NEASC2024

Too often, community responses to inequities see schools as the primary drivers of societal change. This presentation addresses this critical dilemma – how can educators teach inclusive content and implement equitable teaching practices without the engagement of all members of the school community – including all families? Clearly, we cannot create inclusive schools without also addressing bias and discrimination in the broader community. This presentation will focus on two main ideas. First, we'll explore how to build inclusive school environments within our increasingly diverse school populations. Discussion will include how a family's social identity influences their engagement and advocacy and why educators should expect conflict as part of the family-school relationship (and what to do with it!). Second, we'll explore how families from high income backgrounds upend education equity and ways to address this issue and move our entire school community towards education for the common good.

Too often students experience school as a series of things that happens to them over which they have little or no control. This leads to transactional mindsets and a sense that all school is for is investing in future (markers of) success: college/university acceptance, major, grad school, career, salary. This session challenges educators and leaders to think of school as an investment in who our students are now, as people developing identities, figuring out how they want to see and be seen in the world, forging world views, and determining how they want to act and interact with others. Through a spider chart activity on educational models, a discussion of ways to leverage external motivators (like grades) for intrinsic passion development, and a reflection on what constitutes true 21st century skills and capacities, participants will acquire strategies and tactics for combatting relevance resistance and for making school more human-centered.