I met another Lily. She was ready to shine. We were invited to watch her defend her work as a senior. When we arrived in the session, her presentation was cued. She seemed focused on the task before her. Her community was gathered in the classroom upstairs at ARISE where she would defend her senior portfolio called the Warrior Intellectual Portfolio Defense. The classroom where we assembled was filled with youth gathered near the back and adults gathered near the front. What struck me about this scene was that this gathering was a show of support for Lily and her WIPD. Our team was welcomed in as observers. I was excited to see this work unfold. What struck me when the session began was that I couldn’t offer Lily support in the way I’m used to. I didn’t know Lily and the work she put in throughout her years at ARISE. I didn’t understand the depth of her spirit and identity. I was qualified only to engage in her work as a community observer who loves youth and embraces their work no matter where they are on their journey in life. And so, Lily began: she had so much support.
This community had developed into a family of learners, youth, professionals, and community members who knew Lily and knew her worth and her work. Over the course of four years they grew together in spirit and in scholarship to sow the seeds of Lily’s identity. Lily was vibrant and professional. Lily was a storyteller here too.
And so, her story goes: Lily presented with strength, her calm tone leading the audience to embrace her answers to complex questions about personal identity and culture – about teaching and triumph – about academic struggles and success. Lily chose the work that mattered most to her and her lived experience in Oakland at ARISE Academy. When she was finished, she said that she felt confident in her defense. She believed in the power of her defense.
What struck me most about this youth event: Should we be asking students to defend their work? To defend who they are? To defend what they chose? To defend how they feel? To defend their work to adults?
These words defend/defense made me uneasy and made me think: There are so many better ways to say and share what we saw Lily be and do!
To defend seemed wrong. And so, I began to wonder: Perhaps a change to the WIPD event might begin with Lily. Perhaps omitting the word defend/defense would make this work more youth-centered and eradicate the dominant culture term defense. Perhaps the Warrior rubric could be a collaboration where youth research rubrics for portfolio work and present their findings. Perhaps their findings are presented not defended to a committee made up of youth only with adults observing rather than evaluating. In the beginning and in the end, defending would not be what students do. Rather, they would present and listen to other youth share their evaluations of their work and ask adults to defend what they may have missed, rather than what youth may have missed.
The words defend/defense harvest dominant culture norms.
Present seems like a better way to describe what these youth have done. They brought with them a present of who they are, where they’ve been, where they are going, and how they would like to arrive there. They are a gift to our journey as educators, supporting them in their growth as youth! They have put forth so much effort, time, and spirit. They need only present who they are and how they’ve grown. These youth have nothing to defend. They built their lives in ARISE and we came, ready to listen and learn from them. They need only to share how they AROSE to the task of presenting who they are as ARISE intellectual warriors. No defense needed!
One final idea struck as I write this story: this event and the team of adults who supported Lily care deeply for this young woman and want her to succeed. Holding youth accountable to their research and findings is a way to hold youth accountable to themselves, to their peers, and to hold adults accountable too. Let’s stop asking them to defend and start asking them to present, knowing in our hearts that they are up to the task. This emancipatory educational practice will lead youth to real academic freedom and success that needs no defense. Indigenous ways of knowing lack all defense. Indigenous warriors learn together and co-create knowledge that cascades and circles out, yet never needs defense.
Lily brought to her warrior intellectual presentation glory, joy, pride, achievement, and excellence – the characteristics of a warrior who leads. As bell hooks quotes Pema Chodron,
“‘My models were the people who stepped outside of the conventional mind and who could actually stop my mind and completely open it up and free it, even for a moment, from a conventional, habitual way of looking at things. . . . If you are really preparing for the reality of human existence, you are living on the razor’s edge, and you must become used to the fact that things shift and change. Things are not certain and they do not last and you do not know what is going to happen. My teachers have always pushed me over the cliff. . . .’”
Hooks goes on to say,
“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom, (hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1994).
Perhaps we can leave the warriors out of the equation. May future ARISE youth excel in their presence and in their Presentations of Possibility in Paradise.
Lily: Lead the Way!
Storyteller
Teresa Marie Sena
Teacher Effectiveness Coach
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy & Instruction
Teresa Marie Sena is an English language and literature studies educator and former Associated Press (AP) newswoman. She began her career in Denver, Colorado with Denver Public Schools. She believes that to disrupt social injustice we must provide opportunities for youth to engage in student-led learning opportunities and alternative assessment practices such as YPAR (youth participatory action research) that gives students voice and empowers them to take action and to incorporate music, art, science, math, and history into their daily learning events through a cognitive science approach to learning that focuses on critical consciousness and social-emotional learning. Currently, in her role as a Teacher Effectiveness Coach for Tucson Unified School District, Sena supports teachers in their development as culturally responsive practitioners in Tucson, Arizona where she has lived for the past seven years.
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