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I might be going out on a limb here, but I think one of the ways that we've always been anti-racist is in naming a shared belief that kids from any background are capable of learning at a high level, and pushing ourselves to create a program that brings that into reality. And a HUGE tradeoff of that culture of "no excuses" (and, as it has evolved, "high expectations") is that it has actively perpetuated all sorts of oppressive dynamics where mostly white staff are rigidly controlling the words and actions of these students and sending messages, consciously and unconsciously, about the white supremacy culture tenets of urgency and one right way.

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The quality of translated documents, parent PD sessions, and communications in their native language has improved significantly since I came to XLEB

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The pandemic has been difficult for everyone globally and we need to learn to balance being supportive +empathetic with pushing kids to their best academic potential. I think that in an attempt to show empathy to families we are avoiding making parents upset/uncomfortable. I think that we need to empower them and problem solve how to work together to make sure students know what is expected of them pandemic or not.

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We have made progress but we need to get better at accepting and embracing the fact that these are ALL of our kids (SPED, ELL, Behavior specific, etc.). We need to provide teachers with the tools necessary to work with any student regardless of whether there is a learning specialist/para available.

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In science, there remains (despite years of effort to combat this) too much emphasis on covering all the things, to the detriment of our ability to let kids explore their own interests/curiosity and get to a point where they feel like experts about any one topic.

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In science, there remains (despite years of effort to combat this) too much emphasis on covering all the things, to the detriment of our ability to let kids explore their own interests/curiosity and get to a point where they feel like experts about any one topic.

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Due to the pandemic it has been interrupted in a variety of ways! But specifically with time. There are many topics that Social studies talk about that connect with identity especially to BIPOC students that needs more time to discuss and process.

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Strength: Creating curriculum that is inclusive and connects to students present.

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Not this year, but in years past when we have nominated students for certain scholarships and learned their family income was too high to qualify there was some level of surprise on the team which in hindsight is super messed up. It was not named or interrupted at the time because I don't think we even realized how messed up it was.

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Also, each person has strengths and weaknesses and great things to bring to our organization. Admin/managers should reflect on onboarding and how it can come across when they lead with statements like "so and so does it this way" "you should reach out to so and so for help on this"

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Particularly in my content area it is tricky to navigate my own values and opinions vs. teaching kids to have their own vs. not creating a harmful false neutrality.

Save the article link, it's a great read about we speak about divide topics with kids!

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I ask a lot of open-ended questions in my history classes, the kinds of questions to which there are no right answers, only good answers (logical, well-supported and so on). A few years ago I started asking myself such a question:

"Am I damaging my students?"

Here's the context. In the past I hesitated to share my own opinions about the questions we addressed in class (despite the fact that my seventh- and eighth-grade students were keenly interested in knowing where I stood). My hesitation came from a desire to maintain some level of objectivity and my understanding that this is what was expected of me as a teacher. But my attempt to strike a neutral pose began to feel like a major ethical and philosophical quandary: Was it ever possible to disentangle my own biased assumptions from my teaching? Is neutrality possible or even desirable?

Students look to their teachers to be the authority on the course material. And even though we may be aware that we are making choices about what content we include and exclude and whose perspectives we endorse and whose we disregard, most of us still like to pretend we are maintaining some level of objectivity. I came to the conclusion that objectivity is practically impossible. What's more, it can hinder our students' moral development. And cultivating morality is uniquely essential to the project of teaching history. Studying the past offers a venue for reflecting on the human condition and developing a sense of right and wrong. We study who we were so that we can figure out who we want to be.

"That's Your Opinion"

Justin P. McBrayer, an assistant professor of philosophy at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, posted a thought-provoking op-ed on The New York Times' "Opinionator" blog in which he argued that today's students "view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture." In other words, he believes that today's students have an overdeveloped sense of relativism. In his view, young people are taught to distinguish between fact and opinion and thus accept as "fact" only that which can be objectively proven. All opinions or perspectives are, then, considered equal. I see similar struggles in my own students who want to tolerate all views while dismissing none.

This analysis has great relevance to me as a history teacher; I often struggle with how to balance moral relativism and absolutism in our class activities-both among my students and with regard to my own contributions. A student once gave me a note on the last day of school that read, much to my alarm, "Thank you for a great course. I learned that if you look at perspectives that are different, then you will see that everyone is right for different reasons." I was dismayed because, of course, everyone is decidedly not right for different reasons. Some people are quite wrong about a lot of things, and many of those people feature heavily in the U.S. and global history classes I teach. After receiving this note, I knew I needed to think more carefully about how I was framing issues of neutrality and relativism in my classes.

Don't Stop at "Multiple Perspectives"

Teachers often diversify and complicate their students' thinking by talking about studying history from "multiple perspectives." This approach can be an effective way to broaden students' thinking and include voices from outside of the dominant narrative.

I have come to see, however, that the inclusion of "multiple perspectives" without sufficient attention to power, intent and privilege makes it challenging for history teachers to honor their moral imperative. History is not just a collection of different perspectives or stories; it is a collection of arguments historians have had about how best to tell these stories. I often differentiate between "history" and "what happened in the past" to get at this important distinction. If we only talk about "multiple perspectives" and locate the various stories of the past on a "continuum of perspective"-without assigning any normative judgments to them-we forestall attempts at determining historical responsibility and causation. We remove the moral judgment implicit in the scholarly study of history.

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I ask a lot of open-ended questions in my history classes, the kinds of questions to which there are no right answers, only good answers (logical, well-supported and so on). A few years ago I started asking myself such a question: "Am I damaging my students?" Here's the context.

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The first step to achieving a goal is naming it and being explicit. It also feels like there is generally (perhaps not 100%) strong buy-in from particularly veteran staff who wield power and influence in the building to try and step back and amplify other voices.

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Assumptions, bias, privileges, guilt and savior

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Excited that we're finally leaning explicitly into an anti-racist frame as a network, and we're being pushed to view our curriculum through that lens. There's a lot to undo/reinvent, but I'm glad we have space to begin that work now. Taking a critical eye to our existing curriculum is an important step, and I'm SUPER excited about rolling out some new science projects this year that explicitly explore issues of biological race science/racism in the field of science, as well as environmental racism/disparity at both the local and global levels.

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I think the way we operate is designed (not intentionally) for teachers to fail. For example: we have soooo many places to enter and report data/information and there are so many asks of us throughout the day, that even if your students are learning and thriving you could feel pretty unsuccessful. When you should be thinking about student results you are probably engaging in conversations about how maybe you messed up attendance, or you forgot to enter something in a checklist somewhere, or because you forgot to enter merits/demerits before 4pm, etc. 

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I think the way we operate is designed (not intentionally) for teachers to fail. For example: we have soooo many places to enter and report data/information and there are so many asks of us throughout the day, that even if your students are learning and thriving you could feel pretty unsuccessful. When you should be thinking about student results you are probably engaging in conversations about how maybe you messed up attendance, or you forgot to enter something in a checklist somewhere, or because you forgot to enter merits/demerits before 4pm, etc. 

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Communication, educating ourselves, and constantly leaning into uncomfortable conversations.

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I think our biggest strength is that we are having these conversations. I have friends/family who work @ other schools and This is not the norm so shout out to us!

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I think our biggest strength is that we are having these conversations. I have friends/family who work @ other schools and This is not the norm so shout out to us!

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Language barriers, cultural differences as some academic gaps. As a community, we often push back to reflect on ways we can close that gap by being more mindful of these differences of each other &students.

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Language barriers, cultural differences as some academic gaps. As a community, we often push back to reflect on ways we can close that gap by being more mindful of these differences of each other &students.

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I've seen some of our biggest strengths including; vulnerability, growth, and space for reflection! These strengths are what I believe helps shape us to fulfill the diversity, equity, and inclusive goals. 

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I've seen some of our biggest strengths including; vulnerability, growth, and space for reflection! These strengths are what I believe helps shape us to fulfill the diversity, equity, and inclusive goals. 

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I try and use my social media feeds to learn and educate myself and a recurring theme I see, particularly from Black women, is how exhausting having DEI conversations with white folks are, and they they want white people to do the work for themselves. This question made me step back and wonder if we are doing the same to staff of color here during these sessions and if our time would be better spent in affinity groups so white staff are working on educating themselves, not being educated by BIPOC staff.

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This is gradually changing, but historically there's been a division between white and BIPOC staff in terms of representation in core teaching roles vs. other positions

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Language barrier in curriculum. But that's more going towards resources, there is just not enough of anywhere.