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Alexandra "Sasha" Sencer
(she/her)
Interim U.S. History Teacher
Durham Academy

I believe that every child should be able to see their story reflected within the U.S. History classroom. Since it is impossible to tell the full American story in a year, I ask my students to become co-collaborators in the content. I inquire about where they feel honored in the American story, where they feel marginalized or erased, who best mirrors their story, what they want others to know about their story, and what they want to know most about others. Then we use this data to decide which lenses we are going to critically explore and which stories we are going to tell..

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Hello everyone, my Daniel Quiros(he/him/his) and I am social science teacher at Gulliver Prep in Miami, FL. I am just beginning my 12th year in the classroom and everyday is an adventure. One thing I have always done to create a sense of belonging for students is greeting students at the door as the come into class. I find that this simple gesture creates an outlet for all students to engage in casual conversation with me before we begin class. It is something I would like to find a parallel for in a digital space, as sometimes I a do teach online courses that don't have" doors"

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Hello.  My name is Christina Wong (she/her).  I have been at the French American School of Puget Sound in Washington State going on 17 years and although I have held different administrative and teaching positions at the school, I am currently teaching Grade 8 Humanities.  I am also on our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and work with the Middle School students to produce the yearbook.

With the yearbook, our goal is to include each student at least three times - from our youngest students to our graduates - so even there, we focus on inclusivity.

In Humanities, we hold many discussions and I share openly with my students to build both mutual trust and respect, as well as a willingness to be vulnerable and human.  We talk about anything and everything.  At the start of the year, practicing for high school admissions essays is just one of our activities that includes testing out how introspective we can all be.  After some prompting and examples, we begin this type of work by publishing in class a 'share, not share' anonymous list from the students.  In as much as we explore how unique every person is due to their background and experiences, this also helps students find common ground and build empathy - no one is alone, no matter what they have gone through.  This will be even more important coming off of the isolation and challenges of the past year and a half.

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The Dalton School, East 89th Street, New York, NY, USA

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The Dalton School, East 89th Street, New York, NY, USA

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The Dalton School, East 89th Street, New York, NY, USA

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Hi! Yom Fox , World History Teacher. I have asked all students to create their own "This I Believe" essays as a way to get to share who they are and also get to know each other.

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Hi! My name is Leigh Ann Fitch (she/her) and I am a Curriculum Coordinator at Graded American School of São Paulo. When I was in the classroom, we would ask children to bring in "artefacts" that could be used to demonstrate/explain who they are. The prompt was "This is a ______. It shows an important part of who I am because____" . Over the span of a week, we would allow students to share these artefacts in small groups settings. This then ended with a museum style experience where students arranged their artefacts with a self-portrait, including a short written caption explaining their artefact and how it demonstrates who they are.

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Hello, I'm Robyn (she/her). I am a grade 6 teachers in Toronto, Canada. I am excited to learn with all of you, right before we start this school year. Belonging within school communities is so important for all students, staff and family members. I have found that by listening to the needs of students and families is the first step to creating a sense of belonging.

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Nicole from The Dalton School-6th Grade Math Teacher. Looking forward to learning more about fostering a more equitable environment for all my students to be seen and heard.

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Hello! My name is Deepjyot (Deep) and my pronouns are she/her/hers. I am here from GOA and am serving as one of the course facilitators. So excited to learn from/with you. This prompt makes me think about those first day of school experiences of names being called off the roster and sitting uncomfortably until it was clearly my name that was causing a teacher to hesitate or completely mispronounce my name. The responsibility would fall on me to correct or jump in. It took time to learn how to navigate experiences like that, and I have always appreciated the educators (both my own and colleagues) who have taken time to learn, practice, or ask about names in advance.

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Shannon Hobbs-
Beckley (she/her), Director of Teaching and Learning at Graded - The American School of Sao Paulo.  One activity that I never grow tired of when leading and working with new groups of colleagues is to ask everyone to tell the story of their name to a partner or in small groups.  In fact, I've used this with groups that think they know each other well and we always learn new insights about each other.  (BTW:  I disliked my middle name, "Mae", as a child because it sounded so old fashioned.  But both of my grandmothers have that middle name and they both had grandmothers with that middle name.  So, as an adult, I am deeply grateful for it!)

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Hi Everyone! Becky Green (she/her/hers) here from GOA. In our student program, as we're all online, I try from the start to establish that from our different places in the world we are indeed a community. Sometimes that's as simple as everyone sharing a photo of their choosing on a google slide or Padlet "bulletin board." And then throughout the year, I've tried to find prompts like, "Share a photo of a space where you love to work (or play or eat or or or)" that offers students to share something about their lives that gives them choice but also invites storytelling.

Welcome! So glad you're all here!

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Hi! I work at Catlin Gabel School in Portland, OR (and also for GOA!) as a math and computer science teacher. At one point I organized my classroom to be in a "round" similar to a Harkness style classroom where we all (yes, me too!) sat around the room as equals. I could still center relevant notes and work through the use of digital tools to project information from where I was in the room, where the focus was on the work and not me at the center of the room. In addition, when I was running a problem-based classroom, students were invited to participate in ways that felt most comfortable to them.

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She/her hoping to do better as an ally.

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Hi! I'm Bonnie Lathram (she/her/hers). As a high school teacher for eight years, my classroom furniture was always organized in a circle or horseshoe. I almost never taught in classrooms with desks in rows, but rather I would rearrange the furniture to be in a circle or a horseshoe as much as possible. I did this to cultivate a sense of belonging - there's no one in the front or the back. We are all in this space together. This took some unlearning for my high school students who were more comfortable with desks and rows - and many of them wanted/expected to be able to sit in the back and just passively listen or not participate. I think this idea of open circles/anyone is welcome translates to my work at GOA, too. Although we work virtually, we are conscious of creating a sense of belonging online - ensuring voices are heard and that all feel welcome. Thank you for being here w/ us this week.