Image courtesy of National Council of Teachers of English

It's summer 2020 and we are navigating two pandemics: COVID-19 and racism. As we plan for Fall 2020 and create protocols and processes for navigating the pandemic of COVID-19, we must also create protocols and processes for navigating and combatting the pandemic of racism. Anti-racist and abolitionist teaching requires us to be active in our dismantling of racism in schools. Many of you are doing summer work to deepen your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As you do that, please continue to ask yourselves: How am I actively and intentionally disrupting racism and working to ensure that Lab is an anti-racist institution?

DAC/DEI COORDINATOR UPDATE

As a reminder, here are the Diversity Action Plan priorities that our entire Lab community will focus on this year. Please take the summer to consider how these priorities will guide your actions in your specific role this year. More information about action steps related to these priorities will be shared soon.

• Revise policies and practices across the Schools to ensure consistency and eliminate gaps and to promote communication from and to the community, in sharing resources and about local, national, and global events/incidents
• Retain a diverse employee population
• Continue to collect and share demographic data, as well as data related to equity and inclusion
• Inventory when/where/how diversity, equity, and inclusion topics are taught
• Advance knowledge and skills around inclusive pedagogy, windows and mirrors in content, and culturally responsive teaching for all employees

DEI Coordinator Spotlight: Kathryn Smidstra, Staff DEI Coordinator, shares reflections on this year's National Diversity Practitioner's Institute.

A few highlights with actionable insights from the conference:

• Many of us, at some point in our careers, participate in professional development around "crucial conversations." But learning about how to deliberatively prepare for racialized and cultural conversations within a particular framework was both informative and immediately actionable. Preparing for the conversation is as important as having it. We have to remember that different words mean different things when different people say them. Ask any one of Lab's DEI coordinators for the framework, we'd love to share it with you.
  
  
• A different session required a deeper reading of the "big eight," those cultural identifiers of race, religion, age, ability, socioeconomic status, family structure, gender, and sexual orientation. This gave us the opportunity to first examine our own formative socialization, "I am who I am because…" Understanding these schemas, these building blocks of knowledge for ourselves, help us make sense of the complexities of our students' and co-workers' identities and experiences. What becomes clear in the process is the serious need for inclusive pedagogy, culturally responsive curriculum, and equitable representation in our hallways, classrooms, and offices. Want to integrate this kind of deeper read into your curriculum? We're here to support you. 
  
  
• At both the individual level, as well as the institutional level, we all play a role in making our schools more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Critical, non-attached, honest self-examination of the roles we play is crucial to the successful implementation of Lab's DEI priorities and advancement of the broader Diversity Action Plan. The roles we play run along a continuum from resister, to ally, to co-practitioner, to practitioner, to activist, to aggressor. Understanding where we fall on this continuum will invariably shed light on the lenses we look through, and the blind spots that can trip us up. Figure out your role, and do better. Want to learn more about this continuum of roles? Let any one of us know, we'd love to help you get started.

Doing the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion means acting on the vision of progressive education that Dewey laid down decades ago. No matter the vocational position we inhabit, we must remember that at the center of this work is the whole child in all of their beautiful complexity. After all, their experience is why we do what we do.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONNECTION

Summer DEI Sessions

Throughout the month of July, there will be summer sessions that focus on debriefing and processing the Summer WORKbook for Educators. This workbook deepens our connection between SEL and DEI and equips us with tools to be more equitable educators. Please sign up here for one or all of the following sessions:

• Know Yourself: Purposefulness, Thursday, July 16, 10 a.m.

• Understand Emotions: Acceptance, Monday, July 20, 2 p.m.

• Telling Empowering Stories: Optimism, Thursday, July 23, 10 a.m.

• Culturally Responsive Teaching, Monday, July 27, 2 p.m.

• DEI Office Hours (open session), Thursday, July 30, 10 a.m.

Please note: This workbook is meant to be completed in order and in its entirety. Each session will allow for participants to process and debrief each section of WORK they have completed. Please read the "Things to Know Before You Begin" page to determine if you'll commit to this work this summer.

__________

WARE Update

White educators at Lab have been growing through summer work with folks from Parker and Latin. We are in week four of a seven-week-long deep dive of "Seeing White," a podcast about the history of whiteness and the importance of understanding, digesting, and surrendering white power through authentic antiracist work. This summer, our shared goal is to hold ourselves accountable for the ways we participate in white supremacy in the hopes of dismantling it. There are 208 of us participating. So far, we have covered and explored topics from recognizing and understanding whiteness in history, race and power in the US, and even debunking myths about race and whiteness within our schools. Any and all questions are welcome. Come as you are. Contact Allison Beaulieu for more information. She will be facilitating this for any admin, staff, or faculty during the school year as well.

__________

SEED

Interested in continuing and/or interested in joining a SEED group next year? We will be continuing SEED groups this fall. SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) is a national program that creates opportunities for sustained conversations about race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, culture, and more for school communities. Learn more about the National SEED Project.

If you are interested in participating in a SEED group next school year (about three hours a month throughout the school year), please contact Sharon Williams, Michelle Holmes, or Priyanka Rupani.

__________

PoCC (People of Color Conference)

Each year, Lab sends a delegation of adults and students to this conference. We will follow the same process as previous years, taking into account that PoCC is virtual this year. Although letters are not due until September 10th, you're welcome to share your letter of interest with me anytime this summer. I'll send a reminder during Planning Week. If you are interested in attending, please email (or share via Google docs) a letter of interest to me that includes:

• why you wish to attend, how attending PoCC will impact your work, and your hopes for sharing your learning with others in the Lab community.
• if you have attended PoCC in the past and when/where. Please describe how those experiences have impacted your work.
• any information about any other relevant experiences related to diversity, equity, and inclusion that have influenced your desire to attend.

A reminder also to let me know if you have submitted a proposal to present, if you have not notified me already.

The group of selected attendees will meet a few times before the conference to prepare for the experience and after the conference to debrief, process, and plan how to share learnings with the larger Lab community. Everyone who wishes to attend is encouraged to submit a letter. However, I cannot guarantee that everyone that would like to attend will be able to go, as resources are limited. There are many factors that are considered in selecting attendees. Some of those factors include representation from each school, prioritizing faculty and staff who have not attended previously, strength of letter, and demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion work at Lab.

__________

RESOURCES & TOOLS

The DEI team will be working on a searchable database of curated resources for our Lab community. We know so many resources have been shared and we are committed to creating an accessible place for all of these tools, organized by topic, by age, and by where you are on your journey.

Previous newsletters have a wealth of resources to enrich, enlighten, and evolve your own knowledge and practice in your classrooms and office. 

What Anti-racist Teachers Do Differently

They view the success of Black students as central to the success of their own teaching.

Now that private schools know what it's like 'being Black' on their campuses, will they do what they ask of their students—learn and do better?

Students are posting on Instagram about "being Black" at private schools. How could a course on "marginalized voices" fail to include any discussion about what it meant to be Black in America. 

When Black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs

"...when things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read. And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened."

Equity in 2020 Requires More Than a Diversity Statement

How campuses can remain spaces of transformative change during the pandemic.

Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus

How can we help understand George Floyd's death in the context of institutionalized racism? JSTOR has curated resources to provide the context for vital conversations both inside and outside the classroom.

UPCOMING EVENTS