This fall our office helped welcome Dr. Bettina Love and Megan Red Shirt-Shaw to our virtual All-School Meetings
by LaShawn Springer
This fall, we were honored to welcome two virtual speakers to continue the conversations we initiated during our Community, Justice & Joy orientation. We kicked off the year with a commitment to prioritizing conversations around race and racism, anti-Blackness, intersectionality, power and privilege while leaving space for us to examine issues playing out in real time such as voting and voter suppression, continued disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on communities of color, immigrant communities, etc. and more.
Bettina Love, author of We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom, joined us for an All-School Meeting focused on Black joy and the need for intersectional approaches to liberation. Love also led a professional development workshop for the adult community focused on abolitionist teaching practices. Love’s session gave us an opportunity to consider our practices this fall with an eye toward building worlds that prioritize justice, joy and humanity. Our sincerest thanks to Bryan Villafana ‘21, Nnenne Okorie ‘22, Niya Harris ‘21 and Sophia Lee ‘21 for their roles during Love’s all-school meeting. Please also check out this video shared by Love during her presentation: Hell You Talmbout performed by the Northwest Tap Connection and Shakiah Danielson.
For Indigenous People’s Day, Megan Red-Shirt Shaw, Director of Native Student Services at the University of South Dakota & Founder of Natives In America, an online literary publication for Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian youth led a thoughtful all-school meeting on how we can honor Indigenous epistemologies and ways of knowing in all areas of life at Andover while recognizing and grappling with the legacies of settler colonialism. Our thanks to Donoma Frederickson ‘23 and Sarah Bace ‘21 for their role in our All-School meeting. Please also check out this video by Indomitable by DJ Shrub featuring the Northern Cree Singers.
