Where Pseads Began

Matthew Davis and I founded Pseads (“seeds") in 2013, as a nonprofit and hub for building community and transforming the experience of learning.  We’ve been particularly committed to empowering youth visions and voices, igniting new and renewed passion among educators and teams, and supporting projects that honor and nourish the “seed" of wisdom that exists within every human being.  Pseads programs are designed to inspire new relationships with ourselves, each other and the earth – in part by leveraging the humanizing and unifying power of poetry and creativity. 

Pseads grew out of a shared love of learning across subjects, and curiosity about human psychology, social justice, science, healing, and ecology, that brought us to the same graduate school and to our first joint project (The Worldview Literacy Project at the Institute of Noetic Sciences).  And, for me, it was also inspired by an experience I had in an Oakland high school, where I first witnessed Matt teaching in 2010.  When I arrived at the Aspire School, where Matt was teaching college level courses for high school students, even students without the grades to enroll in Matt’s class were sitting on the hallway floor, listening outside the door.  I had never seen anything like it, and had to know what was inspiring this level of interest.

When I walked into the room, Matt was sitting in a circle of chairs that stretched to the walls.  But it wasn’t just the configuration of the chairs that gave character to the space, it was the way that Matt talked to every student like a fellow human being on a journey for learning and discovery.  And even more than that, it was how he listened to them that way – every single student.  Matt treated every person in the room with respect and dignity.  He listened for the ways that each student could feel self-empowered, and sufficiently comfortable with the learning process to be fully a student.  In community the whole class read, wrote and talked, and with every comment shared, Matt pointed students again and again to their own capacity for wisdom and knowledge.  This has remained true every day I’ve seen Matt teach over the last 13 years, and became our shared practice, augmented by the guidance of incredible mentors with whom we’ve also been incredibly fortunate to learn and grow.

When I first asked Matt about his approach to learning, he said: “What’s gets lost is the innate will and love for learning.  But it’s there, if you know how to listen for it."  This will and love gets covered over by so many ideas about who we are and who we’re supposed to be, and by conditions that fracture human relationships instead of bringing ever-more life to them.  The “p" in Pseads is for people, and for the belief that every person deserves to connect with the unique constellation of gifts and talents that they bring into the world.  This is the seed that will bring new possibilities how we live, learn, work, heal, and love.  It’s a seed I started to lose sight of in myself as a student right out of college, and it gets us out of bed every day to stand for it in every student and person we get the chance to meet and learn alongside.  “Pseads" is an invented word because we need freshness of heart and mind, freshness of listening and language, and re-freshness of perspective, to reach a different state of the world.  

Over the last 10 years, we have worked with a wide spectrum of schools, institutions and organizations, growing slowly, locally and organically and teaching programs directly.  We often work with students, teachers and teams over multiple years (often for as many as 6-8 years).  Developing relationships that last and grow over time is one of the foundational values for Pseads.  In the wake of the pandemic, we have differently understood our work’s possible impact on mental health, which has been described as “the defining public health crisis of our time.”  Underpinned by 20 years of research, study, work, and mentorship, Pseads is advancing pedagogies that seek to improve mental health, as well as academic outcomes, by fostering social-emotional skills and self-confidence in new ways.  Pseads’ school-based poetry, environmental justice and awareness-based programs have reached over 29,000 students and educators, creating experiences of hope, joy and connection that transform ideas about ability and belonging.  More than anything, Pseads is meant to be a movement in which all people can participate – a movement for creating new expressions and new kinds of community.  

Pseads programs and projects include reevaluating the metrics that matter in human systems, and developing novel assessment methodologies that cultivate continuous growth, lifelong learning and joy in re-vision, and multi-media components that utilize technology to tell new stories of human potential.  This work includes book, film and audio projects intended to amplify courageous young voices offering visions for peace.

Pseads is at the cusp of activating an expanded mission of making greater contributions to a larger community, in both the Bay Area and beyond.  New growth includes sustaining and growing current programs; expanding programming and partnerships, particularly with Title 1 schools; launching Exhale, an initiative for educators and teams; growing fellowship opportunities for middle, high school students and college students; honoring and extending the legacies of incredible mentors and humanitarian leaders like Dedan Gills and Belvie Rooks; and developing new stories and events that bring people and generations together.  We want Pseads to be a place for everyone – a collective of people journeying together into untapped depths of human potential and social innovation.  We hope you’ll join us in any way that speaks to you (learn more about the journey so far)!  

Here’s to what’s possible!

– Elizabeth Miller, Pseads Co-Founder