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Watkins
2001
A history of the shaping of Black education to define "acceptable" social change by white wealthy elites.
Human Restoration Project is a non-profit organization centered on purposeful, human-centered learning through empathy interviews and research-backed, hands-on professional development. We form close partnerships with schools to center young people and reimagine education.
Human Restoration Project's empathy interview process involves students hosting peer conversations to uncover key themes that reveal the assets and challenges within schools and districts. By gathering culture and climate data, we provide in-depth analysis that schools can use for district initiatives or extended partnerships in workshops, grants, and more, ultimately aiming to scale impact and drive meaningful change.
Our work allows schools to hear from hundreds (to thousands!) of students to listen, learn, and take action.
We train student facilitators to conduct empathy interviews and focus groups with their peers, gathering insights on what students love about school and what they wish to improve, all tailored to address the specific questions and interests of schools & districts.
We utilize cutting-edge conversation sense-making technology, qualitative data mapping software, and AI tools to code, theme, and analyze hundreds of student conversations, presenting key themes, student quotes, and areas of success and growth in a comprehensive school portal.
Schools receive tailored recommendations, including research-backed strategies, actionable steps with varying levels of effort, and connections to additional partners to address key concerns. HRP supports districts with case studies, grant applications, and ongoing professional development to ensure successful implementation.
We use state of the art listening and sense-making tools to gather information from hundreds to thousands of voices, allowing us to capture meaningful (and nuanced!) conversations at-scale.
Using the MIT-affiliated Fora transcription and sense-making tool, we can quickly analyze key themes and highlights of conversations. Plus, these tools allow young people to directly tell us what mattered most to them in the conversation!
We primarily focus on K-12 public schools while also collaborating with universities & progressive learning environments to foster educational innovation.
We've hosted hundreds of empathy interviews with young people, educators, and community members.
Across 2023-2024 we've worked with over 600 educators to partner in high quality professional development.
We engage with districts across rural, suburban, and urban regions.
In our PD with the Human Restoration Project, HRP used their "out of the box" thinking to develop processes that our cohort can use. It was not a PD of just theory but was all about putting theory into a usable package.
MS Teacher
This is a group who is committed to improving the world of education by focusing on and listening to students.
MS Teacher
Your group has articulated these things that I instinctually know but have lost in all my PD/ College Board years of training. I’m 25 years into this gig. Glad I can reacquaint myself with what originally got me into teaching and finish my career ethically whole.
HS Teacher
Human Restoration Project helped us refine our vision, but more importantly, they gave us the tools and the research to do it right! Our students will benefit greatly from this work!
MS Principal
Since sharing the HRP with members of our staff, we've seen an increase in interest to explore topics such as ungrading, project-based learning, and creating equitable learning environments.
Being a district that serves over 75% Title I eligible learners, these topics are incredible important for us to consider, and the HRP provides an onramp to consider the implications of the choices we make with or for our learners. Just last week, I shared the ungrading links with our Elementary School Improvement team, who asked to explore grading practices. Having the research put together in accessible ways, and high-quality podcasts available to extend learning are invaluable for our growth as a district.
Superintendent
My whole life I've felt alone, caring about children and providing education that is exciting for children. Even as a child I was disappointed that other children didn't love school, but as i got higher in grades I realized why, school work got more repetitive and less immersive.
HRP has shown me that there are many educators out there who also care about all children and want them to learn and grow, not just as "productive workers" but as critically thinking curious excited creators and caretakers. HRP empowers me to fight for children's rights.
Activist
Human Restoration Project helped me gain a deeper perspective of the benefits and drawbacks of AI in Education. I feel like I have walked away with many useful ways I can implement AI to benefit my students' learning.
MS Teacher
Human Restoration Project is doing some incredible work advocating for progressive education practices and giving educators the information and tools they need to do their own advocacy work on behalf of themselves and their students. The organization provides a wealth of excellent materials that empower us to ask the question "what if we did better?"
HS Teacher
We value close connections and treat educators as experts, helping districts develop closer connections with young people and their communities to collaboratively determine the best steps forward, rather than prescribing solutions.
We are dedicated to using representative demographic data in our studies and providing recommendations that benefit all learners, including those at the margins, as we believe that designing for students at the margins leads to gains for everyone.
We are committed to ensuring that young peoples' information are securely stored, processed, and analyzed with care, using a consent-driven conversation model that anonymizes student data, supports voice anonymization, and aligns with district data privacy policies.
All HRP professional development is designed to mirror the dynamic classrooms we envision for learners, fostering active partnerships where educators engage in meaningful tasks, create, brainstorm, and think creatively.
We help educators design high-quality project-based learning (PBL) experiences that emphasize community connections and interdisciplinary learning through hands-on, classroom-ready sessions.
We guide educators in feedback literacy to transition from traditional grading to iterative assessment, such as portfolios and growthbooks, creating universal design for learning (UDL) systems for students to demonstrate mastery and meet standards through multiple means.
We collaborate with educators to explore digital tools such as YouTube, social media, and artificial intelligence, offering workshops to navigate their practical applications while addressing their challenges.
For those who wish to dive deeper into the specifics of our work, here's additional information:
