Do Your Lessons Love Your Students? Creative Education for Social Change

Foreword  Acknowledgements: Lineage of Love  Indigenous Land Acknowledgement  Origin Story  I. Art as Love  1. A Pedagogy of Love  2. Creative Process for Social Change  II. The SPIRAL Framework  3. The SPIRAL Framework: A Practical Frame for Liberatory Learning  4. The Studio Pathway: Cultivating a Studio Mindset  5. Creative Inquiry: Learning Through a Creative Pursuit  6. Reconciliation and Reckoning: Teaching for Social Change  7. Artistic Research: Essential Methodologies for Knowledge Acquisition  8. Liberation: Art, Love, and Freedom  III. The Core Four  9. The Core Four: Foundational Concepts  10. Transformative Power: Addressing Social Power Dynamics  11. Narrative: Examining Core Narratives in Education  12. Lineage: Expanding Understanding of Identity  13. Embodiment: Knowledge Made Visible  IV. An Arc of Learning  14. The Art of Praxis: Theory in Practice  15. Breaking Patterns: Breaking with Established Norms in Education  16. Culture, Cognition and the Arts: Using Creativity to Think Expansively  17. Grayscale: Deepening Wisdom Around Racialized Experiences  18. Heirlooms and Accessories: Facing Historical Truths and Practicing Repair  19. Queering the Curriculum: More Than the Confines of a Social Structure  20. From Implicit Bias to Explicit Belonging: Reshaping Thinking to Create Cultures of Care  21. The Radiant Child: Beyond Standardized Assessments  Epilogue: Nahuales and the Artist Within

Biography

Mariah Rankine-Landers (she/her), M.Ed., and Jessa Brie Moreno (she/her), MFA, founders and co-executive directors of Studio Pathways, have each been liberatory educators and artists for over twenty years, having collectively taught at the pre-K through post-graduate levels. They are sought after professional facilitators who work with educational and executive leaders, and teachers leading for social change. They are co-creators of Rise Up: An American Curriculum and have co-designed creative pedagogy for The Othering and Belonging Institute out of UC Berkeley, The Center for Cultural Power, and the WKKF Foundation (Racial Healing). They are former co-directors of the School Transformation Through the Arts and Integrated Learning Specialist Program out of the Alameda County Office of Education. Partners include NAEA, The Kennedy Center, Stanford University, Museum of the African Diaspora, and many county offices of education, school districts, individual schools, arts organizations, and philanthropic and social change institutions. Follow them on social media platforms at @StudioPathways and at studiopathways.org.

"Do Your Lessons Love Your Students? shows what it means to let the arts lead us to unexpected healing places - the place learners deserve to explore."

Susie Wise, Author of Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities

"Steeped in educational theory, years of experience in classroom settings, and a proven track record in professional development, Mariah Rankine Landers and Jessa Brie Moreno are showing us how to humanize the dehumanizing spaces of education and research.

Their book aims to build opportunities for students to build relationships with each other and their educators. Through a culturally and linguistically responsive approach they urge educators to go beyond oppression analysis to create pedagogies that lean toward self-actualization, using creative inquiry, healthy risk taking, and healing-informed work that centers artistic practice at its nexus. 

After reading, reacting, and reflecting on this book, a core assessment moving forward for us all will be 'Do your students love your lessons?'”

Dr. Derek Fenner, Assistant Professor, Art Education

University of South Carolina Upstate