Youth Roots/Ramas Coordinator & Development Coordinator
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Jonas Juhlin began his teaching career as a youth sailing instructor on Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. Readily apparent to him was that Lake Merritt was a highly underutilized resource and desperately needed by the Oakland community – especially youth. Jonas played a major role in co-founding and developing the popular Sailing Into Science program. This program now provides access to Lake Merritt for thousands of Oakland youth per year.
While recruiting youth from Oakland Unified School District, however, he witnessed his first glimpse of institutionalized racism, segregation, oppressive teachers, inequality, and the emotional duress that plagues most urban areas. Realizing his need to learn more, he enrolled in the Masters in Education: Equity and Social Justice from San Francisco State University. His area of study focused on the affects of Western European colonialism and their supporting ideologies still deeply imbedded in our institutions of education. He believes the culture of our school system is more powerful than the lash in the act of domination. He often quotes Carter G. Woodson stating, “when you control a person’s thinking you do not have to worry about their actions”. Thus, he has a firm belief that schooling is not a tool of promoting equality, rather, a mechanism through which dominant powers maintain their status in society.
Juhlin’s studies allowed him to further witness these ideas on a global level as he surveyed schools and curriculum in Guangdong China, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, Laos, and the Dominican Republic where notions of white supremacy still saturate the education discourse.
Combining his interest in post-colonial studies, 12 years experience as a professional musician, love for teaching, Jonas is now working as the Youth Roots music production coordinator pushing youth to think critically about the music they consume while helping them to create music and lyrics they enjoy… songs they wanna share… beats they wanna slap… lyrics they wanna teach… and at the same time contain critical content which challenges dominant ideologies.
Contact Jonas at jonasjuhlin@gmail.com.
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