Message to the SRI Community

The past few months have brought senseless tragedy after senseless tragedy; from the hate-filled shooting in Orlando targeting the LGBTQ community, to two more African American men killed by police officers last week, followed by an act of terror against Dallas police officers. Grief, anger, outrage, and so many more feelings that cannot easily be put into words leave me overwhelmed by emotion and wondering about the capacity to make change within systems that were built on oppressive practices and policies.

The SRI Board of Directors used its monthly meeting earlier this week to try to process what has been happening in our country and discuss what we can do as an organization fiercely committed to equity. The conversation was honest and difficult. We did not try to resolve issues or make a stand for or against anything. Instead, we pushed ourselves to stay in the struggle and discomfort we experienced. We did not end the conversation feeling good and ready to take on the world, but we did have the opportunity to hear one another and try to make sense of senselessness.

SRI is more than an organization. We are a community, and as a community we want to support one another and empower us all to do what we can to make change. We want to share our process for the conversation, along with some resources that several board members have identified as being helpful for them personally in the wake of these ongoing tragedies.

We structured our board discussion using the ProMISE protocol. With the events from the past few months as our “text” we shared our moral, intellectual, social and emotional responses to recent tragedies. Some themes that emerged from our conversation included:

  • an overwhelming sense of fear for families, sons, and husbands of color, as well as for the students we serve in our schools
  • exhaustion over the number of excuses and rationalizations that crop up when tragedy strikes
  • the belief that there is a powerful hate problem in our country where people are continually marginalized
  • the power of silence; to feel unseen, to feel unacknowledged, is damaging
  • the desire to be intentional in keeping equity issues front and center rather than simply responding to any one event
  • the hope that we as educators question our beliefs and assumptions about the students and families we serve – with a desire to talk directly with students about the world as a way to disrupt the status quo.

This process provided a structure for a conversation that was highly emotional, and allowed for feelings to surface and be shared. We did not stick to specific times for each section of the protocol, but instead allowed ourselves to use it as a frame for the conversation we needed to have.

Over the past week, many resources have been posted via Facebook and other social media. Rather than listing all available resources, we asked SRI board members to highlight specific resources they found personally useful. As a diverse board, these resources are equally diverse, and can be used for a variety of different purposes, conversations and learning.

  • Willing to be Disturbed” by Margaret Wheatley. Debbi Laidley offers this resource, sharing “I find this a great invitation to engage in inquiry and listen through our differences.” Debbi also shared a link to EdWeek titled Resources for Discussing Police Violence, Race & Racism with Students.
  • Kevin Fahey offers up two books as resources: Slavery and the Making of America by James and Lois Horton; as well as Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States. Kevin adds, “I find that in all the conversations around issues of race these days that very few of them are grounded in the actual history of our country. We are too often content with patriotic slogans and happy rhetoric, and unable to face the fact that our country was designed by and for ‘adult white male property owners (US Constitution).’  As James Madison said in the Federalist Papers, ‘The country should be run for and by the men who own it.’”
  • Jeffrey Galaise offers an article from The Nation titled Please Don’t Stop the Music. He adds, “Our schools need to be the sanctuary sought in this article.  This moved me because what happens when the places that are supposed to be sacred to us are taken from us?  What happens when “we” don’t even feel safe in our own streets from the people that are supposed to protect us? Safety and security constantly being violated from our most marginalized groups of people is not what this country should be reflecting. How do we move away from this?  How do we stop pointing the finger? How do we keep our sacred places sacred and safe?”
  • Gene Thompson-Grove offered up some organizational websites and articles: Raising Race Conscious Children, and Six Ways White People can help end the War on Black People at Showing up for Racial Justice. This also was interesting to me to read this week — it puts events into a larger context of institutional racism.
  • Pat Norman offers up a resource for responding when hearing “All Lives Matter” entitled The Next Time Someone Says All Lives Matter Show Them These 5 Paragraphs
  • Kari Thierer offers up The New York City Anti-Violence Project, a New York City-based nonprofit working to address hate-violence in the LGBTQ community. They offer a 24/7 bilingual hotline and devote their resources to addressing hate violence in the queer community. Additionally, the Take Action section of their website offers lots of different ways for people to get involved to support the LGBTQ community. Even though it is NYC-based, you can find similar organizations throughout the country. The Trevor Project is a national organization dedicated to supporting LGBTQ youth, lots of resources as well as ways to get involved.
  • Kari also offers up the resources available at The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). This network was established to improve access to care, treatment, and services for traumatized children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events. They have resources for parents and educators, and help provide support for dealing with specific crisis events, as well as long-term trauma that many of the students and communities we work with experience regularly. If you are not sure about the effects of trauma on students and the impact on learning, this is a good place to start.
  • Heidi offers up several links for web resources: “A funny source, but nonetheless, a good list in my opinion! Another perspective on white privilege. Not necessarily a resource, but an important read for many.”
  • Raquel Diaz shares “As an early childhood practitioner, my resource is to help young children make sense of the terrible events that have occurred in the last few weeks.  Dialogue with young children through literature and stories, will help them SEE color, EMBRACE differences, and STRIVE to have courageous conversations around equity. Young children are exceptionally fierce and can help adults find ways to heal and unite during such difficult times. We just need to give them the space and some tools to start the conversation.”

If you have resources to share, please reach out to the SRI community through the Facebook group. If you need a community to talk with, contact me (kari@schoolreforminitiative.org) and I will help get you connected with others.

As an organization, we are committed to our mission, to push ourselves to stay engaged in conversations about equity and race on a consistent basis. Our guiding principles challenge us to do this work. The SRI staff and Board of Directors are working to bring the equity part of our mission to the forefront of our conversations, our programming, and the work of SRI. There can be no excellence in schools without equity in schools.

Thank you for your commitment to SRI and to the students and communities you serve.

With gratitude,

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