EDUCATION
For the last twelve years, I have been creating a non-centralized, non-institutionalized education platform for artists and creatives to learn, gain practical experience, and have access to a community of passionate individuals.
Each person involved, mostly adults, chooses to be present and participates only as long as they feel it is rewarding. There is no mission statement, dues, or tuition costs. There is no permanent location or campus. Each person teaches and learns from the other creatives working collectively. We are connected through our independence, sustainability, and authenticity. It is an attempt to re-contextualize and reformat how we learn, what we learn, and why we learn.
Recently, I’ve felt the need to be involved in more structured educational settings. I have been working with high schools in Brooklyn and queens, some of which are considered “failing schools.” Many of the students have IEPs and have been labeled “emotionally disturbed” and “underperforming.” When I go into these schools to lead workshops, I don’t see people who can’t learn, I see amazing minds and young people with infinite potential. But they are trapped in a system that imposes an education and behaviors that don’t speak to their lives. The following project is an effort to inspire and practice a different model.
Curating the Classroom
encourages discussion that disrupts traditional modes of education and works to help schools deactivate systemic oppression.
Melissa Hunter Gurney and I created this platform five years ago to encourage a different type of learning. We inspire critical thinking, self esteem, exploration of identity, and a sense of pride in being an academic. In this way, we seek to disrupt the paradigm of Oppression for Progression. We foster philosophical, logical, and intuitive thought rather than memorization and regurgitation. We lead workshops and are developing curricula, syllabi, reading lists, and discussion topics.
