It's Time to Get Comortable with Being Uncomfortable

It's Time to Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Step 6- Action Plan

Step 5- Now What?

Step 4 - Deeper Understanding of self

• Identify a group that stands out based on your school's data
• Come up with an action plan to improve "equity " with the targeted group.

"Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"

Reading and Discussion

“It is clear that an oppositional identity can interfere with academic achievement, and it may be tempting for educators to blame the adolescents themselves for their academic decline. However, the questions that educators and other concerned adults must ask are, How did academic achievement become defined as exclusively White behavior? What is it about the curriculum and the wider culture that reinforces the notion that academic excellence is an exclusively White domain? What curriculum interventions might we use to encourage the development of an empowered emissary identity?”

Prejudice is one of the inescapable consequences of living in a racist society. Cultural racism – the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color – is like smog in the air. Sometimes it is so thick it is visible, other times it is less apparent, but always, day in and day out, we are breathing it in. None of us would introduce ourselves as “smog-breathers” (and most of us don’t want to be described as prejudiced), but if we live in a smoggy place, how can we avoid breathing the air?”

“Prejudice is an integral part of our socialization, and it's not our fault.”

“To say that it is not our fault does not relieve us of responsibility, however.”

“Am I perpetuating and reinforcing the negative messages so pervasive in our culture, or am I seeking to challenge them? If I have not been exposed to positive images of marginalized groups, am I seeking them out, expanding my own knowledge base for myself and my children? Am I acknowledging and examining my own prejudices, my own rigid categorizations of others, thereby minimizing the adverse impact they might have on my interactions with those I have categorized?”

Step 3- Examine School Data

Step 2- Being Aware of Unfairness

What stands out in your data?

Is there room for improvement?

What is your school doing well?

Step 1- Acknowledge Privilege

The “isms”

• Racism
• Sexism
• Dis/Ableism
• Classism
• Ethnocentrism
• Heterosexism
• Sizeism

“Dominant groups, by definition, set the parameters within which the subordinates operate. The dominant group holds the power and authority in society relative to the subordinates and determines how that power and authority may be acceptably used. Whether it is reflected in determining who gets the best jobs, whose history will be taught in school, or whose relationships will be validated by society, the dominant group has the greatest influence in determining the structure of the society.”

Are you the dominant group?

Dominant v.s. Subordinate Activity

• In the United States
• In Utah