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Defining Wellness
28 Plays6 months ago
How do you define ‘wellness’? Does that definition change when applied to youth?
In episode 1, “Defining Wellness”, we hear from:
- Maestro Jerry Tello of The National Compadres Network, who provides us with a working definition of wellness and guides us through the practice of accessing their cultural wisdom and embracing their sacred purpose.
- A Q&A with Jewell Bachelor, a healing centered educator who provides meditations for meaningful practice during COVID-19.
- A reflection by Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D, who examines issues that arose when attempting to create an institution centered on youth wellness.
Drawing From the Well is hosted by Tiffani Marie and is produced by Jon Reyes.
Music by King Most.
DFTW is supported by Community Responsive Education, continue the conversation at wellnessmovement.co
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Transcript
Pandemic Disruptions and Virtual Learning
00:00:01
Speaker
In March, 2020, a virus spread. Powerful nations crumbled, death tolls rose. The market economy experienced life altering lows, and yet our unflinching allegiance to schooling remained.
00:00:19
Speaker
Amidst societal collapse, we were boxed, organized neatly in a Zoom chat, faces with names below.
Teacher Advocacy and Debates on Learning
00:00:28
Speaker
Weeks before, our school community had experienced a rift.
00:00:32
Speaker
A 23-year-old teacher supported black students in a protest to have a longer lunch block for their Black History celebration. As unorganized and fairly insignificant the protest may have been perceived, it unearthed novel conversation on the trope of learning, what it looks like, how it functions, who renders it Some on campus suggested that students' engagement and protest prevented them from learning, while others suggested that they were engaged in a type of learning that is needed, that is most needed for their positionalities as black children and largely for the vitality of their adolescent development.
Generational and Racial Conversations in Education
00:01:13
Speaker
There were generational divides, racial divides, simply profound chaos. More difficult were the emerging conversations on varying understandings of knowledge formation.
00:01:27
Speaker
Our time together was messy and challenging. It was a type of learning community I longed for, ah space in which conflict gave way to intimacy, then maybe unity, but always respect.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yet other teachers did not see it this way. They interpreted the fissures as solely reflective of the decline of a school community.
Structured Schooling vs Broader Learning Experiences
00:01:54
Speaker
They questioned how could we align ourselves with a mission if it was not actualized exactly the same way in every room on campus with the exact same outcomes.
00:02:06
Speaker
My colleagues seemed to fear the possibility of learning that was not schooling. They at some point began to conflate the two. Staff saw the possibilities of new ways of thinking about learning as antithetical to their larger project of schooling.
00:02:23
Speaker
And they were right.
Restorative Practices and Racial Affinity Circles
00:02:25
Speaker
Amidst the conflict, we engaged in restorative practices, attempts at dialogue that converged adults who had never before conversed, at least not significantly.
00:02:37
Speaker
The attempts were fruitful. We left campus uncomfortable at times, inspired at others, but consistently moved toward an unsettling reconciliation.
00:02:49
Speaker
We had plans to forward our work in racial affinity circles to open ourselves to more challenging truths and uncompromising vulnerability. And then the world collapsed.
00:03:02
Speaker
And we all retreated to our norms. We were quarantined as a way to protect us from a virus with very little acknowledgement of how sick we already were.
00:03:14
Speaker
We were infected. We had been for some time now. And the fear of apocalypse will reveal the severity of our sickness. So a that through G requirements were fulfilled alongside the rubble of our society.
Introduction to Youth Wellness Episode
00:03:45
Speaker
Welcome to Drawing from the Well. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This episode will focus on defining youth wellness. For the next hour, we'll hear from Maestro Jerry Teo of the National Compadres Network, who will provide us with a working definition of wellness and guide us through the practice of helping young people to access their cultural wisdom and embrace their sacred purpose.
00:04:12
Speaker
We'll learn from Jeremy, 21-year-old college student who will offer pathways for measuring wellness. We'll hear from Jewel Batchelor, healing-centered educator who will provide some meditations for meaningful practice during COVID.
00:04:27
Speaker
And finally, we have Jeff Duncan-Andrade who will provide reflection on some of the issues that arose when attempting to create institution centered on wellness practices.
Cultural Wisdom and Interconnectedness in Youth Wellness
00:04:43
Speaker
My name is Jerry Teo. with the National Compadres Network. I'm also a community teacher, healer, and community servant. I define wellness as a sense of sacred interconnectedness where a person is grounded and connected to their sense of of sacredness, to their ancestors, to all their relations, to their sacred purpose, and ah and they have the resources to do that.
00:05:14
Speaker
In reference to youth wellness, I think that that there's some most both developmental issues but also historical issues that come up depending on what the youth have experienced in their lives.
00:05:25
Speaker
ah you know Many youth have a historical legacy of of of trauma that because of the toxic nature of society and and generational oppression and and racism.
00:05:38
Speaker
that some youth experience things different than other youth. But that being said, there's also within that realm generational healing and blessings too.
00:05:50
Speaker
So that from our cultures we carry ah legacies of of healing medicine, traditions of of ah values and and song and rhythms and and spirit that also will impact certain youth a little bit different than other youth.
00:06:08
Speaker
It's important for us to care about youth wellness because they're part of our interconnected relationships. In in my Mayan language, is we use the term enlaquech, which means, tu eres mi otro yo, which means, you are my other me.
00:06:21
Speaker
When one of us hurt, we all hurt. And the young people really are reflections of who we are. They're reflections of what we create and what we guide. So when you know when when they're hurting, we're hurting, and we should then invest our energy, our time, our spirit, and our love in order to be able to embrace them and sometimes You know, it's not it's not for us to heal them, but it's for us to be with them, to be present with them, to walk with them, to love them, to assure them that they're not alone.
00:06:55
Speaker
And so ah young people are the central part of why we do everything. We live for the young people and for the next generations and if we do not heal the young people, they will carry the woundedness into their adulthood, into their elderhood and pass it on for generations.
00:07:13
Speaker
You have to love young people that you're work you work have to be able to see them and and and be willing to embrace them as blessings. We must recognize when they come to our school that they have a sacred purpose. Not um all all good in math, not all good in English, but they all have a sacred purpose.
00:07:31
Speaker
And they're there not just to learn but to teach us. They bring cultural wisdom with them. And when they were born, they had a genetic wisdom with them, so when they come there, then they have this genetic wisdom already that can be tapped, can be built on, can be shared, can be used to help other children as well.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's our obligation to give them a safe place, a sacred place for them to be, to learn, to love, to laugh, to explore, and to give back.
00:08:02
Speaker
I think it's important that what surrounds young people are four things. One is love, that unconditional love of who they are and what they bring.
00:08:15
Speaker
The second is a sense of dignity, that that we can make them feel dignified for who they are, their history, their culture. ah The third thing is respect, because they got their own rhythm, they got their own gifts, they got their own way of doing things, and how do we guide them to fulfill it in their own rhythm, in their own song, in their own flow, you know with with without destroying that, respecting that, but then teaching them how they can manifest that in a respectful way of all their relations, right?
00:08:47
Speaker
and and then And then finally building a sense of interconnected trust. That they realize they're not alone, that their ancestors are with them and they will always be with them, but with that in mind, they also have a responsibility for that next generation.
00:09:01
Speaker
That's how we build an environment.
Expressions of Youth Wellness
00:09:03
Speaker
And the people around them and people in systems, in schools, in communities have to um embrace those values. And when they embrace those values and live those values, integrate those values in their work, in the curriculum, in their systems, in their policies, then we have an environment in which youth can thrive.
00:09:22
Speaker
Youth wellness is measurable. I mean, I see it every day. I see it in my grandkids when they're laughing, when they're playing, when they're able to say what they want to say and not afraid to say what they want to say.
00:09:34
Speaker
I see it when they, my grandkids, when they jump on my lap. I see it when I go out and work with youth and and and and when I walk in a room and they're happy to see me, right? I also see it when when they have the ability to cry in front of me and share their trauma and pain in front of me, right?
00:09:51
Speaker
That's wellness. that they they they I see men and women and traumatized, recovering men and women that that have been through legacies of pain and torture and trauma and racism and sit in a circle with me and are able to sit with integrity and truth.
00:10:14
Speaker
I see it all day long in our most impoverished communities because they haven't given up. And to me, sometimes wellness is not looking good, acting good. Sometimes wellness is just not giving up.
00:10:27
Speaker
The best you can do sometimes is just not give up, right? And sometimes you need to realize that you don't have the resources for that. that you've got to reach to your ancestors, you've got to pray, you've got to build into your spirit, you've sing a song, you got to play a drum, you've got to do a dance, you've got to light some sage, you've got a chant, you've got to ask for some help.
00:10:47
Speaker
That's wellness.
00:10:52
Speaker
How do you measure wellness?
00:10:56
Speaker
If you could say it's a feeling, although feelings change, I think wellness can be measured by its consistency in the person's life. How more often than not they're up or they have energy, they find themselves you're just positive.
00:11:13
Speaker
And all of those are still like measures that may not be the greatest because like while somebody may be displaying positivity, maybe they are still feeling like really low. And then again, it's not to say that because someone's feeling low that they're not feeling well.
00:11:28
Speaker
But I think that there needs to still be like i don't know For me, it's just it's very much associated with just being able to have energy, give, and be happy or be joyous, don't know be confident, be someone who is able to be present, engaged in a space, someone who is probably like...
00:11:55
Speaker
easily reflective about the things that are how they're feeling that day or like naming the points in which or the things that would tick them off or trigger them to go into a state of not feeling well and someone who is very invested in engaging in activities that are additive to their lives to their person to their experience to yeah and the relationships that they already have and who is invested in creating a deeper relationship with themselves.
00:12:25
Speaker
think that that's great measurement of wellness.
Community-Centered Healing Practices
00:12:31
Speaker
Next up, we have Jewel Batchelor, a healer and educational practitioner. In her time with us, Jewel pushes us to grapple with the ways in which institutions, particularly schools, perpetuate an aesthetic of wellness. We spend some time with Jewel identifying her healing-centered practices that push back against such aesthetics of wellness. Listen in on how Jewel discusses the significance of ritual, unlearning traditional celebratory norms, and practical advice for educators during COVID.
00:13:07
Speaker
Honored to be here with the one and only Jewel and Marie Batchelor. Just diving in my first question really is about how you name yourself, how you identify. And so I would like to know, and I'm sure our listeners would love to know how you define yourself and your life's work.
00:13:26
Speaker
In certain spaces, like in the educational spaces that I'm usually in, whether I'm a teacher or like right now I'm a dean, I tell young people I'm a Black feminist fairy and that I'm very rooted in womanist politics.
00:13:39
Speaker
Also, my hair is purple, so i feel like a title is deserving of the type of attention that I attract with my hair and just my appearance. So oftentimes I define myself as like a black feminist fairy, really noting like my race, my gender, but also my politics and my will to be free.
00:13:59
Speaker
And something that I've been working with now is I really straying away from like the term healing and welcoming, like the idea of being a wellness worker.
00:14:11
Speaker
or a wellness woman being really invested in my wellness, being really invested in like what has made my ancestors well and what will make me well again.
00:14:21
Speaker
so I've been like really invested in wellness work and yeah, in community. So I think that if I were to identify myself as a wellness woman, I would only do that in relation to my community.
00:14:34
Speaker
I'm deeply invested in this practice that I can't access healing modalities without accessing it with people. And so whatever I access, it's my intention to share that experience with other people because my healing, it only impacts me in a positive way if it also impacts other folks in my community.
00:14:59
Speaker
Appreciate that. So we hear a lot already about healing and a lot about wellness, which directly aligns with pretty much the entire podcast and what we're here to do. But we met in the context of working with young people and this idea of youth wellness. And so can you tell us a little bit more about, and I know you've been in this work for longer than 10 years, but could you just give us an idea, a synopsis of the work that you've been doing with young people for the last 10 years or so?
00:15:28
Speaker
I think there's two big things that I would highlight. Definitely my work with Oakland Freedom School. I worked there for seven years and it really allowed me to build interpersonal relationships with students and the families.
00:15:41
Speaker
So there were very rare cases where I did not know where young people lived or they didn't know where I lived, or there wasn't like an expectation that I was supposed to go to a birthday party of a grandmother.
00:15:54
Speaker
Because for the seven years, it was a it was kind of like this social expectation that we took in the families. And it it wasn't necessarily seen as a burden, but it was seen as like, you can only you can only build with them in the classroom if you build with them outside the classroom.
00:16:11
Speaker
So I had this like very intense like interpersonal relationship building that I learned through the Oakland Freedom School model. But also my work with Black girls, which to me was like very personal. That was a huge reason of why I got into education. i was just like,
00:16:29
Speaker
I never want Black girls to feel unsafe. And I guess I thought I was going to be the superhero that was going make Black girls feel safe. And if I'm reflecting honestly, I don't think that that has always been the truth for Black girls' experiences. I think I've always done my best, but I don't think that I've always created spaces of safety.
00:16:50
Speaker
But that's where my work has lied with um young people. through Oakland Freedom School, building like really long time relationships with families and young people, but doing this interpersonal work also with Black girls and like wellness and what that has taught me and like where I need to interrogate my ideas of wellness with myself.
00:17:13
Speaker
So that you do agree that your work aligns with wellness or wellness is aligned in your work. And that leads us to our next question, which is how do you think wellness aligns with your work?
00:17:25
Speaker
And then how do you incorporate wellness into your practice? like What does that look like with young people? At first, getting a master's in ethnic studies, I thought wellness was just teaching young people about their history, right?
00:17:40
Speaker
Which is not false. And this is just like my perspective. I do think it's dangerous when it doesn't come with the spiritual perspective, because when we're documenting history accurately, you know, like even when we're thinking about the Haitian Revolution, the physical action of the war came after the spiritual actions of calling upon our ancestors.
00:18:01
Speaker
And so when I started teaching, I was really invested in them learning about Audre Lorde and Alice Walker and Angela Davis and like outside of Assata Shakur, outside of these like fantasy ideas of how we've received these women. I was really like invested in them learning about the history.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then when I really started to interrogate what I don't know, when I really started to really see what I don't know, I felt like I was doing them a disservice and I felt like I was being irresponsible by teaching them these radical methods of like getting free without supplementing spiritual methods that many of these elders also used or did not use and died.
00:18:43
Speaker
right And I'm not saying they died because they didn't use it, but I do think The realm of like social justice and like pushing our young people to be activists without grounding techniques, I think it's irresponsible.
00:18:55
Speaker
i look at like Audre Lorde. She died of cancer. She was writing until the day she died. you know and how irresponsible it is for us to continue to only teach social activism without grounding and spiritual techniques.
00:19:09
Speaker
So I came into the work really pushing black women's history. And i really found through my own mental, spiritual breakdowns, how irresponsible it was to not necessarily teach them spirituality, but but teach them and open them to methods of ways that we engage in spirituality.
00:19:28
Speaker
Right. So I don't need to teach them about Ifa. I'm a practitioner of Ifa, the Orisha tradition. I don't need to teach them about that, but I can teach them certain songs. I can allow them to hear like certain speeches, but I don't need to necessarily like push my own spiritual practice on it.
00:19:45
Speaker
So that's how I've came into it. And that's kind of where I'm at, where, may I answer the second part of like how have I brought in healing in the class? when I was really in the midst of my own spiritual breakthroughs, I was realizing how much I needed access to wellness and how much like young people needed access to wellness.
00:20:07
Speaker
So at the same time, I'm having a spiritual breakthrough. I'm also like extremely broke. And so when you're extremely broke, you got to get extremely creative. And so everything I did for myself, I brought it to the young people.
00:20:19
Speaker
So, you know, people do the vision boards, but i was like, i don't want a vision board. i need vision books. Like I need to create something that really makes sense for me. Like as a writer, so I had made like paragraphs of like vision books of all these images of how I see myself in the future.
00:20:35
Speaker
And it really brought me to like different practices, like color theory, studying crystals, studying herbs, studying like how these herbs are used internally, externally.
00:20:46
Speaker
So I'm not like a gardener. I'm definitely like learning my hand what botany. But the color theory is what really pulls me into these like areas of healing.
00:20:58
Speaker
Color really surrounds me and it really is what I bring into the class. Every time I have like a theme around a class, it's around color theory. and I'm bringing out these spiritual methods that I've aligned with, that I've worked with, and just ah bringing that to the class for young people to explore it.
00:21:15
Speaker
So that's what it's looked like. And that's also a part of my growth, not always recognizing that as necessary in the class.
Ritual and Ceremony in Black and Indigenous Wellness
00:21:23
Speaker
I know that with some of my young people that you've partnered with me around, you've centered this idea of ritual and ceremony. and And know you didn't talk a lot about that, but it's been fundamental in watching you. I remember one session that we had together and you sat with our Black girls and our Black Girls Collective.
00:21:44
Speaker
And in that session, I do remember the engagement of color theory and thinking even about the idea of red. And there was this girl there who had just dyed her hair red. ah which explained a lot, which explained a lot from her energy and the decision to do that.
00:21:59
Speaker
And she was even reflective of, remember you talking about if you're a fiery person and you're feeling this way, you know to wear red, that may be something that you rethink. And I remember her sitting there and thinking about that critically. ah But also in that session, remember that ah there were some young people who we had never heard from.
00:22:22
Speaker
We had never heard from. And you centered ceremony that day and talked to them about ritual. And I heard from young people who I hadn't heard from in maybe two years in their first session with you.
00:22:35
Speaker
So there's something really profound and powerful about the space that you curate. I would love to hear, if you're willing, a little bit more about your theories on ceremony and ritual as part of either classroom practice or just educational practice with young people around their wellness.
00:22:55
Speaker
Thank you. I appreciate this question. It's a grand question.
00:23:01
Speaker
So ritual and ceremony can be very similar. Ritual is something that we'll do like habitually, something that's consistent. So it doesn't have to be sacred, right? It's not necessarily private. People brush your teeth every single day. People take a shower every day.
00:23:16
Speaker
So that's a ritual. What would make a ritual sacred is with you like building more intention behind it and it being like applied to some part of your destiny.
00:23:27
Speaker
So a ritual could look like you lighting a candle every morning so talk to your ancestors. And you're intentional about doing that every day. And you know that that has the power to shift your destiny. Right. So that would be the difference between like sacred ritual and casual ritual because we all engage in it.
00:23:46
Speaker
everybody has the capacity to engage in sacred ritual. There is this thing happening on social media where if, I don't know, I and others feel like maybe people are trying to make it seem like only certain people can engage in ritual or spiritual practice, but we all have the capacity.
00:24:06
Speaker
So I really want to start with that because that's an Afrocentric paradigm. That is a non-Eurocentric paradigm. Eurocentric paradigm through a religious perspective says one person has the power, right? Through an Afrocentric lens, through an indigenous lens, we do not invest in that theory.
00:24:24
Speaker
We believe that we all have the power. We believe that we all have the sacred tools, but you have to invest in that, right? And so creating sacred ritual allows you to invest in your own power. So I really want to start off with that paradigm shift You shouldn't be going to one person seeking your power. You have to go to yourself. And this is e for what I'm trying to push with young people because I went through most of my life looking for everybody else to give me some power.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I was exchanging my body. I was exchanging my time. I was exchanging my energy, searching for power. But if I could encourage young people to dig in yourself versus thinking that someone else has more answers, I really want to start off with that. Sacred ritual.
00:25:08
Speaker
So ceremony, how I understand it and how I function with it, it's a communal sacred space. And so a ceremony could also be a ritual. It may not be like as often, but it's a communal space where you engage in a sacred act.
00:25:25
Speaker
So an example would be for my birthday, I asked for folks to gather at the water and for folks to bring offerings of sweetness or flowers so that we could balance out the grief that a lot of us were feeling. So that was a sacred ceremony because it was it was on my birthday, but it was for the ancestors.
00:25:43
Speaker
And I asked for a select few of folks to come to a particular place and engage in this element. So that's what created this sacred ceremony. What's so pivotal about engaging in sacred ritual and sacred ceremony is one, realizing how much we've disengaged with these practices.
00:26:03
Speaker
The celebration is supposed to be a norm in our lives. In all indigenous and Black people's lives, celebration is supposed to be a norm. Somehow, through these schools that many of us don't believe in, through these schools that many parents complain about, we still celebrate the graduations.
00:26:20
Speaker
right And I'm not shaming people for celebrating their graduations. I am pointing out an obvious fact that even my mom, like I don't think she loved my high school, but when it was time for me to graduate, everybody celebrated me.
00:26:32
Speaker
And it took me years to really think, like why do we allow these institutions that we know don't believe in our Black and Indigenous and in Brown students, why do we allow them to shape what celebration could look like?
00:26:47
Speaker
Right. you Indigenous and West African African. I didn't study all Africa. I've studied parts of like West Africa traditional practices. There's celebration that starts from when a child is born to their rites of passage to before them deciding whether they want to get married or not.
00:27:05
Speaker
There are so many acts of celebration that are not contingent on school, that are not contingent on a white person saying you are worthy of crossing the stage.
00:27:16
Speaker
And so the purpose of me being so intentional about ritual and ceremony is because I think that Black and brown people deserve a lot more celebration. i think that we deserve a lot more celebration that's integrated in our life and that doesn't have to be at that focal point of when we were supposed to succeed.
00:27:35
Speaker
And so that's my big push around like ceremony and ritual. And that's why it's so important for me because we deserve to be celebrated and we deserve to recreate what we value celebratory.
00:27:50
Speaker
We deserve that. Yeah, I really appreciate, Jewel, what you bring up about celebration, particularly through ceremony and really, you know, outing schools and the function of schools really as this mechanism that determines who is worthy of celebration.
00:28:09
Speaker
And the ways in which many of us as educators kind of collude in these processes where we support this through our participation, there are actually mandates, there are requirements.
00:28:21
Speaker
There's a checklist that determines then who is worthy of celebration. So I really appreciate you naming that and bringing that up and what we understand and know about young people and what lends itself to wellness is that every young person is worthy of celebration.
00:28:38
Speaker
Every young person deserves a community to gather around them and to celebrate them as young people, regardless of what papers they turn or not.
00:28:50
Speaker
And so I really appreciate that point. And I believe that that spirit runs through you, which is why in one session with our young people, that certain young people open up. I think there is a truth telling that happens within your pedagogy.
00:29:04
Speaker
that supports them to take more risks so clearly very early on, which I believe is very magical. So that may be a component of you being this fairy. And so I've witnessed you do all this amazing work prior to this pandemic that we're in.
00:29:19
Speaker
And I know that a lot has shifted for so many of us who do engage in ritualistic ceremony with young people who really center relational aspects of our pedagogy.
00:29:31
Speaker
A lot has shifted recently with the pandemic.
Family Wellness and Community Responsibility During COVID
00:29:35
Speaker
And I know it's been really hard for so many of us who do this work, whether it's in the natural world, whether it's you know in classrooms, in this particular way with young people. So I'd love to hear how you feel that COVID particularly has compromised your wellness work with young people. What have been like the major shifts that you've had to take in order to maintain your practice?
00:29:59
Speaker
I think with this year and with COVID, spirit has really shifted me to focus on the men and the boys and the children in my family.
00:30:10
Speaker
i think I've spent years focusing on other people's families and other people's wellness and connecting with other people's grannies and mamas and putting myself at physical risk.
00:30:23
Speaker
just emotional risk. And it's never like bad. it just runs you after a while. So I think this year's spirit was really calling me to really address the trauma that I have around my brother and my father and how that generational trauma is showing up. And so it has me reflecting on that.
00:30:41
Speaker
It also has me reflecting on like how I do have some autonomy and power over how I want my godchildren, who right now are identified as Black boys, how I want them to experience this world.
00:30:55
Speaker
And so I knew like a year ago that I was going to do a ceremony, but I had no idea it going to like. I also knew i didn't have the money. But this year, i had like got really passionate about it. also like came into a great job with a lot of money.
00:31:09
Speaker
and i i came into more money for my God's Children's Ceremony. So it went from this idea of like I want them to have a protection ceremony every five years. I want it to be celebratory.
00:31:21
Speaker
want it to be at these very pivotal points of their life, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. And the expectation is that they continue this tradition. So it went from just this idea to really putting it in action, to really building relationships with Black men, to holding some of the Black men who have been in my life accountable. So I called up my ex.
00:31:43
Speaker
I mean, not like ones that wasted my time, but the one that held me accountable. I was like, oh, Sexy. So I called him up. I was like, I need you, brother. the other brothers I've known for like seven to 10 years, whether I've worked with them at Oakland Freedom School or the other, like I've never met him in person. We've been friends for 10 years through Instagram. Like this is crazy, but I really have relationships like this.
00:32:09
Speaker
Dope, brother. And then an elder. So out of intention and out of really asking the spirit to really guide me to the five people that would help me build this ceremony to be intentional for my godchildren, not just Black men talking and like saying how good they feel, but like Black men putting in work. And I told them all, like it is your duty to be a community father. It is your duty to serve Black children. And I hope you choose my Black children. you know And so it worked. They're extremely invested.
00:32:43
Speaker
They've came up with all of these dope ideas for the ceremony. So the ceremony takes place. It was supposed to happen this year, but COVID. So it is taking place early next year. But one thing that we're all centered on, we're all like Black American people. So one thing that we're centered on is that we're pushing for African-American traditions.
00:33:03
Speaker
and that we're not um shying away from what our ancestors have created on this land. So that's one way where I'm embodying like working with young people, but also holding people that have the emotional capacity accountable to step up.
00:33:20
Speaker
Because I don't want to do this alone. I want to do this with people. So I think that answers the question, I hope. So I'm hearing, which is really powerful because I think when we were thinking about this, we were thinking how COVID has impacted your classroom practice or your work as a
Prioritizing Wellness in Education During COVID
00:33:36
Speaker
dean. But what's really powerful in what I'm hearing and actually has been consistent with a lot of other folks is with quarantine in place and with distant learning in place, a lot of educators and practitioners have shifted their focus and their emphasis
00:33:51
Speaker
Can I just name that in this wellness work, one of the things that I have to be mindful of is that when I got started on, quote unquote, my personal journey, that I isolated my family out because I didn't know how to be well or present or have challenging conversations. But i've seen i seen my wellness is more valuable than them because I didn't know how to connect. And that's really problematic.
00:34:17
Speaker
But this year has really called me <unk>s into questioning, like, at how true could my work be, right? How valid could my work be if it doesn't penetrate my blood, if it doesn't affect or impact, you know, the men that have really caused me to investigate this work with other people? It's really powerful.
00:34:38
Speaker
I've seen videos of five-year-olds in front of screens, they're just crying, they're sad. it's This shift into this online learning has been huge. Just the entire shift in not being in person has been a huge shift for so many educational practitioners, particularly those that work with young people.
00:34:57
Speaker
But I see a certain type of people who are actually doing okay or who are making it and are not struggling in the same ways. I've seen the pictures of teachers stressing. I've seen the memes.
00:35:07
Speaker
And then I've also seen folks who are really walking in a certain type of awareness that are similar to what you're naming. So I'm interested in like, how have the practices or some of the practices, the beliefs or the rituals that you had prior to COVID been the very ones that are helping you to actually maintain your sense of purpose, integrity, and spirit within it? Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
So slowness, like being patient and like intentionally being slow. One, I'm just really slow. I just move really slow. I respond slow. My mom has always like, you just hell slow, Jewel. I'm like, now I really see it in my life though.
00:35:51
Speaker
When you work in capitalism, it's like you can really see how slow you move compared to, you know, people multitasking and All of that. When I came into this job, multitasking was the expectation. And I made it clear to these very three white women that I'm not going to master multitasking. And I don't have a desire to master multitasking.
00:36:11
Speaker
I have a desire to master what I'm good at and to expand on what I'm not. So sticking to that, being really transparent, like starting my first day and being like, I don't want to multitask. There's no value in multitasking as a part of my day-to-day life in this structure as a dean. I'm like, I'm not actually serving young people if I can't actually focus with them.
00:36:35
Speaker
So even bringing that perspective change to a team of admin that are really used to go, go, go, it's not like a game changer, but I'm happy i was honest on day one. That's all I can say. Because now they're like feeling the effects of my slowness.
00:36:53
Speaker
But because I'm a supervisor, it's reminding all of the teachers that there's no race. So whereas the admin, my colleagues may feel like, damn, Joel moves slow or, you know, they're making up their own rationale. My teachers, my coaches who work with me are like, thank you for making me feel like a human.
00:37:14
Speaker
Thank you for reminding me that this due date isn't real. This due date that I made up is not real. Even with the passing that I had this week, one of the teachers is like, why are you here?
00:37:25
Speaker
We have it. And it's because I had built up a team and I told them from day one, I'm your supervisor. But if I'm not here, you should still be able to lead a team. And so what type of skills do I need to extend to you so that things don't fall apart when I'm not here?
00:37:41
Speaker
So just really building in those practices of like communal wisdom, I guess, but also being slow and being patient and apologizing.
00:37:52
Speaker
I'm good for apologizing. I'm like, look, I ain't perfect. Y'all know I'm slow. Give me a second. Really being present with that from day one. on my other jobs, I wasn't honest about that. i was good at the multitasking and I was running myself dead.
00:38:06
Speaker
I was tired. i was exhausted. i felt like I couldn't complain because I was working with Black people that didn't complain. And I just didn't want to move like that anymore. I never really received a benefit outside of the clout that I received from community for being tired. Like, thank you so much for working so hard. and Now you're tired.
00:38:25
Speaker
Now people thank me because I'm moving slow and they get to move slow. So i think like slowness, stillness, patience, grace. I hope that shows up in my work because I want people to be graceful and patient with me. And I hope that as people extend that to me, I can continue to extend that to people.
00:38:46
Speaker
I appreciate that. And just this emphasis on pacing and stillness and slowness, especially with time being a social construct. construct And so I really appreciate this return. Even how you talked about it just made me slow down.
00:39:03
Speaker
As you were talking about it, it made my headache begin to dissipate. and So there's a calmness and a stillness. And even in how you talk about it, that's very powerful. So i appreciate that.
00:39:14
Speaker
And I have one more question, just one. What major advice would you want to extend to other teachers in this particularly challenging time?
Empowering Teachers to Claim Wellness
00:39:28
Speaker
Well, I want to talk about power struggles because me and my teacher has been talking about that. Like, let go of these power struggles you're holding on to. If a young person's not turning on their camera or just like the little power struggles that we're trying to hold on to to claim our authority, it doesn't work. That's like number zero.
00:39:46
Speaker
It's unnecessary, but it doesn't allow for a young person to want to claim stake in that community. If the first thing you're doing is like, David, why your camera not on? You see everybody else got their camera. like There's no space for them to feel welcomed.
00:40:02
Speaker
And so releasing your ego in the moment is going to be game changer. Because how I talk to people, when I'm subbing people's classes, I never have these problems. I be like, hey, David.
00:40:17
Speaker
turn your camera real quick. I forgot what you look like. And then he turned on his camera he's like, oh, Ms. Jewel. hot And it's like, it's a different conversation because I don't need you to do it, but I'm curious.
00:40:27
Speaker
I would love if you did. So it's just a different impact. And so I want us to find more creative, enjoyable, fun ways to engage with our young people that don't center our ego and that don't center our comfort.
00:40:41
Speaker
I started off telling teachers this and I was like, I really hope i don't get fired for this. But if teachers don't go to school, there is no school. So this whole thing around teachers feeling like they don't have a voice.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I'm saying this as a supervisor. It's not like I don't get it. I just want teachers to understand that you have more power than admin. I'm saying this as an admin, like I'm not going to teach your class.
00:41:07
Speaker
If five teachers like quit or pull back, Who's going to do that? Like that creates an unsustainable educational environment, which most of them are anyways.
00:41:18
Speaker
But I'm making that statement so that teachers can really find more power amongst each other. and I hope I've been doing that with my teachers. I've been telling them, like, please name the days where you know you're emotionally unavailable.
00:41:30
Speaker
Please make it clear to your class about emotional safety and when you can't process and show up. Like, tell them your boundaries. so that you're clear on your boundaries, so that they're clear on their boundaries, so that when you're sick, nobody is falling apart because you're sick.
00:41:49
Speaker
I don't know. I've been seeing teachers take on a lot of stress that's not theirs to take on to. And I'm here like as a fellow Black woman admin educator to tell you like it's not your stress to hold on to. Let it go.
00:42:03
Speaker
Let it go.
00:42:06
Speaker
i really do my best to tell my teachers, like let it go. and Don't ask me for a day off. Just send me your email about the day you need to take off. Teachers in their positions, there's a lot of them feeling like they have to be validated. And I guess I'm here to say, like you have to claim your wellness because people are not going to do it for you. If you ask the admin, can I have two days off for surgery?
00:42:34
Speaker
They might tell you no. I've seen my peers tell people no, y'all. I'm like, it's crazy. I've seen my peers tell people no over serious things. So teachers really have to claim their wellness.
00:42:45
Speaker
You cannot ask. Don't ask me because I'm not asking nobody. And that's why I tell my teachers. I ain't asking you. fine And so you should be clear with what you need.
00:42:59
Speaker
We appreciate Jewel for reminding us of the need to slow down. One method toward an important process of what she calls claiming our wellness.
00:43:11
Speaker
We've also learned that the reclamation of our wellness can also involve grief and the need to sit in our grief. Up next, we have Jeff Duncan-Andrade, critical pedagogue and one of the founders of the Roses in Concrete Community School.
00:43:29
Speaker
The creation of the community school reflects an attempt to center wellness practices for our nation's most vulnerable youth. Their journey, however, has not been absent of conflict, uncertainty, and particularly grief.
00:43:44
Speaker
Listen as Jeff shares what happens when educators and even parents are unwilling to sit in the grief, the grief that has been lost in our participation in the normative practices and procedures of schooling, and instead seek to maintain aesthetic of wellness.
Building a Wellness-Centered School
00:44:05
Speaker
You know, we set out six years ago now to launch the Rosalind Concrete Community School. And wow, like hands down the most challenging, difficult, painful, rewarding, illuminating experience that I've had as an educator.
00:44:29
Speaker
I still don't feel like I really have my mind wrapped around what exactly I'm supposed to have learned from these first six years. And part of that is because we're still in it. You know, the school is still going and We're still building it and I'm experiencing it from like so many different angles because I'm a parent there. Right.
00:44:53
Speaker
And so I'm experiencing it, you know, through my sons and then I'm experiencing it as a parent of my sons and I'm experiencing it through their mom's experience. And then I'm experiencing it through their peers.
00:45:04
Speaker
And then I'm experiencing it as one of the leaders in the school. There's just so many inputs. Right. that is really profoundly important and healthy for crafting and understanding about what it means to have community wellness.
00:45:20
Speaker
And I think that as a teacher, I often thought about wellness, frankly, in the way that you frame the question, which is individual. Like, how did you do it with this one kid, right? And when you build an entire community, you can't do that.
00:45:36
Speaker
You can't isolate one child or one person in the community to target their wellness because it's an ecosystem, right? And it might be a micro ecosystem that's impacted by a series of other micro ecosystems or meta ecosystems, but it's not a vacuum. Like you can't sequester somebody and then just like hyper focus on their wellness.
00:45:59
Speaker
And I think nothing in my practice has forced me to confront that challenge and the reality of that challenge. in the way that trying to build Roses in Concrete has.
00:46:13
Speaker
And there's a way in which as a classroom teacher, you almost develop this false sense of reality. Almost like you can create this inoculated space, right? Like so many teachers, and this is very much the way I practice. Like I would get in my room and I would close the door and it was like, okay, now we can do the work.
00:46:35
Speaker
I was conscious and I feel pretty responsive to what was happening outside the door. But I think what changes when you start thinking about building an entire institutional structure and climate and culture is that a lot of the convenience that you have by knowing where your four walls are goes away.
00:47:01
Speaker
There's so many other factors that you have to start putting into play. It's like the difference between doing the kind of math my sons are doing right now in second grade, you know, plus minus some basic multiplication and calculus that bridges that far. Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
I did not wrap my head around the complexity of that when we set out to do Roses. I knew I was an effective teacher. i knew I was humble enough to engage in the work in a way in which you know I could learn and I could adapt and I could be dynamic. I didn't feel like I had it all figured out, but I certainly felt like we knew enough to be able to do something that was better and it was more right and it was more righteous and it was more upright in service of our children, so much so that I was willing to put my own children there and still am.
00:47:58
Speaker
And so what I've begun to understand about part of what wellness means is part of what wellness means when we move from the individual model, the collective model is solidarity.
00:48:11
Speaker
And to understand that part of what our children are learning is what it means to be in solidarity with somebody else, your peer, your comrade, your homie, like whatever you want to call it, that is suffering and suffering in ways that you're not.
00:48:30
Speaker
And what is your responsibility there? And when does that responsibility start? And why do we think that that's just adult responsibility? And I don't think we did a good job at all at Roses about unpacking that.
00:48:45
Speaker
And saying, what is our institutional responsibility and our community responsibility? And I don't think of those as any different. Institutions are communities or they're not.
00:48:57
Speaker
And ROSES was meant to be ah community that was standing in the form of an institution as a response to the total failure of the institution of school to be a community in our communities.
00:49:10
Speaker
What we ran into at Roses was we were trying to do school while trying to do anti-school. And you can't. You can't have it both ways, right? You have to choose.
00:49:21
Speaker
And so we were locked in this institutional structure while trying to blow it up and create a community. So many of the people at Roses just couldn't wrap their head around that because it's scary as shit.
00:49:36
Speaker
We had so many really good teachers. that it's like, it's almost like you're already really, I'm using air quotes, you're already really good inside of this institutional structure.
00:49:51
Speaker
And now you're in a space where you can really do your thing inside of the confines of this institutional structure. And it was so hard for people who were already seen Who was roses attracting? It was all these people who had sh drank the Kool-Aid.
00:50:08
Speaker
Like I'm a dope social justice educator. I'm hella woke. I'm hella like I've read all this stuff. Like look at my lessons. Look at the stuff that's on my walls. And it's like consider the source of the context from which you got judged as a dope social justice educator.
00:50:24
Speaker
And yeah, like in that context, you were. and yeah, in that context, I was. But we're not trying to recreate that context. Or are we? Right. And I kind of feel like, oh, we were because and I'm complicit in this, too. Right. Like, because it's like, oh, that's what we know.
00:50:40
Speaker
And we can polish this turd to be crass. Right. Like we can put lipstick on this pig and pretend it doesn't oink every day. And that created the ultimate clash. Right.
00:50:52
Speaker
because everybody could feel it, everybody knew it, but there wasn't really any space or good enough leadership at any level to be able to really confront it. Because it's like, to confront that, you have to re-dock the ship.
00:51:06
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't fix the hole in the hole while you're at sea. And that's what we were trying to do, right? And it's like, we're still taking on water, right? And people are drowning down there trying to fix the hole in the hole.
00:51:21
Speaker
And so the result was that because we didn't start where I think this project has a starting, which is, whoa, stop, clear the plate, wellness first, wellness only.
00:51:35
Speaker
What does that mean? And what does that mean for how you organize the day? What does that mean for how you organize the physical space? What does that mean for how you use your resources?
00:51:48
Speaker
What does that mean for everything that we're talking about in schools? Assessment, responsiveness, food, playtime, recreation, physical education, all of those things.
00:52:06
Speaker
God, what a mistake we made to say, put all those pieces in place. And it's so funny because it's such a classic teaching. I had this master teacher tell me once that the worst students he has are teachers.
00:52:20
Speaker
And we just like, God, like just so... repeated that. And we just like took all these components of school, the school day, the organization of children by age, like all of these things that are not about family and community and wellness. They're about school.
00:52:40
Speaker
And then we try to lay on top of that our self-righteousness. And the upside of it is that we push the envelope. I know we did.
00:52:51
Speaker
We push the envelope. We challenge things. We question things that needed to be challenged and needed to be questioned. And I always said this about roses, that roses will not get us home.
00:53:03
Speaker
But roses may start us down a path that gets us closer to home. And the question is is, are people going to look in on roses as the model to be replicated?
00:53:15
Speaker
Or are they going to look in on roses as a community that really tried, where folks were sacrificing, like the way people have sacrificed to get us to this position.
00:53:26
Speaker
Folks were sacrificing to really, really try to do something well. And we weren't. But we learned so much that can inform whoever is going to go at it next.
00:53:40
Speaker
And I've never been more humbled. I have eaten my fair share of humble pie in my 49 years, but I was feasting on humble pie for the last five years. And in the process
00:53:58
Speaker
It didn't feel well. It didn't. But I'm so grateful for it because it really set me and I think so many people that participated in that project up to do the work better and to do it more well because we all knew we were there for the same reasons.
00:54:18
Speaker
And it didn't always map out that way. And it got really painful and really hard and people got hurt and in all of that. Right. But when do you have family where that doesn't happen? You know, there's certainly things that I wish we'd done different and certainly things that I wish, you know, we could go back and try again.
00:54:35
Speaker
But I don't have any regrets about it. I'm reading this book right now that talks about discipline. as a core component of wellness. And one of the things that they talk about in that concept is that the discipline means that you have to suffer and you have to have joy.
00:54:58
Speaker
I heard Cornel West say once that U.S. culture is death, dodging, denying, and ducking. Althusser said it, different folks have said it in talking about the difference between unearned suffering and legitimate suffering.
00:55:13
Speaker
And I think unearned suffering comes from a radicalized inequality. And I think there was some unearned suffering that happened at Roses. But I also think there was a lot of legitimate suffering that people resented.
00:55:24
Speaker
You know, it was like, what did you think we were trying to do? Where did you think we were going? And I think there was a decent number of people that came to Roses based on a TED talk and a website.
00:55:36
Speaker
That's what they thought it was. And then suddenly their kid is next to the kid that's being talked about in that TED Talk. And they really didn't have a context for that.
00:55:49
Speaker
When suddenly they got proximity, right, as Bryan Stevenson talked about, they got proximity to the pain we're actually talking about resolving, the pain we're actually talking about responding to.
00:56:01
Speaker
It was too much. It's like, whoa, I didn't sign up for this. And I think that we are dishonest in the conversation about the cost of wellness in this society that we've built.
00:56:15
Speaker
And because we're dishonest, we're disloyal to what it actually takes to execute on moving the nose of that battleship.
00:56:27
Speaker
It's slow, it's arduous, it's not Disneyland. you know like You don't just pop that thing up and it's rolling because what's happening in the broader society isn't stopping.
00:56:40
Speaker
Even if that institutional space is well and it is strong and it is caring and it is medicinal, the children are still going back out into a society that is none of those things.
00:56:51
Speaker
And so are the adults. So then all of that comes back in the door the next day. It's like, why do folks take their shoes off when they go in the house? Because you're trying to not bring in the dirt.
00:57:06
Speaker
And that's why like folks didn't get the metaphor. They didn't get the metaphor of the school. It's not roses in the rose garden. It's roses in concrete.
00:57:17
Speaker
And folks just wanted the roses and they wanted the roses like the way you get them at the florist, de-thorned. Just give me a clean rose. Sign me up for that.
00:57:28
Speaker
And it's like, nah, maybe I should have added that part to Pac's metaphor. Roses with thorns in the concrete because you're getting all three. You're getting all three.
00:57:39
Speaker
You're getting the damaged petals. We did not do a good job of really understanding what that would mean and then having like real, honest, consistent conversation with our community.
00:57:52
Speaker
When I say our community, I mean our staff, our children and our families about what are we really doing here? And I don't think that you can engage in a project of community wellness without confronting that historical reality, not in an intellectual way, because we did that at Roses.
00:58:17
Speaker
We had a very sophisticated intellectual critique of schooling and white supremacy and male supremacy and hetero supremacy and all of those things, right? And you could see it. It was definitely a different space.
00:58:29
Speaker
But I don't think we spent enough time, institutional resource, institutional effort to really wrap our heads around the reality of that intellectual exercise and what it would mean for the kind of things that we would have to build, the kind of responsiveness, flexibility, and dynamic culture we would have to have in order to truly respond two the young people that needed us the most.
00:58:58
Speaker
And so oftentimes what we ended up doing was responding to the young people that needed us the least.
Challenges of Implementing Wellness in Schools
00:59:04
Speaker
And I'm not saying they didn't need us because we had almost 100 percent students of color.
00:59:10
Speaker
But the ones who were the most inconvenient for the project, when folks would really try to hold on to them, they would get blowback. I can't tell you the number of people who like pulled me to the side. Like if I said their names, folks would turn the podcast off.
00:59:27
Speaker
That pulled me to the side and like, Jay, you just got to let some of those kids go. They're going to ruin the project. You just got let some of them go. And I was like, all Yeah, I hear you.
00:59:40
Speaker
And I just wouldn't do it. And we lost, you know, a lot of really dope folks because of that. It was painful for me. But I wouldn't change that.
00:59:52
Speaker
I would not go back and change any of that because we cannot be well. You know, like Cree's tagline, we will only be well when our most vulnerable are thriving. But I think what we got to do in this project and what Cree's got to do and what we've got to do as a society is to turn that page over and examine what that really means. i mean, that's a cool slogan.
01:00:13
Speaker
But are we really going to talk about the cost of that? The cost of that. to focus our energy and our resources and our time and our lives and our souls and our spirits to the most vulnerable ones. And when I say the cost, I want to be really careful about this because and don't think martyrdom is wellness.
01:00:36
Speaker
and I don't think wellness means that you're in perpetual suffering. I think that wellness means that you have a healthy balance and harmonizing between ah legitimate suffering and joy, and that those two are counterbalancing each other.
01:00:53
Speaker
And I think we built culture, and I participated in this as a teacher, where if you do well in school, then you'll have more joy than suffering, and then you'll be well.
01:01:08
Speaker
And what I've learned over the course of my short life is that if you have joy and no suffering, you're not well. You're in denial.
01:01:19
Speaker
And you are creating the conditions where you're either ducking, dodging, denying, or redistributing your legitimate suffering.
01:01:32
Speaker
And that's what creates unearned suffering. That's where you've got people who are suffering more than they should because suffering is a natural outcome of humanity.
01:01:45
Speaker
It's loss, grief, like all of these things, right, are things that are, they' they're part of the human experience. And schools, I think, are heavily invested in creating certain portions of our population that get to duck, dodge, deny, and redistribute those things. That's the goal of school.
01:02:03
Speaker
That's what I mean by a cost. The cost is going to require us to really confront It's like it has to be simultaneous because we have to be confronting this as grown folks and as educators and as creators and artists and thinkers.
01:02:22
Speaker
We have to be confronting that while at the same time helping our children grow up with a healthier relationship and a more balanced and harmonious relationship between suffering and joy.
01:02:36
Speaker
And I think the way that schools are set up that's, if not impossible, it's incredibly challenging. And I think that at the individual classroom level, it's more attainable because it's a more contained system and you can see your four walls.
01:02:57
Speaker
But I really wonder about this. I don't have a clean answer for this, but I really wonder about whether or not that project of the individual classroom teacher doing wellness, committed to wellness, building wellness is ah ruse.
01:03:18
Speaker
I don't think that's the work that we're supposed to be doing because that work's already been done and it's already being done. And I think if we're going to push the envelope and really create a project that authentically explores and invests in and costs out and embraces youth wellness as ah community project, not a one by one, but an all of us or none of us project, then we're going to have to have the conversation about what kind of institutions do we need to build?
01:03:57
Speaker
What kind of communities do we need to build?
01:04:02
Speaker
We extend our gratitude to Jeff for allowing us to glean from his experiences. We've been able to conceptualize the Roses in Concrete School as a necessary site of grief, suffering, and joy.
01:04:15
Speaker
We've learned about the ways in which traditional schooling structures maintain an aesthetic of wellness, preventing educators from sitting in the necessary grief that accompanies schooling.
01:04:27
Speaker
And we now understand that named grief involves the acknowledgement of loss. And such acknowledgement leads to an acceptance of the death and decay emanating from many of the normative practices of schooling.
01:04:44
Speaker
And that until we accept the toxicity of these structures, we cannot cultivate pathways toward wellness.
01:04:53
Speaker
As educators, we are also being called to acknowledge the ways that the toxicity of schooling has become ingrained within us, that we may perpetuate them even within the spaces that claim to center wellness.
01:05:09
Speaker
We continue to assign grades, to have extended school days, to demand conformity amidst the rubble of our society. In these challenging times, however,
01:05:22
Speaker
I'm reminded of an educator who chose to take this year to farm.
Reconnecting with Ancestral Wellness Practices
01:05:28
Speaker
In these efforts, she's choosing to remember the ancestral practices of wellness that have sustained her people for centuries.
01:05:37
Speaker
Her time of self-recovery has required her to slow down, to step outside of the capitalist framework embedded within schools. You know, the one that pushes us to produce and produce and produce toward our early death.
01:05:55
Speaker
and really prepare young people to do the same. This year, she is reminded of the ways in which fast-paced, market-driven, emotionless, spiritless, fragmented efforts of schooling are antithetical to wellness.
01:06:15
Speaker
And I believe we are reminded to do the same.
01:06:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Drawing from the Well. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This podcast was produced by John Reyes. Join us as we continue the conversation at youthwellness.com.