Erika Bakkum
I have had the profound good fortune to meet and learn from Dr Rev Hillstrom. He has led me to some of the deepest insights I have had in both my professional and personal life. He has led trainings for my work team on several occasions. During sessions, we were challenged and invited to expand our own “frame of reference” and racial consciousness in ways that no other leader has been able to access. Many things he said during those trainings still echo in my mind today as a road map for leadership in educational excellence and equity. Once he led a training using the Intercultural Innovations Inc. (I3) system tools for more than 80 bilingual educators. In this training we explored our identities, lived experiences, and importance in the school system. The feedback was phenomenal. Many said it was the best training they had ever received.
Rev’s presence on stage is utterly spellbinding, he speaks directly to deep inner truths that we all must hear as we learn to honor each other as relatives. When he speaks, he weaves in stories from his own life, using I3 system tools which illuminates the content, bringing the learning to life.
Rev has been one of the greatest mentors of my career and with life in general. His profound insights into cultural validation are encapsulated in the CLEAR Model. The CLEAR Model addresses everything from the practical aspects of how to implement culturally validating teaching, to the necessary cycles that an individual or system must go through to truly transform. Rev is a visionary, passionate and one who truly cares about every human being he works with.
I highly recommend that you work with Rev and the I3 team of professionals. His profound wisdom, his leadership, his ability to teach, combined with Intercultural Innovations Inc.’s effective system tools for cultural validation will equip you to witness and experience radical transformation in its most positive sense.