Who are you?

Finding Our Way: Shantell Martin’s Vision for a More Human Education

This past week, I had the profound privilege of learning alongside Shantell Martin—an artist, thinker, and radiant presence whose work pulses with life, possibility, and deep humanity. Being in her presence is like stepping into a living drawing—a continuous line that twists, turns, and expands, inviting you not to follow a path, but to find your own way.

Shantell’s art does not simply sit on walls—it moves, breathes, listens, responds. It’s more than visual expression; it’s a philosophy in motion. At the heart of her practice is a deceptively simple, yet profoundly powerful question:

Who are you?

This isn’t branding. It’s not a personal statement. It’s not an identity quiz or something you answer once and then move on from. It’s a lived inquiry. A call to strip away expectations, roles, and performance—to go inward and discover what remains when all the noise is gone.

And then, she shifts the frame.

She takes “Who Are You?” and reduces it to W.A.Y. A subtle but revolutionary reframe:

What is your way?

It transforms the question from an interrogation into an invitation. It doesn’t ask for an answer. It asks for presence. For direction. For alignment. How do you move through the world, not as someone society expects you to be, but as someone fully alive, present, and responsive to the moment?

And here is where her work becomes not just inspiring—but essential for education.

Shantell’s Line as a Model for Learning

In many ways, Shantell’s process is the model for a reimagined education.

Her lines emerge spontaneously, without rigid planning, but never without intention. They bend, repeat, pause, surprise—much like authentic learning. Each drawing is an exploration, an improvisation, a relationship between artist, surface, and moment.

Imagine if education looked like this.

What if instead of scripting the classroom to the minute, we designed it like a blank canvas—inviting students to co-create their journey with the same freedom and attentiveness that Shantell brings to her work?

Instead of strict rubrics and benchmarks, what if we asked:

• What is unfolding here?

• What are you noticing?

• What is your next line?

The Power of Permission

But perhaps the most transformative part of Shantell’s approach—the part education needs most urgently—is her relentless, loving commitment to giving permission.

Permission to do the things we should never need permission for:

To walk. To think. To breathe. To pause. To question. To feel. To reflect. To create. To move. To exist.

This might sound obvious, even trivial. But within our schools, it’s anything but.

So much of our educational system is built on control. The bell rings. The student sits. The lesson begins. The questions have answers. The answers have point values. The mind is measured. The body is managed. The soul is ignored.

We ask students to show up—but not to truly arrive. We ask them to speak—but only in the language we give them. We ask them to learn—but on someone else’s timeline, for someone else’s goals.

We rarely ask: Who are you today? We rarely say: You have permission to be here—fully, honestly, freely.

And yet, this is exactly what Shantell does. Through her words, her drawings, her presence—she creates space for people to just be.

That is not small.

That is revolutionary.

Are You You? – From Self to Collective

At the core of Shantell’s work is another profound question:

Are you you?

This is not just a personal reflection—it’s a collective mirror. It’s about identity, yes, but also about alignment. Are we living in integrity with who we are—and who we are together?

This question stretches beyond the self. It invites us to recognize that our individual becoming is inseparable from our connection to others.

Shantell’s drawings show us this truth visually: her lines are not isolated marks. They cross, connect, and curve around one another. They make meaning together.

This is what education has forgotten.

We have built systems that focus so intently on the individual as a competitor, a producer, a test-taker—that we’ve lost the truth that we are all in this together.

We do not exist in silos. We become ourselves in relationship.

So why do we teach like learning is a solitary act?

Why do we separate math from art, thinking from feeling, student from student?

Why do we reward answers, but ignore the hands reaching for connection?

A Humanistic Revolution

If we want an education that meets this moment—this chaotic, beautiful, interconnected moment—we have to stop preparing students to be products, and start preparing them to be people.

People who are whole. People who can live the question of who they are. People who are aware of their unique voice and how it harmonizes in the larger chorus.

We must create spaces where students feel the quiet courage to say: I am here. I don’t have all the answers. But I’m willing to look. I’m willing to ask. I’m willing to become.

This means our classrooms can no longer be factories. They must become studios, labs, gardens, sanctuaries—spaces for exploration, collaboration, mistake-making, and presence.

Education as Line Drawing

Like Shantell’s work, this kind of education is not linear—it’s alive.

It unfolds in real time. It bends, connects, disappears and re-emerges. It allows space for uncertainty. It thrives in the unknown.

But most of all—it gives permission.

It gives permission to pause. To question. To be seen. To matter. To belong.

And that kind of permission—simple, radical, human—is the soil from which true learning grows.

Conclusion: A Way Forward

So let us begin again.

Let us draw a new line—not from the top, but from within.

Let us ask—not once, but daily:

Who are you? What is your way? Are you you?

Let us build schools where those questions are not threats, but invitations.

Where finding your way is celebrated, not contained. Where connection matters as much as comprehension. Where permission is not granted—it’s assumed.

This is the future Shantell Martin’s work draws toward us.

A future of freedom, wonder, connection—and deep, unshakable humanity.

A future where students do not have to become anything other than fully themselves.

And when they arrive—messy, radiant, whole—we will greet them with three simple letters, filled with joy:

Y.A.Y.!

-Jason Blair