Education
About Education
In addition to the street level education that we receive when we share our stories and engage in witness, accompaniment, advocacy, and arts, Fools Mission has run several education programs such as tutoring, book discussion groups, street retreats, and immigrant education. We tailor our education programs to the current needs of our community.
Education is the goal of our Theater of the Oppressed workshops, where we employ the arts to give participants new perspectives on the way American society works differently for different people.
Our street-level education begins with members of the Fools Mission community who meet twice monthly as a covenanted decision-making group that we call The Fools of the Round Table. In this vision circle, everyone is a teacher and everyone a student. We build a shared pool of meaning when each of us contributes what we know.
Past educational events
Fools Mission hosts an education session on renter's rights with Shirley Gibson, Directing Attorney for the HomeSavers Project at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County." width="646" height="485" />
Fools Mission hosts an education session on renter’s rights with Shirley Gibson, Directing Attorney for the HomeSavers Project at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County.
Fools Silvia Ramirez (right) meets author Francisco Jimenez at a book tour event in Palo Alto.
Alex Rodriguez helps a student with her reading at a tutoring session.
Silvia Ramirez (right) helps David Vallerga (left) with his Spanish at our monthly book group.
Street retreats typically begin with an opening reflection on the anticipated experience, followed by a closing reflection on what actually took place after we walk together.
David Vallerga and Joanne McMahon check out a storefront at the July 2014 street retreat.
A street retreat story
On one of our retreats, we encountered a homeless woman along the Broadway corridor of Redwood City who was clearly having a bad day. We’ll call her Sarah (not her real name). After 20 minutes of conversation, her face began to brighten as she realized that we were genuinely interested in hearing her story.
Fool Silvia Ramirez reminds us that our words don’t always match our deeds.
As it turned out, the Unitarian Universalists in our group were about to have a revelation of our own. Sarah’s name was the same as her grandmother’s — and her grandmother was the first female Moderator of what was then the American Unitarian Association in the 1920s. The grandmother also served as President of Mills College. We headed for home with shattered assumptions about how things play out within the stereotypically privileged confines of Unitarian families.
Immigrant education
Silvia Ramirez was never afraid to knock on doors or call civic leaders on their cell phones when something was wrong in the community.
Under the energetic leadership of fool Silvia Ramirez, Fools Mission has sponsored regular education sessions on topics of great importance to the immigrant community. Some guest speakers offer professional services at no charge, including legal consultations. Fools Mission has presented education sessions on all of these topics:
- Accessing health care
- Obtaining a drivers license
- Immigration law and immigration reform
- Discipline in public schools
- Renter’s rights
- Housing discrimination
Though Silvia has moved away and is sorely missed, we have a new leader who is in the process of finding a new location that can host additional educational classes for immigrants in the area. We’ll update this as soon as new classes are scheduled.