Summer Professional Development Ideas

Happy July! I (Nina) hope you’ve had some time to rest and reflect on the school year. I’m home with a baby, so no summer professional development (PD) for me this year, but traditionally summer is the time for me to learn about something new, attend a conference, talk to other teachers, and get new ideas and inspiration. If you had a really rough school year (or just a “regular” school year because teaching is so hard!) and you need time away from teaching however that might look for you, I also completely understand that. 

One other thing to mention is that a lot of professional development is really expensive and it can be hard to get a spot. These two things combined make it inaccessible for so many teachers. As a private school teacher, I’m lucky to work at a school that has a budget for PD and pays for travel, accommodation, meals allowance, etc. We are also permitted to request time off for PD during the school year, which I feel was very difficult when I taught public school. This is key as so much great PD is offered during the school year. Currently, many conferences and workshops are still online, which is great for making them accessible to more teachers as there are no travel costs involved and you don’t have to worry about childcare or pet sitters or anything like that. But after teaching on Zoom, I have a hard time with Zoom workshops. I never want to turn my camera on and I inevitably get distracted unless I am presenting or have some sort of dynamic role.

Free or (relatively) affordable PD options:

Museums often have a lot to offer and they are often free for public school teachers. In DC, between the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Humanities, and more, there are a lot of free or stipend-based opportunities. Unfortunately, most of them require advance application, but you can still sign up for a lot of museum based workshops or webinars for free. Special shout out to the National Museum of the American Indian that has really amazing webinars available for free. You can watch previously recorded ones as well. From their site, “Webinars are designed to support education professionals in learning approaches to incorporate more complete narratives about Native American histories, cultures, and contemporary lives into their teaching.” 

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has virtual workshops that only cost $15 per participant.

Really Great Reading free! Science of Reading summer training. We are huge supporters of SOR and if you have the energy, any practice with improving our literacy instruction skills is truly one of the key game changers for supporting ALL students. This one is great because it has three levels so you can work your way through the whole program and get tools for a range of ages. 

Newsela has a lot of webinars, many of which include actual teachers as presenters. They are free if you create a free account.

Common Sense Media provides free professional development for teachers. You can also become a Common Sense ambassador or recognized educator.

The IRIS Center (through Peabody College at Vanderbilt University) is offering free PD certificates for educators through December 2022! They offer self-paced and self-guided modules focused on topics related to special education and teaching students who are English language learners (and more!).

Facing History and Ourselves has different PD options including one time workshops, videos of teachers teaching, and webinars or courses. Not all of their options are free, but many are and they offer payment assistance.

Depending on what curricular and instructional tools or programs you/your school or district use in your classroom, many platforms and curricula offer PD and much of it is free or offered by/through certain school districts. I’ve attended workshops for Seesaw, Fundations, Engage NY/Eureka Math, IXL Math, and more. If you have something new you will be working with or want to try next year or want to refresh your skills and learn some new tricks for a tool you’ve been using for some time, summer is a great time to learn more and have time to practice and experiment. I wrote a post about useful virtual tools here. Many of these tools have free teacher training or even programs to become a certified teacher for that platform.

Kristyn Corace shares more ideas here on the Really Good Stuff Blog.

Here are some great resources from Education World.

Waterford compiled a list of 20 free online professional development resources for teachers.

Below are some PD opportunities Gabby and I attended and wrote about in the past. All of them have an attendance fee which our school covered (our school also covered our travel and other costs.) We were also presenting or facilitating at a number of these conferences and were able to travel together, which is definitely more fun! They are sorted by summer or during the school year.

Summer:

The Art of Coaching Teams Institute (I attended this PD as part of my role as the Co-Teaching Facilitator).

NPS Diversity Institute! (Rosetta Lee ran the workshop the year I went and she was, as always, amazing and thought-provoking!)

Responsive Classroom Workshop 

Social Justice Tour to the Dominican Republic!

SEED 2016: Seattle!

SDE Differentiated Instruction Conference! 

School Year:

Presenting at NCTE 

Facilitating at the Asian Educators Alliance Conference 

Presenting at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference 

Northwest Teachers for Social Justice: Always Worth the Trip! (This conference is so amazing we traveled from DC to the Northwest twice to attend! It is online this year so no travel involved and the conference fees are very reasonable. Find out more here.)

Presenting at the Private Schools for Public Purpose Conference 

Our workshop at the Capitol Area Progressive Schools Conference 

​​Facilitating at the White Privilege Conference

Please share any professional development opportunities you’ve experienced that really stand out. And have a peaceful and restful summer!

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The Art of Coaching Teams Institute

Last year, I took on a new role at my school and in addition to be a 3rd grade teacher, I was also the Co-Teaching Facilitator. It was fun to be able to work with my colleagues in a new capacity and rewarding to find and provide resources to (hopefully) support them. As part of this role and some hopes for next year, I attended The Art of Coaching Teams Institute through Bright Morning. I had already read and worked with The Art of Coaching by Elena Aguilar and was excited to add The Art of Coaching Teams (also by Elena Aguilar) to my resources bank.

The workshop packed a lot into two days and I especially loved the opportunities to collaborate with others and make what we were learning and discussing relevant to our own work. There was so much to appreciate, but here are a few of my highlights:

• I loved the Cycle of an Emotion (in the photo above). It is so concrete and applies to everyone in almost every situation. We talked about it during the institute as a way to be mindful of our reactions and responses, but I see so many ways to use this graphic. I would love to use it with my third graders - we often talk about how we can’t control our feelings, but we can control what we do about them. It also provides a wonderfully concrete and tangible way of understanding someone else’s perspective when someone does something we don’t particularly appreciate. In a coaching or collaboration situation, I could see it being useful as a way to stop or limit a misunderstanding or conflict instead of lettings things spiral or build.

  • One really important point about the graphic above (Cycle of an Emotion) is that our interpretation is colored by our own unconscious biases and systemic forces in our society. We must acknowledge our own identities and the cultural contexts that influence our interpretations, physical responses, and actions. I really appreciated this lens as I find that I can’t genuinely work on team building without acknowledging (and hopefully challenging!) these forces as part of all of our interactions.

Another aspect of the institute I really appreciated was the focus on emotional intelligence and how developing the emotional intelligence of a team is crucial to effective collaboration. If you ignore emotions or tension in a group, so much energy will go toward avoiding or managing that tension. But if you have a group that excels at understanding and taking care of each other, they will be able to communicate well, have healthy conflict, and work well together. As the slide above reminds us, “when people feel good, they work at their best.” This is also a really important reminder to take care of yourself. You can’t be a good teacher (or friend, sibling, etc) if you aren’t in a good place. It takes so much emotional energy to be unhappy, frustrated, stressed, or upset. 

• One of the strategies for leading more inclusive teams was to encourage storytelling as it builds connections. I always love any reminders of the significance and transformative effects of storytelling. It is such a wonderful way for people to become more connected to each other and to find common threads in our stories to help us understand what we are working toward. Stories remind us of our shared humanity. Even though I don’t teach a full formal storytelling unit anymore, I use storytelling in my teaching all the time. When starting a new unit or sharing a new concept, ask for stories about this idea, emotion, or experience in people’s lives. They will be far more prepared to engage afterward and will feel more connected to anyone whose story they shared.

• And finally, always go back to purpose! This sounds basic, but it is so crucial. A clear purpose provides clarity and focus, increases motivation, and can help uphold the larger mission, goals, or vision of an organization, classroom, or community. When I share a purpose of what we are learning or working on with my students, they are more engaged. Even when someone might disagree with your purpose, sharing it is powerful.

I hope some of these reminders are helpful (and that you get a chance to check out some of Bright Morning’s resources!) What are some important reminders or must-do’s for you when working in or leading a team?

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Capital Area Progressive Schools!

Last month, I had the opportunity to present at the Capital Area Progressive Schools (CAPS) Conference! The theme of the conference was Responsive Practice: Diversity, Equity, and Differentiation. This conference takes place every two years and all CAPS members faculty and staff are invited to join. This year, my school had the day off for students so everyone could attend and it seemed like most other schools did so as well. It was so lovely that so many schools were able to do this so we had so many other teachers (and faculty and staff) to meet! Coming from a small school with only one class per grade, it’s always very exciting to have a chance to talk to other 3rd grade teachers.

My (new) co-teacher and I presented our What continent do you think they are from? drawing humans activity that Gabby and I designed as part of our 3rd grade geography curriculum. We use this activity to open our students’ eyes to the reality of the entire world out there (as opposed to only North America and maybe Europe) as well as their internalized biases (and of course, so much more!). We read a description of a human being, ask them to draw this human using only crayons, and then write down what continent they think this person is from.

This was only the second time I’ve done this activity with adults, and really enjoyed the discussion and questions from our audience. We had a smaller group than we anticipated so we were able to open up discussion as we went along and ask people to share out instead of only sharing in a small group. It was fascinating hearing about different thought processes and how, as adults, we become instantly aware of our implicit biases and what it felt like to try to challenge them.

We had a very interesting discussion about application or adaptation of this activity for pre-kindergarten aged students, interdisciplinary or subject specific use in middle school classrooms, and talked about Science applications and generally beginning the dismantling or challenging of stereotypes when starting a new unit of study. At our school, we’ve been fortunate to work closely with the Kindergarten and First Grade teachers who are engaging in social justice work in their classrooms as well, and were responsive to the needs we communicated based on the work we were doing in Fifth Grade, so we shared some of the activities they do as well.

One part of this activity that I really love is asking participants to write down what continent they think someone is from! Many of the adults at our workshop found that they were able to be mindful of their own first instincts around race or gender when drawing humans, but the continent twist surprised them and made them ask: why is it that we always think of Europeans and North Americans? What does this mean for our classrooms and the voices and faces we need to highlight?

Later in the day, I went to a roundtable discussion about continuing diversity, equity, and inclusion work a few years in and how to keep moving after the initial momentum from starting out (as an institution or as staff/faculty at an institution. It was helpful hearing about work at other schools and problems, reactions and possible solutions that have come up.

Some of my other takeaways and valuable reminders included:

• I love the idea of a cultural competency checklist as a place to start with all faculty and staff - it really underscores the idea that we all are commiting to this important work and all have something to bring or work on.

• One school had everyone fill out an inventory detailing who they spend most of their time with, who their friends are, and who they are comfortable with as a concrete way for people to understand why certain spaces might feel more or less natural or customary for them

• One share involved someone explaining that there was a wide disparity of how people were experiencing the school and different ways they tried to make people understand that

• Progressive schools are grounded in relationships so everyone’s experience matters!

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Presenting at NCTE

Late last month, I had the honor of participating on a panel presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention. I was sharing details about our beloved storytelling unit on a panel about cultural relevancy, the arts, and student voice! I was lucky to be paired up with an excellent co-presenter (the panel ended up just being the two of us!) and loved sharing details about what still is one of my favorite units to teach.

I was originally slated to be on a panel with four other people, but as it worked out, only two of us were able to present. We were both able to share more details about our work and had more time for questions (which is often my favorite part). Not surprisingly, the highlight of my presentation really was the video of a student performance from our Final Stage show where every single one of our students performed a true story about their life.

Other things I loved presenting about: Anne Thomas, who was our guest speaker/storyteller and introduced the concept of storytelling as a performance with her story, Burden No More, how we used both Story District and StoryCorps as resources, the incredibly valuable tie in to social emotional learning as stories help us both understand ourselves and learn from each other, and how I wish Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing new picture book, The Day You Begin, existed when we were teaching this unit.

I truly loved seeing how the audience responded to my student’s story. I spoke about the bares bones of the unit, why it was transformative, student quotes, and resources and ideas, but the student video was far more powerful than anything I said! I also was asked many great questions about how to use storytelling with preservice teachers and adults in general. There was a lot of engagement with the idea of storytelling as validation of less prominent stories or voices, and connections to other cultures with oral history traditions (especially Native Americans and tribes fighting for state and/or federal recognition).

It was also amazing to be around so many teachers of English (and authors! And readers!)! I enjoyed all the nerdy, literary, and punny shirts and tote bags and just general love for books and authentic literacy opportunities. Thank you to my wonderful co-presenter, our audience, and all the other educators I was lucky enough to meet at NCTE!

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Responsive Classroom Workshop

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend a Responsive Classroom Course for Elementary Educators. I was introduced to Responsive Classroom in college as part of my elementary educator training, but it was wonderful (as always) to engage with other teachers and  have some valuable review and even more important reminders.

Some things I took away and am still thinking about are:

• Yardsticks (Child and Adolescent Development Ages 4-14) by Chip Wood: I love this resource! We give out the 3rd grade related pamphlets to families at back to school night, and the book is a great gift for new parents (of 4 year olds and up). Asking what is developmentally appropriate for a specific age is always a good question and a great place to start. This information is so valuable for so many reasons. If something in your class isn’t going well or your students aren’t responding favorably to something, it may be due to where they are developmentally.

• I love Quiet Time! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Responsive Classroom, Quiet Time is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a serene 10-15 minutes in the middle of the day (often after lunch or recess) to give students time to transition back into the classroom calmly. I’m thinking about how to incorporate this into my classroom. There’s never enough time, but that is true for everything. I brainstormed with some other 3rd grade teachers about some additional ways to have student choice in my instruction and thought about how Morning Work (what students work on after they arrive while we are waiting for everyone else to arrive) is always a difficult balance for me. It’s hard to find something meaningful that won’t take too long (since many students only have a few minutes to work on it), but that isn’t too meaningful since many students arrive right before we move on (or are late) and won’t be able to do the Morning Work! I wonder if having Quiet Time instead of Morning Work is feasible (and okay with my new co-teacher), and could be a useful re-framing. The transition to school can also be tumultuous for students. Stay tuned.. hopefully I will be able to try this out this school year!

• I really appreciated the reminders about proactive versus reactive discipline. It also goes along with the fact that if students don’t have their needs for belonging, significance, and fun met then they’ll seek to fill these needs in other ways (often by acting out). Also, educators cannot be reminded enough: social interaction leads to cognitive growth! An essential function of school is socialization which entails learning important life skills. I’m so glad I’m starting the 2018-19 school year with the reminder to (always) let my students talk to each other and learn through interaction.

Great exercise to help us shift perspective!

• The Responsive Classroom approach is researched based. Hopefully, you will never feel as if you have to justify the time you spend on teaching kids vital social skills (and making sure they feel safe and accepted!). However, if you do (and I have been in that position in the past), remember there is research behind these important practices that show how crucial they are to student success and well-being.

Here’s to giving students the structure, support, and validation they need in the new school year!

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NPS Diversity Institute!

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the National Presbyterian School Diversity Institute featuring Rosetta Lee. I first encountered Rosetta when we were both presenting (about microaggressions) at the Asian Educators Alliance in 2016, and have been a big fan ever since! I also loved attending a local conference and meeting many early childhood educators who also work in the DC Metro area.

There were so many things to love about this institute. I especially appreciated being able to attend a session for early childhood (PK-3rd) educators, as so many diversity or social justice workshops seem to be geared for middle school and up. There is nothing like being surrounded by early childhood social justice educators to make you feel vindicated for all the times you insisted that third graders (or even fifth graders) are most definitely NOT “too young for this work!”

I also was so grateful for flexible collaborative work time on the second day of the institute and the emphasis on teacher voices and practice. I often attend professional development opportunities and then struggle to find the time to apply what I learned to my own practice, but this institute gave us time and resources to do so by allowing us to work together on our own (or collaborative) projects, questions, or ideas.

Some things I am still thinking about:

• Rosetta’s explanation that we should talk about cultural competency as the ability to do your best work with people who are not you and how it has to start with your own cultural self awareness. I will absolutely use this with families and love how clear, simple, logical, and true it is!

• Jones Model of Cultural Competence: you will never “get there” because it is iterative! The question you should ask yourself is not “are you there yet?” but “are you moving?”

• 6 month olds demonstrate an awareness of race - it is developmentally appropriate to talk about race with young students and sharing counter messages to stereotypes is actually essential before they learn bias from the world around them.

• How wonderfully practical prompts, advice, and tips from the day were. I especially loved the discussion about how to partner with and support families as there were many concrete examples (also from the audience of educators!).

• This incredibly helpful Inclusive Classroom Practices resource Rosetta shared. I hope to use it all this year and ask questions like:

  • Are these in place in my classroom? In my school?

  • Are they in place for students and teachers?

  • What about non-teaching staff?

  • What (relatively) immediate changes can I make in my classroom to be more inclusive?

  • How can I counter my own biases?

I also had a wonderful discussion about thematic Social Studies and how instead of memorizing facts or studying ancient civilizations without any connection to today, we should look for the why in history and think critically about the world around us. I loved brainstorming with other teachers about why is Social Studies so tricky?! I especially appreciated this reminder as I am working on fine tuning our Geography curriculum this summer (and remembering it will always continue to change harkening back to the “are you moving?” question!).

Two last reminders of amazing resources (I hope you are already familiar with them, as I was, but it never hurts to remember how useful and important they are): Teaching Tolerance Anti Bias standards and GLSEN Resources for Educators.

Please comment below with any other resources you use to help you keep moving as an anti-bias educator  - we'd love to hear from you!

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Facilitating at the Asian Educators Alliance Conference

Last week, I was fortunate enough to facilitate a workshop at the Asian Educators Alliance (AsEA) Conference here in Washington, DC! I presented a workshop titled Rebranding Microaggressions: Otherizing and Marginalization at the AsEA Conference in Berkeley, CA in 2016, so it was wonderful to be back and connect with so many amazing educators on the other side of the country (and without even needing to fly anywhere)!

My workshop was titled What Continent Do You Think They Are From: Confronting & Challenging Internalized Stereotypes. I led participants through the drawing humans and guessing what continent they might be from activity that we created for our class as an example of one activity you could use to uncover racial, gender, geographic or other biases. I find that the activity highlights and counteracts internalized stereotypes, assumptions, and bias, and hoped it would provide an introductory point for addressing who is visible and heard in our classrooms and society. Then, I was excited to hear from participants about how the activity is relevant to our/their own experiences, and share ideas and resources for how we try to counteract one-dimensional or limited representation of Asian and Pacific Islander voices in our own communities.

As always, I really enjoyed the discussion as we went through the steps of the drawing humans activity. There were so many excellent questions about the design of the activity. For example, why do we use only crayons? And was the choice of colors of crayons deliberate? How might I have structured the activity differently for younger children? And so many more! It’s also always fascinating to see how differently we all approach the same activity - some people focus on drawing faces, others draw stick figures with props, others try to use the description to guess an actual person and then depict that person (and often write their name). This time around, one of the participants correctly guessed that I was describing Sadiq Khan!

My favorite part, however, is always hearing reflections and reactions. One participant described how she kept thinking of men even though four out of the five people I described were women. Another shared how she tried to think about who would have access to the positions and opportunities I described in different places. I shared how one of my 3rd graders asked, “Why do we only learn about people from North America?” after experiencing this activity and participants reflected on the curricula at their schools and changes they were making or would choose to make if they could.

The conference theme was mobilizing for equity, so I was thrilled to hear from others and garner ideas, inspiration, and support. It is always so enlightening to have time to talk with other teachers and I loved how attendees had traveled from all over the country, worked at many different kinds of schools, worked with students of all ages, and had a variety of roles at their schools, so we really had a variety of perspectives. One aspect of the conference I really appreciated was multiple workshops on leadership roles as representation in administration or positions of power is a key part of mobilizing for equity and advocating for change. I wasn’t able to attend one of those workshops this time around, but I loved the options and appreciate the reminder that representation matters!

Yet another highlight from the conference was reconnecting with Dr. Taharee A. Jackson, who coincidentally had visited our classroom a year ago. She was one of the keynote speakers and told us about her work as a professor of minority and urban education, specifically sharing the results of her research on teacher activists. While there is so much to learn from her (and I can’t wait to read her book that is coming out soon!), I especially took to heart the message that we need to support one another and finding a community of like-minded educators is absolutely ESSENTIAL to keep doing the work we try so hard to do.

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Presenting at the Private Schools for Public Purpose Conference

We had the pleasure of visiting GDS High School and attending the Private Schools for Public Purpose (PSPP) conference! We presented some experiential learning activities we do in our 5th grade classroom (two of our favorites, our drawing activity and pom pom simulation, and some new ones like our factory simulation in our Econ 101 unit!), along with how we talk about race and socio-economic status in our classroom. We were privileged to spend our workshop time with thoughtful, justice-oriented educators.

Unlike some other presentations we have done, this space was small and intimate, and we loved getting to hear from everyone and have a dynamic discussion. We heard all about affinity groups, equity work, and innovative programming at other schools.

Our trusty bin of workshop supplies: pom poms, crayons, handouts, and more!

This workshop with awesome, critical thinking educators has left us thinking about:

• How we can avoid students trying to have the “right” answer during our discussion our activity, but not transferring that to their actions outside of the classroom?

• Why do adults consistently ask if we are afraid the white kids will “feel bad”?

  • How do we continue to address the root of this question verbally and through the work we do with students, families, and fellow educators?

• What pushback do we expect from adults?

• The importance of sitting in the discomfort of honest investigation/realization- for example, one question brought up to us by a couple educators in the room was: What do we do with students repeatedly saying they feel "lucky" after an experiential activity or being "grateful" for their circumstances. What does that mean? How do we continue to push them to go beyond the idea of feeling lucky and think more about implications and the structures in place?

• The importance of teaching that race is a construct - in student’s words it means everything and nothing - it’s confusing! Ignoring it won’t make it go away!

Overall thoughts and feelings: It is empowering and rejuvenating to connect with fellow educators at conferences and discuss the complexities of social justice education. While our students were upset (and indignant!) that we would both be gone for the day, they were excited to hear we would be putting adults through some simulations and wanted to know if they get “just as mad” and "how would grown ups act doing the work we do?!" We assured them that adults have even stronger reactions and that adults also have to step up and do this work. They wholeheartedly agreed.

Sending gratitude to everyone we met at PSPP-- Onwards!

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Our workshop at the Capitol Area Progressive Schools Conference

On Friday, we were fortunate to be part of the contingent from our school attending the Capitol Area Progressive Schools (CAPS) conference! The conference was held at another area progressive school and teachers and staff from seven other progressive schools were in attendance. 

We were excited by the prospect of sharing our simulations and curriculum with local schools as the possibility of continued collaboration is so much higher when you are in the same city! Our workshop centered around the social justice work in our classroom, with participants actually experiencing two activities we created ourselves: our drawing activity that highlights internalized stereotypes and our pom pom simulation. 

As always, our participants brought their own unique perspectives, responses, and reactions to our activities. During the drawing simulation, multiple people mentioned they were consciously trying to "resist stereotypes," which is an illuminating exercise on its own.

Round 1: collecting pom poms (wealth and power)!

During the pom pom simulation, one participant interpreted her instructions for collecting pom poms her own way to make sure she was successful (and she did end up in Group 1!), while others noted how quickly they decided that one or two pom poms was "enough" to show that they made an effort. Group 1 (the wealthy and powerful) worked together creatively during Round 2 (making "baskets" of paper balls to increase your group's wealth) to put all of their paper in the basket, and then sat down to be out of the way so the two other groups could continue to try to gain more wealth. After a few seconds sitting down, one of them realized that by standing at their line they were blocking the other groups, so he stood up again to get in the other groups' way! One of his group members quickly joined him. They reflected afterward how as soon as one other person acts, it gives you the opportunity to follow without worrying what others will think of you.

Round 2: Earning more pom poms as a group! Group 1 is sitting down at this point..

While the group dynamics and self-realizations were (and always are) fascinating, we also had a productive discussion about how this is applied in our classroom and how it could be applied in other situations. One teacher asked about how to support students who are in the minority so they feel like part of the discussion, but not targets of the discussion. We talked about checking in with certain students before or afterward, and having everyone respond to prompts about their own experiences (and NOT their classmates'). Another participant asked about how to modify these activities for younger students, which is something I have always thought about as a former first and second grade teacher! My initial ideas were making the drawing activity into more of a story or narrative (without providing details related to gender, race, background) and asking the students what they imagined or "knew" about the character in the story or having the students illustrate the story and compare their illustrations. Simulations can be confusing or misleading for very young children, so the pom pom simulation would need to be rewritten and crafted in a less abstract way.

We also now have two potential visitors to our classroom! We are hoping to welcome them sometime this school year. They also invited us to visit their schools. We are excited to see them at work and hear more about the things they are trying out in their classrooms.

I also attended a workshop about incorporating debates into the classroom. Our students really synthesized their learning after our Columbus Day debates, so I loved the suggestions of using debate to analyze characters and engage with literature.  Stay tuned as we will be trying this out soon!

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Presenting at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference

We went to beautiful Portland, Oregon to present at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice conference (NWTSJ). This conference is unique in that it is organized BY teachers and mainly run by volunteers. It was our first time in Portland and at this conference, and we were loved both (the sun even came out specially for our visit)!

The keynote speaker, Kevin Kumashiro, Dean of the University of San Francisco School of Education, reminded us that education is a social movement and the purpose of a social movement is to change the status quo and the dominant or “common sense” way of thinking. His rhetoric around “common sense” resonated with us as we often tell our students that saying something is obvious or common is NOT an argument. Historically, it was “obvious” (to those in power) for a long time that white men were superior. It also speaks to the relevance of identity and position - once you locate yourself, it’s much more clear why something that is obvious to you does not seem to be “common sense” for others.

Our workshop was entitled: Classroom simulations to confront privilege and internalized stereotypes. We love simulations and were excited to introduce two that we created to other teachers!  The best way to do this, of course, was to have our workshop attendees experience the simulations themselves so they would know best how to adapt the activities for their classrooms and students.

Our first activity involved reading a description of a human and giving our attendees one minute to draw who they visualized in their mind upon hearing that description. We flew across the country with 40+ baggies of crayons so people could draw in color! Despite how unexpectedly heavy that many crayons can make a suitcase, we would do it again. People were forced to decide what skin color the person they were drawing would have instead of avoiding the issue by drawing in pencil or pen.

The reflections and discussion from this activity were fascinating. Someone asked how many people drew 3 or more women (out of 6 people total). Less than half of the room raised their hands. Many people reported trying to “fight” their impulses to immediately go to a dominant or stereotypical idea (for example, a basketball player is black and male), but were still aware of where their minds went first. This cognitive dissonance seems to be articulated more by adults as children usually just confidently forge ahead.

Next, we led participants through our beloved pompom simulation that we created to teach our students about privilege and systemic poverty and oppression. In this activity, pompoms simulate wealth and power and participants learn about and feel the effects of privilege as they go through three rounds of opportunities to earn and distribute “wealth” (pompoms). Since space was tight, we actually did Round 1 (collecting pompoms) in the hall! Attendees were given slips of paper with instructions ranging from “You can use your hands and move around in your normal fashion” to “You may only use your two pointer fingers behind your back.”

As you can see, participants jumped right in! A few people worked together, and - this was a first - one person even ended up in Group 1 (great wealth and power from many pompoms) because he said he wasn’t allowed to move his feet so everyone around him helped him! He later admitted he felt a little guilty for profiting from help to move into the exclusive Group 1 and in Round 2, helped the other two groups make “baskets” by having them pass their paper balls up so he could put them in the basket for them! He made the connection to tokenism and our conversation could have gone there for the rest of the session!

Our attendees level of helping each other and working together was something we have seen very little of when we’ve done this activity in the past (both with children and adults). One participant said she felt that she didn’t “earn” the pompoms when someone gave them to her so she felt that voting to redistribute them didn’t appeal to her as it would be less than satisfying. Members of Group 3 (least amount of pompoms) noted how quickly they felt marginalized and cast aside. One person said she immediately felt de-prioritized when I didn’t even write “Group 3” on the board, as it was just “everyone else.” Others noted how their behavior was influenced by knowing that they were at a social justice conference and not wanting to look “bad” by being too competitive! As always, it was wonderful to hear reactions and thoughts about the reflections and responses we hear from our students.

One important reminder that came out of our workshop was how fortunate we are to be teaching at an independent school where we have a lot of freedom over our curriculum and activities as well as the support of our administration. Many of our workshop participants were public school teachers with less autonomy over curriculum and teaching methods and it was inspiring to hear how they forge ahead anyway. We also received some great suggestions and ideas about how to extend our simulations and connect student experiences to learning in other ways.

We are feeling refreshed, energized, and enthusiastic about continuing this work and collaborating with other educators!  Some questions we were asked that we are still pondering include:

• How do we make sure that students understand these systems of oppression hurt all of us?

• How can this work be done different contexts (public schools or schools less flexible curriculum mandates)?

Please share your thoughts, comments, and questions below!  We want to hear from you.  Let's stay connected.

 

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Social Justice Tour to the Dominican Republic!

We were very fortunate to join a group of educators for a Friends Beyond Borders Social Justice Tour through the Dominican Republic earlier this summer. We loved exploring and learning more about a stunningly beautiful country as well as getting to know and collaborating with other educators.

Our trip covered so much ground and inspired a lot of reflection, so we will most likely be coming back to it in many future blog posts.  For now, here are a few key takeaways:

• Diverse authors: My main context for background information about Dominican history and culture came from Junot Diaz books. This background helped me make connections and build upon previous knowledge.  This is why diverse authors and voices are so important! Also, (sidenote) why do I know so little about a country the US has occupied twice in the last century?

  • Once starting on May 5, 1916

  • Once starting on April 28, 1965

Learning about the oh-so-incredible Mirabal sisters.

• The “developing” world: How do we understand poverty in different contexts? How can we talk about vast discrepancies in standards of living in other communities with students without dehumanizing or “otherizing” people experiencing poverty? How can we balance between confronting the reality of socioeconomic inequalities and simultaneously avoiding one dimensional interpretations or conceptualizations of a nation or people?

• Columbus’s legacy: his actions and racist policies still affect ALL OF US today. Part of the motivation for the genocide of the Taino people was to make way for African slaves. Also, “extreme” poverty in the developing world is not an accident. It is related to historically racist policies!

Visiting the Alta Gracia factory!

• Economics: we study Economics with our fifth graders and learn all about the labor force. After visiting the Alta Gracia factory, these issues came to life for us in a new way and now we are thinking about workers’ rights and humane conditions. Also, we need to add a more deliberate action component to this unit as there are real opportunities for activism here! As consumers, we really can vote with our money.

Please let us know your thoughts and reflections.  We would love suggestions or just to hear about what or how you are teaching!  Stay tuned as we try out some new things this school year!

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SEED 2016: Seattle!

Gabby here!

I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn a great deal at the National SEED Project this past week. SEED charges itself with "creating conversational communities that drive change" and then trains facilitators. The newly trained facilitators (now me!) go back to their communities and continue the work of creating a space for intentional conversations.

I had an incredible time spending a week with the facilitators of SEED. There are so many layers to the program and so much that I am processing that I am not currently able to explain.

However, below are some key takeaways that I will be bringing back to my classroom (and life) from all of the amazing people and the awesome work we did at SEED Seattle 2016!

1. "Windows" and "Mirrors"

SEED uses windows as a way of seeing into a perspective that is new to you, and mirrors as getting to see yourself. We used this terminology to reflect on other's stories. Regardless of whether or not something was a window or mirror, taking the space to notice windows and mirrors was valuable and bonded us. It also sparked a lot of conversations within our community. In the classroom, I cannot wait to use this language and framework with the students. We believe good teaching is when students constantly get to see windows and mirrors of themselves and others!

2. Let it get messy (and REALLY LET IT!)

We did so much self reflective work at SEED.  Sometimes the reflection or conversation was joyous, sometimes painful, and always personal. In retrospect, I am so grateful for our facilitators who gave space and modeled leaning into arguments, confrontation, and taking the time and space to try again. I re-learned that while something can feel like a huge mess, that mess is actually one of the most valuable ways to reflect, analyze, and really truly learn something. We did some great learning as a group from the messes we made and then worked through together. More messes, please!

3. Timers.

They are uncomfy, rigid, and a little stressful. HOWEVER, they give space for more voices (or all voices) to be heard, and they can create an automatic space for airtime. Big fan.

4. Serial check ins.

This just means going around the entire group to see how everyone is doing or what they are thinking. These are done before a meeting or class period and end the period as well. I loved serial testimony as a way of hearing all voices. You need a timer for this or the prompt "one word or phrase..." in order for it to be efficient and effective. People can always "pass," but I loved knowing where everyone in the group was at. Sometimes, during a serial testimony, one person would say "Hopeful!" and another person during that same check in would say "Hurt". I found it important for the entire group to be aware of those differences and valuable as a teammate and community member.

5. More check ins.

I am now a huge proponent of setting time to check in with one another, and remind students (colleagues, peers.. Family members!) to circle back to one another.

Check ins can be about anything, for example check in about...

… something they said... (maybe a microaggression or something offensive?)

… consent to hug one another or touch someone's back...

… an odd signal you got from someone..

… how they are feeling...

More check ins all around, please! Check ins promoted honesty, personal growth and reflection, and ultimately more intimate relationships for me at SEED.

Finally, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the training and Founding Co-director Emily Style's observation in 1981 and 2014 publications that,

"Half the curriculum walks in the room with the students, in the textbooks of their lives"

And that's it for now! 

Sending love out to all the amazing people I met at SEED last week! I am looking forward to co-facilitating a faculty SEED group at our school this year. Check back and see how I am doing and new reflections I have!

SDE Differentiated Instruction Conference!

Hello and happy July!

We are writing to you from the SDE 2016 Differentiated Instruction Conference in Las Vegas, where we are learning as much as we can about differentiated instruction! 

When we are not wondering about how the temperature can be 115 degrees or why there is a fake sky inside, we have found numerous takeaways we can't wait to bring back to the classroom. Below are a few different reminders and insights we would like to share with you! They cover a range of tips from the vast world of differentiation.

1. We (still) love Pop-up Debates !

We do these in our classroom and we loved hearing about how others do debates in their rooms/schools. We are re-committed to using these as a way to talk through news articles, get content moving, and especially excited to keep using debates before our Persuasive Essay unit. We were reminded to use templates to give students practice for how to paraphrase an argument, and then agree & add on, disagree, or complicate.

Paraphrase

"_____ you're basically saying _________.. "

AND THEN add on one of the options below:

Disagree with reasons

• "The primary problem with that is _________"

• "The reason that your statement can’t stand is__________"

• "I don’t agree because _________"

Complicate

• Well crafted question that makes the other person go back and unravel what they/you just said

• "But I can also see _____ being true.."

• "Do you think you might be missing ________?"

• "Isn’t it more complicated than that, though? I mean, what about________?"

Agree & Add on

• "I agree with what you are saying and I want to add on________"

• "You're on point and here's another reason why_______"

(example template inspired by They Say, I Say)

We were also just reminded how teaching students how to disagree and argue is such an important life skill!

"The goal is not victory but a good decision, one in which all arguers are at risk of needing to alter their views , one in which a participant takes seriously and fairly the views different from his or her own." -Richard Fulkerson, Teaching the Argument in Writing (1996)
 

2. ABC Brainstorm! 

We love this idea of an Alphabet Brainstorm to get everyone involved and connecting to prior knowledge. For example, if the topic is MUSIC, students would brainstorm alone/in pairs/in groups and try to fill in the entire alphabet. We are going to do this to assess background knowledge of a topic! This is a fun tool we are going to keep playing with in terms of grouping students, as well so we can make groups based off of their answers and interests (and not just on 'level').

3. Change your verbs!  

Changing verbs alters the complexity of the prompt, and can push students to think outside the box. We especially like "Defend.." (going back to debate practice) as a challenging one we will try out. We also like "Rank.." as a quick check in prompt to see what they are understanding in an easily accessible, quick bullet point way. We are going to try some of these out more often this upcoming school year!

We love these reminders of ways to change the game and individualize the task for each student!

5. There are so many different ways of being smart!

We really appreciated the reminder about assessing for multiple intelligences (thanks, Howard Gardner via Danielle Hickerson!) and the importance of knowing yourself as a learner. This school year, we will work extra hard to make sure we are teaching to all different learning styles and giving EVERYONE a chance to excel.

What insights have you come across this summer in terms of differentiated instruction? What are some of your favorite tools? Tips? Activities?

We'd love to hear from you!