What We Read this Summer

Every summer our faculty and staff particpate in “summer reading,” where we all read the same books or text in preparation for the coming school year. This summer we all read:

• Cultivating Genius by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad
• Start Here and Start Now by Liz Kleinrock

These resources will provide inspiration and guidance for our work to realize our newly articulated mission, core values, and vision, as well as our four strategic priorities.

When Liz Kleinrock visited with us last spring, she reinforced the importance of considering notionly diverse representation but also providing affirmation and joy in this representation in our
curriculum, program, and community. Dr. Muhammad provides a model of this kind of affirmation in Cultivating Genius. In addition, both authors and educators prioritize centering the voices and genius of the students and collaborating in ways that celebrate the genius of our adult community as well.

While reading, we considered the following questions:

• What can we learn as individual educators as well as an institution about how we might continue to lift up affirmation and joy in our ongoing commitment to increase diverse representation in our curriculum, program, and community?
• What can we learn as individual educators as well as an institution about how we might create more opportunities for student agency and voice in their learning?
• What would you need as a member of this community to support both small adjustments and/or moving toward more actionable changes inspired by these educators and resources?

This fall we’ll work together to identify action items using the inspiration from these educators and others to deepen our learning and practice for next year in these three strategic priority areas:

• Integrate across our efforts in change-making, equity and inclusion, social-emotional learning and ecological literacy to deepen our rigorous program.
• Create more opportunities for students to gain agency and voice in their learning as true ecosystem partners.
• Design open pathways for educators to grow professionally and enhance their wellness.

Please consider joining us by reading these books and let us know what you think!