ILLUSTRATION BY RINI TEMPLETON

Dialog for the Occupy Spring

New Village Press is proud to partner with Arbor Café to present the first in the Insurgent Learning Series: Dialog for Occupy Spring!

Please join us on May 15 at 6:30 pm at the Arbor Café, located at 4210 Telegraph Ave (between 42nd St & 43rd St) in Oakland, where activists Francisco “Pancho” Ramos Stierle, Adelaja Simon, and Reverend Phil Lawson will discuss “The Ahimsa (R)evolution: Ways to Disobey with Great Love.”

Reverend Phil Lawson is a veteran Civil Rights activist who serves on the Organizing Committee for the National Council of Elders. As a community organizer, Phil has been engaged in issues concerning immigrants, human and sexual freedom, a just wage for workers, and economic development. He has been hosting a study group on Nonviolent Social Change with interfaith ministers of Occupy Oakland.

Adelaja Simon stopped cooperating with business school to become a permaculturist. He lives in the Canticle Farm community in East Oakland, where he knows, grows, and loves local food and is an extraordinary singer and vegan cook. Adelaja focuses his activism in human rights, environmental regeneration, restorative justice, peacebuilding, urban agriculture, and a vibrant gift economy.

Pancho Ramos Stierle (and Adelaja, his housemate,) were arrested November 14, 2011, during the police raid on Occupy Oakland, while both were meditating. Raised in Mexico City, Pancho came to UC Berkeley to study astrophysics in the PhD program but stopped cooperating with the university when he realized his research was supporting an institution that actively proliferates nuclear weapons. He faces a deportation hearing this May and brings unique views about his own arrest and the Occupy movement.

— It is time to disobey with Great Love. Do it beautifully and be informed. —

We’d also like to share the exciting news of the brand new International School Grounds Alliance. From the press release:

New international group forms to address an increasingly sedentary and risk-averse generation of children disconnected from nature.

Growing school grounds movement gains international voice with formation of The International School Grounds Alliance.
Berkeley, California (April 24, 2012) – Organizations working to enrich the lives of children through outdoor learning and play have a new global school ground network where they can turn for ideas and support.

Leaders in the school ground movement from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States have formed the nonprofit International School Grounds Alliance (ISGA) (www.internationalschoolgrounds.org), which brings together a wealth of experience in the fields of school ground use, design, education and management around the globe. The ISGA invites likeminded organizations and professionals to become members and collaborate to nurture and grow the international movement to help schools make the most of learning and play opportunities on their grounds.

“Children around the world, growing up in very different environments and cultural settings, all need engaging childhood learning and play experiences for healthy development and enjoyment,” says ISGA co-founder Sharon Danks of Bay Tree Design in California. “The ISGA is not only a resource, but is also a call to action for teachers, parents, and students to go outside, improve their school grounds and explore the world first-hand.”

The ISGA believes that school grounds should:
* provide powerful opportunities for hands-on learning
* nurture students’ physical, social and emotional development and wellbeing
* reflect and embrace their local ecological, social and cultural context
* embrace risk-taking as an essential component of learning and child development
* be open public spaces, accessible to their communities

The ISGA does this by:
* focusing on the way school grounds are used, designed and managed
* facilitating a dialogue about innovative research, design, education and policy
* fostering partnerships between professionals and organizations across the globe
* organizing international conferences, gatherings and other programs
* advocating for student and school community participation in the design, construction and stewardship of school grounds
* promoting the value of enriched school grounds as uniquely positioned, engaging environments for children

We are honored to have played a supporting role by co-hosting the Conference and of course by publishing Sharon’s book, Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation and hope you will join is in congratulating her and spreading this important message.

Community Built Association 2012 Conference, May 30–June 2 in Portland, Oregon!

The Community Building in the Urban Village conference seeks to expand and deepen the practice of community engagement through the lenses of art, play, nature, and the built environment. The conference is intended for anyone who is interested in engaging their community in collaborative works—from experts in the field to those exploring this way of working. It’s a place to share ideas, learn from each other, and get inspired to bring community building to your own city and neighborhood. The event will include engaging speakers, hands-on workshops, and tours of Portland’s fantastic community-built spaces. Come join us in Portland, Oregon, from May 30 to June 2, 2012!

The 2012 CBA conference will feature discussions about community-engaged architecture, landscape architecture, and planning from amazing teachers and practitioners:

Steve Badanes is widely known for his practice and teaching of design/build. He is a founding member of the Jersey Devil design/build practice and is currently a Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington. www.jerseydevildesignbuild.com

Mark Lakeman is founder of Communitecture, and has been a leader in galvanizing a movement of community place-makers through his work with the City Repair Project. communitecture.net, cityrepair.org/

Mikenko Matanovic is the founder of the Pomegranate Center, which works with communities to create beautiful gathering places in a true participatory practice. www.pomegranatecenter.org

Gwynne Pugh’s Urban Studio specializes in urban design, planning, sustainability and consultation and is responsible for facilitating the park featured in the award-winning documentary The Park that Kids Built. www.gwynnepugh.com

Daniel Winterbottom is a distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, and focuses on creating healing/restorative landscapes through participatory design/build. arch.be.washington.edu

Many sessions will focus on schools, parks, and other environments for children and will feature some amazing presentations that address the use of community engagement to create and enhance children’s play spaces:

Sharon Danks & Lisa Howard, principals of Bay Tree Design, are trailblazers in the green schoolyard movement. They will showcase examples of green schoolyard transformation around the world and talk about their firm’s work to engage school communities through an in-depth participatory design process that empowers parents, school staff, and students to work together and become stewards of their shared environments. www.baytreedesign.com

Tom Arie Donch has been creating sculptural play environments for thirty-two years: from public parks, playgrounds, and skate parks to public art, monuments, nature trails, children’s’ hospitals, and interactive museum exhibits. www.interplaydesign.com

Rusty Keeler, author and founder of Planet Earth Playscapes, will lead a hands-on workshop to transform the outdoor play area at the Mt. Tabor Preschool. www.earthplay.net

Mike Lanza, author and founder of Playborhood, will examine the state of free play in our neighborhoods, share examples of successful neighborhood “hang-outs”, and talk about how to create a more playful urban environment. www.playborhood.com

More information is available at: http://communitybuilt.org/conference/portland_2012

Please help us spread the word by forwarding this announcement! Thanks!

Contact:
Katherine Ball
Co-coordinator, CBA 2012 Conference

Story Seeds: Henri & Me

Last week, I made my first digital story. At the beginning of March, I entered into a new and exciting partnership with the Center for Digital Storytelling to create StoryLab (working title), an R&D wing embodying the power of story to help bring about a democratic and sustainable future.

To prepare for our partnership, I’d already interviewed staff members, read a mountain of history, and watched a remarkable range of first-person stories sculpted from individual narratives, photographs, letters, home movies, music, and other bits of visual and auditory information. But until now, I’d never had the experience of making a digital story myself.

Over the course of three busy and stimulating days, I met other workshop participants, read aloud the brief script I’d drafted a few days earlier, received others’ responses and suggestions, revised it and recorded my narration, uploaded photographs, home movie clips, and music to cobble together a rough version of my two-and-a-half-minute movie. With bottomless generosity, the individuals tasked with facilitating stories helped me to clarify my intentions and to execute the technical moves—transitions, special effects, titles—necessary to a finished product.

Six other participants were doing all the same things at the same time, generating at atmosphere thick with intentionality and concentration. From the first instant, I felt as if I’d been planted in a nursery full of seedpods bursting with the will to germinate.

In the last hour of the last day, when all the stories were screened and appreciated, I understood how entirely apt that feeling had been. We all have many stories to tell, of course. In fact, at least half the people present in this workshop were experienced digital storytellers, now learning how to help others tell their own stories. I considered many subjects before I hit on my choice for this first outing. But whether we are talking about someone like me, constructing a very first story, or someone devising the hundredth in a personal series, the same feelings are engaged: the intimacy and vulnerability of unearthing a seed from which some aspect of your character or passion has sprouted, of shining a light on your truth; the pleasure of telling in exactly your own way precisely what you wish to share; the pride and risk of self-revelation; the delight when what is so particular to oneself resonates with others.

I can think of a million situations, a zillion contexts, in which exactly this experience of germination could initialize a process of self-directed healing, or build connections between people, or aggregate what might otherwise be dismissed as “mere anecdote” into a powerfully coherent message that needs to be heard. And I’m not the only one who sees this potential: spend some time on the Center’s website to see for yourself.

When we open ourselves to see and be seen, something remarkable happens. Trivial likes and dislikes fall away. The surface of things ceases to matter so much, and whatever is most important—most true, most real, most beautiful—occupies center stage. Mostly, these days, I’m a bit of a workaholic: so many deadlines, so many reasons to complete just one more task before I rest. But finishing my digital story left me with such a strong sense of having arrived at a destination (and that delicious fatigue you feel when attaining the summit at the end of a long hike), I actually took a day off!

Here’s my story. I hope you enjoy it. (The photos of a dandelion puff and leaves are by Jennifer Williams; the lake and trees by Eugene Beckes.)

As you’ll hear, a pivotal piece of the story unfolds when I was eleven years old. That was also the age when boys and girls started noticing each other (probably boys and boys and girls and girls too, but that took place beyond my budding awareness). I’d just turned ten when my father died, so the whole prior year was swamped in misery: in my memory, it’s one long stretch of waiting to glimpse a little light beyond the darkness and chaos of my family. But by the time I’d turned eleven, my horizons had begun to expand beyond the little world at home.

One of my strongest memories of that age is dancing—or at least pressing my body close to a boy’s body and moving while music was playing—in someone’s darkened living-room, while that someone’s parents retreated to the another room to watch TV. In that memory, this song is playing, the original, by the Teddy Bears (Phil Spector, Marshall Leib, Annette Kleinbard, just to put the ethnic cherry on the doo-wop sundae). But really, doesn’t it have to be the version by Amy Winehouse, avatar of excessively sad little Jewish girls everywhere and in all times?

 
READ MORE FROM ARLENE! Buy New Creative Community now and use code “storytelling” at checkout to get 15% off!!!

lyards, fans of the book, fans of environmental education—okay, everyone!—don’t miss this!

Jill will host Sharon tomorrow, Friday March 23rd, at 9:00 Pacific Time on Go Green Radio to discuss Asphalt to Ecosystems. If you miss the live airing, don’t worry—the archived show will be available on the Go Green website soon after the broadcast.

This show comes at a perfect time: We have just received the second printing of Asphalt to Ecosystems and are happy to offer a 10% discount off of these brand new shiny copies to listeners of Jill’s show with the code “Go Green” (good for one month from original airing date).

photo courtesy of Remi Mathis

E-books: We’ve got them.

The debate about the merits of e-books versus print books rages on in the publishing word, the reading word, and maybe even the lay world, but what would we know about the lay world? E-books save paper and trees, say techies. They don’t smell the same, reply old-fashioned book readers. My eyes feel better, say Kindle-ites the world over. Just another screen, grumble book lovers. You’re bringing on the demise of the book, of reading, of literature! yell paper-readers. We’re hastening the future of accessibility, retort screen-readers. Only the Big Guys are profiting from your reading addictions, traditionalists argue: Beat That!

Well, e-readers win on this last point. Even the Little Guys like New Village Press win with e-books, and we hope you’re enjoying our first two releases on whatever platform you’ve chosen. By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives by Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson, and Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame by Beverly Naidus are now available from your favorite small press for your screen. Don’t worry, we still like good ole fashioned books, too.

And, as always, our Dear Readers will find the code “techie” will give them 20% more reasons to celebrate whichever format they choose at checkout for the next three days.

Here is a message from the third (latest) issue by Gordon-Farleigh, STIR’s editor:

At the beginning of The Take, a documentary about the Argentinean Recovered Factories Movement, Naomi Klein shows an interview she had done a few years earlier. After presenting a list of the gruesome acts and horrors of capitalism, the interviewer challenges her by saying, “But you’re not giving us any alternatives?” To this, she later admits, “He had a good point… At a certain point you have to talk about what you’re fighting for.”

The absence of demands from the Occupy Movement has been a conundrum for conventional political commentators. What they have failed to understand is that those who make demands expect an agency, authority, or expert to implement them. Today’s protestors are appealing to themselves, not governments, for social change. This point was nicely made by Nathan Schneider in a recent article in the The Nation, “Thank You, Anarchists.” He says the occupiers have “reminded us that politics is not a matter of choosing among what we’re offered but of fighting for what we and others actually need, not to mention what we hope for.”

This is not to ignore or downplay the crucial role that commentary plays in our understanding of the political and social terrain, but the disproportionate fixation on Washington and London produces mere spectators who can only rely on financial and political elites to save them and who can only be disappointed and failed by them. This read-only political culture dominates our experience of our options and choices. The German comedian Klaus Hansen expresses this reversible point in terms of commercial sport—“Football is like democracy: twenty-two people playing and millions watching.”

Stephen Duncombe, the editor of White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race, says in his interview, “It’s not enough to change people’s minds. You have to change the social, political and economic structures in which they live.” Convincing people that we are in a mess is the easy part, if they need to be convinced at all. Showing people that there are successful and viable ways of producing food, providing education, playing sports, managing resources, and sharing creative content in ways that are not subordinated to profit is what is really at stake.

This is exactly what successful community-led campaigns, employee-owned cooperatives, and democracy schools show us: that, as the slogan at last year’s US Social Forum read, not only is “Another world possible…Another world is happening.”

Valentine’s sweets aren’t over yet!!

If you absolutely must shop online, support your local, small publisher. We’re offering a 20% discount on all purchases from now until December 11th (discount code OccupyAmazon). If you live in California, you will pay sales tax. You will still pay more for your purchases than you will on Amazon, but the little extra you give New Village Press, an Oakland-based nonprofit, will ensure that more good books are published. And Amazon will receive none of it. Read local this week!