The GR Project: Oakland Education Innovation

Dr. Susie Wise is the founder of the K12 Lab Network at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a. the d.school at Stanford). She founded the K12 Lab in 2007 to investigate the role that design thinking could play in the education sector. This work helped catalyze a national movement to use design thinking as an approach to project-based learning and a toolkit for ed sector innovation. Since 2012 she has led the team to create innovative personal and professional development experiences for teachers, school leaders, and “edu innovators” that help them build their creative confidence and make experiments happen. Recent programs include School Retool, a fellowship for school leaders, now operating in 18 cities, and the Shadow A Student Challenge, launched in 2016 with more than 3500 school leaders participating. Here in Oakland, Susie is also a co-founder of Urban Montessori Charter School.

Susie covers Design Thinking, how she connected her own powerful projects while growing up and in school to her work as an adult supporting school teams to realize their own agency in designing the world around them, and supporting students to do so, as well. Susie also calls out some promising “weaving” work, as she put it, as she seeks to play a role here in Oakland starting this Fall connecting and aligning more organizations towards a powerful vision that doesn’t just tinker around the edges when it comes to education design and re-design. Susie also shares how her personal mother-daughter relationship plays out as she supports her child to design with intention.

Show Notes

04:00 — Dr. Wise comes to The Town!

10:00 — The Exploratorium Intrigues lays out a Life’s work

20:00 — High School

22:00 — Defining Innovation

28:00 — Class Design Thinking and Responding Further

35:00 — Shadowing a Student

37:30 — Tensions of Design and Risk Aversion

45:00 — Mindsets that support the Work

53:10 — Advice for getting more folks Involved in Deeper Learning

1:03:00 — Where are Oakland’s Big Wins in EDU Innovation?

1:24:00 — The City and Design across Oakland

1:27:30 — Susie’s Deepest Learning

1:31:45 — Dinner at the Wise-Bradshaw's

1:38:30 — Starting a School????

1:44:45 — The Five-ish Questions

@susiewise; @schoolretool schoolretool.org; shadowastudent.org

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/06/08/empowering-principals-as-designers-capable-of-retooling-school/

Mirella Rangel is a Xicana mother living and working in Oakland, and a daughter of immigrants who organizes for a more connected world where people value themselves, others and the earth. She is currently Director of Community Organizing for GO Public Schools, and has worked for the past 20 years in and around Oakland schools as a teacher and administrator and in the non-profit sector. Mirella just launched GO's 1Oakland campaign this month, working with families and community to change policies and practices that are barriers to a more equitable school system. Mirella shares her wide range of experiences with community organizing and movement building here in the Bay Area, ranging from her days as a student U.C. Berkeley all the way up to the present day. Along the way, Mirella discusses the personal work and routines she uses to prepare herself to do her job each day, the connections she strives to make for her family and herself to her ancestors, the state of innovation in community organizing and some front lines stories of successes and challenges she faces in her work at GO.

Show Notes

2:45 - Mirella as Guest and as Listener!

10:00 - Being Chicana and Community

18:00 — Helping Others Listen

23:30 - Working in the Bay

29:00 — How are we organized and not organized. And what organizing means for Oakland’s kids.

34:00 — Innovation in Organizing

42:30 — Success in Oakland Education is...

47:30 - Working at GO Public Schools

59:00 — The #1Oakland Campaign

1:14:00 — The Five-ish Questions

Dr. César A. Cruz- From marching 76-straight miles, to hunger striking for 26 days, César has dedicated his life to fighting for justice. He was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México and migrated to the U.S. at a young age with a single mother and grandmother. He grew up in South Central L.A. and moved to the Bay Area to study. César graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in History. He has been an educator for 23 years, in positions of leadership for the last 17 years. He co-founded the independent school, Making Changes, out of his home, and has sought to create autonomous education spaces. He is proud to have overseen the Homies Empowerment Program serving gang impacted/involved youth in Oakland, CA. and now they are in the process of developing a school. He is the author of two books, Revenge of the Illegal Alien, and Bang for Freedom. He received his doctorate in Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, becoming the first Mexican immigrant male to do so. The recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, César served as a Bridge Fellow for the national organization TNTP, and is now transitioning to become a school developer with Educate 78, and an educational consultant supporting K-20 educational pipeline programs. Amidst all, he is proudest to be a husband, and father of three children: Olin, Amaru and Quetzali. He can be reached at [email protected] .

Show Notes

3:00 — César comes to the Bay

10:00 — “Subtractive Schooling”

15:00 — lunch in Biloxi, MS

21:00 — a critically conscious public

27:00 — Diversity and Segregation in Oakland

30:30 — Violence as Big Business

33:00 — the Non-Profit, Social Service, Foundation Industrial Complex, and so-called Progressives

43:00 — sugar-coated language in education

54:00 — Girl Scouts and Sharp Shooters

57:00 — Homies Empowerment gets “allowed” because of a Ph.D.

59:00 — Warriors, Scholars, Healers

1:11:00 — Who are the most marginalized?

1:19:00 — Speaking Funder

1:22:30 — The Public School Accountability Regime and Homies

ROCA, Brotherhood Sister Soul, Barrios Unidos, Homeboy Industries

1:40:30 — Marching and Striking

1:56:00 — The Five-is Questions

Claire Shorall, Manager, Computer Science, works on implementing a district-wide vision to ensure Oakland Unified School District's students receive high quality CS education. She supports curricular and teacher professional development and partners with public, private, and nonprofit entities to expand work-based learning and extracurricular opportunities. Prior to leading CS for the district, Shorall taught Biology, Calculus, and Computer Science at Castlemont High School, where she still maintains one AP Computer Science Principles course. In 2015, she was one of 10 national recipients of the Teach For America Excellence in Teaching Award.

In this episode, Claire goes into great detail regarding how she's contributed to creating one of the most successful and widest reaching public school computer science programs serving children of color. Claire speaks to how, as a religious studies major, she came to computer science in the first place, the importance of continuing to teach while also working in the central office and how she leads and follows as a white woman in a position of power. Of course, she also answers our five questions, highlighting yet another incredibly inspiring story about one of the Oakland Unified School District's students.

Show Notes

2:40 Claire's origin story and the East Oakland School of the Arts

5:35 Claire's waning relationship with track, and how she would destroy your GR Project Hosts in a race

7:45 Getting started with Computer Science (CS) at Castlemont HS

10:45 Getting started at Rice University and not speaking the language

12:00 Started AP Computer Science A course with TEALS

14:00 Taking on leadership as a new teacher and working with a team to get CS started

16:00 OUSD's pre-2014 history with CS stretching back 20+ years

17:00 Props to Eugene Lemon, now at The Hidden Genius Project

20:30 AP CS participation, The Level the Playing Field Institute, & their Path Not Found report

24:40 Claire gets profiled by Popular Mechanics magazine

30:00 CS becomes a district priority and how Claire keeps teaching as a way to support her team

45:00 >80% of OUSD 9th graders in CS, and CS vs. Coding

52:00 "CS is for people like me" and Claire's CS Dream

1:10:00 Power and Identity

1:21:00 The Science of Innovation and integration across disciplines

1:26:00 Diversity & Inclusion (or not) in Tech

1:42:00 Elon & Ray

1:51:30 Start of the Five Questions

Other References

• Council of Great City Schools; Computer Science Showcase in OUSD; Makey Makey; Google's Secret Interview; Code.org; Mills Teacher Scholars; Young Whan Choi leading Education for Democracy in the Digital Age

Kennan Scott is an urban father, husband, planner and PLTW engineering teacher at West Oakland Middle School. He is laser-focused on creating the next generation of tech leaders and critical thinkers. The Founder of @CODEdAcademy, in this episode, Kennan talks about his own education upbringing, his experience as a black engineer and thoughts about how to better support engineers of color, as well as two different schools he's involved in launching in Oakland. Along the way, Kennan also shares which Marvel comic was his favorite growing up (our guess is you've never heard of it) and his forays in both the professional rollerblading and child acting fields. We had a great time speaking with Kennan and expect you'll find more Oakland education gems in his words. Show notes shortly!