He/him
Jitendrapal Kundan serves as the Executive Director for The Origins Program. His work is focused on recalibrating educational praxis in ways that challenge and inspire. He works with students, school leaders and educators worldwide to help them learn and be with the purpose of building and recognizing each other as whole human beings. He does this through intentional integration of Social Emotional Academic Learning.
As the executive director of New City School, Jit guided his school from 2008 to be one of the top schools in the state of Minnesota, recognized as the Reward School in 2013. This reward is meaningful as it includes students who have been historically underperforming in our schools. The states rating includes data on proficiency and growth for black, indigenous and students of color, special education students, students in poverty and multiple language learners.
As the executive director of New City School, Jit worked with Youth Coordinating Board – City of Minneapolis from 2014-2016 to bridge Charter and Districted Schools in offering students and their families cohesive experiences in choosing a school, choosing before and after care, transportation and athletics.
As the Executive Director for The Origins Program, Jit was part of the State-level Education Policy Fellowship for the state of Minnesota from 2019 to 2020. From 2022-2023, Jit was part of the National-level Education Policy Fellowship.
Jit gets invited to speak and deliver his signature self-learning and self-healing seminars, workshops and keynotes since 2003. The approach centers the learners, relies and leverages on social interactions to be active and accountable to our learning and actions.
As Arundhati Roy puts it: “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” Jit’s service is dedicated to ensuring we break the cycle of harm in exchange for good. Social Emotional Learning is a way to interrupt and calibrate the cycle of inward and outward violent behaviors creating new pathways to healing, compassionate understanding and reverence.