When these values are held to, it is amazing how quickly we can build a sense of community, even when we are radically separated and working virtually.
Habla commits to generating deep on-line documentation of the learning experiences and resources engaged at each institute. This is intended to free up teachers to explore effective new strategies experientially, without having to worry about keeping detailed notes. Instead, participants discover capacities and options from the inside as learners themselves.
Habla institutes cycle between various learning modes, including large group work, small group work, and individual work; between moving and being still; between speaking and listening and being silent alone and together; between various expressive art forms; and of course, between INSIDE and OUTSIDE.
This institute draws on a variety of print, visual, and audio “texts”. We work to understand intersectionality (the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender) through intertextuality (creating text as an expansion upon pre-existing texts), through transmediation (expansion of works through translation into other media), through narrative plentitude (a wide variety of non-stereotypical voices of self-representation ), and through translanguaging (representations that engage multiple languages, cultures, and art forms).
After our encounters with a set of expanded teaching and learning options, we look together “Behind the Curtain” to discuss the hows and whys of that particular encounter being structured the way that it was, and we collectively suggest adjustments to the practice to continually grow the work.