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Go With the Flow: Dual Floods of Tech and Trauma as Curriculum | John Simms | TEDxABQED

1,095 views · Published 12 June 2015 · 6:24 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2015 · Nonprofits & Activism

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Textbooks can’t connect as powerfully as the rich, dynamic, complex lives our learners experience every day.

John is an educator serving learners and their families at Harrison Middle School in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Through critical pedagogy and indigenous epistemology, he and his students work to build life rafts for their community. The rising waters of his learners’ lives flood the classroom and become centerpieces of the curriculum. Using “Social Holography,” his students analyze the dynamic intersection of human values, language, history, epistemology, power, society and culture and how these change between place and space. Each student thus creates her or his own water wheel to power themselves to become the change they want to see.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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