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Inquiry Series
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Current Year 24 - 25 School Year
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- September: From where are we drawing hope to sustain the antiracist work ahead of us
- Fall: How does your community practice hope and grief in collectivity?
- November: How does your community practice hope and grief in collectivity?
- December: How do we imagine the world we’re working towards seven generations in the future?
- January: How do we build a school culture and design curriculum that engages critical hope?
- February: How do we build a school culture and design curriculum that engages critical hope?
- March: How can we take small actions to strengthen our communities in the face of racism?
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Current Year 24 - 25 School Year
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If this is your first year doing this series, you might consider using our Inquiry Series 3 material for the year or hosting an orientation meeting using our September material before moving on to the current month.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
Writer and activist Adrienne Maree Brown’s first principle of emergent strategy is “small is good, small is all.” Many of us are feeling frozen with grief, fear, and anger, unable as individuals to fight the relentless attacks from the Trump administration. We want to remind you that our fight against white supremacy is a lifelong one that will continue no matter what our government looks like, and that this fight requires community. Brown’s insight that “the patterns of the universe repeat at scale” helps us understand that small actions like daily chats with a neighbor are actually the foundation of societal change. It is our daily actions, in other words, which will build the movement to end white supremacy. We know that this movement requires trust and long-term bonds between white people and people of color.
This month and next month we are guiding people to take action with this philosophy in mind. In your meeting in March, we invite you to read two short excerpts from Brown’s book Emergent Strategy, and to focus your thinking and discussion on your own small actions which build the relationships that make our communities stronger. Building an anti-racist future is possible only in community, based in real friendships and alliances. The action we are steering you to take is the building of these bonds.
Primary Resource: Excerpts from Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown:
“Octavia [Butler] was concerned with scale—understanding that what happens at the interpersonal level is a way to understand the whole of society. In many of her books, she shows us how radical ideas spread through conversation, questions, one to one interactions. Social movements right now are also fractal, practicing at a small scale what we most want to see at the universal level. No more growth or scaling up before actually learning through experience.”
“How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The patterns of the universe repeat at scale. There is a structural echo that suggests two things: one, that there are shapes and patterns fundamental to our universe, and two, that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale. I first became aware of fractals in 2004 when I was doing electoral organizing, though I didn’t have the word for it. We were trying to impact the federal election, to get George W. Bush out of office. And what I saw clearly was that, at a local level, we—Americans—don’t know how to do democracy. We don’t know how to make decisions together, how to create generative compromises, how to advance policies that center justice. Most of our movements are reduced to advancing false solutions, things we can get corporate or governmental agreement on, which don’t actually get us where we need to be. It was and is devastatingly clear to me that until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won’t be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally.”
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!
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.
In the spirit of this month’s theme of connecting with your own community, we encourage you to find a BIPOC-led organization as close to home to you as possible.
Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview:
Writer and activist Adrienne Maree Brown’s first principle of emergent strategy is “small is good, small is all.” Many of us are feeling frozen with grief, fear, and anger, unable as individuals to fight the relentless attacks from the Trump administration. We want to remind you that our fight against white supremacy is a lifelong one that will continue no matter what our government looks like, and that this fight requires community. Brown’s insight that “the patterns of the universe repeat at scale” helps us understand that small actions like daily chats with a neighbor are actually the foundation of societal change. It is our daily actions, in other words, which will build the movement to end white supremacy. We know that this movement requires trust and long-term bonds between white people and people of color.
This month and next month we are guiding people to take action with this philosophy in mind. In your meeting in March, we invite you to read two short excerpts from Brown’s book Emergent Strategy, and to focus your thinking and discussion on your own small actions which build the relationships that make our communities stronger. Building an anti-racist future is possible only in community, based in real friendships and alliances. The action we are steering you to take is the building of these bonds.
Primary Resource: Excerpts from Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown:
“Octavia [Butler] was concerned with scale—understanding that what happens at the interpersonal level is a way to understand the whole of society. In many of her books, she shows us how radical ideas spread through conversation, questions, one to one interactions. Social movements right now are also fractal, practicing at a small scale what we most want to see at the universal level. No more growth or scaling up before actually learning through experience.”
“How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The patterns of the universe repeat at scale. There is a structural echo that suggests two things: one, that there are shapes and patterns fundamental to our universe, and two, that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale. I first became aware of fractals in 2004 when I was doing electoral organizing, though I didn’t have the word for it. We were trying to impact the federal election, to get George W. Bush out of office. And what I saw clearly was that, at a local level, we—Americans—don’t know how to do democracy. We don’t know how to make decisions together, how to create generative compromises, how to advance policies that center justice. Most of our movements are reduced to advancing false solutions, things we can get corporate or governmental agreement on, which don’t actually get us where we need to be. It was and is devastatingly clear to me that until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won’t be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally.”
Discussion Questions:
- How do you show up for the people you care about?
- Do you have obstacles that are holding you back from being in community with people of color? What are they?
- How do you define community? How do you define family? Friendship? Trust?
- How can you make yourself trustworthy, over a period of years? Where do you start?
- How can you begin to “live your solutions locally,” in your own classroom? Your own school? On your own block?
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 this month’s journal prompt 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.
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!
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.
In the spirit of this month’s theme of connecting with your own community, we encourage you to find a BIPOC-led organization as close to home to you as possible.