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Educational DNA (October 2018 #1)

What Is Your Educational DNA?

With a new school year underway, I am thinking about new beginnings. It is not unusual for our educators, students and families to consider this time as an opportunity for fresh starts – a reasonable and hope-filled thought of wiping a slate clean of past incidents, behaviors or patterns. With this thinking also comes a risk of over simplification that erases the impact of our history. I believe history should be respected – even painful or challenging history. Specific to our work as educators, I contend it is impossible to consider how schools reproduce biases and inequities for our current youth without considering how the institution that is school has played out in our own lives. Psychologist Carl Jung suggests, “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Specifically, as we consider our histories, I push us to consider our educational history – or more complexly, our educational DNA or the educational values, beliefs and expectations espoused and modeled by our families, tribes and cultures (informed by their own educational experiences) and the educational messages and practices we actually have experienced in our own schooling. The work of exploring our educational DNA is constant and continuous identity work that pushes us to explore and interrogate our individual and collective histories to better understand our schemas and cultures, values and biases as they show up with and around us each day – consciously and unconsciously. Towards the goal of making the unconscious conscious (or the invisible visible), we at SF-CESS ask our partners to name “the skin they are in” as well as to unpack their equity and leadership stance in any given situation. As participant facilitators, we constantly ask the same of ourselves.

So, this “new year” I wish to make transparent my own reflection of my educational DNA and equity stance – in the skin I am in. I offer this – not only to challenge you to do the same, but also (hopefully_ to Illustrate how constant and continuous personal identity work (as it relates to our professional work) requires imperfection, incompletion and vulnerability – conditions that continue to be counterintuitive in our school and leadership models. While this reflection comes on top of years of exploration and interrogation, it looked very different when I first started and is sure to look different in the future after additional the mistakes, successes and reflection I have yet to have.

On My Educational DNA… An Incomplete and Ongoing Reflection

I am a product of public schools. As a product of public schools, I both have been overtly a benefactor of the racism and sexism historically and systemically embedded within our educational system’s design, and simultaneously a target of its inherent, complex and regenerative classism and homophobia. My experiences growing up as a working poor, gay, Lebanese/ Italian student in white male skin has served to construct and instruct my perspective of the work in which I now find myself.

White and male, I heard explicit and implicit messages that conveyed expectations for me to succeed in school (e.g. “You’ll make a great doctor,” lawyer, etc.). Yet gay and closeted (and despite well-established statistical evidence that suggests at least one LBGT student can be assumed to be in any class of 30 students), I heard the consistent message in classrooms, cafeterias, schoolyards, and halls that school was not a safe place for people like me – and therefore, not a place for me. My “dual” identity gave me the privilege of being in the room, unknowingly undercover, as those around me discussed their intentional hatred for and fear of a group of people that included me.

My parents wanted me to excel in school even though they struggled to find their own access to my formal education in a system that had not always served them. My mother earned her GED, and thanks to the GI Bill, my father attended night school for his Associates Degree – but never left his role as a factory worker.

I attended a college-prep high school that predominantly served wealthier students from the East Side of Providence, RI. The assumption and expectation was that my family, from the west side, would be the primary support for my journey to college. I was to be the first in my family to attend a four-year college right from high school.

After repeatedly trying to meet with my counselor to begin my college application process, I finally caught her in passing. She told me she did not have time for me; “Besides,” she reasoned, “your family cannot afford college.” That year, I had scored in the top 10-20% of standardized tests.

Finally, after years of hearing and rebelling against the message that school was not for me, I listened. I cut 80 days of school in my Senior year. No one seemed to know. No one checked on me. No one called my family. No one failed me. Invisible, ignored and de-humanized, I heard that my education did not matter; I learned that I did not matter.

My family’s message about the importance of education was consistent. Their messages about school were different, as they saw education coming from not only school, but also home. While they recognized that the two did not always align (school was for book knowledge and home was for life lessons), they did expect us to be respectful and obedient in both places.

As my education advanced and my social skills matured, assumptions about my background perpetuated. Simply by looking at my skin color and hearing me talk, those around tended to be quick to assume my history – including the assumption that I came from a family more affluent and formally educated than was true. It was less frequent that these assumptions were checked, and as a result, I once again found myself amidst people who discussed my life (welfare/ food stamps, working class values, multiple-language families, worthiness to have certain privileges such as recreation, transportation and food) without actually realizing I was in the room.

So much of our Educational DNA is determined by the skin we live in. In America, the skin we live in is defined first and foremost by race; it also is so much more. It has been my experience that unexamined, the skin I am in can be baggage weighing me down; examined, the skin I am in serves as a source of great pride and strength – of liberation. Exploring the skin I am in both excites and frightens me. That is the first thing I need to remember.

The skin I am in is so much more than the skin you see, and yet the skin you see is so much of who I am. Even in all my complexity, the institution that is public education automatically and inequitably favors me as a white man. Furthermore, I purport, that regardless of my espoused and sincere values and beliefs, I always have the option to discount my less visible target status by embracing and taking advantage of my skin privilege. Absent intentionality, I ultimately will. Thus, I must commit to the continuous self-examination and consistent work towards serving as an ally, agent and accomplice across difference.

My professional stance has evolved from a culmination of experiences – my own, my family’s and those of the people with and for whom I work. Beyond my own formative years as a child and student, my professional identity is challenged and transformed by the stories of my students, colleagues, and families. These experiences influence my decisions, results and reflections. I carry them with me whenever I walk in a room.

What I know today is that I am committed to the equitable education of youth – specifically and first for the benefit of those who are not provided equitable access & opportunity (most often our black, brown & poor students). Growing up in a working poor family taught me the value of humility as an essential leadership trait. AND ALSO, given the repetitive & predictive data in our schools & communities across difference, I believe I need to build on and from my actual experience & knowledge gained over nearly 30 years of service, study and results.

Thus I, in the skin I am in as a queer, white man, bring to my work a tension of recognizing that I always will know less than I need to know – particularly in service of communities to which I do not belong – especially across race, language & gender, AND ALSO that, I feel urgency to use what I do know to vigorously & unapologetically interrupt & transform inequities when they are in front of me and constantly work with and for others to create conditions for them to do the same.

So, what is your educational DNA?

Awareness (March 2014)

In what ways does your community deepen its collective and individual awareness?
How do you intentional build community and trust in your school? How do you intentional build community and trust in your classroom? What is common or different?
To what extent and purpose is your adult community committed to adult instruction and reflection? What does that look like?

School reform is complex. It is more than any one “right” curriculum, standardized assessment or legislation can solve. Furthermore, given the history of power and privilege in America and American institutions such as our education system, even the most effective curriculum, assessment and instruction must be supported by dynamic conditions in support of constant inquiry, interruption and improvement – transformation.

A wise, local funder supporting a family engagement project of ours told us, “Don’t tell me that this family engagement plan will improve math scores.” She had done enough of her own homework not only to recognize that many conditions and systems are needed to impact any such improvement – and authentic family partnership was a one such condition, not a direct cause for accelerating success and improvement for students.

With a mission to interrupt and transform our current reality in public schools, SF-CESS’ work intends to name, model and help create these conditions. In the next weeks, Monday Musings will review the four stages (Awareness, Interruptive & Catalytic Experiences, Meaning Making, Action & Assessment) and related conditions we consider necessary for teacher – and school transformation. This week, the focus is Awareness.

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing” – Socrates

Awareness

Before we can transform who we are or what we do in any intentional way, we must know not only where it is we wish to go, but also from where we started. We must be aware not only of our current reality but also of our own stance and schema of this reality – in the skin we are in.

Schools spend tremendous time and resources assessing the current reality for their students and exploring prescriptive efforts to change those results – yet the patterns of who is served and not served in our schools persists across every corner of this country. Understanding our current reality requires an understanding of our history and how it impacts (intentionally and unintentionally) our present situation. Educators and families and the larger community (including legislators) must learn about and discuss the history and design or public education in relation to our current results. And as long as our equity gaps are inseparable from racial demographics, we need to speak openly and courageously about the legacy of slavery and the reality of race and power in America (and our schools) as well.

Given that the experience gap between so many of our educators and their least reached students includes an educators success within the very system they are challenged to change, schools also must be places where individuals can engage in ongoing inquiry and learning about their own histories – in the skin they are in – that inform their schemas (believes, mindsets, values, stances, etc.), which play out in their daily interactions and decisions.

This type of inquiry and learning is frequently de-prioritized or dismissed as “touchy-feely activities”. When done well, this characterization could not be further from the truth.

When done well, this work does invite us to engage our affective domain – an essential component to work in today’s educational system. Why should we not create space to do affective work given that the current reality – if looked at with honesty – should cause outrage, sadness and fear? Still, such work is a leap from business as usual for many schools, so time and attention need to be committed to creating the conditions for the honest exploration of our histories and current realities – individually and collectively.

We have learned that some conditions and their related strategies support and develop individual and shared awareness. While not exhaustive, these include Intentional Community and Trust Building as well as Instruction and Reflection.

Intentional Community and Trust Building
To move a school culture from the limited paradigm of head and hands work only to that of including the work of our hearts and histories requires a deeper level of honesty and risk taking. This requires an investment in developing community and trust between individuals and as a collective. There is a litany of resources for developing trust and community, the least of which include:

Calibrating and using a common purpose for the community – this work occurs at many levels, from the organizational mission and vision to objectives and goals for collective meetings and work.
Developing, agreeing on and actively using community and discourse norms and expectations – perhaps more important is also agreeing on and actively using responses when norms or expectations are not met.
Agreeing on definitions for the community’s common language – it is especially important to share understanding of power language such as accountability, collaboration, culture, engagement, equity, leadership, respect, etc.
Engaging in meaningful and intentional and meaningful trust building work – this needs to occur regularly in a manner and should model the community and trust development needed with our students and families.
Providing ample time and reflective prompts for regular and meaningful storytelling about our experiences, values and beliefs – these could include simple think-pair-shares, panel and fishbowl presentations, or larger group discussions such as Socratic Seminars.
Developing and using transparent decision-making and conflict-resolution practices – decisions and challenges arise normally in-group dynamics and conflicts frequently arise because of how we respond.

Instruction and Reflection

We can no longer reinforce cultures in which it is unacceptable to say, “I don’t know”. Our learning must include data discussions and direct instruction in the areas where community knowledge is limited or isolated and reflection of our history/ histories – as a system and as individuals. Effective efforts include but are not limited to:

Engaging in regular equity-centered data based inquiry – one of the few benefits to NCLB is that our schools and districts have gotten very good at collecting, disaggregating and doing quick analyses on its data. What still lacks is collective and courageous community discourse about the results and their root causes. These conversations require time, care and strong facilitation.
Including the expertise of others – while it is true that public education’s systems do not naturally foster the trust and empowerment needed for educators to develop answers to their dilemmas, it also is important to recognize that as educators, we don’t always know what we don’t know. Just as important as it is to support peer-led professional inquiry and learning communities, we must create communities in which outsiders and outside expertise are welcomed to provide direct instruction and diverse perspectives – especially when our insiders have not demonstrated sufficient knowledge or representation to serve students unlike themselves.
Naming and reflecting on the skin we are in – simultaneous to deepening our awareness of our current reality and systemic design, we must reflect on our own experiences in this system and our resulting operant theory or schema for how we navigate within it – from our values and beliefs to expectations and biases.
Expecting and fostering humility – given the vast representation of dominant culture within our schools, many are challenged to adopt the humility necessary to fully embrace the multiple and divergent experiences, perspectives and truths about school and the conflicts these may surface between our espoused and operant theories of action. Towards more equitable schools, humility is not a sign of uncertainty or weakness, but rather a necessary leadership quality that should be modeled and supported and evidenced in how a school looks at core systems from hiring to collaboration to supervision.

Love (December 2013 #4)

“Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” – M. Scott Peck

Happy New Year. I am not one for traditional resolutions; rather, I try to reflect on the year before, consider the current context and envision the year ahead to inform specific and intentional actions that otherwise not become a daily priority. My resolution this year is the same as last… it may very well be my resolution every year to come: to love more.

bell hooks describes love as “a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.” She says, “To know love we have to invest time and commitment…’dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love — which is to transform us.’.”

Her definition helps me to accept that real love is not limited to the less difficult (yet still difficult) task of loving what and whom I like. No, my challenge is to approach with love even that and those I do not like – with as “a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust”. This love will require ongoing and continuous work.

It is easy to say that I need to work on loving person who annoys me. It even is easy to say I need to approach with love the person who is against what I am for. I recall when a student had a homophobic outburst in my last year of teaching. I was surprised when the principal gave me, as a gay teacher, the option to remove him from my class permanently. I believe I had enough care, commitment, and knowledge to recognize that I had a responsibility to educate even our homophobes – just not at the expense of those they feared. While I lacked respect and trust, working to attain these was a difficult but reasonable challenge to accept. When I think back, I wonder – if I was willing to teach this student who overtly expressed is disapproval of my very self, who were the students I was less or unwilling to teach (even unconsciously) and what could cause this vast difference?

Another black, young man died at one of my schools this month. A ninth grader, he was the victim of gang related violence – and therefore the victim of the long reaching and iterative arm of racism in America. He lay in a coma for nearly a week before passing. His teachers and administrators were very responsive to the needs of the community during this challenging time. The communication and response when the student passed were caring and thoughtful. The day before he died, I sat with one of the vice principals, a white woman who seeks to do whatever it takes to best serve each of her students. She was sharing how much responsibility the teachers felt for the outcomes of their students. I asked a hard question for this day, “Acknowledging that his life conditions are complicated, do they feel responsibility for the outcome of this student who lay in the hospital? Do they believe their interactions with him – even if they did not cause this situation, may not have helped interrupt it?”
“Absolutely!” she shared emphatically.

I opened her door to the adjoining room, which was the school’s “time out” room for students who are sent out of class. It was less than 5 minutes into the class period. There were 11 students in the room. 100% of them were African American. About 25% of the school is African American.

This same month, a panel of “at-risk” students presented to the administrators of SFUSD. When asked what they wanted of their teachers, besides good teaching they said they wanted to feel “loved”. I believe the vice principal believes her teachers feel some responsibility for their students. Yet according to hooks, responsibility alone may not let students know they are loved. Some teachers might argue that removing a student who is acting different than what is expected may be “responsible”. Do those African American students sitting in the time out room feel cared for? Do they feel a commitment to their success? Do they feel well known, respected, trusted? What do they feel, think or believe when they look around and see only other African American students in the same room?

Now flip the script – think of YOUR least-reached, most challenging student:

How much do you care for her/him? Whatever the answer is, does s/he know? How do they know? How would s/he answer this question?
How committed are you to her/ his success? What are the limits to your commitment? What are the caveats for your commitment? Are these answers the same for each of your students?
What do you know about this student and her/his family and community? How do you know what you know about her/him? What don’t you know? How does this matter to her/his success in your classroom/ school?
Regarding this student, to whom or what do you feel the most responsibility? The student? Her/his family? The other students? Your own job requirements? When and how do these contradict each other? How do you respond?
Do you respect this student? Why/ why not? Do you respect her/his culture? What does that look like? Does s/he respect you? Why/ why not?
What do you trust about this student? What does s/he trust about you? What should s/he trust about you? What have you done to develop a trusting relationship given all these conditions?

My colleague, Kim Feicke once shared that every action comes from one of two emotional drivers – love or fear. Perhaps the first step to loving each of our students is to understand who and what we fear within our least-reached students – for without facing our fears, we may remain in the unconscious realm of fear – regardless of our best intentions and resolutions.

Healing Harm (December 2013 #2)

“The time for the healing of the wounds has come.” – Nelson Mandela

I join the world in grieving the loss of a man who reached hero status for those who value justice and freedom. I first got news from a New York Times tweet. I remember feeling both sadness of the loss and celebration of his life and the unifying impact he had on our world. Living in Oakland, I have heard from many who remember fondly the opportunity to hear him speak in our city some 23 years ago. I was not there. Yet, I too have been fortunate enough to feel the influence of his life work.

In 2005, SF-CESS had just formed and I was growing the organization slowly while I remained at Leadership HS as its co-principal. I received a call from the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, which was in the midst of planning its new school for girls in South Africa and upon researching schools, wished to learn more about Leadership. After a few planning meetings, it was decided that I and a group of my teachers would fly to Boston and join the school’s design team to conduct two days of training about some of our core programs (leadership, Advisory, professional development, etc.)

As is the case with our work, it took only a little time of collaboration between the richly diverse South Africans before invisible influences and squelched squalls surfaced. On day two, I decided to pause the work and to facilitate a conversation instead. While any attempt to codify what happened would oversimplify it, what I can say is that the discussion that followed was amazing. In hindsight, I believe I may have been experiencing one of the most mature race-based conversations I had ever witnessed – not because the group dynamics had evolved beyond the pain of apartheid, but rather because the group had embraced and accepted its reality.

It is no surprise that discussion of important school design decisions that would either interrupt or perpetuate historic oppression evoked emotions. Yet, these emotions were neither feared nor dismissed. Furthermore, the managing of these emotions did not seem to break down strictly along race. Rather, there was a collaboration amongst the members of the team (obviously not to the person) in which black South Africans spoke – AND WERE HEARD – with authority and respect, and also some white South Africans served as allies across differences to bridge the work between divergent perspectives.

When debriefed and questioned later, the South Africans spoke passionately of all the arduous work that followed the end of Apartheid. Specifically the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided opportunities for mass and symbolic truth telling and healing. Many said that the resulting catharsis allowed for the collaboration that we were witnessing.

I sat in awe. We were asked to join this team to provide “training” around some technical components of schooling that could and should be liberating, and in turn they modeled what true liberation could look, sound, and feel like! (I could not help but wonder what America might be had we committed to similar nation-wide work immediately after our civil rights movement.)

To this day, my work values – even more than it did before this experience – the importance of healing, collective meaning making and alliance building for liberation. As educators, if we truly believe education equals freedom, then our schools must include this work! I frequently hear critique from those less comfortable with the affective work of healing and relationship building: “We don’t need touchy-feely work,” or “Show me how this work will improve test scores.” No one in that Boston hotel room would have suggested that the work of the commission alone led to all the results they were experiencing as a nation (nor would they say they were close to finished); but what I heard from them that day was that their progress was at least in part due to the Commission’s necessary work.

As educators, administrators and decision makers – in what ways do we explicitly and intentionally create opportunities for students to heal and learn from the pain and damage systemically caused by schools and society?Schools and districts must be places where our most disenfranchised and least reached can be heard – not in general, but by those who cause harm. Consider how any of the following do or should occur:

In classrooms and schools, where discipline practices are designed to be disproportionately punitive to and to retain and regain control over our black and brown students – are we willing to introduce and use restorative practices to allow for healing to these same individuals and their communities?
Are adults, who frequently represent dominant culture, off limits to accountability or are there systems to allow for mediation and healing when an adult hurts another (adult or child)?
When districts make decisions that will have long-standing impact on our underrepresented communities and their children, how are these communities informed and involved? Do they provide input? Are they included in the decision? Are they responsible for the decision?
Finally, if we are accepting of the fact that damage already has been done – and continues to be compounded for many in our community based on their demographics, what are we willing to do – or not do; what power are we willing to relinquish, and what diverse leadership are we willing to follow in order to make amends and ultimately prosper as a whole?

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

Thank you President Mandela. May your spirit and influence live on.