Prologue

Introduction

I want to start this story with a brief look into history and that of a man who immigrated to America in the early 1900s. Val was from a small town of San Nicolas in the northern regions of the Philippines, his favorite dish was his mother’s day old oxtail soup because then the ginger and star anise could soak. The next day, heating it up and adding some cold rice was often a treat. Val was 17, when we left for America, at the time it you had to be at least 18 but there was no written proof to show he was underaged. As the eldest and first born son, he was responsible for the care of his younger sibling but also continuing and upholding the social role as a farmer of the modest plot of land they owned. In those days the Northern Philippines had for decades been an agricultural hub with complex economic hardships. At the time, the U.S plantation owners in Hawaii (growing on stolen lands) were in the market for cheap(er) labor. A series of exclusionary acts, resistance from labor unionization, and heavy recruiting tactics would would drive U.S plantation to seek and acquire other “investments”. Destined to continue the family trade, Val overheard a neighbor talking in town about work on the island of Hawaii. Rumors stated that farmers who signed up would be guaranteed free transportation to the U.S, employment, housing, food, and medical care. Val thought this could be a huge opportunity to contribute in a major way to his family livelihoods. A final spoonful of soup and heartfelt goodbyes, Val went to inquire about this opportunity searching for the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association’s (HSPA) recruiters and getting on the next boat to Hawaii. 

My great grandfather would be recruited as a laborer for a sugar cane (later pineapple) plantation on the island of Oahu. He would work on this plantation for a number of years before being sent home during WWII and later contacted further to return. He would send money back to support his family and one by one would earn enough to get one his children to arrive in Hawaii to also work on the plantation. The both of them would earn enough to send for the next eldest, and the next eldest until the whole family would arrive. When my grandfather finally arrived to Oahu in 1963, as an 18 year old he was quickly drafted for the Vietnam War. After serving his drafted term and returning from service he was given citizenship. After having three children (my aunt, mom, and uncle), they would leave the island and move to Palmdale, California in the early 1980s. In the 1990s my parents would meet and have my sister and I. 

I fell in love with my family origin story because I’m fascinated by the series of events and decisions that tell of fear, resilience, serendipity, community, love, loss, curiosity, and generational learning.  The decisions made by these people of the past have defined my context and perspective, and for that I honor the metaphorical torch I carry. Those before me unfortunately did not have the opportunity to attend a University, life took them in different directions. Thus while I inherited a great deal of family pride, I also received the aspirations of those before me, to receive a higher education and to earn a degree. As I think about my educational journey and what I would achieve, I’m simply grateful for the opportunity and the bricks laid for me to be here. I absolutely think believe that “I stand on the backs of giants” and in the broadest sense of family include my friends, mentors, and teachers. My achievements have never been on the precipice of my merit alone, but that of my community, my family, “ohana”.

The first time I stepped foot on a University Campus, was during my orientation and during my first few years, I struggled immensely. I wasn’t prepared for the rigor of study or the pace of learning. The subjects that once came easy just weren’t feasible and I didn’t know who to ask for help, talk to my teachers, or how to learn for that matter. Like the one kid who forgot it was picture day, I didn’t get the memo; I didn’t have a vocabulary or a palette for the challenges of what it meant to be a first-generation student. I wrote off this pain as my own inadequacy and opted to keep silent through the isolation. I went an entire year contemplating whether or not college was for me and everyday felt like a reminder that I wasn’t good enough, didn’t belong, and if I should all together cut my losses and dropout. I was doing poorly in my classes, I couldn’t truly relate to my peers or friends on a familiar level, and I was low on funds because my student aid paid for some of my tuition but not much of anything else and my family could only support so much. In an attempt to look for work to supplement my student aid I found a job at the Ethnic Cultural Center on campus as a student worker. This would start to mend the deep seeded sense of isolation I felt and adopt me into a community of peers that had similar challenges. I was finally talking to peers, faculty, and staff that understood me and I felt supported, listened to, and no longer alone. Those feelings would hit deep and after my undergraduate program I knew education and learning was a space I sought to further influence, show representation, and help other students find their fit in the uncharted waters.

I applied to the Learning, Design, and Technology program at Georgetown to further pursue these interests in understanding the challenges faced for many first-generation, underrepresented, and minority students. I specifically chose this particular program for the interdisciplinary approach and openness about issues of equity, representation, and inclusion that wasn’t highlighted in programs I saw elsewhere. This is not to say that the entirety of the institution doesn’t have it historical challenges and uphill battles but in conversation with Professors like Michelle Ohnona, Randy Bass, Yianna Vovides, Maggie Debelius, Dawan Stanford, and Bryan Alexander (to name a few) I had high hopes that this program would not only provide me the educational theory and learning design background I sought, but also provide me a space to explore topics of social justice and equitable change in cross-disciplinary ways. While a year and half isn’t nearly enough time to do everything I hoped I could, I like to think that I was able to explore, question, and broaden my capacity to continue the work in advocating for students of color in the space of learning and education.

Sound Bite Reflections

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Here I hope to not necessarily create finite markers and definitive statements for the terms, equity, diversity, and inclusion, but to stage a frame around from literature to speak to the range of how it is used in the space of learning and how I use these ideas to extend upon in my projects.

We understand and know equity is important in our educational institutions and for future learners but what does this mean and how do we implement an equity-oriented lens into our work within our classrooms and within our institutions? Perhaps we can start with looking at what it is not. Gutiérrez and Jaramillo (2006) explain in their chapter Looking for Educational Equity: The Consequences of Relying on Brown how the term equity within education and education reform policies have been reduced to this idea of “sameness as fairness”. In their paper they discuss the implication of the Brown vs Board of Education how since those events educational policy have consistently and fundamentally enact a “sameness as fairness” model. Their work further suggest that this ideology reproduces, dominant and often exclusionary educational practices, stating “‘sameness as fairness’ argument has come to dominate the rhetoric of educational reform—obscuring the link between economic disparities, asymmetrical power relations, and historically racialized practices.” (p. 179) 

Nasir and Hand (2006) in their paper Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning use a sociocultural perspective and provide historical context to the equity within education. They state “A number of scholars in education, sociology, and psychology began to argue that children of color were not necessarily “deficient” in their cognitive and social orientations, but simply “different” (from white children).” (Nasir and Hand, 2006, p.449) This shift in thinking about difference has created many frameworks such as multicultural education (James Banks), cultural responsiveness (Courtney Cazden and Ellen Leggett), and culturally relevant pedagogy (Gloria Ladson-Billings). So then the question is if equity is understanding the differences of learners? Well, not exactly its can further deconstructed as Nasir and Hand also state that through critical theorists such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Antonia Darder that these “deficits” amongst minority students must be addressed from societal and institutional levels where the reproduction of such social inequalities based on class and race are generational perpetuations. These cyclical systems sustain the goals of schooling; which often becomes the maintenance of the social order and “locus of power” within society (Nasir and Hand, 2006)

So what is equity within education? I think it depends on what level of abstraction, whether on a macro-institutional level, local community level, or even individual learner level. For example:

On a macro-institutional and systemic level

Leveraging the work of critical theorists and as Nasir and Hand suggest “broadening awareness within the field of educational research about whose stories are being heard (and whose are not) and how these stories are embedded in a system of power that treats dominant structures and practices as normative can help make race and racialized experience explicit in educational contexts.” The expansion of such stories then allows “…further, analyses of access to educational opportunities and identities within a framework that pays attention to how opportunities and identities are negotiated, adapted, and contested by individuals as they are positioned and position themselves with respect to histories of engagement in different communities bring subtle processes of power and privilege to the fore.” (pg 454)

On the local community/school level

Exploring new pedagogical practices informed by “Critical pedagogists [who] have made the argument that while schools are often places where lower class and minority students are subjected to practices and attitudes that can reinforce their second-class status, they are also places where resistance to such hegemony can be collectively harnessed and made transformative. They encourage teachers to develop the critical perspectives in students and hence foster their ability to subvert existing power relations.” (p.454)

On an individual learner level

Turning to equity-oriented learning designers, educator, and students to reflect and discuss diverse matters of identity. “The identities and practices that an individual is exposed to and negotiates along a trajectory of activity support an array of imagined trajectories of becoming... In this way, identity links treatments of learning to issues of power and positional identities. Learning is about not only shifts in an outside cultural world, but also shifts in one’s conception of one’s relation to that world.” (Nasir and Hand, pg. 468)

These different levels of looking at equity provide the grounds for also connecting diversity and inclusion. In the book Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making it Work by Daryl G. Smith, the author states that identity is the underlying premise that comprise many diversity-related issues. Our individual identities have interpersonal and social implications that are defined by the context, historical framing, and saliency within given social settings. Smith writes “identity is fundamentally shaped in interaction with others and through response from others” however, these experiences with others are often highly individualized and deeply personalized. Smith further states that “the interplay of context, multiplicity, and inequity illuminates why and how identity becomes dynamic, complex, and significant”. (p23)

What is diversity in education?

To write it as a singular definition is bound to exclude definitions and not encompass range of what diversity is and or ought to be. I leverage Smith’s chapter A Diversity framework for Higher Education to explore the expansive question. Smith writes “The challenge moving forward is one of reframing the issue of diversity as an institutional imperative concerning education and excellence.” They state that diversity is often viewed from a legal and public-policy issues and while it’s important for these issues to be discussed they often take the place for what diversity is and becomes within the larger institutional contexts'; essentially policy concerns off a checkbox list of identities. However, Smith includes a diversity framework in which works to largely expand the notions of diversity work, and push beyond list of identities to encapsulate a broader look at defining diversity.

This framework centers a core mission in which and institutional climate, education and teaching practices, access and success, and institutional viability and vitality stems.

Smith states that on most campuses issues and topics of diversity simply remain within the silo of access and success and “by encouraging a differentiated look at the variety of identities, a campus is in a better position to engage diversity pluralistically and with greater equity and inclusiveness.” (p. 63)

To further explore themes of equity within my work I’ve adapt these definitions or “tenets” as they are referred to, from my colleague Wendy Roldan (with permission). In her Ph.D research she models and explores equity through a Human-Centered Design & Equity-Oriented lens. These tenets serve as pillars for designers, educators, and agents of change to assess, reflect, and intentionally enact equity within projects, work, and interactions with others. Each tenet includes a title and an “I” statement to exemplify how one might utilize, extend, or reflect on the idea. These tenets from Roldan’s work are defined as followed:

Tenet 1:  Carefully noticing invisible knowledge - “I am interested in knowledge, specifically the kinds of knowledge that are made invisible power structures”

Tenet 2: Humbly listening to lived experience - “I listen for lived and felt experiences (design an experience) as opposed to described or idealized experiences”

Tenet 3: Respectfully treating people like people - “I approach my work with respect, engage with people as people (rather than as a stereotype) and listen to learn”

Tenet 4: Creatively informing generative design implications - “I develop research implications that are generative (something to think about and act on, not just critique)

Tenet 5: Cautiously thinking about practitioners - “I am always thinking about who will be served by the research with a focus on supporting those from within”

Tenet 6: Intentionally involving community members - “I focus on involving community members throughout, actively seeking them out and making myself present.”

Tenet 7: Strategically translating invisible knowledge - “I have developed an emergent capacity to notice, translate, and re(present) the invisible knowledge that I see”

Tenet 8: Actively doing equity - “Everyday I do the work, I seek to make change because communities, youth, and families cannot wait”

To adapt these tenets to my projects and work, I created these octagonal diagrams as a self-reflective visual aids and reformulated the definitions to critique and expand my notions of equity within my specific contexts.

Within many of the project sections below I have included this diagram with self-assessed measurements on my own work based on these adapted eight tenets. While these diagrams are self-assessments, I think they become useful reflective tools to not only see the improvement in where I can create stronger and deeper equity-oriented practices, but also as an accountability measure in future projects and thinking holistically upon my work.

Works Cited

Gutiérrez, K. D., & Jaramillo, N. E. (2006). Chapter 9 looking for educational equity: The consequences of relying on brown. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 105(2), 173-189.

Nasir, N. I. S., & Hand, V. M. (2006). Exploring sociocultural perspectives on race, culture, and learning. Review of educational research, 76(4), 449-475.

Smith, D. (2009). Diversity’s promise for higher education : making it work . Johns Hopkins University Press.

Roldan, W. (2020). Virtual Scholarship Summit: A Human-Centered Design Approach to Exploring Equity Across Sites of Knowing. Presentation, Online: University of Washington

Semester 1

In my first semester I engaged with the following series of courses:

• Integrated Into the field

• Technology and Innovation

• Learning for methods and design

• Creativity and Design

• Design Studio I

Each course provided a new perspective and at the time I hoped to find a fit, a connection, and new avenues that went with my intentions to think about diversity. I worked to simply take in and explore everything I could, since it was my first semester and the idea of graduate school was a different atmosphere entirely than undergraduate studies. 

Methods of Learning Design

Tags: Racial Justice, STEM Education, K-12 Education

My goal at the beginning of this course was to explore the methodologies to approach questions about the design process and the learning process. Prior to this course I had researched design to understand design expertise and help students achieve more refined processes and ultimately better designed artifacts. I was curious on how the learning design process differed and how I could fuse these two ideas in contexts to focus on designing for students of color. Before LDT I had also done volunteer work with an organization called GoKic in Seattle. At the time the non-profit organization was small, up and coming, with the mission to provide STEM education to students of color and underrepresented youth in the Seattle area. Through this connection I had direct links to a population I was interested in designing for and an organization with a cause that directly aligned with my interest and goals. 

In the initial phases I set meetings with the stakeholders and critical subject matter experts within the GoKic organization to understand the context and scope. As design questions I asked:

• What were the students in K-12 space already doing and how can those process be enhanced or improved?

• What infrastructure was already in place and what could be done to enhance their systems and learning arc?

• How challenges did this organization particularly have and how could I help the process?

In this initial meeting I had a chance to speak with the lead instructor and sit in (virtually) on the lessons, for many of these students this was an afterschool program and the focus was not just on delivering lessons, but daily adolescent care as well. I learned that the overall lesson and curriculum plan was already in place, however only the lead instructor knew the protocol, flow, and transitions. Some of the other teacher aids and instructors knew the curricula and lesson plans, however this required one-on-one training or in-class time to understand and learn the general flow. 

From these contextual elements I worked with the lead instructor to chart what could be most helpful but also improve the lesson plan arc and curriculum through the theory and explored within this learning design methodologies course. What was particularly interesting was that I worked to implement various types of learning theories including, Bloom’s taxonomy, Gagne’s level of engagement, and Backward design principles in cohesion with of social justice topics and critical race theory. The artifact in its entirety would not only map the learning for students but could be used as a guide for instructor workshops to learn how to deliver the GoKic lessons. 

Unfortunately due to scope and timing only the first few lessons were able to be packaged and delivered to the GoKic team. However, I implemented outlines, templates, and design documents for the organization and instructional designers for future use. Through this project I really got first-hand experience on the amount of work, time, and scoping it takes to completely develop a semester long course. There were many times that I worked with a the lead instructor but had wished I was on a learning design team that I could leverage ideas as well as spread the amount of workload to really move the project along. Since I was both learning the concepts within the LDT methodologies course while working to implement them, I feel with more experience I can really become better at not only scoping the work, but exploring the methodologies and activities to better fit the both the learner and instructor needs. 

Within this project I implemented reflection notes and guides for practitioners to consider how their teaching might impact students. Since this was one of my first projects within the program I am almost certain I can expand my thinking and if not provide a focused detail on the organizations teaching and learning practices

Technology and Innovation

Tags: Racial Justice, Technology & Innovation, Alternative Narratives

In this course, I engaged with a range of topics and better understood not just what technology could be but the ubiquity and morphology of technology as it changes throughout a given space and time. Innovation as a concept provided interesting food for thought as one considers the intentionality of technological artifact from technical, political, and social agent within society.

Through the course, the main topics that caught my interest were the concepts and ideas around justice and innovation. We spent the first half of our semester looking at what technology is, what innovation means, and how it operates within the fabric of our society. Without creating an a typical singular solution to these questions we discussed great thinkers like Walter Benjamin – exploring enframing, looking at Everett rogers – ideas on the diffusion of innovations, and Brian Arthur – discussing the Nature of Technology. In the second half of our semester, we started to dissect various questions and expanded on our discussion and thoughts asking new questions like who gets to innovate? And how do the ideas for those who get to innovate influence what is made, and for whom?

I became concerned with equity and after reading Ruha Benjamin’s book Race After Technology, I was inspired to dive deeper into these questions. Benjamin discusses the New Jim Code and how the design of technology permeates with biases and social codes.  Benjamin state that these codes “operate within powerful systems of meaning that render some things visible, others invisible, and create a vast array of distortions and dangers” (p.21). These codes are webbed and interconnected telling an incomplete story for who we might be individually and in turn interpret ideas about our communities. Benjamin writes, “More than stereotypes, codes act as narratives, telling us what to expect.” (p.26) and when we use these codes to automate our technologies these inequities are only exacerbated. 

In this course I was pushed to think about technology from a point of design power, access, equity, and ultimately social justice.  I write in my full project write-up that I wanted to explore this idea and the space of alternative narratives and in exploring and showcasing new stories I hoped to promote a reality in which the underlying intentions show a different outcome and overall alternative story based on real events.

As a result of this work I edited and rewrote a CNN news article, where I explored an alternative narrative of a story in which a Black man was arrested and mistaken for forced entry upon his own business. I re-imagined this story to consider “what if” the police were called to visit the owner’s shop on a tip of it being a good product. Octavia Butler writes in an article titled Devil Girl From Mars": Why I Write Science Fiction and talks about three categories of science fiction from Robert a Heinlein. Butler writes “Sometime ago I read some place that Robert A. Heinlein had these three categories of science-fiction stories: The what-if category; the if-only category; and the if-this-goes-on category. And I liked the idea” . While this story is not that of science fiction, it is of fiction and the intention behind this project was not to obscure the raw, reality of racial injustice with a feel good story, but rather to pose a “what if things were different” in the contrast of the two stories. 

This particular project was difficult for me to write in many cases. I felt personally and internally conflicted to write about an experience that I have no context for as an Asian American with disproportionately advantaged privileges to many of my fellow Black Americans, especially in the eyes of law enforcement. To explicitly reinforce my intentionality and turn a keen eye in critiquing the my impacts of this work, I recognize that this story if written as a headline for CNN and likely does portray a wealth of other inequitable positionalities. For example I question who this post works to serve if released as a legitimate article and contemplate the ethicality of the hypothesized responses. In this alternative scenario, this article serves CNN as a possible publicity stunt that portrays law enforcement in a social positive light. This potentially obfuscating atrocities that should and ought to be reported about. It can also serves positively for CNN as a message to say “we support black businesses” especially if historically the organization has failed to recognize this importance.

However in defense of this work, I don’t think articles like this exist. I believe that this vein of alternative stories actually shouldn’t even have to be told but rather expected. In a just society we wouldn’t have to point out that police can visit a community business based off good recommendations. When we see law enforcement and BIPOC individuals in the same story it usually under disconcerning circumstances. Only in an alternative narrative (or hopeful future society) where communities of color and law enforcement are stripped of historically racist and authoritarian underpinnings. I recognize the awkwardness of this alternative narrative stories because it counters our current conception of new. These days hopeful news feels out of place and if all true often comes with skepticism. However perhaps reinforcements of hopeful and good stories need to be told to reinforce that they exist and we can keeping do them or reporting on them. Neil Gaiman in the children’s book Coraline writes a beautiful phrase. He states “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten” and in this same way alternative narratives are true not because they tell us how fair and good the world can be but that the problems we face can be overcome. 

What is equally remarkable is the way that this ideas resurface in coincidental and serendipitous ways. In my last semester, I would take Professor Michelle Ohnona and LDT Alumni, Ijeoma Njaka’s class on Speculative Design for Anti-Racism. In this class we had an amazing opportunity to chat with Dr. Caitlin Gunn on the idea of speculative play and speculative fiction as a form of resistance. She states that alternative/speculative storytelling and speculative play are important because they expand what she states as “survival rhetoric” into spaces of futurity.  This type of resistance future casts a thriving world with BIPOC within it. While these stories may have holes and uneven grounds we get a chance to think through these challenges through a lens of play. This speculative play is deep work that allows us to make progress without the burdens of severely harming those already in critical positions. 

This design map is my self-assessment of this alternative narrative project. While I think that I developed implications that are generative, I think if I involved further community members into the discussion I could have really expanded and or crafted a better alternative narrative

Works Cited 

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new jim code. Social Forces.

Butler, O. E. (1998). ‘Devil Girl from Mars’: Why I Write Science Fiction. Presentation at MIT, 19.

Gunn, C. (2019). Black Feminist Futurity: From Survival Rhetoric to Radical Speculation. Feral Feminisms, (9). Retrieved from https://feralfeminisms.com/issue1/issue-9-state-killing-queer-and-women-of-color-manifestas-against-u-s-violence-and-oppression/

Creativity and Design

I want to talk about this course in a unique way that pertains not to a specific project that was done in the course but through a life altering way. In honesty, I didn’t know what this course would be like and before starting the program I signed up for this course out of spontaneity and interest. I can only reflect that this course and the people within the course are memories I’ll cherish well beyond this program. I wouldn’t imagine the types of twists and turns that would unfold post class and even now as I still unpack the lessons and practices experienced. In this course I designed a short self-driven learning engagement to engage others with the concept of gratitude.

What I loved about this course was the opportunity to explore what creativity is through both a scientific, psychological, sociological, and even spiritual endeavor. A few assumptions that we worked to deconstruct were the ideas that:

a) There are those who are creative and those who aren’t

b) Misery breeds creativity or creativity breed misery

c) Creativity is about novelty, originality, and divergent thinking

One of the most interesting part of the course was constructing a notion of creativity that was unique to myself and identifying the patterns within the readings of the course. Each reading seemed to elude to the process and practice of creativity. In the Artist Way, Julia Cameron takes a personal and spiritual approach to what understanding creativity. They unlock individual creative potential and blockages that might occur to the process through short creative exercises and challenging our internal thoughts to relieve the artist of misery, pain, insecurity, or the ego that often blocks creative work.

In a further reading, Creativity 4 in 1: Four Criterion Construct of Creativity by Anatoliy Kharkhurin, they identify the following criterion for creativity:

• novelty - a creative work brings something new into being (a new, modification, or violation of preexisting works)

• utility - a creative work is what a producer or a recipient considers creative, what represents an important landmark in spiritual, cultural, social, and or political environment, and what addresses moral issues.

• aesthetics - a creative work presents the fundamental truth of nature, which is reflected in a perfect order, efficiently presents the essence of the phenomenal reality, and is satisfactorily complex, expressing both tension and intrinsic contradiction.

• authenticity - a creative work expresses an individual’s inner self and relates one’s own values and believes to the world.

I find these definitions and resources interesting because they further deconstruct notions of creativity being a naturally gifted trait. These definition by Kharkurin, also expand the idea of creativity being only novelty and originality. I particularly find the definition of utility as an important criteria in light of equity and inclusion. Through these frames I question who is often deemed creative and who is not? and what types of work do we often consider creative? With these questions I think about the development of hip-hop, rap, and graffitti and its historical connotation and represent within the space of fine arts. These creative forms have shifted and yet still to some degree, aren’t without the the barriers seen in light true to other forms of art. These questions about what a producer or a recipient deems as creative and who benefits from such gatekeeping are spaces of much further discussion and investigation that I hope to further explore.

My latest creative project has been outside of academia around storytelling, science education, and video games. In this endeavor I’ve been exploring a creative process through narratives that focus on people of color as main agents in a futuristic fantasy world that hopes to teach biochemistry in novel and fun ways. While this is still early in the writing and world building stages, I am heavily leveraging my previous experiences within Creativity and Design as well as my other courses to really think holistically about this project and the value I hope to bring to others. 

Sound-Bite Reflection

Works Cited

Cameron, J. (2016). The artist's way: A spiritual path to higher creativity. Penguin.

Kharkhurin, A. V. (2014). Creativity. 4in1: Four-criterion construct of creativity. Creativity research journal, 26(3), 338-352.

Semester 2

• Learning Design for Social Justice

• Learning Analytics

• Design and Prototyping In a Makerspace

• Design Studio II

In these three courses I expanded further on my interest and uncovered some new ones as well. Learning analytics, while I don’t go into much detail in this section is a field I have become more excited to learn and utilize in my future career.

Learning Design for Social Justice

Tags: Social Justice Online Pedagogy, Learning Design, Pandemic

Learning Design for Social Justice was one of my first courses taught by Prof. Michelle Ohnona. In a surprising way this course and the topics of critical theory and social justice tested me in more ways than one. Previously, I felt I was narrowly focused on straightforward linear processes, series of inputs and outputs, and using visual maps that I create for clarity and succinct understanding. However, in this sociological landscape, I remember a few office hours with Michelle really struggling to comprehend the complex, messy, and in many sense layered systems the that go along with solving complex social problems such as racism and or discrimination. Where everything is interconnected, political, and containing a multitude of approaches angles and positionalities, there really is NO perfect design, perfect solution, or a singular succinct answer. The labels of something being “good” or being “bad” are subjective truths and this type of ambiguity and uncertainty is something that I am still trying to come to terms with. Even now as I sort through the complexities of the multilayered and multidimensional landscape of layered systems and -isms, I often find it difficult to know where to start. Like an intricate Rubik’s cube or musical composition, the changing of one piece of the puzzle or song has impact on other systems or subsystems.  Although complex, I think this course has allowed me to practice the skills essential to analyzing problems of equity, inclusion, and diversity through both a critical and compassionate lens. In this way I feel more confident in responding to these sort of complex issues like racial and socioeconomic injustices through considering both the intentionality and impact it may have within a given community.  

In my final project I delivered a literature review on Learning Design and Social Justice Education for Online Learning Engagements. At the time, COVID-19 had started to redefine and reshape all of our lives, especially the landscape of education. In early March until June of 2020, the focus was getting courses and critical classes online; in what felt like an overnight change. Within this transition I remember fearing that critical and inclusive pedagogical practices would be lost in the speed of moving things online and thinking about how social justice would be curbed or put as a backseat area of interest in online learning. However the summer of 2020 was not just a national health crisis but a opportunity for social movement and progress in racial justice on a multitude of fronts that I couldn’t have predicted. My fears of inclusive pedagogical practice and movements for anti-racism hadn’t disappeared but was supercharged (about time I might add) and brought to national and even global attention. It’s not that the inequities had suddenly arose, but the pandemic had exacerbated the inequities, stretched them, made them ever more apparent, both in very hideous yet contrastingly beautiful ways. I say this to mean that this year people have seen wrongful and sickening deaths of Black lives and historical patterns of injustice that are continually throttled, obscured, or band-aided. But at the same time in my perspective, the movement of standing together rallying and protesting, seeing people speak out, own-up, and fight with their vote, with their money, and with their physical bodies has also been both motivating and empowering. 

While great work has been done in the past few months it’s important to recognize that its just the beginning and there is still so much more work that needs to be done to have a more just society. I hold optimism and courage in the face of many uphill climbs and look toward the many historical figures who have laid the foundation to continue the journey. Before leaving DC, this past summer I went to the memorial of Martin Luther King where it had etched in stone the phrase:

I think what also gives courage and hope is daring to dream of a world that is more justice which in my last semester I would take a course on “Speculative Design for Social Justice”. (More on this in the following section)

I feel some of the projects here could of also been closer connected to a community. While a literature review traditionally entails sorting through papers and research, feedback from community members, as well as creating a resources that is useful for practitioners are ways I would further engage those around me in conversations and or readings about topics of online teaching and social justice.

Design and Prototyping in a Makerspace

Tags: Historical Injustice, Slavery, Physical Prototyping, Makerspaces

I was ecstatic about this course and was able to take some of the lessons from my creativity course and apply them to a new context. This experience had personal challenges that I was really really proud to overcome. The tools, material, and environment of the maker space and any workshop types space can be incredibly intimidating. The questions that are asked and explored are often: What do I want to make? What can I make? How do I make? And the secondary questions often become will it be useful, valuable, and or likable? 

This class had stretched my thinking on a tangible level. Instead of writing, drawing, or expression in the form of two-dimensional space, I was able to really use my hands and really approach problems with new methods. During this course, I really had the opportunity to think about space as a make up of the learning experience. Here the makerspace is “community of practice” that feeds off the collective knowledge and accountability of one another. The idea of “I don’t know” becomes an inviting space to ask “how can we find out together”. Losing access to the maker space during COVID-19 was actually quite devastating, I feel like a big part of my identity had been altered and changed through this space and community that when I could no longer go it yearned to make things. The maker space in many ways became a haven for me both to work on creative projects that I was passionate about and simply be. I volunteered at the space and really enjoyed being a part of the community to learn and helping others in their creative endeavors. I really hope that this space continues to be a thriving space on campus and highly recommend this class for any LDT student in the future for its nuances in considering community, space, and sense of belonging that is attributed with learning.

My classmate Camille and I had ideated on a project centered during this course that involved a public intervention. In thinking about historical injustices, Camille and I had heard about a project done by a Ph.D student on campus with bringing awareness to the unmarked graves of buried slaves on the Georgetown Campus who were relocated for construction projects. This project inspired us to really think about a project in awareness of the 272 Slaves who were sold by Georgetown University in 1838. In this project it was important for us to bring light to the work of Georgetown University’s Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation initiatives and inform either upcoming students, returning students, or even alumni of these historical events. When learning about these historical events we found them as no surprise however weren’t truly aware of this had it not been for some of the people sharing their work on campus. We felt it was an important piece of history for students to know and acknowledge, allowing space for others to seek further information and or get involved in initiatives of social justice on campus. 

Inspired by the work of Kara Walker the goal was to create silhouettes and pins with the name of the 272 individuals who were sold. These pins would be reminders/tokens to be placed in displays for different spaces on campus and or for the Georgetown Slavery Archive to administered to notable individuals either working on initiatives, research, and community work in the space.

Although access to the makerspace had been barred due to Covid, I believe this is still important work. I hope to continue to create for the Georgetown community and or take this project virtual, leveraging contacts, colleagues, and friends within the maker community to perhaps also take part.

In this project I really felt that this enacts forms of generative thinking in considering and reflecting the campus grounds we walk on. I also really felt that we wanted to utilize the existing resources and knowledge from some of the people and spaces on campus were and contribute creatively to this body of work. I think I could of done better at recognizing some of the invisible knowledge and examining further how these initiatives of awareness could tie to student organizations efforts and for institutional policy changes.

Sound Bite Reflections

Semester 3

• Speculative Design for Anti-racism

• The Big Rethink Part 2

• Design Studio III

In this semester was unique in that this was the first and last semester that would completely be online. During this semester I decided to stay in Chicago after a summer internship both for health and safety reasons, cheaper costs of living, and personal interest.

The Big Rethink Part 2

Tags: Equity in Higher Education, Transformation, Adaptation, Pandemic

Although I missed the summer portion of this course I quickly wanted to jump in with ideas about equity and social justice in the perspective of how universities were working through the pandemic. After the literature review done in the course “learning design for social justice” I was concerned with out Universities would respond to teaching and learning and continue education within the context of social justice. As mentioned the pushes for anti-racism had surged many universities to consider their policies, initiatives, and even faculty. While this seems reassuring it’s only the start of what kind of initiatives are needed to to continue transformation. As the themes “adaptation to transformation” implies, in this course a group of students and faculty have been examining case studies of campuses to questions, ask and interrogate what the context of each university but also the types of adaptations that were made in light of both the COVID 19 pandemic and response to anti-racism on campus. The next step has been to explore the transformations either already taken place or in the process or speculatively given the types of decisions that the these Universities decided doing. Thinking about transformation to adaptation and how we can analyze different university case studies to distinguish these moments and transitions of the university decisions and how the they can take these adaptation for online learning into the space of transformation for the future. 

While this project is still ongoing I felt really confident about the work being done in the big rethink. I felt because of the team effort considering various positions and angles especially along the subject of equity and inclusion there has been intensive discussion for ways in which we can translate campus stories into hopefully useful artifacts for others to guide their decision making processes. While this work is still in works, better understanding the perspectives of staff and students (not just community leaders) we can build more holistic stories and include more voices, if not individual accounts of how students have also carried out this theme of adaptation to transformation.

Speculative design for anti-racism

I was enamored to be taking this course both as a way to continue the questions and thoughts in my previous semester (Learning Design for Social Justice) and as a culminating course to the LDT program. In this course the class had looked at the power and implementation of speculative design as a framework and process toward building equitable spaces. In this course we discussed and engaged with literature that goes beyond that of survival rhetoric, themes of refusal, fictional narratives, mixed media, and art to envision a future world of BIPOC individuals and future contexts. Our virtual class discussions often questioned “what if..?” alongside sorting through positions of equitable change that are creative, imaginative, speculative, and more often that not, pragmatic.

Like backward learning design the use of speculative design can be used to look at the speculative objectives we hope to achieve and beg the questions on how we can get there. Another powerful use of this speculative design is stretching the conception of what it might look like to do activist and abolitionist work through states of creativity, play, and futuristic narratives. 

• What does a university look like in which equity and diversity were at the forefront of a University’s ethos? (Alternatively, what if HBCUs weren’t the only spaces to seek such?)

• What would representation in faculty and staff look like and how would these power dynamics change?

• What would campus life and initiatives look like?

• What would the typical day in the life of a first-generation student of color feel like?

I hope to continue the work in speculative play and speculative design. Currently in the works and as previously mentioned, I am working on fictional stories that highlight science education through the lens and characters of BIPOC students. Through the lessons learned in this course as well as the year and half worth of projects I hope to continue this passion into my future endeavors.

Sound Bite Reflections

Epilogue

As 2020 comes to a close it’s been quite the year and quite the experience, but as mentioned the learning happens continuously as life keeps moving and despite the hard transitions I’m hopeful and confident in the years ahead. Thank you for reading and engaging with my work. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed thinking, creating, and writing about it. As a final thank you, I want give a special shout out to the faculty and staff within the LDT program and CNDLS who’s passion and care are abundantly present within our learning journeys, to all the wonderful colleagues and friends that I have made throughout this program, and finally thank you to my friends and family who have been there with me every step of the way.