Transformative Equity x Social Emotional Learning 5 Focal Constructs

• An improvement in social emotional skills, attitudes, relationships, academic performance, and perception of classroom and school climates

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• Decline in anxiety, behavioral problems and substance abuse

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• Long-term improvements in skills, attitudes, prosocial behavior and academic performance

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• Wise financial investment according to cost benefit research (11 to 1)

Decades of research on SEL benefits show:

(CASEL, 2020)

Transformative Equity x Social Emotional Learning 5 Focal Constructs

Racial Autobiography

Voice & Healing

Self-Determination

Interdependence

Multiple Perspectives

Silence

Transaction

Deficit Thinking

Implicit Bias

Explicit Bias

Assumptions

Prejudice

Stereotypes

Racism

Top-Down Power

Repression

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Courageous Conversation

Sacred Relationship

Asset Thinking

Self Awareness

Cultural Humility

Growth Mindset

Empathy

Humanization & Compassion

Anti Racism & Healing

Shared Power

Social Emotional Learning

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OUR JOURNEY TO UNLEARN OPPRESSION

+ PRACTICE EQUITY

Identity

Definition:

• refers to how students and adults view themselves, is multi-dimensional (e.g., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, academic discipline, profession
• Enhances self-reflection and self-respect

Connection to the CASEL 5:

• An aspect of the self-awareness domain with implications in other competencies.
• Anchoring metaphor: a mirror and window... Understanding yourself and the world around you.

Learn more: casel.org

Identity

Implications for Equity:

• Healthy identity buffers against negative or traumatic experiences, contributes to positive outcomes

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• Educators’ understanding of their identity --
• Allows for reflection of the impact their identities have on those they are tasked to serve.
• Positions them to develop supportive relationships with youth of differing identities
• Creates and models an openness to identities, cultures, assets of others

Understanding Our Relationship to Power

&

Acting in Solidarity Across Our

Different Experiences

From Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

(Hofstede 2010)

Individualism-Collectivism Continuum

(Hofstede 2010)

Deeper Dive Into Our Identities as Educators:

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• How does my cultural upbringing, lenses & biases inform my pedagogy?
• How do my cultural values shape my prioritizing of individualism vs. collectivism in the classroom?
• How does my identity contribute to my connection with my students’ languages & cultures?
• How can I model this sharing of my identity & culture for my students?

What is my empowering narrative / Story of Self?

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• Where do I feel belonging?
• What is a challenge I’ve overcome?
• How do my cultural upbringing, lenses, biases & assets inform my pedagogy?

IDENTITY INQUIRY

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How can you support your students to explore & share their multiple & intersecting identities in your classroom?

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How are you connecting these to their academic identity as a scholar & agent of change inside your classroom?

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IDENTITY INQUIRY

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How do you build an identity-safe classroom for ALL* students to feel safe to connect, repair & develop empathy?

EMPATHY &

RELATIONSHIPS as Conditions for Learning

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Development Scale Toward

BELONGING

Belonging

Implications for Equity & Excellence:

• Co-constructing with students the inputs, terms, goals, and process of the school experience
• Responsive to student needs and perspectives
• Prioritizes connectedness

Definition:

• Feeling recognized
• Being fully involved in relationship-building
• Co-creating learning spaces
• “Withitness” - who you are and how you show up to be an effective collaborator
• Enhances self-worth

Learn more: casel.org

4 Key Components of

BELONGING in Oakland

Link to Asset-Based Cards

Integrate Students’ Linguistic and Cultural Assets

LEVERAGE HOME LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

What is it?

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Our students are not blank slates. They come to our classrooms with rich linguistic and cultural assets as well as diverse lived experiences. Students who can access their home language and draw upon their cultural frames are confident and productive learners and what follows are amazing, accelerated results. There are many ways to leverage a student’s home language even outside of a bilingual program and even if you, the teacher, do not know the language.

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What asset-based practices should I consider?

(Asset-Based Cards)

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Agency

Definition:

• refers to the perceived and actual capacity to affect change through purposeful action
• key to young adult success...allowing them to make choices and take intentional action to shape the course of their lives
• Enhances hope and self-direction

Connection to the CASEL 5:

• Aligned with the self-management competencies

Agency

Implications for Equity & Excellence

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• Redistribution of power creates opportunities for voice, choice, and ownership

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• A process that requires constant evaluation of implementation and impact to ensure equitable outcomes

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• Recognizes individuals as experts of themselves with appropriate self-direction and management towards personal and collective goals

Learn more: casel.org

Agency: Examples

Considering the ladder of student participation...

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School Communities: Identify ways in which school teams can embed more flexibility into systems that allow for more student input and decision making.

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Educators:

• How can students have meaningful decision-making power to help shape and improve your classroom and school?

Learn more: casel.org

"Humanizing pedagogies helps students radically heal from their suffering, allowing young people to explore the depths of their grief while helping them develop a deeper sense of control over their individual and collective destinies."

-- “Teach Like Lives Depend on It:

Agitate, Arouse, and Inspire”

Dr. Patrick Roz Camangian

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How do you empower students to participate as decision-makers in shaping your school / classroom?

VOICE & AGENCY

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6 Pedagogical Principles

OUSD Ethnic Studies Framework

1. Bring the margins to the center & critique the dominant institutions/ideologies

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• Divert needed resources to the community, ensure needs of the community are being met

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• Incorporate multi-disciplinary/holistic methods, models, perspectives, approaches

4. Foster reflexivity & negotiate outsider/insiderness

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5. Celebrate communal & individual assets / self-determination / agency

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6. Build community & promote healing

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Building Empowering Narratives & Pedagogies

How can we engage students’ identities, sense of belonging and agency to nurture empowering narratives and actions for themselves and others?

Table Talk: