All of our kids, ready for life
Rise Up for Students is a blog advocating for racial equity and radical empathy in our schools, in Seattle and beyond
If the health and well-being of our community is a priority, the district must train staff on anti-bias, restorative discipline practices. And above all, the mental health of our community must be prioritized over any attempts to standardly assess, bridge learning “gaps” and return to status quo.
Read MoreAdvocacy takes on many forms. As leaders within communities fight to have equitable representation for all children in schools, we have the power to stand behind them and demand authentic response and actions from school district leaders.
Read MoreThe longer you serve children in a community, the smaller the world seems to become. Eventually you start to hear certain people mentioned over and over — the after-school counselors, the coaches, the neighborhood-parents. The mentors who’ve made an impact connecting with those around them. Ms. Melba Ayco is one of those people.
Read MoreWhen you’re a parent to Black children, finding a place for them to run free is about more than just a place where they can get their wiggles out. It is about finding a space where they are free to be young. To be loud, messy, silly and energetic, safe from judgment and bias. Melanie Granger of We Free Hearts has provided an environment for just that.
Read MoreSuperheroes are a dime a dozen on the big screen these days, but they can be easy to miss in real life. Like the caped crusaders with otherworldly powers, the real superheroes around us often seem to masquerade behind a secret identity, rarely getting the recognition and thanks they so deeply deserve.
Marcus Harden is one of those heroes for not only the South Seattle community where he grew up, but for every life he has touched as an educator and a school founder, as a student and as a leader and as a friend.
Read MoreEducation tends to make the most rational people seem crazy. So, it begs the question, how do we heal in these sick environments? My go-to answer is to typically just burn it all down and start anew, but we know that those efforts usually just end up looking like a new emperor in the same old clothes.
So, where does our healing come from?
It starts with acknowledging the hurt that has been caused by systems of oppression -- and the equal importance of finding healing for the students and often-overlooked educators who bear the deepest wounds.
Read MoreSystemic racism is often hard to see in action.
It’s easy to look back and wonder, how did we get here? How do we have such deep-rooted opportunity gaps in our schools? How do we have so few Black teachers? How can there be such a thing as a “school-to-prison” pipeline? How do we have so few women of color in positions of elected leadership?
These systemic issues are not necessarily carried out by people of malicious intent. They are carried out by all of us every day as we make seemingly reasonable decisions, and through polices and processes that masquerade as neutral.
We are in the eleventh hour of one such process, but it’s not too late! Today — this very evening — we have a chance to catch the system in the act. So let’s do it.
Read MoreTeachers as a whole are vastly underpaid, Black male educators are often in unsupportive environments, and the profession isn’t promoted (or respected) as a viable option in the canon of “careers.”
So why stay? How do we ask others to come? What are the conditions we can create, right where we are to make this seismic shift? Here are seven reasons that I’ve come up with (feel free to add more!)…
Read MoreThe structures and systems are shackles. We have to remind ourselves that we the people are the system. Our participation keeps the gears turning.
It’s time we break the shackles!
Read MoreThe quintessential question is, how are we shaping our legacies as educators every single day? How are we cultivating minds early that aim to create change in and for their own communities? Are we dream-keepers or are we gatekeepers?
Read MoreI want to thank all who allowed me to honor and showcase them for Black History Month. The daily posts started as just a personal letter to people whom I believe to be truly amazing. We often wait too long to tell people what we think of them and their effects on us and our lives.
Read MoreThis post is part of an ongoing Black History Month series written by Marcus Harden, a truly unsung hero of South Seattle, as he honors the living legacy of Black history in his community and beyond, and recognizes the people who are shaping the future.
Read MoreI want to thank all who allowed me to honor and showcase them for Black History Month. The daily posts started as just a personal letter to people whom I believe to be truly amazing. We often wait too long to tell people what we think of them and their effects on us and our lives.
Read MoreThe greatest investment we can make in society is in each other. When we choose to invest in the best in ourselves and each other, that is when true magic begins to happen.
We’re all just shallow reflections of the light and the lives that have shined into ours. When I think about a great light that has invested in me and so many others on this “Black Panther” week, I think of one the strongest heroes I know: Rickie Malone.
Read MoreThe narrative rarely connects the words Love and Black Men, together. Love in the true agape and philo sense has been the cornerstone of the Black community. It is shown through time, it’s is shown through living your values. It is shown through example.
Read MoreRecent pop culture has placed Black Women at the forefront of the conversation, showcasing their abilities to be beautiful, bold, brilliant, unapologetically rooted in blackness — and of course to be what they’ve always been: Heroes.
If you’re fortunate enough to be in the Pacific Northwest, there are three women who are the real-life embodiment of the Dora Milaje or the adored ones.
Read MoreMany people speak of narrative change but are often afraid to be in the trenches. It takes an ecosystem to create change, yet often times those who are the champions for and by the people get overlooked, their revolutionary presence lost in photo ops and small victories.
Yet it was once said that you can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. One man that embodies the revolutionary and the revolution is Jerrell G. Davis.
Read MoreRarely in life do you meet people whom you instantly know are one-of-a-kind, authentic and unique in their presentation, passion, purpose, performance and personhood.
Yet when you meet these people, whether you know it or not, their energy completely transforms your life. One of those people is Letta S. Mason.
Read MoreOne of the greatest gifts, if not the greatest, is walking alongside someone else and encouraging them as they uncover their own gift. Then finding another and another to walk beside, giving the gift of being a gift, in service to others.
To do this with people is work, but very doable. To do this and begin to create systemic and institutional change, that is a gift in and within itself. When I think about people who hold that gift, brotha Chris Chatmon comes to mind.
Read MoreFrom the streets of Seattle that many don’t even know exist, to finding himself at Washington State University (the one mistake we can’t forgive him for 😂), to becoming a teacher on the rise back home in the neighborhoods he walked, realizing that there was more and a call to his life.
Keith B. Wheeler now lives in the hope that he espouses, traveling the country and giving to others the gift that has been given to him, never stopping short of acknowledging his own flaws and blemishes, while making sure to point out that it's those things that make us unique.
Read MoreCheck out music from Matt Halvorson
