Hector Calderón grew up watching the South Bronx burn, taught himself English through Gilligan's Island tapes, and went on to co-found the first Human Rights High School in the nation.
In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Hector Calderón, co-founder and former principal of El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, educator, racial justice facilitator, and leadership coach with over 25 years of experience building liberatory spaces for leaders and communities.
Hector traces his path from a childhood split between a burning South Bronx block and a one-room schoolhouse in the Dominican Republic, to landing at the epicenter of hip hop's birth on Banana Kelly Street, to finding his calling at El Puente in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1993. El Puente was not a school dropped into a community. It was a community deciding what kind of school it deserved. He shares the three founding tenets that shaped it: education as liberation, disciplines in service of community needs, and integrated curriculum that mirrors how the real world actually works.
The conversation moves into what Hector does today, coaching leaders through the eighteen inches between the brain and the heart, and holding firm to the Frantz Fanon charge he lives by: every generation must find its destiny, fulfill it or betray it.
Tune in to hear how Hector Calderón turns every rupture into an aperture, and what that means for the rest of us.
Chapters:
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02:39 Hector Calderón's story: from the South Bronx to the Dominican Republic and back
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08:55 Navigating dangerous schools and the move to Queens
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10:06 Teaching himself English through Gilligan's Island tapes
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15:18 Growing up at the birth of hip hop on Banana Kelly Street
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19:45 Co-founding El Puente Academy: a community building its own school
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22:58 The three founding tenets of El Puente
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29:42 Student asthma research published in JAMA and a vaccination clinic that beat the Department of Health
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36:47 Coaching leaders today: the eighteen inches between brain and heart
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44:29 Frantz Fanon and keeping justice alive right now
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45:35 Hector's poem: in the beginning was the word
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52:10 Learn to turn ruptures into apertures
Links:
Connect with Hector on LinkedIn and keep an eye out for his upcoming book of poetry, art, and educational reflections.
Episode 87
