Educator Symposium

From July 15-19, 2024, the Institute for Common Power will hold an educator symposium in Selma, Alabama that will bring together educators from across the country and around the world to engage in what we–at the Institute–call Movement Learning.  This entails an approach to education in which teachers, students, and everyday citizens are inspired by, learn from, and build upon strategies enacted by five nation-defining Movements to inform how we take action to foster a just and inclusive democracy today. The Movements include Emancipation, Citizenship, Suffrage, Civil Rights, and Justice. 

While the history of African Americans and race will be at the center of exploration during the symposium, we will investigate how this history is part of a broader, collective history that has shaped the trajectory of this nation.  We will learn from historical events and contemporary first-hand experiences of people and institutions that did, and are doing, transformative work.  We are moved, we are part of a Movement, and we must move.  This is Movement Learning.  

Essential to our definition and execution of Movement Learning is the act of physically engaging in learning at the sites where history occurred as we move into a future defined by equity. Movement Learning, then, is a three-tiered ideology that entails learning from social movements that preceded us, learning by going, learning how to project and create change.  We believe learning by going is a particularly profound mode of education that enhances the importance of studied events while imbuing the experiences with a heightened level of compassion and respect for the history makers as we define our tomorrow.  To this end, the symposium will be based in Selma, but will take place across the state of Alabama as we travel to and learn at sites where people worked to challenge systems of injustice and transform the trajectory of this nation.