Don't forget to give us feedback!
Overview and our 2025-2026 Focus:
As the BARWE core met to discuss how we wanted to approach the planning and theme of our next Inquiry Series, we kept returning to two big ideas. The first being that we (and many of our friends, parents, fellow educators) spent the previous year doing our absolute best to triage what felt like multiple, concurrent crises. Our time, attention, and energy increasingly felt pulled in directions other than antiracist activism for urgent support and action elsewhere. The second idea was that we saw white supremacy culture and its inherent violence underpinning all of these interconnected struggles.
It is still vitally important to teach truth right now. We should be organizing with our colleagues to defend our students and schools from ICE. We must be planning to support trans and queer members of our communities. While devoting time and energy towards these fights and the inevitable backlash, it becomes easier to lose sight of the forest for the trees. We must continue to interrogate our identities and biases, and imagine our place in a just world where whiteness is not weaponized to harm anybody in our schools and communities. So we decided that for each month of our 2025-2026 Inquiry Series, a BARWE core member will be selecting a past discussion guide that they feel is especially relevant and crucial to revisit at this moment.
This Fall we are starting our Inquiry Series off with an activity called the 5 Whys. We think that it is important to dig into our deeper motivations for continuing this work, and remembering the values and beliefs that drew us into it in the first place. Why are you still meeting (or why are you looking to start a group!)? Why does this still matter now? This will lead us towards revisiting prior conversations in future months about white identity development, white antiracist leaders, and then eventually discussion guides on risk, partnership, joy. We feel as though these topics are crucial to not just understanding this current historical moment, but also to think about where a white person’s place is in this struggle, and sustain our commitment and energy for the long haul.
An ongoing conversation amongst the BARWE core has been about managing personal and professional risk when it comes to your BARWE meetings. As you schedule and plan your first meeting this year, reflect on, and engage with other regular participants about ways you can intentionally make sure your discussions are a safe space. Here are some things to consider:
September 2025 Discussion Guide: To support your dialogue this month, we offer an activity called the 5 Whys that is a reflection tool designed to uncover your deeper motivations, values, and beliefs. We encourage each group member to use the 5 Whys reflection worksheet to dig deeper on your commitment to continuing your antiracist development with BARWE. Then during the meeting discuss these prompts below.
In the past we have recommended How to be an Antiracist Educator as a September reading. If you are new to BARWE or would like to return to a familiar text for reflection, please feel free to share with your group. Our previous September discussion guides are available on our website, and feature additional resources as well, if desired.
Meeting Flow:
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 a 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.
This month, we encourage you to donate to the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. If you have an organization local to your group doing urgent immigrant support work, please consider donating there!
“New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia builds community across faith, ethnicity, and class in our work to end injustices against immigrants regardless of immigration status, express radical welcome for all, and ensure that values of dignity, justice, and hospitality are lived out in practice and upheld in policy.”
Overview and our 2025-2026 Focus:
As the BARWE core met to discuss how we wanted to approach the planning and theme of our next Inquiry Series, we kept returning to two big ideas. The first being that we (and many of our friends, parents, fellow educators) spent the previous year doing our absolute best to triage what felt like multiple, concurrent crises. Our time, attention, and energy increasingly felt pulled in directions other than antiracist activism for urgent support and action elsewhere. The second idea was that we saw white supremacy culture and its inherent violence underpinning all of these interconnected struggles.
It is still vitally important to teach truth right now. We should be organizing with our colleagues to defend our students and schools from ICE. We must be planning to support trans and queer members of our communities. While devoting time and energy towards these fights and the inevitable backlash, it becomes easier to lose sight of the forest for the trees. We must continue to interrogate our identities and biases, and imagine our place in a just world where whiteness is not weaponized to harm anybody in our schools and communities. So we decided that for each month of our 2025-2026 Inquiry Series, a BARWE core member will be selecting a past discussion guide that they feel is especially relevant and crucial to revisit at this moment.
This Fall we are starting our Inquiry Series off with an activity called the 5 Whys. We think that it is important to dig into our deeper motivations for continuing this work, and remembering the values and beliefs that drew us into it in the first place. Why are you still meeting (or why are you looking to start a group!)? Why does this still matter now? This will lead us towards revisiting prior conversations in future months about white identity development, white antiracist leaders, and then eventually discussion guides on risk, partnership, joy. We feel as though these topics are crucial to not just understanding this current historical moment, but also to think about where a white person’s place is in this struggle, and sustain our commitment and energy for the long haul.
An ongoing conversation amongst the BARWE core has been about managing personal and professional risk when it comes to your BARWE meetings. As you schedule and plan your first meeting this year, reflect on, and engage with other regular participants about ways you can intentionally make sure your discussions are a safe space. Here are some things to consider:
- Re-signing up for our mailing list with an e-mail address disconnected from your school account
- Creating an e-mail thread or group chat with your discussion participants disconnected from your school accounts
- Planning to hold your monthly meetings off campus
- Send an email to your entire school to restate the purpose of this group and to make sure that colleagues are aware it exists and that everyone is invited.
- Conduct a new poll for the day/time the group meets to make sure everyone who wants to join this year is able to.
- Consider the space you have been meeting in. Is it a neutral and inviting space for new people to join? If not, consider moving it to somewhere all people feel welcome (ex. library, multi-purpose room)
September 2025 Discussion Guide: To support your dialogue this month, we offer an activity called the 5 Whys that is a reflection tool designed to uncover your deeper motivations, values, and beliefs. We encourage each group member to use the 5 Whys reflection worksheet to dig deeper on your commitment to continuing your antiracist development with BARWE. Then during the meeting discuss these prompts below.
In the past we have recommended How to be an Antiracist Educator as a September reading. If you are new to BARWE or would like to return to a familiar text for reflection, please feel free to share with your group. Our previous September discussion guides are available on our website, and feature additional resources as well, if desired.
Meeting Flow:
- Fellowship: Greet and catch up with the folks in your meeting. Share snacks. Make tea. You might have folks find a photo on their phone that represents their summer joy and turn and share it with a partner.
- Norming:
- Journaling (Suggested Time: 8 minutes): Individually completethe 5 Whys reflection sheet
- Pair Share (Suggested Time: 12 minutes):
- How did it feel to use the 5 Whys protocol?
- What deeper value, belief, or experience did you uncover about yourself?
- If you’re comfortable, we encourage everyone to share their final “Why.”
- How did it feel to use the 5 Whys protocol?
- Group Discussion/Debrief:
- What emotions did this exercise bring up for you?
- What questions did this exercise bring up for you?
- What antiracist commitments does this exercise lead you to make? Can you think of a person to share with who can hold you accountable to your commitment.
- Closing
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia this month.
- Complete the Feedback Form.
- Prepare yourself for October by setting a date and time, inviting colleagues, and looking out for our next Discussion Guide on October 1st.
- Pass the Hat and collect donations for the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia this month.
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 a 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.
This month, we encourage you to donate to the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. If you have an organization local to your group doing urgent immigrant support work, please consider donating there!
“New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia builds community across faith, ethnicity, and class in our work to end injustices against immigrants regardless of immigration status, express radical welcome for all, and ensure that values of dignity, justice, and hospitality are lived out in practice and upheld in policy.”