Thank you for participating in the Inquiry Series this year. As you meet with your group to close out the year, we’re asking you to look back, as well as to look forward. We encourage folks to have a BARWE meeting with your school or organizational group to reflect on your work this year.
Looking back:
Looking forward:
If any of those questions resonate with you, we invite you to join the new initiative we’re starting this summer - BARWE mentorship and partnership program. Working to develop yourself as an anti-racist white educator has challenges - and as we’ve learned this year, community is what makes it sustainable. Our vision for this program is to create space for partnership, where facilitators can both give and receive support. We see this as a collaboration where everyone can grow as a facilitator and anti-racist educator through that give and take. We also want to offer newer BARWE facilitators the chance to work with more experienced ones, or partner together those looking to participate in a mentor-mentee relationship.
What does the time commitment for being a mentor or partner look like? We will gather in August for an official start to the program (date to be announced). There will be whole group gatherings to build community and check in with your Buddy in November, February and April. Participants will be strongly encouraged to be in touch each month, through whatever form of communication works best for them! Remember, the whole point is to offer support and act as a problem-solving team as facilitators and users move through the resources at their monthly meetings.
Join now by completing this short form. If you are planning to start a BARWE group at your school or organization next year, we STRONGLY encourage you to join!
Facilitation Reference Guide:
Looking back:
- We strongly encourage you to spend time at your final meeting revisiting your participant notebook from this year and reviewing the thoughts and reflections recorded there. Give time for reflection on what came up for you throughout the year and if you notice any new or emerging insights around the themes of risk and partnership. Consider what your next steps might be moving forward from this year’s inquiry. If there are any notes that resonate strongly, we would love for you to share them with us!
- We’d love for groups to fill out this end-of-year feedback form. We encourage you to use the questions in the feedback form as group discussion prompts this month. If you don’t have time to meet, we’d appreciate you sending the link out to your group so we can collect as much feedback as possible. We have relied on feedback each year from all of you to guide our Inquiry Series plans and will continue to do so going forward. Thanks in advance for completing this form!
Looking forward:
- The BARWE core spent this year reading and discussing Emergent Strategy by adrienne marie brown as a part of our ongoing political education. While BARWE has typically hosted summer events and workshops, we are taking some space this year to listen to and honor the lessons we have learned from that text. We will miss the connection and community that these events have built over the years, but we are looking forward to using time this summer to rest our bodies and minds after a challenging year. We will be meeting and spending time with each other in order to strengthen our own bonds and deepen our own connections after moving at a dizzying pace since March 2020. BARWE invites you to spend this summer in fellowship with the people you love and communities you have been connecting with through your work. Join us in August, restored and energized, ready to continue working to make our schools anti-ractist spaces free from a culture of white supremacy.
- Have you been feeling like you’re “not qualified” to lead a BARWE group? Want someone to provide mutual support as you progress through this journey together? Have a lot of facilitation experience and want to support others as they get started? Feel like facilitating BARWE meetings is something you can have a conversation about with others?
If any of those questions resonate with you, we invite you to join the new initiative we’re starting this summer - BARWE mentorship and partnership program. Working to develop yourself as an anti-racist white educator has challenges - and as we’ve learned this year, community is what makes it sustainable. Our vision for this program is to create space for partnership, where facilitators can both give and receive support. We see this as a collaboration where everyone can grow as a facilitator and anti-racist educator through that give and take. We also want to offer newer BARWE facilitators the chance to work with more experienced ones, or partner together those looking to participate in a mentor-mentee relationship.
What does the time commitment for being a mentor or partner look like? We will gather in August for an official start to the program (date to be announced). There will be whole group gatherings to build community and check in with your Buddy in November, February and April. Participants will be strongly encouraged to be in touch each month, through whatever form of communication works best for them! Remember, the whole point is to offer support and act as a problem-solving team as facilitators and users move through the resources at their monthly meetings.
Join now by completing this short form. If you are planning to start a BARWE group at your school or organization next year, we STRONGLY encourage you to join!
Facilitation Reference Guide:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - Make sure to send reminders. If you’re meeting in person, snacks are always a good idea!
- Send the end of the year feedback form to your group. Feedback from our users is incredibly helpful as we plan for the future!
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol. An optional Problem of Practice Protocol is included at the end of this email.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for Zinn Education Project’s Teaching for Black Lives Campaign this month.
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 Zinn Education Project’s Teaching for Black Lives Campaign. As the campaign says on their website, “Teachers around the United States face the challenge of how to teach in the midst of the pandemic and with daily news about threats to Black lives. The Teaching for Black Lives campaign of the Zinn Education Project (coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) supports teachers with free lessons for teaching about racism and anti-racist struggles, distribution to school districts of the book Teaching for Black Lives, teacher study groups, a podcast, online classes for teachers, and more.”
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 Zinn Education Project’s Teaching for Black Lives Campaign. As the campaign says on their website, “Teachers around the United States face the challenge of how to teach in the midst of the pandemic and with daily news about threats to Black lives. The Teaching for Black Lives campaign of the Zinn Education Project (coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) supports teachers with free lessons for teaching about racism and anti-racist struggles, distribution to school districts of the book Teaching for Black Lives, teacher study groups, a podcast, online classes for teachers, and more.”