strong on adolescent girls from low-and middle-income countries, not only on their educational outcomes but also in reinforcing existing gender inequalities. The presentation uses the lens of transformative social-emotional learning (TSEL) as the best practice to cultivate a healing-centered environment and culture in educational institutions and explores the context in terms of Nepal, especially in relation to the previous research that has shown how the girls in Nepal have been dropping out of school mostly because of the barriers associated with emotional and mental well-being.

Bhawana Shrestha, PhD, co-founded the organization My Emotions Matter, which works on Social-Emotional Learning in Nepal. Shrestha helps nurture critical self-reflection among educational leaders to promote Emotional Intelligence. With a particular interest in an inclusive, safe, and respectable campus climate, she heads the department Office of Safe and Respectable Learning (OSRL) at King's College, Nepal.

“Three Years of an Experiment that Worked: Educators and students reflect on thriving classrooms in a nascent institution in the late 1960s” Dr. Nafees M. Khan

This abstract responds to the question about best practices for cultivating a healing-centered environment and culture in classrooms by sharing findings from a historical case study of the Lincoln School, a school focused on serving gifted and disadvantaged students from across Kentucky in a residential setting in the context of conflict and change of the late 1960s in the United States. This case details one of the few instances in which a former Black private school (in this case, the Lincoln Institute) was used for public education, which continues today, as the site is now a Job Corps Center. Findings from formers students and educators indicate that the school utilized practices that cultivated a healing-centered environment and culture through pedagogy that contributed to educator and student development in a way that is memorable over a lifespan.
For example, one former educator shared, “the major impact that it had on me was the amount of time and energy that went into learning each student, what they needed, what their abilities were, what they lacked in terms of educational preparation… each child's academic profile was explored so thoroughly.” Other practices to be shared in the presentation include experiential learning, a campus environment, civic skill development, use of current affairs in social studies education, and faculty culture and relationship building. In a contemporary moment of increasing segregation and political division, fostering a radical imagination about possibilities in education may provide hope (Kelly, 2003) amidst widespread burnout among educators (Gillet et al., 2022).

Nafees M. Khan holds a Ph.D. in Educational Studies from Emory University and a B.A. in
Sociology with a minor in History from Tufts University. He is currently a Content Developer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates, a museum design firm. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Social Foundations in the College of Education at Clemson University.

“Our Classrooms are Ashrams: An Exploration of Teaching Inquiry & Empathy” with Raaghav Pandya

Healing is inevitably a deep excavation of self. This inquiry informs not only our notion of who we are, but provides insight into our interactions with people and the natural world.

In this session, I will present and walk through how I have included the paradigm of Eastern spiritual traditions like Yoga, Vedanta, and Buddhist mindfulness into classrooms. The practices of these traditions are transformative not only as interventions, but as a framework through which both the educator and student see themselves and the world. Through the inclusion of practices like meditation, journaling, Nature-oriented projects, and Socratic dialogue concerning the nature of inquiry, the premise of spiritual traditions is emphasized beyond just responsive activities.

First, I will present the framework as to why these contemplative traditions provide insight on leadership and healing through their quests. Furthermore, I will highlight how the insight of these practices not only allow for self-excavation, but heal our relationship with others, the environment, and our communities, thus building a bedrock of “unity in diversity.” Thereafter, I will discuss how specific activities in classrooms of all levels can create a space for true self-inquiry. Through guided meditation and an introspective activity, I will discuss how recognizing the presence of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and surroundings allow for a developing experience of pure awareness that is inclusive and expansive. Finally, by extrapolating this paradigm to various disciplines and arenas, I will show how a leadership based in the approach of these wisdom schools allow for an informed pedagogy.

Raaghav is an educator, scientist, and scholar with a background in climate research, STEM education, Indian spiritual traditions, and strategy consulting. He is currently a PhD scholar at Columbia University studying the intersections of Eastern contemplative traditions and science education, a lab member at the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education, winner of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oratory Event, and a physics educator. He studies and practices the intersections of spiritual philosophies, like Yoga and Buddhism, in our classrooms through a pedagogical shift.

Community Dreamwork as Intercultural Peace Learning

HyoYoung Minna Kim and Stephanie Knox Steiner

In this experiential workshop, we will guide participants through community dreamwork practice and situate it as a possible pedagogy for healing, community building, and intercultural peace learning. Our friendship (facilitators Minna and Stephanie) began through the spontaneous emergence of a community dreamwork breakfast table at the International Institute for Peace Education in Mexico City in 2022. Through this profound opening, we experienced firsthand the power of dreamwork as a way of building community, of intercultural learning, and as a healing space that disrupted the rationality and structural rigidity of the conference and invited us to slow down, cultivate whimsicality and joy, and explore other ways of knowing, being, and doing. In our workshop we will provide some background understanding about dreamwork and its possibilities, and situate it within a framework of epistemic justice and sentipensante pedagogies. Through an experience of community dreamwork practice, we hope that participants will see the possibilities for dreamwork in their own lives as a healing and generative practice, both individually and collectively, and that they will walk away with some tools for how they might use community dreamwork in their educational and community spaces.

HyoYoung Minna Kim is a Third Culture Kid of the Korean diaspora. She is deepening her relationship with nature and re-membering her ancestral roots while recovering from severe burn-out after 11 years as a public school educator and union member. With the guidance of her ancestors, mentors, and beloveds, she is alchemizing the impact she’s endured from the delusions of painful life-denying societal constructs into life-affirming and expansive co-liberatory practices with utter delight, wonder, and clumsy imperfection. One way Minna practices is through collaborative heartstorming as a consultant and facilitator for nurturing human-centered spaces and elevating existing content.

Stephanie Knox Steiner, PhD is Assistant Professor and Peace Education Program Coordinator in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. She earned her doctorate in the Community, Liberation, Indigenous and Ecopsychologies specialization at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and is an ordained member of the Order of Interbeing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Her deepest aspiration is to contribute to a more just, peaceful, loving, caring, joyful, compassionate world through scholarship, teaching, writing, research, and living.