- About Us
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Inquiry Series
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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
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- September: What is keeping us together, focused, and motivated to do this work in 2025?
- October: Revisiting the Helms White Identity Model
- November: Learning from White Anti-Racists of the Past
- December: How can we identify and challenge white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions?
- January: How can we create classroom culture that resists white supremacy and that nourishes Black joy?
- Previous Inquiry Series
- Inquiry Resources >
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Current Year: '25-'26 School Year
>
- Summer Events
- Advocacy
- Donate
A Special Message from the BARWE Core: Since the 2018-2019 school year, BARWE has been writing and distributing a free monthly Inquiry Series discussion guide to help educators and those interested in developing an anti-racist identity interrogate their biases, experiences, and praxis in community groups. BARWE resources are free, but producing the series does have annual costs.
When we first set out to share the work which we were doing with each other and our colleagues, we self-funded any incurred costs. As our readership and community grew in 2019-2020, we were able to support our work with a generous grant from Teaching Tolerance (now Learning for Justice). This grant supported practical costs such as buying a web domain, and expanding our mailing list capacity and reach, while also allowing us to host a summer conference and compensate our accountability partners for their labor.
We saw exponential growth and engagement with BARWE resources through the COVID-19 pandemic, and added a professional zoom account to support national calls and collaboration with other groups leading the way on anti-racist community work.
The annual cost of maintaining BARWE is $2,603.81. We have previously gathered this funding through ticket sales for hosting virtual discussion series and author/speaker events, and the rare honorarium.
While we plan to continue learning, working, and sharing with the BARWE community, it has become clear that we need to move away from relying on ticket sales or registration donations at one off virtual events, which have become less reliable and unpredictable. We are posting this as a request for donations to support the continued operation of BARWE. Any donation you make goes directly to paying our monthly MailChimp, Weebly/Square, and Zoom account costs, as well as paying our partners with Melanated Educators Collective to review our materials.
Annual Costs:
Mailchimp - $1,425.6
Zoom - $172.69
Weebly - $155.52
Accountability - $70/person/month (about $850 a year)
TOTAL = $2,603.81
If you have the means and have found BARWE materials helpful in your journey, consider supporting the future of BARWE by making a donation today. You can submit donations to BARWE through CashApp/Venmo/Paypal at (CashApp: $barwe215, Venmo: @John-MacElveen, Paypal: [email protected]). If you would prefer to send a paper check through the mail, we are able to receive those at the following address: BARWE, PO Box 313, Liberty, ME, 04949.
Looking Back: This year’s Inquiry Series focused discussions around sections of Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes. We started the year looking at ways to build or rebuild community, then moved through the quarters of the year investigating the ways we deal with grief, how we can build hope, turning that hope into action, and finally focusing on leaning into relationship building as a way forward. If the book is still sitting in your TBR stack, then we encourage you to use this summer as a time to read/listen to it!
Looking Forward: This summer, BARWE is partnering with the Philadelphia-based Teacher Action Group (our mother organization!) to lead a book group on Matt Kay’s Not Light, But Fire and We’re Gonna Keep on Talking (with Jen Orr) (participants can choose to read either book). Depending on your location and availability, you will be able to choose between attending two in-person meetings here in Philadelphia or two virtual meetings over zoom!
Philadelphia area folks can express their interest (and see the other book groups available) by filling out this form.
Those interested in participating virtually may register here!
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview: As you close out the school year, we encourage folks to have a BARWE meeting with your school or organizational group to reflect on your work 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. Instead of having a resource to discuss, we invite you to reflect on your work together using our guiding questions.
Discussion Questions:
Facilitation Reference Guide:
Feedback Form:
We have made edits to our feedback form, with the hopes that you find it faster and more straightforward to fill out. Please have one person in your group take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went. It is very helpful to hear from you, and helps build our connection to you!
Pass The Hat:
In a departure from our normal pass-the-hat suggestions, we are hoping that some of you will choose to donate to the continued operations of BARWE this month.
When we first set out to share the work which we were doing with each other and our colleagues, we self-funded any incurred costs. As our readership and community grew in 2019-2020, we were able to support our work with a generous grant from Teaching Tolerance (now Learning for Justice). This grant supported practical costs such as buying a web domain, and expanding our mailing list capacity and reach, while also allowing us to host a summer conference and compensate our accountability partners for their labor.
We saw exponential growth and engagement with BARWE resources through the COVID-19 pandemic, and added a professional zoom account to support national calls and collaboration with other groups leading the way on anti-racist community work.
The annual cost of maintaining BARWE is $2,603.81. We have previously gathered this funding through ticket sales for hosting virtual discussion series and author/speaker events, and the rare honorarium.
While we plan to continue learning, working, and sharing with the BARWE community, it has become clear that we need to move away from relying on ticket sales or registration donations at one off virtual events, which have become less reliable and unpredictable. We are posting this as a request for donations to support the continued operation of BARWE. Any donation you make goes directly to paying our monthly MailChimp, Weebly/Square, and Zoom account costs, as well as paying our partners with Melanated Educators Collective to review our materials.
Annual Costs:
Mailchimp - $1,425.6
Zoom - $172.69
Weebly - $155.52
Accountability - $70/person/month (about $850 a year)
TOTAL = $2,603.81
If you have the means and have found BARWE materials helpful in your journey, consider supporting the future of BARWE by making a donation today. You can submit donations to BARWE through CashApp/Venmo/Paypal at (CashApp: $barwe215, Venmo: @John-MacElveen, Paypal: [email protected]). If you would prefer to send a paper check through the mail, we are able to receive those at the following address: BARWE, PO Box 313, Liberty, ME, 04949.
Looking Back: This year’s Inquiry Series focused discussions around sections of Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes. We started the year looking at ways to build or rebuild community, then moved through the quarters of the year investigating the ways we deal with grief, how we can build hope, turning that hope into action, and finally focusing on leaning into relationship building as a way forward. If the book is still sitting in your TBR stack, then we encourage you to use this summer as a time to read/listen to it!
Looking Forward: This summer, BARWE is partnering with the Philadelphia-based Teacher Action Group (our mother organization!) to lead a book group on Matt Kay’s Not Light, But Fire and We’re Gonna Keep on Talking (with Jen Orr) (participants can choose to read either book). Depending on your location and availability, you will be able to choose between attending two in-person meetings here in Philadelphia or two virtual meetings over zoom!
Philadelphia area folks can express their interest (and see the other book groups available) by filling out this form.
Those interested in participating virtually may register here!
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview: As you close out the school year, we encourage folks to have a BARWE meeting with your school or organizational group to reflect on your work 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. Instead of having a resource to discuss, we invite you to reflect on your work together using our guiding questions.
Discussion Questions:
- How will your work this year move your BARWE group towards being more engaged locally and beyond to stand up for those fighting for justice?
- What clear practices and strategies will now be included in our collective and individual practices?
- What concrete steps can you take this summer to strengthen your connection with your anti-racist community? Who are the people that you work with to make this fight sustainable and impactful?
Facilitation Reference Guide:
- Set a day and time for your group to meet - This may need to change if your school or district is cutting back on “DEI.” Get creative by meeting off campus or on zoom. Make sure to send reminders. If you’re meeting in person, snacks are always a good idea!
- Send this month’s discussion questions to your group.
- Prepare yourself to facilitate by reading through our Norms and Discussion Protocol.
- When you start your meeting, read the room. What grounding does your group need? A breathing exercise? A sing-along? A dance break? A group scream? Build in a moment for that.
Feedback Form:
We have made edits to our feedback form, with the hopes that you find it faster and more straightforward to fill out. Please have one person in your group take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form to let us know how it went. It is very helpful to hear from you, and helps build our connection to you!
Pass The Hat:
In a departure from our normal pass-the-hat suggestions, we are hoping that some of you will choose to donate to the continued operations of BARWE this month.