BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™ Services
Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice™, (BDCV) the international, multimedia, integrative
Literacy, Education Platform utilizes Flint Poet Laureate, Semaj Brown's poem, "Black
Dandelion" artistic practice, and her award-winning 9- framework pedagogy, PSL/Poetry as a Second Language: The Semajian Method™, (PSL Method) as technology, to offer
the following youth, and community services:
Literacy Capacity Expansion
BDCV increases the student enthusiasm factor by providing classes infused with innovative strategies, and games to improve: reading, writing, comprehension, and interpretive understanding
Critical Thinking Skills
BDCV offers integrative, reflexive courses such as, Foundations in Black Dandelion and courses from the “2025 Art of Unimagined Ecosystems Catalog” to engage the science/art application of analysis, and synthesis
Mental Health & Wellness
BDCV™ provides lecture/workshops facilitation, and classes infused with Social Emotional Equitable Learning (SEEL) across curriculum
Violence Intervention & Prevention
BDCV offers seminars and programming to implement: BDCV Communal Classrooms/Learning Spaces, Conflict Resolution, and Restorative Justice projects
Self-Esteem Building
BDCV offers oratory preparation and public speaking presentation classes which culminate in BDCV 3C Learning: Confidence, Connection, & Competence
Education Forums, Conferences & Lyceum Series
BDCV designs organizational structures for the decimation of information and education resulting in the development of positive social networks, community building, and the advancement of human capacity
What Teachers Are Saying
Karen Utsey | Peckham Career Academy
Administrator/Educator
"Black Dandelion means a great deal to our students here at Peckham Career Academy. When the poem was introduced to our students, it was exactly at the same time when our entire student body and staff lost one of our bright lights. We lost a student to gun violence. Willie Smith was the student that we lost, and he is our Black Dandelion the poem is about a four year old little girl and her experiences during the Civil Rights movement and how dandelions are mowed down and how that correlates to the people that were lost to violence during the Civil Rights movement. And it transcends into what we experience here collectively as a family at Peckham Career Academy. So our students use that, use their sadness. It was channeled through their artwork, their expressions of love and admiration and sadness as a result of what they experienced."