Our Practices

The following commitments have evolved out of our practice of liberatory education. They continue to evolve in relation to our teaching and learning.

the power of the collective

We affirm the power of people, united in values and vision, to demand and win liberation. We work with young people and families to build strong collectives that struggle for justice. In contrast to dominant approaches to education, we view learning as essentially communal. We hold a vision of liberation that is collective - as Fannie Lou Hamer preached, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

the need for transformation

To enact a radical vision of freedom, we must transform ourselves and the structures and systems that create and maintain harm. We assert the need to critique, dismantle, and transform oppressive systems, replacing systems of violence and scarcity with systems of love and abundance. We also assert the need for our individual and collective transformation - critiquing, abolishing, and transforming those parts of ourselves which are shaped in the image of oppression. We struggle as a community - internally to unlearn destructive behaviors cultivated by white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism; and externally to dismantle and transform oppressive systems in our schools and communities.

the need for healing

The present arrangement of power in our society is a product of violent dispossession - the theft of land, labor, resources, and culture. Those in power today continue to dominate and dispossess through violence. This historical and contemporary experience, along with conditions of enforced scarcity, create extreme violence and conflict in our schools and communities. We work to address this violence at its root - to address the root causes of conflict, to trace violence back to its source, and to create spaces of healing. We do not respond to instances of violence with violence, but address them with care. In the words of bell hooks, “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.”

the need for safety

We believe that oppressed people’s participation in harmful systems - especially police and prisons - is often rooted in a desire for safety. In school, our Fellows are told that the only sources of safety are the rules and the violence which awaits anyone who fails to follow them. We contest for common sense, asserting in our space that safety comes from the strength of relationships, the bonds of trust, and the responsive systems that allow for conflict to be transformed into healing. We assert a vision of safety that is not rooted in fear and reaction, but in love and belonging. This means that when harm occurs in our community, we do not treat young people or their families as disposable, but move with them in loving support, investing in our collective growth. This means that we protect ourselves and those around us by building a culture of love, belonging, and trust in our space. This means that we work together to build a world in which - in the words of Zach Norris - “we keep us safe.”

the value of difference

Following the insights of Aurora Levins Morales, “we are led by those who most know these systems.” Often, people with disabilities are most impacted by the systems of harm that limit everyone’s freedom. Therefore, we look to them for leadership in the way that we structure our spaces. We believe that our space must be structured around all of us. An extension of the non-disposability of everyone is a commitment to deep inclusivity. We do not structure spaces around ‘fitting in’ or tolerance - rather, we structure spaces around a sense of belonging. This means that our spaces are changed by each person who enters - we adapt and adjust to learn from the insights of those with exceptionalities. We adjust the pace of programming, the arrangement of space, and the emotional tenor of our conversations to make our space accessible to everyone, and we commit to constant reflection and adjustment to make the Freedom Project more inclusive. This principle of the leadership of those most impacted extends to members of all groups who are marginalized - Black, indigenous, and people of color; queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people; members of the working class; women; immigrants; and young people - and especially to those whose experiences are at the intersections of these identities. Their leadership at the Freedom Project in all of our programming, staffing, and governance is essential.

the power of people

Ella Baker often taught that “[people] cannot look for salvation anywhere but themselves.” At the Freedom Projects, we affirm that the oppression faced by young people and families is not their fault - however, it is our collective responsibility. We understand that we cannot look to some higher authority to change the conditions in our community, but must build ourselves up as a collective to struggle for the world we deserve. We believe that our Fellows and their families are far more insightful, visionary, and powerful than those in power would have us believe. Where they are told by the schools and by society to “shut up” and “sit down,” we build space for all of us to “speak up” and “stand up”. Where adults often tell children to “stay in a child’s place”, we encourage our young people to find their place at the head of a movement for justice - which has historically been the place of the youth. We echo Paolo Freire in saying that “we cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become subjects.” We are not building future leaders, but supporting the leaders of today.

 the importance of history

We are students of history. We study the history of the struggle for liberation. We engage our movement ancestors, learning from past challenges in the struggle for freedom and gathering hope from their victories. We study the ways that oppressed people have demanded, fought for, and crafted spaces of freedom for themselves and their communities. We commit ourselves to teaching not the history of oppression but of resistance and liberation. We commit ourselves to teaching history as a contingent process, the unfolding of which Fellows and their families shape today. As James Baldwin wrote, “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.”