1) If your school isn't already a member, encourage them to join
here
!
2) Register for our upcoming events, and keep an eye out for our spring schedule of workshops. 3) Get in touch and let us know what kind of professional learning opportunities you're looking for. 4) Have expertise to share? Contact us about writing a blog post or leading a workshop. 5) Join our mailing list to stay up to date on all our future workshops and events. |
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A message from the
Executive Director,
LISA HANEY
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"What needs to be counted on to have a voice? Courage. Anger. Love. Something to say; someone to speak to; someone to listen."
In this season of Thanksgiving, I want to express my deep appreciation for founder Janet McGarvey's vision and the opportunities provided by the CATDC to come together as educators to pause, reflect, and engage in the kind of inquiry and conversation that both fosters deep learning and builds community.
At the opening of the Leadership Fellows' retreat in Los Angeles last month, facilitators Reveta Bowers and Deborah Reed asked the 25 educators gathered around the table from across California to share the stories of their paths to becoming leaders. Captivating
tales were told, as diverse as the tellers themselves: the common thread being that whether they had grown up in and felt at home in independent schools, or at some point saw themselves as outsiders, they are committed to creating school environments where all students feel a sense of belonging.
Ensuring that all our students know they belong and creating safe spaces for them to tell their own stories is important work: more important than ever. This was a core theme in CATDC's workshop "Creating Gender Inclusive Schools" facilitated by
Olivia Higgins, founder of Queerly Elementary, who draws from over 15 years of experience working with the San Francisco, Alameda and Oakland Unified School Districts. Olivia had us begin by
discussing the kind of messages we received about being boys or girls growing up. By the end of the day, participants had not only developed deeper empathy for students whose identity lies outside the traditional binary, but also new skills and knowledge to better support all young people and the adults in their lives adapt to the cultural shift toward greater gender fluidity. Our day ended with a video about a transgender child named
Penelope
, whose mother is learning to "allow for happiness in all its forms," a profound message for this season and our times.
We hope the resources included in this month's issue of "The CATDC Buzz'' provide additional inspiration as well as useful information regarding storytelling, the power of language to harm and to heal, and the importance of listening with the heart: An article from
Edutopia
outlines best practices for fostering identity safety in the classroom; in an
interview
from Education Week, Dr. Beverly Tatum revisits her bestselling book on racial identity: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Reflecting on how we can encourage our students to talk honestly about race, she points to the importance of engaging in opportunities as adults to get more comfortable with the conversation. In a short
video clip
from a talk given at a high school in Evanston, Illinois, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers an eloquent and educative explanation of why white people shouldn't use the "n-word."
I look forward to hearing Coates' closing remarks at the upcoming
People of Color Conference
in Anaheim. In a recent conversation with NAIS president, Donna Orem, I learned that this will be the largest PoCC ever with over 6,000 attendees. As Orem put it, "in this current climate, people are especially hungry for the kind of community created by such an event." I hope to see many of you there and/or at an upcoming CATDC workshop.
Meanwhile, I wish you a happy and restful Thanksgiving break, and leave you with this final offering, an encouragement to you and perhaps your students to participate in StoryCorps The Great Thanksgiving Listen: t
heir project empowers "
young people-and people of all ages-to create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder
."
Yes, they even have an
app
for that.
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The Great Thanksgiving Listen
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The Great Thanksgiving Listen is a national movement that empowers young people-and people of all ages-to create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder using the free StoryCorps App. Now in its third year, The Great Thanksgiving Listen has grown from an experimental challenge issued by our founder, Dave Isay, into a vital intergenerational movement. To date, thousands of high schools from all 50 states have participated and preserved more than 75,000 interviews, providing families with a priceless piece of personal history.
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Fostering Identity Safety in Your Classroom
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According to
Dorothy M. Steele and Becky Cohn-Vargas
, identity safe classrooms
are "those in which teachers strive to ensure students that their social identities are an asset rather than a barrier to success." In such classrooms, students feel safe, included, and valued as members of a learning community. Having been an educator for 20 years and a parent for ten, I would venture to say this is not the norm. More often, I see classrooms that are identity-neutral -- where conversations about who students are in the world and what they need to feel safe just don't happen. Identity safety is a critical feature of equitable classrooms
, so what gets in the way?
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Why All the Black Kids Are Still Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (Q&A)
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By Beverly Daniel Tatum, Education Week
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Beverly Daniel Tatum, the president emerita of Spelman College and a leading expert on the psychology of racism, first released her book
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
two decades ago. Tatum's exploration of race relations in America, which became a bestseller, gave hundreds of thousands of readers tools to begin conversations about racism and segregation, to talk across lines of difference, and to deepen understandings about racial identity. So when Tatum began her work on a revised edition, released in September, she faced a recurring question: Are things getting better?
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When Every Word Doesn't Belong to Everyone
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By Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power Book Tour
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Bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates answers an audience question about the power and ownership of words at the Family Action Network event with Evanston Township High School while on tour for his newest book, We Were Eight Years in Power.
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