Community Building Institute

November 2nd-4th, 2022

 
 

The Community Building institute creates space for connection, immersive experiences and application to practice. Roots ConnectED supports leaders and staff of schools in building a strong school community, focused on identity work and inclusion. We will emphasize why Anti Bias and Community Building work is urgent. Participants will develop a shared language around community building and identity work and have the opportunity for personal reflection and identification of goals.

There will be direct experiences with community building, storytelling, and the development of norms. There are many barriers to community building and space will be created to identify these and how they manifest in the school setting. Processes for mitigating them and implications for cultivating interdependence, and power shifts on a personal and school level will take place. Teams will be guided to use what they see and experience to think about and design for staff and family programming in their own communities and school sites.

 

Tentative Schedule for Community Building Institute

What

Anti-Bias and Community Building institute - Three day (or equivalent) Institute experience focused on building a strong school community, focused on identity work and inclusion. Identity and inclusion are at the heart of ABAR work. Building a strong school community is where this institute experience would start.

Day 1

Session 1- Why Building Community is Urgent

  • Connecting to your/our why

  • Experience Community Building

  • Connections to Anti-Bias Education 

  • Dual Process for Change-personal identity work/intersectionality

  • Nature of change/mindset

  • Barriers to community building

  • Pathways to community building

  • Developing your why 

Session 2- Essential Components of Community Building 

  • Creating Norms

  • Using norms to center and lead into an activity

  • Reinforcing norms during and after

  • Listening to understand

  • Storytelling

  • What to do with your own reactions to stories 

  • Mitigating harm

Closing circle / activity

Post Session Open Work

  • Additional Application work of choice

Day 2

Session 1 - Recognizing Bias

  • What it means (collective transformation)

  • Developing shared language to name and understand how it shows up in your setting

  • Systems for identifying biases in your practice

Session 2 - Confronting and Mitigating Bias: 

  • Recognizing personal power and shifting

  • Developing a culture of collaboration/interconnectedness

  • Mitigating bias, cultivating a flexible growth mindset about others

  • Interdependence and UDL connection in relationships with stakeholders and learners

Closing circle / activity

Post Session Open Work

  • Additional Application work of choice

Day 3 

Session 1 -  Culture of Action

  • Community building with three stakeholders (staff, families, students)

  • Developing and using tools to articulate/share experiences

  • Planning community building events (staff, families,and/or systems)

Session 2- Planning for Action

  • Refining goals

  • Next steps, roles and processes for bringing these goals to life.

  • Additional supports and reflection process

Closing and Share