Ask Youth. Period.

PIE's 2020 Artist-in-Residence program (AIR) kicked off this past January, but was cut short as schools across the country closed due to COVID-19. Prior to the crisis, we partnered with educators at Burton International Middle School, University Prep Art and Design and Alternatives for Girls. Teaching artist Cyrah Dardas worked with middle school youth to explore the theme of learning environments. Although AIR programming has paused, we continue to glean insight from Cyrah and her work with young people. As such, we’re excited to share an interview we conducted with her just before the crisis.

Click the audio player below to hear Cyrah’s story of what happens when you “ask the questions that kids actually want to answer.”

Read a transcript of the interview here.

cyrah’s major keys

COVID-19 and its implications for schooling and learning push us to re-examine the purpose of education now more than ever. Simultaneously, families, students and educators are adjusting in real time to distance learning.  With that in mind, we have contextualized the take-a-ways from our conversation with Cyrah that are particularly poignant in this moment.

Click the image to check them out >>

More about cyrah

When Cyrah isn’t working with PIE, she’s creating visual art, curating art spaces and community organizing. She says her current focus is on connecting people physically and metaphysically.

“I'm interested in a collective consciousness,” she says. “And so I feel like because I have experienced something and I feel something, you have experienced it [...] so it's like being able to breathe and bridge connections between people.”

Cyrah’s personal art practice and her work with young people often connect.  Recently, she created a zine, “Practices in Adult Allyship,” inspired by the global youth leaders addressing climate change. 

“All of these social justice movements are essentially led by young people. And so for us to get out of our own way so that these young people can save [us], we need to start more intentionally practicing adult allyship.”

— Cyrah Dardas, PIE Teaching Artist

Open “Practices in Adult Allyship” here.

Re-imagining Resilience: A Practice

Illustration by Cyrah Dardas

“Like a small creature and its shell, we are born with resilience. It comes from within us and grows in us throughout our life. Our resiliency is uniquely our own. It can never be lost or taken and there will always be enough.”

- Cyrah Dardas, PIE Teaching Artist

COVID-19 has more implications for our education system -- and our lives -- seemingly every minute. In response, we’re leaning into our mission to support and inspire individual and collective processing. PIE is taking a moment to feel, to question and to reimagine. We’re observing this pause as an opportunity to connect with ourselves and others, to truly feel our universal kinship. As such, our team has created some tools for revisiting the concept of resilience in this unprecedented time of uncertainty. We invite you to join us in using these tools to cultivate a practice.

“Resilience is our ability to connect and cultivate our innate aliveness.”

— Alta Starr

resilience

A vital component of the Rida Institute is reflecting and planning around resilience.  We are mindful of its association with ideas like grit and how it can often be framed to make marginalized people responsible for their own oppression. To re-imagine the way we practice resilience, we glean insight from Alta Starr, a writer, organizer and lead teacher at Generative Somatics.

Her definition, “Resilience is our ability to connect and cultivate our innate aliveness,” reminds us that it’s something we have within ourselves and asks us to move beyond the idea of resilience as just survival.  It invites us to tap into what makes us feel alive.

a practice

Below is a collection of tools for supporting your resilience practice. We made it for you, your students, colleagues and loved ones. Adapt it, reflect on it and document (maybe creatively) what comes up.

Join us as we read a collective poem as an opening, grounding practice: 

Explore resilience with our video overview and zine:

Produced by Nate Mullen

Designed by Cyrah Dardas

Remember: We are in a particularly overwhelming and sensitive time. Give yourself grace and permission with this practice. What feels right for you at this time is right.

PIE Team on Resilience

Listen as Cyrah, Siobhan, Nate and Erin respond to what makes them feel creativity, awe, hope & love:

References

Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity  | Nick Cave | “To Be Whole”

Humanizing this Moment

“This being human is a guest house.” - Jellaludin Rumi

Dear PIE Community, 

Amid all that is rapidly changing with the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re taking time to pause and pivot. We are considering how best to show up in (virtual) space for each other and our community. And we’re remembering our Rida framework, which begins with focusing on the context within and outside learning spaces.

This crisis demands that we stop to process and adapt to our current context. As such, we are: 

• Working remotely and practicing social distancing until further notice. 

• Collaborating with our partners on supporting families, students and educators.

• Pausing all programming in schools and after school spaces.

During this time of uncertainty, it's easy (and human) to panic and lose sight of hope. Now that there is so much we can’t predict, we can focus on how we feel. This transition is hard for many, including all of us at PIE. We have felt grief, frustration, sadness and hopelessness. We have also felt gratitude for the presence and work of those around us, so we take this time to embrace and focus on our shared humanity. 

We continue to practice radical hope and look for joy, and we support you in doing the same. To start, check out a few resources below - and there’s more where these come from, so stay tuned.

Lastly, we invite you to pause and embrace being human with us as we read one of our favorite gems together, Rumi’s “The Guest House.”

If you think of anything to share, ask or affirm as we adapt and embrace this change, you can find us at pie@alliedmedia.org.

With love, 

The PIE Team