Civic Foundations for Reintegration

In development

In response to the challenges of COVID-19, Civic Foundations for Reintegration offers a 3-day intensive remote studio to equip high-school students across Providence to be better seers, critical thinkers, and integrators. Adapting Rhode Island School of Design’s studio-based model for creative practice, this program provides learning conditions for open, guided inquiry into practices for working effectively within complexity and uncertainty, for which there are no simple or totalizing answers. The goal is to equip students to be leaders on the front-lines, outside traditional structures of government and authority, bringing a systems design approach to strategic improvement.

The focus of these days will be on discerning relevant connections between their civic and educational communities which often go unnoticed and unchallenged. Through capacity-building based in creative practice, students will learn to assess and interpret environments, contexts, interactions, and relationships, translating new ways of investigating conditions at the intersection of civic responsibility and public education. Students will be pushed to ask better questions, revealing the messiness behind civic outcomes which is often overlooked or simplified. This initial offering is a seed for more immersive learning which builds on the initial 3-days, and works to develop student-driven and team-based interventions. Civic Foundations for Integration invites organizations and interested collaborators who care to contribute to systems change within and beyond Providence, RI.