The Journey
The core of SEEDS is rooted in Dignity embodied in the teachings of Mother Earth. Its origins are not found within the modalities of modern states, theorizations of place and space or linguistic-philosophical attempts to make sense of them. This is where most turn their approaches to this work through defaulted lines leaving many stagnated and confused. Perhaps the problem is in the act of trying to explain RESPONSE-abilities, as I often elaborate in educational settings, to colonized minds. When I speak of colonized minds I refer to the plethora of concepts on diversity that are anything but diverse embodied in behaviours. The core of SEEDS are found in Lake Ilopango - an aquatic space that holds sacred knowledge superficially 'analyzed' in academic spaces. Here is one seed that is explained over and over again that appears textually in a printed collective offering, Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation. Coffee is the most important text in my life and I learned to read it beyond the binary before I went to school. Nothing is more disgraceful, violent, insulting, and patronizing than to witness how sacred seeds like Cacao and the Corn are treated, especially when it is done by humans who simply romanticize them in exchange for money, prestige, strategies and lines in curriculums. I expand on this in my first book Decolonizing Academia: Poverty, Oppression and Pain, another printed offering I gave birth to as part of an ability to respond to ongoing decolonization this and decolonizing that. There is nothing transformational in education today because listening is absent. SEEDS has been historically grounded in shared teaching values of aboriginal people: Honesty, Truth, Wisdom, Humility, Love, Respect and Bravery. These are the Seven Grandfather Teachings of the Anishinaabe People - they are alive. Copying, pasting, reformulating language to replace colonialist infused language with ancestral ways of knowing is not change. The constellations beg for patience as much as the corn fields and the flow of the River Lempa - just to mention some of my guardians. The creation of a learning space without borders in 2020 wasn't to fulfill academic expectations. Those who came, left, return, and stay connected in the name of growing, unlearning, community, or curiosity do so because they assume an assumed privilege that was given to them in the Global North. As the Founder of SEEDS for Change, my responsibility is to flag a sign that reads: Stop running! Crawl. Listening Matters. As part of the courses I teach at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education with an emphasis on Futuristic Pedagogies of Liberation, Popular Education, Decolonization in Education, Anti-Discriminatory Education, Indigenous Experiences of Racism in Canada and Colonialism in all of its daily glories, I opened the space consciously for Global learners from all walks of life. The requirement? Show up ready to listen politically and respecting our Dignity. Who joined? Many who spoke of representations, reparations, repetitive theoretical models that made sense of dreams they never even had themselves, of blood they hadn't tasted, of tears they hadn't shed themselves, of mutilated bodies and bones they had never searched for - not even one day in their lives. It was a tsunami wave of extraordinary encounters that impacted those who were by the shore as spectators. There is no such as thing as a safe space as I have been saying this for decades. The rhetoric behind this fabricated lie comes from the very same people who claim to know our stories, our dreams, our cosmovision, our way of way of life simply because they have travelled to the "South" and have their offices filled with things they collect to sell in return policies of diversity. Since 2020 I have welcomed acknowledging the land beyond PowerPower presentations, beyond reading scripts written by institutions to check the box of inclusion, and knowing well that I wasn't doing it for the likes. It has been an act of radical love and in the presence of extraordinary Beings that are part of a community across territories. As a Philosopher of math and a mathematician of Philosophy, I have had the honor to integrate the energy of Elders, scholars, artists, social workers, lawyers, policy makers, Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts, majors of all Latin languages, professors, youth, children, cooks -- all of them moved either by curiosity, networking, or to learn the ABCS they were denied of. To learn one own's ABC, as I teach it and have written about, is the Achilles tendon that either gets broken or healed in the space. That is everyone's RESPONSE-ability. This continues to be the unapologetic, unorthodox, unconventional and magic work I am committed to carrying on with my community's blessings and those of my mother and daughter, and my Ancestors. They are present with their presence.
Clelia O. Rodriguez, PhD
clelia.rodriguez@utoronto.ca
Founder and Leading Academic Lead of SEEDS for Change | Global Education Advisor for Global Affairs Canada | Lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto | Co-Founder of Cultura Cafe.
