Apply Now for the Rida Institute (August 19-21) in Detroit

Calling all educators! Detroit Future Schools is now accepting applications for the Rida Institute, a three day training and curriculum planning retreat taking place August 19-21 in Detroit. The Institute will introduce teachers to the “Rida Framework” one of Detroit Future School’s central tools for humanizing schooling.

Apply here for the 2015 Rida Institute. 

The Rida Framework is the primary planning and evaluation tool that DFS uses to humanize schooling, inspired by the educational theories of Paolo Freire, Jeff Duncan-Andrade, and James and Grace Lee Boggs.

Freire, a Brazillian educator and theorist, believed that cycles of critical reflection and action were key to any transformative learning process. From this approach, users of the Rida Framework articulate practices (action) that will result in desired/outlined outcomes within their classrooms, which they will document and evaluate via pre-determined metrics (reflection).

Learn more about the Rida Framework here.

At the Rida Institute participants will:

+ Unpack the Rida Framework through small group workshops, activities, role playing games, writing exercises, hands-on training and more. + Develop a clear purpose and principles of education within the specific contexts of their communities. + Plan skills and curriculum they need to actualize that purpose in their classrooms. + Establish the metrics they will use to measure learning and growth. + Explore DFS best practices for nurturing student agency and leadership within the classroom. + Receive an updated edition of the “DFS Guide to Transformative Education,” with step-by-step exercises for planning a humanizing curriculum.

Beyond the three day institute, participants will also have the opportunity to build community with their peers through ongoing lesson planning workshops, study groups, an annual DFS network gathering, and additional facilitated meetups throughout the year.

The deadline to apply for the 2015 Rida Institute is August 12th. Apply here.

The cost to attend as an individual is $150. The cost to attend as a representative of an institution is $500. Lunch and dinner is provided throughout the three days of the Institute. Scholarships are available - please indicate your need for a scholarship in the application form.

Participant Reflections from the 2014 Rida Institute

"This is the best, most honest and reflective professional development I've ever attended. We were all deeply engaged in the work, because the leaders made this content so engaging. I became a teacher 20 years ago and so wish I had this kind of opportunity in my first years of teaching like other participants. Regardless, it has transformed how and what I will do with the remainder of my career. – Marcia Russell K-12 Educator/Consultant

"I had to dig deep and stretched out of my comfort zone (and continue to) in order to define my purpose and principles, something we take for granted, but is a definite missing piece to the profession of teaching. I will definitely take this tool and encourage my cohorts and colleagues to examine for themselves." – Susan Matous, teacher and administrator (Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy)

Read a recap from the first Rida Institute held in 2014 here. Apply before the deadline of August 12th! Please email nate@alliedmedia.org with any questions.

“Our Schools, Our Voice” – Watch a video about how schools open and close in Detroit by 482 Forward and Detroit Future Schools

In Detroit over 283 public schools have been closed since 2000, causing ongoing instability and chaos in the schooling landscape of the city. Much of this is due to the process behind opening and closing schools in the city. There are 12 “authorizers” or different bodies who have the sole authority to open or close schools and these authorizers are not directly accountable to Detroit residents. This results in inequities regarding the number of schools in each neighborhood and the populations those schools are serving.

Political will in Detroit is ramping up to address some of these issues around Detroit schools (see recommendations from the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren). If residents are to have a voice in shaping our school system, it is vital that we are having conversations about how our public school system works.

Detroit Future Schools collaborated with the citywide education organizing network 482 Forward, videographer Imad Hassan, and music producer Ben Christensen to create a video for community members that responds to the question: “Who gets to open and close schools in Detroit?”

Our schools, Our voice from Four Eight Two Forward on Vimeo.

Who gets to open or close our schools? How and whether our schools share resources has a huge impact on the work we do in the classroom. We made this video because we wanted to participate in the conversation about education in Detroit and bring awareness to the complex issues facing our school system.

 As Detroit Future Schools continue to work towards our goal of humanizing schooling in Detroit, we are expanding our work beyond the classroom to gain an understanding of the larger challenges and political context shaping our classrooms. We look forward to continuing to partner with 482 Forward to inspire conversations and community organizing around education justice in Detroit.

Detroit Future Schools 4.0: Humanize schooling in the classroom & beyond

Detroit Future Schools is now in its fourth year of facilitating in-school media programming and teacher professional development with the goal of humanizing education in Detroit. We work in a small number of anchor schools to develop and evaluate core instructional elements and practices. And this year we’re also excited to be launching a new project focused on documentary filmmaking.

Students from the painted Turtle Classroom, acting out the classroom agreements

We’ve also had some changes to our staff welcoming two new teaching artists to the DFS team: Andrea Claire Maio and Alicia Castañeda. Andrea is a Detroit-based filmmaker whose stories have been heard and seen on NPR, PBS, and at film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Alicia has a background in creative writing and poetry and she also works as a writer-in-residence with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. In addition to our new teaching artists, we are excited to introduce our new program director, Nate Mullen, who was previously the lead artist for DFS.

Work at The Boggs School & Tri County Educational Center

This year we are partnering with two schools: The James and Grace Lee Boggs School and Tri County Educational Center.

Our DFS classrooms are immersed in a diverse range of media projects. At the Boggs School we are working with the “Painted Turtle” classroom where 1st and 2nd grade students are responding to the question “How do I tell my story?” They are using photography, motion and storytelling to investigate the purpose and power of literacy.

At Tri County Educational Center, high schoolers are using graphic design to investigate the question “How can we use design to address problems in our community?” In the second semester both of our classrooms will be embarking on long-term research projects about their communities and will convey their findings through a public art project called “data murals”. The production of these "data murals" is supported through an award from the Knight Arts Challenge.

Below is a video that documents one of the projects from the 1st semester of the graphic design class at Tri County. In this project students chose one of the DFS “11 Essential Skills” that they most identified with, and drew their own self portraits.

As we continue this important work of humanizing schooling, we’ve realized that in order for our work to thrive we must address larger, systemic barriers. We’ve found that in many classrooms standardized curriculum and testing leave teachers feeling like they don’t have a voice in their own classrooms, and dehumanizes learning so that the only value lies in test scores. As we see test scores decline, schools are defunded and dismantled— in Detroit more than 283 schools have been closed since 2000. This creates chaos in our public education landscape.

The Out of School Project (OSP) : Documentary Workshop

Although there are many people organizing around reforming the structure of education, there aren’t enough groups organizing youth and bringing their perspective to the table. At the same time we found that many students desire more dedicated time and instruction in developing concrete media skills, such as filmmaking and graphic design, in order to grasp a deeper understanding of media making.

This combination of systemic problems in our schooling landscape, a lack of youth voice in organizing around school reform, and a desire from youth to make media, has made it clear to us that we need to expand and evolve our work beyond in-school programming.

With this in mind we launched a new program in which, for the first time, DFS is working with youth outside of classrooms. The Out of School Project (OSP) is a six-month afterschool program that brings together students ages 13 - 21 from all over the city – including Detroit Public Schools, charter schools, private schools, alternative schools, and even a few college students. In this program, students are creating media that inserts youth voice into the conversation about the challenges and opportunities facing Detroit’s public education system.

The OSP kicked off in January and involves weekly after school sessions with teaching artist Andrea Claire Maio. As we continue to research our education system and begin to frame our documentary film, we are excited to delve into the practice of filmmaking using a hands-on approach. We look forward to sharing our progress with you over the next few months!