Passion. Experience. Commitment.

My philosophy and pedagogy for racial equity, diversity, and inclusion begin with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In his classic text Freire teaches us that the student is as valuable to the learning experience, and has as much to offer as the teacher. When I begin to think about a workshop, for example, I raise questions for myself like “who will be in this class?;” “what life history do they bring with them?;” “what are they experiencing now that will affect how they learn?;” “and how will power and privilege show up in the classroom?” I get through this using two methods: storytelling and thinking critically about how we have conversations across difference. 

The first method, storytelling, begins by guiding people through the exercise of telling their story, something many people have not been thoughtful about. This is more than just retelling one’s childhood memories, for example. To tell one’s story requires thinking critically about the experience that make up one’s narrative. In doing this people can begin to identify experiences of privilege and marginalization that may have previously been unnoticed. I do this because I want to complicate our relationship to privilege and marginalization. It is an exercise in guiding participants to examine the intersections of different experiences in their lives. Once the student begins to explore their narrative I guide them through exercises in learning to listen to other’s narratives. This is also something many never do thoughtfully. This second phase allows participants to begin to situate themselves in relation to other participants, not to slip into identity politics, but to begin to see that there are often more connection points with those we view as different than we often think. To use a cliche, it humanizes the other. 

Once that humanization has begun I switch to exercises that examine how we have conversations with people who seem ideologically different from ourselves. I call this lesson “Dialogue Across Difference.” I use the model of creating gracious space, a space where welcome and openness to difference are the primary defining characteristics of the learning environment. Using the “Building Blocks of Dialogue” from the Center for Ethical Leadership in Seattle, Washington, I encourage participants to explore the practice of listening and to compare and contrast debate and dialogue. The key lesson is that gracious space does not lead to effective dialogue, but rather that the practice of dialogue in all its messiness produces gracious space. 

I de-center myself as the expert in the room and model ways of listening, empathy, and collaboration in order to deconstruct the power dynamics in the space. Key to this process is putting on display my own vulnerability as a learner within the learning community. By doing so I am able to underscore a key part of learning: there is no safe space. I am not capable of immunizing the classroom against all sorts of comments, actions, or behaviors that might potentially trigger one another. But what I can do is perform the ways we can pivot, name discomfort, apologize for our words and behaviors, and thus create a brave space where participants feel empowered to confront rather than avoid difficult topics related to the experience of power, privilege, and marginalization. These are methods I use regardless of the situation or subject matter and I have seen them engender real ideological and material shifts.