History

This project started in 2023 when a tired (morally injured) educator, on the precipice of quitting, stumbled upon the history of America's public education model.

Learning that our model was intended to mold compliant and obedient people, her sense of overwhelm transformed to outrage. As a school psychologist, this educator knew that human learning only occurred after feelings of safety and connection were established. She knew too that compliance and obedience were incongruent with safety and connection. Then she got observant, and started to witness the design of schools with new eyes.

Equipped with this historical insight and newly understood context, her outrage then transformed into renewed passion and energy to work together to change our educational model, aligning it with brain-based, human-centered needs, for the benefit of all.

This educator started sharing this history and implications with her colleagues and community. From there, a community of dedicated and motivated change-makers formed. 

Knowing our educational institutional history is not only transformational. It's power is potentially revolutionary, just as it was for project founder Casey Pilgeram.

Join us in this movement!

Since learning about the history of our inherited model, this is what's been cooking:

• A comprehensive presentation has been created, and offered to several groups including: an entire elementary school, a group of school psychologists, an intergenerational intentional community. Plans for ongoing offerings are in the works.

• Items related to this work and spreading awareness about our history and the opportunity before us have been brought to the Washington Educational Association Representatives Assembly (4/2023) and will be brought to the 2025 National Education Association Representatives Assembly.

• Casey Pilgeram gave a TEDx talk about this

• Partnerships and mentorships have been cultivated and are being strengthened, including with the Spokane Alliance.

• Still in the works:

  • Recording and sharing the above-mentioned presentation so a wider audience can access.

  • Refining Hero's Journey (human-centered & brain based) learning materials for an elementary school population, to be launched January of 2025.