Wichita, Kansas, United States
A community-oriented caregiver and educator committed to the fostering of lifelong learners. Places a high value on empathy, cooperation, and autonomy and seeks to embody those traits as a teacher. Students have a natural passion for learning if they are given the freedom to pursue their own interests. To that end, I advocate students and teachers having democratic control over their own learning.
At Neighborocracy DFW, I provide comprehensive training and support for people wanting to build stronger relationships with their neighbors. We train people to become animators of local neighborhood pods and children’s parliaments-- circles of grassroots, face-to-face celebration, sharing, and governance among immediate neighbors of all ages. We primarily organize cohorts from church congregations, non-profit staff, and individuals passionate about a world where we show with our actions how we love our neighbors as ourselves.
Inspired Learning Academy is a self-directed micro-school for teenagers. Key Contributions: - Co-created a new class with my students based on a discussion of our shared interests: World Cultures Through Film and Food - Developed a brand new curriculum and lesson plans. - Sustained consistent student participation and interest during a 2 hour class. - Pioneered frequent criticism and self-criticism sessions in which I publicly invited students to criticize my methods and attitudes in the classroom, and self-criticized my own in front of them, in order to keep myself and the curriculum true to the joint ambitions we together held for this new class.
EPIC is an intentional learning community serving students 4-18 by offering a rich, supportive space for children to thrive by empowering them to engage with their interests and the world around them. Key Contributions: - Managed day-to-day operations, decision-making, and problem solving in a tight-knit team - Led staff meetings using sociocratic and agile tools to synthesize group ideas while maintaining a healthy venue for constructive criticism and feedback - Created frameworks and structures that make up the learning community - Hosted tours and networked with other schools to promote the learning community - Facilitated consent-based decision making meetings and interpersonal conflict resolution processes including mediation for staff, children, and families. - Led the Exploration program for 7-11 year olds - Planned, facilitated, and oversaw educational lessons, projects and group bonding activities - Mentored earners on goal setting, passion fulfillment, and social/emotional regulation - Offered classes based on learner interests including outdoor excursions, anthropology, The Twilight Zone, and wild food foraging workshops.
Key Contributions: -Facilitated Community Awareness Meetings, school assemblies, and reflections. -Co-led the Exploration program for learners in their “middle years”, in which I came up with and facilitated warm-up activities and lesson plans, and supported my co-worker in the same, as well as individually mentored students during their one-hour daily independent time where they explored passions based on their previously set goals. -Led a class on the The Twilight Zone, as well as workshops on diverse topics like wild food foraging. -Helped younger students be intrinsically motivated to keep the school clean through our contribution time, sometimes by jointly coming up with creative games to make the process more fun like “All Out Against The Invaders of the Cleanliness”.
Aid Network Denton is a grassroots mutual aid and crisis response collective created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to connect people to resources in Denton County and provide aid to those most at risk in our communities. I was one of the co-founders, and volunteered 50-70 hour weeks at first to help get our infrastructure caught up with the rapid pace of the pandemic spreading in the United States. I helped compile best practices from places where mutual aid networks were already being formed and then helped create the online infrastructure that allowed those who had supplies and aid to give to connect with those who needed aid. This consisted in the rapid deployment and distribution of online volunteer sign-up and aid request forms, comprehensive resource curation on splash pages, information sharing templates, a collaborative community resource map, etc. I settled into my main role as a member of the welcoming committee and called huge numbers of potential volunteers daily talking to them each for 30 minutes to an hour about the intricacies of our makeshift organization and making sure they found their place in it. I ran supply deliveries and facilitated some of our meetings as well, and also wrote training guides so we could diffuse tasks, power, and knowledge widely. We currently have about 130 volunteers, the vast majority of which I personally oriented in. We have done well over 200 deliveries, grocery runs, and PPE giveaways. The task I take the most pride in was pioneering guidelines for starting neighborhood pods, hyperlocal coordinations of neighbors of about 5-30 households to help meet people's material, social, and other needs during the pandemic. Starting on my own block, I coordinated contacts between 15+ households, and then helped about 40 people begin the process of starting their own neighborhood pods.