Who We Are
Brieana Johnson, Founder
Brieana Johnson is a high school English teacher, teacher educator, and the founder of Pedagogy of Resistance. Originally from Compton, CA, she received both her B.A. and her M.Ed. from UCLA in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Her journey into the field of education came unexpectedly, as her own adverse experiences as a first-year college student led her to make profound connections between race, class, and educational opportunity.
Brieana completed her first year of teaching at an alternative high school in Compton and Watts, before moving to the Bay Area to teach English at Castlemont High School in East Oakland. She has also served as an adjunct instructor at the University of San Francisco for the Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice course. In her time outside of the classroom, Brieana has continued to advocate for educational equity through her work with policy organizations such as Oakland Kids First and EdTrust-West. She is currently the Pedagogy Director for the Hidden Genius Project, where she leads the pedagogical vision for youth programming.
As an educator committed to social justice, Brieana believes that classrooms should be loving and transformative spaces that seek to dismantle oppressive systems towards the end of achieving joy and liberation for all. She hopes to use Pedagogy of Resistance as a vehicle to support educators in this process by providing resources, as well as trainings and workshops that merge theory with practice.
“When I was in the 9th grade, I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and it changed my life. It was the first time in my schooling that I had been asked to read a book by and about a Black woman. There was nothing more validating to my identity and experiences than that. I felt seen.”
Partners and Guest Contributors
Maha Nusrat
FacilitatorMaha Nusrat is an educator with 16 years of experience in the Bay Area. She spent her teaching career designing culturally responsive, social justice focused curriculum with a focus on transformative community projects.
She has been dedicated to creating culturally responsive, transformative, educational experiences for students with a vision of wanting every child to see their greatness.
She is the creator of Learn&Liberate and hopes to inspire educators to find overt and covert ways to resist.
Maha is the co-designer and facilitator of the 2026 Seeding Resistance Summer Institute.