Photos by J. Lindsey Photography
This summer we gathered with 13 educators from Southeast Michigan, New York and Nebraska to create a transformative space in which to cultivate more humane classrooms and practices.
Now in our sixth year, our intention to model the design of humanizing learning spaces remains paramount, and we’ve seen how this modelling has transformed the Rida space itself. Interwoven into this year’s summer intensive were two of our most valuable lessons so far. For one, we recognized that Rida has become more than professional development. And secondly, we prioritized the access needs of every human present.
Access Needs
“An access need is something a person needs to communicate, learn and take part in an activity. Many people have access needs.”
New this year was the daily practice of checking in on what folks need to be present in the space. Examples were, “I often don’t hear well, so I may ask people to speak up,'' or “I have a sick kid and might need to step out to take a call.” And those who felt like their needs are met could say so.
This concept came to us from the work of disability justice organizers during the Allied Media Conference Facilitation Network Gathering, and it was refined by the Generative Somatics Leadership training.
- Pacific Alliance on Disability Self-Advocacy project
The practice of asking if people had what they needed invited a complex layer of humanity that was felt each day. What could be more humanizing than acknowledging that we have needs, bodies and lives that exist regardless of the present moment, while simultaneously interacting with the present moment?
This invitation brought malleability to our daily activities, so we could better align them with the group’s needs. On day three of this practice, Nate Mullen, Rida’s lead facilitator, also requested “support in holding space.” He reflected on this moment:
“A combination of all the energy of facilitating and my daughter not sleeping the prior night had left me a bit tender and I was moving slowly. In all my years of teaching and facilitating, I have never been able to be so upfront and clear about where I am and what support I need to facilitate. Instead, here I was able to … dispel the myth that a good teacher is a superhuman teacher who is always at 100%. I could model that my vulnerability is actually one of the most powerful places to lead from and can make room for the leadership of the whole group.”
As we’d hoped, introducing access needs into the intensive also shifted how some participants thought about how they show up as teachers. One participant, Avery Shelton, talked about centering the needs of both her students and herself:
In early childhood education, we are constantly thinking about how to meet the needs our our students… It is so easy to forget that adults have needs too. When the access needs of educators are given attention, we can feel recognized and seen as humans.
We are deeply excited to bring such a resonant practice to Rida, where educators can return over and over again for new approaches to humanizing their learning spaces.
A PLACE TO GATHER
“This isn’t professional development. It’s a journey.”
This realization from the 2019 intensive is perhaps one of the most profound: The Rida Institute has grown into a homecoming, a recurring gathering place for like minded people in education. We’ve known for years that this is more than professional development, but what we didn’t know is that its becoming more than a training. It's like a pilgrimage for our collective work of humanizing schooling.
We’ve returned to the Rida every summer for the last five years and that pattern has created an energy, an atmosphere and a community. This year we tapped into that energy by hosting a reunion dinner during the intensive to gather Rida participants past and present. We also invited alumni to a panel on day three to share their lessons from integrating Rida principals into their teaching practice and wider world.
Photos by Mari Visualz
The dinner and panel showed us that this work is integrated into the lives of educators and the students who have touched it. And when they need a refresher, educators know they can always return to their purpose in the Rida space. During the panel, Rida alumna Bushra Rahman spoke about her difficulty counteracting the dehumanizing culture at school and how that informed her experience joining the Rida for a second year.
My first year of teaching [was] everything between nice and ugly… After this Rida experience I will be able to hold myself accountable to ensure that I myself will actively attempt not to dehumanize myself, my students, and our environments.
And her fellow panelist, Kiarra Ambrose, shared how lessons from Rida in years past inform her teaching practices today:
I adjust my teaching to see who the students are and how they are when they enter the classroom.
What a perfect parallel to what the Rida 2019 intensive became: an accessible space for Ridas old and new to show up as they are, creative, reflective and transformed.
Photos by J. Lindsey Photography
For more from the 2019 Rida Intensive, check out our photo album with moments captured by Julianne Lindsey and Marisol Sanchez. And see some fun and delicious #Rida2019 moments in action on our Instagram story.