Lyon Ideas

Why Power Matters in Service Learning

Wanna get academic? Here are some resources to get you started thinking about service learning and civic engagement. Why Power Matters in Service Learning Here’s a great literature review on critical theory and power as it applies to service learning. The author Andrea Yoder Clark asked emerging service learning leaders how they have considered imbalances of power in their practice and came up…

Policy for the People

I am organizing an event with my colleagues called Policy for the People. Politics has felt so foreign to me, something to shun—I’ve gravitated more toward grassroots organizing in other ways, which has led me to education. But here I am putting on a professional development series on how students and teachers can get involved in making local policy change. I’m learning as I go—yesterday I went…

Even My Cat Has a Gender

Yesterday my wife Sofia Rose Smith and I got to speak with graduating seniors at Milken Community Schools about gender, sexuality and identity. Our workshop is titled Even My Cat Has A Gender; we held Council and shared authentically about ourselves. So sweet to send these students off to college with expanded perspectives & to feel their honesty and openness! Watch our Facebook live video below:

Every Day is Earth Day: A Letter to My Teacher Colleagues

Dear colleagues, As “environment” and “Paris climate agreement” became top news items last week (among Portland white supremacist terrorism and military escalation in Syria, Yemen & Iraq), I was heartened to wake up and spend my Friday at a student-led Earth Carnival. So how do we authentically connect what’s happening in our classrooms to current events? Our students are hearing about the threat…

Why I Went to the Womxn’s March

Look, white people have a limited understanding of the world. So do cis people. It just comes with the territory of privilege. We can’t see all the colors of the rainbow, even if it’s there in front of us. So even though the unity principles for the women’s march were intersectional, it unfolds differently in practice. Pretty much any setting that tries to unify all “women” ends up privileging…

Teachers & Students Lead Exploration of Environmental Leadership

HUNDREDS OF EDUCATORS AND ORGANIZERS ATTENDED A SERIES OF EVENTS LED BY ENVIRONMENTAL CHARTER SCHOOLS TO EXPLORE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN ACTION This year, more than 100 educators, students and community partners gathered at Environmental Charter Schools campuses to explore environmental justice in action through a series of events facilitated by our own students and teachers. Green Ambassadors…

System Change Not Climate Change

“We are the ones with the solutions. It’s in our blood. We had them to begin with and that was taken away from us.” – Rossmery Zayas, Youth for Environmental Justice In a recent event hosted by Communities for a Better Environment and the Climate Justice Alliance, I got the opportunity to hear about last December’s COP21 U.N. gatherings on climate change. Although I am an environmental educator,…

Let’s Connect Schools and Community to Hack the Curriculum

As an educator for social change, I am passionate about connecting schools and community. My colleagues who work to bring real-world, interdisciplinary experiences to our students know that if we want to see true social change, we need to dissolve school walls through collaborative projects that engage students with the challenges and assets of the wider community. At Environmental Charter…

Why Young People Communicate Just Fine

Recently, an Anonymous Academic wrote: ‘I’m not LMAO at ridiculous emails from my students‘ for The Guardian. The emails this professor cites are pretty ridiculous, in which students write that they missed class because they were in bed with their boyfriend, or they slept in, or their baked potato was still in the oven. However, the article is just as ridiculous for those excuses as for the…

When We Wrote a Book in 4 Days

DIARY OF A CHANGEMAKER BOOK SPRINT Day Zero: The Utah Cabin Book Writing Mansion 2pm I land in Salt Lake City where the snowy mountains serve as the backdrop for our upcoming adventure. Ashoka has brought together 9 educators, 4 organizers and 1 facilitator to write a book about how schools are graduating new generations of “changemakers.” After decades of supporting social entrepreneurs around…

A Book for Changemaker Education

Next week I’ll be joining eight other educators from across the country to put together a book on “Changemaker Education.” Ashoka is putting this on as part of their #StartEmpathy project. I’m really excited about this because I love working with teachers as much as I love working with students, and thrive off of collaborative spaces to share ideas and spark new projects. I am fascinated by how…

Youth Make Change in Business

ENGAGING YOUTH IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP SOCIAL REPORT > By Sammy Lyon, Environmental Charter Schools Originally published in Sustainable Business Magazine. At Environmental Charter High School — an urban patch of paradise nestled among some of the busiest freeways in Los Angeles — students use the environment as a lens to become agents of change. The school’s curriculum is…

   I’m in Connecticut learning and sharing best practices with 7 other environmental schools from cities across the US: Hartford, New Haven, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Boston & New York.  How do we create and sustain regional hubs for environmental education in schools ? What makes powerful professional development? How are social justice issues inextricable from environmental…