Curriculum Design

The original designers of this course were Spring Up co-founders Stas Schmiedt (they/them) aka the imaginatrix, and Leander "Lea" Roth (they/he) aka the mythematician. You will see Stas + Leander in videos, get to read essays they wrote on this topic, and get access to worksheets and tools that they developed in community over the past 15 years. This course comes out of their personal and professional experiences trying to practice accountability in their relationships, families, communities, and organizations. It is rooted in their formal and informal study and lived experience of race, gender, and structural/ historical systems of oppression as well as liberatory practices. As organizers and consultants Stas + Leander have worked with(in) hundreds of organizations and communities around turtle island, in Europe, and beyond.

Stas + Leander share: "The wisdom and tools shared throughout this course came out of long conversations filled with tears, anger, and laughter, long nights reflecting on hard truths, mistakes and harm we have faced in ourselves and our loved ones, and spaces to imagine, create, and play with abolitionist and anti-violence comrades. These are practices that have worked for us and the people we have trained and coached, and we are so excited to hear about practices that have surfaced in your life."

Stas Schmiedt (right): they/them | Leander "Lea" Roth (pronounced Lee, rhymes with tea - left): he/they

In addition to Stas and Lea, the bluelight academy leadership team re-designed this course from a live 6 week cohort course, into a self-guided curriculum. The bluelight leadership team includes:

• Brianna Suslovic (she/her): bluelight academy lead
• Shaïna Caceres-Doliny (they/them): alchemist + design lead
• Stas Schmiedt (they/them): curriculum design lead

You will see as you go through this content, that this was also co-created by many Spring Up team members and community training participants who contributed in a thousand small and large ways to the content of this course.



The original curriculum design support team (in various cycles in 2019, 2020, and 2022) adapted the community agreements, co-designed the harm reporting and response mechanisms, reviewed and selected stand out quotes from the associated books and readings to introduce and guide the content each week, created grounding practices for each week, and created reflection questions for each module. Various team members and alumni also contributed to recording audio of themselves reading the attached readings in order to make them more accessible and easier to engage with throughout the course.