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: In many classrooms there is a clear and obvious hierarchy - the teacher at the top. This model comes from the idea that students are vessels to be filled with knowledge, knowledge from the teacher, who knows best in all situations. It also reinforces the ageist assumption that the teacher is the best person to make decisions about classroom structure and curriculum and that students are incapable of being an integral part of the decision-making process. These ideas center around control, and have their roots in white supremacy culture. This month, spend some time exploring the way this hierarchy creates barriers to partnerships with our students.
We ask you to begin this month’s reflection by listening to the voices of young people. We have provided two resources to help you do that: a student podcast about bathroom passes and a spoken word performance. You can choose one of these resources or use both of them. You can also find ways to hear from your own students about their perspectives.
While many things about our education system have changed during the pandemic, classroom and school cultures centered around compliance have not. After listening to the voices of young people, read “It Was Always About Compliance” from Learning for Justice.
Next month, we will discuss some of the characteristics underneath cultures of compliance as well as possible antidotes that allow us to more effectively partner with our students. If you have resources or ideas that you have used to do this in your own school or classroom, please share them on this Padlet so that we can incorporate them in our resources.
In addition to the primary article and 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.
Primary Resources:
Additional Resources are available on this Padlet. Please contribute your own if you have additional resources.
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 previous meetings:
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview: In many classrooms there is a clear and obvious hierarchy - the teacher at the top. This model comes from the idea that students are vessels to be filled with knowledge, knowledge from the teacher, who knows best in all situations. It also reinforces the ageist assumption that the teacher is the best person to make decisions about classroom structure and curriculum and that students are incapable of being an integral part of the decision-making process. These ideas center around control, and have their roots in white supremacy culture. This month, spend some time exploring the way this hierarchy creates barriers to partnerships with our students.
We ask you to begin this month’s reflection by listening to the voices of young people. We have provided two resources to help you do that: a student podcast about bathroom passes and a spoken word performance. You can choose one of these resources or use both of them. You can also find ways to hear from your own students about their perspectives.
While many things about our education system have changed during the pandemic, classroom and school cultures centered around compliance have not. After listening to the voices of young people, read “It Was Always About Compliance” from Learning for Justice.
Next month, we will discuss some of the characteristics underneath cultures of compliance as well as possible antidotes that allow us to more effectively partner with our students. If you have resources or ideas that you have used to do this in your own school or classroom, please share them on this Padlet so that we can incorporate them in our resources.
In addition to the primary article and 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.
Primary Resources:
- Choose one of these resources:
- Listen to a student podcast: scroll down to “Complaints from fifth grade: bathroom passes”
- Watch a spoken word performance: Ashley Davis and Oompa perform “Simon Says.”
- Read this Article from Learning for Justice, “It was always about control.”
Additional Resources are available on this Padlet. Please contribute your own if you have additional resources.
Guiding Questions:
- What did you learn about student perspectives that you may not have thought about before?
- What are the barriers to partnerships with students in your context? Which of those are systemic issues and which are ones that you have created?
- What issues could you rely on students to resolve at your school? Where could you open space for students to lead?
- When have you found yourself unwilling to share power or control with students or colleagues? What did you or could you do to share control and power in your classroom?
- What strategies have you used to uphold student dignity within your classroom culture by sharing power, building partnerships, and releasing control? Add resources & ideas to this month’s padlet.
Facilitation Reference Guide:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - Make sure to send reminders.
- Send this month’s Primary Article to your group. Look through the additional readings to see if there is another reading that might be better suited to your group and its interests.
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for Teens Take Charge this month.
- Complete the Feedback Form.
- Prepare yourself for March by setting a date and time, inviting colleagues, and looking out for our next Discussion Guide on March 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 previous meetings:
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 Teens Take Charge, a coalition of high school students from across New York’s five boroughs. They describe their work, saying: “Through oral and written testimony, direct-action organizing campaigns, and relentless advocacy, we — the students of New York City — are taking our schools and futures into our hands.”
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 Teens Take Charge, a coalition of high school students from across New York’s five boroughs. They describe their work, saying: “Through oral and written testimony, direct-action organizing campaigns, and relentless advocacy, we — the students of New York City — are taking our schools and futures into our hands.”