Human Restoration Project

Today’s guest is Deborah Meier, who really needs no introduction for advocates of progressive education. Meier is the founder of the modern small schools movement, that aims to reorganize larger schools into smaller, democratic ones. She was founder and director of Central Park East, a Dewey-inspired progressive school in East Harlem, New York City. She also opened Central Park East II, River East, and the Central Park East Secondary School the same neighborhood. This led her to establish a network of similarly minded schools in New York City, and eventually founding Mission Hill School in Boston.

Meier is an advocate of democratic, progressive, public schools who has served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Academy of Education, The Nation, Dissent, and more. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, as well as the author of multiple books including the recently co-authored These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools. Meier is a huge inspiration to us at Human Restoration Project and we frequently draw on her work in our materials and advocacy.

In this podcast, Meier and I talk about building a coalition of schools, educators, families, and community members to build and protect a progressive public education, discussing the importance of building a public education system that strengthens and models a democracy.

GUESTS

Deborah Meier, founding director of Central Park East and Mission Hill School, as well as various progressive democratic public schools, and author of various works including co-authoring These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools

RESOURCES

• Deborah Meier's website
• These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon our Public Schools
• The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem

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“I learned so much about viewing the world, especially mass media, through a critical eye this year. I learned about what traps we fall into while viewing media and how we can prevent that. I also learned about good vs. questionable journalism tactics and how this can affect how accurate a news source is.”

My guest today, Sam Shain, is a musician, artist, writer, former journalist and current English teacher in Maine. That opening quote was just one student review of Sam’s journalism class from his book Education Revolution: Media Literacy for Political Awareness, available from Zer0 Books. Teaching in the United States has never been more fraught, as teachers across the country are implicitly or explicitly forced to avoid certain topics, texts, and questions that have been labeled divisive, controversial, or - worse yet - political. Of course, these topics also tend to be the most immediate & important, and are accompanied by intense mis- & disinformation - the reality of climate change, systemic racism, COVID-19, and the outcomes of our electoral system, to take some examples from just the last couple of years - all of this seems particularly heightened with the new ability of AI to generate audio, video, and images to spread politically motivated narratives easier than ever before via social media, and a receptive population willing not only to accept them but to participate in spreading mis- & disinformation. As the student testimonial I read earlier testifies to, the gap has never been wider between our vital need to teach critical media literacy and our ability. To do. Just that.

Guests

Sam Shain is a former journalist and English teacher. He believes education is the way out of our country's current predicament and teachers and students can lead the revolution in turning this country around. Sam wrote for the Capital Weekly for several years and occasionally contributes to the Kennebec Journal.

In addition to teaching and writing, Sam sings and plays guitar in the band the Scolded Dogs, who play frequently throughout Maine and have released several original albums. Sam lives in Hallowell, Maine.

Resources

• "Not Rehired for Teaching Politics": One Teacher's Story
• Education Revolution from Zer0 Books

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In the late 2000s, the concept of “solarpunk” emerged. In 2022, YouTube channel Our Changing Climate with, my guest today, Andrewism published a video titled “How We Can Build a Solarpunk Future Right Now”, in which they make that the case that "Ultimately Solarpunk envisions a world that might be slower, but more intentional. One that ties humanity closely to the natural world.” Or as Andrewism put in a reply to the video: "A future with a human face and dirt behind its ears."

But if solarpunk is the future with humanity put back in, achieving it means taking control of that future from economic, social, & political forces that seem to be on autopilot to self-destruction, utterly divorced from human desires & human intervention. One path we've imagined already, and its grimy survivalist individualism was the defining feature of Reagan-era science fiction classics. However, in its radical reimagination of economic & social structures, solarpunk resists the nihilism & doomerism of the grim dehumanized technological dystopias that dominate the worlds of, say, Blade Runner, Robocop, & William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Do we have the willingness to challenge the predominant social, economic, & political structures & systems that need to be challenged? To change the very nature of humanity's relationship to the planet? What role does education play in all of this?

Guests

Andrew goes by Andrewism on his YouTube channel. His 66 videos, covering topics from education, liberation, and history, to family, parenting, and of course, solarpunk - have nearly 3 million combined views. Young people from around the world are watching & learning from him and participating in the community he has cultivated around his channel.

Resources

• Andrewism's YouTube channel
• Fighting Back Against the Future: Imagining a Solarpunk Education
• Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023

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This is an audio version of our Summit on August 1st, 2020. Here's the video!

Inspire Citizens is an innovative organization focusing on active, informed civics through social justice, sustainable development, collective well-being, SEL, and ethical media literacy. Out of the Blocks is an NPR program focused on capturing the sounds on the street of Baltimore, formed on the idea of interviewing every single person on a given block. And Evan Whitehead is a school leader and educator of over 20 years with a focus on social-emotional well-being.

Check out this podcast between Inspire Citizens and Out of the Blocks on how this work can involve students.

Further, this Padlet has a huge collection of ideas shared today. Further, check out our write-up on writing.humanrestorationproject.org.

Our Summit focused on endorsing student voice through activism in a hybrid/virtual setting. How can we help students become involved in their community when it's difficult or impossible to actually walk around the community? How can we use technology (e.g. podcasts, photography, interviews) to help connect others? How can we promote social justice when it's difficult to build interpersonal connections?

Look out for future Summits via Human Restoration Project’s website and social media.

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The story my guest will tell today is of her experience growing up and teaching in Memphis, Tennessee before finding a purpose-driven career change in - I am not joking - the heart of Transylvania. Emma Sisson is the School Director of The Mission School in Sighisoara, Romania.

The work of The Mission, Romania is deeply rooted in the local community in Sighisoara and, as you’ll hear Emma describe it, homebase is an 80,000 sq ft abandoned Soviet textile mill where staff live, work, house a K-3 school, and provide family wrap-around services to Romani children and families.

Romani, or Roma, are a historically enslaved and oppressed underclass in Europe, in Romania in particular, where they are often slandered as a lazy, thieving, “gypsy” underclass. In 2022 the European Union reported that 80% of Roma live in poverty, compared to the 17% EU average. 1 in 5 live in households with no running water. 1 in 3 have no indoor toilet. And fewer than half of Roma children attend early childhood education. The scathing report prompted the EU director of Fundamental Human Rights to ask, “Why do Roma across Europe still face shocking levels of deprivation, marginalization, and discrimination?”

Overcoming structural discrimination and prejudice against Roma people is a key part of The Mission’s mission. The Mission School also works to preserve Roma values and language in the context of education, expressed as a preference for family apprenticeships, experiential hands-on learning, and a rich oral tradition, that have historically put them at odds with the priorities of institutional school-based literacies.

On the other side of the Atlantic, The Mission international is currently recovering from a devastating fire that destroyed their entire campus headquarters in Tijuana, Mexico that served over 500 at-risk youth, so if you’d like to learn more and donate to help support Emma’s work in Romania and rebuild the Tijuana campus, you can do that at themissioninc - that’s the mission eye-enn-see - dot org

https://www.themissioninc.org/

You can reach Emma @ [email protected]

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