When Ben Grignon walks into a classroom on the first day of school, he starts with a good story. He is a Traditional Menominee Arts instructor at the Menominee Nation High School and has received numerous awards for his work, including ​​receiving the 2022 First Peoples Fund Education Fellow for the We the Peoples Before Education initiative at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. He was also one of the eight people selected in 2025 as Wisconsin Humanities Fellows. In this episode of Human Powered, co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin learn about his work digitizing the Menominee language, hear how he approaches art education, and find out what traditional technique he learned over Zoom during the pandemic. But really, what you don’t want to miss is the story Grignon shares at the end of the episode. Enjoy!

Additional Links to check out:

→  Ben Grignon shares his story and philosophy about teaching here.

→  In early 2025, Ben Grignon was selected to be a Wisconsin Humanities Fellow and receive Community Powered training. The year-long training program was suspended when Wisconsin Humanities’ funding was cut, resulting in program cuts and staff lay-offs. Learn more about the Community Powered training here. 

This episode of Human Powered was produced and edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.