Episode 57: Liberatory Education for Social Change With Mariah Rankine-Landers of Studio Pathways

Many educators have thoughts and opinions about change that needs to happen in education, but there are only a select few who actually put their thoughts into action. Wanting to expand her impact beyond the classroom, my guest and friend, Mariah Rankine-Landers, decided to start the work of culturally responsive teaching through the arts. In today’s episode, Mariah is sharing how to make a direct change in the education system through liberatory education.

Mariah’s organization, Studio Pathways, works to address the root of social inequities and their effect on education and students. In the podcast interview, Mariah discusses the core four in her book, Do Your Lessons Love Your Students?, which helps you get clear on your beliefs and what you’re carrying forward towards liberatory education. Mariah is living proof that when you have ideas for change, take the leap to make a difference.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • Mariah’s journey through education and how it led her to expand her impact beyond the classroom

  • What Studio Pathways is and how it positively impacts students on more than an academic level

  • The core four in liberatory education and questions for self-reflection

  • What Mariah has learned in starting her own business and the importance of taking the first step

Resources mentioned:

Related episodes and blog posts:

 

Meet Mariah Rankine-Landers

​​Mariah Rankine-Landers (she/they), M.Ed, Co-Founder of Studio Pathways, Mariah has been in service to the world as an educator, professional facilitator, pedagogical advisor, artist, and cultural practitioner for over 20 years. She is a leader in the field of culturally responsive teaching and learning through the arts. Recognized as an esteemed liberatory educator, she has led visionary educational shifts centering on the idea of creative practice for social change.

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Read the transcript for this episode:

Lily

Mariah Rankine-Landers is the co founder of Studio Pathways. Mariah has been in service to the world as an educator, professional facilitator, pedagogical advisor, artist and cultural practitioner for over 20 years.

Lily

She is a leader in the field of culturally responsive teaching and learning through the arts. Recognized as an esteemed liberatory educator, she has led for visionary educational ships, centering the idea of creative practice for social change.

Lily

Welcome Mariah, I am so thrilled to have you here today.

Mariah

Hi, Lily, I'm so excited to see you.

Lily

Yay, me too. Well, I feel like I just set the stage by saying that my favorite five years of being a teacher were teaching with Mariah and really, like such a gift to have that time with you. And I learned so much from teaching with you. And even though like teaching was all the things exhausting, like I look back at those years with a lot of joy and appreciation.

Mariah

Oh, same. Absolutely. Yeah. Best time ever.

Lily

Yeah. Awesome.

Mariah

I'm so happy to be here. Lily, thank you for inviting me.

Lily

Oh, me too. Well, I always ask the same gigantic question. And you can take it in any direction that you want. But tell us about your journey as an educator.

Mariah

My journey as an educator. I'm gonna start with something that I recently learned, which is that, through connecting with my mom's side of the family, learned that I come from a huge lineage of teachers. So much so that they won a state award back in the 50s. A state award. Everybody was apparently a teacher and I had no idea.

Lily

It makes a lot of sense.

Mariah

So much since so now I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah, I actually, I always like to say I did not want to be a teacher. I wanted to be an anthropologist, I studied anthropology.

Mariah

I basically knew teaching so well, because I had, you know, as an aide, while I was getting my credential, I was always working with children worked in campsites, etc. Naturally, because of the classrooms that I grew up in my mom and my grandma's classroom, of course.

Mariah

So when I after I graduated, it was just a natural thing for me to do. So got my credential. I'm gonna say I did not enjoy the process of getting my credential, the credentialing program was a little problematic. But once I was in the classroom, it was wonderful. And I completely fell in love with being a kindergarten teacher. I started out in middle school.

Mariah

And I had a principal that pegged me for kindergarten, and I went kicking and screaming and did not want to do kindergarten. And then I had this incredible year, and was like, Oh, I'm completely sold like, This is it.

Mariah

And that principal was so smart. You know, she convinced me by saying, if you can teach kindergarten, you can teach whatever you want in the world. And I was like, okay, okay. And it turns out to have been true.

Lily

Okay, I love that. It's like if teaching kindergarten as being like, you can teach anything, because I think like when I think about things that I learned from teaching kindergarten, it's really like being able to explain things at a very basic level. Exactly.

Lily

Which translates to anything. All the time. I'm like, teaching kind of hard things and I'm like, Oh, it's just the same thing I did teaching kindergarten. Yeah. Like, people don't all have that skill.

Mariah

They don't have it. So grateful for it.

Lily

Yeah, right. Wow, that's cool. Okay, so then you taught kindergarten and you were like, This is my place, or you felt more into it. And then what?

Mariah

Felt more into it and then expanded into K-1 with you. And that was that was like chef's kiss sweet spot. Absolutely loved having a combo class, I thought that I would actually hate it. And it turns out, it was phenomenal. So I highly recommend it for schools to do that split grade situation.

Mariah

Particularly for us when we had half of our kids leaving early and then we're left with like, 10 kids. That was perfect. Yeah, what I wish for every educator. Yeah. So that's pretty much that's the journey, I would say. Do you want the journey out of teaching?

Lily

Yeah. Tell us about that, after that.

Mariah

The journey out of teaching was actually quite personal. You were there for it, that I had a cancer diagnosis, and so grateful to you and all of our staff for supporting me through that. That's another story that I think needs to be told of how y'all showed up.

Mariah

But after that experience, I just was starting to feel. One, the, the economics of being a teacher is already very hard. And then going through something like cancer with a teacher salary was not fun, and very stressful. And I think that I had already been feeling the impacts of being, you know, a single person on a teacher's salary and trying to survive living in the Bay Area. And it was quite exhausting.

Mariah

And when I was going through the illness, I just was constantly feeling that I needed to do something more I needed to stretch my impact, because now you're experiencing like, oh, death is right in your face, like, Okay, let me what else do I need to do on this planet?

Mariah

And so what I was feeling was, I want to have more impact into my knowledge around how I teach how I understand learning to happen, how I care for a community of learners, what I believe in, in education. And so I made the leap into administration, which was leaping into the Alameda County Office of Education where our school sat under.

Mariah

And it was really just so transformative, to go through an experience of seeing the wider world from that angle to understand how money moves in education more clearly, to understand the vast amount of resources that exist for teachers, which I had really no idea of when I was in the classroom. And to really, you know, assert myself as a leader beyond the classroom.

Mariah

I did have like a moment of feeling like, you know, the new fish in the sea of like, feeling like a beginning teacher, as an administrator. And that was quite a shock, because it was so astute at being a master teacher and to, like humbling, so humbling.

Mariah

And I don't know, it was, you know, getting through that, yes, there's a lot of tension, a lot of like growth that you have to do internally. But so rewarding to have made that leap. And to find myself in a situation where I could actually buy a house, like, was not able to do that as a teacher.

Mariah

So my economy changed. And I think that that is something that cannot be stressed enough. I know that everybody's repeating it in society, but it is absolutely true. It was unsustainable for me to be a teacher.

Lily

Absolutely. I mean, me, too. I feel that like, absolutely. And I think like, for me, it was really having kids and being like, Oh, the amount that I would have to pay for childcare would be basically my teaching salary. And like, when you have two kids, like I don't understand, like, I don't, I truly don't understand. Yeah.

Lily

And so then being like, Well, how do I make the same amount of money at least? And have my kids home? Question mark? Like, how does that work? So I think it's like, yeah, that's the reality for so many of us. And it's also, you know, we can advocate for teacher salaries, and also find ways forward to like, make a big impact and have more sustainability.

Lily

And I love that you've, you know, gone through with that lens of being like, How can I really expand my impact? And can you tell us kind of more about where that went after working at the county office?

Mariah

I sure can. So I think in the search of wanting to be more liberated and have more impact. The work that I was doing at the county was so beautiful, and it was limited to the county. Right, and I was holding this vision of this needs to be nationwide. So why can't this how can this be nationwide? And when I asked that question, I was told, No, you're staying here, right? Meaning I you can only serve as teachers in the county.

Lily

No, we were tourists friends, I did not do that.

Mariah

So started dreaming and happened to be working with your former student's mother, our former student's mother Jessa. So Jessa Moreno who her daughter who was kamalesh now because my Lily Lily, so Kamala was in your class. And then I had her for math, and Jessa was one of the parents that would come in and out. And you know, we would see her there's a lot of parents support at the school.

Mariah

But Jessa and I didn't really connect when we were at Knox. But when Jessa started working with me at the county office, we just clicked and we clicked about all of the beliefs that we had in education and just was like so good.

Mariah

We just started dreaming together. And so we said, Yeah, let's do this. Let's figure this out. Like how can we have a broader approach and take these ideas into a national stance? And we did that so we created Studio Pathways in In 2019, but quite a time, it was really cool.

Mariah

We started with doing some, some curriculum design work that really jumpstarted us into getting us started as an organization. And then in 2020, March came and 2020. And there was a bit of like, what are we going to do now?

Mariah

But when schools decided or understood that they could pivot online, and we also understood how we could creatively support teachers to teach online, that became like our niche where we were leading professional development and supporting teachers in like, how do you hold space when you're virtual?

Mariah

And it worked really well. And we had room to design and think and plan and create the Arcus study that we now have, which is called Dear Lessons of your Students, which is now a book. Yay. So yeah, it's been a really wonderful, I would say wonderful and hard, like, I've learned so much.

Mariah

And I think any entrepreneur, particularly coming from the classroom, will have so much to learn, if you've not been exposed to running a business, looking at at tax structures, looking at business licenses, all of those things, there's just so many components, right? And that was just incredibly eye opening, to have to reconfigure my retirement plan.

Lily

Oh, my gosh. I mean, I've always do and then it's like, I've definitely caught myself being like, but I'm just a kindergarten teacher. Like that's not the right mindset to have as, like, is honestly not that I'm like, into reconfiguring my retirement plan, or, you know, things that we have to do.

Lily

But, I do think that it's like, it is admirable, to try something new, and to create something new, and to have the courage and confidence to like, just know that you can figure it out, even if it's things are not like naturally appealing to you or that you haven't done before.

Lily

And I think that a lot of people like you kind of you mentioned this a little bit before going to the county office of being like, Oh, I'm like, out of my comfort zone. And as teachers we get so in our comfort zones, I think, for better and for worse, and we do kind of the same thing every year for many years.

Lily

And so trying something new can feel extra scary. It's just like, maybe you're not the right person for this. But most likely you are the right person for this.

Mariah

Yeah, this is what I miss about teaching with you, like, the mind meld we would have when analyzing like a method or a pedagogical stance was so good.

Mariah

I mean, it's so true that like, risk is such a major part of expanding oneself outside of the classroom, and trusting yourself to make that leap. And knowing that it is risky, and like, You got to trust you gotta trust and go. What else can you do? Yeah, very liberating has been very liberating for me.

Lily

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's cool thinking about, like, your journey of like, almost like concentric circles or something, you know, of like, just like trying something new and getting more close. Like, every step we take is like, more closer to the thing that we're building. I don't know if that makes sense.

Lily

But like, I feel like I found that too where it's like, oh, I'm like being a part of this process. And I don't even know necessarily where it's gonna like, go next. But it's like part of the process. And it's like personal growth, professional growth, like expanding your impact, all of those things along the way. Yes.

Lily

So tell us more about Studio Pathways. Can you explain for people kind of what you all do? And tell us more about your book?

Mariah

Yeah, we started off really focused on supporting schools. So supporting methods of practice, pedagogical shifts in the classroom, and teaching and learning. And what that has really shown itself to be is a whole school transformation.

Mariah

So taking a school through a major cultural shift, because the work of culturally responsive teaching through the arts, which is what we're doing, requires a lot of self investigation as a teacher, requires a lot of reflection on your practices that maybe you've been teaching for years and years and years, and I've never really analyzed through different lenses that we think are important to analyze.

Mariah

So we are taking collective groups of teachers that really want to be more pivotal in terms of having a better outcomes for their students, so holistic outcomes for their students. So not only academic, but social, emotional, and really understanding what are the critical needs now to prepare our students for tomorrow's.

Mariah

You know, all the equation there but remains true that we're constantly thinking about how what is the evolving status of education and collectively, you know, getting kids ready for the future.

Mariah

But what we're really advocating for is a creative process. So building the creative capacity of students, because creativity is the thing that is going to be essential, like now, essential now, certainly for the days ahead.

Mariah

So much so that the PISA report, which is a International Student Assessment, added creativity last year to their protocol. So that's brand new. And now teachers are going to be like, oh, right, it puts a lens on puts a spotlight on creativity as being something that's now going to be core.

Mariah

So there's now a lot of work that states are doing to make sure that the arts are central to what school is about. So we're a part of that narrative of how do we insert Art Center the arts, and build the artistic minds of students.

Lily

I love that. I mean, all of that is so beautiful, and so needed. And I think it's also really beautiful, I needed to see two teachers, you know, seeing what is working and what isn't working out there, and really going forward to craft a new vision and supporting teachers of how to do that, too.

Lily

Because I think sometimes we can be like, Oh, we just wish so many things would change. Like, I wish it was like this. I wish it was like this. But then it's like, well, how does it actually get there? Right. And so I think that your book is a really great, like, how does it actually get there? Can you tell folks a little bit about the book?

Mariah

Yeah. So the book is really, it's an invitation, it's a pathway. It's a journey. So I'll jump to part four, because part four is where the work really started.

Mariah

Part four is the arc of study called that we call Dear Lessons on your Students, though, that is the name of the book. We sequenced a series of learning experiences for teachers that support their journey into activating the elements and processes, creative processes for culturally responsive teaching through the arts.

Mariah

So foundationally, there's some aspects here that need to be explored before you get to that work. And so we have this frame called the core four. And we want to make sure that teachers have a deep rooting in concepts around power, like how power shows up in the classroom.

Mariah

Social power, you know, looking at how do you navigate race? How do you navigate gender? How do you navigate class? All the things in a classroom setting and that is, you know, most of our classrooms are have a wide range of demographics in them.

Mariah

And then how do you understand the role of lineage, so a lot of people will put the focus on identity. And we're actually putting the focus on lineage, because a lineage tells you a lot, not just your blood lineage, but like, all of the things that you're connected to.

Mariah

So as a teacher, we have a lineage of teachers that we come from, and what have we learned from like Maxine Green, or whoever your favorite educator is in the world? How do you carry their voice forward and through you? So understanding a person's lineage will tell you a lot about the construction of their brain, right?

Mariah

So our brain, as read Hammond, who is my mentor, and friend, I love Zara so much. And I've learned so much from her, that culture is a software to our brain. And so we need to understand where we come from our positionality on the planet. And all of that intersects with the narrative.

Mariah

So core four is power lineage narratives. So what are the narratives that hold us in the world? And what are the narratives we might need to interrupt? And what are the narratives we maybe need to create into a better future? And how are those around us?

Mariah

So we're constantly surrounded by narratives, whether it's through media through the books, we're reading through the arrangement of furniture in our room, things like that. And then embodiment, so embodiment is huge, because you're walking through the world in this body and like, you know, what's your vibe, essentially? What are you embodying?

Lily

Yes. And that's what like, put it in practice, right? Like that really is the like, okay, like examination get clear on like, your own beliefs and what you're carrying forward. And I love that too, of like, we are all this ecosystem, right of like, yes, carrying on and learning from each other and moving forward.

Lily

But I think if you don't have that embodiment, like, you can just stay in your head the whole time. And then it's like, well, what does it look like in daily life? What does that look like in practice? What does it look like in the classroom?

Mariah

Yeah, yeah. So we're really wanting people to connect the dots between culture, cognition, and creativity in the arts, through this understanding and through these frameworks that we've developed and have had great success with and also has been researched, and shown incredible, you know, output. So it's been really exciting. And thank you for asking me that question.

Lily

Yes, absolutely. And I definitely recommend everybody checks out the book. We'll, of course, but links down below. But really, it's so good and so engaging and helpful and powerful. So I definitely recommend it. Yeah.

Lily

And I'm curious a little bit about just like the construction of like, at this point where you are with Studio Pathways, like you have this whole approach, right, and this whole framework, but like, I'm sure it wasn't always that way.

Lily

So can you tell us a little bit of like, how that work evolved and shifted, because I think for some people is starting off being like, oh, I want to do this thing. It can feel like oh, my gosh, I have to have like, this whole thing mapped out and like, it's like the end goal, but like, unpack the process a little bit.

Mariah

Gosh, that's a great question to ask, you know, I came from a place that had a framework in place had a whole idea around how do you introduce the concept of teaching through the arts to teachers? And that was, what are the ways into integrated learning, so some basics around arts integration.

Mariah

And then there was an assessment piece, and then there was like, how do you do curriculum design? And it was a wonderful composition of study. And when we broke away from that, we didn't want to copy that, because we could see the gaps in that program that we were running, and we're like, okay, there's, here's what needs our full attention.

Mariah

So with an understanding that we wanted to do something different, but still the same kind of a worldview, I guess, of what that program was, I went on a journey of, you know, following my own interests of what are the things that are capturing my eye.

Mariah

And one of the first things that captured my eye was a trip to LA with Constance Moore, who's an artist and friend, and we went to the California African American Museum, and the work of DMLS was being shown. And I walked into that space, and I just immediately felt stuff in my body. Like, I just emote when I see art, first of all.

Mariah

And it was so striking to me what she was trying to display, her concept was called breaking patterns that I returned, you know, came back to the bay and was asking my friends, does anyone know the artists and someone did. And she agreed to meet me and have, you know, connect.

Mariah

And our first meeting, she was just so open to collaborating around what we could do for teachers. It was the very first experience where we kind of CO design an idea of how teachers could work with her methods of practice, and go through a series of questions that I was learning about around narrative intelligence.

Mariah

And it was to support teachers to kind of break away from maybe some established norms in their own life, and then their own school and classroom life. And so we started trying it out. So we, you know, we're, we had contracts with schools, and we were just trying out, like, let's see, like, this seems really important.

Mariah

And when we were able to see how it was working, and it was working really well. We were like, oh, let's keep going what's next? And so I just was going through like what are the art pieces that I have been so affected by and moved by, which are you'll see them in the book.

Mariah

A Hank Willis Thomas's Cotton Bowl, Kerry, James Marshall heirlooms and accessories, grayscale by Amy sherald, who painted Michelle Obama's portrait. And then we work with Gesture movements. So we have a dancer that we've worked with, and then Anna Deavere Smith, who's in theater, and we use her verbatim process.

Mariah

So that arc of study allowed us to connect teachers to the larger concepts we were wanting folks to grapple with, to deepen their work as educators that, you know, we're really taking them through the processes of how do you embody culturally responsive practice, and do that in a creative, responsive way, in ways that all students can enter into learning through the art modalities? So hope that's making sense.

Lily

Yes, absolutely. I mean, totally. I think it's all awesome. And I think it's like, trying something out like and being like, oh, it's working, like let's do more of that is something that I think like, we all can be encouraged to do more of, because even though it sounds kind of simple.

Lily

I think oftentimes, we talk ourselves out of it, or it's like, or maybe toward something else. We're like, how about we go in this direction, but it's like, hey, try something out. And if it doesn't work, like Yeah, don't do it. But if it does work, like follow that energy of like, oh, it's working, like what can we add to it and evolve, going forward?

Lily

And I also just love and wanted to highlight like, you tuning into what you personally are connecting with. And I think that that also is something that like, everyone could do more of like, if it feels important to you like then it will feel important to the other people that you're teaching about.

Lily

And that if it feels like, confusing or like, I don't know, I feel like that's when I was just like who like, there's so many different things right? Like, go to what calls you and like build from that point, I think all so powerful and like so excited to watch the evolution and to see you know how everything will build off of each other, and so excited to see where you go next.

Mariah

Thank you, Lily.

Lily

Yes. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing about your work. And again, I definitely recommend that everybody goes out and gets this book. Can you tell people where they can connect with you?

Mariah

Absolutely. We're on all the socials. So LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, I think we mostly hang out on Instagram, though. But find us there under @studiopathways. And I am under @MariahRankine-Landers.

Mariah

And the book is available on Amazon and through Rutledge, who's our publisher. And also it's in 10 different countries, which is oh, 12 different countries now, which I'm like. So yeah, please enjoy.

Mariah

And then contact me I really want to know how people are, you know, doing what the work if they're trying making attempts with things that are in the book, I want to hear about it. So please reach out. Definitely will respond. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on your show.

Lily

Awesome. Thank you so much. It's always so wonderful to connect with you.

Mariah

You too.

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