NEASC2024

During this workshop, participants will gain a clear understanding of the definition of implicit bias and racial microaggressions, and how they manifest themselves in schools. The workshop will provide insights into how these phenomena can interrupt and harm the learning process. Most importantly, attendees will learn practices to address these issues. Understanding definitions and theories will only be useful if the knowledge gained leads to improved teaching and learning. Therefore, participants will be exposed to proven strategies to counter the negative effects of microaggressions and implicit bias. Lastly, attendees will have an opportunity to raise questions and discuss challenges in real-time.

At a time when most independent schools are significantly resourcing and prioritizing efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, one form of diversity that is often ignored is ideological diversity. For the past four years, Seniors at BB&N have taken a seminar during their Senior Spring Project entitled "Beyond Our Echo Chambers: Understanding the Other." This seminar, which meets for 90 minutes per week for 10 weeks, involves a virtual exchange between BB&N students and student members of the teenage Republican club in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Borrowing from the methodology of Braver Angels, a national non-profit devoted to cultivating critical dialogue between "Reds" and "Blues," the students move through a series of exercises leading up examination of issues such as abortion, immigration, gun control, Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, climate change, LGBTQIA+ rights, etc. The goal is to practice civil discourse, to humanize the other, and to expand our perspectives beyond our immediate echo chambers. Come to this session to learn more about this approach and how you might incorporate elements in your own school contexts.

As founding leaders of a new boarding school with a diverse student and staff population in an environment without a tradition of community-oriented boarding schools, creating a common purpose and shared culture was an existential necessity for us. This session will explore the principles and processes we followed as we developed a school culture with the singular mission-focused purpose of promoting student leadership. Our time will focus on three areas: 1) how we developed a shared understanding of our mission and shared language to promote the culture of leadership we aspired to, reflecting our "thinking about it" and "working on it" stages; 2) how we created and sustained routines, rhythms, and rituals that support a culture of leadership, reflecting our "living it" phase, and 3) understanding the student experience of building and sustaining a shared purpose, reflecting one pathway for a "what if" inquiry.