If this is your first year doing this series, we recommend starting with an orientation meeting using the September 2021 material before moving on to the current month.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
This year, our Inquiry Series focuses on the themes of Risk and Partnership. In October, we focused on what the fear of risk looks like for you in your particular context. In November we focused on nourishing partnerships in your context despite being surrounded by white supremacy culture that discourages partnership. This month we will be focusing on risk and partnership within your curriculum.
Risky curriculum means different things for different contexts (e.g. teaching about Palestine with Jewish students, teaching about race in a state with anti-CRT laws, teaching about trans rights among certain religions and cultures). What is risky to teach is different for each of us, and that can feel isolating. Risk is also relative, depending on our own identities and systems of support. In addition, many white educators hold back not due to actual risk, but due to the fear of discomfort (a trait of white supremacy culture you can read more about here).This month, instead of reflecting on an article, we invite you to do a deep reflection of what feels most risky in your teaching. We recommend sharing the guiding questions below ahead of time, so all participants can think about them in relation to their context. At the meeting, we recommend starting with a physical assessment of how the anxiety of this risky topic affects your body, before moving into discussion and reflecting in this year's participant notebook.
The deep thinking and discussion of this month will lead into next month, where we plan to share a number of different articles and other resources to prepare you to feel effective in teaching your risky topic. As you are discussing this month, if participants in your group share a resource that you think would help the rest of the BARWE community in teaching a risky curriculum, please share it with us in this month’s feedback form or add it to this padlet. We are also looking to collect testimonials of your experiences with risky curriculum. If you would like to share your story, please include it in the feedback form.
In addition to the guiding questions, we are offering BARWE users this notebook as a place to gather their thoughts and commitments throughout the year. In the past, we have sent various tools and handouts in separate months. This year, we encourage all work to be done in this one document to encourage ongoing attention to commitments and frequent review of previous months’ reflections.
Guiding Questions:
Facilitation Reference Guide:
Feedback Form:
As we grow in year four, we hope that one person in your group can take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went.
Here is a takeaway from a previous meeting:
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
This year, our Inquiry Series focuses on the themes of Risk and Partnership. In October, we focused on what the fear of risk looks like for you in your particular context. In November we focused on nourishing partnerships in your context despite being surrounded by white supremacy culture that discourages partnership. This month we will be focusing on risk and partnership within your curriculum.
Risky curriculum means different things for different contexts (e.g. teaching about Palestine with Jewish students, teaching about race in a state with anti-CRT laws, teaching about trans rights among certain religions and cultures). What is risky to teach is different for each of us, and that can feel isolating. Risk is also relative, depending on our own identities and systems of support. In addition, many white educators hold back not due to actual risk, but due to the fear of discomfort (a trait of white supremacy culture you can read more about here).This month, instead of reflecting on an article, we invite you to do a deep reflection of what feels most risky in your teaching. We recommend sharing the guiding questions below ahead of time, so all participants can think about them in relation to their context. At the meeting, we recommend starting with a physical assessment of how the anxiety of this risky topic affects your body, before moving into discussion and reflecting in this year's participant notebook.
The deep thinking and discussion of this month will lead into next month, where we plan to share a number of different articles and other resources to prepare you to feel effective in teaching your risky topic. As you are discussing this month, if participants in your group share a resource that you think would help the rest of the BARWE community in teaching a risky curriculum, please share it with us in this month’s feedback form or add it to this padlet. We are also looking to collect testimonials of your experiences with risky curriculum. If you would like to share your story, please include it in the feedback form.
In addition to the guiding questions, we are offering BARWE users this notebook as a place to gather their thoughts and commitments throughout the year. In the past, we have sent various tools and handouts in separate months. This year, we encourage all work to be done in this one document to encourage ongoing attention to commitments and frequent review of previous months’ reflections.
Guiding Questions:
- How do you physically feel in your body when you are about to teach something risky? Where is the tension in your body? What do you do to acknowledge and/or relieve that tension?
- What is a risky topic in your school and how can you lean into that instead of shying away? Why is this topic one you're considering in the first place? What about teaching this will benefit your students?
- Who benefits by you not leaning into the risky topic? Who will be disadvantaged? Whose feelings/needs are being prioritized by you avoiding this topic?
- Who in your school has taught this topic? How can you learn from them?
- Are there potential partnerships that would benefit your curriculum?
- Are there places where partnership feels risky: for example, do our students’ families get a say so? If so, when and how?
Facilitation Reference Guide:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - Make sure to send reminders.
- Send this month’s guiding questions to your group.
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for the Zinn Education Project this month.
- Complete the Feedback Form.
- Prepare yourself for January by setting a date and time, inviting colleagues, and looking out for our next Discussion Guide on January 1st.
Feedback Form:
As we grow in year four, we hope that one person in your group can take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went.
Here is a takeaway from a previous meeting:
Thank you all for your feedback so far, please keep it coming!
Pass The Hat:
In addition to being accountable to our colleagues and students of color, we believe it is important to be financially accountable to people of color who are doing this work on a daily basis. Each month, we will recommend an organization led by people of color, in education and beyond, doing the work of pushing for justice.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.
This month, we encourage you to donate to the Zinn Education Project. According to zinnproject.org, the Zinn Education Project. promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. For more than ten years, the Zinn Education Project has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The Zinn Education Project has multiple current campaigns, including the #Teachthetruth campaign, which is a nationwide grassroots effort to fight back against so-called anti-CRT laws, legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.
Pass The Hat:
In addition to being accountable to our colleagues and students of color, we believe it is important to be financially accountable to people of color who are doing this work on a daily basis. Each month, we will recommend an organization led by people of color, in education and beyond, doing the work of pushing for justice.
At the end of each monthly discussion, pass a hat (or a box) and collect donations for the designated organization. You can then have one group member go online and donate in the name of your school. If you want, you can add “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” after your school name.
This month, we encourage you to donate to the Zinn Education Project. According to zinnproject.org, the Zinn Education Project. promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. For more than ten years, the Zinn Education Project has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The Zinn Education Project has multiple current campaigns, including the #Teachthetruth campaign, which is a nationwide grassroots effort to fight back against so-called anti-CRT laws, legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.