Antiracism 101 - Opening Session

This session will provide a general introduction to the concept of antiracism and what it means to be an antiracist educator.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Identify steps and begin the process of developing an antiracist lens.
2. Identify strategies to begin the process of becoming an antiracist educator.

Developing an Antiracist Mindset

The journey to antiracism begins with understanding what it means to be racist. This session will introduce racism as a societal construct. Factors that contribute to racism will be unpacked and examined within the context of how race intersects with gender, language, class, and religion. Additionally, participants are presented with ideas that support an antiracist ideology. Antiracism will be defined and explored within the context of critical race theory.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Define and distinguish between racist and antiracist.
2. Acknowledge the intersectionality of race on interrelating social categories.

This session will engage participants in understanding implicit bias within the context of a racialized environment. The influence of implicit bias on interactions with others and daily decisions will be carefully analyzed. Specific strategies to recognize and minimize bias will be shared along with strategies to address microaggressions.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Analyze contributing factors which lead to the formulation of bias.
2. Model practices to minimize implicit bias within a racialized environment.

Deepening our Understanding of Systemic Racism

This session will deepen our understanding of systemic racism by exploring race from a historical perspective. A thorough examination of how colonialism contributed to inequities imposed by the white race will be extrapolated as a contributing factor to systemic inequities.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize how colonialism contributed to racial inequities.
2. Understand the pervasive nature of racism, at the individual, operates in a larger system and perpetuates systemic racism.
3. Acknowledge the pervasiveness of systemic racism within your organization and identify at least one action step to redress systemic racism.

Determining the Impact of Power and Privilege

This session will advance race conversations to assess the impact of power and privilege within organized systems. Critical to this assessment will be an exploration of whiteness, anti-blackness, and BIPOC; and how these social groups exercise power and privilege differently within the systems in which they operate. Additionally, participants will use an antiracist lens to formulate strategies to utilize power and privilege to dismantle racism.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize the complexity of power and privilege exercised by different groups within organized systems.
2. Analyze how personal power and privilege can be used to support antiracism.

Dismantling Racial Disproportionality

This session will identify and unpack the root causes of racial disproportionality within the institution of schools. A review of the data will be presented and used to highlight racial inequities such as school discipline, special education, and gifted education. Participants will be challenged to apply an antiracist lens to identify a system, policy, and/or practice that contributes to an identified disparity; and devise a plan to actively work towards eradicating racism.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Develop a common understanding of how disproportionality operates within institutionalized racism.
2. Devise a plan to eradicate an identified racist system, policy, and/or practice within a school environment.

Designing Antiracist Student Supports

This session will identify supports needed in order for students to thrive in an antiracist school environment. The values normalized by the white dominant culture will be interrogated within the school context. Curriculum representation, assets-based instruction, and culturally relevant practice will be emphasized as promising supports to engage students of color.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Interrogate structures and practices that uphold the values of the white dominant culture.
2. Evaluate options to intentionally engage and support students of color.

Developing Sustainable Antiracist Environments

This session will build upon the knowledge of systemic policies and practices that perpetuate racism by analyzing current environments using an antiracist lens. Action steps will be developed to sustain antiracist systems.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Analyze the current work environment using an antiracist lens.
2. Identify actionable items needed to sustain antiracist policies and practices.

Doing the Work: Allies, Accomplices and Co-conspirators

The final session in the series will require a critical reflection of dispositions developed to support antiracist education. Participants will be challenged to move beyond allyship to more active engagement as accomplices and co-conspirators.

Learning Outcome:

1. Apply a critically reflective lens to analyze personal antiracist behaviors.
2. Identify opportunities to sustain antiracist actions.