Equity

Elevating Hope through Latinx Stories

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Elevating Hope through Latinx Stories

As an educator, I draw incredible inspiration from my niece. Her picture sits on my desk and she is the reason I push through challenging times with grit and persistence. She was born in 2011 when I was a teenager. She grew up amidst multiple family traumas, which became a trigger for her behavioral issues at school. She was in my custody when she started Pre-K. As a student who absolutely loved school, I eagerly anticipated sharing this joy with her. What I faced instead was encounter after encounter with her white teacher telling me everything that was wrong with my Latinx niece. These ongoing judgments escalated to the teacher’s conclusion that she ‘could not function in a classroom setting’. I felt powerless and confused, questioning how the education field I cherished so much could turn so ugly. 

I began my research and ultimately got my niece the special education services she needed. This was no easy feat, as it was done with little support from her relatives because of the cultural differences and misconceptions about special education that persist within some Latinx communities. Families require intentional knowledge building, responsive communication, and culturally relevant messaging to counter stigmatizing narratives. Without my ongoing involvement, my niece may have not received necessary services due to communication gaps between my family, community, and the school. 

Fast forward to today: my niece is a rising young artist who knows how to advocate for her needs. The individualized support she receives gives her the opportunity to work toward accomplishing her academic goals and become an increasingly independent learner. Fueled by my personal experience as my niece’s advocate, I aspired to become a knowledgeable teacher who could play a proactive, impactful role in children’s lives by truly knowing them, their needs, their strengths, and their stories. 

I share my niece’s story because I believe deeply in the transformative power of storytelling to shift mindsets and increase empathy. As we close out the official celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month this week, I know that this year’s theme of esperanza (hope) is one I will commit to throughout the year ahead. Instilling and sustaining hope is absolutely essential to our success as educators. I find literature can be a powerful avenue for these authentic and necessary conversations. Both in the classroom and in my work as a coach, I enjoy sharing poetry and stories to highlight diverse perspectives, particularly from Latinx communities. As illustrated by my niece’s experience, using narratives is a way to center others, build respect and understanding, and confront stereotypes in non-threatening ways. 

At an internal training in early October, I led our opening activity by reading “My Name Is Santiago”. In the poem, a Dominican-American boy reflects on the physical, emotional, and mental weight of expectations around his own dreams and those of his relatives, as well as society. We used the Think, Feel, Care routine to unpack the poem’s cultural nuances and dominant norms, leveraging the protocol to build understanding through critical thinking. It was an effective way to name assumptions generated by white ideology, and explore the complexities within Hispanic and Latinx narratives that shape our experiences, specifically in the classroom. 

It is important to continue exploring the diverse countries and identities we honor each Hispanic Heritage Month. I invite you all to uplift different voices, center historically marginalized populations, forge connections, and work to ensure that we are advocating for all students in ways that show cultural responsiveness, empathy, and hope. Within each classroom, there are daughters, sons, children, nephews, and nieces – like mine – who must be fully seen and valued in order to reach their full potential. We each possess the ability to empower students and listen with care as they discover and share their individual stories.

Stephanie Garcia is a Partner at Highlander Institute supporting schools through coaching and change management. She is based in New York City. To learn more, follow her on Instagram @educatingwithsazón and Twitter @Stephgarcia_16. For a great resource to explore with students across grade levels, subject areas, and cultural dimensions, check out this Social Justice Booklists page.

2022 SXSW EDU

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Join us in Austin, TX for SXSW EDU 2022. We’ll be presenting multiple sessions during the conference and hope to see you there.

Session Title: Power to the Families: Doing School Differently

Presenters: Malika Ali (Highlander Institute), Tatiana Baena (Central Falls School District), Travis Pillow (CRPE), & Simona Simpson-Thomas (Freedom Dreams)

Session Date/Time: Monday, March 7, 2022 at 2PM CT

Session Title: Design-Reflect-Iterate: Practices that Empower

Presenters: Malika Ali, Chief Innovation Officer (Highlander Institute) & Karina Rodriguez, Director of Research and Analytics (Highlander Institute)

Session Date/Time: Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 3PM CT

Building a Liberatory Data Model: Karina Rodriguez Named Director of Research and Analytics at Highlander Institute

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Building a Liberatory Data Model: Karina Rodriguez Named Director of Research and Analytics at Highlander Institute

Building a Liberatory Data Model: Karina Rodriguez Named Director of Research and Analytics at Highlander Institute

Building a Liberatory Data Model: Karina Rodriguez Named Director of Research and Analytics at Highlander Institute

Karina Rodriguez, Director of Research and Analytics

From a young age, my parents — 1980s immigrants from the Dominican Republic to New York City — instilled in me the notion that education is the greatest equalizer. I believed this narrative of the “American Dream”, pushing myself through school with the goals of earning a college degree and landing a well paying job to support myself and my family.

When I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, I immediately realized how inadequately my public school education had prepared me for the academic, mental, and emotional demands of that environment.

My intelligence and merit were continuously questioned and undermined by both students and professors in that predominantly White space. My socioeconomic background and BIPOC identity were consistently elevated as the only reasons for my admittance. The trauma almost broke me. I started to avoid any classes or courses of study that required discussion or collaborative work so I could finish my degree as invisibly as possible.

At the same time, I fell in love with ethnographic research and was inspired by world famous anthropologists. It took a few years after graduation for me to be emotionally ready to return to school, but I wanted to further develop my research skills. I felt passionate about both understanding and creating educational environments that would support the success of students like me. The Urban Education Policy Master’s program within Brown University fueled my fire and later led me to Highlander Institute.

During my four year tenure at Highlander Institute, the organization has evolved and grown in the best possible ways. Thanks to the vision and leadership of Chief Innovation Officer, Malika Ali, all of our work is grounded in our framework for Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Pedagogy (CRSP). With this instructional approach as the foundation, it became clear to me that our impact strategy required deep examination to ensure that the way we use and talk about data aligns with our core values of fighting against systemic racism.

While data and research are routinely upheld as objective and neutral, the developers of data instruments and methods are consistently influenced by their own backgrounds, beliefs, and biases. Data scientists over the past century have leveraged data to legitimize far-reaching policies and pervasive systems across all sectors of society — examples include phrenology, eugenics, Apartheid, sexism, redlining, policing — that have further oppressed marginalized communities.

Within the education realm, data has been weaponized, misinterpreted, and used to justify segregation, exclusion, and a deficit mindset in schools. We know that standardized assessments and learning standards were created to uphold White Supremacy, with low-income students of color suffering the most from their impact (NEA, 2021). This truth centers my work at Highlander Institute.

My role as the Director of Research and Analytics is to hold our internal team and external partners accountable for reappropriating the power of data, using it as a tool to disrupt learning disparities and center the student experience within a broader definition of academic success.

Highlander Institute’s liberatory data approach redefines student achievement and growth through a suite of innovative data tools that elevate important conditions for success, encourage teachers to check their assumptions and biases, and offer critical insights into how educators can support students along their personal journeys toward excellence. My vision is to leverage data to:

  • Disrupt the systemic inequities deeply ingrained in our schools;
  • Reframe the deficit mindset attached to test scores;
  • Promote healing by valuing multiple ways of knowing and affirming intelligence;
  • Liberate — instead of limit — the minds and bodies of our students.

As we continue to expand liberatory roles for data in 2022, I am excited to be part of a team that explicitly names the existence of systemic racism and actively works to disrupt it. Both dominant narratives and inequitable systems have caused a great deal of harm to students like me across K- 12 and post-secondary learning spaces. We have a shared responsibility to elevate the excellence our students bring, rather than diminish it. This work is urgent and requires broad support for change to take hold. I welcome the collaborations and difficult but necessary conversations ahead.

2022 Achieving Excellence Together Conference

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We’re presenting! Register by February 18 for the Achieving Excellence Together Conference hosted by the Rhode Island Department of Education to see us in action in person during our sessions.

Session Title: Centering On Instructional Equity

Session Description: The educators who are most successful at disrupting inequity intentionally integrate social emotional learning with cognitive skills that support student achievement. Highlander Institute’s Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Pedagogy (CRSP) Framework is rooted in a strong sense of belonging, academic mindset, and a supportive academic classroom community that positions students for ongoing academic progress. Embedded in the framework are processes for building awareness of deficit-oriented structures and compliance-based systems that contribute to persistent achievement gaps. Further, an emphasis on both relevance and rigor develops critical thinking skills while grounding learning in topics that are important to students and mobilizing them to act in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and society. Join us for an overview of the CRSP framework. Participants will leave with a series of proactive strategies to center planning efforts at the classroom and school levels.

Presenters: Malika Ali, Chief Innovation Officer & Heidi Vazquez, Partner

Session Date/Time: Saturday, March 19, 2022 at 8:45AM ET & 10:30AM ET

Visioning for Justice: Malika Ali Named Chief Innovation Officer of Highlander Institute

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Malika Ali Named Chief Innovation Officer of Highlander Institute

Visioning for Justice: Malika Ali Named Chief Innovation Officer of Highlander Institute

Malika Ali Named Chief Innovation Officer of Highlander Institute

Malika Ali, Chief Innovation Officer

It has been said that our beliefs create reality, that our actions are shaped by our vision of the future, and that our words create worlds.

From my parents I have learned that the most historically oppressed people are often the greatest dreamers and visionaries. It is only because my parents dared to envision a path of liberation through education that I am alive. As East African refugees in search of peace and opportunity, each fled their small village with little more than the power of their respective visions.

At fourteen, my mother made her way to Sudan on foot and by camel. But, because she feared a limiting life in a refugee camp with little access to the kind of learning spaces that inspire curiosity and wonder, she found her way to a local school without identification or family. My father made a similar journey to Ethiopia and then across the Red Sea as an orphaned teenager. A book he read as a child inspired his vision, painting a picture of the life he planned to manifest. There was a house, a green field, and animals roaming about.

Both parents eventually earned degrees while raising four children. Through the vision they constructed for our family, they taught us that education would not just provide access to college, career, social mobility, or financial security, but would be the pathway to freedom and self-actualization. As a Black child growing up in a former sundown town in Oklahoma, the lessons I learned about the transformational power of education were quickly situated in the context of systemic inequity. As a young person I would daydream a different reality, not realizing at the time the great power of children’s instinctual visioning.

As I have learned my place and power in the world, I have been called to engage in educational equity work by visions of what is possible when education realizes its promise. From the journeys of my family as well as my own path, education has provided us a reason to fight for survival, offered us a new reality, and empowered us with the ability to positively impact the world around us.

Students need inspiration to envision and manifest their own path in the world. They deserve an educational experience that encourages them to see themselves as learners; that affirms, sustains, and leverages their identities as strengths; that develops their academic mindsets and cognitive skills; that challenges them to think critically about the world; and that nurtures their motivation to work toward justice.

This is my purpose at Highlander Institute. As Chief Innovation Officer, I lead visioning and develop strategy to create education spaces in which students are self-directed learners and empowered leaders who can transform their lives, communities, and ultimately, society.

At Highlander Institute, we convene design teams comprised of students, educators, families, and school and system leaders to examine data and collectively establish a vision. Our goal is to empower schools and districts around the country to scale and sustain culturally responsive practices by delivering professional learning aligned to community-driven design work. When I look at the visions established by various design teams, I am hopeful for the future. I think about:

  • The mother of a fourth grader who pushed her team to prioritize independent thinking so her daughter would develop the tools to navigate learning challenges on her own;
  • The teacher who encouraged her team to leverage student voice to define some of the education terms in their vision;
  • The school leader whose student shadow experience caused her to emphasize the joy in learning;
  • And, the students who give us all so much grace while guiding our visioning processes toward a more just, equitable reality.

Within our education system, it is time to think critically about what to keep, what to change, and what to build anew. Even with the growing challenges facing schools during a third year of pandemic schooling, the work of visioning for justice cannot wait. When we pick up that piece of chalk, that marker, that pen, that computer keyboard — when we step into spaces of learning — we change the trajectory of students' lives forever. We help them become either more free or less: there is no neutral.

“To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn.” - bell hooks

In tribute to the words above from a beloved ancestor, I invite you, in whatever capacity you serve, to think about how you can engage students and school communities in creating more equitable and inspiring learning environments — spaces that would keep a fourteen-year-old refugee’s hope alive, motivate a child to manifest a future befitting of him, or inspire a young person to dare to work toward a more just society. Our students deserve the opportunity to envision a better world and we require the persistence and courage to fight for a system that realizes their dreams. Our combined liberation is deeply connected. This is sacred, essential work, and I am grateful to do my part alongside my incredible team at Highlander Institute.

Can We Center Both Joy and Safety This Year?

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Can We Center Both Joy and Safety This Year?

Yesterday, during a Design Team meeting with the fantastic staff at Baychester Middle School in the Bronx, we worked collaboratively to interrogate the school’s vision for change using the thinking routine Word-Phrase-Sentence from Project Zero. One teacher elevated the phrase “safe and joyful space” because it resonated with her as a powerful statement as the staff prepares to open their doors to students next week.

In the best of times, the phrase “safe and joyful space” is a cornerstone of back to school relationship-building. However, amidst the pandemic, these two descriptors become more important than ever. When our attention is focused on preventing the spread of the Delta variant – an immense task for folks trained in pedagogy, curriculum and assessment – we are prone to lose sight of joy. Our educators are not healthcare workers, but every day this line is blurred with PCR tests and quarantine planning. For even the most seasoned educators, this work pushes beyond our comfort zones, causing fear and anxiety. 

Our mitigation efforts are undoubtedly essential, but we must name and own that such fear and anxiety can work against the second part of the Design Team teacher’s phrase – joyful space. We have the ability to stay safe this school year, but at what cost to joy? Yesterday afternoon my brand new high schooler returned home to share that he sat in silence, engaging on his phone for three of his six class periods on his first day of school. He was masked, distanced and safe, but there was no joy. 

Our students, especially our most under-resourced and disenfranchised, need joyful spaces. As educators, leaders, nonprofit teams, and government agencies we must find ways to rise above our sadness, anger, and rhetoric to tap into the natural brilliance, energy, and joy that our students show up in our classrooms with each and every day. 

My Twitter feed this week has been filled with incredible back to school, community-building activities from elementary levels all the way through 12th grade. Yes, these types of activities may bring kids in closer proximity to each other in physical classrooms or take up precious time in remote settings. But even as students’ words are muffled through masks or accidentally cut off through mute buttons, these opportunities can nurture the much needed joy and connection that keeps our children engaged, learning, and excited to return the next day. 

As adults, our instinct may be to lament our lost summer, or to reflect on our current situation in comparison to pre-COVID times, but our students don’t have that luxury. This is their one and only shot at a brand new high school transcript or a kindergarten dramatic play area. Some of us are experiencing intense bouts of stress, anxiety, and fear right now. These feelings should not be minimized, by anyone at any time, but they also cannot get in the way of our duty and obligation as educators in all corners of our education system. We must work to create spaces this fall that are both “safe and joyful” for every child – work that brings us all closer to a new vision for what our schools can be. 

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