26: Why Traditional Education Fails Students—and How Activist Artists and Educators are Turning the Tide

Threshold Questions and Delicious QuotesHow do you describe your work in the world?I often refer to myself as a midwife of creativity... I think of it in my dual roles as an educator and artist, as holding space for the birth of someone else's creative thinking and inquiry. And so I liked that idea that, if something goes wrong here I am to hold the space.What is happening when young people catch fire in a performance?..students, who have been marginalized or failing their other subject matters-- suddenly if they're center stage ... performing with brilliance it's a way for even other teachers to have an asset-based understanding of them, to really see them for them, their true selves.What is the art of teaching?The art of teaching ... is really this transmission of wisdom, right? If we look at human history, we're talking about a very different frame than the last hundred years of what education is and how we pass on ethics and values and cultures and art forms through education. Those were the primary ...tools for survival and somehow all of that seems a bit out the window with our Industrialized education frame.What makes Studio Pathways unique?One of the reasons we left the county office of education was to focus on the concept of reconciliation or reckoning. So taking it from, south African truth and reconciliation --- the knowledge that we really haven't had a practice of reconciliation this country, that's why we're facing what we're facing right now....Educators need to be able to do power analysis in the classroom. They need to understand what's happening between teacher and students, between genders and races, and they need to understand what that means and how that plays out and then their own role in either disrupting or perpetuating that.So that's a real key....And the way that we do it is through the arts. Jessa Brie Moreno is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director for Studio Pathways and has collaborated as a pedagogical advisor, instructional designer, and facilitator for leading-edge arts organizations and educational institutions nationwide. Studio Pathways' projects, partners, and clients include: Rise Up! An American Curriculum, The Kennedy Center, Turnaround Arts National, Othering and Belonging Curriculum for UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, Racial Healing Curriculum/WKKF Foundation, Instructional Designers/Zaretta Hammond, Favianna Rodriguez' The Center for Cultural Power, the California Spoken Word Project, Turnaround Arts National CA, California Alliance for Arts Education, Hewlett Foundation, Los Angeles Education Partners, Youth Speaks, Youth In Arts, Museum of the African Diaspora, Oakland Museum of California, and County, District and School Sites. In addition, Moreno has held posts as Adjunct Faculty with the California Institute for Integral Studies (BA, MFA programs) and San Jose State University (Theatre Dept.) is a founding member of White Educators for Racial Justice (WERJ) and has facilitated with RISE for Racial Justice. Moreno (alongside Rankine-Landers) formerly co-led the Integrated Learning Specialists' Program, professional development in and beyond Alameda County that supported transformative K-12 school change through the arts. Moreno served the California Alliance for Arts Education as a Local Advocacy Field Manager building community leadership networks for Arts Advocacy statewide. She was the founding director of both the Oakland Theatre Arts Initiative and of award-winning student theatre company OakTechRep. Jessa's directorial work has appeared in collaborations with CalShakes, Stanford,...

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