As a child, I sensed that the compliance-centered schooling I experienced was wrong. Fortunately, my 9th grade English teacher cultivated critical consciousness in her students, and I immediately felt “at home” in her classroom. However, I did not have language for this type of teaching & learning until I read Freire in graduate school. As an educator for almost 35+ years, my aspiration has consistently been to create JOY in the classroom and to support students in recognizing their power to transform the world. Ultimately, I am a drop of water. On this earth, in this space and time, I cherish my roles as mother, daughter, life partner, sister, aunt, neighbor, and friend. I wake up grateful every day to also be a teacher and a learner in this world.

Unpacking my own (and my family's experience) with the education system brought me to liberatory education. Additionally, my desire to continue on my own journey of exploring what justice-full teaching and learning looks, feels, and sounds like—and how to ensure it is the experience for young people—continues to fuel me. As a new-ish parent, this exploration continues to evolve and become more complex as I attempt to navigate the education space from a different perspective.

My mom was my first teacher and nurturer. As a nurse, she showed me what it was like to be a lifelong learner who honed her skills and techniques year after year when procedures changed and medicine became more advanced. She also showed me how important it was to care for others beyond family. Her example and my propensity for empathy led my mom to call me “tender heart,” and my tender heart was drawn to teaching: a profession that demands that I be a lifelong learner—if I am to be effective and affective—and that I serve others as a means to help them be better and more empathetic versions of themselves.

The ability to pursue one’s dreams while being your authentic self is a privilege not afforded to everyone let alone supported by the structure of our current education system.  I engage in liberatory, justice-full, abolitionist work because that MUST change. I currently get great joy from being active in my community by sharing resources and harvests from my garden.

Without truly breaking down the barriers of white supremacy in our education systems and minds, we can never truly be free and our unique selves. Abolitionist work in education is so exciting to me, because it says to each child "you are loved, important, and worth fighting for". I'm inspired by what could be possible in our society if we all took an abolitionist approach to actively engaging with each other and institutions. I'm a newish mom and try to raise the voices and concerns of those most marginalized and ignored in our community through my work with SW DC Action. 

Ellen Cappard is the owner of Books & Bagels community bookstore in the heart of Wilmington, DE. At Books & Bagels you will find local brands highlighted as featured vendors. It’s a source of pride to provide a unique selection of books from well-versed staff willing to share and support your retail experience. It’s our mission at Books & Bagel to provide a safe space for all patrons to explore and feel welcome. Ellen is also an author-illustrator creating diverse stories. She has a background in graphic design, painting, photography as well as experience with teaching and mentoring children and young adults. Ellen resides in Wilmington  with her daughter Sophia where they love the natural attractions that inspire their creativity.

We don't take young people seriously enough, and so we don't take older people seriously enough, either. The key to good teaching is not for the students to find out what is in the teacher's head, but for the teachers to find out what is in the students' heads. When we throw ourselves into that very serious and difficult work of listening, considering, responding, and listening again, we change the whole structure of how young people grow up because it won't look anything like "school." My role is to try to live this principle.

Liberatory education is my inheritance. I'm the great-great-granddaughter of a Black principal, educator and world-maker. She crafted classrooms where Black girls dreamed weightlessly about the brightness of their futures. One of those girls was my grandmother who retired as a Kindergarten teacher. My mother, from a tiny German village, now enters her 36th year of teaching where she's consistently prioritized play, wellness, relationships, and community. It's in my blood to nurture freedom dreams where we greet our best and worst selves other in deep relationship, responsibility, and restoration.

Growing up, I did not feel liberated by my education—I mostly felt as if I was following a formula to success. I found the most joy in art classes, where there were no hard and fast rules. When I began to teach English Composition and Creative Writing, I knew I wanted to do my best to create a classroom that centered around community, liberation, and creativity. It's been about two years since I have been a teacher in a classroom. Currently, I work at a sustainable care farm, where I am enjoying the process of being a beginner again. 

I came to Liberatory Design as a response to my own educational upbringing, having grown up in Spain in a Catholic school during the last few years of the Franco dictatorship. My experiences of the transition to Democracy without a reconciliation process has conjured in my identity a deep crave for a more just and equitable system, where differences and new perspectives are not threats but assets. It is my passion not only to examine and reconsider how teaching and learning happens but also how to examine what knowledge is taught, who creates it and for what purpose.