Children's development of difference
Children’s Development of Difference for Educators: In today’s society, young children receive daily messages about social identities. When these messages are affirming, they aid in the development of a healthy sense of sense. However, negative messages about children’s identity are also absorbed through explicit and implicit means. How, then, can educators and parents help preschool, elementary children, preteens, and teens know themselves well and love themselves even more? Participants will engage in dialogue about particular benchmarks of children’s development of difference from infancy to young adult hood and discuss the applications within their population of children. parenting skills; Perceiving, Broadening, Categorizing, Engaging and Action.
Children’s Development of Difference for Parents: In today’s society, children receive daily messages about race, ethnicity, skin color, and many other categories of social identities. When these messages are affirming, they aid in the development of a healthy sense of self. However, negative messages about children’s social identities are also absorbed through explicit and implicit means. Racial, ethnic, and cultural identity is a key component of infant, early childhood, adolescent, and adult development. As parents, we aim to interrupt the negative messages heard about self and others in order to build our children’s capacity to embrace differences, and more importantly, love themselves fully. Participants will engage in dialogue about particular benchmarks of children’s development of difference from infancy to young adult hood and discuss the applications within their population of children. parenting skills; Perceiving, Broadening, Categorizing, Engaging and Action.
Children’s Development of Difference for Parents: In today’s society, children receive daily messages about race, ethnicity, skin color, and many other categories of social identities. When these messages are affirming, they aid in the development of a healthy sense of self. However, negative messages about children’s social identities are also absorbed through explicit and implicit means. Racial, ethnic, and cultural identity is a key component of infant, early childhood, adolescent, and adult development. As parents, we aim to interrupt the negative messages heard about self and others in order to build our children’s capacity to embrace differences, and more importantly, love themselves fully. Participants will engage in dialogue about particular benchmarks of children’s development of difference from infancy to young adult hood and discuss the applications within their population of children. parenting skills; Perceiving, Broadening, Categorizing, Engaging and Action.
Microaggressions: Navigating the hurt & Building resilience
Racial Microaggressions, as defined by Dr. D. W. Sue are “the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities that communicate hostile or derogatory racial slights and insults to people of color.” How can Black, Indigenous, People of Color recover and develop resilience from these racialized experiences? How can white people better understand racial microaggressions and manage racial anxiety in order to develop resilience for addressing the ones they may commit. After sharing Dr. Sue’s theoretical framework and definition of microaggressions, participants will discuss how microaggressions play out in the everyday life and learn strategies for addressing them.
Affinity groups
Benefits of Affinity Groups: Affinity groups offer opportunities for affirming, nurturing, learning, and even celebrating lived experiences based on a particular social identity. During these times, members discuss matters related to the identity of the group in a safe environment where people who share that identity can generate fellowship, build greater understanding of their identity in relation to others (both from their group and outside of their group). Often, affinity group members share individual strategies for navigating challenges they face in order to develop collective empowerment and resilience for greater community equity and inclusion.
Learning to Facilitate Affinity Groups: From Who Am I? to I Know Who I Am!: Training for Affinity Group Facilitators - The term, “Possible Selves” was used by the American Association of University Women in a report on Latinas and education. This idea assumes that children can claim a place in the world through social interactions with others (their families, peers, school staff, media, and the curriculum), which impacts the beliefs about the pool of possible selves that children can imagine for their futures. Throughout our lives we may come across the following questions; What are you?, Who are you? Where are you from? The answer is never easy, sometimes feels limiting to our possible selves, can rarely be condensed to a few words, and requires the person who asked the question to stick around a while to hear a more thorough response. Within communities, we may hold an identity that is marginalized, stereotyped or misunderstood and so in addition to practicing ways to answer these questions (for ourselves and others), we seek opportunities to be amongst others who share a common identity. Facilitating affinity groups for adults or children offers opportunities for learning and discussing matters related to the identity of the group in a safe environment where people who share that identity can generate fellowship, build greater understanding of their identity in relation to others (both from their group and outside of their group), and discuss collective strategies to contribute to an equitable organization where everyone belongs. This 3-part training will help you: Understand why affinity groups are an effective way to support members of a group; Address personal fears and programmatic challenges that impede successful affinity group sessions; Develop facilitation tools for running affinity spaces for children and/or adults; and Work with a team to build a meaningful curriculum
Experiencing Affinity Groups: During this session we will connect with others who share one of our identities; engage in conversations where storytelling is a means to being known; and where listening is a means to know others. The identity we will explore is birth order/family entry. Breakout groups will be used to experience affinity related to this identity, which can allow space to share thoughts and feelings, and explore assumptions we may hold about groups to which we do not belong.
Experiencing Racial Affinity Groups: During this session we will connect with others who share one of our identities; engage in conversations where storytelling is a means to being known; and where listening is a means to know others. Whole group dialogue and breakout groups will be utilized in this virtual session to experience racial affinity related prompts. The goals of the session are Affirmation, Education, and Advocacy, which will allow space to share thoughts and feelings perhaps shared by others, explore assumptions we may hold about groups to which we do not belong, and strategize ways to build healthier parent relationships across identity differences.
Learning to Facilitate Affinity Groups: From Who Am I? to I Know Who I Am!: Training for Affinity Group Facilitators - The term, “Possible Selves” was used by the American Association of University Women in a report on Latinas and education. This idea assumes that children can claim a place in the world through social interactions with others (their families, peers, school staff, media, and the curriculum), which impacts the beliefs about the pool of possible selves that children can imagine for their futures. Throughout our lives we may come across the following questions; What are you?, Who are you? Where are you from? The answer is never easy, sometimes feels limiting to our possible selves, can rarely be condensed to a few words, and requires the person who asked the question to stick around a while to hear a more thorough response. Within communities, we may hold an identity that is marginalized, stereotyped or misunderstood and so in addition to practicing ways to answer these questions (for ourselves and others), we seek opportunities to be amongst others who share a common identity. Facilitating affinity groups for adults or children offers opportunities for learning and discussing matters related to the identity of the group in a safe environment where people who share that identity can generate fellowship, build greater understanding of their identity in relation to others (both from their group and outside of their group), and discuss collective strategies to contribute to an equitable organization where everyone belongs. This 3-part training will help you: Understand why affinity groups are an effective way to support members of a group; Address personal fears and programmatic challenges that impede successful affinity group sessions; Develop facilitation tools for running affinity spaces for children and/or adults; and Work with a team to build a meaningful curriculum
Experiencing Affinity Groups: During this session we will connect with others who share one of our identities; engage in conversations where storytelling is a means to being known; and where listening is a means to know others. The identity we will explore is birth order/family entry. Breakout groups will be used to experience affinity related to this identity, which can allow space to share thoughts and feelings, and explore assumptions we may hold about groups to which we do not belong.
Experiencing Racial Affinity Groups: During this session we will connect with others who share one of our identities; engage in conversations where storytelling is a means to being known; and where listening is a means to know others. Whole group dialogue and breakout groups will be utilized in this virtual session to experience racial affinity related prompts. The goals of the session are Affirmation, Education, and Advocacy, which will allow space to share thoughts and feelings perhaps shared by others, explore assumptions we may hold about groups to which we do not belong, and strategize ways to build healthier parent relationships across identity differences.
Racial Identity Development: It's a journey, not a destination
Racial, ethnic, and cultural identity is a key component of infant, early childhood, adolescent, and adult development. A complete understanding of one's own and other people's identity has a positive impact on our daily interactions with others. What are the challenges to interpersonal relationships when we have a limited sense of our own journey through racial-ethnic identity? Dr. Ali Michael (2015) claims that racial identity is not just another tool, it’s the toolbox. Dr. Howard Stevenson says of racial narrative, “Through storytelling, we can see ourselves differently, assess our emotions, and find the capacity to change.” Participants will use theoretical models of racial-ethnic identity development to make meaning of their own life story in the context of their work with others. Individual reflection and writing, one-on-one partner share, and small group discussions will take place.
hiring for excellence
Many of us know about the good research done on identity dynamics and implicit bias. This knowledge will be used as a foundation to explore the frequently experienced roadblocks in the hiring process. From outreach to contract, there are layers of decisions we make in our pursuit of new team members. Research from social science, the mind sciences, and scholars on identity dynamics can help us create more mindful decisions, keeping us away from pitfalls and challenges that intervene with our goals. Your team will then design a plan of guardrails, interventions, and checkpoints for greater equity in hiring.
Identity / Racial anxiety
Identity / Racial Anxiety: Identity and racial anxiety are concepts from the psychological, cognitive and behavioral sciences that speak to the level of anxiety produced by an individual’s desire to avoid stereotypes or to appear more friendly and less biased. This phenomena is often absent from conversations about the challenges in equity work. Identity, or intergroup, anxiety is the stress response linked to interactions between people of different social identities where the environmental and systemic cues of dominance and marginalization exists. For those who are members of a marginalized social group, the anxiety may stem from a fear of experiencing bias, stereotyping, or negative treatment; for those who are members of a dominant social group, the anxiety may stem from a fear of being perceived as biased or unfriendly. Identity anxiety initiates a feedback loop, whereby negative encounters increase anxiety about future interactions. Though identity anxiety is an unconscious phenomenon, its impact is profound. Racial anxiety, specifically, is a significant hurdle to effective equity work within organizations. For Black, Indigenous, AAPI, Latine and Bi-Multi-racial people, racial anxiety results in a cognitive cost and depletion, and can negatively impact their willingness to engage with white colleagues and community members. White people’s racial anxiety can impact relationships with people who are racially-ethnically marginalized by perpetuating long-held stereotypes of BIPOC people. If white people assume that BIPOC are uninterested in building friendly and collegial relationships, or rely on other myths, it can cause them to be risk-averse in communication, critical feedback, or even impact their involvement in equity-related initiatives for fear of saying the wrong thing. There are clear evidence-based strategies to reduce identity and racial anxiety at the individual and interpersonal levels, which, over time, can contribute to building healthy institutional culture. This session will support those with marginalized identities, particularly racially-ethnically marginalized participants, in recognizing the impact of identity / racial anxiety and offer strategies for self-care. In addition, the session will increase awareness of this phenomena for those with societally-sanctioned dominant identities and offer a call to action, namely for white participants, to engage strategies to overcome their fears and reduce the burden of navigating inter-group or inter-racial interactions on others.
Conversations from The Art of hosting
The Art of Hosting is an on-line community of practice. From the website: "The Art of Hosting is an approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges." See more here.
Working with our Faculty and Staff Diversity Group, Chap helped clarify our sense of purpose as a collective within the school community. She also led a presentation on affinity spaces in schools, which included practical considerations and a timeline for implementation. Over the course of the meeting, the group's shared knowledge about affinity groups — the definition, intention, design, and the connection to identity development and community health — rocketed exponentially.
Chap also worked with our parents; she tailored a workshop on identity and diversity to fit the needs of our parent body. Participants left the interactive, super-engaging session with a common vocabulary and understanding around identity, diversity, families, and the school community, as well as a greater connection to each other.
Further, Chap is an invaluable professional support for me in my role as Diversity Coordinator at Brooklyn Heights Montessori School. She has helped me refine ideas and presentations, strengthened my messaging, and offered numerous resources to supplement my work with the school. When something comes up, I know I can turn to Chap for professional guidance and inspiration.
Rebecca Duvall, Librarian and Diversity Coordinator
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, New York, NY