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.