Chris:
Peace community. Welcome to the CARMA Chronicles podcast, where we speak to the nation’s leading healing centered practitioners. I’m your host Chris Nguon and today we have a real dope conversation for y’all. We’re going to be speaking with Cynthia Nambo, who is an amazing educator out of Chicago who has dedicated her professional career towards creating healing centered spaces in schools and communities for young people of color. Cynthia goes into her journey, her healing practices, and specifically some of her stragies that she has used over the years in community healing work. Our conversation, next.

Chris:
Cynthia. It is such a pleasure to speak with you. How are you doing today?

Cynthia:
I am doing awesome. I have the sun, plants around me. I'm just happy to be here.

Chris:
Absolutely and I'm happy to have you here on the Karma Chronicles podcast. Now you come out of Chicago for flourish agenda and for the work that we do here in Oakland. I'm so excited to learn more about the work that you are doing in Chicago and other healers are doing in Chicago as well because Chicago has such a rich history of social justice, rich history of uplifting culture, of uplifting meaning. All of our common principles is really exemplified in all the beautiful work that folks are doing in Chicago.

So just to kick us off, Cynthia, just tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, as an educator, as a mother, as a community healer. Just that the context for folks as we lead into our conversation today? 

Cynthia:
Well, I am what I call a [01:31 inaudible] innovator. I've been doing some stats work, identity work, and it seems to me that it encompasses in that short phrase. Born and raised in Chicago, probably in all of the Mexican neighborhoods you could think of in Chicago. I've been there, lived there for a moment in time. I have now roots in Pilsen, which was Mexican, an immigrant history for sure. Before us where the Czec and the Polish and now it's getting gentrified. So when I went to college, that was our goal as a first generation college student, it was our goal. And I thought that was just going to solve all my problems. And I was hit with the reality of how Mexicanas, Mexicanos, Latinos, Latinx, how they're perceived in terms of our intelligence and our education. And I didn't really understand it until I went to college. So it has really laid the groundwork. That experience has laid the groundwork of my healing as well as my agency to change the world and change myself.

Chris:
Yeah, thank you for that context Cynthia, and some of our healing center practitioners that are listening, Cynthia is quite aware of the healing centered engagement, karma principles, and that's something that she has integrated into her homework, and she's actually created a generative assessment practice that we'll get into in a bit as well. But Cynthia, thank you so much for that context. And as you're talking about how you grew up in Chicago and your neighborhood and how that resonated with you, I'm curious right now in 2020, in Chicago in the work that you do, how would you describe how healing work really shows up in Chicago right now?

Cynthia:
So how it shows up, there are multi-facets to it, back in the day, healing was thought about much more as triage and individualized and very wound centered. And on some level, when you're thinking about healing, that's not physical. But I actually think physical and spiritual and emotional and mental and racial is all intricately connected. However, there are different things going on in Chicago and we've individualized it and we're still shedding that concept. And so when people kind of talk about maybe healing in the workplace or healing in school, people are like, wait a minute, that's from my psychologist or my therapist or my social worker or for meds. That that stigma is still, there is still a part of the mindset. And so we need to start to shed and especially in terms of racial healing, that seems to still don't have an aspect of it.

But we have an organization here that's working on racial healing across the city and that's in organizations, that's in community. It is in affinity groups, racial affinity groups, or other identities in affinity group and across difference and across affinity groups. So that's like one component. Another is some people because of gender I have to say and some of the justice work that has been happening, people are starting to integrate that into the schools. What it's morphed. What it has started into, it's like restorative justice practices. That's still not a full healing circle. It's still centered in the trauma informed practices, but it's starting to morph into and start to encompass healing and even more indigenous practices. So there are indigenous groups here in Chicago that work to do healing circles. 

 When I was a principal of a social justice high school, we integrated that into all of our work restorative justice circles, really trying to get at conflict as healing because really we're trying to shed perception, mindsets and give new skill sets. So that's some of what's going on. There's much more.

Chris:
Oh, I believe it. And I'm really looking forward to even dive in deeper, but let's just keep it right there. When you were a principal of a social justice school, which just sounds amazing in so many ways, I'm curious, because there are a lot of healing practitioners who are listening and folks who are really interested in healing work, who are listening. How did you have conversations with your staff, with your community members? Because I imagine some of the practices are so, so different from how educators are traditionally trained in these teaching credential programs, how even social workers and support staff are trained and how to approach work with young people. You mentioned that they're integrating of healing circles and all of those practices. So I'm really curious, how did you cultivate that culture in your school, which was really successful and what are some of the conditions that you recognize where you notice and you pinpoint it like, yeah, we're ready to really do this?

Cynthia:
That's such an interesting question. Alright. Again, multifaceted, multidimensional. And one of the things that I think is really important in terms of the karma principles for flourish agenda, like you have the categories of care, agency, relationships, meaning and another level of agency. First of all, agency and social justice are just very much aligned. What was exciting was the first year I got in, I kind of kept it pretty much because I didn't want to take and shift things so quickly that people were blindsided. But after that year it was basically a whole other model of a school with some still traditional structures, because I had to be able to explain it to the state or the strict or the city. And that young people could have their credit, but I was trying to morph us, move us, evolve us right into something that would be more of a healing space.

Now, one of the concepts that I brought in by Dr. Teresa Perry, he did a lot of studies on looking at pre-civil rights and how from the structure or infrastructure of slavery and then trying to create communities, black communities that were helping each other advance and to find their worth and their humanity because the society and the government wasn't doing it. She kind of coined, or actually just gave depth to this counter narrative process. And then that's the concept that I used to train the staff. And so we were looking at what are the elements that could really transform the school to encompass that conflict. Conflict is actually pretty natural and because we're avoiding it or trying to smash it, or we engage in violence as our skillset that we've learned, then it creates much more havoc and more destruction and much more need for healing.

 So instead of smashing conflict, it's how do we embrace the conflict, lean in, shed perception and really do the work of connecting to each other and rebuild and there's a concept that I brought to the school of [09:19 inaudible] and [09:20 inaudible] in Spanish [09:22 spanish], when you are in agreement, it's not like the word in English. Me and you agree, it's all good. No, [09:29 spanish] means I stand with you. I agree with you. And I stand with you and I stand for your humanity. And so you go into the conflict and it's kind of a process of engaging in the conflict and then coming up with being like in agreement, how we're going to move now forward in humanity and with respect and honor. 

 So how did we do that? The school already had restorative justice integrated, but it was very compartmentalized. So instead of just compartmentalizing it, it's like how do we put it throughout the school? And again, going back to the karma principles, how are we embedding care? How are we making sure there's agency in the school and the structures of the school help that relationships? How do we make meaning together? And so the restorative justice increased the counseling staff. We have young people who have traditionally not done well in school, or they got sick, so they couldn't be in a traditional school setting so it was an alternative school. And we turned that into a competency base, restorative justice embedded system. And so we didn't have grades because grades punish, they do not grow. 

 So we wanted to try to create counter narratives. Ways by which the narrative always tells us to engage with each other, which continues to harm. So how do we create the counter narrative? So we had statuses instead of grades, we had things that we targeted to be able to grow people. And when there was conflict, we had circles and the circles always fueled the way that we could move through the conflict and then come together again in humanity. I'm going to stop right there. Maybe you have a question you want to pull out any other details because it was a massive, beautiful multidimensional model.

Chris:
Wow. No, that is so deep and beautiful. And I just want to continue to dive in and thank you so much for that context. One of the things that as I'm listening to you, when we're talking about the multidimensional model, you're really talking about ecosystem. How do we change an entire ecosystem in your case about a school community to really dive deep into this healing work. If I'm a practitioner, one of the things that I'm kind of aiming for and thinking of, let's say I'm listening and I'm a teacher, I'm a social worker and I'm deep into ACE work, but I'm not quite a principal yet or I don't see myself in a leadership position necessarily traditionally. What if I say Miss Nambo, that sounds beautiful. And thank you for your leadership and being able to model that. But what is your suggestion for me? I'm just one person, one staff within a huge school staff who really believes this in my core, but my school is very traditional. How would you offer suggestions for that practitioner to start to cultivate and have these conversations where we can say y'all, there's actually an additional way where we can do this to help our young people. What would your suggestion be to that practitioner?

Cynthia:
Well definitely. I mean, it's kind of part of my day job to think about things like that. I also work for the network for college success now after being a leader and after being an educator. And so we work with high schools to figure out how to create systems of equity. So what would I suggest to a principal and this may be within this model or outside of this model because I coach other people too. And so one of the first things and let's use the karma principles as a way. I've used other things, but it's so aligned to the karma principles. So one of the things and it's actually what's helping me come up with more of an assessment practice centered on healing but for this principle I will come up with essential questions. The essential questions, a lot of people get real mixed up with the essential questions, being fluffy and out there, but they are containers. 

And so for a practitioner, I would basically do asset mapping. So what do I have in my building now? What are the things I feel are aligned to moving in that direction? Where are they at? So that's the asset mapping. What is not? And what that is not aligned to that path is harming students right now. And then you start to zone in and then you go, okay. So if it's in grading, I'm going to ask myself some of these karma questions, if you will. I came up with something. 

So the values care, the way flourish agenda defines it is the values and norms that connect us to a shared identity. So do I have a shared identity in my building? How then, and then I turn those into questions. What is going on in the school and how do I turn it into a shared values and norms? And so you could actually do some, we called it [14:56 inaudible]. In my high school, what are our [14:58 spanish]? What are our agreements to be able to move forward? And that's one of the first things I did in the school. So that's one of the first things a principal can do. What are your values? What are your agreements on how to move forward and what is our shared identity? And that needs to start to be a part of the conversation.

If it's around grading, then one of the first things you could do, if you want a system that's going to heal and there are definitely phases. I'm coming up with some of that too, but get rid of those zeros. Those zeros do not work. You could go into research. They are out there in the world. That zero is a weight of 50%. And when you have mistakes now that's also a part of healing, the wounds and the mistakes are part of healing. And you've got to go in those mistakes and say, why did I'm make a mistake? Oh, this is giving me insight. It's giving me pathways to how to do something better. But if we give 50% weight to that mistake, then where is the learning? It's actually just punishment. So get rid of those zero, start doing 50%. Now, to me, that's minimal because that's still, even when you get rid of that 50% weight, there is still harm in those grades.

And we continue to train our young people. They are not worth it and they are not the standard and they are not worthy of success. I would flip that and probably start asking the question, how do my practices, like ask a teacher, how do your practices create success for a young person? How do your practices give knowledge of self to that student or knowledge of whatever knowledge you want them to have? That's maybe a start. But I would turn those karma principles into questions and start zoning in on what it is that you could lever and change in your school right now. You don't have to do it all, but at least it's a pathway to healing.

Chris:
Thank you so much for that. And what you started to describe there and really give us so much wisdom and knowledge to, was really align with the generative assessment practice that you created. And one of my curiosities as I'm looking through this, which is just a beautiful, beautiful model that you've created. What was your background and your intention and what was your desire to create this model? So you've seen it, you execute it, you've seen it work, but what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing from you is, this can work anywhere in any setting. In schools, in communities, in churches, in anywhere where healing can happen and where our communities deserve healing in every way. So I was just curious to dive into that a little bit. Like what was your kind of thinking about, oh, this is something that I can create and teach other folks and model for other folks and be in space with my fellow community members to really think about healing work in this way.

Cynthia:
I'll be honest with you. It's my justice work. As a young person, I have experienced a lot of trauma. Growing up in the neighborhoods. And while we're in the neighborhoods they are under resourced. They are not set up for success. And that is not something that is our fault. Now, is it our responsibility to change and transform? Yes, but it is not our fault. There is a system behind it. And so I kept thinking about, remember when I told you I went to college and and imagine this little 17 year old Mexican chick like skipping down the quad at [18:49 inaudible] and I'm sitting there, like, I don't want to be a statistic because that's how I grew up. I didn't want to be pregnant or be a gang member. That is how the system trained me to think and say that my success is not being that. Now that is being inhumane and that is perpetuating injustice.

But that was my thought process at the moment. But then when I got on the quad and started to experience white folks, white structures, all I kept feeling was punished and punished and punished and punished. And I was sitting there thinking to myself, why aren't I smart enough? Why aren't I good enough? And then, right before going to campus, I had a mentor. She was an Afro Puerto Rican woman and she gave me books galore. One of those books was the Bluest Eye. And that book, it just opened up so much for me. And I don't think I was processing it all until I got to campus. And then I started to realize that while I am brown and I am not black, I was darker than most of my family. And I attributed my intelligence and my worthiness to that color and to my gender and to my situation in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

And I just basically felt unworthy of success. I stopped myself. There was one point where I stopped myself and I said, well, wait a minute. And started to injustice work. I started an organization called [20:35 inaudible] so that as Latinas, we could really start delving into what all of that was about because we are in trauma, that's trauma, that's all that was, was trauma. And it's systematic trauma. Interpersonal trauma, just like flourish agenda educates us to think about. And I was thinking, I got to change that in me, but it made me realize, and I didn't know until now I have the articulation now, that's the system working in me. That's the system that makes me oppress myself and oppress others. And I have to, and I had to figure out how do we change that shift?

How do we move and transform in a way that we really tap into our genius? And so that was that little girl. There's another little girl, but today we'll talk about the 17 year old and then on my journey to think about education. And then I started to really understand myself as a learner. And then that brought me to my neighborhood and working in schools and then holding myself accountable to finding the way that young people could find their own voice through my practices as a teacher. And I used to think it was curriculum. And now I know it's assessment.

Chris:
I used to think it was work as a teacher. And now you know it's an assessment for sure, for sure. And that goes back to that community work that we talk about, that ecosystem. Miss Nambo, you are so dope. You are so dope. This is amazing. This is amazing knowledge that you're dropping right now. 

Cynthia:
We are dope. 

Chris:
Yes, we are dope. And that amazingly leads me to my next question as well, because one of the things that I was going to the comment on is I hear a lot of we in everything you're saying. I hear a lot of us. I don't hear a lot of I and just a little bit of a tangent antidote, Dr. Jen Wright, he was on a talk, a couple weeks ago that I was on and he pushed back against this notion of self-care because one of the things that Dr. Jen Wright lifted up was not that self-care isn't important, but when we're talking about healing work, self-care, and the notion of this term self pulls away the institution's responsibility to also make steps for our collective care. So with Dr. Jen Wright offers, let's start using the term collective care because it doesn't dissolve the responsibility of the institution itself and other relationships to also be invested in our collective care as well.

And I thought that was a beautiful framework. And you talk so much right now in our conversation and our previous conversations about how healing and the ecosystem of healin is really the key to be able to cultivate these learnings and to be able to cultivate these journeys for people within our communities that we love. I'm curious too, to kind of get a little deep in we's here. What are some of the things that you think folks get wrong about healing work? And if we're using asset based language, wrong might not be the word, but also healing work can be misrepresented in a lot of ways. So where do you see that there's potential growth and needed growth when we're thinking about how folks approach healing work, maybe as something that they think is what it is, but maybe it's not, or just generally where we can continue to push ourselves as well.

Cynthia:
And thank you so much for that reframe, because that is one of the things that is another way that someone can tangibly start working in their own schools or their own organization, is how they start to reframe in asset based language. Because asset based language is what's going to grow. And that's one of the other concepts that I came up with, as a principal or it might have been right before I was a principal because I was coaching principals in schools, but it's [24:47 inaudible] it's a word in Spanish. And it means more than nutrition, but it's like, what you put in is what comes out. So [24:56 spanish] then we got to be in that frame and we got to feed ourselves in a way that talks about growth. So thank you for that reframe. And you got me a bit emotional Chris, I just have to say I'm okay right now I have recovered, but you got me emotional when you were talking about Jen Wright and this is why I love his work.  

I think it was about two years ago when I first heard of him and I was thinking, oh my God, there's so much alignment to the work I've done in the past and where I want to go. And that collective care, let's be honest people don't want to take that responsibility. And it is not that they don't want to. It is that they have been trained in a way to be individualized. And that self care is important. And it is important for people doing work in neighborhoods and doing work with restorative justice and in healing work. But it has turned, so the habit in the past is about trauma, wounded and individual like you are clinically diagnosed and we got to compartmentalize you and you got to take care of business. 

And now because we are unlearning, and this is another thing that I brought to the school and trained the staff on is that there's an unlearning part. If you're going to create a counter narrative and you want the road to liberation and you want the road to healing, then you have to unlearn the white supremacy patriarchy, all the isms, you've gotta unlearn it. It's in all of us. As we are shedding, it's still starting to look individualized. And so self-care is important, but self care and this is a concept, one of the competencies I came up with and there are six, but one of the competencies, one of our little bullets in it. And we made that academic and social emotional, is who are you in relationship to the world? And what is the world in relationship to you? And your individual healing is important for the collective healing and your collective healing is important for your individual healing. Again, an open system, an ecosystem. So we have to do our work, but if that is it alone, then again, it gets compartmentalized and you're not actually really healing, feeling good in the moment. Now you need the next moment.

But if it comes off as a system, and this is another piece I talk about, but very differently, I'm going to bring it to this zone right now, is the fractal zone. The fractal zone is what are your principles and your values, and how does that, if it's healing, how does that fractal out? Because what fractals are is like a ratio and that ratio repeats, but it expounds and expands and it will do so swiftly and it will [28:06 inaudible], it will grow. It will nutrition us to the point where we heal. So I really feel that we have to think about that collective healing and let's be real. In organizations, even justice organizations and our schools. And this is one of the reasons why I'm really trying to engage in this generative assessment. I used to call it competency based. I'm done with that, it's generative because you've got to get a way and pivot, like we have our new book from Jen Wright, how are we pivoting from transactional to transformational? And how are we not hustling? How are we flowing? 

And that is the generative assessment is, how are we fractaling it out? So that what I do with myself as an adult and I'm engaged in my healing fractals and causes collective healing. So thank you for that question and the way you framed it. And, and thank you for giving me that story for Jen Wright. Of course, like makes me respect you all even more again, but thank you very much. Let's keep that rolling and let's keep that flow in.

Chris:
Absolutely. No, I appreciate that. And that's really what we're trying to lift up here at Flourish  Agenda as well. And again, this is why we started this podcast and speaking with beautiful practitioners, such as yourself Cynthia, and not only in Chicago, but all over the country, it's this collective healing that we're leaning in. This reframe of how we're thinking about how healing work can show up, that not only is about the individual, but about the collective harm and healing of all of us together on a role to liberation as we undo and unlearn a lot of these systems, that oppression that has really tricked us and bamboozled with us into believing what it can and what it can't be. So I appreciate you as well and all the work that you've done. 

And I'm curious too, because as we're talking about this work and the beautiful work you did as educator, and now in your day to day work and helping schools integrate a lot of this stuff. There are practitioners that we've talked to in the past, even recently that be like, again, this sounds great. And I love the work. I don't know if I think my institution can really change, but I'm curious, how did young people really respond, when you work with them and with this work, what were their stories? If there's one or two that stood out to you because I think that's really ultimately what we do it for, is the restoration and the healing of our community, specifically our young people of color and their families. 

But I know young people resonate with this work because we've seen it at Flourish Agenda and you've seen it Miss Nambo, but what are some of the stories that young people talk to you now, maybe that you worked with them in the past, or even in a moment when they really started to connect those dots, as you did, when you read the Bluest Eye? What are some of the things that they really talk to you about?

Cynthia:
Well, you just got me emotional again. That's my heart space is our young people. And with my children included my daughters. There are so many stories and let me pick one. So we had a young man and he just was not doing well in the traditional setting. Now let's be honest, he wasn't set up for success. So let's be real in the sense that it wasn't just up to him. The system wasn't embracing him and he's gone through various different points of trauma of which I will not share because I have not asked his permission, but really, really hard stuff, has seen stuff, has seen death. So one of the things I knew in my school, that kids weren't going to come to school yet, we had to prove ourselves to them because the system, they're just interacting with the system they've been engaged in.

And so when a young person doesn't show up to school, doesn't do their homework. Let's be real. That's not necessarily all on them. How have we set them up for success? So he started coming in late. So then we work with him on that part. Now he's coming to school, we had this element of advisory called Familia. And that was prior to when I was there, but we expanded it when I was there because then we aligned it to our competencies at that time, is what we called it. Going through circles, engaging in conflict in Familia or with other students from classes, even with teachers. We even engaged in it with ourselves. We even engaged with it from student to teacher, to counselor. I mean, even community members, if something would happen out in the world. 

He started to take that. And at first let's be honest, they don't believe us, but we kept institutionalizing the care. We kept responding. Like they would say F you to me. And I'd say, I love you back. And let me tell you, it was a response. They were like, I don't know what to do with this. But it was again, how do we keep them connected? And in those circles, they already knew. They knew if something would happen in the school, we're going to have a circle. And in the circle, sometimes that's the harder part because you're engaged with each other and you learn how to move through the conflict. I have a method to it, no matter what's going on, you deescalate, you shift perspective and then you coach, that's how you do it. It's a rhythm and a flow. And so we would engage in that. And this young man said that he took it to his family and ask them to engage in it every Friday at home. That's how I know it worked.

Chris:
Wow. That's amazing. 

Cynthia:
That's how I know. That's one story.
 
Chris:
One of many I'm sure, one of many in the power of this healing work, but thank you again for sharing and for holding space for that young person and all the young people that you work with in the past and really highlighting the power of this works, Cynthia. And how that power stems from the agency of the person themselves and how the collective healing can really create the conditions where agency and meaning really integrate into each other and how it can show up for young people as well. That is a beautiful, beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. 

And one of the things that I'm curious too, Cynthia, how do you see healing work continue to evolve over the next two years, five years, both in terms of what you desire, which is what you've already talked about, to a certain extent? This generative practice of how we can assess where we need to go to continue to heal in our institutions, in our communities. But how do in general, you also see healing work evolving over the next five years or so. Where do you see it both happening in Chicago and all over the country and even the world?

Cynthia:
Well, I definitely see it in the liberatory design work that is across the country at this point. It has been around, it has evolved and matured. Pre-civil, from the practices of our black and brown communities every day that had to face a system that did not value them and dehumanize them and would kill us. In the face of that we had to still build ourselves up. And so I feel like those practices have been around. Now they're just getting more infrastructures. Now they're starting to spread. So I would say definitely in the liberatory practices that are happening, schools now are starting to say, we need to be asset-based. We need to be incorporating student voice. 

I was just coaching someone and they were like, how do I amplify my young people and make sure that it's not just voice, like input, but they are actually getting engaged with decision making. And they're seeing themselves as the actors of that decision, the agents if you will, of that decision. And so I'm seeing it in schools, I'm seeing it on instructional teams. I'm seeing it in counselors. Racial healing circles are happening in Chicago and across the world. I feel like now our native practices are starting to come and become more of the center. We gotta be careful they're not being appropriated, but they're actually being used for our healing and our humanities. 
 
I'm starting to see it with police, with like one of the books, with our grandmother's hands and how we're trying to also start to look at what that system does and what it promotes and what it harms and what it hurts and what it kills and how we can transform that and create other possibilities within our own community so that we heal ourselves. I see it in affinity groups in the Latinx community, seeing it within the Latinx community when we face our own ways that we oppress in the system with our black-skinned, Latinx brothers and sisters and siblings and how that actually manifests as well. So there are just so many. I mean, Jen Wrights work, it's one of the things that I really try to push and make sure that you all were able to come to Chicago and do the work that you're doing. 
 
Again, a beautiful model, like the adults got to heal and that's [38:23 inaudible] our young people and we're creating an ecosystem then. So I can't wait to see more of the work from flourish agenda in Chicago and in our schools. And I think it's also coming into our community-based organizations and in other organizations of like, how do we really, like people are coming in and asking for people to come in and do racial healing circles and other things, other circles that really address harm in terms of positional power, in terms of ableism and all of those things. So I'm seeing it all over the place. 
 
I cannot wait until I really have some prototype to share with people on this generative assessment piece because one of the things that I have not mentioned yet on this, is this generative assessment system. It is to deeply listen to our young people and you can take that into the workplace. And instead of, let's be honest in the workplace, it's kind of person by person leader by leader. And whether that group wants to engage or not in creating a collective and sometimes that [39:35 inaudible] power, that positional power creates clicks. So I'm hoping that in the evaluation system, it grows into that, but I'm going to start with our young people because that's who we need to advance and amplify at the moment.

But how do we deeply listen our young people and how do we help them deeply listen to themselves and how do we get them to articulate what their growth points are? Because I don't believe in what's wrong and what's right because that's messed us up in the world. The right becomes the white standard way, male, patriarchy stuff. So it's really, how can they actually talk about themselves and their skills, their competencies and how do they grow it themselves? So that deep listening is us listening to them. And then how does that help us listen to ourselves? So some of the key question in the generative assessment piece, oh I can't even see it because of this screen in the back,

Chris:
It's cool. Pull it up. But as you pull it up, because I would love for you to share a couple of those questions because our practitioners ask all the time, this is beautiful, but how do I do this? And one of the things that we emphasize at flourish is you already have it in you. And I bet you, as you evaluate some of the tools and as we say assessment, but even self-assessment, you're already embodying a lot of this healing centered engagement work. So I think it's just about a reframe about how we're thinking of about our work and how we're modeling it and talking about it with other people, as we build a community of folks who are really interested in healing work as well. So yeah, I love the context that you're really bringing out and really deconstructing here.

Cynthia:
And I really appreciate you lifting that out because that's exactly one of the things you could do tomorrow, have young people assess themselves, have young people appear assess, and then coach them around the language. Is it asset based language or is it deficient based language? You could do that already. Take that 50% weight off the zero. Again, you could do that tomorrow. But one of the key questions that I ask in this generative model and this is the broad critical question. Do your assessment practices heal? Okay. Say yes or no, let's be honest. Okay. Maybe, I don't know. Let's look for it. Let's look for it because possibility is there. So do they inform young people and yourself about what to reflect, what specifically they need to reflect on and how they can grow.

For, guess what? Themselves and yourself as an educator because that's one of the things as an educator, I did. I was so lucky. I was able to create an assessment system and implement it and my goal, and this is another piece that I use. I didn't have it in this document necessarily. But one of the things I used to tell myself, if young people could talk about their own skills than I have done my job, they have learned. I have done what I need to do. So I try to always figure out how do I do that? That's all I did. I didn't have like this thing that someone gave me and I could just implement it. I saw what was around me. I saw what was in me. And then I said, I have to grow in this direction.

How do I grow? How do I learn more about my young people? Do they inform young people on what they know? Do they give young people knowledge of themselves and the collective. Do they leverage deep, systemic, reflective practices that will sustain beyond you? They're going to pick it up in their own repertoire. Do they undo micro aggressions? And that's something I want to lift up. Dr. Doretta Hammond on. She has some of that in her work on culturally responsive education. And she says in there, you got to give young people feedback. And so figure out how you organize yourself to give young people feedback and that feedback, if it's just you to them, that's a hierarchy again. And that's oppression again and that's going to harm again. 

So mix it up, have young people give each other feedback, give them a [44:04 inaudible] give them sentence stems, whatever. Is it asset-based language? Are they undoing the microaggressions? Because if our young people and ourselves, we have been going through this system of education and that system of education is research based and proven that it was a system of doctrination indoctrination. Then we need to figure out how to undo that. And so how do we get in there that proving like that little girl that was skipping down the quad and then had her moments of like, oh my God, I am not me. I am not worthy of this institution and postsecondary option. And oh my God, I'm not good enough. We need to undo that. Do your assessment practices undo those microaggressions and those micro assaults? And if they don't, what do you do to pivot? Where do you move to flow?

Chris:
That's beautiful. What do we do to pivot and where do we move the flow? And that really comes out of Dr. Jen Wright's new book, the four pivots as we're talking about that addiction to frenzy. But Cynthia, I think you're absolutely right. And thank you so much for that context because it's a lot of undoing. It's a lot of introspection on how our individual practices need to be undone, our relationships and institutions as well as we recognize that harm happens on very small scales and very large scales. And they're both interconnected in so many ways. 

Cynthia, this has been just a beautiful conversation and we can unpack for hours and hours because at flourish agenda this is what we love to do. This is why I love being at flourish agenda and what we've been doing at flourish for three decades now with young people at Camp Akeley and the family camp and all of this work. But I really want to thank you for your time. And as we close, I always ask this question to every healer that we talk to. What is your healing practice now? And as you answer that question, any final parting thoughts for our audience who are listening.

 Cynthia:
I've been on this healing journey for a minute. And one of the things that I think is important, the collective healing is key. And so that's where I'm at right now. I'm looking for that collective healing. I'm looking at it not only on the conscious level, but on the somatic level, on the unconscious level. And as I described that 17 year old skipping down the quad, even before that I was on that journey and I was still trying to figure it out. So I journal, I reflect, I take experiences and then I look at what sides it has and how I could find power in it, where is the lever to pivot. And I spend time with my daughters and let me tell you, I don't speak to this just because I had that experience when I was 17, I see it in my daughters and I've seen it in their education.

And there are some times where I just want to rip my hair out because of what they have experienced in the school system and how it keeps communicating to them, they are not worthy and they are not worth it. And I have to keep thinking, I know as a parent, that's why I have the passion and the fortitude and the love to be able to transform the system. So thinking about their education has been healing and I try to figure out, I love that. My girls think about education. They think about like, they go into a classroom and they'll break it down in terms of what might be going on in the world and in the systems that have caused things to happen to this point. They will talk about race. They'll talk about gender, ableism. They'll talk about heterosexism.

The gender oppression that's out there and they will educate me. So that's another piece. So not only do I give them, but they give me and I learn from them and that's how I was as an educator. That's how I was as a principal. This part I have not shared with you, but this is a parting piece, bell hooks educated me so much as a young person. 

Chris:
That abolitionist work. Yes, absolutely.

Cynthia:
And she introduced me to [48:53 inaudible] and both them and others, she kinda revolutionaries as well. They just opened my mind up to what it means to really invest in yourself and proxies it means you go through, we came up with a proxies model for the high school and it's a reflection model. And it's that piece of fractal zone that I came up with. How are you always in the same principle and value and going deeper? And then that will make something emerge that you didn't know, but because you got the right questions and you got the right passion and you're learning from those mistakes, it will tell us where to go. And that's what I feel like we need to have with our young people. How are we having that relationship with our young people so they're reflective and they are going deep and they will tell us where to go. And that's what heals me. 

Those are my healing practices. Aside from dancing, because dancing is just what has always saved me as a young person to now that's the somatic healing is the dancing, the drums, the music, like those are the pieces that we need to continue to be able to do by ourselves and in the collective, reflect together, heal together, engage in conflict in a way that heals together. And how are we with young people because they keep giving me life and knowledge. So thank you for asking that question and I'm going to keep on that path. And thank you Chris so much for this time together.

Chris:
100 appreciations because together we flourish, both at flourish agenda with what we are doing in Chicago with Cynthia and the great work that she's doing all over the nation and the world as well. Continue to spread this healing, work, everybody. And Cynthia, thank you so much for your time today. I know you have so much love and passion for our communities and you embody it and model it so authentically, so great appreciations to you and to all of our listeners as well thank you so much and until next time, peace and love y'all. Thank you.