Human Restoration Project

What you just heard were public comments from three community members of Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas, at the center of a controversial state takeover by the Texas Education Agency. The bell you hear in the audio is a hard cut-off for speakers, whose mics were immediately turned off. After working its way through the legal system for several years, last winter, the Texas Supreme Court greenlit the replacement of district superintendent and the locally elected board of trustees by the head of the TEA, appointed directly by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, himself. And last month, school was back in session under the newly appointed superintendent, Mike Miles - former US State Department ambassador, charter school CEO, and Dallas ISD superintendent - amid dozens of pedagogical and policy changes that left teachers, parents, and students confused, frustrated, and afraid, as heard in the public comment at the beginning of this episode.The takeover of Houston ISD sits at the intersection of so many issues impacting American education today - democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarianism, the so-called parents’ rights movement, testing & accountability measures, poverty, race, and charter schools. On Friday, September 15th, the morning after another heated board meeting in Houston, I spoke with Karina Quesada-Leon, an Houston ISD parent, activist, and former teacher who has been intensely involved in HISD for a decade, and she was generous to speak with me for an hour about the recent history of the majority Hispanic/Latino district, the impact of the takeover on teachers, families, & students, and how they are experiencing the New Educational System of Superintendent Mike Miles, and what’s next for the movement opposed to these reactionary changes.We are generally not a current-events podcast, but because this is a fast-moving story, we wanted to release it to listeners as soon and as lightly edited as possible. You can also find an overview of the story on our YouTube channel by searching Human Restoration Project. We hope to follow up with Karina and other affected teachers, parents, and students at Houston ISD. If you’d like to reach out to me directly, you can do so by emailing nick@humanrestorationproject.org. And of course you can always find more of our work and support us @ humanrestorationproject.orgVideo: The Houston ISD Takeover Punishes Poverty & Subverts DemocracyTwitter: Houston Education AssociationTwitter: Karina Quesada-Leon

Welcome to the first of a three-part series on Pedagogy in the Hawai'ian Islands, where we explore history, philosophy, and progressive developments in Hawai'ian Pedagogy. My name is Noah Ranz-Lind, and I am a student at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, interning at the Human Restoration Project.In this episode, we delve into the history of education in the Hawai'ian Kingdom, the impact of occupation and colonialism, and the link between Hawai'ian sovereignty and pedagogical practice here in Hawai'i. Today I’m joined by Dr. Keanu Sai. Dr. Sai is a political scientist and senior lecturer at the University of Hawai‘i Windward Community College, Political Science and Hawai'ian Studies Departments, and affiliate graduate faculty member at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa College of Education. He also served as Agent for the Hawai'ian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom. His research focuses on the continued existence of the Hawai'ian Kingdom as a State under international law that has been under military occupation by the United States of America since January 17, 1893. 

This keynote address was part of Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023: Breaking the Doom-Loop, sponsored by Holistic Think Tank, Cortico & Local Voices Network, Antioch University, Education Evolving & Teacher-Powered Schools, and Unrulr. You can also find a video of the keynote and community Q&A on our YouTube page by searching for Human Restoration Project.

Today we’re joined by Drs. Tanu Biswas and Toby Rollo. Tanu is an interdisciplinary philosopher of education, focused on challenging children’s historical marginalization. She serves as an advisory board member of The Childism Institute at Rutgers, and is an associate professor of pedagogy at the University of Stavanger and an associate researcher at the Doctoral College for Intersectionality Studies at the University of Bayreuth.Toby is an associate professor of political science at Lakehead University, whose focus is on the democratic promises and failures of modern institutions with a specific focus on the marginalization of young people. His chapter in the recent work, Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy, edited by carla bergman, focuses on centering the child in our ongoing intergenerational fight for peace, justice, and sustainability in our world.In our discussion, we'll be talking about the connections between colonization, historical marginalization, youth rights, and adultism.GuestsDrs. Tanu Biswas & Toby RolloResourcesLet's Abolish Adult Supremacy! PosterNO! Against Adult SupremacyDecolonial Childism - Nurturing Diversity for Intergenerational SustainabilityChildism and Decoloniality - a need for scholarly conversationsChildism and Decoloniality (Video)

This keynote address was part of Conference to Restore Humanity! 2023: Breaking the Doom-Loop, sponsored by Holistic Think Tank, Cortico & Local Voices Network, Antioch University, Education Evolving & Teacher-Powered Schools, and Unrulr. You can also find a video of the keynote and community Q&A on our YouTube page by searching for Human Restoration Project.Dr. Darder is an internationally recognized activist-scholar and Professor Emerita at Loyola Marymount University, where for more than a decade she held the Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership.She is an American Educational Research Association Fellow, the recipient of the American Educational Research Association Scholars of Color Lifetime Contribution Award, and an award-winning author and editor of more than 20 books in the field.GuestsDr Antonia Darder is an internationally recognized activist-scholar and professor. For nearly 40 years, Antonia has worked tirelessly to counter social and material inequalities in schools and society.ResourcesConference to Restore HumanityAntonia Darder's Website

Today, we wanted to provide a brief update on major upcoming projects at Human Restoration Project. Within we'll talk about:Ongoing work of the Human-Centered Schools Network (apologies for the audio quality...we are at a "beach house" in Michigan...)Our upcoming conference in 2 weeks! (July 24-27)Upcoming announcements and podcastsThank you for tuning in!

Today we’re joined by Aaron Schorn, Head of Growth and Community at Unrulr. Aaron is an experienced educator who runs an afterschool social entrepreneurship program for young people. And recently, he introduced Unrulr to us at HRP — in short, it’s one of the only edtech tools we’ve ever recommended, and it’s one of the few edtech tools we’d be comfortable sharing on our podcast.In short, Unrulr is a storytelling tool to showcase learning. It allows young people and educators to take photos or videos of what they’re doing, tag it according to a value, standard, or objective, then share it online privately or publicly. And what really stood out to me was that students can document their journey overtime, creating posts where they group together these moments and showcase a timeline of learning. We see this as a fantastic tool to document learning, share to families and community members, and act as a way to move away from one-and-done grades and toward narrative assessment.GuestsAaron Schorn, Head of Growth and Community at Unrulr and Director of the Nalukai Startup Camp, a social entrepreneurship program for young people based in HawaiiResourcesUnrulr's WebsiteEmpathy "Journey"And provided by teacher Gary Heidt (who shout-out...introduced us to Unrulr!)Student "Journey"Student "Moment"

Today we’re joined by Meredith Broussard. Meredith is a data journalist whose research and reporting centers on ethical AI and data analysis for the social good. She’s an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. And she’s an author, including writing Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World and the recently released More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.We invited Meredith on to specifically talk about the intersection of the recent rapid growth of consumer-focused generative AI, such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, DALL-E, etc. as well as their integrations into commonly used education tools like Microsoft Office and soon, Google Documents. And I know that many educators are already worried about the implications of AI in classrooms…but it’s going to be quite jarring when Google Docs has a built-in AI text prompt. In our view, we’ll need to find ways to talk about AI and technology more broadly with students, guiding them in the use of these platforms and problematizing them — as opposed to just banning them outright.GuestsDr. Meredith Broussard, associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology, and author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World and the recently released More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in TechResourcesMeredith Broussard's websiteMore than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Dr. Meredith Broussard (MIT Press, 2023)AI Stereotypes and Critical Reflections: Who's Being Generated? - YouTube Guide/Lesson by Human Restoration Project