"Portland Youth Builders: Building Exits in the Walls” Micah Young

Micah Young: "PYB is in the business of helping young people build exits into the walls of generational poverty. To build or find a way out, to break through barriers, whatever those might be, we humans need three things. We have to know that barriers have been broken before, that is to say, we have to believe that these walls are in fact, penetrable; secondly, we have to trust that we deserve more than these walls; and finally, we have to have the skills and the strength to get through."

Micah Young has been teaching English Language Arts for 8 years and just began her fourth year at Portland Youth Builders, where she has been Lead Teacher for two years. Micah describes herself as a lifelong learner and a passionate teacher, although her path to the front of the classroom was not direct. After receiving her Bachelor's Degree in philosophy, Micah went on to study theology in Berlin, Germany, where she subsequently worked as a Lutheran pastor for eight years. During this time, Micah discovered a love for teaching and a passion for anti-racist justice work. Upon moving back to the US in 2016, and with a deep belief that to teach literacy is to work for liberation, Micah went back to school in Los Angeles to get her teaching certificate. The question that lit her way was this: If, as Fredrick Douglass wrote, "education is emancipation", then who teaches the approximately 2.1 million youth in the US who have already fallen through the cracks of our "one-size-fits-all" education system? This was the question that led her into alternative education, working with gang-affected youth, youth experiencing homelessness, and trans youth in L.A.; then to get her Master's in Educational Leadership; and finally to Portland and Portland Youth Builders. 

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Meeting ID:  275 194 110

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