Our Wildwood, Volume 51

“SEL and DEIB are part of the students’ everyday experience. They are part of the education we provide for our students that makes them good citizens in the world.” — KAREN DYE, DIRECTOR OF EQUITY AND INCLUSION

COURAGEOUS CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE ® PROTOCOLS

dimension. They’re not looking at this as an intellectual exercise, they are deeply empathizing with Douglass. Students expressed such indignance at the condition, and that put them in their believing quadrant or their acting quadrant where they needed to do something about it. Having students be able to name that and then be able to get centered is something that our 8th graders are in the practice of doing.” For Matt, the Compass is useful in his work as a middle school counselor. “When working with students, I consider the lens through which the student is experiencing a problem and whether they are speaking from a place of feeling, acting, believing, or thinking,” he said. “I find it to be especially helpful when working with multiple students at the same time and helping them to get on the same page. If one student is in much more of a feeling place, and the other one is thinking more about action, we try to find a common ground.” CCAR has also provided avenues for the adults at Wildwood to have conversations about race and across difference. Its tools help guide conversations in professional development meetings and within affinity groups as well. “The challenge for Americans these days is to try to talk about race without feeling hostile, without feeling guilty,” Deb said. “This is how RULER and DEIB and Courageous Conversation go together, so that you can have that conversation and really just stay in it and not be triggered by any kind of emotional or intellectual content that keeps us from having those courageous conversations or dialogue across difference.” RULER intersects with Wildwood’s DEIB work because it’s about educating the whole child, Karen said. “It’s about social emotional growth. DEIB is inherent in social-emotional learning and vice-versa; you can’t talk about one without talking about the other. “While RULER and Courageous Conversation are new to Wildwood, we’ve always been doing the work.” W

One framework for DEIB work is Courageous Conversation About Race (CCAR). Building on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Plan that Karen developed when she first arrived at Wildwood, she introduced the community to CCAR in fall 2020, when teachers and staff, including counselors and administrators, began training in the protocols. “I think part of the reason why we have so many problems in the world is that we don’t talk to each other,” Karen said.” So, learning how to have conversations around race in particular and identity in general is part of the solution to move the needle in how we are engaging with one another. Courageous Conversation is a set of protocols we thought would be helpful in building relationships and community and also serving as a framework for some of our work with Scope and Sequence.” Some of the tools CCAR provides include the Four Agreements and the Compass. The Four Agreements are the things everyone agrees to do when they enter a difficult conversation: 1) Stay engaged, 2) Experience discomfort, 3) Speak your truth, and 4) Expect/accept non-closure. The Compass is a personal navigational tool for conversations. It begins with recognizing four ways of responding: 1) emotional (feelings), 2) intellectual (thinking), 3) moral (beliefs), and 4) relational (actions). Sam said he uses CCAR to process readings in the classroom. “For example, we recently read an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’ autobiography in which he describes a lot of the systems of, conditions of, and resistance to slavery. It’s a powerful piece, and when students read it, we’ve offered this tool of the Compass to help them navigate that powerful, moving reading in a way that helps them notice their own internal processes.” “With that type of reading,” he said, “oftentimes, we find students absolutely engaging in a feelings

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