Stop and Smell the Memes: Exploring the Values of an Evolving Generation

Stop and Smell the Memes: Exploring the Values of an Evolving Generation

A Digital Picture of Practice by Agency by Design Oakland 2017-2018 Teacher Fellow Sarah Chung

Detail image "Currency Garden: Stop and Smell the Memes," Sarah Chung's documentation installation at Agency by Design Oakland's culminating event in May 2018.  

When a 14-year-old is asked “What do you value? What is important to you?" a variety of responses is to be expected.  Common answers are, “My phone,” “Music and Memes," “Money and love,” but equally common responses are “nature and mental health,” “friendship,” and “loyalty.”  As a generation born into a world of social media, smartphones and apps, how do their values compare to yours?  

The installation “Currency Garden: Stop and Smell the Memes” is the representation of my inquiry into the values and motivations of post millennial youths.  If you were at the Agency by Design Oakland event, you would have seen laptops playing looped GIFs, nestled amongst plants and LEDs soldered to tree branches, as well as laser cut student quotes blooming amongst graphic designs of alternative “currency” notes that reflect what students personally value.  

"Currency Garden: Stop and Smell the Memes," an Installation by Sarah Chung

Through reflecting on my conversations with students and reviewing peer interviews and student surveys, I have gleaned that the group of youth I work with have evolved to develop their own unique language and culture networks employing the internet and existing social media platforms. Internet memes, GIFs, videos and vines are used as a way to connect with others. Many students share the sentiment that a really good meme or vine can elicit cathartic feelings of joy. One student told me that a good vine can provide a “fleeting moment of joy in an insane world.”  Another student said that they use memes as a “momentary escape or coping mechanism from “all the noise.” Their culture and use of media and technology (cultural capital) may seem foreign to someone of an earlier generation, but as educators, it is useful to be open minded and curious when co-developing a shared definition of “tech leadership.”  

One student told me that a good vine can provide a “fleeting moment of joy in an insane world.”  Another student said that they use memes as a “momentary escape or coping mechanism from “all the noise.”

I work with Code Next in East Oakland with 9th graders in an intensive weekend and after-school computer science program, with the mission to “cultivate the next generation of black and latino tech leaders.” In our program participants learn to code, learn about entrepreneurship, and are encouraged to recognize and exercise social capital.  I decided to use my participation in the Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship as an opportunity to analyze more closely what social and cultural capital means to this group of youth.  I was curious what students thought of the term, “tech leader.” I asked myself, how can I facilitate meaningful discussion of how they see themselves and where they want to go? It was important to me that they had confidence in what they personally value, and that they bring these values into an evolving definition “tech leadership.”  

I wanted to ensure that our curriculum made space for youth voices and feedback and that our curriculum and responsive teaching practices could fold their feedback into the design of consecutive learning experiences.  This led me to focus my Agency by Design work in redirecting authority and encouraging co-inspiration.

Detail of "Currency Garden: Stop and Smell the Memes" by Sarah Chung

What this looked like was weaving Agency by Design thinking routines into our curriculum.  I used thinking routines such as Parts, Purposes, Complexities and Parts, People and Interactions to analyze commonly used smartphone apps as well as various systems, such as US and international monetary systems.  Students looked closely and deconstructed app interfaces and experiences, as well as closely studying the details on currency. Both activities revealed a lot of information but more importantly, many open ended questions.  Following these critical deconstructions of apps and systems, students then ideated their own ideas of apps they would like to create and alternative currency designs that more closely represents people and ideas and values that motivate them.  

"Maker centered learning at its best allows for the individual to find the most interesting way to become who they are. Humans are by nature curious, and often our imposed systems don't allow for this to develop.  Direct experiences are the most impactful way humans learn."

-Sarah Chung
Head Coach, CodeNext Oakland

Sarah Chung is an artist and educator living in Oakland. She has a teaching degree in K-12 art education and has taught and designed curriculum for a variety of schools and after-school programs since 2006. Sarah is currently working as head coach for CodeNext, a high school after school and weekend programming and making intensive focused on bridging tech skills and mentorship opportunities to youth that are from historically black and latino neighborhoods. She enjoys the trans-disciplinary nature of learning and this has led her to a path of maker education. In addition to education, Sarah values community and is always trying to balance her own artistic practices with teaching and find that they often mirror and integrate.

Making and Un-making Memoir: A Downloadable & Interactive Zine

Making and Un-making Memoir: A Downloadable & Interactive Zine

A Picture of Practice by 2017-2018 Agency by Design Oakland Teacher Fellow Susan Wolf

Susan Wolf is faculty in the Integrated Learning Specialist Program at the Alameda County Office of Education. In her role she works with closely with Alliance Academy of Integrated Learning and Roots Academy, to infuse Arts Integration into core content areas. She just completed her second year as a Teacher Fellow with Agency by Design Oakland, and next year she will be a Senior Fellow and Coach on the leadership team. This past year she explored the complexities that inform our individual narratives, specifically in regards to our identities as makers. As part of this inquiry, Susan, an artist, created a zine called the Making and Un-Making Memoir that guides readers to explore their own identities as makers. Learn more about her inquiry below, and download a pdf of the zine to print. And don't miss Susan in August, when she presents these ideas at the Inventing our Future conference. 

What is your maker identity?

In the 2017-18 school year Susan explored the complexities that inform our individual narratives of who makes what why. She began by asking the questions: What are our histories, mechanisms, assets and experiences of making? Susan ultimately arrived at the conclusion that “to understand a maker’s identity is to tell a story, and knowing that story is the difference between dirt and soil.”  

Her research was influenced by the article Making Through the Lens of Culture and Power: Toward Transformative Visions for Educational Equity. This text, in combination with conversations with other educators in her maker identity inquiry group, fueled her desire to investigate her own lineage as a maker in an authentic way, including her privilege and position as a white cis female. 

After exploring and researching forms of making, and the lineage of her own "making and un-making," Susan was left with the dilemma of how to invite folks to think about their unique maker identity. She decided to create the Making and Un-Making zine as an interactive tool for anyone who would like to explore their maker identity. 

The simple questions asked within this zine are great as conversation starters. Not just for grown up parties but to learn about our students and their families. The limited space of each zine page is an invitation to begin what may become an ongoing curiosity about our lineage and who is making and unmaking the stuff in our lives. -Susan Wolf

download the Making and Un-Making zine here

The PDF is designed to be easily photocopied multiple times, on 11" x 17" paper, and then tested on your own or with students. You can find folding instructions here and here. To document your process, Susan has created a list of possibilities for how to use the zine: 

Try it over the summer so that you are ready to ask your students questions about their maker identity in the Fall:

Voice Recording: I have been using voice memo on my phone to record thoughts that feel important. Try to describe one object that you have made or a family member has made and then post it on a soundcloud channel using a picture of the object.

Illustrations: Share what you have made by breaking it down into easy steps, then add sketches. Need examples of what this might look like? Visit this great project http://dearhow.to/index.html

Photo archive using social media: Instagram and twitter can be great tools for creating a thematic thread. Create a unique channel and anchor the post with text and #makeridentity.

To hear more about Susan's process, you can also listen to her Making and Un-Making Podcast Series.

"Making is a form of self care. It allows people to think about how things work and about how pieces fit together. This is revealed in layers of metaphor and metacognition. I am in love with the slow gestures of making that provide space for our thoughts to wander."

Susan Wolf
Faculty and Coach, Integrated Learning Specialist Program, ACOE

Susan Wolf is an arts integration coach working with teachers at two middle schools in West Oakland. She supports teachers in their fluency with Culturally Responsive Teaching practices and is always looking for the ways she can best support white educators to shift their understanding of their teaching methods to match the needs of their students. As a visual artist, her art practice and teaching practice frequently intersect. Her most frequently asked questions are: How do you know your students understand? What could you do differently to allow your students to follow their own inquiry?

Decolonizing STEMM

Decolonizing STEMM: An Ignite Talk by 2017-2018 Agency by Design Oakland Teacher Fellow Reina Cabezas

Reina Cabezas is a CTE Engineering Coach with the Oakland Unified School District. In her Ignite Talk, presented at Agency by Design Oakland's year-end event on Saturday, May 5, Reina focuses on decolonizing STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, & Making), and how she explored this idea with students. She then invites us to find the elders in our community in order to liberate indigenous STEMM practices, so that students can both know their history and innovate for the future.  

“I offer that liberating STEMM indigenous practices might be what we need to interrupt misguiding ourselves and misguiding our students.”

Watch Reina's inspiring Ignite Talk below!  And follow the #PictureofPractice hashtag to see more Ignite Talks and leadership from our 2017 - 2018 Teacher Fellows.   

"[Maker-centered learning] is inspiring, hands-on, and relevant to the world we interact with all day."

Reina Cabezas
CTE Engineering Coach, OUSD

Reina Cabezas has been an educator for ten years in Oakland and the Bay Area. She started out teaching 4th grade very traditionally, and later found technology, maker edu, fab labs, and engineering, which led to a way of teaching that inspired her. Reina is a mother of two teenage boys, and is herself a Xicana daughter and granddaughter of refugee parents from Central America who define what it means to "make" for her.