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Brittany Packnett Cunningham

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Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an activist, educator, and popular TV commentator-and a trusted voice for millions of people interested in social justice. Now, with UNDISTRACTED-an original podcast from The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios-she aims her focus on the most pressing issues of our time through the lens of intersectional feminism. From the latest headlines to deep-dives with today's most fascinating changemakers, UNDISTRACTED is your weekly guide to the revolution.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an activist, educator, and popular TV commentator-and a trusted voice for millions of people interested in social justice. Now, with UNDISTRACTED-an original podcast from The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios-she aims her focus on the most pressing issues of our time through the lens of intersectional feminism. From the latest headlines to deep-dives with today's most fascinating changemakers, UNDISTRACTED is your weekly guide to the revolution.

Best podcast

I love this podcast. Timely conversations and from a point of view seldom allowed; this is why the world will be better, we're all finally going to be free to be our wonderful best selves. Listen to Brittany, she's at the heart of what is good.

Must listen

I look forward to a new ep on my feed every week. Brittany is an amazing interviewer and you can tell she genuinely cares learning about the guests she has on. Love it!

Tell me how it is

The heartbeat of this podcast is authentic, transformative, and powerful. The episode featuring Raquel Willis is particularly excellent.

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undistracted with brittany packnett cunningham

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‎UNDISTRACTED with Brittany Packnett Cunningham on Apple Podcasts

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‎Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an activist, educator, and popular TV commentator-and a trusted voice for millions of people interested in social justice. Now, with UNDISTRACTED-an original podcast from The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios-she aims her focus on the most pressing issues of our tim...

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Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success [Emdin, Christopher] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success

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Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses is a suggestive title for 'another' book in the field of linguistics, but what does it actually mean? By choosing to speak of Languaging Diversity and not just of difference, otherness, varieties, multiplicity, hybridity or alterity, the editors cover the whole range of meanings in the entire field of diversity. They do not wish to limit themselves by using such specific words with increasingly specialised connotations as Alterity or Other, but rather to allow an eclectic range of perspectives and issues to come to the fore. This volume brings together some of the manifold discourses emerging as bearers of the values of alterity, by exploring the thorny relationship between Language and Diversity. Drawing on the crucial assumption that speakers' identities are dynamically negotiated as discourse unfolds, Languaging Diversity explores the wide theme of identity in discourse, an area of investigation which has become increasingly popular in recent years.

A key theme in assembling this volume was that the relationship between diversity and identity cannot be alienated from the factual distribution of material resources in society. All contributions in the volume - carefully selected and peer reviewed - at least partially react to such critical scenery in order to explore the topics surrounding the modes in which diversity is linguistically articulated by and in discourse. The various studies deal with how individuals draw on linguistic resources to achieve, maintain or challenge representations pertaining to their cultural, social, ethnic, sexual, gender, professional, or institutional identities.

The volume comprises six sections: In the News; In Politics; Constructing Identities; Across Generations and Genders; Ethnicities; and Popularising Ideas. Each section reflects the choice of the various topics through the employment of a variety of methodologies and a variety of theoretical frameworks. As such, this volume is an innovative attempt to challenge the present-day underpinnings of diversity studies.

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Languaging Diversity: Identities, Genres, Discourses is a suggestive title for 'another' book in the field of linguistics, but what does it actually mean? By choosing to speak of Languaging Diversity and not just of difference, otherness, varieties, multiplicity, hybridity or alterity, the editors cover the whole range of meanings in the entire field of diversity.

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Gholdy Muhammad has written a new book and agreed to talk to me about Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning.
Muhammad is a professor of curriculum and instruction with a focus on literacy, language, and culture. She has served as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, school district administrator, curriculum director, and school board president. You can read the interview we did about her previous book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework. LF: Unearthing Joy provides a host of practical ideas on how to implement the ideas you wrote about in your previous book, Cultivating Genius, while stressing the importance of bringing joy into classrooms. We teachers, our students, and their families can certainly use as much joy as possible in this era of conservative attacks on literature for young people, social-emotional learning, and culturally responsive education. Can you talk about what led you to approach some of today's education challenges with a focus on the idea of "joy"? And, can you share a few ideas of what they might actually look like in the classroom?
Muhammad: As I continue to teach young people, preservice teachers, and scholars, while working with school leaders, I find that we need joy more than ever. Teachers often tell me their hearts are overwhelmed and stressed. The pandemic exacerbated the need for joy. Also, as you said, there are ongoing attacks on literature and inclusive, humanizing curriculum. These are all reasons we need joy as I define it in the book. Joy should be the ultimate goal of teaching and learning. When I began to speak with educators about joy, they often responded, "Yes!" and "Finally!" They were ready.

Many of them had been doing joyful work for a long time-after all, joy is the reason many of us entered education in the first place-but they wanted it to be more formalized in terms of standards, evaluations, and curriculum.

Then there were those educators who thought joy was important for early-childhood and elementary students only. I then thought, Well, what about students beyond elementary school? Don't they need joy? And what about adults? Don't we need to embrace, practice, and rely on joy in our lives? Certainly! We have a growing number of suicides and mental health issues among young people today. Teaching them skills in decontextualized ways, while ignoring identity, intellect, criticality, and joy, is not enough to stop that growth.

In the book, I discuss historical ways of conceptualizing joy. I define joy as the ancestors defined it. I found that, for centuries, Black people have defined joy as something more than having fun or celebrating but as a sustained effort to recognize and honor the beauty of and within the Earth. To the ancestors, joy was art and aesthetics. It was teaching our children to name the beauty within themselves and within humanity. Joy meant coming together for advocacy and problem solving to make the world better. Joy was wellness, healing, and justice. The ancestors needed joy then, and we all need it now.

In the book, I suggest making joy a learning goal, or pursuit, to be taught and assessed. Joy can infuse our relationship building with students, as we check in on their hearts and on their wellness. It emerges when we integrate more art, poetry, and music into our instruction and when we create learning experiences that encourage students to have fun and problem solve, with their voices (and perspectives) centered.
LF: So much of your book challenges the deficit thinking that seems to dominate the education narrative-the blaming of our students and their families (and, often, of teachers) for challenges to academic achievement. Instead, you argue that those challenges are systemic and changes need to be made to the system. Can you share two or three examples of situations where we tend to blame students when we should be focusing elsewhere? And then, what shifting that focus might look like in practical terms for practicing teachers?
Muhammad: First, let's look at tests that typically screen for students' reading and math proficiencies, such as the NAEP exam or state tests. In 2022, NAEP data showed that 17 percent of Black 4th graders were "proficient" or "advanced" in reading. Seventeen percent. We typically report data in that student-facing way instead of reporting what's really going on: As a nation, our educational system has failed 83 percent of Black children, the group we fail the most often. How, then, are we creating policy, curriculum, standards, and assessments that are inclusive of Black youth and responsive to their genius and educational needs? We're not. Instead, we believe it is the student who needs help and intervention-not the curriculum, not the test, not the system.

Another example relates to students' behavior. I've found in my research that when Black girls don't follow school rules or respond well to the curriculum, those in charge call them defiant. Those in charge fail to listen to them and make them feel safe and loved within the classroom-especially at schools without many Black teachers. They don't typically ask, Was our policy written to respond to the genius and joy of Black girls?

Both examples suggest that we need to take a hard look at learning standards, curriculum, policies, evaluations, teacher education, practice, assessments, and the whole educational system. In this country, we have the genius and the tools to rewrite that system so that all students can ascend to reach their highest potential. We educators must be cognizant of the history that has shaped the system we have today, so we do not perpetuate deficit thinking about children or inflict deficit practices on them.
LF: Your books are unique among professional books because of the time you take to look to history for lessons on what we need to do for schools today. Can you share three historical lessons that stand out to you as being especially useful?
Muhammad: Yes, Black history contains many teachings and affordances that help us to advance the genius and joy of our children and educators. I provide several examples in the books, and here's a preview.

Lesson 1: Our Black ancestors centered introspection and self-examination. I found a beautiful and unique 19 th-century artifact that captured how our ancestors spoke to the importance of recognizing one's own "excellencies," biases, and challenges. They knew the importance of beginning with one's mind and heart before moving toward engaging others. It was a beautiful and very important lesson that we should look at ourselves and question our intentions and actions before teaching children or engaging families or colleagues.

Lesson 2: Our Black ancestors claimed and reclaimed their joy. It did not matter that the world was cruel or unfair or unloving because they had each other. They centered their creativity, their arts, their music, their language, their abolition, their poetry, their love, and their collaborative efforts to make the world better. It's a beautiful lesson for us today. No matter what, remember your joy. Remember what matters. Remember your light and all your north stars in life.

Lesson 3: Our Black ancestors practiced collectivism and collaboration. In Cultivating Genius and Unearthing Joy, I explain how Dr. Cynthia Dillard calls attention to the importance of (re)membering-going back and back again to excellence in our Black past to teach us how to advance education today. Being in community was an important practice. The ancestors knew that transformation could not happen in isolation. It could not happen in a climate of individualism and competition. That is a great lesson for educators today. How can we collectively write policy, mandates, standards, and curriculum? How can we find time for teachers to work together to build their practice? These questions are vital for moving toward equity and excellence in education.

I can't wait for educators to take in the details of this beautiful history and the beautiful lessons it holds!
LF: What recommendations do you have for a teacher who wants to begin implementing the CHRE (culturally and historically responsive education) perspectives and strategies you write about?
Muhammad: Study the System and Curriculum. The first thing that educators can do is study the system in which they are employed, which includes evaluating the curriculum that they are given, ideally using the evaluation tool in Unearthing Joy. If they have not been given a curriculum, they need to understand the process of teaching and learning that is expected of them to learn if their genius and ideologies align with it.

Collect Texts. The second thing I would suggest is for teachers to think about the types of texts they want to use in their practice and why. I want teachers to consider texts that are responsive to the histories, identities, literacies, and liberation of students. I enjoy collecting teachable texts that support my students' learning across the five pursuits-identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy. When I find a poem, article, story, video, Ted Talk or anything that seems teachable, I stow it away in my "curriculum vault" until I need it to write a new and exciting lesson, unit, or entire curriculum.

Engage in the Self-Work. The last thing they can do right away is self-work. I encourage teachers to ask themselves, How are the five pursuits already showing up in my personal and professional lives? I find that this question is easier to answer among teachers who are living a life of justice and joy. Those teachers can more easily translate the pursuits into the classroom. In the book, I provide questions for teachers to ask themselves. I also provide assessment tools that enable them to collect data on their students' identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy. When was the last time we collected data on student joy? That data can then be used to inform teachers' practices.
LF: If they use certain ideas in your books, some educators might be accused of teaching "critical race theory" and reprimanded, attacked, or even fired, even though your ideas have nothing to do with CRT. What advice do you offer those educators?
Muhammad: It is devastating to think that, after all the work, pain, sacrifice, and labor of our ancestors-after all our ancestors have given to this county-we continue to live in a world where a teacher can be fired for teaching about Black joy and justice. Clearly, those that push hateful policies don't recognize Black ancestral genius or teachings. So how far have we really come? And how far do we need to go?

Throughout history, there have been people who work to uphold anti-Blackness and who have written policies to sustain oppressive practices in schools. Banning critical race theory is nothing new under the beautiful sun that provides light to the Earth.

We must keep in mind that some teachers and administrators are attacked just for showing up to school Black. I have colleagues and friends who go to work with their dark skin, natural hair, and all the other characteristics that make them beautifully Black, only to be judged, criticized, and harassed. Such attacks were common long before people learned the three words critical race theory.

And sadly, many who denounce critical race theory have never read about it or studied the research behind it. They have never developed culturally responsive curriculum nor taught children. Nor have they listened to and trusted the voices of diverse students. And they may have never experienced racial, gender, or sexual violence. See, I find that when we experience hurt, harm, or pain because of identity, we may enter a space of humanity, empathy, and openness. So, some speak on hateful things without living in the world with it-without deeply knowing it.

What's beautiful about the HILL Model, my instructional framework for CHRE, which is described in Unearthing Joy, is that it can make us all better. And the five pursuits offer a nice balance of theoretical perspectives in education. This is one way to know you have a strong framework in education-when it does not adhere to a single theory. I'll give you an example. Most reading programs are grounded in cognitive theory only. They contain no explicit extensions to children's lives or the world around them. Such programs teach only skills. When we teach collectively the pursuits of identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy, we embrace multiple theoretical perspectives such as cognitive theory, sociocultural theory, social constructivism, critical theory, and feminist theory.

Before I suggest what educators who are harmed should do, I must suggest what those who are inflicting harm should do. They should do some serious work to restore love in their hearts. I suggest they read deeply about theory, the genius and history of Blackness, and the benefits of joy. I suggest they take a course on the HILL Model and curriculum writing. This is why I address leadership in Unearthing Joy and include tools for creating school policy, teacher evaluations, and so many other responsibilities of administrators. It is my hope that school boards can use and recommend those tools as part of their leadership.

My hope for teachers is for them to be in schools where their intellect, genius, and cultures are nurtured and watered-not shut down. I advise teachers to rely on their village to lift them, keep them, and support them during these tumultuous times we are living in.
LF: What are the three or so takeaways you hope readers get from Unearthing Joy?
Muhammad: I hope readers will recognize that the book is a practical guide designed to show them how to apply the five pursuits in teaching and learning. Curriculum can be very violent, rote, prescriptive, and unresponsive to the cultural lives of our youth and the social times we are living in. And sometimes it can be very basic. So, I also want this book to be a guide to rejuvenating curriculum and instructional practices. I want readers to know what curriculum is, beyond a packaged set of materials that's handed to us. I want readers to know that curriculum can be the world around us, curriculum can be storytelling, and curriculum can be the legacies we leave for our children. Curriculum can be healing. And most important, curriculum can be joy. This book helps readers to rethink curriculum and expands the possibilities for curriculum. Unearthing Joy builds on the ideas in Cultivating Genius, guiding educators toward the type of curriculum we want to see in the world.

Second, I want readers to know that joy is a serious, rigorous pursuit in education. Joy is not just about having fun and being oblivious to truth and justice. Joy is truth- and justice-oriented. When we disrupt misrepresentation and injustice, we invite joy in. Justice and joy have a serious and important relationship. There is no joy without justice. Joy also balances criticality-when we are fighting for justice and building a better world, joy and beauty can then enter our lives.

Third, I want readers to understand that the types of children we wish to cultivate and develop are possible. The purpose of schools is not just to prepare students for state exams, college, and careers. We want so much more for them. We want joy for them. We want them to know themselves. We want them to be problem solvers, knowledge seekers, empathic and curious. We want them to have consciousness, social awareness, and criticality. We want them to have intellect. Essentially, I want readers to walk away from the book with the word possibility dancing in their heads. Schools can be more purposeful and help prepare youth for the fullness of their lives.

I also want teachers to understand that this critical CHRE work begins with the self. Sometimes, it feels like the self is the only thing we can control in the educational system. We may not be able to control policies, but we can control how we think, how we teach, and how we love. In Unearthing Joy, I include a chapter on what it means to unearth the self and engage in the self-work, exploring the realms of our hearts and our souls-considering our excellencies as well as our challenges. I challenge educators to think about ideologies that serve children and those that do not. Before we get to advancing our practices, I want us to do the necessary self-work.

I want readers to go to art-to music, to poetry, to literary writings and other creative writings and texts-to solve problems in education. It is not just researchers and scholars who teach us; artists do, too. I kept this in mind as I was writing this book.

Finally, I want teachers to know that I love and appreciate them. I feel in community with them and I recognize the joy that they need to teach well. Teachers bring so much joy to classrooms when they practice with excellence, using culturally responsive methods. They bring so much joy into the lives of children. Teachers deserve joy. I'll say that again. Teachers deserve joy. And our leaders deserve it as well! They deserve to walk into schools where they feel safe, where they feel loved, where they are not discriminated against, where they are not pushed out, and where they are not mistreated. I want teachers to know that they deserve schools that serve as spaces of healing and wellness.
LF: Is there anything I haven't asked you that you wish I had?
Muhammad: Writing this book was an act of love. I felt excitement and urgency in my entire body as I penned each word. I also felt the ancestors beside me as I wrote, which is why I frequently use the collective "we." I listened to the ancestors and followed their directions as I unpacked justice, genius, and joy. I used the strategy of layering text, which I wrote about in Cultivating Genius. Each chapter has layers of music, poetry, quotations, and artwork. I am grateful that creative artist Pharrell Williams penned a beautiful foreword. There are even coloring pages that cap off each chapter. The layered playlists of songs at the beginning of each chapter are intended to be played softly in the background while reading to extend the text's meaning. My goal is for readers to experience a full embodiment of joy as they read.

The ancestors would always center joy, healing, and wellness in their lives, no matter the time, context, or oppression they faced. They taught me that joy enables us to be resilient when adversity, racism, or disappointment confronts us. Joy was their goal. So it must be our goal, too, to sustain who we are and advance the state of education. Joy is what the ancestors have fought for their entire lives, and it is what we need to unearth today.

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Gholdy Muhammad Champions 'Unearthing Joy' in Her New Book (Opinion)

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The esteemed educator explains the importance of bringing joy into the classroom and incorporating it into the curriculum.

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Art of listening without nodding, affirming, sympathizing, or showing any nonverbal expression

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Art of listening without nodding, affirming, sympathizing, or showing any nonverbal expression

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Active listening is at the heart of client-centered counseling and, once mastered, offers a powerful tool, valuable in our professional work, relationships, and personal lives (Miller & Rollnick, 2013).

When done well, active listening builds and maintains therapeutic alliances and bonds by showing empathy and creating opportunities for healing and growth. By reflecting back the emotions we hear, the client experiences messages of support and encouragement to continue their therapeutic journey.

In counseling, therapy, and coaching, active listening is one of the most potent tools for improving in-session dynamics, overturning unhelpful mindsets, and supporting transformation.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free. These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others.

What Is Active Listening?

Richard Nelson-Jones (2014) says we should recognize the difference between hearing and listening. While hearing involves receiving sounds and interpreting their meaning, listening involves accurately understanding their meaning.

Listening goes beyond hearing and committing words to memory by becoming aware and sensitive to nonverbal communication, such as the speaker's tone of voice, timing, speed of talking, body language, and context.

Active listening can be summed up as entailing "not only accurately understanding speaker's communication but also showing that understanding" and therefore embodies the skills of both the sender and the receiver (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 79).

It can also be helpful to consider what active listening isn't (Miller & Rollnick, 2013):

Rather than examples of listening, each is a roadblock that gets in the way of the client's self-exploration. The counselor, therapist, colleague, friend, and even loved one is saying, "Hold up, listen to me. I know best" (Miller & Rollnick, 2013).

The relationship with the client should take place within an egalitarian, nonhierarchical relationship, "with neither party occupying a 'one-up' or 'one-down' position in terms of status or authority" (Adams, 2016, p. 13).

Ultimately, the collaborative alliance must be fostered and maintained to allow goals, aspirations, fears, and plans to be worked through together.

What Is Empathetic Listening?

While both active and empathetic listening involve giving our full attention, the latter places particular attention on understanding the other person's emotional experience.

Accurate empathy is a helpful tool for facilitating self-exploration and, when used for communication within therapy or the workplace, can be game changing (Miller & Rollnick, 2013; Engel, 2018).

Simply put, empathic listening involves reflecting back the emotions we hear; for example, "You sound angry and upset." It shows understanding, encouraging the speaker to share more by validating them without judgment.

Ultimately, it requires us to suspend our biases and ego, showing that we are listening to understand rather than reply (Engel, 2018). For someone telling important truths about how they feel or sharing the experiences they are going through, nothing hurts more than not being heard.

Communicating empathically requires vulnerability for both the speaker and listener. Honest, open communication means the speaker leaves themself open to challenge or ridicule. It is not all one sided; the listener may also feel some of their hurt and pain.

Why Is Active Listening as a Skill Important?

"Behind the discipline of good listening is a trust that it is useful for clients to explore their own experience and perceptions" (Miller & Rollnick, 2013, p. 49). Ultimately, it keeps people going, motivating them to enter uncomfortable areas of conversation and work through difficult material.

Listening occurs in four different contexts within counseling sessions (Nelson-Jones, 2014):

Counselor listens to the therapist.

Client listens to the counselor.

Counselor listens to themself.

Client listens to themself.

If someone is listening poorly or focusing too much on themself, they will miss out on much of what is being communicated. On the other hand, listening well, actively, to the other person can equally enhance their inner listening (Nelson-Jones, 2014).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, active listening is recognized as the central skill in forming and maintaining relationships within therapy and counseling.

How to Use Active Listening in Communication

While good listening is crucial in communication, impacting almost all areas of our lives, it is rarely taught.

It is possible to increase our understanding of what it takes to listen well, share and receive information, and form more robust emotional bonds (Abrahams & Groysberg, 2021; Westland, 2015).

Active listening in counseling

The American Psychological Association (n.d.) describes active listening as a "psychotherapeutic technique in which the therapist listens to a client closely, asking questions as needed, in order to fully understand the content of the message and the depth of the client's emotion."

Typically, it involves the counselor learning to practice the following.

Adopt an attitude of respect and acceptance

"An accepting attitude involves respecting clients as separate human beings with rights to their own thoughts and feelings" (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 82). As counselors, we must suspend any judgment of clients' goodness or badness and recognize (as with our own) their capacity to fail based on the life skills they possess or are lacking.

We must also allow others to develop and grow at their own pace without trying to control or judge them. We must remain present and available, willing to let the clients' experiences and emotions affect us.

Develop an understanding of our clients' internal frame of reference

Active listening requires that we adopt the client's perspective, understanding their internal frame of reference. Therefore, we must recognize and understand the separateness of "me" and "you" by breaking out of our internal frame of reference and learning to walk in their shoes.

Provide small rewards and use open-ended questions

"Small rewards are brief verbal and non-verbal expressions of interest designed to encourage clients to continue speaking" (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 96). When used well, they can motivate, support, and encourage the client, saying, "I'm here with you. Please continue." They tell the client we are actively listening and would like to dig deeper.

Open-ended questions are powerful and a valuable way to promote active listening. "Do you feel your relationship is failing?" can be replaced with "How do you feel about your relationship?"

Closed questions can seem negative and potentially controlling, blocking clients' access to their internal frame of reference.

Reflecting feelings

Reflecting feelings shows we are in tune with the other person. While similar to paraphrasing, it isn't the same; we are "responding to clients' music and not just their words" (Nelson-Jones, 2014, p. 102). It is difficult, requiring the listener to emphasize and experience the client's emotional flow and then communicate it back.

One important skill that trainee counselors can learn involves listening for feeling words and phrases, including (Nelson-Jones, 2014):

Clients typically use a variety of feeling words, but they often cluster around central themes, such as a lack of self-confidence, difficulty coming to terms with loss, or fear of failing.

Once the counselor hears and understands these feelings, they can reflect them back, often using a variation of "You feel X because Y."

"You're angry and hurt because that person lied to you, and you can't tell them anymore."

Manage initial resistances

Resistance may present itself at any point during counseling. Perhaps the client is ambivalent, reluctant, or challenges the process based on what they think they need (Nelson-Jones, 2014).

Active listening skills can help with all forms of resistance. For example, a counselor encountering aggression, rather than challenging it or becoming sucked in, can reflect it back, showing, loud and clear, that the client's feelings have been heard and registered.

Take the following example:

Client: " This is a waste of time. My parents are idiots; they just don't get me."
Counselor: " You are angry coming here because you feel your parents are the ones with the problems. "

Feedback can open up further discussion regarding the client's feelings toward their parents and inform a greater understanding that can build the counseling relationship.

Active empathic listening

Active empathic listening involves going beyond the person's words and fully grasping their emotions. While valuable in any situation, it is particularly beneficial during therapy and in times of crisis (Crisis Prevention Institute, 2016; Westland, 2015).

Sometimes simply being with a person in a state of high emotional upset can be enough, especially when we are unsure of what to say or how best to provide comfort. Showing compassion and being willing to share our time can offer great support, mainly when we are doing the following (Crisis Prevention Institute, 2016):

Being nonjudgmental

Giving the other person our undivided attention

Listening carefully to feelings and facts

Sitting comfortably with silence

Using nonverbal messages to show we are listening and understanding

When clients are either overwhelmed by their emotions or unable to put feelings into words, being present, open, and authentic can offer an environment where they can find a safe place to calm down to share how they feel (Westland, 2015).

4 Active Listening Skills

Nelson-Jones (2014) suggests the following fundamental skills for effective active listening within the context of therapy sessions and beyond.

Receive voice messages accurately

How we frame our voice and our body can make significant differences to what we communicate, and it is vital that we maintain an awareness of each when speaking and listening. VAPER is a helpful acronym for monitoring and reviewing how our clients (or indeed ourselves) heighten or contradict the words we are using (modified from Nelson-Jones, 2014).

Volume - How loudly or softly are we speaking?

Articulation - Is our speech distinct? Does it lack clarity?

Pitch - Are we pitching our voice too high or too low?

Emphasis - Is our emphasis adequately contributing to the feelings we are sharing?

Rate - Are we speaking too quickly, without adequate pauses, or so slowly that we appear weak or unmotivated?

Receive body messages accurately

Trainees and experienced counselors should pay particular attention to nonverbal messages shared by the client's body. Such communication can indicate when they are holding back or concealing something, intentionally or otherwise.

Particular attention should be given to the following (Nelson-Jones, 2014):

Facial expression - How does the expression on their face represent how they feel?

Gaze - How much attention is directed at us? Where else are they looking?

Eye contact - Are they avoiding deeper communication or giving too much away by restricting eye contact?

Gestures - Are their gestures broad and sweeping or small, controlled, and inhibited?

Posture - Does how they sit provide information regarding their degree of confidence?

Physical closeness - Are they nearer or further away than four feet (a typical, acceptable distance between counselor and client)? And are there times they (or we) lean in closer to show interest or empathy?

Use paraphrasing

Mechanically parroting what another person is saying is annoying and damaging to the therapeutic relationship.

Instead, well-developed paraphrasing skills form part of active listening and show that the listener is engaged and understands what is being said (Nelson-Jones, 2014).

It is so effective that sparingly using the client's words and staying close to their language style actually reward the speaker's utterances.

Show awareness and understanding of context and differences

Clients' problems have a context; they do not exist in a vacuum. For each person, the contextual variables vary, as does their relevance. We must consider what the following contextual factors mean for the client (Nelson-Jones, 2014):

For counselors, it becomes increasingly important to become familiar with values, assumptions, and shared experiences relevant to communities within each of these groups.

Active Listening Exercises & Techniques

Like all skills, we can develop active listening through training and practice.

For couples

Successful relationships rely on good communication, and communication in relationships can be improved with practice (Greiger, 2015).

Validation
Couples must learn to validate one another. Rather than simply recognizing what their partners say, they can learn to validate how they feel.

Positive language
Learning to usepositive language (rather than negative and critical language) can stop one partner from feeling ambushed or criticized.

Increased eye contact
Looking at our partners directly in a calm and relaxed way can increase understanding and reduce miscommunication. Have couples practice looking each other directly in the eyes for up to five minutes.

For kids

Children can also benefit from active listening, and it is a skill that will help them in multiple areas of their lives (Listenwise, n.d.).

Stories and prediction
Sharing stories with children in groups and then asking them reflective questions encourages them to develop their active listening skills.

Creating questions
Children can practice their active listening skills by writing down questions while listening to their teacher talking.

Simon says
This fun game is a great way to ensure that children are competent listeners while learning how to focus and maintain their attention.

For parents

Parents should focus on active listening when communicating with their children. The following active listening techniques can help (The Center for Parenting Education, n.d.).

Show that you are listening to your child; they must realize they are worthy of your attention.

Hearing their upsets and their distress can help demonstrate the importance of their thoughts and feelings.

Allowing a child time to choose their course of action shows that you trust their reasoning.

Practice not judging your child and accepting (even if not agreeing) with what they say.

Learn to be objective and keep your personal feelings separate from your child.

Do not enter a conversation with a specific result in mind.

For managers

Active listening can form a valuable part of staff coaching, but it takes practice. Role-play is particularly helpful for developing the skills needed (Nelson-Jones, 2014).

Dealing with resistance

Work with a peer to practice overcoming resistance by using active listening skills. Practice situations where the employee is resistant to opening up about issues or difficulties at work by:

Showing increased emotional understanding

Giving them permission to be reluctant

Engaging with the individual's self-interest and self-protection

Rewarding them for their talking and sharing

Preparing the environment

Ensure that the environment is safe and secure for an open discussion. It can be helpful to set boundaries if there are several people to ensure that people aren't talked over and have the opportunity to ask questions.

Avoiding limiting language

Using the wrong sort of language can stop people from actively communicating. Try to avoid statements such as the following (Horton, 2019):

Providing advice - "Why don't you do this?" "You should try to ..."

Telling stories - "That reminds me of when I ..."

One-upping - "That's nothing. You should have seen what happened when I ..."

It is all too easy to stop people from openly communicating by suggesting that their views - what they think and how they feel - are less important.

Try these communication exercises for work to help implement active listening in the workplace.

Communication Resources From PositivePsychology.com

We have many resources available for improving the communication skills of therapists, counselors, and their clients.

Free resources include:

Anger Exit and Re-Entry
Sharethis three-step process with clients to take a couple from conflict to constructive communication.

Conflict Resolution Checklist
A valuable10-item checklist to help resolve conflict

Using "I" Statements
Using "I" Statements can be a straightforward way to communicate how you feel while simultaneously owning your feelings and outlining the details of the problem as you perceive it.

Assertive Communication
Understand the difference betweenassertive, aggressive, and passive communication by reflecting on personal scenarios.

More extensive versions of the following tools are available with a subscription to the Positive Psychology Toolkit©, but they are described briefly below:

Active-Constructive Responding
This exercise introduces participants to the concept ofcapitalization interactions in which one person talks about something positive that happened to them, and another person responds to that disclosure.

Listening Without Trying to Solve
This tool is based on the concept of listening without problem-solving. The group exercise invites participants to pair up and experience two scenarios: (1) sharing a problem while being listened to and (2) sharing a problem while receiving advice and solutions.

If you're looking for more science-based ways to help others communicate better, check out this collection of 17 validated positive communication tools for practitioners. Use them to help others improve their communication skills and form deeper and more positive relationships.

A Take-Home Message

Active listening is more than just sitting back quietly; it involves "what the interviewer says in response to what the speaker offers" (Miller & Rollnick, 2013, p. 49).

Rather than putting up roadblocks to open dialogue (blaming, shaming, and over-analyzing), the friend, colleague, family member, and therapist must show they are listening, understanding, and empathizing.

Neither party should aim for one-upmanship or authority, but rather should aim to form a collaborative alliance. When we show empathy as part of active listening, we encourage the speaker to share more by validating without judgment.

Active and empathetic listening is a vital skill in counseling. Mental health professionals adopt an attitude of respect and acceptance, understanding their client's internal frame of reference and reflecting back feelings to show they are in tune.

To ensure active listening with clients, we must remain present and available. And perhaps most importantly, we must learn and have the courage to walk in their shoes.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free.

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Active Listening: The Art of Empathetic Conversation

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Active listening is at the heart of client-centered counseling and, once mastered, offers a powerful tool, valuable in our professional work, relationships, and personal lives (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). When done well, active listening builds and maintains therapeutic alliances and bonds by showing empathy and creating opportunities for healing and growth.

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giving space for students to be free to share/talk/experience.

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giving space for students to be free to share/talk/experience.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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using art techniques & practices within our teaching

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using art techniques & practices within our teaching

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And it got me thinking about, why did you want to write this book? What were the challenges that you were seeing in education that you wanted to address?
Erica: This goes back to the advent of the accountability system in the late '90s and early 2000s, where for very good reasons that have to do with issues of equity and inclusion, policy makers focused on metrics of success such as test scores on fixed, normed reading and math tests, and measurable outcomes like attendance metrics, as the primary way that we as a society could understand whether we were serving all of our kids.

I think that approach was fundamentally misguided-because it eliminated all of those inspiring and arts-based practices that you described that were hallmarks of our childhood teaching and learning experiences. Because all of a sudden, if what counts as good learning looks like performance on a reading test, then all of our educational efforts get laser-focused in service of performing well on those metrics.

My experience both as an artist and an arts educator, is that the outcomes of arts practice are themselves the measure of learning. Making art of any kind is an act of representation , taking an idea and giving it a form for other people to respond to. That form is anything from a painting, a song, a Tik Tok video, you name it. Art-making is an act of representation. And the ability to create an effective representation is actually the single most important skill for all classroom learning.

The challenge is, when we fix the outcome of representation as performance on an exam, then we've eliminated all the choices for moving around the representational process. Because we're not really asking the fundamental questions that make learning compelling, like, What's the idea you have? How do these tools allow you to represent that idea? And how do audiences respond to your representation as a good version of that idea? And that's true from writing expository essays to using math equations to represent how to communicate a mathematical practice, to a complicated science experiment.

That's a long way of saying: I think we went off the rails when we let the outcome measures of standardized learning drive the design bus.

Erica: It is remaking our systems of teaching and learning by using arts practices as the foundation for what good teaching looks like, for what good learning can be, and how our learning environments can function.

Here's an example: in the chapter where I talk about remaking curriculum, I describe how the process of art-making is fundamentally the cycle of coming up with an idea, creating representations and then sharing those with an audience. The strong argument I'm making is that cycle, that process is the model for how all learning experiences are designed, regardless of the discipline that you're in. The foundation of the learning process ought to be coming up with the idea that is the subject of your inquiry, and developing tools for representation that are germane to that discipline. Every discipline has its own tools for representation. I don't think music ought to be used necessarily for representing math, though there is a place for that.

What I'm saying is, what are the tools for representation in mathematics? And how do those tools afford you to represent the idea or concept, and then what happens when you share those representations with an audience? What kind of feedback do you get? Does that give you an opportunity to help you think about the connection between the idea that you had and the representation that you've chosen? Does it teach something about that idea that they didn't already know? Either way, how should we understand what you get out of that process beyond simply knowing the facts of a particular discipline or domain.

Many of us grow up with artistic superpowers, artistic ways of knowing and doing. You don't have to be a tuba player! These artistic superpowers could serve us productively in our inquiries into other disciplines. And that's another way of saying, it's not that we all need to learn the tuba, right? It's the way of engaging in arts practice, which pretty much we all do whether you're a cook, or you make clothes for your family, or the myriad ways we express ourselves. In education we do everyone a disservice by not acknowledging that we should be drawing on those ways of knowing and doing as an integral part of how we learn to do stuff.
What I worry about is that students have to have the basic facts first in order to enjoy this kind of learning-what you're talking about here is a lot like project-based learning-and what we're missing, especially most often for the most vulnerable children, is that they don't have the basics to work with.
Erica: I think two things. There is a place for drill and practice as a tool for acquiring information. And the arts certainly do our versions of drill and practice-if you want to become a trained singer, you spend 20 minutes a day warming up your voice, to set the conditions for being able to sing. So I'm not arguing that there is not a time and place to use those tools. I think what we miss when we say you need to start with the basics, is that cognitively if students are not ready to use those tools to make something they care about, none of it is going to stick.

Here's an arts-based example: Video editing is an extremely technical and trying process, with many sets of technical tools, informational processes, etc. If you have no need for audio level adjustment, memorizing where and how audio level adjustment works is a bit of an act of futility. But, once you need to adjust the audio levels of an interview you've done-that info and knowledge, whatever you want to call it, is much more likely to become part of what you know and do if you use it than if you are in a video editing class and it was the week to learn about audio level adjustment.

The same goes for multiplication tables. We need to drill and practice in order to make that part of your memory, of course, in the same way that a video editor needs to adjust audio levels 40 times, so when it comes to being able to do that seamlessly they can do that with no problem. However, if the impetus of that drill isn't grounded in some practice of conceiving, representing and sharing, it's going to be much harder to motivate, much harder to sustain, and it's going to be harder to convince young people that it matters for them.
Holly: It makes me think of Jal Mehta's and Sarah Fine's book "In Search of Deeper Learning ." Some kids seem to gravitate towards this kind of project-based learning. In the book, they talk about how it's often the after-school activities that kids get so deep into-sports, the arts, marching band-because of exactly what you're saying.
Erica: Yeah, of course, you're going to find that in your 'after-school' time, because those practices are part of what it means to make things. And where are we mostly making things? We are mostly making things now outside of school time. There are often critiques of those after-school learning spaces, "But you're only talking about the kids who opt in." And my response has been, "That's because we don't give all kids the opportunity to do these things. We treat them as if they're special. What if there was an all-in system, because this is how we do teaching and learning at scale?"

Erica: Yes, and I think an even stronger claim is to stop equating school performance with smartness. The problem is not with the kids, the problem is with the way we've set up what these learning experiences are for. What you said-well that person isn't good at math. I would say, are they not good at math? Or, is the way that school math was designed not reflective of what it means to be smart in math?

And like, you may not like math class, but what I would hope for, is that we give more kids more chances to be smart, and enjoy more school-based disciplines, when we use these arts-based strategies to engage.

Erica: I think the number one thing that I learned is that good teaching and learning is built on a foundation of risk-taking. That is, learners' willingness to take a risk, and teachers' willingness to take a risk. Risk-taking means everything from a willingness to try out an answer and be wrong, to a willingness to take leadership, cognitive leadership or project leadership. There are a lot of ways that it looks. But my mantra is: we can't teach or learn anything unless we are willing to take a risk.

And a thing that I've learned from formal learning systems of all kinds, from tutoring to college classes to K-12 school: we don't scaffold risk-taking as a normal part of the way we design learning environments. Like, "getting to know you" games have a really bad reputation, and I think the reason is we've lost sight of what they're for. What they're for is to set the conditions for people to be able to take risks together, to learn and do new stuff.

There are many classroom teachers who do that as a natural part of their practice. When we go in with Whoopensocker, you can tell right away the classrooms that are set up to do that kind of risk-taking.

We always start with warm-up games for everyone. In classroom spaces that are not scaffolded for risk-taking, sometimes that is as far as we get in the first few weeks, just getting learners and teachers to do a call and response game altogether, which is its own form of risk. In classrooms that are set up for risk-taking, they are ready from the jump to contribute new ideas and let those ideas be a dialogue.

What I have learned from being an arts educator for 25 years in elementary school classrooms, is that scaffolding risk-taking is the single most important feature of an effective learning environment.

Erica: We can't afford for there not to be room. The kids who are consistently left out of the system, and this has not changed one iota since No Child Left Behind, are still being left out. Accountability systems have not created universally more successful schooling or equitable schooling.

So I would argue that we need to ditch the content-forward, content-pressured model of schooling, in service of scaffolding risk-taking as the mechanism into much deeper and more meaningful understanding of concepts and information and how they're represented in a discipline. I know as an individual classroom teacher, that's not a super-helpful comment, because that's a system-level response.

This only happens if we all collectively acknowledge that sticking things in the margins is not the way to systemic change. When you clean out your closet, how often are you shoving tee shirts into a drawer before you finally say, this drawer can't hold any more tee shirts? And you dump the whole drawer out?

The model of, "how do we shove more pieces into an already packed agenda?" is never going to get us anywhere.

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How arts practices can be the foundation of teaching and learning - MindShift

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Applying the creative and iterative processes of art can be applied to more academic subjects to make learning feel more relevant to students.

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Brittany Packnett Cunningham: How to build your confidence -- and spark it in others

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"Confidence is the necessary spark before everything that follows," says educator and activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham. In an inspiring talk, she shares three ways to crack the code of confidence -- and her dream for a world where revolutionary confidence helps turn our most ambitious dreams into reality.

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️ https://t.co/CwX49HzHMX

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/CwX49HzHMX
— Gholdy Muhammad (@GholdyM) June 14, 2022

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️ https://t.co/CwX49HzHMX

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️ https://t.co/CwX49HzHMX

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Histories. Identities. Literacies. Liberation. 📚 It’s as simple as that 💁🏽‍♀️

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Checking Boxes | The Loving Generation: Part 1 | Topic

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Stamped from the Beginning | Official Trailer | Netflix

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Created with the goal of driving deep discussions following screenings of Little White Lie, the Truth Circle Game is a multi-player card game that uses a narrative-based approach to engage with key themes from the film, including complex racial identities, family dynamics, and person truth.

A semi-structured conversation shaped by participants, the game requires one designated facilitator and 2+ participants.

The deck includes a set of cards, a booklet, a tuck box, and a corresponding discussion guide.

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Truth Circle Game - Playing Cards Deck - Little White Lie

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Created with the goal of driving deep discussions following screenings of Little White Lie , the Truth Circle Game is a multi-player card game that uses a narrative-based approach to engage with key themes from the film, including complex racial identities, family dynamics, and person truth. A sem

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What defines our identity, our family of origin or the family that raises us? How do we come to terms with the sins and mistakes of our parents? Lacey discovers that answering those questions means understanding her parents' own stories as well as her own. She pieces together her family history and the story of her dual identity using home videos, archival footage, interviews, and episodes from her own life. Little White Lie is a personal documentary about the legacy of family secrets, denial, and the power of telling the truth.

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Little White Lie is a personal documentary about dual identity, race and the legacy of family secrets, denial, and redemption.

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Featuring personal surveys alongside real-life interviews with those who have been affected by racial biases first-hand, this open and thoughtful guide will lead readers on a path to understanding, action, and change.

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lies about black people: how to combat racist stereotypes and why it matters

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Lies about Black People: How to Combat Racist Stereotypes and Why It Matters (HC) (2023)

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From the Black Lives Matter movement to the health and economic disparities exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been forced to reckon with our country's fraught history - and present - of racial bias and inequality. Now that we have scratched the surface on courageous conversations about race, many are wondering: what is the next step towards healing and justice?

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As organizations grow in volume and complexity, the demands on leadership change. The same old moves won't cut it any more. In Chess Not Checkers, Mark Miller tells the story of Blake Brown, newly appointed CEO of a company troubled by poor performance and low morale. Nothing Blake learned from his previous roles seems to help him deal with the issues he now faces. The problem, his new mentor points out, is Blake is playing the wrong game.

The early days of an organization are like checkers: a quickly played game with mostly interchangeable pieces. Everybody, the leader included, does a little bit of everything; the pace is frenetic. But as the organization expands, you can't just keep jumping from activity to activity. You have to think strategically, plan ahead, and leverage every employee's specific talents-that's chess. Leaders who continue to play checkers when the name of the game is chess lose.

On his journey, Blake learns four essential strategies from the game of chess that transform his leadership and his organization. The result: unprecedented performance!

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As organizations grow in volume and complexity, the demands on leadership change. The same old moves won't cut it any more. In Chess Not Checkers, Mark Miller tells the story of Blake Brown, newly appointed CEO of a company troubled by poor performance and low morale.

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From Conflict to Collaboration: A School Leader's Guide to Unleashing Conflict's Problem-Solving Power

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The book is a "how-to" guide identifying leadership characteristics and practical strategies that demonstrate how leaders can constructively channel a school's inevitable conflicts and instill a s...

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Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman agreed to answer a few questions in writing about their book, Unconscious Bias In Schools: A Developmental Approach to Exploring Race and Racism.

Dr. Tracey A. Benson, a former high school principal, is currently an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman is a former elementary school principal and now an educational consultant.
LF: Your book covers so much ground and is introduced in an unusual context-the role of unconscious bias in the relationship between the two of you. Could you describe what happened and a few key things you each learned out of it? Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman:
We began our journey together as colleagues teaching in the School Leadership Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As teaching teams sometimes go, we spent almost as much time planning as we did teaching, in order to ensure everyone had equal say in designing each lesson. The most powerful experiences from our time together as a teaching team were when we developed opportunities for students to engage in conversations about race and racism and debriefed them together.

The course-planning sessions and class-session activities revealed two important things to us over the course of our time working together: Our students deeply needed these opportunities to navigate topics of race prior to stepping into leadership roles and our teaching team was not immune to racism and racial biases even as we planned learning opportunities for others.

We had many honest and uncomfortable discussions about race and racism with each other that year. One such discussion exemplifies the difficulty in facilitating open and honest conversations about race. With our teaching-team colleagues, we had convened a racial-affinity fishbowl activity with our students. During the session, we noticed that when the white affinity group was at the center of the fishbowl, they chose to remain mostly silent during their 15 minutes at the center. However, the people-of-color affinity group immediately struck up a deep conversation and talked honestly during their entire time in the center. The three white members of the teaching faculty elected to sit at the center with the white affinity group but did not verbally participate.

The white teaching faculty's choice not to participate didn't raise an eyebrow during the session but surfaced later in a discussion between the entire teaching team when Tracey and another teaching-team member of color pointed out that they had courageously sat with and participated vigorously with the student-of-color affinity group. This discussion among the teaching team highlighted that the white members of the team chose to invoke their white privilege-acquiescing to their white fragility and discomfort-by remaining silent in a way the members of color on the teaching team, who felt compelled to support their students of color, did not.

Intense experiences like this prompted us to continue engaging in race-based conversations during the class as well as after our time together on the teaching team was over. Sarah's invitation to Tracey to join the book project came out of the hours we'd spent on the phone and in person discussing race. And, while our time together on the teaching team and our former lives as school principals bonded us, racism and racial bias was present, and is still present, in our working relationship. We give several accounts of how racism and racial bias played out in our co-authoring relationship during the writing of the book in Chapter 2. While these interactions were not initially planned as a part of the book, we decided that sharing our difficult conversations and disagreements about how racism affected our relationship as white and black co-authors was significant to illustrating and normalizing the difficulties our readers will likely experience as they delve into addressing racism and racial bias in their professional relationships, organizations, and communities.
LF: You write about how some teachers and schools believe they operate as "colorblind," and others as "color-mute." It was the first time I had heard of the second term. Could you explain each, why you think teachers and schools operate in those ways, and their negative implications for students and communities? Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman:
Common phrases we hear from people who espouse a colorblind philosophy are, "I don't see color, I just see the person" and "I don't care if someone is black, brown, or purple, I treat all people the same." We use the term " espouse" to describe this philosophy, because we all know that, unless someone is physically colorblind, it is truly impossible not to see color. In our opinion, these individuals are honestly conveying their aspiration that all people be treated equally but missing the boat on realizing the impact of racial bias in the United States in general and in themselves. Objective data from research shows that people of color are treated differently based on race[i], including in schools where students of color are more likely to be given harsher consequence than white students, curricular materials establish whiteness as the norm and marginalize or exclude people of color, and language used to describe inequitable outcomes for black and brown children locates the problem exclusively in students (i.e., achievement gap, school-to-prison pipeline, underperforming) rather than those responsible for educating them.

Espousing colorblindness assumes everyone has the same experience in America, fails to recognize the societal implications of being a person of color, and discounts the history people of color have experienced in our society. Moreover, what does espousing colorblindness truly mean? Does "I treat everyone the same" mean "I treat everyone as if they are white?" Does it mean "I don't want to discuss what it means to be a person of color in our society?" Rather than increase equality, a philosophy of colorblindness bolsters the legacy of racism in our society. Racism and racial bias continue to result in disparate lifetime outcomes for students and people of color. Refusing to see, acknowledge, and fight against this legacy only further supports the normalization of whiteness at the expense of people of color.

Mica Pollock coined the term "color-mute" to describe the phenomenon of educators avoiding talking about race in schools.[ii] Educators in schools that practice color-muteness may see disparities in student outcomes by race, but they do not verbally define these disparities by racial differences or attribute these differences to racism or racial bias in the system. Color-mute school policies are written in the language of "all students," even when a more specific policy is needed to address the specific needs of students of color. The recent popular phrase "All Lives Matter" in response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement is a prime example of colo-rmuteness in action. Because, while it may be true that police reform is necessary for all citizens, specific policy reform is needed to protect the lives of black citizens who are being incarcerated and shot by police officers at higher rates than white citizens[iii].

One of the root causes of colorblind and color-mute philosophies comes from a lack of know-how and fear. White adults, having often been raised in color-mute households and attending color-mute schools, have not developed the skill to talk about race and racism in productive ways. In many well-meaning white households, children are taught that talking about race is rude and inappropriate. As a consequence, when white children say racially insensitive things (often out of sheer ignorance), they are often shushed and scolded rather than engaged and redirected to a more productive way to talk about race. When these white children become adults, they do not have the tools to discuss race productively, leaving them to stumble through conversations which often leave them feeling shameful, guilty, and angry.

Since the ability to openly discuss racism and racial bias is an essential starting point, the lack of know-how and comfort among white teachers and school leaders undermines efforts to identify and address racial disparities and racism in the schoolhouse. Moreover, due to this inability to talk openly about the need for specific strategies to address racism and racial bias in schools, school leaders often elect to implement color-mute programs (i.e., extended day, after-school support, social-emotional learning curriculum, etc.) to address racial disparities, not realizing that unaddressed racism and racial bias within the schoolhouse will always undermine these efforts as well.
LF: One chapter is titled "Cultivate A Brave Community." Can you define what that is and what it looks like in practice? Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman:
Cultivating a brave community involves infusing conversations about race, racism, and racial bias into the common language of the school. In our experience, most schools reserve conversations about race and racism for special diversity-centered professional-development days. By doing this, school leaders signal that these conversations are good to have but only on specifically designated days. Moreover, by keeping these oftentimes uncomfortable conversations pocketed to specific designated times, schools limit their capacity to become more comfortable with engaging in tough conversations about race. By breaking out of the "this is our diversity day" culture, schools can begin to acknowledge that racial bias is a persistent problem that necessitates persistent discussion, planning, and attention.

In a school cultivating a brave community, educators confront racial bias openly and honestly. In order to create an atmosphere that values honesty and a commitment to becoming better as a community, leaders deliberately cultivate trust. Trust doesn't come from hearing people's good intentions. Trust comes from witnessing people's actions. When colleagues stay in a hard conversation with respect and honesty even when it's uncomfortable or frustrating for them, that builds trust. Colleagues increasingly believe in each others' desire to grow as anti-racists. Two processes that help build trust are establishing clear norms and using protocols for structured conversations. Norms and discussion protocols help us establish new patterns of behavior. We often use Glenn Singleton's norms for Courageous Conversations.[iv] For example, a norm of "speak your truth" encourages individuals, especially in mixed-race settings, to speak from their own personal experience. Another norm of "expect and accept nonclosure" sets the expectation that no matter the depth and breadth of conversation, the issues of racial bias may not be solved in a day.

Brave communities often use protocols in ongoing small-group conversations about a specific text or racial-affinity-group conversations to help school administrators and teachers become more comfortable talking about racism and racial bias. Equally important in brave communities are conversations around key data points and observations that indicate racial disparities in the schoolhouse. For example, instead of waiting for the "diversity professional-development day", a school leadership team may choose to examine and plan around racially disparate data at weekly leadership-team meetings. In preparation for these weekly meetings, the leadership team may choose to collect and disaggregate race-specific data in areas such as classroom participation, participation in extracurricular activities, students selected for positive recognition, or school attendance. Too often, efforts to address racial disparities in education focus exclusively on disparities in student discipline. While we agree that this is an important area to investigate, this is just one area of student experience in school. The aforementioned areas are just as, if not more, important to examine and plan around because these areas represent the climate students live in on a daily basis.

Building the ability to talk about race and unconscious racial bias is not only for the benefit of people of color. White people also benefit from conversations about race. Most white people don't think of themselves as having a race since our society teaches that whiteness is the norm and only people of color have a racial identity (think "flesh" colored Band-Aids, "ethnic" hair products versus just "normal" hair products, etc.). In this context, most white people don't understand a) that they have a racial identity, and b) how their racial identity influences their daily life experience. This white-centric thinking and acculturation has left generations of white people race-illiterate, unable to have the most basic conversations about race and racism without feeling ashamed, guilty, or angry.

Tracey remembers being invited to a multigenerational event in Boston, which focused specifically on talking about the dynamics of race and racism. At that event, he vividly recalls how the adults mostly sat silent, and those who spoke did so with pause and trepidation, while the kids, as young as 3 years old, spoke about how race and racism played out at their schools with honesty and without filter, which made many of the adults in the room visibly uncomfortable. The goal of continuously cultivating and nurturing a brave community is to help adults speak more honestly and freely about race and racism, without worrying about making a mistake or saying something wrong. Yes, exposing ones internalized racism is terrifying. Yes, speaking freely without worrying about who may get offended is scary. However, without brave spaces where these conversations take place frequently, we can never build and learn together about how to eliminate racism and racial bias.
LF: It's not unusual for white teachers to come away feeling defensive after attending any kind of "diversity" professional-development sessions. There may not be any way around that result, but what advice would you give to school or district leadership that wants to provide some kind of training to its faculty and staff? Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman:
This question is at the heart of our book and one of the main reasons we decided to write about this topic! As principals, each of us initially avoided talking directly about race and racism with our staff even though we wanted to. We anticipated that white teachers would shut down and that their defensiveness would prevent us from getting traction with improvement. What we came to realize is that this defensiveness comes from a particular mindset about racism that has taken hold in the United States. This binary mindset sorts people into two categories: racist or nonracist. Within this mindset, if you are a good person with good intentions, you fall on the nonracist side of the binary. Bad people who dislike people of color are on the opposite side. When we subscribe to this mindset, we have only two ways of identifying ourselves: good or bad, nonracist or racist. In this model, if we have good intentions, by definition we are nonracists. This is the justification behind the common claim, "I don't have a racist bone in my body." This attachment to being a "good nonracist" and not a "bad racist" causes many well-intentioned white people to become hyper-defensive at the suggestion that they too have racial bias.

If we want to help educators see the ways their behaviors may be negatively impacting students of color, we first need to help them decouple racism from intentions. We have found that the concept of unconscious bias provides an entry point for white educators to understand that while they may hold good intentions, their actions can still harm students. No matter our good intentions, we have been raised in a society that teaches us to treat black and brown children with more suspicion and less intellectual respect and to treat white children as more deserving of second chances and rigorous learning. These biases reside in our unconscious and seep into our speech and actions. When the two of us work with teachers and leaders, we give examples of ways we have each treated students of color unfairly to demonstrate that none of us is immune to these biases.

When we teach people the fallacy of the binary mindset, we encourage them to instead take a developmental approach. We are all on a journey of unlearning the lies society has taught us about the intellectual, cultural, social inferiority of black and brown people and the corresponding superiorities of white people. Understanding the grip of the binary mindset can help school and district leaders build empathy for white teachers who come away feeling defensive after talking about racism and racial bias. Instead of viewing defensive teachers as resistant, breaking out of racial binary thinking can help school leaders see teachers on a continuum of learning, instead of being stuck and unwilling to learn.

However, just because the leader understands these aspects of adult learning with relation to race doesn't mean the job of leading a brave community will be any easier. No matter how much we prepare before leading discussions around race and racial bias, there will be hurt feelings, frustrations, defensiveness, and unease. These feelings are par for the course and a necessary part of engaging adults who may not have ever been consistently challenged to examine their racism and racial bias. In fact, if there are sessions or a series of sessions that do not involve some level of discomfort, leaders may be opting for harmony and peace over doing the real work of truly addressing racial bias.
LF: What are three concrete actions you could recommend that teachers take during this new school year to examine their unconscious (also known as implicit) bias and work to counteract it? Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman:
The first step we recommend is that teachers and administrators first focus on themselves. Racial bias is so fundamental to the American life that we all need to continually self-reflect on our complicity with upholding a system that routinely advantages whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. Racial biases affect every aspect of American society, evident by disparate outcomes between white people and people of color in areas such as health care, life expectancy, household income, employment, incarceration, wealth, representation in the media, and access to a high-quality education. Racial bias influences where we live, where we send our kids to school, where we work, and even who we have in our social circles. Given this context, before we take any action steps that involve others, we need to engage in self-examination.

In the book, we explain how essential it has been to each of us to examine the ways the binary mindset about racism has influenced our thinking and work. In different ways, we have each absorbed the belief that a person is either racist or nonracist. For Tracey, this has meant confronting his tendency to write people off as soon as they say something that shows an ignorance of racism. He's realized that in order to help people grow, he needs to see them as learners on a developmental continuum. Sarah has worked to name rather than hide her unconscious biases-her racism. She's learning to recognize that the impulse to prove that she's a "good" white person inhibits her development as an anti-racist. We're both actively working to dismantle the ways this binary shows up in our thinking and inhibits our own and others' development. Sorting others and ourselves into good/bad, nonracist/racist categories prevents learning. It's crucial that leaders begin by examining themselves.

Our second recommendation is to focus on impact, not intent. We suggest teachers who are interested in reducing the impact of racial bias in their schools and school communities, engage in ongoing inquiry about the experiences of students of color in their classrooms and schools. The second half of the book is full of strategies for how educators and educational leaders can concretely diagnose and challenge bias in their schools including developing measurable strategies to address the ways racial bias impacts students. For example, which students go to see the counselors in school, access after-school programming, get special jobs in the classroom, are recommended for AP classes, report they are treated fairly in the cafeteria, see themselves reflected in the books in the school library, can name an adult they trust at school, etc. One way this inquiry might play out is through peer observation.

For example, a teacher might ask which students are asked higher-order-thinking questions that prompt a student to analyze and synthesis, and which students are asked lower-order-thinking questions that simply require a student to remember or recall? When a teacher partners with a colleague or a school administrator to observe and document which students are called on and the types of questions asked to each student, by race, the teacher may uncover how his/her unconscious racial bias may be manifesting itself in daily lessons. Do white students persistently get asked higher-level-thinking questions than students of color? We've seen these types of unconscious behaviors in classrooms on more than one occasion. And, while these types of behaviors may seem mundane, if these patterns go unchecked, 1) the students of color are being shortchanged on their education every day, and 2) white students are unconsciously absorbing the racial bias of the teachers, priming them to continue the generational cycle of racial bias in our society.

Finally, our third recommendation is to not fear failure. Failing forward is how we get better at leading discussions about race. Unlike courses we've taken in schools and colleges that help us master a particular set of knowledge and skills, most leaders have never taken a course on facilitating discussions about race and racism. While some leaders may have higher levels of experience, a greater knowledge base, and a greater comfort with leading race-based discussions, no one is an expert. As a teaching team with aspiring principals, we would often tell our students when asked about how to talk about race in schools, "You will get it wrong a lot. But you need to get it wrong in order to learn how to get it right." The most important way to get better at dealing with discomfort is to practice dealing with discomfort. You can only do this by actually pressing forward into discomfort and learning how to navigate it once you've arrived.
LF: Thank you, Dr. Benson and Dr. Fiarman
[i] See for example, Sendhil Mullainathan, "Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions," New York Times, January 3, 2015.

[ii] Mica Pollock, Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 8-9.

[iii] Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito, "Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2019, 116 (34) 16793-16798; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1821204116, and Federal Bureau of Prisons, "Statistics: Inmate Race" retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp on August 30, 2019.

[iv][iv] Glenn E. Singleton, Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2015), 56-58.

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Author Interview: 'Unconscious Bias in Schools' (Opinion)

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Dr. Tracey A. Benson and Dr. Sarah E. Fiarman agreed to answer a few questions about their book, "Unconscious Bias In Schools: A Developmental Approach to Exploring Race and Racism."

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Raising Multiracial Children: Tools for Nurturing Ident...

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Read 11 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. The essential guide to parenting multiracial and multiethnic children of all ages and learn...

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Selected political and personal essays, columns, and blogs by NYC-based musician and educator Sonny Singh. Sonny's writings on Sikhism and social justice, South Asian Americans, Islamophobia and more have been published in Colorlines, Asian American Literary Review, Open City Magazine, Left Turn Mag

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Home page of The Slants, an electronic dance music, indie, pop, rock group from Portland, OR. Synthpop/Dance rock group making music & nonprofit organization serving artist-activists

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Learn powerful, practical strategies for creating an inclusive school community that honors the different identities expressed by students and peers.

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How much this book impacts a teacher and their practice is undoubtedly dependent on where they teach. I am fortunate to teach in a district that prioritizes equity through district policy. All faculty members regularly participate in CARE (Collaborative Action Research for Racial Equity) learning sessions to analyze their practices, relationships, and interactions with colleagues and students through a racial lens with the goal of recognizing and eliminating both individual and systemic racial biases. Our curriculum, too, is teacher-driven and centers texts from diverse authors.

I could, of course, say more, but my point is that much of what Muhammad lays out in Unearthing Joy is ingrained in the daily workings of my classroom and of the rooms surrounding it. And it should be. But it means that this book ended up being more validating than life-changing. Muhammad highlights the necessity of creating opportunities for students to learn about their own identities, to increase intellect and criticality, and to experience and enjoy beauty, aesthetics, wellness, wholeness, and happiness in the curriculum.

And it's like, well, yeah, of course.

She also takes it as a given that her readers believe that all cultures are worth learning about and that injustices must be disrupted and that there ARE injustices. I admire her frank and unapologetic insistence on this model but also wonder how anyone who hasn't unlearned racism would react to any of this. I guess they just would never pick up this book. And if the people who would pick it up agree with all of this already, who is it for?

Well new teachers, for one. Ten years ago, I thought skills were all that mattered. It was through time and experience and reading and reading and more reading that I became secure enough in my own understandings and in my own pedagogy to see criticality as a primary pursuit of education. And it was through collaboration with compassionate and creative teachers on ideas and lessons that some might deem too "fluffy" (shout out, Steph, heyyy-yo) that I began incorporating identity and joy into my curriculum design. It took time to make a habit out of these practices, and maybe there's no way around the time and experience part of being a good teacher, but perhaps if the right person gives a young teacher this book, it may give them the confidence, and even some know-how, to start working toward these pursuits.

The thing that stood out to me most, though, is that these pursuits should not and cannot be dependent on individual teachers; rather, they should be school-wide policy, built into the curriculum and even the mission of the school district, expected and supported by school leaders. And that, perhaps, is the most significant point she's making because that touches everything from curriculum revision to grading policies to scheduling.

But for my individual practice, the section I am most likely to return to is the huge list of questions, organized by the five pursuits, on pages 127-129. I consistently give my students diagnostic surveys and reflection surveys about their successes and goals, and Muhammad includes dozens of questions I'd love to add into my rotation. As Muhammad says, 'We ask what we value."

Joy encompasses so much. Joy is feeling special. Joy is celebration and collaboration. Joy is learning in unique ways. Joy is confidence. Joy is love.

This sequel, of sorts, to Cultivating Genius gives readers the next steps to begin utilizing the HILL model in schools and classrooms, and there's a variety of ways to do so. She shares her pursuits again, but adds a fifth one: joy.

Muhammad proves the need for joy in the classroom, and how teachers can embrace it. We educators must "unearth" ourselves first-get to know, understand, and believe in our responsibilities-before we can put Muhammad's genius into practice. That "teacher education" involves studying ourselves and humanity, as well as the history of BIPOC education and the need for joy and self-care. There's also a need for "leader education," for a whole school community will only jump onboard if these five pursuits are embraced by our leaders. As Muhammad says, "It is easy to be ignorant. It takes work to maintain genius" (178).

From there, she takes us on a journey. One that teaches us how to reimagine and redesign curriculum, and ways to use the five pursuits beyond the classroom, like creating our own literary societies. Her plant metaphor is woven in beautifully throughout, reminding us the need to plant seeds for future generations. See how she weaves in joy, from her words, to the coloring pages, to the Spotify playlists. You'll love it all.

I've been waiting to read Gholdy Muhammad's Unearthing Joy for SO long, and it did not disappoint! I've grown as a person, student, and teacher for reading it, and I know I can make great use of it so my students-our learning community-can thrive in genius and joy. Both Cultivating Genius and Unearthing Joy should be mandatory reading for anyone going into education, as well as those who are already there.

The perfect continuation of very necessary conversations. Unearthing Joy could easily help reshape the teaching profession. Remembering your purpose and having strategies for reconnecting with your purpose when you are pulled away from it are keys to restoring the "career educator". Our society is in desperate need of intelligent, hardworking, and compassionate educators. We are long overdue for a system that respects these people, pays them well, and honors them by not overworking them or requiring them to be martyrs. This book speaks to the heart and should be read by everyone. To fully reach the goals explained in the book, we need a system that respects the work teachers do.

This is the guide we've been waiting for.

Dr Gholdy Muhammad is very practical and provides lots of examples for implementing Culturally and Historically Responsive Education (CHRE). She encourages participation of families and communities in a student's learning, and advocates for a very wholistic method of teaching. I wonder about assesment methods, especially when evalutaing criteria such as identity and joy. I can imagine we could be prone to discrimination when giving a mark for these pursuits in particular. I'm not sure I fully agree with Dr Gholdy Muhammad's understanding of joy, but I would love for it to be pursued in the classroom.

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Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically ...

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How much this book impacts a teacher and their practice is undoubtedly dependent on where they teach. I am fortunate to teach in a district that prioritizes equity through district policy.

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For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy)

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For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy) [Emdin, Christopher] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and…

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Fueled by purpose, Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an award-winning activist, educator, and writer. Find out more.

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Lacey Schwartz Delgado is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning producer, writer, director, outreach strategist who draws on her interdisciplinary background to create compelling stories that span documentary and fiction. Schwartz Delgado is the co-founder of the multi-media production company Truth Aid Media, along with Mehret Mandefro. She also works with innovative organizations and brands to impact change on personal, familial, institutional, and societal levels.Across 40 different countries and spanning topics from human rights to wage transparency, Lacey turns research to story, then story into action to rewrite the normative narrative. Lacey's work stems from the belief that storytelling is the one of the most powerful tools we can use to reclaim our sense of self, and bridge societal divides.

Lacey's innate and transformational resilience inspired an incredible gift for truth telling that informs the narratives she tells and shapes the aesthetic approach she brings to her craft. An extraordinary storyteller and sought-after speaker, her work challenges audiences to engage with each other and the world through the lens of authenticity and transparency.

Lacey is best known for writing, directing and producing the internationally recognized personal documentary, Little White Lie, a story about uncovering secrets and coming to terms with your identity, which has been distributed worldwide and is now available on iTunes and Amazon prime. Little White Liepremiered on PBS' Independent Lens in 2015, with the highest rating of the season, one of the highest series ratings ever and the highest for NY's WNET. She was also the executive producer of the narrative film Difret which was the first film to win audience awards at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. She directed and produced the viral digital series The Loving Generation for topic.com. Lacey also produced How it Feels To Be Free, which premiered on PBS's American Masters and was nominated for an Emmy for best documentary film/series. She hosted, directed and produced BET's Content for Change Black X Jewish a 30-minute special that examines the connections between anti-semitism and racism and how Black and Jewish communities in America can come together to fight against hate.

Lacey has a BA from Georgetown University, a JD from Harvard University, and is a member of the New York State bar. A native of Woodstock, NY, Lacey is also the Second Lady of New York and currently lives in Rhinebeck with her husband, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, and their twin sons, Maxwell and Coltrane.

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Lacey Schwartz Delgado is an Emmy-nominated and award-winning producer, writer, director, outreach strategist who draws on her interdisciplinary background to create compelling stories that span documentary and fiction. Schwartz Delgado is the co-founder of the multi-media production company Truth Aid Media , along with Mehret Mandefro.

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To better understand dynamics within corporate environments, Dr. Talusan earned her certificate in Human Resources where she focused on the dynamics of intercultural communication in the workplace.

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Sonny has over two decades of experience facilitating workshops and giving talks on anti-oppression, racial equity, and social justice issues. He regularly leads trainings for nonprofit organizations, activist groups, schools, and colleges/universities, and is sought after for his transformative approach to education and social change. His pedagogical approach centers reflection, honest dialogue, and critical systemic analysis. Sonny is also a member of the training teams at the Center for Racial Justice in Education and Race Forward.

Sonny has been active in movements for social and economic justice since he was a teenager and worked as a labor and community organizer in his 20s. He received his Master's Degree in Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he studied and practiced the art of using education as a tool for liberation.

Sonny's writing on racial politics, Sikhs in America, Islamophobia, and more have been published in the Huffington Post, India Abroad, The Langar Hall, Colorlines, Sikh Chic, Left Turn, Asian American Literary Review, Race, Class, and Gender in the United States (9th Edition), and Open City Magazine. He was a 2014-2015 Open City Fellow for the Asian American Writers' Workshop, covering stories in Richmond Hill, Queens.

Sonny is currently a board member of TakeRoot Justice.

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Social Justice Educator & Trainer - Sonny Singh

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Homepage for Sonny Singh's work as a social justice educator, trainer, and writer. Based in NYC, Sonny provides trainings and talks for a wide variety of nonprofit organizations and schools on topics such as anti-oppression analysis and practice, racial equity, Sikhs in the US, and music and social

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— DERRICK BARNES, National Book Award finalist for Victory. Stand!; Newbery Honor winner for Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut

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H.I.L.L. ​(​Histories, Identities, Literacies and Liberation​) Pedagogies, LLC is a consultation and presentation agency with a focus on the historical foundations of literacy development and the writing practices among Black communities. The agency offers professional learning that shapes the national conversation for educating youth who have been underserved and works with teachers and young people across the United States and abroad in best practices in culturally responsive instruction.