DAYTIME PROGRAM

AFTER SCHOOL

SCHOOL BREAK CAMPS

SUMMER

LOVE NOTES TO HISTORY

Tuesdays, September 28 - November 16 | 10am - 2pm | Ages 8-14

Using art to uncover LGBTQ+ histories that shaped the world—with Billie Mari Grant & Rebecca Posner

"I couldn't find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed." - Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors. Join us as we pass love notes across time, using media and art to help keep the queer archives alive. We’ll ask: when we learn history, whose stories do we learn and whose stories are left out? How do these mainstream histories keep up the “in” groups and “out” groups in our society and in our schools? So often, the lives of two spirit, gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, and gender non-conforming people throughout history have been erased or ignored. How can new understandings of history help us to combat negative stereotypes, and fill us with pride and love for one another and ourselves instead? [Read more.]

Using multi-media, we’ll learn the stories and names of queer heroes from civil rights, labor rights, Indigenous sovereignty and women’s rights movements of the 20th century—people who led the way for all of us to have days off, to vote, and to receive a living wage.

We’ll look at art that illustrates the lives of people throughout history who have re-imagined expectations of masculinity or femininity—paving the way for who we can be today. We’ll see how the narratives of LGBTQ+ people were built into the Pantheon of the Roman Gods of Europe and the Yoruba Gods of West Africa. We’ll hear stories from Indigenous communities around the world who have had fluid understandings of gender identities and family structures for millennia.

We’ll read poems and speeches from Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and June Jordan. We’ll dance to house music and disco music that celebrated LGBTQ+ love and fueled pop culture in New York City.

And we’ll make our own art to ask what role love plays in our lives, and how it might shape our desire to care for our community, feed our families, teach our kids, heal the sick, tend to our plants, create music and sing and dance and laugh. As historians and artists we’ll find out: when does love divide us, and how can it bring us closer together? 

Class Fee: $425. Sliding-scale and full scholarships are available for qualifying families. Payment plans are available to all. Please request a tuition assistance application to determine your tuition amount or payment plan. Email hello@kitesnest.org or fill out the contact form to request a tuition assistance application, or for any questions regarding registration.

OUR NEST

Thursdays, September 30 - November 18 | 10am - 2pm | Ages 8-14

A collaborative open work day for independent projects, study groups, youth-led workshops, and more—with Rebecca Posner

Where does your inspiration come from? How do you turn the spark of an idea into a plan? When bringing an idea to life, how do you find your focus, develop new skills, and overcome obstacles along the way? Our Nest is a collaborative open work day, providing time and structures for students to pursue their interests, take on independent projects, and collaborate with one another through study groups and youth-led workshops. Students will design their own independent projects for the semester, developing a plan, setting key goals, and diving into their interests. [Read more.]

As a community of learners, we will engage in shared problem-solving, reflection, and support: What do we do when we’re stuck, when we encounter a hurdle, when we’re overly ambitious, when our plans fall through? What kinds of environments inspire us, what kind of collaborations do we value most, when do we like to work alone, and what does support really look like? We’ll use the power of storytelling and develop our own rituals to make sense of our frustrations and celebrate our accomplishments.

A typical Our Nest day might include a morning community meeting where we create an agenda with our desires and goals for the day, followed by supported independent work time where students pursue learning a skill or work on a personal project. In the afternoon students might have organized a mini-workshop with a guest educator or a skill-share among themselves, or might choose to invent a big group game or build a fire and sit around telling funny stories. The day could end with a group reflection, a closing celebration, or a dance party. It all depends—because you’ll help shape the day!

Our Nest will give students and teachers the opportunity to ask big questions about their own learning, to participate in a community of self-directed learners, to deepen their relationships, and to develop their skills as dreamers, planners, and doers. 

Class Fee: $425 Sliding-scale and full scholarships are available for qualifying families. Payment plans are available to all. Please request a tuition assistance application to determine your tuition amount or payment plan. Email hello@kitesnest.org or fill out this contact form to request a tuition assistance application, or for any registration questions..

UPROOTING RACISM*

Monthly on Fridays, April - October | 10am-2pm | Ages 8-17 plus adult family members

A 5-session anti-racist learning journey for white youth and adult family members—with Briggin Scharf and Andrea Mitchell

The 2021 class is full and no longer accepting applications.

We invite white kids and teens (ages 8-17) and their grown-ups (parents, grandparents, or other family members) to join us in this new outdoor class to deepen our shared commitments to anti-racist learning, healing, and action. We’ll gather for five group sessions on April 23, May 21, June 25, September 24, and October 22, meeting at our River City Garden (or remotely, if necessary). Over the course of these sessions, we’ll move through a range of interactive workshops, hands-on activities, and group discussions—designed to engage people of all ages in meaningful co-learning. [Read more.]

Together we’ll develop shared understandings of how racism operates, breaking down the fundamentals of internalized, interpersonal, and systemic racism. We’ll explore our own personal and familial relationships to racism and oppression, learning to identify racism and white supremacy in our own daily lives and in the structures around us. We’ll deepen our ability to have real conversations about race, learning to engage our emotions, to decenter whiteness, and to speak out and act against injustice.

With our hands in the dirt and our feet on the ground, we’ll have a particular focus on the connections between racism, colonialism, whiteness, and land. While engaging in hands-on activities to support existing Black and Indigenous and justice projects, we’ll ask: What are the histories of land dispossession and land-based exploitation that have shaped our communities and ourselves? What might land-based justice, reparations, and healing look like?

As a first-time offering, this class has very limited capacity, though we plan to offer this class and other similar offerings again in the future. We will be accepting an intergenerational group of 10-13 people (3-4 family groups) for this pilot program. Priority will be given to applicants who can commit to all sessions; prior experience participating in anti-racism work is not required. 

Class Fee: $500-$750, depending on family size. Sliding-scale and full scholarships are available for qualifying families. Payment plans are available to all. Please request a tuition assistance application to determine your tuition amount or payment plan. Email hello@kitesnest.org for any registration questions.

*The title of this class comes from Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel