Wednesday November 3rd, 2021 – Workshop Session 1
| Decolonizing Learning Through Self-Reflexivity and Aligning Justices | In this workshop, participants will interact with multimedia examples of practices and co-construct understandings of decolonization, while learning from one another’s knowledge from lived experiences. Co-facilitators will engage in self-reflexive exercises with participants, examining the identities we hold and the power we have in order to move towards decolonial justice on a daily basis. Participants will leave with tools to continue imagining and engaging in action steps towards land return. |
| The Legacy of Assimilation in Education and where do we go from here? | A look at the history of the Assimilation of American Indians in American Education, And its continuing influences whether it be through the subtle omission of indigenous history from the Revolutionary War, The American Civil War & other historical events or the not-so-subtle continuing practice of Boarding Schools Run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This Workshop will give attendee’s a brief look at the continuing impacts of colonization in our Education systems and what efforts are currently being done to change that. |
| Beyond Focus Groups: The IDEAL Student Fellowship & Academy | Decolonizing education requires students to have a more active role in shaping change at education institutions, but there are limited examples for making progress on this aim. IDEAL Fellowship students, in partnership with WA community colleges and supported by Rooted in Love, engaged in a methodical process of naming and describing inequities and drafting and presenting solutions. Come hear about how this process can drive meaningful change toward dismantling racism in education systems. |
| Building a Foundation to Co-Create a Beloved Learning Community | How do we decolonize education and create a culture that centers on humanizing each other? There are many approaches to tackle anti-racism work. CEL’s approach is to awaken people’s hearts and remind them of their moral center so they can in their own accord decide to become an active anti-racist member of society. This session looks at pursuing equity in a moral framework. If one values love or family, how can one accept the current education system? Best for those in cross-racial organizations. |
| Interrupting White Supremacy to More Effectively Support Black, Brown, and Indigenous Educators | TBA |
Thursday November 4th, 2021 – Workshop Session 2
| Whiteness as Addiction; Anti-Racism as Recovery | This presentation will focus on a single question: what happens if we think about whiteness and anti-racism through the lens of addiction and recovery? While anyone interested is welcome to attend, the target audience for this presentation is white folks who have some familiarity with anti-racist work and are curious about new ways to imagine their own anti-racist practice. We’ll work together toward shared definitions of whiteness and addiction, and we’ll consider emerging ways of thinking about addiction and recovery that may offer new possibilities for our collective healing. We will pay special attention to the role that concepts like humility, grace, self-acceptance, and intervention might play in the lives of white people committed to eradicating racism in themselves and in their white communities. |
| What is Organizing? One of Many Approaches to Social Change | Our goal and purpose are to distinguish community organizing as a unique approach to social change. We differentiate organizing from other modes of justice work that organizing is often confused with, such as advocacy, direct service, and policy work. At the same time, we recognize the important ways that these approaches blend and work with each other to create the most effective organizing strategies to achieve campaign goals. |
| Rethinking Behavior, Discipline, and Disability: Incorporating Trauma-Informed Practices and Culturally Appropriate Interventions into School Discipline and Behavior Intervention Plans | Students of color with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to exclusionary discipline when compared to their non-disabled white peers. Many of these students, particularly Native American students, often have high rates of adverse childhood experiences and have experienced both personal and historical trauma. Despite the common understanding among experts that trauma has a significant impact on a child’s ability to learn and to conform to traditional behavior expectations, many schools have failed to incorporate trauma-informed practices into their school discipline or behavior intervention plans to understand and assist these children. Further, many school discipline policies reflect western concepts of punishment, rather than taking into consideration the cultures from which their students come. For example, Native American cultures often value restorative practices and peacemaking to resolve conflict. Incorporating culturally informed practices into school discipline could mean the difference between a student remaining in school or being suspended and ending up in the juvenile justice system. Additionally, while students who have been identified as having a disability are provided protections against exclusionary discipline when the behavior in question is related to their disability, schools often fail to recognize trauma as a basis for disability protections. Often, schools simply see these students as unable to conform to student codes of conduct and resort to exclusionary discipline or other punitive measures instead of recognizing the behavior as a trauma response. Recently, two important federal district court decisions have opened the door for the recognition of trauma as a cognizable basis for protections under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Developing 504 plans to provide supports and accommodations for students impacted by trauma could have a life-changing impact on their experiences in school. This presentation will educate attendees on the impact of trauma on learning and behavior and the importance of trauma-informed and culturally appropriate discipline practices. We will discuss the recognition of trauma as a basis for disability protections and how to raise these issues with families and schools. |
| Next Steps in Growing & Sustaining BIPOC Educators | Growing & sustaining BIPOC educators is a key step toward decolonizing education. There is a growing body of strategies that effectively advance this goal, but meaningful progress toward equitable schools requires coupling these strategies with increased commitment to & focus on anti-racism among education leaders. This session will highlight promising efforts at multiple levels (state, ESD, Prep Programs, Districts, and Schools) and help participants build their role in this important work. |
Workshop Session 3
| Learning to be Antiracist Ethnic Studies Educator: Unleashing the Guerilla Teacher Within | This session led by ethnic studies educators and scholars from Washington Ethnic Studies Now provides racial justice advocates, including students, teachers, families, community members, school board members, etc., with the knowledge, tools, and policies for advocating and implementing ethnic studies in their K-12 educational systems. Shared strategies are rooted in the experiences of educators and students from Seattle, Tukwila, Edmonds, and Mukilteo School Districts. Participants will leave with actionable steps for implementing ES into their own practices and spaces. |
| Shifting from Upholding White Supremacy Culture to a Pro-Black Agenda that Supports Systemic Change for Students and Families | In this session, we will discuss how white supremacy culture (WSC) has impacted the educational system through conscious and unconscious behaviors and beliefs, policies, and the iron grip of many to maintain the status quo. We will think about how to re-imagine a different system and put some actions in place through strategic work that centers co- design and a pro-Black agenda. The pro-Black agenda is inclusive instead of exclusive, as one often finds in white supremacy culture. Through a collectivist approach, you will see what is possible for students and families, especially those furthest away from educational, social, racial, and economic justice. |
| The Anti-Racist Mirror (ARM) Professional Development Series: Supporting educators to develop an anti-racist orientation | The dual pandemics of racism and COVID-19 have disrupted the educational system as we know it, presenting an unprecedented opportunity to transform classroom practices & environments that benefit Black & Brown students and families and shift accountability to them. Further, approximately 80% of teachers across the Puget Sound region who serve a student population that is among the most diverse in the nation are White. To ensure an excellent education for every child, our classroom educators must examine differences in their own belief systems & values in relation to those of the students and families they are accountable to. Responding to this opportunity, regional diversity, equity, and inclusion educators & leaders partnered to support classroom educators as part of the anti-racist multicultural (ARM) teacher development series. The ARM leverages student voice & experiences as assets for becoming an anti-racist multicultural teacher. Specifically, ARM development involved: The application of a framework informed by both critical race theory and student/family experience for becoming an anti-racist multicultural teacher. Initial and final assessments of their proficiency across each component of anti-racist, multicultural teaching based on self-reflection and student survey/focus group input. Mentorship & training provided by equity specialists to set & monitor goals, with accountability to students for achieving these goals. The initial pilot of the ARM provided an opportunity for secondary classroom teachers to strengthen their culturally responsive, sustaining, and humanizing practices. Participants leveraged student experience and feedback in their development towards becoming an anti-racist multicultural teacher across four key areas: 1) pedagogy; 2) curriculum content; 3) classroom environment; 4) interpersonal anti-racist work & reflection; and 5) structures & processes for accountability to students and families. |
| Practicing Abolition in Youth Centered Spaces | We take lessons learned from abolitionist practices and democratic free schools to identify ways to center youth and their needs in spaces like classrooms, extracurricular activities, and community centers. We challenge traditional myths such as the need for prerequisites, standardized testing, and mandated curriculum, and the existence of learning loss. We will explore ways to apply abolitionist values to create caring learning communities and meet the needs of all our youth. |
| Teaching the Roslyn Cemeteries: Connecting labor, race, and immigration through place base curriculum design | This session will provide space for discussions on how critically oriented, place-based curricula can contribute to a greater understanding of the intersection of labor, race, and immigration in Washington State history. Attendees will participate in concrete example activities from an equity-focused curriculum for 4th and 7th grades, designed around the historic cemeteries of Roslyn, Washington, and reflect on how the approaches of this curriculum design might inform or support their own efforts. |
Workshop session 4
| What’s Up White Women? Unpacking Sexism and White Privilege in Education | As we strive toward decolonizing education, it is important for white women to examine the unique dynamics of our socialization around gender and race. While white women face experiences of gender oppression, we also benefit from white privilege. This workshop will begin to unpack the ways in which these two phenomena work together to create misunderstandings, missed collaborations, and acts of supremacy. Focusing on three patterns of behavior – Control, Perfectionism, and Defensiveness, we will work towards strengthening our abilities to recognize these patterns and move towards more effective strategies to build authentic cross-cultural relationships and decenter ourselves in multicultural settings. We will share and encourage personal stories to illustrate how these behaviors show up in white women, as well as strategies for unlearning these colonized, supremacist ways of being. |
| Four Stages of Psychological Safety for Radical Equity | This interactive presentation is based on the work of Dr. Timothy Clark and is about enhancing human interaction to advance racial equity and social justice within our communities. Individuals, leaders, community members, teachers, and students will experience hands-on strategies with practical applications as well as beginning developing a path of belonging and innovation through Psychological Safety. This session will provide an opportunity for leaders to gain a deeper understanding of how to develop a brave space of collaboration within their schools or organization by implementing the Four Stages of Psychological Safety: Safety to Belong, Safety to Learn, Safety to Contribute and Safety to Challenge the Status Quo. Establishing psychological safety helps us get closer to honoring, valuing, and dignifying our individual and collective humanity. |
| Diversifying School Boards by Recruiting, Supporting & Retaining Board Members of Color | School board members in the state of Washington are not as racially diverse as the population of students that they serve. Although data is sparse, since the state does not collect demographic data at the time of candidate filing or election, it is clear that school boards generally have fewer people of color, people with disabilities, and those from low-income households than their district’s students. This session focuses on increasing the diversity of school boards by recruiting, supporting, and retaining candidates and school board members of color. |
| College Complicity in White Supremacy Culture and Pathways for Change | Nearly 2,000 youth in South King County alone are pushed out or leave high school without earning a diploma yearly. System leaders often overlook insights from youth themselves about disengagement. Findings from across- sector project, conducted by NW Education Access, Community Center for Education Results, and the UW School of Social Work will be explored. Youth recommendations and the impact of White Supremacy Culture Norms will be discussed on how to create equitable learning environments. |
| Equity 102: Better Understanding the Communities You are serving | This session will serve as a next step to more clearly unpack the ways non-White communities are not being served well in education and why. We will articulate the common racial narratives and how they influence the ways we engage (or do not) with one another. We will talk about the dangers of terms like “colorblind” and how we can move to become “color-brave.” We will talk about the implications of “microaggressions,” “implicit bias,” and “White privilege.” We will discuss the ways we serve certain groups of students well and others not well or not at all. Attendees will receive recommendations for skills and strategies to more effectively engage those who have not been engaged or served. |
Friday November 5th, 2021 – Workshop Session 5
| Designing Our Own Learning (DOOL): Disrupting power dynamics of hierarchy in school and invigorating student voice and power | Youth and adult educators (middle and high school) will share creatively in word and action their learning from working together during a summer institute over the past two years. Attendees will engage in an immersive experience where they will try on some of the tools, strategies, and activities that have brought about a profound transformation in the presenters and their schools. Join us if you’re interested in transforming power dynamics between youth and adults in your school! |
| Decolonizing Pedagogy: Reflection & Practice | This workshop addresses colonization, decolonization, culturally responsive teaching, and dismantling barriers for Black Indigenous and students of color. This session will benefit faculty who are interested in engaging in an in-depth reflective exercise to transform their instructional practices and spaces so students can find a place of belonging by creating agency and community beyond the classroom. Participants will reflect on and analyze their instructional and departmental practices in order to develop a set of guiding actions to continue their decolonizing journey. |
| Restraint and Seclusion: Racism meets Ableism in the School to Prison Pipeline | Emerging data on restraint and isolation disproportionality confirm these practices target, segregate, and further disengage Students of Color from school. Though deadly, Washington has schools that exceed hundreds of restraint incidents per year. The panel includes renowned national experts and advocate for Black and Brown students with disabilities, disability justice activists and school-to-prison pipeline and restraint survivor, and former administrator-turned-policy wonk who successfully eliminated seclusion in his school. |
| Academy for Rising Educators (ARE) partners Seattle Colleges with Central Washington University’s Des Moines Campus’s Teach STEM program to connect programs and bring more students of color into STEM Teaching | The Academy for Rising Educators (ARE) is a program through Seattle Public Schools to prepare and support students and staff from SPS to earn their undergraduate degrees and teaching certificate. CWU’s Teach STEM Des Moines is working to collaborate with ARE and the Seattle Colleges to be one of the transfer pathways for students to become middle school math and science teachers. Through our partnership (starting Fall 2022) we are looking for ways to make our program better serve students of color. We would like to share how this collaboration is going and solicit feedback on how we can make it better. |