March 8, 2021

Focus: Windows and Mirrors

Dear Colleagues,

As we wind down Winter Term 2 and prepare to begin spring term, I've found myself in numerous conversations about redesigning curriculum, choosing texts, and creating assessments for next fall. In conjunction with those discussions, I've been thinking a lot about how and where our students see themselves reflected in our classrooms, which has led me to return to one of the cornerstones of the National SEED pedagogy built on Emily Style's seminal essay that purports that inclusive, equitable, and just curriculums provide both windows and mirrors for all students: windows so that students may see other perspectives on the world and mirrors in which they see their own selves reflected back to them. Designing such a curriculum is not always easy, especially depending on who is in the room.

I found myself returning to Style's essay, not in the way that one may typically imagine, this past term while teaching my "Race, Roles, and Religion" course as the majority of students in my room identified as students of color. Having those particular voices in the room coupled with the texts that I had chosen, all written by people of color, created a very different dynamic in our classroom as white-identified voices were neither centered in our texts nor in our actual classroom. It was a powerful experience to witness my students of color connecting their experiences to those discussed in our texts and for their voices to take on a dominant role in our discussions. At times, however, I wondered how the three white-identifying students in the room felt and noticed that their voices took on a much less prominent position than in my typical classrooms at Loomis. To that end, about midway through our term, I asked my students to reflect on their experience in the class so far and to ponder what it felt like to see oneself centered in our class in a way that perhaps they hadn't before and, alternatively, how it felt to see oneself decentered in our class in a way that perhaps they hadn't before. Their reflections led to an honest and frank discussion about Loomis as an historically white institution as well as to some students of color sharing that there had often been far too few moments when they had been able to connect their lived experience to materials in their classes. Our conversation also veered into unexpected places, such as when one student of color asked if the white students in the room found themselves connecting to any and all texts written by white authors, such as Shakespeare or Nathaniel Hawthorne, simply by virtue of the fact that the author was of a similar racial identity; to which one white student emphatically responded, "No!" This led us to ponder how readers find themselves connecting to texts and materials that differ from their own lived experiences. All good fodder for discussion.

As our course drew to a close last week, I had the good fortune of co-teaching with a dear friend of mine, John Around Him, who is from the Oglala Sioux tribe and grew up on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He and I taught together for many years while I was at Proctor Academy, an institution with a well-established Native American program. John never fails to enthrall students with his quietly powerful presence and voice. During the three days that he spent with my class, he provided many windows into his experience growing up on the reservation as well as to his Lakota identity while students read Albert White Hat's Zuya, a text focused on Lakota spirituality and culture. While none of my students identified as Native American or indigenous, they easily found themselves laying their own experiences alongside John's or forging connections to our other course materials due to John's ability to pose questions that encouraged them to share and identify such links - illustrating beautifully the power of providing both windows and mirrors for our students.

Recently, when meeting with various faculty who participated in last month's Black History Month challenge, Miles and I urged them to include a reflective piece in which their students could consider their experiences when engaging with the materials and to examine when and how they were able to see themselves in the assignment. Seeing oneself can include a range of experiences such as literally seeing a face or hearing a voice in the course materials that is similar to oneself or noting how others from dissimilar backgrounds or identities respond to those who resemble oneself. Accordingly, Emily Style contends that a "balanced" education provides "knowledge of both self and others" and "clarification of the known and illumination of the unknown."

While fall seems a long way off as we hunker down into the marathon stretch of spring beginning this week, I urge folks to find some small moments during which they can ponder how they might create more windows and mirrors in their curriculums and in their classrooms next year and aim, as Emily Style noted so very many years ago in her 1988 essay, to design materials through which our students may "learn early and often about the valid framing of both windows and mirrors for a balanced, ecological sense of their place(s) in the world."

Although I have suggested that we begin contemplating what fall might look like, I do urge everyone to find even a small measure of time to recharge before the changeover to spring term on Thursday. To that end, I offer some resources below.

Warmly,

Fiona, on behalf of the Kravis Center

Rest and Restoration

Equity Self Care – Standford d. school including a reflective tool to help educators address how they manage their emotional and physical fortitude while doing equity work.

This American Life - The Job of Delight: Bim Adewunmi interviews poet Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights, about the discipline and rigor of seeking and holding onto delight.

Goop Podcast: Normalizing the Need to Rest and Retreat

r your content.

Articles related to DEIJ

NEW: Brené with Chad Sanders on What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph

NEW: Reparations: The Big Payback

NEW: 9 Resources for Women's History Month (facinghistory.org)

Independent School Magazine, Winter 2021 is dedicated to DEI.

Here is a link to a Q&A with Ralinda Watts, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California

More articles and podcasts from past Monday Musings...

Media Bias Chart

NAIS: Assessment Practices for Promoting Equity, by Amoy Walker is a must-read. Ms. Walker speaks to her experiences as a student as an an educator on the importance of examining "assessments more closely and identify best practices to combat bias."

When broken down into chunks, What works, what doesn't could serve as a valuable learning tool for our students. "Some study techniques accelerate learning, whereas others are just a waste of time—but which ones are which? An unprecedented review maps out the best pathways to knowledge." Thanks, Scott!

Another resource on teaching and learning that I always keep handy: Deans for Impact, The Science of Learning

Women of Color Need Courageous Allies in the Academy: An Open Dialogue Part One and Part Two. These interviews with seven women are outstanding, informative, and full of information about how to advance the work of allyship and accompaniment.

Reading Diversity: a tool for selecting diverse texts, Teaching Tolerance

Seeing White - podcast - and there's a study guide!

Creating Moments of Genuine Connection Online. the Cult of Pedagogy

Are you Teaching Content or Just Covering Material?, by Terry McGlynn, The Chronicle of Higher Education, A new book on science teaching makes the case for focusing on a smaller set of concepts to produce deeper learning.

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