These are my notes from the presentation: This was the first break-out session after the key note with Dr. Eddie Moore for the Guided Pathways: Designing for Equity – Rendezvous 2018 conference on Monday, July 23, 2018. He led this session as well. According to the program: Participants will engage in activites and large and small group discussions grounded in exploring what teachers need to implement quality multicultural education into their classrooms. Participants will also engage in short and long-term goal setting for the classrooms and institutions.
How do we remember what we are going to do?
The Formula (Troy Cicero)
- Do your work. Everyone has work to do. What we learned from 0-5 is the foundation of our thinking and we have to overcome that. Some conditioning is good, some is bad. Implicit bias website test was mentioned.
- It is not that 2+3 does not equal 4 but we can look at 4 in a different way (2 squared, 3+1, four dots, etc). Educators are conditioned to not think of those students as “ready for school.” What are you doing in your life that allows you to be flexible about how we see 4. We are trying to accomplish goals that are against the institutional systemic design.
He had us listen to the song Michelle Kwan is an American and asked us to reflect on where we are today.
Is it possible to have a 100% inclusive institution. Are we prepared for the levels of diversity we are facing now? He gave us the scattered numbers image.
Model for learning – Skills Learning: update, unlearn, reconsider, and redefine. In our society – we can do nothing and be “just good people,” but we need to do more to change society. If we are already doing things, we need to help our colleagues. We need someone or something to help us.
He mentioned more than once the idea of a portfolio or a way to demonstrate diversity competencies. We need young people with global intercultural competencies.
He discussed various multicultural worksheets such as “Diversity Bingo” that he uses to start conversations with students about diversity.
A definition of racist – the person who benefits from from the “-ism.”
We reviewed what definitions we use for diversity and how out-dated they are. One of the things we can do is be inclusive in our language in general. We can evolve our language and how we communicate with our students. Is your language inclusive?
Integration without preparation doesn’t work.
He played Gil-Scott Heron’s Whitey on the Moon and asked us how the artist would be perceived assessment-wise. Kendrick LaMar’s I is the black national anthem today.
He suggested that we have a song day. Another attendee uses music at the beginning of classes.
