Derek received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Strayer University in 2006. After working for two major nonprofits in Washington, DC, in business processes and improvement, Derek decided to follow his passion and become an elementary educator. Derek spent two years abroad in South Korea, teaching English as a Foreign Language to elementary students before returning to the States. On his return, Derek entered into graduate school, obtaining two master’s degrees in education from the School for International Training and Marlboro College Graduate School, both in Brattleboro, Vermont. Since 2013, Derek has worked in both the public and private educational systems in the Washington, DC metropolitan area as an elementary educator, actively utilizing social justice pedagogy across the curriculum to engage his students in equity and justice issues. Derek is also a facilitator for SPARK Teacher Education Institute and a radio host on Indigo Radio, a group of area educators who host a weekly talk show on a local public access radio that discusses educational and social issues globally and locally. Since the pandemic, Derek has spent his time organizing with various community groups in southern Vermont committed to the Black Lives Matter movement, returning to his love of growing and sharing food, spending time outdoors hiking, and taking photos of nature.

Charis designs curriculum and runs workshops with organizations like Community Asylum Seekers’ Project, the Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice, Where There Be Dragons, California Kitchen, and Collective Liberation Lab.

Charis is informed, in teaching and in life, by a long-term commitment to building socially and environmentally just relations. She learns from bell hooks about how to teach as an act of radical love and liberatory practice. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University in 2018. The broad goal of her work is to provide people not only with historical and cultural frameworks to understand situations or places, but also with the relevant tools, experiences, and relationships to engage more deeply with the world we live in and all its challenges. She has deep roots in community organizing, poetry as a tool for social change and expression, and direct action. She is committed to the long haul work of collective liberation.