January is Diversity Celebration Month - Week Four

Welcome to week four of our Diversity Celebration Month. If you have not read the January Blog, here is the link (this post will make much more sense after having read or listened to it first). And just to note, if you are already incorporating these kinds of strategies--you are amazing and creating an inclusive and safe place for others. It also significantly increases a student's ability to comprehend the important content in our classes. Keep at it and be encouraged that this work helps our students to be the success that we know they can be--no matter what life throws at them. You are a difference-maker.  

Here are week four's strategies for creating inclusivity in our schools:

Attend to Healing

The effects of oppression are complex and often hinder our ability to take action. Integrate ongoing healing processes when designing for equity.

Why?

As Adrienne Marie Brown says, “We all have the capacity to heal each other.” Equity work is challenging and emotional. Trauma, past and current, is often an unrecognized factor as we seek to collaborate and build trust within our teams. To be effective we must attend to our wellbeing and healing on an ongoing basis.

How:

• Establish protocols to name situations when someone feels pain or when there is an opportunity for healing. 

• Practice healing in group and private settings. Consistent use of check-ins, somatic work, counseling, retreats, or creative outlets supports team well-being.

• Make it a part of your design process, prioritizing healing in project planning.

• Explore existing frameworks for equitable conflict management like Restorative Justice practices.

Exercise Creative Courage

Every human is creative. Creative courage allows us to push through self-doubt and creative fragility so we can design bravely against oppression.

Why? 

Oppression creates fear of change. Succumbing to fear quells creativity. We must act courageously to imagine possibilities beyond the confines of the dominant culture.

All people are creative despite what we might believe about ourselves. Building our creative muscles requires courage to trust our own creativity and to celebrate the creativity in others especially as we design for equity and liberation.

How:

• Cultivate an environment that inspires curiosity and courage to think, feel, and act creatively.

• Work together to define what creativity looks like, feels like, and means to our team.

• Invite the sharing and celebration of wild ideas along with the mistakes that will come when trying them.

• Develop more capacity to listen with open hearts and curious minds.

And don't forget our "No Child Eats Alone Challenge"

Take a moment today and see how the students are doing. Are there any students eating or playing alone? Find ways to help all students participate in school and feel like they belong. Encourage other students to go make a new friend with one of the students who seem to always be on the edge of the playground, campus, or cafeteria.  

Liberatory Design is the result of a collaboration between Tania Anaissie, David Clifford, Susie Wise, and the National Equity Project [Victor Cary and Tom Malarkey]. This deck is under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).