91������

Often, educators lead young learners in imagining their future based on a career in a specific discipline. This talk will explore how youth develop present and future narratives-of-self that are both playful and rigorous in their enactment of disciplinary knowledge. By centering the playful imagination as a leading activity in learning and development, youth are able to imagine a��Not Yet Here��that is simultaneously fantastical while offering openings for equitable and just futures.

In 1756 the Oxford English Dictionary defined slang as “the language of the low and disreputable,” later prohibiting its appearance in the volume. This represents a trend across Western language arts institutions of devaluing and suppressing the language and the arts of those existing on the low (those in the lower classes, the Global South and the undercommons) dismissing their intellectual contributions as primitive. What happens to the futures of language arts education when RAP, the Rhythm And Poetry of those on the low, is seen as a linguistic archetype?

Making sense of news and applying it to life is challenging. Some politicians and organizations deliberately promulgate disinformation and accuse journalists of “fake news.” Relatedly, public trust in traditional expertise, for instance about science, is eroding. What is an educator to do? I will share a project-based approach in which youth research issues they care about, then craft “infographics” for online publication and to inform publics. Example topics include environmental and health issues affecting people students know. This fosters critical learning for engagement in future civic life.

Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist who risked her life to ensure that hundreds of enslaved people were able to experience freedom. Her last words, “I go to prepare a place for you,” suggest that even on her deathbed, she was formulating a plan for future freedoms. She and so many other Black people dreamed the Black present into being. Considering this, Toliver honors the legacy of Black ancestry by presenting her dream of educational Afrofutures, a dream that uplifts Black youth, Black imaginations, and Black joy.

Our experiences have shaped us, who we are. I am talking about the time you felt guilty, ashamed and embarrassed. The time where you found out that guilt is good and when it was no longer helpful. As a first generation, DACA, woman of color, I have been through a lot. Having high standards to the point that it turned into guilt. I soon realized that my experience has allowed me to be an example for others and most importantly to create a space for empathy for my students.��

Our children will inherit a world full of problems nearing the 11th hour. I believe they will need to create magic. To create magic, they need to lead like an artist.

There are a lot of things that make this country, and specifically education in this country, that make me feel hopeless. But one of the things that is long overdue is looking straight at the curriculum we are teaching students and how we are teaching that curriculum. In the moment we are in right now we have the re-think our curriculum. If we aren’t rethinking what we are teaching in this moment in particular, then our students will never reach their full potential to be the leaders they can actually be. The curriculum we teach has and always will have implications on society. We can choose to keep teaching white-centered curricula, but it won’t get us very far. We can see this as the way the system was meant to be. We can question, critique, and redesign curriculum and in every single reading we teach, image we show, and lesson we plan — how are we centering or de-centering whiteness?

Everyone has felt the impacts of a triple crisis caused by COVID-19, the subsequent economic recession and the enduring repercussions of racism. However, the effects of the triple crisis have not landed on groups of people equally. This talk reflects on the collective and individual loss many people have experienced in 2020 while unpacking how privilege mediates outcomes. In doing so, it calls attention to persistent inequities students face inside and outside of school and envisions design elements to renovate systems in response to challenges highlighted by the triple crisis.

I now teach in an unfamiliar landscape, characterized by an empty classroom, silent halls, and talking into the tiny lens of a webcam to connect with my students. I recognize none of this. But the important work toward humanizing and liberating classrooms must continue even so. Perhaps we can see more clearly the work we need to do because of the disruption of the pandemic. When we look back on 2020, what story will we tell of what we learned during this time?

Do we complicate our lens on what it means to learn, and especially what it means to learn about privilege, oppression, and justice? This type of learning and unlearning is disruptive and often discomforting as it interferes with what we know and challenges our senses of self. Bethy Leonardi will share personal stories of transformative learning and explore courage and humility as necessary for learning in this way.

Some say that the education system is broken. What if education as a system of schooling is doing exactly what it was intended to do—reproduce social inequalities by keeping certain groups at social and economic positions? What would an alternative approach to education look like? This talk presents Professor Lopez’s work in a rehumanizing summer program for high school Chicana/o and Latina/o youth, known as Aquetza, that strives to stretch the imaginations and aspirations of socially stigmatized youth.

This talk will explore the power of listening in learning — the teacher listening to the students, students and teachers listening to the texts, and listening to each other. Let’s listen to the challenges, discomfort, and beauty that can arise.