When I sit cross-legged in a handstand in contemplation on action –
my action –
anger spills onto my living room floors.
Movement was spurred by anger,
an anger that threatened to turn me inside out and displace me through space-time.
ANGER → RAGE
A rage so consuming that violence seized my system,
becoming as commonsensical as a Power Rangers marathon.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I tend to do this.
This is a meditation after all, so let me begin as I do every meditation session.
*flame to sage*
~prayer~
To my ancestors,
The ones I know
The ones I don’t know
To Spirit,
The thread of life,
Guide me
Protect me
Help me to see what I can’t
Now that I’ve formally brought spirit onto the page, let’s start from the beginning.
It was late summer. I was at a conference for folks, like myself, who work in out-of-school/after-school programs. I sat listening to a keynote address that has now faded from memory, angry. Furious. Bubbling over.
It’s important to name this explicitly –
I hate the education system.
The previous school year brought clarity in the form of disillusionment. The education apparatus is cooked. It’s been fried too hard for too long, and now the kitchen is in flames. All that makes sense is dismantling and building something other. Yet despite this clarity, spirit directed me to remain. I listened, begrudgingly.
There must have been something I still needed to do.
I just couldn’t see it at the moment.
As the keynote speaker went on, attempting to imbue hope into the crowd, I felt rage radiate from my pores. I was tired of educators being painted as “heroes.” School is carceral in form and function. Upholding and maintaining the education system is the continuation of a system that disconnects students from themselves, their communities, and actively lies about the world they live in. I don’t believe the work I do is noble. I am a band-aid to obscure the system’s rotting core.
When the speaker finished and the clapping died, I turned to my colleague Bart Eddy, who co-founded Detroit Community Schools and Brightmoor Maker Space. The latter is a monumental educational alternative that approaches learning and healing through making. There are four different programs: (1) Woodshop, (2) Jewelry Making, (3) Media/Video, (4) Clothing Making. The first time I visited the maker space, I was stunned beyond belief. I felt peace, engagement, and ease emanating from the students. I saw a trace of another world in the lab.
I looked at Bart and let my rage flow, “I’m at my limit in this system. We’ve got to get out.”
Bart looked back, eyes wide, eager, and full of love, and said, “That’s right, let’s do it!”
So, we set up time to dream.
Over the next 6 months we met weekly, with another colleague, to continue the conversation we had began the previous September.
We spent our time exploring how we transform Brightmoor Maker Space into a self-sufficient education alternative. After the first few gatherings, we agreed that we needed to bring in other folks who were doing liberatory education work, to our conversations because the only way we get free is together.
Prior to our first open meeting, Bart asked me to write a letter as an invitation. I began the letter, naming the anger I felt during the conference:
“This is a call to gather. This is a call to get organized. This is a call to collaborate. The origins of this
call began in anger. Anger at current educational practices. Anger at the generational harm caused by this
system. Anger at its inequitable outcomes. Anger that so many are resolved to continue feeding something
anti-human. These angers and frustrations have been expressed in multitudes by teachers, parents, and
students, and amount to a simple line – this isn’t working. So this call is first and foremost a response to those cries.”
When I shared the fully drafted letter, Bart said, “I love it, and I think we need to add something about transforming rage to love. Love is, after all, what sustains the work and what must be at the center of our new creations.”
I sat back, embarrassed, to a degree. He was right. Love allows us to build with care at the center. Anger couldn’t be the dominating emotion in the letter, even though it is important to articulate. So, I added a line to end the first paragraph:
“And we ask, how do we take this anger and transform it into loving action?”
As I reflect on my movements over the past several years, I find that anger has been a major catalyst for action. But what my friend Bart reminded me was that although anger can be a powerful spark, it can’t be the fuel source. In this bit of wisdom, I think of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. When he joined Team Avatar, he lost his ability to firebend because his fuel source changed; he no longer operated from rage. In seeking a new source, he turned to the dragons who taught him how to bend from a space of love and care, which ultimately restored his abilities.
I can’t help but see a bit of Zuko in me, even now. I needed the reminder; although we may at times react to the injustices of our world in anger, it is love that will carry us through the hard work of building something new.
We had our first small group gathering this past February.
It was exhilarating and cemented, on an embodied level, that we are the answer.
In thinking about the learning spaces of the future, we believe:
- Education spaces must be grounded in the community. Most learning environments sit in a bubble, away from the world. These spaces creates the illusion of separation and teaches students that environmental disconnection is acceptable.
- Abstraction must be decentered. The overemphasis on abstract thinking further distances students from their body and teaches them that knowledge isn’t an embodied.
- We need to rethink the role ‘educators’ to be that of a guide instead of the figure who holds knowledge to fill students with.
- We need less school! Young people need space to develop relationships with themselves without having their time policed and surveilled.
There is work ahead, but with love as a source, we can meet it.
Interested in joining our next gathering?
Reach out to me at liberationstudios@proton.me
Bryce Grubbs is an emerging interdisciplinary artist and designer whose work spans writing, math, and visual design to explore post–Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) futures, African and diasporic histories and cultures, spirituality, urban environments, math, music, and information systems. He received a B.A. in Speculative Design with a minor in Mathematics from the University of California, San Diego.
