Student voice

Empowering Student Voice.

There  are only 3 reasons to call on us:

1. Your employees are stuck ,
2.  Your customer service is killing you,
3. Your client demographic has changed but your staff has not.

Back Breaking work.
We have to break the back of Racism, Sexism and Oppression. The only way we can do this is with Love and Understanding. Blame, Fault and Guilt never move people in a positive direction as a matter fact it actually creates faster, stronger and more effective haters of equity and justice. 

Andre guides these conversations with humility, honesty and humor. Our purpose is to reconnect people to the Dignity and Honor in Being Human.

Core Program Offerings

Bullying and Intimidation Intervention
Bullying and Cyber-intimidation harm schools and create costly liabilities in our workplaces. We find the best solutions for you both in our facilitated classroom discussion and through our online course.  

Creating a Respectful Environment: pragmatic cultural responsive teaching 
As our workplaces become more complex in ethnic, cultural and learning styles, we can empower employees to communicate and build upon the synergy of their diverse experiences to replace conflict with growth.  

Conflict Management in the Organization
Finite resources, vague goals and limited time are the volatile mixtures that produce conflict. In this workshop, employees learn innovative methods to negotiate conflict productively.  

Cultural Sensitivity Coaching
Our world continues to change and our social and business networks are becoming increasingly integrated systems. Events in China can enhance or disrupt our daily lives, because we are all interconnected. This session explores the public and private roles we all play and the profitable lessons we can learn from each other.

Discrimination/Microinequities Training
Microinequities and discrimination can undermine workplace and social cooperation. In this session, supervisors and business leaders learn how to minimize unproductive and unprofitable behavior and optimize the discretionary efforts of their employees.
 
Sexual Harassment and the Hostile Work Environment
Workplaces free of harassment produce employees that are more willing and able to focus on work goals by increasing their personal effectiveness while allowing co-workers to grow. This session explores interpersonal techniques that bypass harassment and empower employee relations to maximize a return on investment.

Life & Death of a Hegemony: 
We will develop strategies to deconstruct the race, gender and class structures that support and feed the hegemony. In this session we will define the hegemony, examine it impacts on social structures. 

Deliver us from Evil in the workplace: bias and prejudice in our midst
What is Evil in the workplace? When stressors, gossip and microinequities impact our discretionary effort, separate our body from our spirit, this is evil. Once the spirit is separated from the body, people become things or objects. The Spirit or the life of the person begin to become power-less and productivity suffers. In this session we will examine methods that will allow us to reintegrate our whole self, as in the workplace and rid our environment of evil.

TO Live and Die in a MEME: thoughts make things
Memes are the smallest unit of thought, they battle in a contest of darwinian survival of the fittest.
In this session we will examine the power of the thoughts we hold and the primal instinct that we must overcome to be more inclusive in our workplaces and community.

101 year game of catch up: why urban youth need their voices
Why do we have a gap of services, an imbalance in our educational system and disproportionate number of African Americans involved in criminal justice system? In 1863 the slaves were "freed" yet it was not until 1964 that they legally gained the rights of other US citizens. This session will examine methods, strategies and tools we can use to close those gaps.


Networks=Networth
In this session we will emplore the latest in network built strategies to provide a framework for managers to help build diverse work environments, hire the right people and engage them in real and powerful ways.


Archie Bunker, The Great American Hero
This session will provide a fresh look at Bigotry, Prejudice & Discrimination. All in the family was a television program that provided, for many Americans the opportunity to tell the truth, struggle with social change and prepare for a future that is uncertain. Archie Bunker told the truth and after this session you will too.

I have forgotten more than you know: Generations in the workplace
The tools have changed, the methods may be more sophisticated and rules more complicated but the laws of successful teaming and effective group development have remained the same. We will discuss the different generations in the workplace and how each of them must work towards the maxims of high quality and effective outcomes, no matter the generation gap.

Battling Bikini Zombie Babes: The Battle for Dignity of Women and Girls
When we are able to rip the spirit from the body, when we end up with a thing, an object a tool. Hammers don't care how or when they are used. Media, rhetoric and the male hegemony are attempting to teach girls to rip out the souls of their sisters so we end up with women and girls as zombies. This session will allow us to critically examine methods of restoring girls and women to wholeness, with men as allies.

Simulating Manhood: hyper masculinity & female delusions in media 
With the growth and popularity of first person shooter games I am amazed at the questions that arise around gun violence. It occurs to me that pilots spend hundreds of hours in a simulator prior to stepping foot in the cockpit of a passenger plane. In this session we will examine why violent masculinity seems to be growing, why boys and men are turning to porn and why misogyny seems not to be recognized as a public health issue.

The bridge of excuses: truth, lies and thing we make
We do not see the world for how it is we see what we desire. Context is everything. Our context or lack of context forms our truth. In this session we will examine the power of a paradigm, the influence of cultural norms and the limiting information stream provide by space and place as our predominant context. 

The Out of Conext Problems: teach them when to to pull-up their pants.
Why do deer get hit by cars? Why don't immigrants learn to wait in line and why didn't the Native Americans Stop Columbus when they had the chance? Ronald Reagan was right, if aliens were to land today that would change the context by which we relate to people we percieve to be different from ourselves. In this session we will explore noticible differences, the percieved conflict that those difference produce and build effect strategies to create networks of inclusive relationships.

How to Start a Guerrilla War: Our ambiguity is our effectiveness
5 ways to dismantle effective liberation strategies for oppressed people. To kills a snake you simply cut off the head, but with worms where do you start and where do you end? In this session we will discuss effective ways for grassroots movement to interface with government, nonprofits and ngos that allow them not to lose the effectiveness or their heads.

The Picked Heart: youth with no feeling or voice
Why don't young people smile? Hello seems to fall on deaf ears. Why does it seem as thought people are so callous? In this session we will explore why hurt people seem to hurt people. Our discussion will include methods of creating space in our wounded heart to be picked by something beautiful or to be touched by the generosity of another, we will talk about how to nurture a healing heart for yourself and others.

Hurt people, Hurt People:generational illiteracy and poverty
As human beings as a part of nature we must follow its laws. If we plant a seed in good ground it will rise with ample sun, rain and temperature. No matter what type of seed whether fruit or weed this process is the same. In this session we will discuss possible reasons for the trouble youth have, why it might be difficult to overcome challenges and why the same archetypes of people keep showing themselves in my life. At the conclusion of this session you will be able to reprogram your subconscious and plant need seed in others.

Attitude adjustment: how to change an attitude
What is an attitude? Why do teens seem to have more than their share of it? Attitudes are typically a secondary response to goal achievement. We often get confused or complicate what it means to have an attitude. In this session we will create an more effective and creative ways to deal with, help individuals change and monitor what attitudes are trying to tell us about goal accomplishment.

Gorilla Dance:truth behind the attitude
Why are people so loud? Why is that certain people seem so rude? Why is it bad for a 500 pound gorilla to fight another 500 pound gorilla? The answer to all of the above can be summed up in the fact people, like gorillas, do not want to be hurt. In this session we will explore how people have gotten hurt, how that hurt has impacted them and methods to create space for healing in the service of others.

The Price is Right
What is the price for a human soul? Race, Poverty, Sexism and oppression are designed to place a dollar value on a particular human experience value one, some or groups over others. In this session we will create methods for combating these forms of oppression, providing new methods of building effective human relations and tools for establishing life-long partnerships that increase personal and professional effectiveness.

Who stole the Soul?
The body is a network of organs, bones and muscles that are organized in such a way the life is able to inhabit the state of being. The spirit in the animating force or sets of behaviors that provide power and life to the body and it the foundation of the personality. When the body is separated from the spirit one might say a person is dead. The systems of oppression, free market system and capitalist system are designing strategies and tools that will separate the spirit from the body in order to create a void that can never be filled by any product, system or external material gain. In this session we will explore methods for building resiliency, staying focused on goal attainment and creating networks for self advocacy.

Cultural Competence 2.0
We need to reboot how we think about culture and the goals people from other cultures have. Why did those people move here? Why have they chosen my neighborhood and community? I field these inquiries with a very simple response. They are looking for Safety, Significance and belonging, just as your ancestors did prior to your arrival. In this session we will discussion the similarities between cultures, perceived differences and create methods for better cultural awareness and allophilia.

IQ for what?
Standardized test, IQ tests and SAT scores for what? Assessment are great for base line data. However, often in the conversation we never talk about the context for which these examination have been created and for context should this knowledge be applied. A farmer and a wall street banker will required different forms of "IQ", thus the question begs to be asked IQ for what purpose? In this session we will explore the typical assumption made about IQ test and performance, we will define successful life and provide pathways for differentiated learners to grow their self worth and dignity.

Phill Jackson, tenure and entitlement programs
After winning numbers of NBA championship I still have a question for Phill, "Is Phill Jackson a good coach?" This question lingers because he has coach some of the top players in the NBA. In this session we will expose the myths that often get associated with tenure, its relationship to entitlement programs and their impact on the Affirmative Action Plans.

The Root of Human motivation
What do they people want? Alfred Adler introduced a number of concepts that have allowed us to increase our effectiveness in engaging people in productive change. This session will discuss the 3 human drives as expressed by Adler and the methods that are typically employed in striving for attainment.

Prejudice is Good
If I am walking down a street late at night and 6 guys are approaching me, what decision might I make? Yes, cross the street. Often when we talk about the concept of prejudice we don't talk about the practical applications or benefits that may be derived from that skill. However we lose our credibility when we use those finding out of their original context and try them to a new situation in a different context. In this session we will explore the myths and truths about groups, we will expand our understanding or prejudice and we will discuss the importance the context plays in our relationships.