Season 2, Episode 1 | Move, Get Out the Way!

After a summer of walking with our dogs, listening to the leadership of youth, and saying yes to ourselves, we're back with Season 2 of Dancing on Desks! The season begins with a conversation with Detroit youth organizers Hafiza Khalique, Brittyn Benjamin-Kelley, and adult organizer Julia Cueno. We also chat with Brooklyn elementary school teacher Emily Stutts and three of her former students—Kaide, Greyson, and Kyndle—about their bike to school day. We close with LaQuesha Sanders, a lawyer and historian, who shares the origin story of student debt, why student loans are trash, and why the U.S. government has more than enough money to cancel all of the debt student owes. Our storytellers offer us an opportunity to think about the questions: How do youth and adults co-build spaces of accountability, listening, dreaming, and freedom in and outside of school? What allows relationships between adults and youth in schools to exist in what activist, freedom dreamer, and writer adrienne maree brown calls liberated relationship? 

Transcript (finalized 10/10/22) If you’re interested in helping us with transcription, please send us an email at [email protected] or call ‪(313) 314-1678‬. We’d love to steward this with you. 

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Email: [email protected] 

Website: https://dancingondesks.org 

Intellectual Inheritance 

Hafiza Khalique speaks at Detroit Community Public Schools School Board Meeting, September 15, 2020 (3:34:00-3:38:00) 
adrienne maree brown writes about liberated relationships in her book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good 
You can find more resources from our segment on student debt on our website, https://dancingondesks.org
Our cover art features an excerpt from James Baldwin's "A Talk To Teachers."

Music 

“City Lights”, Jee Juh Beats
“Pink Cadillac”, “Say Grace”, “Suzie” | Yogic Beats [email protected]
“Turn Me Up”, Jwayne Cross
Dancing on Desks Theme song composed and arranged by Mara Johnson and Elliott Wilkes