Barr Foundation - Catalyze New Models

Designing at the Margins, Session #1

Shared Tools on Racial Equity for Reflection and Practice

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Please join us in the chat box!

• Hover over your username in the participant panel to update it to: Name + School/Organization
• What is a skill or accomplishment you developed through long-term practice?

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We will begin momentarily...

Welcome

Desiree Morales, Senior Consultant

The Learning Agenda

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Web Exchange - Community Norms

Agenda

1. Check ins - Zero to Five Protocol
2. Key Terms
3. Tools and Practice
4. Proposed Norms
5. Reflection
6. Design at the Margins series arc
7. Pathway interest poll

Session Goals

• Cultivate shared norms, vocabulary, and practices for equity dialogues
• Introduce and provide context for tools and resources to benefit self-reflection, interpersonal growth, and school design work
• Consider and practice using tools for reflection through journaling activities
• Model an introduction to tools that can be replicated by leaders in their home communities
• Gather input and feedback so that future dialogues reflect community member needs

Partner Practitioners - 228 Accelerator

Angela Stepancic

Steward, 228 Accelerator

Check in with Students (or Participants)

• Stay on top of the emotional temperature
• Gauge readiness, comprehension and comfort level
• Know when to stop to address strong emotions
• Non-verbal check ins allow everyone to participate without being singled out or put on the spot

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Check in Protocols - Fist to Five

Check in Protocols - Fist Zero to Five

On a scale of 0-5, how do you feel about engaging in racial equity dialogues with…

1. Your school leaders
2. Your students & families
3. The Catalyze New Models community
4. People with a different race identity than yours

Working Definitions for Key Terms

• Race - The socially constructed meaning attached to a variety of physical attributes, including but not limited to skin and eye color, hair texture, and bone structure of people in the US and elsewhere
• Racism - Beliefs and an enactment of beliefs that one set of characteristics is superior to another set
• Institutional Racism - The power to create an environment where racism is manifested in the subtle or direct subjugation of the subordinate ethnic groups through a society’s institutions

Working Definitions for Key Terms

• Culturally Responsive Teaching - An

educator’s ability to recognize students’

cultural displays of learning and meaning

making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the student in order to create a safe space for learning.

Working Definitions for Key Terms

• Equity (Educational) - Each child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential. As a community, we believe that quality is the key lever for achieving educational equity.
• Inclusion - Authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision/policy making in a way that shares power.
• Intent versus Impact - In anti-racism education, the intent of an action or statement is considered irrelevant and the impact on the marginalized or targeted person takes precedence.

Working Definitions for Key Terms

• Privilege - Unearned social power accorded by the formal and informal institutions of society to ALL members of a dominant group. Privilege is usually invisible to those who have it because we/they are taught not to see it, but nevertheless it puts them/us at an advantage over those who do not have it.
• Anti-racism - Actions and ideas that emerge from focused and sustained reflection to change systems and/or ideas, policies, practices, or procedures that have racist effects.

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Working Definitions for Key Terms

• Whiteness - The term white, referring to people, was created by Virginia slave owners and colonial rules in the 17th century. It replaced terms like Christian and Englishman to distinguish European colonists from Africans and indigenous peoples. The legal distinction of white separated the servant class on the basis of skin color and continental origin. The creation of ‘whiteness’ meant giving privileges to some, while denying them to others with the justification of biological and social inferiority.

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Tools & Practice - Four Agreements of Courageous Conversation

1. Stay engaged.
2. Speak your truth.
3. Experience discomfort.
4. Expect and accept non-closure.

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Tools & Practice - Six Conditions of Courageous Conversation

• Establish a racial context that is personal, local, and immediate.
• Isolate race while acknowledging the broader scope of diversity and the variety of factors and conditions that contribute to a racialized problem.

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Tools & Practice - The Courageous Conversation Compass

What’s Next? Agreeing on Shared Norms

• Come as you are and take care of yourself as needed. If a topic becomes too emotionally difficult, please alert a TLA consultant and/or take a break.
• Audio only is just fine! Video feature is optional but encouraged.
• Click the chat icon in the toolbar below to join the conversation and ask questions. This is an exchange!
• Stay engaged, even when you are experiencing discomfort.
• Speak your truth and focus on what is personal, local, and immediate.
• Except when the focus is on intersectionality and marginalized groups in general, isolate race.
• Expect and accept non-closure.

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Reflection - Revise a Norm

Review the norms we’ve proposed and consider:

Which norm might be a challenge for you?

Which norm might you use to combat some of your own mental and emotional barriers to this work?

Our Challenge

Leaders often have to rely on external experts in equity or design and innovation to reconcile challenges and dilemmas.

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This costs money, compromises sustainability, and displaces the expertise outside of the local community.

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But what if leaders became the experts in equity centered design AND innovation?

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What could be if leaders had a learning experience to help them redesign oppressive policies and practices?

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What could be if leaders had a learning experience to help them design innovative and equitable learning cultures?

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equityXdesign Learning Studio empowers leaders and their teams to design equitable and innovative school cultures using three integrated product experiences.

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3

experience

With three integrated product experiences, the equityXdesign framework is centered to support the learning and development of school leaders and their teams to design for equity.

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Expert Led Programming powered by equityXdesign

Using both virtual and in person modalities, we have articulated the theory and concepts anchored in our signature equityXdesign framework through the school design and leadership experience. This articulation allows school leaders to effectively thread their new beliefs, ideas, and intentionally designed relationships into the school culture, creating consistency and alignment from concept to classroom.

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Online Community, Resources, Curated Content, and Tools

We imagine a world where leaders across the country are connected, galvanized, and able to design equitable school cultures. Because equity centered design is an emerging practice, leaders need a safe space to connect with each other, access high quality, curated content, and practice in a safe space. Our private online community creates this space.

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Micro-credentials and Certifications

As the students and adults in public schools become more racially polarized, capacities in equity centered design will not just be superfluous, they will be required for the achievement of all students, our communities, and our country. Our series of competency-based microcredentials codify the emerging skills of equity centered design with an express focus on how to design school cultures and the relationships that create the culture. These microcredentials are currently only available to leaders who have completed the course sequence.

Design at the Margins Experience Arc

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5

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6

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4

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3

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2

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1

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Session 1: Framework Introduction

Session 2: Historical Context Matters: Start With Self

Session 3: Historical Context Matters: Exploring the Margins + Creating Empathy

Session 4: Speak the Future: Uncovering the Design Features

Session 5: Speak the Future: Creating Learning Experiences at the Margins

Upon Completion: Debrief Learning Experience, Next Steps, Badging