2022 EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION JAM
WHAT IS THE YES! EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION JAM?
The YES! Education Transformation Jam (Ed Jam, for short) is a unique gathering for folks engaged in education. We bring together about 30 leaders and visionaries from across the oft-divided education world: public, private, independent, and charter schools, unschooling, homeschooling, learning communities, youth empowerment, youth activism, leadership development, adult education, early childhood, community college and higher education, and more.
The Ed Jam creates opportunities to explore our experiences and visions of education, build lasting and collaborative relationships, deepen our perspectives of challenging questions, share places of growth, struggle and healing, and have a lot of fun. It weaves the personal, interpersonal, and systemic together — from the deep motivations of why we are called to be in this field, to the challenges and community that race, gender and class diversity offer our learning spaces, to imagining and manifesting the full possibilities of what education can be in this emergent and ever-changing world.
Unlike many education conferences that focus on systemic questions and rarely weave together connections to our own life journeys — or personal retreats that focus on self-transformation and leave out systemic issues — the Jam seeks to address both of these levels, as well as the very vital area of interpersonal connection, learning and healing. All fields of transformation are brought together in a shared space co-created by all of the participants.
The Ed Jam will make space to listen and learn from each person present, engage in new synergies, find inspiration and rejuvenation, and build towards a common vision with each of our own unique contributions. Though some dialogues about education end up being debates about “the right way forward”, the Jam connects people from very different educational approaches to share our fields’ strengths and challenges and to explore our ‘unknowns’ together. We not only explore the ways education can be a place of empowerment for young(er) people, we also co-generate opportunities for you to explore your own journey of transformation as a co-learner and co-creator. We invite you to join us!
WHY THE EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION JAM NOW?
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, education is at a crisis moment. At the same time that air is rife with the excitement of historic new possibilities of precedents for life, wellness and justice, we are also in deep mourning and yearning for relief from ongoing violence, white supremacy, militarism, colonialism, environmental destruction, patriarchy, corporate greed and an attack on the ability of educators to speak openly about these truths. As educators, the role we continue to play in ensuring that seeds of knowledge and care can still be planted in this uneven soil has been met with great burden and urgency in these times. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, take on too much and hold a lot of weight in our minds, hearts and bodies. If we are not allowed to acknowledge our griefs, our traumas, and the hurting in our hearts, we will continue to pass this forward and hinder the creativity and collaboration we so deeply need and want for transforming the way we practice education.
The Jam creates space for us to slow down. On a personal level, we get time to reflect on what’s alive for each of us and tune into deeper sources of information from within and outside of us. On an interpersonal level, we deepen relationships across differences, to see and support each other, to play together, and to have challenging and truthful conversations while rooted in curiosity and love. On a systemic level, we share our work and build our collective vision of the education that our communities and this world needs to meet this moment and carve pathways forward.
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE YES! EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION JAM?
Over the course of the whole Jam, we will have time to engage with many questions, such as:
- How can we acknowledge the complexities of teaching and living through COVID? Who have we become because of it? Who do we want to be?
- If we’re not going back to a “pre-COVID” reality, how do we move forward? How do we want to be together?
- What stories or strategies have we left behind in order to make room for us to play with what’s coming next?
- What are you learning, unlearning and uplearning right now? What are your growing edges, cliffhangers and pivot points? What sources are we turning to for guidance?
- What have you been leaning on within your educational communities during this time? What are you missing and want to bring in?
- How are you approaching building bridges within and across diverse identities, like race, class, gender, and sexuality, in your education work?
- How can we name the politicized nature of education in our world today?
- What does equity in education look like?
- How does your heart fully enter and sustain your work?
- What is your personal story around education? How have your experiences informed the path you have chosen to take?
- How are you nurturing the student within you?
- What have been your triumphs and your traumas around education? How are they shaping your work in the world?
- How are you creating and implementing your systems and visions of education?
- How are you living the values and world you are trying to create?
- What are the opportunities and challenges you are facing in transforming education?
- What kind of support do you need to help come into deeper alignment? What kind of support can you offer others for their journey into deeper alignment?
What are your questions? Bring all of them to the Jam! They are essential for all of us to learn, grow and dream further.
This is a Jam and not a workshop or seminar. Each Jam is co-created by everyone who attends in multiple ways. We like to say that “the Jam is always on.” Facilitators offer sessions each day that engage the common themes from participants’ applications with a variety of activities using body, heart, spirit and mind. These sessions shift and change based on what emerges from the group. Outside of the sessions, even in a virtual jam space, we make time and space for resting, playing, scheming, reflecting, connecting, exercising and the Fine Art of Hanging Out — whatever the Jammers present choose to do.
Everyone co-creates the jam through a variety of learning modalities – small group dialogues, whole group conversations, movement and bodywork, systems thinking, storytelling and myth making, meditations and visualizations, visual and performing arts, and more. The Jam will unfold to make space for our whole selves, for our spirits, for one another, for our highest dreams and our deepest fears. All of it will be welcome.
As with other Jams, we are prepared to be surprised! One hope is that people will have the opportunity to integrate their learnings and carry them home, to be able to find and connect with people who have the heart, spirit, skills and knowledge that they are needing for the next steps of their personal journey and the next steps of our collective journey.
I’M INTERESTED! WHAT ABOUT COSTS AND LOGISTICS?
Since our first virtual Jam in 2020, we have decided to continue Jamming virtually, for now. And someday soon, we hope we can gather in person in real time.
The 8th annual YES! Education Transformation Jam will take place Sunday, July 17 to Friday, July 22, from 9 am-11:30 am PST / 12-2:30 pm EST on Zoom. This time includes a group session as well as an informal hangout time. There will also be lots of opportunities for asynchronous connecting in one-on-ones, small groups, and more. Please leave time for yourself to JAM this week. Note: There will be no fixed session on Wednesday, July 20th, for space for rest, integration, and participant-led sessions.
You are welcome to join from anywhere in the world! And, we invite you to think about the whole week as the Jam, as we will have lots of fun things happening outside our main session timing too. The more space you have, the more you will be able to JAM. We’ll send more details, and feel free to ask us any questions.
We offer the Jam for a sliding scale of $100-$400, and ask you to contribute what you can. If it’s available, we encourage you to access your institution/organization/school’s professional development budget to help to cover some of these costs.
After you apply to the Jam, if you like, we can share with you a customized letter that focuses on the professional-development benefits of the Jam that you can then share with your institution/employer.
WHAT DO ALUMNI HAVE TO SAY? TESTIMONIALS
“The Jam felt like a beginning to me. I have spent so long in the daily grind of my job feeling disconnected from myself and from my dreams and goals. Particularly during Covid and remote work, it is difficult to connect with students and coworkers and difficult to focus on anything outside of fear and uncertainty. The Jam was a space to remember the original reasons I wanted to work in education and to feel myself beginning to reopen to larger possibilities.” – Laura Hillebrand, 24, assistant director of Cornerstone Community, New York City, New York
“It was so refreshing to hear from the perspective of established educators who work to resist and reform as I’ve spent so much energy in reimagine and recreate. I can’t believe how many kindred connections have come my way and I can’t wait to deepen with them all.” – Gabi Jubran, 32, HAPPI, INC. Menlo Park, California
“ Oh Jam, I am grateful for your solid presence in my life. I am grateful for being able to see the world through some of the other’s eyes and presence. I feel a bit more hopeful knowing that there are lots of people out there, wide eyed and beautiful, contemplating how to be and create in brilliant ways. “ – Sumika Motoki, 43, Educator, Winlaw, British Columbia, Canada
“ I arrived with many questions – most of them how do we…? How can we? How how how? And I don’t know that I got answers to all those hows, but I found hope. I found a simplicity to what felt so complicated. Loving across difference. Listening deeply. Daring to dream. Being supported and supporting. Making room for all the feelings and honoring each person. Seeing the interconnectedness of all things. Cultivating space and willingness to slow down – even when it feels like there is no time. I think this is the how. Our collective vision doesn’t feel so far away.” – Shannon MacMullin, 45, Gaelic language and culture community educator, Conrod Settlement, Nova Scotia, Canada
“Thank you for all you have given me. I appreciated meeting educators who work outside of the traditional classroom setting and those who were classroom teachers like me. I was most moved by how open everyone was, both facilitants and participants. I was initially intimidated by the group, but the organizers created a beautiful, judgment-free zone and I felt connected to everyone. The Jam is about connecting and that is so important to me, and I loved being in an environment where everyone shared similar values. Thank you for hearing me, seeing me, and helping me find my voice again.” – Neemu Reddy, 43, English Teacher, St. Andrew’s School, Middletown, Delaware
“I am healed and transformed in ways that are fueling so many concrete, tangible, and lasting changes in my work. What I want to make clear is that not only have I been healed (which makes the way for more healing) within myself, in my relationships, and in my role in the systemic world of institutions and social systems, but my day to day work will never again be the same.” – Angela Sillars, 32, early childhood educator and PhD candidate, Los Angeles, CA
We would love to have you apply for the Education Transformation Jam 2022. Our priority deadline is May 15, 2022, and our final deadline is June 30, 2022. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so the sooner you apply, the better!
If you have any questions, please contact our participant liaison, Joy George at <EducationYESJam@gmail.com>
Looking forward to Jamming with you!
– Joy, Jen, Jonathan, Minna, Eric, Catherine, Jasmine, Kenny and Shilpa
WHO IS PUTTING THIS ON? MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS AND FACILITATORS
Organizer
Jasmine Barnes (she/her) is a deep believer that joy and freedom are the natural outcomes of loving each other, ourselves. Detroit-born, Houston-raised and Chicago-based, she is an experienced facilitator, community builder and relationship advocate with a background in the education nonprofit sector. Her work is guided by her passion to create a more just and equitable world where underserved and underrepresented populations have access to resources and holistic education. Relational healing, community building and creative self expression fuel her efforts to create a more just and loving world. In her free time, Jasmine enjoys cultivating spiritual communities and sharing her writing.
Catherine Elkhattaby Strauch is a music teacher, musician, and mom originally from Exeter, Maine, now living and teaching in Western Massachusetts. She spends her time teaching K-6 general music at Wildwood Elementary in Amherst, parenting a very small child with her husband, fellow Jammer Nour, preparing food for friends and family, and reading lots of books. Catherine loves talking about the wonders of small children, her cat, weird food allergies, parenthood, books, traveling the world, Maine, folk/bluegrass music, favorite songs, and anything that brings joy to people’s lives.
Eric DeMeulenaere lives in Worcester, MA where he teaches in Clark University’s Education Department. Prior to joining Clark University’s faculty, he taught middle and high school social studies and English in Oakland and San Francisco, CA. In 2004, he co-founded and directed an innovative small public school in East Oakland that focused on social justice and increased academic outcomes for youth of color. Before opening the school, Eric completed his graduate studies in the Social and Cultural Studies Program at U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. He consults with urban school leaders and teachers nationally and internationally to transform their organizational school cultures and address social and racial inequities. Eric co-founded and directs an innovative new major at Clark: Community, Youth, and Education Studies, which engages undergraduates in community-based activist research. Eric is the co-author (with Colette Cann) of two books Reflections from the Field: How Coaching Made Us Better Teachers (2013) and The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change (2020).
Jen Lazar is a writer and educator living between Vermont (and sometimes Virginia!). She co-founded the Field Academy, a traveling high school that strives to make learning and life indistinguishable, and spent the better part of a decade learning from and with students and teachers across the United States. She served as the Education & Outreach Coordinator at 350VT, a Burlington city school board commissioner, and as part of the leadership team of the DREAM mentoring program. Presently she is revising her first book, raising (and being raised by!) a brilliant three year old, and teaching writing in the evenings. She loves to cook brunch, play Capture the Flag, explore archives, and experiment with time-bending. She has been jamming since 2013 and also helps to convene the Education Transformation Jam.
Jonathan Peck, former President and CEO of the Tucson Urban League has over 23 years experience working within the community development field facilitating projects, coalitions, and alliances at the neighborhood, citywide, national and international levels. Jonathan received a BA in African African American Studies and Political Science from Earlham College. Jonathan worked as a community organizer, and later as Associate Director, of the Southwest Youth Collaborative (SWYC), a Chicago based organization dedicated to the development of low-income youth of color. Jonathan Peck is married to Zelda Harris and has two beautiful sons, Jonathan Russell Thanh and Wesley Chapman Danh Harris-Peck. Jonathan works to impact the lives of children, youth and families through his commitment to criminal and juvenile justice initiatives, education and social services and economic and community development initiatives. Jonathan is passionate about sports, arts and culture and positive youth development and has over 23 years of experience in the community sports and youth development field. Jonathan has extensive international experience most notably, but not limited to, in Southern Africa and Latin America. Organizing with YES! for the annual Ed Jam and the Northeast US Jam are two of her many joys.
Hyoyoung Minna Kim has recently digested herself to succumb to the goopiness of the chrysalis phase after having transitioned out of eleven years of teaching in elementary public schools. She is slowly regenerating on native land of the Tulalip and Snohomish people, colonially known as Everett, Washington. Minna is currently nurturing her curiosities around storytelling via crafting children’s books and consultation via facilitating spaces that center our beautifully messy humanity. She is a big believer of radical & loving honesty, body-wisdom, community-driven initiatives, and children’s literature. Finally, nature is her favorite teacher and playmate in the whole wide universe.
Shilpa Jain is currently rooting herself in Oakland/Berkeley, CA. For 11+ years, she served as the Executive Director of YES!, working with social changemakers at the meeting point of internal, interpersonal and systemic change, and aiming to co-create thriving, just and balanced ways of life for all. Prior to taking on this role, Shilpa spent two years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India, where she served as coordinator of the Swapathgami (Walkouts-Walkons) Network. She has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings with hundreds of young leaders from over 50 countries. She is passionate about dance and music, organic and natural farming, upcycling and zero waste living, asking appreciative questions and being in community. A focus on healing, forgiveness, compassion, love and wholeness permeates all of her work and life.
Joy George, born and raised in the Bronx as the daughter of Nigerian diaspora, has found herself at the intersections of love, transformation, restoration and social change in her work and activism. A graduate of NYC Public Schools and Swarthmore College now working in the state of Maine at Mindbridge and the Restorative Justice Institute of Maine, she is working towards planting and watering the seeds of restorative culture. After serving as a counselor at Seeds of Peace International Camp in the summer of 2019, Joy attended the 2019 North American Leadership Jam and found herself blessed with radical healing, truth and community– and now she is back again for more!
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