March Updates + Goodies

Nowruz Mubarak Azizams!

Wishing you the sweetest spring, and the happiest new year. I’m writing to share a few updates.

• The National Art Education Association’s 2022 Conference in NYC was amazing. I was incredibly honored to receive the inaugural Agent of Change in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award. I don’t often feel ‘imposter syndrome,’ but hearing Wanda B. Knight and James H. Rolling deliver this award had me lowkey panicking.

• NAEA22 also unknowingly hosted the first in person meeting of the Adding Voices 2022 Conference planning committee. Adding Voices is a national event that “explicitly centers the experiences and expertise of art educators who identify as Black, Brown, Indigenous, or part of the Global Majority” and prioritizes anti-racist, culturally responsive arts teaching at all levels. I hope you’ll join us at Moore College in October!

• The California Art Education Association’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission has been incredibly action-focused this year, and we are gearing up to host a town hall to reveal our calls to action and a draft of our strategic plan. Stay tuned.

• Have you participated in #k12ArtChat on twitter? The Creativity Department recently invited me to host a twitter chat for arts educators, and I of course mainly asked questions about whiteness in art education :) The Grundlers and I then had a very courageous conversation about my work for their #k12ArtChat Podcast. Release date tbd.

• This month’s substack resource is almost done - it focuses on how we might use the characteristics of white supremacy culture as a reflection tool for our own school cultures and teaching practices. If this is a new concept for you, please check out Tema Okun’s original article first. I’m currently adding images, formatting, and trying to make a very dense article feel light and hopeful - Wish me luck!

Alisha receiving the Agent of Change Award, from NAEA president James Rolling

Some things bringing me joy right now:

• What I’m Reading: Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

• What I’m Watching: 2044 Series: Anti-racist Praxis as Futurist Art and Design Pedagogy (The organizers gave an AMAZING workshop at NAEA, and so I’m actually rewatching the series right now)

• What I’m Learning: Composting, and gardening with a toddler!

Appreciate you all for being here. I love getting to chat with you all in a longer form, away from the metaverse.

Azadi (freedom),

Alisha