DR. LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN Good morning and afternoon.
As I said before, my name is Leora Wolf–Prusan.
I'm going ask my co–presenter, colleague, mentor, and friend, Greg Peters, to show his
face so that you can see who the two of us are at the beginning.
Hi, to everyone across the country.
We're incredibly excited and pretty overwhelmed with the regional representation that's on this call.
So, we're really holding space for a national call right now.
So, we wanted to start today by grounding ourselves in why we're in this conversation.
We are here to talk about identifying and transforming educational inequities.
And I really want to concentrate on those first two verbs, "identify" and "transform."
And our essential question that we call into the work today is: What might we need to know
and do to interrupt implicit bias and microaggressions in an educational setting?
I want to pause because we are coming to this conversation with the intention to bring the
concept of school climate and culture, as it intersects with implicit bias and microaggressions
so that we can really work towards creating an educational context—not only for our
students as their student learning outcomes are equitably achieved but also, for those
of us working in systems and in teams and in school settings and how we can relate to
each other—which we know impacts the young people that we serve.
So, this webinar is part of a two–part conversation.
So today we're in part one and we're going to be focusing on really grounding ourselves
in the language and the context of why we're in this conversation.
So, what school climate is; what implicit bias and microaggressions are; and how that
relates to our work.
We're then going to move into an introduction of a framework for transformation, and really
focus on transformational leadership that guides us through this really hard and important
work to do some of that awareness and interruption and Greg will be introducing us into his framework
that he's been catalyzing throughout the country, and [then] we'll close.
Part two in a couple weeks is going to be focused on the next two stages of this framework,
so it's going to be a continued conversation.
Today, as I said, we're in part one of the conversation.
We're moving into awareness so that we can get to interruption of both the implicit biases
that all of us hold that really charge the way that we already come listening to conversations
with our colleagues to policies, practices that we implement and lead and to, most importantly,
the work that we do with the young people that we serve.
And we're going be introducing two tools that Greg will be offering us, that are really
hard practices to integrate, that do the radical interruption of some of the barriers to us
getting to the work that we need to do.
So, to ground us, when we were thinking about why this conversation—and again, I just
want to call out that there's obviously a resonance to the words "microaggressions"
and "implicit bias" in education around the country, based on how many of you have said
"yes" to joining this morning.
And part of that "yes" to joining is this idea that in the past couple decades in our
education context, we've been really focused on the product, on the outcome, on the action,
and on the doing, right?
We've been asked from that, and for that, of each other.
Right now, we're in this really incredibly cultural shift moment across the country of
not just holding on to academic outcomes but to talk about some of the more wobbly things
that undergird how we arrive at our work.
The Parker Palmer quote that we call in today is—and I'm going to read this in case some
of you are just in audio, is: "If we want to grow as teachers, we must do something
alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives—risky stuff
in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant,
the abstract."
So today, we're going to be talking about our inner lives, sometimes in a risky way—actually,
always in a risky way—so that we then get to the technical in a way that is equitable
for ourselves and our students.
So, we're going to move through.
Part of today's objectives—in order to reach that risky space so that we can get into more
of the wobbly stuff to speak to our technical outcomes—our objectives of today are to
deepen our understanding on what implicit bias and microaggressions are and how they
relate to school climate and culture.
And then to begin to engage in inquiry individually and collectively about role bias and microaggressions.
And so, how does that play in our lives?
How does that play [out] in the skin that we're in, across all the different hats that
we hold on to: as a colleague, as a staff member, as a student, as an administrator,
et cetera?
So, I'm going to pass the torch to Greg to ground us in launching the conversation.
DR. GREGORY PETERS Thank you, Leora. Greetings all.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I thought we would start by doing a little bit of reflection about what brings us here,
what brings us to this conversation in the skin that we are in?
I think too infrequently we ask the question of why did we choose to commit, not just to
go into—we are going into education but, why did we choose to commit to education?
And when we ask that question, I think we have our passions and our reasons, but I think
it's also important for us to know our history.
Thought I'd start with a piece of history that comes from the historical timeline of
public education.
In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposes a two-track education system with different tracks, in
his words, for "the laboring and the learned."
Scholarship would allow a very few of the laboring class to advance, Jefferson says,
"by raking a few geniuses from the rubbish."
This is a very important quote to me because it makes me think about what...not just why
did I choose education, but what is the system I have committed to going into for my career,
for a life choice?
So, it's important for us to know that—regardless of our reasons, that just from the design
of public education, historically, the very design of public education is intended to
serve some better and some worse than others.
And that's important because we go into this field believing that we're here to serve all
equally, and yet when we think about the design and we study the design, it becomes evident
why we are actually getting the very results that the system was designed to get.
It's also important for us to be asking the question of, again: why did we choose and
why do we choose to stay in this profession?
And so many of us espouse this commitment to equitable outcomes for every single student
regardless of our demographic predictors.
And we are in a system that continues to perpetuate inequities based on demographic predictors.
So, right up front, we've chosen a career that puts us in a situation of conflict.
And finally, it's important for us to ask personally: what were our formative experiences
in the skin that we are in that informs our work, informs our decision to come to this
work, and how we show up for this work every single day and therefore, the results, the
related results of our work.
These formative experiences include those for us as students, as educators, and as leaders.
I thought I'd take a moment just to share a little bit about what brings me and the
skin I'm in as a White man to this work for educational equity.
So first of all, as a student, I was a student who went to the premiere high school of my
city and yet when I got there, I realized that I was a small fish in a big pond—but
I also wasn't the same kind of fish.
My family was working poor; we were not of the culture or the community of folks that
really sent their children to these... this school.
And so, when it came time for me in the 11th grade to seek out my counselor and talk about
college, she, she had no time for me.
And at one point, when I finally got her attention she literally said to me, "Greg, I don't have
time for you.
Your family cannot afford college."
From that point on, my whole being as a student shifted.
In the next year, I cut 80 days, and nobody knew.
I would show up for the tests, I would ace the tests, but nobody knew.
I never got a phone call home, nobody ever did an intervention or checked in with me.
All that mattered was I was showing up and I was fine on their grade books.
That experience, I took with me to my choice to become an educator.
That experience, I took with me every single day to my practice as an educator—and I
still take with me every single day.
Sometimes how it influences my decisions is unconscious, sometimes it's very conscious
depending on the level of work that I want to do with myself, about myself.
As a teacher...When I first moved to California and became a math teacher, I remember I was
the newbie in the department and my department sat with me and they said, "You're the new
guy, you get the throwaway kids."
And I thought to myself, "Who are the throwaway kids?
How is that even a term?"
And I sat with a principal, who very embarrassingly expressed her concern for that phrase as well,
and so I just said, "Can we reframe that?
Instead of it being the throwaway kids, can it be the throwaway class?
Can I throw away the books?
Can I throw away the curriculum?"
And from there, we created a partnership to really rethink what class and what education—what
the studies would look like for these students—to an incredibly positive result.
And then finally, when I became a leader one of the first things that I learned as a leader—as
a White principal—was that even though my role was to be the leader, one of the most
important responsibilities for me as an ally activist, as a leader, was I had to be in
touch with my humility because when I sat with the families of the students that we
struggled most to reach—we struggled most to serve—these families, they already had
information.
They had expertise around the work that needed to happen, and so what I learned as a leader
was to be a partner in this work and not to do for but to do with.
All of these were formative experiences that bring me to the work of who I am today and
what I do today.
So, my question to each of you, and I hope that you'll take some time to reflect on this
if you've not already, but what brings you to this conversation and what brings you to
this work in the skin that you are in?
With that little bit of reflection, I thought we would do an opening exercise, so that we
could just bring our skin into the game and think about this work.
The slide that you have before you, the image that you have before you—and I apologize
for the folks that are on the phone calls, you obviously cannot see this—but the image
you have in front of you was drawn by an elementary school student.
And this student, you know, her task was to draw her picture of school,
her understanding of school.
You'll notice there are two prompts that we want you to guide, that we want to guide your
feedback within the chat box.
The first prompt is: what do you think? The second prompt is: what do you feel?
And those are two very different prompts.
There are two things that are important about this visual for me and this exercise.
The first one is, this is an elementary school student.
And regardless of our interpretation of this, it is showing that we have an incredibly effective
way of educating our subtext as early as you know, as early as elementary school.
The other piece is that, the reason we want to ask the question about how do you feel
or what do you feel...these formative experiences that we have as well as the emotions we have
about what is happening, they actually have an impact on the actions that we take, and
we want to create conditions where we can access those emotions and be able to bring
our full self and our most thoughtful self to this work.
So, that was one of the reasons that I thought was important for us to start with this exercise.
DR. LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN Thanks, Greg.
So, part of what comes up in that image and what came up in our chat conversations is
that, that schoolhouse, that our young people were coming into and our young people were
leaving is the schoolhouse that all of us participate in, that we carry out, that we
work in, and that we embody.
And so, when we talk about school climate or school culture, we want to just take a
moment to think about what that experience, the environment and the ecosystem is in that
box of a school.
And as well, understand that all of what we come into the school [with] and all of what
we leave the school [with] is also embodied in how we experience our education, our narrative,
and how we make meaning of ourselves in the world.
So, we're going take a moment to pause and do a little bit of double–clicking into
what school climate and culture is.
So, school climate and culture, we often sometimes use them interchangeably in
the research field and practice field.
School climate generally talks about or refers to the perceptions or subjective experiences
of school.
And so, that is a lot of what we were interpreting or reading into that young person's illustration
of their subjective experience of school, right?
What school climate might have felt to that young person.
Where school climate tends to talk about the actual or "objective state of the school"—and
there are many of us, maybe that's a whole other conversation of, if schooling can ever
truly be measured as objective because there are so many influential and variable factors.
We wanted to ground ourselves in that difference, and so when we look at that school climate
and culture—I know many of us have used this iceberg analogy in our own teaching and
practice, but we really tend to think of school climate and culture as the combination of
both the "over the surface"—both what we see as the iceberg, right?
The programs, interventions, services, and curricula that are rooted in the "under the
surface": the beliefs, and norms, and values that are often not named or assumed, or not
called in to be as seen as connecting to what we see as "over the surface".
And so, these experiences are all transmitted.
The "under the surface" is transmitted into the behavior, and the language, and how we
provide support is directly connected to how each one of us individually comes to work,
right?
How we enter our own schoolhouse, and what we're expecting the product to be when we
leave the schoolhouse—both for ourselves and for our students.
And so, we want to hold both of this, particularly because as Parker Palmer was calling us in
that opening quote, we are very...It is so much easier and so much more comfortable to
often concentrate only on the programs; on the intervention services; on the curricula;
on the "what;" or on the "how;" but not necessarily as exciting, easy, comfortable
to concentrate on the "why" and the "who;" the beliefs, and norms, and values.
And so, part of what Greg and I are welcoming you into considering today is to expand our
definition of school climate and culture.
To not only think about the "over the surface" but also the "under the surface," and the
connections between the two.
So, part of that, is that when we think about if we actually suss out—if we massage that
iceberg a little bit more—part of what we think about is that the under really does
influence the over.
So, if we think about under the surface...Actually, let's start with over the surface first because
that might be some of the pieces that we're more familiar with, right?
So, over the surface, as I mentioned, those are the programs, interventions, services,
curriculum...and this can kind of sound like what our discourse probably feels familiar
to folks, right?
Trauma informed, PBIS, we're going do restorative practices and I really want to welcome folks
to put in the chat box some of the over the surface, how that resonates with how you are
feeling in your work around what are the over the surface factors that are often part of
the conversation and part of the work all the time.
Right? There are many folks on this line.
I was seeing some of the roles that you carry into this conversation.
There are some of you who are in charge of LCAP; there are some of you who are in charge
of implementing programs and services and so you're really familiar with the "what,"
right?
Another over the surface is the behavior.
So, behavior is the outer layer of "feeling" that then speaks to the under layer of "need."
And often times, we are really overly concentrated and only talking about the behavior.
This is pretty evident in the way that we talk about discipline, in the way that we
measure teacher performance, right?
It's on the "doing" without thinking about the "why."
And that's part of the exciting shift.
As we see nationwide, in really adopting a trauma informed and brain science based lens
to education—and doing some intersection here; because we're understanding that, actually,
only concentrating on the why doesn't actually do any interruption.
So, some of those behaviors—and we're going talk about micro and microaggressions briefly—is
where we see those manifestations come out.
We're going talk about dominant discourse later on in the webinar.
What we refer to dominant discourse is the way in which we all talk—both implicitly
[and] explicitly—that comes out in our design of curriculum; it comes out in our design
of policy; that comes out in the faculty lounge; that is the kind of assumed language, the
kind of language of, "Well, we always talk about that.
This is how we do things here."
And the dominant discourse is assuming that the way that we do things or the way that
things are, are the way that they need to be.
And so, part of...Greg will go into dominant discourse later.
What we want to hold is that programs, behaviors, the dominant discourse—all of those three
major components of school climate culture—the way that we experience school and education
are fueled and really influenced by what's going on under the surface: so, our beliefs,
our unchecked norms and values.
Right? Our dominant culture.
How are we arriving at our expectation of what that schoolhouse is supposed to look
like, supposed to do, supposed to be?
My expectation of myself as an educator?
Or in Greg's case as principal, as school leader, as a thought leader?
And really influenced by the thoughts and feelings and the past history of both ourselves...both
in what we are conscious of and also what we carry unconsciously.
And that, is really connected to our understanding of bias.
So, we hold all of this because we're here in conversation.
Greg and I are assuming—and I think we hold to be true—that all of us are committing
to this time and this conversation this morning because we have a commitment and a vision:
the ultimate goal for a whole, healthy, vibrant school environments, climate, and culture;
not just for young people but also for ourselves as employees.
And so, to do that, we want to take time to suss out, again, not just the over but the under.
So, let's get into a little bit of that.
We're going take some time to talk about implicit bias.
Which is coming up particularly a lot in the context of the disproportionately in discipline, right?
So, we, at this point, have an enormous amount of research that demonstrates that policies
that might appear to be neutral on their face, at the surface value, actually result, in
actuality, in a disproportionate experience—particularly across the country for students who identify
as Black young men in: suspensions, expulsions and referrals, right?
I often think about one of...a student that I used to work with many years ago.
We had done this—what I thought was a beautiful lesson—on empowerment and on voice and really
as a school, we really wanted to partner with young people—or so we said, we wanted to
partner with young people—to have their student voice elevated.
And two periods later, I'm walking down the hall during my prep period and she comes storming
down the hallway...one of my students from the earlier period comes storming down the hallway.
And I said...I asked her what was going on—she was clearly upset, and she said, "Miss.
I was just doing what you told me to do to be resilient and the teacher told me that
I was being defiant, and now I'm being sent to the principal's office."
And so, we think about the way that we're asking students to rise, to be resilient,
to kind of…all these values; but when it comes to our own practices, it can often result
in how other teachers or how our school systems are set to read that type of behavior like defiance.
So, this...Kirwan Institute for Race and Ethnicity—which is the source of a lot of the work that we're
going to be introducing today—is out of Ohio, they are a really key institute for
research on bias, on race, ethnicity in education.
And these five pieces—disproportionality in discipline; disproportionality in special
education; educator mindsets and beliefs; tracking; and dominant discourse—these five
are the key five ways in which our implicit bias shows up strongly in how it impacts
schools and education.
And so, we want to concentrate on one main [piece] today that we'll hear about later:
the dominant discourse.
So, the ways of thinking and talking about students and families diminish, underestimate
or even pathologize them, right?
So, thinking about them, sometimes called the "pobrecito" effect or referring to students
and families as deficit based.
As I mentioned earlier, that's an over the surface way of how implicit bias shows up
in our behavior, and Greg will be talking more about that later.
But we also want to hold that that educator mindset and belief is something that we're
asking for folks on the call, ourselves as facilitators as well, to constantly be working
and checking, even in this conversation, around: what...how are we arriving at our expectations
for ourselves and the students that we serve?
So, just to be very clear before we move forward, that what Greg and I are introducing is that
that last component—dominant discourse—we see that as fundamental in interrupting
the disproportionalities in special education, the disproportionalities in discipline, [and]
the tracking behaviors.
We see the last piece as one of the main interrupters.
So, we want to just take a moment...We did just talk about implicit bias—that under
the surface—and now we're going to go over the surface and do some conversation around:
"How does what...How do our unchecked beliefs and norms and values influence our behavior
in a harmful, often violent way, to those that we actually are trying to come to with
good intent?"
So, microaggressions are defined by some of the leading researchers and scholars on this
subject as, "Brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, whether
intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and
insults to people of marginalized groups."
So, we bolded whether intentional or intentional because we assume that we all come into this
work with good intention and at the same time, as we are introducing, we also want to hold
that intention does not always equal impact.
I can come into a conversation with Greg, with full, good intention and actually do,
potentially, some harm in some of the ways that I'm either talking or sharing or thinking,
and we, in our educational...In order to create healthy school climates, we actually want
to create a way that Greg could then call me in and hold me accountable, not just for
intention but also for the impact of how what I did and said landed with him as a colleague.
The other piece that I want to highlight are two other pieces.
One is the environmental indignities, so we're not only just talking about individual behavior.
We're also talking about systems, cultures and ecosystems and we're going be thinking
about that as we move forward.
And then, the last piece is this idea towards people of marginalized groups.
This calls us to do some further, deep work around understanding how the larger issues
of historical, social disenfranchisement, and violence in our country's history—and
we can actually probably call in global history—impact the way that we arrive at schools and education now.
So, we're having a pretty direct entry point in talking about implicit bias and micro-aggressions
but this is contextualized and locked into a much larger conversation for us to do some
deep work about how we understand marginalized: What it means to be marginalized?
Who is marginalized? and by whom?
And why?
What is the outcome of that marginalization?
One piece that...and Greg will...I hope that Greg feels comfortable with me introducing
this but...A teaching that Greg offers that I just find so profound is, this conversation
around, "implicit for whom?" Right? Implicit bias, implicit for whom?
And microaggressions, "Micro for whom?"
They might be micro on the account of the perpetrator, but they generally do not feel
micro on the account of the receiver.
So, we just want to hold that we're using this term microaggression but actually, that
term in itself may not serve us to understand the true power of that impact.
DR. GREGORY PETERS It's important...I really appreciate you bringing
up this idea of: what is the "micro" in microaggressions?
Micro does not mean it's a small act or it's a small impact.
Micro is simply referring to the fact that the way that this aggression comes out is—to
some extent because of the norms of our society—invisible or could be diminished by some as it wasn't
a big deal.
And so, it's really important to...I really appreciate you surfacing the difference between
the intent versus the impact or what it looks like versus the impact.
Microaggressions in no way are felt in a micro way.
That's not what it's saying.
It's suggesting that, in the norms of our society, we might minimalize it or try to
make it invisible or less important.
And that's part of the impact of microaggressions, is that those on the other side of the microaggressions
are further stressed by the responsibility of saying, "Am I crazy?
Did that just happen?"
Versus it just being understood that...I put in the quotes...I literally heard this just
yesterday but, microaggressions are frequently referred to as or equated with "death by
a thousand paper cuts."
DR. LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN Yes, thank you. Great.
So, part of one of the...In another workshop that we were doing recently on this work,
a participant surfaced that, as an administrator, right, they ask their students for who...Even
as a practice, they often ask their students for signatures from a mother and father.
And recently, a student said, "Well, actually I don't have a mother and father.
I have a mother and a mother."
And this school continued to ask the student, "Mother and father, mother and father," for
permission slips, for other pieces for parent conferences even though the student had surfaced
that they come from a mother–mother family.
And so, there's an example that as our bias...our bias, in this case, for this educator was
the assumption that all families come in one shape—and that shape being heteronormative,
that there's a mother and father—so that was the bias.
The issue is that it continued to manifest in the school's behavior—that the school
didn't stop how that bias was translating into that student—and that...one of the
key words in this quote is "indignity."
That ultimately, the "death by a thousand paper cuts," is the small not in the feeling
but in how we as a culture value these indignities ultimately create experiences of dehumanization.
Right? And so, part of why we're in this conversation is because we all—as you are saying in the
chat box when you were looking at that image—it's painful to see our young people see schools
as dehumanizing.
It's not only painful for them, it's painful for us to be seen as perpetrators and participants in it.
So, this conversation is offering us the opportunity and window to do some breath, to do some pause,
so that we can figure out how we can interrupt that translation of bias into behavior, into
microaggressions, right now.
So, just to do a little bit more, a little bit more reflection in microaggressions and
then we're going shift from the kind of "who," the "what," all of this conversation, into
some of the "how."
So, we want to hold that there are three different ways that microaggressions surface.
There are micro–assaults—which are seen as conscious.
We have experienced national micro–assaults in the last couple weeks, that we know that
there are ways in which they are explicit identity–based attacks on character, attacks
on our colleagues, and on our civilians and our students, and those are purposeful.
So, micro–assaults are conscious, they're purposeful and exist not only one-on-one,
interpersonally but also in our environment and in our larger culture.
The second type is a micro–invalidation and, you know, it's termed as an unconscious
but we can often invalidate pretty consciously.
So, these are actions that exclude or negate or nullify feelings, and you heard...or the
experiential reality.
And someone put in the chat box this idea that, often times when folks from a marginalized
group—folks of color, folks who identify as non–heteronormative—speak up about
an experience, right now, they might experience someone saying, "Oh man, it's too much energy
to be PC," or, "That's not true, that didn't actually happen," as Greg was saying.
And so, even these nullifying...the nullifying or negating someone's experience, who comes
from a different group is part...that is a microaggression in itself.
It's a micro–invalidation and we might do it unconsciously but that has very, very...that
has incredible impact in how a person experiences feeling whole and human at work and obviously
outside of work as well.
And the last type of microaggression is this micro–insult—which is also called unconscious.
This idea that behaviors or actions or verbal remarks convey rudeness, insensitivity or
demean that person's social group, identity, or heritage.
This piece is one for us to do some big reflection on because we may not know—if we do not
ask, if our policies and practices are demeaning.
And so, part of the question comes in are, what are some of our schools' assumed ways
of doing and being that we thought might be celebratory—we might think that having a
Cinco de Mayo or a taco day on May 5th is celebrating heritage—but actually might
feel pretty insulting to some of our colleagues, especially if it doesn't really understand
the true history of where Cinco de Mayo came in, came from.
And so, part of what we really want to do is really do some of that unpacking, that
checking, of "What does it mean if we demean our colleagues' and our students' social identity
or heritage?"
And at this point, I want to be very direct, that at this point we have enough understanding
of how our identity, heritage and feeling of safety...
We talk about students' safety so much and this is student safety.
It's not just if there are guns at school.
It's not just if there are drugs on campus.
It's not just the amount of school resource officers.
It is also our behaviors and actions and verbal remarks that either invite every single student—equitably
and equally—to feel humanized or do not.
That is also part of student safety.
And so, with that, that really calls us into a task of pretty rigorous leadership, and
so we're going shift into talking about how we interrupt those beliefs, practices and
experiences that are harming us.
Just to be very direct, we are experiencing an enormous amount of harm in our school cultures
and systems.
Not only [are] our students are experiencing harm, our staff, but also, how we have arrived
and created some of the cultures of our school districts and systems.
There are many of us on the line that know that there are young people who are ending
their own lives.
We have colleagues who are ending their own lives.
There's an enormous rise in not only direct violence, but emotional violence at schools,
and I want to put that context that right now we are at a time in our country where
if we do not start to interrupt our experience of harm and unsafety and violence will only grow.
There are those of us on the...we are in this conversation because we are saying, "We're done. Enough."
And so that's our task as transformational leaders.
I'm going pass it to Greg so that he can introduce us into taking a way of holding this conversation
true into our practice.
DR. GREGORY PETERS One of the things I appreciated about that
question, and that slide, is it talks about the importance of interrupting some of the
beliefs, practices, and experiences that are harming others and it's listed under this
title of transformational leadership.
I think the one thing, even as I read that, is that we have to actually...When you say
that—especially in the time we're experiencing right now, if we don't take the time to interrupt...and
I think we need to unpack the word "interrupt" and it really is about interrupting and transforming.
Because I frequently joke with people that I've been learning how to interrupt since
I was born, as a White man—and quite frankly in my family we're pretty good at it—
but that's not about transformation.
And so, the importance—as we move onto the next slide—of what we're seeking is not
just the interruption, not just the stopping, but actually the transformation, because what
we know to be true is that a lot of the inequities experienced by our students, and families,
and communities; they're experiencing these inequities that are perpetuated by educators
who— going back to those beginning slides—went into this work to do good.
At times when I need to look in the mirror most at where I'm least effective: it's usually
when I'm doing my best or doing what I believe is my best.
So, if all anybody does is to interrupt me, I'm going get a pause and I'm going do a little
thinking but then I'm going go back to doing my best, which was what was happening before.
And so, we need something; we need some attention, not just on the interruption
but also on the transformation.
For those on the phone, we have a quote in front of us from Carl Jung that says, "If
there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and
see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."
What I really appreciate about this quote is it's a reminder that we are not...We somehow—our
profession and the conditions of our profession have us doing so much external work, so much
looking out the window work—that we don't have the capacity, we don't have the systems
to keep us looking in the mirror as well; and so, I really appreciate this.
If we go onto the next slide, his quote really does inform, or lead to, a pretty commonly
held understanding that the work we need to do as educators, the work we need to do for
transformation is—and I don't know if this term is new for folks, it's been around for
a while but it's—"inside–out work."
We have to start internally because we're not just learning a curriculum that we're
going to facilitate.
We're not just figuring out which order of papers we want to have students write.
We're talking about changing the way things are.
We're talking about transformation, and when we're talking about transformation, it's hard
to lead others to transformation when we have not—and are not continuously—
experiencing it ourselves.
At its simplest, when we're thinking about the theory of transformation, it simply says
that in order to really be agents of transformation, we have to first be engaged in our own personal
transformation.
Only by looking in the mirror and transforming our own schema; our own way of looking at
the world; our own biases; will we institutionalize sustained professional transformation.
And then, when we are in the place where our professional work has been transformed, and
it is sustained, and it is systemic—about how we see ourselves and how we are seen and
experienced as professionals—then we are in a position to have what is considered
transferred transformation.
Transformation not only for our students and their experiences and their results, but even...we're
transferring the impact of transformation and we're supporting our peers and other adults
and professionals to be in a cycle of transformation themselves.
As I mentioned, this is not new work, but—when I left my principalship and was asked to start
the nonprofit that I'm at—what was missing for me was we were clear that transformation
was needed.
There was not a lot of body of work, there was not a large body of work out there about
what that meant.
There was a good amount of work of what transformational teaching looked like.
In other words, how to create transformational experiences for students but that did not
talk about what was necessary for us to be in our own constant cycle of transformation
as educators; because frequently—as Leora was talking about this—our own biases, our
own histories frequently, get in the way of ourselves and our own espoused goals or our
own espoused desires as educators.
I was fortunate that we were able to do some work and study around this notion of transformation
and in the next slide.
And for those on the phone this is in the handouts.
I'm also keeping track of other resources that I know we want to send as a follow–up
to this based on some of the great stuff coming up in the chat box but you should have this
slide in front of you if you're on the phone.
It's the transformational...the conceptual framework for transformation.
The good news is: transformation happens.
It's called evolution and it doesn't happen nearly quickly enough for the students that
we're going face tomorrow.
We wanted to study those teachers that were both identified by their students, as well
as by their results as being impactful, and really impact what was going on for them that
they were both: able to work in a system that perpetuated injustices and work against that
system at the [same time.] [inaudible]
What came as a result of that work and that study was this framework.
And I want to say that this framework talks about the stages of work—or the stages that
an individual or a community needs to go to—and then the work of us as leaders, and the work
of our institutions is to create the conditions for this work to happen.
This is not a one and done.
We're trying to create conditions for people to be in constant and continuous cycles of
doing their own work and doing their collective work towards transformation.
I will quickly walk through this.
I think it's important, if you look at the visual, to recognize there are two stars on
two of the stages.
That's the focus of this webinar.
The next webinar, we will focus on the other two.
Right now, I'm just going quickly go through what that framework is.
There is a text that you have access to about bridging the gap that includes a deeper overview
of this framework—so if you're interested, I'll push you to that text—but when we're
talking about creating conditions for transformation, we need to...If we look at the bottom box
first, this is where we need to create opportunities and conditions, and support ourselves and
each other to understand our stance and our schema—our way of looking at the world.
We need to create conditions that allow us to be able to look in the mirror and be able
to say who we are in the skin we're in, what our history is, how our history shows up with
us, not just as individuals but quite frankly even as a society, even as institutions.
It's not just me as a white man asking, "What was my experience?"
I tried to walk you through that in that first slide when I said what brings me to this work
and I just gave you three little formative experiences.
While there are countless formative experiences that I'm constantly thinking about:
How does this show up for me?
As somebody who grew up receiving food stamps, when students came to me and said they were
hungry, something happened for me.
Something happened for me and it influenced how I responded to them.
To what extent am I conscious of that?
To what extent am I unconscious of that?
How we look at race growing up informs how we show up in the class and how we face students
across racial difference, et cetera.
This is the work we need to do but we also need to do that same work in looking at our
institutions, in our systems and the history there because we are working in a system,
and we are cogs in the system, and if we're not clear about what the purpose of education
is versus the purpose of schooling, and if we happen to have the discussion or the reflection
of why... whether or not there is a difference between education and schooling, that's part
of the work that we need to do and we need to create those conditions.
Some of this work, however, is not just discovering.
It's not just organically forming definitions on our own.
Some of this work is based on facts and history that already exist and, as difficult as it
is for adult learners to not create their own learning, it's important for us to also,
as part of these conditions [inaudible]
about that, from taking some time to understand
our stance and schema because we can't transform to something as efficiently as we might want
to if we don't have an understanding of that which we're transforming from.
Once we create time and space to be in that work and we have begun the work of stance
and schema awareness, what we need to do then is: we need to create conditions that allow
for interruptive or catalytic experiences.
Again, as I mentioned, we are a profession filled with people—for the most part—who
are in here with very, very, very good intentions, and so the idea that we're doing something
that requires interruption—it's a challenge.
We also live in a society where public education has become this bastion of blame for social
ills, and so, there's not a lot of willingness to take risk.
There's not a lot of willingness to be vulnerable in a public way: recalibrating our discourse
and recalibrating our way of collaborating so that we are not only being interrupted
but we're welcoming that interruption.
We're not just interrupting somebody but we're sitting with them for the transformation.
That's a different schema.
That's a different way of being in public education.
That requires a lot of shift and intentional shift in our conditions.
We need to take time and really understand what are the norms?
What is our vision?
Are we attached to that mission?
Are we attached to that vision?
What does it look like when we prioritize our work and our decisions through a student–centered,
mission focus versus that which feels comfortable or that which is, perhaps going keep our job safe?
Which again, in this society, is a rational and reasonable reaction for many in our profession.
Do we understand there's so many words out there that are power words in our society:
equity, success, achievement, et cetera?
Have we calibrated what that language means?
Not just for me but for you and for each other and have we decided what it means for our community?
I went into a community once where they were trying to agree on norms and it was really
striking to me because one of the things that they said was that they were really held up
in agreeing on a final set of norms for two months because they could not agree on one
norm, and that was whether or not they were going have the norm of "be respectful."
And I thought to myself, "That's fascinating," because I know that many of the students who
we serve, they're like, "That's not an option, that's not an option."
And so, I went into the community and I asked a few questions, I said, "First of all, what
does respect look like?
Are we even agreeing on what respect looks like?"
There are things that are respectful to one culture that are completely disrespectful
to other cultures.
They've not even begun to do that work.
Then I finally just asked the question, "So if we were to say that we can't agree on this
and we don't vote on this, is the norm therefore to be disrespectful?"
That was the end of the story.
They realized that this was just a detour from having the harder conversation about
what does respect look like and feel like if we're not just using a dominant culture lens.
We need to do a lot of work of calibrating "who" and "how" we are and how we want to
be in order to allow us to be able to do those interruptions.
And I also want to say, that we also need to practice those interruptions.
We need to use protocols and structure conversations—not to contain our discourse but rather to scaffold
us to the organic discourse, so we have practice of what it looks like to have equitable or
shared space.
We need to practice, quite frankly, sentence stems around how we might interrupt somebody
or how we might interrupt an inequity when it's happening before us.
We need to practice inquiry in using probing questions instead of judgmental statements.
That's a lot of the work in creating the conditions for this stage.
Once we've created the conditions, we also need to actually make new meaning because
the—I'm moving on to the third stage—because it's not just about the interruption, as I mentioned.
Once we have the interruption, once an inequity is interrupted, we need to take time.
We're always in such a rush in our schools.
We've always got the constraints of time working against us.
We need to create time and sacred space for us to make new meaning of our dilemmas, new
meaning of our inequities, and what we learned in our work is that happens not in one way,
not in two: There are three explicit spaces at least that are necessary for that new meaning
to happen.
Some of that is work that I have to do on my own.
We all come to this journey in different ways and on different paths.
We need to create space where there is individualized learning for adults to learn about the inequities
and the strategies needed to interrupt those inequities that might not actually...If we
had teacher ed programs that assured we had equity–minded educators day one, maybe we
wouldn't need to do so much work alone, but the truth of the matter is we're in different
places and we need to allow and support individual learning.
Not in a way that slows the community down, however—which is why we also need people
working together in affinity.
When we talk about "in affinity"…While we do focus on race and say: race like affinity
is important in our schools because in our schools, there is a racial opportunity gap
for students based on how we identify them racially.
Affinity could mean other demographics as well.
We just say, when we talk about affinity we ask, "Who the students you're least reaching?"
and that is an indicator of a place where some of the work in affinity might need to happen.
The reason we do work in affinity is that—for some of us, affinity spaces are healing places
that we can go—especially for our more marginalized communities—places to go where we can actually
be with each other and heal.
It's also a place for us to get mentorship for those folks who are further along the
journey and for those who are newer in the journey.
We need places where we can go and have conversations, and have mentorship, which quite frankly,
those across difference don't need to hear about.
Very frequently...I know that my colleagues of color talk about needing to be in community
because they need to have a conversation—unfiltered, so that they can be in community with us.
And frequently, I know that my people: White people, we need to be in conversation with
each other so that we can say the things that we're afraid to say because we might make
a mistake but they're still there and we need to talk about it and we need to move through
some of our work and our colleagues across difference don't need to be part of that and hear that.
So, we need to do that work in affinity; ultimately our alone work and our affinity work is so
that we can come back—and if it's without this third step, we're missing a critical
component—so that we can come back and intentionally work across difference, and it's in that across
difference work that we find some of the richest new meaning making of our inequities that
are before us.
When I think about this as a condition, I frequently wonder, "How many schools are intentional
about creating the space for that type of professional development in these three different spaces?"
Only when we create new meaning are we in a place where we can actually make radical
change and bold action rather than just tweaking what exists.
Rather than just moving the chairs on the Titanic.
When we talk about making radical change and bold action, the truth of the matter is we
are stepping out of even just ourselves or our own communities: we're talking about these
political forces that don't want change to actually happen.
The status quo serves many, many, many people in our community and unconsciously or consciously,
there are folks who will push back and react to a change towards justice.
We have to be doing a lot of work in the conditions for radical change and bold action.
We have to do a lot of work to prepare and partner with our larger political systems.
We have to literally do a lot of work, even just around how people experience risk and
failure, because we have to be able to take risks and not succeed—in order to break
away from not taking risks but being clear that we're not going succeed.
This framework, while it may seem like it's oversimplified because it's on one page, results
in a continuous and constant cycle of change, and work, and condition setting, and supporting
in the communities that are committed to transformation, and justice.
I want to just pause for a second.
If we could go not to the next slide but, to the slide after that.
I want to step away from all that technical description and just walk you through an example
in my life where I thought about a time when I experienced a transformation.
I'm oversimplifying it because we know that a lot goes on in our lives to contribute to
change and growth, et cetera, but, I'm hoping you'll be able to see how by having the conditions
to go through these cycles shift can happen.
The experience I'm going just share about is: my experience with...my relationship with
Black female students.
And again, as a White male educator, I'm specifically focusing on my Black female students.
When I was a math teacher, I was assigned and focused—as I mentioned to you at the beginning—
the classes where students had been traditionally least reached.
As one might imagine, these were in diverse schools.
These were classes that were made up disproportionately of students of color,
and as a math class: disproportionately also of female students.
So, in my classes, I prided myself in having good relationships with my students—and
we struggled together, et cetera.
I never even was very conscious about the fact that compared to others in my school,
I happened to have successful relationships, positive, personal relationships with my
Black female students.
There wasn't—in my mind, intentional actions for that.
It was my way of teaching, their way of learning.
It seemed to go well, so I had in my mindset, just as an assumption that me [and] Black
female students: we hit it off.
Then I became a principal and once I became a principal, almost overnight, my experience—my
day to day experience—with my Black female students was radically different.
It was radically different.
And the thing for me was—again, unexamined my stance was, "But I have positive relationships
with my Black female students?"
I had enough wherewithal to say, "This must have to do with me being a principal," and
so I just kept my vision on the outside.
I was looking out the window and I just was like, "Oh, this is about them.
They have an issue with authority.
That's just good to know."
And then one day, I got a referral for one of my students, a Black female student.
I remember speaking to her counselors, her advisor—and I could justify this and simply
say this was my standard M.O. of working with students—and I said, "Can you just get me
all of her records before I meet?
Can I see her previous referrals, her attendance records, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?"
She was being referred for defiance.
A senior.
The adult looked at me—her advisor looked at me—and gave me the most quizzical look
as if I had three heads, and she said, "Greg, this is our valedictorian.
She has no file."
I remember in that moment, that turned into...She wasn't trying to interrupt me, it was actually
a catalytic experience for me.
I remember in that moment, something shifted.
I don't know what exactly happened but in that moment, I was like, "Oh my gosh.
This is me.
This isn't about her; this isn't about them; it's me."
That, regardless of what my previous experiences were, regardless of what my new role was,
I had not been in a place yet to examine and look in the mirror and say, "There is some
implicit bias that I have about Black female students and it is playing out.
And probably, playing out even if I have strong relationships with my Black female students."
Something shifted, and I was like, "Well, if I've got a bias, I'm not going solve this
on my own."
So, in my "New Meaning Making," I actually wanted to own my work.
I basically went on a listening campaign where I just needed to humble myself and just: listen,
listen, listen across difference.
Listen to the wisdom of those who were successful with our Black female students; who were Black
female students; who were the families of Black female students; et cetera; and I wanted
to make my struggle transparent to hold me accountable.
I shared with folks that this is what I was struggling with and I wanted to be a learner,
I wanted to be a receptacle and not the leader of that work.
I did so much learning in seeking out those partnerships, and doing readings, and making
that a focus—literally a focus of my own improvement—that my change...my radical
change for me, was I got to a place where I had to recognize that, that bias would never
go away: that I would only be able to have some level of responsibility, of checking it.
So, I really, created this mantra—and again, I made this mantra public with those close
to me—was that I was going assume that when I was working with my students across difference,
that my bias was playing out.
I was going assume that, and I created structures, and I created reminders for me to check my
bias in multiple ways: seeking data, critical friendship, et cetera, whenever I was engaging
in a high leverage or high stakes interaction because of my power—my position of power—versus
the interaction with my students across difference.
As a result, over time—by me constantly checking myself and checking my bias, some
of that stuff becomes internalized and I feel positive about the continued dialogue that
happens even now, years and years later.
That's just an example.
And if we were to go back to the slide before that, you'll see how it's just a blank
version of this.
While we can't be this interactive on a webinar, I wanted to still share this because my question
with you is—just for your own learning and trying to track—again, oversimplifying it
into boxes.
Where's a moment where your schema, where your way of understanding or seeing something
shifted—and in no way needing to be shifted permanently but just shifted.
What were the conditions that allowed for it?
How were you aware of your stance going into this?
What allowed for the interruption?
What was the interruption or the catalytic experience?
How did you make new meaning and what changed in your actions as a result of this?
As we move, like I said for the webinar, we're just going focus on the first two stages in
this framework.
And again, between now and the next webinar, I encourage you to read the changing the...
I'm sorry, "Bridging the Gap" article.
As we think about this idea of stance and schema awareness—the identity work we need
to do about our individual and shared history, just keep in mind, when in your life has your
own awareness or unawareness of yourself, in the skin you are in, been keenly influential
to you and your work?
If we can move on to the next slide...
I often remind people, just because...
Just like Leora mentioned, when we talk about implicit bias—implicit to whom.
Sometimes because the work we need to do is unknown to us, we think it's unknown to everybody
and students are often the voice that is my check to reality.
I love this quote from a high school senior where she says, "I actually think that it
is true, that teachers are taught to base...to judge students when they first see them.
Let's say they're Black or something...some teachers will kind of be with a cautious approach...watching
them and how they act, or some teachers will just judge them and just separate them or something."
Next slide.
When we think about the stance and schema awareness, again, we're talking about this
is not a "one and done," but the work of constantly and continuously deepening our awareness and
knowledge of ourselves, our system, but also of others in our seeking to be allies across difference.
What in our schools are we doing?
What in our districts and communities are we doing to allow and sort of lift up that work?
It's important to know that we are doing this work in part to learn and understand that
cultural differences are not barriers.
We have to flip the script and recognize that our differences are not barriers but actually assets.
So, there's an operant theory that we need to be able to support and so we need to create
opportunities for us to study—study our identity, study the system's identity and
study our history—and those are two different things: doing identity work and doing history work.
While it's a Venn diagram and they overlap, it's important to know that both of those
are important, because when we're talking about history, we're not just talking about
formative points in history.
We're also talking about the cumulative effect of history.
When I hear about, "that was then, this was now," when people say, "Well, slavery is over,"—besides
the fact that some would argue, "No, in many ways it's not," and there's examples of it,
there's still the cumulative impact or effect that slavery has had—not just on Black people
in our country but on our country, on our society.
We also want to constantly be in touch with our current reality.
So, we need to create systems and opportunity to consistently interrogate both quantitative
and qualitative data regularly but also, publicly.
We want to share meaning making around what the data is telling us about our community.
And another piece of that qualitative data is to be looking at our school design and
decisions and ask critical questions.
Who does and who does this not benefit?
Next slide, please.
One of the pieces of work that we...Just to share an example of this work, you've heard
me use this terminology "the skin we are in," it's important to understand that when we're
talking about "the skin we're in," yes, we are talking about race in America, that, race
is unapologetically something that we need to focus on but it's really all of the formative
experiences and you've heard me scaffolding throughout this conversation examples of formative
experiences.
This is just one example of how we might create the opportunity for each other to explore
our culture, explore our identity and how our experiences consciously or unconsciously
might be showing up with us, influencing our actions with our students—both students
who are like us and unlike us.
Just as an example, you'll see this little gingerbread person over here and I did some
of that work and I won't go through it in great detail, but I will share with you how
I used this with my colleagues and with others.
Imagine a blank gingerbread person where you're asking yourself, "What are those formative
experiences and identities?
What are the experiences that you just carry with you?
What are the identities—that parts of your culture and how you self-identify,
that you carry with you?"
Again, consciously or unconsciously.
This is something you could be reflecting on for a very long time.
What I like to do is I like to use the outline of the gingerbread person to distinguish how
I see myself versus how others see me.
So, when I...what's on the inside of the gingerbread person...You'll notice some is on the inside
and outside, very much by design.
But what's on the inside of the gingerbread person is what people might not know about
me when they first see me—unless they get to know me but it's still something that's
important and influential in how I show up.
On the outside, this is what people might see or might think of me because it's not
just how I see myself that's informed in how I exist in this world and how I react in this
world but, how I'm perceived also has a great impact on how I exist in this world.
If we don't think that's true, ask our students.
Our students are very keen.
They're keenly aware of this through their lens of fairness.
So, what I know is on the outside, I am seen as White and I am White and that affects how
I show up every day.
I am male. I am married.
People know I'm married because they see a ring on my finger or they assume I'm married, et cetera.
Just a couple of examples on the inside of what people don't know—especially if we're
not talking or engaging, if they just see me and they see the ring—they don't know
that I've been married four times.
I've been married four times because I got married...my partner and I got married every
single time we could because for us, it was about politics, it was about social justice,
and it was about love.
It was about all of that.
And so, three of our marriages were because the state said we could as a gay couple—get married.
One of them, had nothing to do with the law and we had all of the hundreds of people join
us and witness it, et cetera.
And so, there's pieces...and these are very formative experiences because I also identify
as both politically and sexually queer.
On the inside—and what people wouldn't know—because I have a position of power, they wouldn't
know that on the inside I was bullied nearly every single day of my school career.
That shows up with me.
That plays out.
Again, there's more here.
I use this as an example and I would ask you to, sort of, look at that and think about
why I might have put that in.
If this was not a webinar, I would speak more to it.
But similarly, with your blank gingerbread person: Who are you in the skin you are in?
What is it that shows up with you—whether you are conscious or unconscious of it, into
your work, every single day?
If we can go on to the next slide, please.
Leora's going close out this section.
DR. LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN Yeah, we're going do this briefly because
I want to give time to the next stage that is really crucial in this work, but we wanted
to offer folks time in the chat box for you to offer, "When in your life has your own
awareness or unawareness of yourself, in the skin that you are in, been keenly influential
to you and your work?"
And I want to offer that you could also not only include your personal experiences, but
you could also put in the chat box questions that are coming up for you.
Sometimes I know that I often grapple with, "How do I live in what I'm aware but also
put myself in contexts where what I am unaware of can become something I'm aware of?"
And often times, that only comes from explicitly putting myself as an educator in contexts
that are uncomfortable—in contexts across difference, so that the pieces that I might
be unaware of suddenly become forefront.
It doesn't also mean that what I was unaware of was not influencing my work.
They were absolutely, right?
That's the under the surface influencing the above the surface.
I want to offer for you, if feel willing and comfortable to put in the chat box.
Again, if not your personal experience, questions in your practice of what's coming up.
That can also serve as supporting our dialogue.
Greg, we're going move forward.
DR. GREGORY PETERS Sounds great.
The slideshow you all have...I'm actually going go through a couple of slides a little
bit quickly or just even pass them.
For this next one, we're going talk about the second stage, about: developing community
and shared agreements and practice as conditions for interrupting inequities.
I'm just going push forward to the next slide.
And, there's a quote here—a very powerful quote, and I just want you to, as I read this,
to ask—just be in touch with what's the feeling that comes up for you.
We won't report out.
I just want you to be in touch with it, and so Chief Joseph said, "Good words will not
give my people good health and stop them from dying.
Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.
I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.
It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises."
Leora was talking about the importance of us knowing and interrupting dominant discourse.
The framework that I went over—the four stages.
The interesting thing about that work is that people—when we talk to people, are looking
for the curriculum around it, and [while] there's tons of curriculum to support us in
it but it's not a book where you go step by step over the course of X number of weeks.
The key to all of those stages—the one key to all of those stages, is discourse.
And what I really appreciate about what Leora was surfacing was that, it's not just discourse,
but we have to be conscious about what kind of discourse are we talking about?
Are we talking about dominant discourse or are we talking about radical discourse?
When I talk about radical discourse, I'm not just talking about blasphemous.
I'm actually going back to the mathematical word "radical."
The discourse that gets to the root of an issue, the root of the matter.
That discourse—the dominant discourse, that's going be a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
The radical discourse—I actually think what Chief Joseph is doing here is radical discourse,
and it doesn't feel good.
That's actually a nice sign, quite frankly, that we might be in the right discourse.
So, if we can go on to the next slide please.
Just very quickly, when we're talking about disrupting our mental models of our identity
and our histories, we're talking about the importance of developing shared buy–in,
community agreements, calibrating expectations, and we have to constantly and continuously
deepen and develop our community and trust, we want to practice using equity centered
rituals or protocols, calibrate our language...It's constantly be sharing stories across difference.
If we don't actually take the time for us to be sharing stories and hearing from each
other, we're missing a big piece of that discourse, and be in this work constantly and continuously.
If we can go on to the next slide, please.
There's a seminal piece of work by researchers Eubanks, Parrish, and Smith, that has really
been powerful in our work and elevating sort of, the difference between that dominant discourse
and that radical discourse.
They call this "Discourse One" and "Discourse Two" and what they're saying is that the current
design and structure of schools are one that are: we have Discourse One schools and their
suggestion is that we need to be moving towards the place of having our schools be
Discourse Two schools.
Discourse One, they define as, "The language typically used to talk about, question, and
plan the work of schools, change or reform.
Discourse One dialogue supports and maintains the status quo without appearing unresponsive
to outside demands for improvement."
Discourse One is not language that's hurtful or hateful or harmful.
Discourse One is that good-intentioned language that sounds like we're doing things but all
we're doing is reproducing the same results.
While in Discourse Two, they define that as, "The language that tends to be about uncomfortable,
unequal, ineffective, prejudicial conditions and relationships in schools.
Discourse Two opens up the space for ambiguity and change to be parts of purposeful structure."
In your...you will see the text we're referring to in your handouts.
If not, I'll make sure it's there.
But if we could just go ahead and go to the next slide.
Even after reading this heavy but important text, people frequently are challenged by
what does Discourse One sound like?
What does Discourse Two sound like?
So, what we decided to do [is] create some tools to help people do this.
This is not a checklist.
This is just meant to be examples and my question to a community is always, "What does Discourse
One sound like in your community?" and, "How can we turn this into Discourse Two?"
For example: Discourse One deals with the work of adults and sound like, "We can't expect
every teacher to know every student's culture."
That's reasonable.
That's a reasonable thing to hear.
It's just not going to lead us to the transformation we need.
While on the other side, Discourse Two, not as a...The topics go together, the quotes don't.
Discourse Two deals with the learning and experiences of students, and sounds like,
"What LGBTQ students have to say about how they're experiencing school and us?"
So, you can see how that's a little bit more ambiguous.
It opens up the possibility of really hard work.
Discourse One is another example that deals with systemic and social reproduction, hegemony,
and sounds like, "Look at the parents.
The apple does not fall from the tree."
So, it might help us to understand what's happening but it's not a helpful statement at all.
While Discourse Two deals with interruption and transformation and sounds like,
"When a student gets an F, who failed what? ... Who failed whom?"
We're trying to flip the script here.
Discourse One deals with how adults talk about student learning experiences and sounds like,
"One student should not stop other students from learning."
I've heard this a thousand times.
Discourse Two, on the other hand, deals with how students talk about student learning experiences,
"Only the Black kids get kicked out of her class, because we're loud but that's because
we never get help and are bored, so we play around."
What we're trying to do is one of the most important ways that we can change the conditions
so that we are accepting of interruptive experiences and the transformation needed, is literally
to think about how is it that we talk?
This would be a text that I would strongly encourage people to read and again—when
we think about resources, there's ways of moving deeper into this.
If we can move on to the next one, and I apologize, I'm going very, very quickly here.
We're not going to go into this for time purposes, but what I want to just say is we talk about
norms as a condition for how we have conversation.
I just want to challenge us to think about how our norms explicitly or implicitly
represent dominant culture.
When we talk about being on time, this is about compliance and control—and quite frankly
I don't know other jobs where it has to be a norm that you're striving to be on time
versus it's your job.
Really, when we think about norms, we want to talk about things that we should be stretching
to, things that should be difficult for us to do.
It should not be bare minimum expectations—or professional expectations but, the norms should
describe how we want to be when we are together, working with each other, through a social
justice and equity lens.
So again, I apologize that we're running out of time, but I've got some examples showing
on the left: be on time versus stay engaged; be respectful versus experience discomfort;
step up, step back versus pay attention to patterns of participation; and assume best
intentions versus speak your truth.
So, hopefully, those are good nuggets to just have you muse over.
Now I'll pass it back to Leora.
DR. LEORA WOLF-PRUSAN Taking a breath, Greg, because that was a
lot in a short amount of time.
For those of you, I want to hold everyone...If, again, if you are interested in more learning,
our contact information and references and resources are at the end, and so I want to
hold space for that.
We're closing stage two with the essential question of asking us to do some deep inquiry
around: when we have faced an interruption in our own schema, in our own way in which
we approach ourselves—the skin that we live in, and how we arrive at our work, and also
in our relationships and in our worldview, and what allowed for that to happen?
I think if you haven't picked up on it by now, one tool—a radical tool that we are
encouraging—is to do some adoption of some real Discourse Two, right?
The way in which the interruptions happen, or the way in which we decide to check the
assumed way that we do, be, know under the surface.
To call out and become...
Move that unawareness into awareness so that the over the surface starts to actually become
intentional, authentic, and eventually equitable.
And with that, I'm going to move to the last slide that offers more questions to bring
back to your practice.
I know that most of you are either in a cubicle, office, car, or school and you've got a lot
of things to do this afternoon and so what we wanted to do was offer you some questions
to marinate in so that you can continue to make meaning of this learning.
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