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ELAINE  NEUGEBAUER:  Okay,  good  morning.  I’m  Elaine  Neugebauer,  educational  consultant  at  the  PaTTAN  Pittsburgh  office.  Welcome  to  A  Cultural  Competency  Journey.  We  have  three  folks  here  today  that  are  going  to  share  their  journey  and  their  roles  in  that  journey.  And  we’re  going  to  start  with  Dr.  Gretchen  Generett,  and  she  comes  to  us  from  Duquesne  University’s  Educational  Foundations  department.  And  through  her  teaching  and  qualitative  research,  she  prepares  teachers  to  effectively  instruct  a  diverse  population  of  learners.  

  We  also  have  Mr.  Dennis  Cullen,  who’s  an  educational  consultant  out  of  the  King  of  Prussia  office.  And  we  also  have  Dr.  DeVoka  Gordon,  who’s  an  EITA,  early  intervention  consultant  out  of  the  PaTTAN  Pittsburgh  office.  And  both  consultants  support  teachers  in  providing  effective  instruction  supports  to  their  learners.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Thank  you  so  much,  Elaine.  I  appreciate  that.  And  welcome.  Thank  you  all  for  taking  time  to  come  and  be  with  us  today.  It  is  a  real  pleasure  to  be  here  to  share  with  you  a  journey,  a  process  that  I  was  blessed  to  be  a  part  of  with  PaTTAN  consultants  from  this  great  state.  You  see  our  title,  so  we’re  just  going  to  go  through.  I’m  going  to  take  some  time  to  talk  about  the  process,  how  it  was  developed,  how  I  came  to  meet  all  these  wonderful  people.  

  And  then  I’m  going  to  have  Dennis  and  DeVoka  chime  in  and  talk  a  bit  about  their  experience.  And  we  also  have  some  folks  in  the  audience  who  was  a  part  of  our  learning  group,  and  they  too  will  be  called  to  share  their  experiences.  It’s  not  a  surprise  to  them.  I  told  them  about  five  minutes  ago.  So  they  have  been  warned.  

  Okay,  so  how  did  this  all  get  started?  Dr.  Jim  Palmiero,  who  is  the  director  of  PaTTAN  Pittsburgh,  contacted  me  about  over  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  And  Jim  and  I  were  colleagues  working  in  previous  lives  before  I  joined  the  faculty  at  Duquesne  and  before  he  came  -­‐-­‐  before  he  became  the  director  at  PaTTAN.  We  had  worked  on  a  project  together  around  culture  issues  before.    

And  so  when  Jim  called  me,  he  said,  Gretchen,  we  need  to  talk.  So  I  said,  sure  Jim,  let’s  talk.  It’s  been  a  while.  I  haven’t  talked  to  you  in  a  couple  years.  He  said,  you  know,  I  think  we  have  some  issues,  we  have  a  problem  that  we’ve  identified,  and  I  want  to  get  your  take  on  it,  all  right?  So  I  came  out  to  the  office.  And  so  anytime  you’re  embarking  upon  a  journey,  a  process,  you  have  to  identify  the  problem,  right?  I  didn’t  identify  the  problem.  The  folks  at  PaTTAN  did,  all  right.  And  I  was  just  invited  in,  which  is  why  I  felt  so  fortunate  to  be  a  part  of  this.  

So  we’ll  talk  a  bit  more  about  the  problem  later  on.  He  said  to  me  when  I  met  with  him,  and  I  also  met  with  Donna  Westbrooks-­‐Martin  at  that  time,  he  said  to  me,  look,  there’s  some  disparities  that  we’ve  identified.  We  want  to  do  a  better  job  of  training  and  working  with  folks  to  address  those  issues.  And  we  want  to  start  with  the  consultants,  so  we  want  to  kind  of  do  this  process  to  see  if  we  have  our  consultants  go  through  an  experience,  that  we  might  be  able  to  replicate  out  in  our  work.  So  I  said,  okay,  talk  a  little  bit  more.  

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And  he  said,  I  want  us  to  engage  in  an  authentic  learning  process.  I  looked  at  Jim  and  I  said,  really?  And  he  said,  yes,  I  want  it  to  be  authentic.  And  I  asked  him  again,  I  said,  really?  He  said,  yes.  I  said,  Donna,  you  hear  that?  And  he’s  like,  yeah.  Because  generally  when  people  say  they  want  an  authentic  learning  experience,  what  they  really  want  are  the  outcomes  that  they’ve  predicted  that  they  need,  right?  And  if  you’re  going  through  anything  authentic,  you  can’t  predict  what  the  outcomes  are  going  to  be,  right?  

So  I  wrote  that  down  because  I  knew  I  would  need  it  later.  So  engaging  in  an  authentic  learning  process,  that’s  what  we  did,  all  right?  And  so  we’ll  talk  more  about  that,  okay.  So  what  I  said  to  him,  I  said,  okay,  let’s  think  about  what  we  want  to  do.  And  he  said,  well,  let’s  talk  about  cultural  competency.  I  said,  okay,  let’s  talk  about  cultural  competency.  

Now  in  my  field  where  I  work,  there  are  lots  of  different  ways  of  talking  about  cultural  competency,  lots  of  different  names.  You  might  have  heard  culturally  relevant  pedagogy.  Anybody  heard  that?  Culturally  relevant,  culturally  responsive.  Right,  we’ve  heard  all  those.  What  are  some  other  names  that  you’ve  heard  when  you  think  about  cultural  competency?  You  are  all  in  the  field.  You  all  know,  right?  They  can  come  to  mind.  

We  were  working  from  a  definition  of  cultural  competence,  all  right?  And  we  were  thinking  about  it  in  broad  terms  because  we  want  people  -­‐-­‐  we  wanted  -­‐-­‐  we  knew,  again,  if  we  were  being  authentic,  that  we  wanted  people  to  be  able  to  hook  into  it,  right,  to  hook  into  this  definition.  But  we  also  needed  a  common  starting  place.  So  this  is  -­‐-­‐  this  was  our  common  starting  place.  Cultural  and  linguistic  competence  is  a  set  of  congruent  behaviors,  attitudes,  and  policies  that  comes  together  to  assist  an  agency  or  among  professionals  that  enables  effective  work  in  cross-­‐cultural  situations.  Very  broad,  very  general,  right?  And  so  I  said,  okay,  that’s  where  we’re  starting.  We’re  going  to  dig  in  deep  into  that.  That’s  where  we  started,  with  our  definitions.  

All  right,  so  one  of  the  things  I  said  to  him,  I  said,  look  Jim,  you  can’t  make  people  come  to  this.  He  said,  why?  I’m  the  director.  I  can  make  people  come.  And  I  said,  no,  authentic,  remember?  We  want  people  to  want  to  come  because  they  also  believe  there’s  a  problem.  And  he  said,  okay,  Gretchen,  but  we  know.  I  said,  wait  Jim.  I  said,  I’ve  done  this  long  enough  to  know  that  I  don’t  want  to  have  to  convince  anybody  that  there  are  disparities  in  schools.  I  said,  fortunately  I’m  in  a  position  now  where  I  get  to  work  with  people  who  actually  think  that  there  are  and  who  actually  are  wanting  to  address  those  disparities.    

And  I  said,  and  that’s  who  we  want  to  start  with.  I  said,  we  want  to  start  with  those  folks  because  you  said  you  want  to  model  behaviors  that  you  want  to  see  out  in  the  field.  All  right,  so  I  said,  we  want  to  create,  we  want  to  invite  people  to  come,  all  right?  We  want  to  say,  come  be  with  us.  Come  learn  with  us.  Let’s  learn  together.  

All  right,  so  this  was  a  very  open  process.  Now  I  will  say  to  you  and  you  will  hear  from  Dennis  and  DeVoka  and  Michael  and  David  and  Donna,  I  don’t  know  what  was  going  on  behind  the  scenes  at  PaTTAN,  right?  But  I  believe  that  everyone  wanted  to  be  there.  And  that’s  the  story  I’m  sticking  to.    

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So  creating  a  trusting  and  transparent  learning  community,  we  have  asked  Jim  and  Donna  to  send  out  invitations  to  people  to  say,  look,  we’re  doing  this.  This  is  who  we’re  working  with.  So  we  had  some  volunteers  to  come  and  say,  okay,  we’ll  do  this.  And  we  started  off  with  a  nice,  intimate  group  of  people.  And  I  rode  down  to  Harrisburg  in  October  the  following  year,  so  fast  forward  a  year  after  my  initial  conversation  with  Jim  and  Donna.  And  we  started  off.  So  we  did  a  couple  things.  We  set  some  group  norms  and  we  set  an  agenda  during  that  first  day  based  upon  some  of  the  disparity  data  that  we  had.  I’m  going  to  move  over  here,  so  I  think  that’s  okay  with  the  camera.  Okay.  

So  some  group  norms.  These  are  group  norms  that  I  put  together  because  I  knew  we  were  going  to  be  talking  about  difficult  issues.  Anytime  you  put  people  in  a  room  to  talk  across  differences,  and  I  mean  any  kind  of  difference,  right?  You  can  talk  across  gender.  You  can  talk  across  race.  You  can  talk  across  socio-­‐economics.  You  can  talk  about  sexual  orientation.  Anytime  you  put  people  together  in  a  room  where  you  have  difference,  you  need  to  -­‐-­‐  and  you  want  to  be  honest,  right,  in  a  professional  context,  you  need  to  establish  some  group  norms.  

All  right,  and  so  that’s  what  I  did.  I  put  down  a  list  of  norms  and  I  said,  can  we  all  agree  to  this?  All  right,  so  here  was  our  list.  Listen  actively,  meaning  don’t  text.  Don’t  write  your  to-­‐do  list  for  when  you  get  home  that  includes  picking  up  a  dozen  eggs,  right?  So  really  actively  listening.  Speaking  from  your  own  experiences.  It’s  really  hard  in  a  professional  context  to  talk  from  your  own  experiences.  We’ve  been  told  to  take  the  self  out  of  this,  right?  But  we  need  to  do  that  in  this  kind  of  work.  So  speaking  from  your  own  personal  experiences,  not  being  afraid  to  respectfully  challenge.    

One  of  the  best  things  in  my  life  is  my  group  of  critical  friends.  That’s  what  I  call  them.  They  love  me  enough  to  be  honest  with  me.  Gretchen,  that  dress  looks  awful.  Do  not  go  out  like  that.  Because  then  when  I  go  out,  I’d  be  like,  why’d  you  let  me  go  out  like  that?  Right?  So  critical  friends,  right,  this  idea  that  we  want  to  respectfully  challenge  one  another.  Now  you  can  imagine  how  hard  that  can  be  at  work,  right?  Participate  to  the  fullest  of  your  ability.  And  there  are  more  if  I  can  get  this  to  click.  Okay.  All  right,  there  we  go.    

So  this  idea  too  -­‐-­‐  now  here’s  something  that  is  really  hard,  right?  Because  we’re  all  educators  and  want  people  to  feel  good  about  what  they’re  saying,  right?  So  we’re  like,  yeah,  validating  other  people  by  sharing,  you  know  -­‐-­‐  by  focusing  on  their  story.  So  we  wanted  people  to  think  about  instead  of  validating  someone  else’s  story  with  your  own  spin  on  what  you  think  you  heard  them  say,  right,  share  your  own  words  and  your  own  experiences.  Okay,  this  happens  a  lot.  It  happens  very  quickly  where  people  will  reword  what  you  say,  right,  as  opposed  to  speaking  from  their  own  positions.  Okay?  

I  let  people  know  that  I  believe  that  the  goal  of  our  group  was  not  to  have  to  agree,  but  that  we  were  really  looking  for  a  deeper  understanding  and  more  meaningful  learning  in  the  process.  And  I  also  said,  be  conscious  of  your  body  language.  Oh,  this  is  so  hard.  I  do  it  all  the  time.  I  have  this  exercise  with  my  students  where  I  tell  them  where  they’re  doing  an  interview  or  they’re  listening  to  someone,  and  they  can’t  make  any  body  movements  at  all.  They  can’t  -­‐-­‐  have  to  be  totally  stoic,  right?    

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So  if  I’m  interviewing  you  and  you’re  telling  me  -­‐-­‐  I  ask  you  a  question  about,  tell  me  about  your  experience  at  the  implementer’s  forum?  You’re  telling  me  and  I  just  have  to  look  at  you.  That’s  very  hard  to  do,  right?  People  are  like,  that’s  really  scary,  Dr.  Generett.  You  look  really  mean  and  evil  when  you  do  that.  But  the  idea  is  that  we’re  always  giving  people  unconscious  feedback  through  our  body  language,  right?  Whether  we  agree,  like  yeah,  keep  going  with  that.  Or  like,  I  don’t  really  agree  with  that.  Let  me  write  my  to-­‐do  list,  right?  

This  idea  of  being  conscious  of  your  body  language  again.  So  here’s  the  thing  about  group  norms.  And  Dennis  and  DeVoka  will  speak  to  this  and  maybe  right  now.  Should  we  go  -­‐-­‐  so  it  was  hard  sometimes  to  keep  up  with  the  group  norms,  so.  

DENNIS  CULLEN:  Yeah,  absolutely.  The  one  thing  that  I  can  say  is  that  we  did  accomplish  the  goal  of  not  do  it  great.  We  made  that  one,  which  was  great.  The  other  thing  that  was  challenging,  and  I  think  we’re  going  to  talk  about  this  a  little  bit  later,  is  that  it  was  -­‐-­‐  we  ended  up  having  to  do  some  virtual  meetings  or  go-­‐to  meetings,  video  conferences.  So  it  was  really  hard  to  have  that  authentic  experience  when  you  are  doing  this  via  video.    

It  was  also  sometimes  challenging  when  you  work  with  these  people,  you’re  friendly  with  these  people  and  when  you  had  to  call  somebody  out  on  not,  you  know,  going  by  the  norms.  We  had  an  experience  one  day,  and  it  was  a  video  conference.  We  had  an  experience  where  someone  was  typing  during  our  conversation.  And  you  could  hear  the  click,  click,  click,  click,  click,  click.  And  I  said,  wow,  you  know,  that’s  really  loud  when  you’re  -­‐-­‐  and  the  person  said,  how  did  you  know  that  was  me?  I’m  like,  I  can  hear  it  through  the  -­‐-­‐  and  I  can  see  your  hands  doing  this.  So  calling  folks  out  when  they  were  not  meeting  our  expectations  was  challenging.  

And  I  think  one  of  the  other  challenges,  and  I’ll  let  DeVoka  speak,  and  I  think  this  is  going  to  come  up  again  too,  is  having  somebody  who’s  in  a  position  of  authority  in  the  group  and  having  to  relinquish  that  position  of  authority  to  be  a  member  of  this  group  so  that  the  idea  was  that  we  were  all  supposed  to  be  equal  members  in  here.  And  so  having  to  call  somebody  out  who  is  a  supervisor  or  a  director  when  he  or  she  is  not  meeting  the  norms  can  present  some  challenges.  Because  while,  yeah,  you’re  in  that  role  during  that  time,  outside  of  that  time,  you  know,  that  person’s  still  the  boss.  So  that’s  something  to  think  about  if  you  are  going  to  go  on  a  journey  like  this  whether  you  are  an  administrator  or  you’re  going  to  be  working  with  an  administrator  that  your  role  is  going  to  be  very  different  as  a  part  of  this  group.  You’re  all  equals.  

DEVOKA  GORDON:  Thanks,  Dennis.  I  work  for  the  EITA,  which  is  the  -­‐-­‐  I’m  sorry,  I  have  allergies  this  morning,  so  I  sound  like  I’ve  been  crying,  but  not  really.  Which  is  the  Early  Intervention  Technical  Assistance.  So  when  this  is  -­‐-­‐  our  cultural  group  consists  of  school-­‐age  and  it  consists  of  preschool  and  Head  Start.  So  I  work  with  the  younger  children.  [inaudible].  Interesting  putting  this  group  together  because  everyone  in  the  group  had  their  own  perspective  and  was  coming  from  a  different  experience.  So  supporting  those  experiences  -­‐-­‐  and  sometimes  it  was  blood  on  the  walls  when  we  left.  I  mean,  because  it  was  just  you  had  to  open  up  the  doors  and  let  the  heat  out  because  it  was  just  that  intense.    

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And  that’s  okay.  And  that’s  okay  to  agree  to  disagree.  It’s  okay  to  come  away  -­‐-­‐  because  then  what  it  did  was  in  the  next  meeting,  you  came  back,  you  said,  you  know,  I  do  understand  now.  You  know,  I  do  see.  So  you  go  away  grumpy,  and  you  come  back  and  you  think  about  it.  And  you  come  back  with  a  different  experience.  It’s  okay,  like  I  said,  to  agree  to  disagree.  And  even  if  you  never  come  to  a  consensus,  that’s  all  right  because  that’s  your  experience.  And  to  allow  that  person  to  speak  from  experience,  you  cannot  negate  that  because  it’s  mine  and  I’ve  taken  that  step  of  trust  with  you.  And  that  was  when  the  group  started  to  trust  that  confidentiality  [inaudible]  I  know  something  in  the  group,  but  I  can’t  share  it  with  you.  What  was  going  outside,  we  can’t  tell.  We  can’t  tell  you.  You  know,  but  that  confidentiality  and  that  trust  that  you  have  with  one  another  that  I’m  baring  my  soul  to  you,  in  part,  and  I  expect  you  to  keep  that  confidentiality.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  And  the  other  awesome  part  about  this  and  why  it  was  such  a  privilege  for  me  to  work  with  this  group  is  because  I  truly  was  a  facilitator,  right?  And  so  there  would  be  times  when  in  the  group  norms,  I  also  would  have  to  be  called  to  the  carpet.  And  I  remember  actually  after  our  first  session  going,  oh  gosh,  I  didn’t  do  -­‐-­‐  I  didn’t  stop  somebody,  right,  from  doing  something  they  weren’t  supposed  to  do.  And  I  came  back  and    apologized  to  the  group  and  said,  hey,  let’s  go  back  over  the  group  norms.  You  see  how  easy  it  is  to  mess  this  up,  right,  or  not  to  do  it?  And  so  -­‐-­‐  or  to  relearn  behaviors  or  unlearn  certain  behaviors.  So  that  part  was  also  quite  nice  for  me  as  well.  

  So  what  we  know  from  the  data,  I  mean,  that’s  a  whole  other  session,  right?  But  I  just  want  to  share  a  bit  about  some  of  the  places  that  we  started.  We  started  because,  you  know,  cultural  competence,  culturally  responsive  education,  whatever  you  want  to  call  it,  it  is  potentially  -­‐-­‐  I  actually  believe  it  is,  is  a  way  for  us  to  address  these  disparities,  right?  A  way  for  us  to  really  begin  to  think  about  why  are  we  having  so  many  students  of  color,  so  many  poor  kids,  right,  getting  referrals  regardless  of  what  their  context  is.  Right?  

    So  this  is  not  just  an  urban  problem  or  a  rural  problem.  We  know  from  research  that  even  when  kids  are  middle  class  and  in  suburban  areas,  if  you’re  brown  in  those  contexts,  you  are  more  likely  to  be  referred  for  behavior  issues.  Right?  

  So  what  we  need  -­‐-­‐  what  we  said  in  this  process  was  we  want  to  figure  out  what  is  it  that  we  can  do.  We  can’t  change  home  environment.  We  can’t  change  external  factors  before  they  come  into  the  room.  Okay,  let’s  just  put  that  out.  I  don’t  want  to  hear  anything  about  parents,  right?  I  don’t  want  to  hear  anything  about  the  economic  crisis,  right?  I  want  when  they  walk  through  the  door,  right,  what  can  we  as  educators  do?  

  So  we  just  started  with  the  data,  and  we  also  spoke  intentionally  about  what  it  means  for  kids  to  become  a  part  of  these  behavior  paradigms.  Like  if  a  kid  is  suspended  in  third  grade,  what  does  that  mean  for  him  or  her  by  the  time  they’re  18  years  old,  you  know?  And  people  are  basing  real  decisions  on  outcomes  that  we  have.  So  policymakers  are  deciding  how  many  jails  to  build  based  upon  how  many  kids  are  suspended  in  fourth  grade.  We  know  that  from  data,  all  right?  So  we  have  a  crisis,  folks,  and  we  need  to  figure  out  what  we  can  do  to  stop  pipelines  in  the  prison  systems,  for  example.  

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  So  this  data,  if  you  don’t  know  it,  go  learn  it,  okay?  Go  learn  it.  And  so  that’s  why  we  were  doing  this  work.  Now  some  of  my  other  work  as  a  professional  looks  at  powerful  learning  experiences  for  adults,  right?  So  what  do  we  do?  Like  we  know  we  can  talk  about  how  we  get  -­‐-­‐  how  we  motivate  kids,  right?  But  it’s  much  harder  to  work  with  young  adults  as  I  do  when  I  get  like  18,  19-­‐year-­‐olds  in  my  class  who  think  LBJ  stands  for  LeBron  James,  all  right?  Like  no,  it  doesn’t.  No,  no,  I’m  talking  about  my  undergraduates.  

  To  graduate  students,  right,  we’re  talking  about  folks  who  have  already  had  certain  learning  experiences.  They’ve  been  somewhat  successful  at  learning,  right?  They  know  they’re  smart.  They’ve  been  validated  in  certain  ways.  And  so  how  do  you  craft  meaningful  learning  experiences  so  that  you  have  outcomes?  

  And  so  I’ve  worked  with  the  National  Group  and  we’ve  put  together  some  things.  And  so  this  is  where  I  was  pulling  some  of  my  curriculum  decisions  from  based  upon  what  I  know  about  powerful    learning  experiences  working  with  adults.  And  what  we  know  is  they  do  need  to  be  authentic.  Again,  why  I  felt  so  privileged.  They  need  to  be  authentic,  meaningful,  relevant  to  the  profession,  relevant  problems.  And  they  have  to  find  links  between  theory  and  principal  practice,  right?  So  the  idea  that  you  need  to  find  theories  -­‐-­‐  oh,  did  I  do  that?  No?  I’m  unplugged,  okay.  You  need  to  find  connections  between  the  theories  that  you  have  heard  about  or  are  learning  about,  to  what  is  actually  happening  in  the  building,  okay,  where  you’re  working  or  in  your  office.  Okay?  There’s  some  other  stuff.  

  Okay,  so  we’ll  go  down.  It  requires  collaboration  and  interdependence.  We  don’t  like  to  work  so  low,  right?  This  idea  that  you  really  need  to  create  an  experience  that  centers  this  idea  that  we  learn  from  and  with  each  other.  Okay?  You  have  to  create  something  that  empowers  learners  that  also  demonstrates  that  they  are  responsible  for  their  own  learning.  Okay?  So  this  might  sound  familiar  with  some  of  the  work  that  you’ve  done  with  your  own  -­‐-­‐  in  your  own  education  arenas.  

  Involve  sense-­‐making  around  critical  problems  of  practice.  You  look  there  to  the  far  right,  develops  confidence  in  leadership.  We  are  all  leaders.  So  it  doesn’t  matter  if  I’m  working  with  undergraduates  or  graduate  students.  You  need  to  see  yourself  as  having  the  potential,  if  you  already  are  not,  to  be  a  leader,  all  right?  That’s  how  you  feel  good  about  what  you’re  saying  and  confident  in  what  you’re  saying.  

  Places  both  the  professor  or  facilitator  and  the  student  in  a  learning  situation.  So  nobody’s  all-­‐knowing.  I’m  not  depositing  any  information  into  people,  right?  I’m  building  upon  experiences.  Going  down  to  that  bottom-­‐right,  it  has  a  reflective  component.  You  look  there  in  the  middle  column  at  the  bottom,  it  shifts  perspective.  When  we’re  thinking  about  schools,  right,  it  shifts  perspective  from  the  classroom  to  the  school  to  the  district  to  the  state  level.  Okay,  so  when  we’re  working  in  education,  we  have  to  be  able  to  understand  how  the  problem  that  we  are  looking  at  is  impacted  and  affected  at  every  level.  Okay,  so  cultural  competence,  what  is  the  impact  in  the  classroom?  What’s  the  impact  in  the  school  building?  What’s  the  impact  at  the  district  level?  And  what  does  it  look  like  at  the  state  level?  Okay?  

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  And  I  saved  this  one  in  the  middle  for  last  because  it’s  in  the  center.  It’s  at  the  center  of  everything  that  we  do  right  now  for  powerful  learning  experiences  for  adults.  Explores,  critiques,  and  deconstructs  from  an  equity  perspective,  right?  That’s  got  to  be  at  the  center  of  everything  you  do  when  you’re  looking  at  problems,  critical  problems  in  education  right  now.  All  right?  So  it  can  go  across  race,  across  culture,  across  language,  across  abilities.  But  you’ve  got  to  look  at  it  from  an  equity  perspective,  right?  How  are  kids  experiencing  this  in  equitable  ways?  Or  are  they?  You  got  to  ask  that  question.  

  Okay,  so  here’s  an  example  of  one  of  our  days  together:  November  9th,  2011.  We  started  out  talking  about  our  own  development,  right.  We  started  out  the  title  of  that  workshop  that  day  -­‐-­‐  and  we  were  together  four  hours  that  day?  I  think  four  hours,  a  four-­‐hour  timeslot  that  we  were  together.  We  were  looking  at  individual,  systematic,  and  structural  barriers.  

  So  individually,  we  might  have  our  own  barriers  based  upon  our  own  narratives.  We  did  a  lot  of  deconstruction  of  personal  narratives,  whether  you  come  from  a  position  of  privilege,  talked  a  lot  about  privilege,  around  race,  around  ability,  around  socio-­‐economic  class.  Or  oppression,  looking  at  how  you  have  been  historically  marginalized  as  an  individual  or  as  a  member  of  a  historically  oppressed  group,  okay?  

  So  we  said  that  this  work  is  dynamic,  it’s  complex,  and  it’s  multi-­‐faceted.  Hard  stuff.  This  is  one  DeVoka  was  talking  about  stuff  on  the  walls.  This  is  where  we  got  into  it.  So  we  talked  a  bit  again,  defining  words.  And  I  said  to  people,  I  said,  you  may  not  like  all  these  words  we’re  going  to  use,  but  I’m  going  to  give  you  some  tools  to  get  past  that.  Because  we  need  a  common  language,  okay?  Again,  we  need  some  language  that  we  can  use  to  describe  experiences.  

  So  one  of  the  words,  one  of  the  common  words  we  used  was  to  talk  about  oppression.  And  that’s  not  a  pretty  word,  right?  Nobody  feels  warm  and  fuzzy  when  they  hear  the  word  oppression,  all  right?  But  again,  they  volunteered,  right?  I  always  fall  back  on  that.  So  oppression,  what  is  oppression?  By  definition,  it’s  a  system  that  maintains  advantage  and  disadvantage  based  on  a  stereotypical  social  group  of  membership.  

  Now  it  also  operates  on  individual,  institutional,  and  social  and  cultural  levels.  Now  one  of  the  things  we  knew  from  previous  work  was  that  we  oftentimes  stop  with  this  definition  at  the  individual  level,  right?  I’m  not  a  racist,  dot,  dot,  the  end.  I’m  not  sexist.  All  right?  That’s  where  we  stop  with  that  analysis,  okay?  So  we  wanted  to  dig  deeper  into  that.  What’s  happening  in  institutions,  right?  What’s  happening  on  our  social  cultural  level?  

  All  right,  so  what  does  it  create?  So  we  talk  about  definition.  Well,  what  happens  if,  again,  we  all  agree  that  there  are  disparities  and  there’s  some  oppression  going  on?  What  does  it  create?  Well,  what  it  creates  are  disadvantages  for  certain  groups  and  privilege  for  other  groups.  One  plus  one  equals  two.  That’s  what  happens.  It’s  just  [inaudible].  If  that  oppression  exists,  then  we  have  advantage  and  disadvantage.  

8  

 

  And  what  we  have  by  definition,  if  we  understand  that  there’s  disadvantage  and  privilege,  what  privilege  equals  is  unearned,  unasked  for,  and  often  invisible  benefits  and  advantages  not  available  to  members  of  the  marginalized  group.  So  in  your  work,  think  about  who’s  disadvantaged,  right?  And  in  your  work,  think  about  their  experiences  and  think  about  how  they  struggle  to  navigate  what  is  not  visible.  Okay?  One  plus  one  equals  two.  

  So  we  start  -­‐-­‐  we  worked  around  these  definitions  in  that  way.  Again,  this  is  all  happening  November  9th,  2011.  Different  levels  of  marginalization.  We  talked  about  how  it  could  happen.  Individual  acts,  institutional  policy,  practice  and  norms.  And  then  at  the  cultural  level  around  cultural  assumptions,  norms,  and  practices.  And  I  want  Dennis  and  DeVoka  to  maybe  talk  about  how  we  deconstructed  these  different  levels  as  a  group.  Because  we  worked  at  every  level  to  begin  to  make  visible  the  invisible.  Okay?  So  we  didn’t  want  to  walk  out  of  that  room  with  people  guessing  about,  you  know,  Casper  the  friendly  ghost  who  we  can  see,  right?  We  wanted  to  make  visible  what  is  generally  invisible,  okay.  So  Dennis,  talk  a  little  bit  about  that.  

DENNIS  CULLEN:  Just  from  a  personal  level,  this  was  probably  the  most  powerful  day  for  me  in  the  journey  that  we  went  through.  And  I’m  not  sure,  you  know,  this  is  kind  of  an  afternoon  at  the  improv.  I’m  not  sure  how  this  is  all  going  to  go  and  where  we’re  going  to  be  ending,  but  one  of  the  things  that  -­‐-­‐  and  I  think  it  was  around  this  day  that  I  started  to  realize  for  me,  or  I  started  to  realize  just  how  white  I  am  and  what  that  really  means.  Just  not  being  aware  of  my  own  race  and  the  privileges  that  came  with  -­‐-­‐  comes  with  that  until  this  day.  

  So  one  of  the  things,  we  read  an  article,  and  I  forget  which  article  it  was.  It  wasn’t  the  Macintosh  one,  I  don’t  think  so,  but  it  was  one  -­‐-­‐  and  perhaps  it  was.  But  there    was  a  statement  in  the  article  that  -­‐-­‐  something  to  the  effect  that  we  are  -­‐-­‐  it  was  the  Macintosh  one.  That  whites  are  systematically  taught  their  privilege,  something  around  that  line.  And  I  really  had  a  hard  time  with  this  statement.  And  I  brought  it  up  in  our  group  and  I  said  to  Gretchen,  you  know,  I  don’t  -­‐-­‐  it’s  not  like  somebody  gathers  us  all  together  and  says,  listen,  you’re  white,  and  with  that  comes  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing.    

And  I  didn’t  understand  what  the  statement  really  meant  until  Gretchen  described  it  as  part  of,  you  know,  when  you  think  about  curriculum  and  you  think  about  history  books  and  you  think  about  what  is  being  taught  to  our  kids,  it’s  very  much  from  a  white  perspective.  And  so,  oh,  okay,  that  like  -­‐-­‐  but  reading  that  article  and  just  reading  that  sentence,  if  I  was  by  myself  during  this  journey,  would  have  been  very  a  different  experience  for  me.  But  having  the  experience  of  the  facilitator  here  with  a  different  perspective  on  it  and  able  to  give  me  the  information  that  I  needed  to  make  more  sense  of  that  was  really  helpful.    

So  this  was  a  really,  really  powerful  day  for  me  to  think  about,  because  you’re  absolutely  right.  I  mean,  I  think,  you  know,  I’m  not  racist,  and  that  was  the  end  of  my  sentence.  And  then  when  I  started  thinking  about  it,  you  know,  well  institutionally  and  culturally,  you  know,  with  regards  to  curriculum  and  things  that  would  affect  the  students  with  whom  I’m  working  each  day,  it  was  very  different.  David?  

9  

 

DAVID:  I’m  actually  not  prepared  for  this  at  all.  Gretchen  asked  me  to  speak  about  my  experience  relative  to  this.  And  I  was  at  some  disadvantage  because  I  missed  a  couple  of  the  meetings,  but  the  ones  that  I  attended,  I  always  prided  myself  into  being  -­‐-­‐  at  least  thinking  that  I  was  very  much  attuned  and  experienced  and  knowledgeable  about  diversity.  And  I  had  -­‐-­‐  I  have  to  be  very  honest  with  you.  When  I  first  heard  the  concept  about  white  privilege,  I  never  really  thought  of  it.  I  truly  never  really  thought  of  it  that  way.    

So  as  we  went  through  the  process  and  we  had  various  stories  being  told,  I  was  like,  oh  yeah.  Yeah,  exactly.  And  I’m  still  kind  of  wrestling  with  this  because  I  really  kind  of  thought  I  knew  what  I  was  doing  and  thinking  in  this  respect.  But  I  was  truly  clueless  on  a  couple  of  things,  so  it  was  a  real  eye  opener  to  me.  And  it  was  -­‐-­‐  I  just  thought  it  was  a  process  that  everybody  should  go  through,  truly.  And  I  mean  everybody,  support  staff,  professional  staff.  It  was  just  -­‐-­‐  it  was  very  emotional  because  you  really  -­‐-­‐  it’s  a  self-­‐reflection.  And  that’s  hard  to  do.  I  mean,  know  thyself,  it’s  very,  very  tough  to  be  very  critical  and  honest  with  yourself  sometimes.  And  this  makes  you  do  that  if  you’re  willing  to  go  down  the  journey.    

And  it’s  not  easy,  and  it’s  really  not  easy  at  all,  but  I  think  it’s  so  important  for  folks  to  just  become,  if  nothing  more  than  become  more  aware  of  your  own  feelings  and  your  own  reactions  and  your  own  behavior,  and  how  you  treat  other  people  and  how  you  envision  or  as  you  interpret  other  people.  You  know,  dealing  with  other  folks.  It  was  just  -­‐-­‐  I  think  it  was  very  worthwhile.  And  I’ll  think  of  a  few  other  things  to  say  later.  

DONNA:  And  I  think  part  of  the  process  that  was  probably  the  most  powerful  for  me  was  to  watch  colleagues  of  mine  watch  -­‐-­‐  I  watched  them,  and  then  they  watched  me  go  through  what  ended  up  being  a  painful  process.  And  it  was  interesting  because  some  of  the  conversation  as  a  result  of  this  process  has  changed  drastically,  dramatically.  And  we  see  some  of  that,  the  changes,  in  the  work  that  we  are  now  doing.  

  And  so  when  we  started  this  process,  I  was  having  a  conversation  with  a  colleague.  And  when  I  mentioned  the  notion  of  being  privileged,  because  here  I  was,  an  African-­‐American  woman  talking  to  a  white  man  who  so  easily  just  threw  this  stuff  out  and  couldn’t  understand  why  I  was  sitting  back,  not  really  contributing.  And  he’s  just  going  on  and  on  and  on  and  on  and  on.  And  when  I  finally  said,  wow,  that’s  all  of  your  white  privilege  talking.  I  don’t  have  that.  I  can’t  contribute  to  this  conversation  because  I  don’t  have  it.  And  the  look  in  his  eyes  was  just  kind  of  stunned.  And  then  it  became  very  painful.    

  But  the  plus  in  all  of  it  is  that  as  we  all  went  through  this  painful  process,  I  watched  each  and  every  one  of  us  kind  of  evolve  and  kind  of  change.  And  the  way  we  address  the  work  that  we  do  now  is  very  different  as  a  result  of  the  painful  process.  But  it  was  certainly  worthwhile.  It  was  very  much  worthwhile,  absolutely.  

MICHAEL:  I  wanted  to  follow  Donna.  I  wanted  her  to  go  first.  A  self-­‐reflection  on  me,  about  two  or  three  meetings  into  this,  I  talked  to  Donna,  who’s  a  colleague.  And  she  says,  you  know,  every  morning  I  wake  up  and  I  say  to  myself,  I  am  a  black  person,  I’m  a  black  woman,  and  I’m  going  to  go  through  my  day.  And  

10  

 

I  just  looked  at  her  and  I  don’t  do  that.  I  don’t  wake  up  and  say,  I’m  a  white  guy  and  I  have  privilege.  And  it  was  just  -­‐-­‐  it  just  really  stuck  with  me.  

DENNIS  CULLEN:  I  just  want  to  say  one  thing  about  -­‐-­‐  I  mean,  folks  keep  talking  about  what  a  painful  process  it  was.  It  wasn’t  like  root  canal  or  surgery  without  anesthesia.  But  what  made  the  process  less  painful,  and  I’m  going  to  actually  disagree,  I  didn’t  think  it  was  painful.  I  found  it  really  exciting  and  challenging.  It  was  challenging  I  think  might  be  a  better  word.  For  me,  for  my  experience  it  was  challenging.  But  the  trust  that  was  built  through  Gretchen’s  facilitation  and  establishing  those  norms  and  making  sure  that  we  kept  to  those  norms  made  the  process  less  challenging.  I  can’t  say  painful.  It  wasn’t  painful  for  me.  And  again,  that’s  my  experience.  

DONNA:  Can  I  just  say  this  about  the  painful  part?  I  do  believe  it  was  painful  initially,  because  anytime  you  turn  around  and  look  at  yourself  and  the  things  that  you’ve  been  doing  for  40-­‐some  years  -­‐-­‐  Dennis  is  47  years  old.  For  40-­‐some  years,  and  you’re  thinking  that  you  were  walking  through  this  earth  doing  certain  types  of  things  and  you  think  you  were  positively  impacting.  And  then  when  you  turn  around  and  look  at  yourself  through  someone  else’s  lenses,  it’s  painful  to  go,  oh  wow,  I  can’t  believe  I  did  that.  I  can’t  believe  I  said  that.  I  can’t  believe  I  believed  that.  And  that  was  the  painful  part.  

  But  I  do  agree  with  Dennis  in  that  through  facilitation  and  talking  and  building  trusting  relationships,  it  went  from  being  very  painful  to  becoming  very  challenging  to  then  becoming  very  rewarding  in  that  now  we  have  this  trusting  relationship  where  we  can  have  these  conversations.  And  they  are  more  rewarding  than  they  were  ever  painful  in  the  end.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  I  think  one  of  the  things  too  that  in  my  own  work  and  my  own  experiences  I  have  come  to  believe  is  that,  you  know,  I  work  with  teachers,  I  work  with  educators,  you  know,  administrators.  This  idea  that,  you  know,  most  of  us  are  wounded,  like  our  biggest  wounds  are  through  relationships,  right?  And  truly  the  only  thing  that  can  heal  those  wounds  are  better  relationships.  

  And  so  if  we  start  from  that  as  educators  in  the  work  that  we’re  doing,  whatever  content,  whatever  materials  we’re  trying  to  get  students  to  learn  or  adults  to  take  on,  we  know  that  they’re  more  likely  to  retain  the  information.  Right?  So  that’s  what  this  work  ultimately  is,  and  it  goes  right  back  to  when  we  want  people  to  have  positive  behaviors,  right?  To  have  those  outcomes  that  we  ultimately  want  to  look  at.  

  So  we  talked  about  looking  at  people’s  practice  in  a  classroom,  looking  at  how  we  might  have  these  disparities  come  out  year  after  year  after  year.  You  know,  we’re  looking  at  50  years’  worth  of  disparities  since  people  have  been  keeping  track  on  certain  data  points,  right?  We  talked  about  this  matrix.  And  this  matrix  was  helpful  in  helping  us  think  about  sort  of  how  people  maybe  sort  of  isolated  it  -­‐-­‐  or  I  shouldn’t  say  isolated.  May  be  a  part  of  a  privileged  social  group,  right?  Or  they  may  be  a  part  of  an  oppressed  social  group.  

  So  if  we  looked  at  this,  and  I  handed  out  a  -­‐-­‐  I  have  a  handout  that  we  gave  you  which  was  part  of  one  of  the  exercises  that  we  did  on  this  day.  And  there’s  a  stack  at  the  end  of  the  table  for  you.  But  

11  

 

from  this  work,  you  might  see  like  -­‐-­‐  you  might  be  privileged  in  one  area,  right,  and  oppressed  in  another.  Right?  So  this  idea  that  everyone  is  in  every  context  privileged  is  not  true.  I’m  a  university  professor.  When  I  stand  in  front  of  my  students,  you  know,  I  might  be  an  African-­‐American  woman,  right?  But  at  that  moment,  I’m  in  power  in  front  of  those  20  students,  right?  Because  I’m  in  charge  of  that  curriculum.  I  get  to  determine  their  grade.  So  in  that  context,  that  oppression  doesn’t  fit.    

  So  we  have  to  be  mindful  of  the  ways  in  which  we  are  positioned.  We  talk  about  in  theory  some  certain  positionalities.  So  while,  you  know,  David  said,  I  never  thought  of  myself  as  privileged.  Well,  you  don’t  have  to  think  of  yourself  in  that  way  in  order  to  get  the  benefits  that  come  with  it,  right?  I  don’t  have  to  think  of  myself  as  able-­‐bodied  to  be  able  to  walk  in  through  the  steps  on  the  steps  into  this  building  and  not  have  to  make  sure  that  it’s  wheelchair  accessible.    

So  again,  when  we’re  in  a  classroom,  when  teachers  are  in  there  and  they’re  making  some  assumptions  or  they’re  having  certain  practices,  kids  are  taking  in  everything  that  they’re  doing  and  they  are  repeating,  what  we  call  repetition.  They’re  repeating  what  they  see  and  hear  teachers  do  and  how  teachers  are  interacting  with  kids  all  the  time.  Right?  So  we  see  that  happen.  

So  that  matrix  was  a  way  -­‐-­‐  oh,  I’m  sorry,  I  went  backwards.  Now  the  worksheet  that  you  have  allows  for  you  to  sort  of  think  about  your  own  identity.  And  if  you  look  on  one  side,  it  gives  an  example  of  sort  of  you  looking  at  whether  or  not  you  see  yourself  as  advantaged  or  targeted.  That’s  the  language  that  this  worksheet  uses,  but  we  talked  about  privileged  or  marginalized.  But  advantaged  or  targeted  based  upon  those  social  categories  that  are  there  on  the  sheet  on  the  left  side.  Okay?  

And  so  we  had  people  during  this  day  sort  of  do  their  identity  wheel  on  the  other  side.  They  had  to  slice  up  their  pie  based  upon  how  often  they  did  -­‐-­‐  you  know,  he  doesn’t  wake  up  and  see  -­‐-­‐  think  of  himself  as  a  white  person.  So  his  slice  of  the  pie  for  that  had  to  be  really  thin,  right?  Around  race.  And  then  once  you  slice  up  your  pie,  then  put  in  there  whether  advantaged  or  -­‐-­‐  or  targeted  or  advantaged  goes  with  that  slice  based  upon  the  groups  that  you  did,  okay?    

And  invariably,  what  you  will  see  is  that  if  you  are  advantaged,  that  slice  is  a  lot  smaller,  right?  If  you’re  targeted,  your  slice  is  a  lot  bigger  because  it  takes  up  -­‐-­‐  as  Donna  said,  that  energy  that  you’re  using  each  day  to  navigate  the  world  as  a  person  who’s  been  historically  marginalized  is  a  part  of  just  how  you  operate,  right?  So  that  exercise  was  really  powerful.  I  see  Michael  back  there.  You  want  to  share  any  and  all?  You  can  come  around.  Again,  I’m  pulling  people  in  because  I  think  their  words  are  much  more  powerful  than  mine.  But  that  exercise  was  quite  eye-­‐opening  to  people,  as  you  can  imagine.  Do  you  want  to  share  a  little  bit  about  that?  

MICHAEL:  Sure.  It  truly  was  a  five-­‐minute  warning,  but  I’m  glad  you  asked  me  about  this  piece  because  this  was  one  of  the  parts  of  working  through  this  group  that  was  really  meaningful  for  me.  Because  in  the  work  that  we  do,  there  are  times  that  I  felt  I’m  trying  to  support  others  in  their  growth  along  this  journey,  but  sometimes  it  felt  like  opposition  in  terms  of  just  what  was  being  said  earlier.  I  am  not  a  racist,  sexist  fill  in  whatever  that  is.    

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But  through  this  activity  kind  of  I  came  to  that  realization  that  some  people  identify  so  strongly  with  one  piece  of  their  pie  that  it  makes  it  harder  for  them  to  see  the  other  pieces.  So  in  fact,  they  may  very  much  feel  privileged  in  one  area,  but  there’s  another  area  that  they  feel  so  targeted  over  that  it  kind  of  blinds  their  moving  forward.  So  then  into  my  work  it  was,  how  do  I  share  that  with  others  and  help  them  get  past  that  part?  Or  to  at  least  open  themselves  and  take  a  nice  look  at  themselves  to  see  where  they  may  be  privileged  or  how  that  can  come  into  their  work  in  other  areas?  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Okay,  so  this  work  -­‐-­‐  when  Donna  said  painful  and  Dennis  said  challenging,  again,  I  always  -­‐-­‐  I  don’t  believe  you  put  people  on  a  plane  and  push  them  out  of  it  without  a  parachute,  okay?  You  got  to  give  people  a  parachute,  right?  That’s  what  teaching  is,  right?  It’s  like  take  risks  but  you  can  land  safely.  So  challenging  a  comfort  zone,  we  talked  about  what  it  meant  to  do  that.  Now  if  we  go  back  to  that  powerful  learning  experience  I  gave  you,  learning  we  know  comes  at  the  edges  of  our  knowing,  right?    

And  so  a  comfort  zone  is  generally  where  we  stay.  We  like  math,  we  take  all  the  math  courses,  right?  Get  my  math,  get  my  pre-­‐service  math  educators  into  a  writing  intensive  class  and  they’re  like,  oh  my  god.  Don’t  make  me  write,  right?  But  that’s  where  they  really  learn.  Like  they  may  earn  a  B  in  that  class,  you  know,  but  that’s  where  they’re  really  learning  something,  right?  So  at  the  edges  of  our  knowing.    

And  so  what  we  talked  about,  moving  outside  of  your  comfort  zone  was,  yeah,  you  might  feel  threatened,  you  might  be  afraid,  right?  But  also  what  you’re  getting  at  the  same  time  that  you  have  those  emotional  feelings  is  you’re  getting  new  information,  right?  You  feel  a  little  threatened  because  this  is  information  you  may  not  have  tapped  into  earlier,  and  some  of  you  might  feel  very  much  like,  how  come  nobody  ever  gave  me  this?  How  come  nobody  ever  gave  me  this  information,  this  language,  this  -­‐-­‐  I  mean,  why  haven’t  I  had  this  before?  Okay,  right?  

And  then  there’s  awareness,  right?  There’s  this  place  of  awareness  where,  okay,  now  that  I’ve  got  this  information,  what  do  I  do?  What  do  I  do  and  how  do  I  do  it?  And  what  ultimately  will  be  the  result  of  me  taking  this  on?  Okay?  So  that  comfort  piece  we  talked  a  bit  about,  and  so  we  talked  about  what  triggers  our  -­‐-­‐  I’m  going  to  just  go  through  this  really  fast  and  this  information  will  be  available  to  you.  But  we  talked  about  triggers,  right?  So  we  get  triggered  by  stuff  all  the  time.  I  mean,  anybody  knows  like  there’re  certain  things  you  can  say  and  do,  people  can  say  and  do  to  you  to  trigger.  Somebody  can  just  say,  you  know,  certain  things  about  -­‐-­‐  say  certain  foods  to  me  and  I’m  like,  oh  my  god.  Right?  Say  certain  places,  I’m  like,  oh  no.  And  it’s  based  upon  a  previous  experience  that  I  had.  So  responses  to  triggers.  

So  we  talked  about,  what  do  you  do  when  you  know  you’ve  been  triggered?  Somebody’s  just  gotten  under  your  skin.  They  said  something  and  they  don’t  even  know  what  they  said.  So  we  talked  about  what  were  some  responses  to  what  people  do.  They  leave  the  room.  How  many  people  get  up  and  go  to  the  bathroom?  I’m  glad  nobody’s  done  that  in  here  today,  right?  But  people  always  leave.  They’ve  got  a  certain  itch  they’ve  got  to  scratch  at  a  certain  time  when  the  facilitator’s  saying  something  

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they  don’t  like.  All  right?  They  don’t  want  to  hear  it,  right?.  I  just  see  it  all  the  time.  Or  they  just  have  siloed.  I  can  see  students  shut  down,  right?  So  there  are  different  responses  to  triggers.  And  so  we  went  through  that  piece  about  how  people  respond.  And  so  there’s  a  long  list.  

But  ultimately,  we  wanted  to  talk  through,  how  do  you  -­‐-­‐  once  you  know  you’ve  been  triggered  about  something,  then  how  do  you  work  through  not  having  that  response  the  next  time,  okay?  Or  how  do  you  pass  that?  Okay,  so  what  I  want  to  begin  to  do,  so  where  does  this  fit  in  with  the  work  of  PaTTAN?  And  I  would  love  for  our  consultants  to  talk  about  what  this  means  for  their  work.  Because  I  know  people  are  like,  okay,  Dr.  Generett  is  doing  all  of  this  stuff  and  it’s,  you  know,  all  getting  people  to  reveal  themselves  and  to  put  themselves  in  these  very  vulnerable  positions.  You  know,  we’ve  got  a  boss  in  the  room,  like  are  you  serious?  You  know,  but  what  does  this  actually  mean  for  the  work,  right?  Where  does  it  fit,  okay?  And  so  I’d  love  for  the  consultants  to  share  their  experience  with  that.  

DENNIS  CULLEN:  Okay.  One  of  the  things  that  -­‐-­‐  before  I  talk  about  where  it’s  going  with  PaTTAN,  one  of  the  things  that  I  learned  through  this  experience,  and  I  don’t  -­‐-­‐  I  say  that  this  experience  is  just  starting  and  it’s  not  even  anywhere  near  done.  When  I  thought  about  cultural  competency  in  the  beginning  of  this,  I  thought,  well,  first  off  all,  how  do  we  define  culture?  And  secondly,  how  can  you  be  culturally  competent  when  there’s  so  many  cultures  to  think  about?  And  depending  on  what  schools  you  may  be  working  in,  you  could  have,  you  know,  up  to  70  languages  perhaps  spoken  in  your  district,  you  know,  with  all  these  cultures.  And  then  you  think  about  the  cultures  within  that  culture.    

So  what  my  greatest  take  away  from  this  was  that  being  culturally  competent  does  not  have  anything  to  do  with  understanding  each  and  every  individual  culture  that  you’re  working  with,  but  understanding  that  the  experiences  that  people  bring  to  the  table  may  be  different  than  my  own  experiences,  understanding  them,  acknowledging  them,  validating  them,  and  incorporating  them  into  the  work  is  what  being  culturally  competent  is  really  about  for  me.  

  And  that  was  a  big  learning  experience  for  me.  And  it  was  kind  of  like  a  relief.  Oh  my  gosh,  I  don’t  need  to  know  everything  about  every  culture  in  the  world?  Thank  goodness.  Training  would  never  end.  And  it  probably  is  never  going  to  end  anyway.  One  of  the  things  that  in  the  behavior  initiative  -­‐-­‐  we  just  finished  our  next  training  plan.  And  this  coming  year  for  development  is  culturally  responsive  classroom  management.  So  I  don’t  know  what  that’s  going  to  look  like  yet,  but  I  am  project  lead  and  Donna’s  going  to  be  working  with  me  on  that,  and  so  I’m  really,  really,  really  excited  about  it.  I,  again,  don’t  know  what  it’s  going  to  look  like  yet.  One  of  my  concerns  is  that  we’re  calling  it  culturally  competent  classroom  management,  and  I’m  going  to  say  this  and  I  wish  we  weren’t  on  camera,  I  think  we’re  doing  that  from  a  marketing  perspective  because  it’s  going  to  bring  people  in.  But  really  what  we’re  talking  about  is  just  best  practices.  It’s  just  best  practices,  but  we’re  going  to  use  the  marketing  ploy.  

DEVOKA  GORDON:  My  perspective  is  from  the  early  childhood  perspective,  and  so  we’re  looking  at  Head  Start,  we’re  looking  at  early  intervention.  So  some  of  our  -­‐-­‐  that  I  work  with,  some  people  are  in  homes.  And  so  going  into  people’s  homes,  we  have  to  respect  where  they  are.  And  you  can’t  -­‐-­‐  and  

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there’s  a  quote,  I  forget  who  the  author  is,  but  she  said  we  don’t  look  through  our  eyes  and  we  don’t  hear  with  our  ears.  We  look  through  the  lens  of  our  culture.  So  I  go  into  your  home  and  I  say,  well,  you’re  not  doing  it  the  way  I  feel  that  -­‐-­‐  then  I’m  disrespecting,  I’m  not  honoring  you.    

And  accepting  those  families  and  those  parents,  we’re  working  with  infants  and  toddlers  from  zero  to  the  three,  and  then  they  go  on  from  three  to  five  and  school  age.  So  you  have  to  go  in  and  looking  at  families,  we  look  from  our  experiences.  And  so  what  Gretchen  has  broadened,  has  helped  us  see  more,  is  that  sometimes  when  you’re  privileged,  you  look  through  -­‐-­‐  and  I’m  coming  to  you  and  I’m  saying,  well  you  know,  look,  I  want  an  equal  part.  That  sometimes  generates  fear  because  if  I  gain  something,  that  means  you  have  to  give  up  something.  And  that’s  not  necessarily  true.  Why  can’t  we  all  have?  Instead  of  like  looking  at  if  I  have  an  equal  footing,  then  I’ve  taken  something  away  from  you.  

So  looking  at  those  families  and  looking  at  the  cultures  there,  there’s  a  lot  of  cultures  within  a  culture.  And  culture’s  not  defined  as  looking  at  a  race  or  ethnicity  per  se,  it’s  looking  at  my  values  and  looking  at  my  beliefs.  Looking  at,  when  I  do  workshops,  I  start  from  where  you  are.  I  do  a  class  background  and  say,  look  at  how  you  were  brought  up.  Because  in  all  purposes,  you’re  probably  operating  in  that  same,  just  a  little  bit  maybe  more.  You’re  operating  in  the  same  values  that  your  parents  instilled  within  you.  And  so  we’ve  taken  our  professional  selves  and  we’ve  imposed  them  upon  those  families  when  we  may  not  have  the  same  experiences  or  have  the  same  knowledge.  

So  looking  at  how  my  work  and  learning  more  can  affect,  you  know,  the  families,  and  that  I  go  into  that  and  I  am  imposing  my  will  on  those  -­‐-­‐  because  we’re  looking  as  professional.  You  know,  because  I’m  black  and  the  family  may  be  black  does  not  mean  we  think  the  same  and  we  have  the  same  experiences  and  we  do  the  same.  And  instead  of  lumping  everybody  in  one  pot.  

DAVID:  Just  to  reiterate  something  that  Dennis  said,  this  is  a  journey  for  me  as  well,  and  I’m  just  starting,  truly  just  starting.  But  one  of  the  things  that  really  kind  of  rang  home  to  me  is  there  are  many  parts  of  Pennsylvania,  and  I’m  sure  you  folks  in  the  audience  understand  this  and  realize  it  because  you’re  from  those  parts,  that,  you  know,  when  we’re  training  and  we  have  50,  60,  70  people  in  the  audience  or  whatever,  there’s  no  diversity  at  all  in  that  audience,  absolutely  none.  And  prior  to  this  experience,  I  probably  would  not  have  thought  too  much  about  that.  Okay,  I  did  my  thing,  you  know,  train,  do  whatever  I  need  to  do.  Now  I  have  a  totally  different  perspective  about  that.  Not  that  I’m  going  to  lecture  them  or  talk  about  cultural  competency,  but  it  helps  me,  it  helps  me  to  understand  what  I’m  doing  and  helps  me  understand  the  audience  much  better,  too,  as  well.  So  it’s  just  -­‐-­‐  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  I  think  one  of  the  other  pieces  that  is  quite  powerful  is,  you  know,  there  is  this  sort  of  heightened  awareness,  right?  When  we  talked,  we  think  about  that  kind  of  fits  in.  That  -­‐-­‐  so  one  of  the  things  I  wanted  for  the  group  to  come  out  of  this  experience  with  is  a  heightened  awareness  of  sort  of  the  ways  in  which  they  were  operating  in  their  professional  context.  And  so  that  they  could  model  and  speak  to  the  ways  in  which  they  could  support  the  people  who  they  were  training  to  do  better,  quote  unquote.    

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And  so  for  me,  where  does  it  fit?  It  really  is  in  this  piece  of  helping  people  to  create  within  themselves  the  capacities  to  do,  to  address  the  issues  that  they  see.  So  if  I’m  looking  out  at  an  audience,  right?  And  what  David  said  tonight,  I  look  out  and  I  don’t  see  any  diversity  and  they  are  thinking  he  means  specifically  referring  to  racial  diversity  there,  right?  So  if  I’m  looking  out  and  I  don’t  see  this,  then  I  have  to,  again,  make  visible  the  invisible.  So  this  conversation  needs  to  happen  where  you  speak  to  what’s  not  there,  right?  You  speak  to  those  categories,  those  groups  that  have  been  rendered  invisible.  

Now  we  can  do  an  analysis  of  why  the  group  -­‐-­‐  you  know,  why  there’s  nobody  in  the  audience  that  may  look  a  certain  way  or  whatever,  right?  That’s  not  -­‐-­‐  but  if  you  can  help  people  understand  that  just  because  there’s  no  one  visibly  as  a  representation  in  the  group,  but  we  are  still  all  responsible  as  educators  to  address  those  issues,  then  in  my  mind,  you  begin  to  develop  capacities  for  people  to  do  certain  work.  

So  for  example,  we  had  an  example  one  day  where  we  were  talking  about,  how  do  we  incorporate  this  work  into  long-­‐term  strategies?  And  what  became  quite  interesting,  and  I  think  it  was  David  who  said,  you  know,  I’ve  gone  into  meetings,  I  think  he  said  this,  and  there’s  nobody  sitting  at  the  table  who’s  speaking  for,  right,  and  you  fill  in  the  blank.  Who  may  be  speaking  for  the  poor  kids  or  who  might  be  speaking  for  the  black  kids  or  might  be  speaking  for,  you  know,  the  Latino  kids,  depending  upon  where  you’re  at,  right?  So  nobody’s  there  speaking.  And  because  there’s  nobody  there  making  those  people  visible,  then  their  issues  don’t  get  addressed.  How  many  times  have  you  been  in  a  room  where  there  was  strategic  meetings  about  what  needs  to  get  done,  and  because  people  are  rendered  invisible  because  nobody  -­‐-­‐  that  their  issues  are  not  addressed  at  all?  Right?  

So  that’s  what  this  heightened  awareness  does.  We’ve  even  had  situations  during  our  training,    people  are  like,  oh  my  god,  I  can’t  believe  I  didn’t  bring  that  up  in  the  meeting,  right?  Because  even  though  you’re  reading  it  -­‐-­‐  I  mean,  I  had  them  going  through  a  curriculum  where  they  read,  they  wrote,  you  know?  I’m  a  professor,  I  was  like,  you  know,  I’ve  got  a  captive  audience,  right?  So  even  though  they’re  going  through  these  processes,  they’re  sitting  at  the  table  and  groups  are  rendered  invisible,  and  it  still  didn’t  make  it  on  the  agenda.  Who’s  missing  from  your  agenda?  Okay,  that’s  where  this  group  fits  in,  to  bring  to  a  certain  level  of  consciousness,  right?  Because  we  are  responsible  for  all  kids.  We’re  responsible  for  -­‐-­‐  and  we’re  almost  at  the  end  because  we  want  people  to  talk.  

Okay,  so  some  successes,  right?  I  think  we’ve  talked  a  bit  about  that,  right?  We’ve  gotten  there,  and  I  think  we  -­‐-­‐  is  there  anything  you  want  to  add?  Or  did  we  talk  about  our  successes?  Our  struggles,  our  team  struggles,  did  we  get  to  all  of  these?  Of  course.  

DAVID:  Just  one  thing.  If  you’re  going  to  go  through  a  journey  like  this,  if  somebody  says,  I  know  I’m  violating  the  group  norms,  but,  stop  them  right  there.  Stop  them  right  there.  And  just  because  you’re  announcing  it  doesn’t  make  it  okay.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  [inaudible].  Yeah,  yeah,  yeah.  We  all  learn  from  that.  All  right,  so  we  talked  about  potential  outcomes  a  bit.  Did  we  speak  to  that  as  well?  I  think  we  just  did.  

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DENNIS  CULLEN:  They  give  me  a  mic  and  they’re  giving  me  access  to  a  mic  and  forget  about  it.  If  you  were  listening  to  Lucille  today,  and  she  was  talking  about  that  young  man,  Ben,  okay?  She  never  talked  about  culture,  never  talked  about  cultural  competency,  but  what  she  was  talking  about  was  validating  the  experiences  of  that  family,  which  is  truly  cultural  competency.  And  that’s  where  I’m  hoping  that  we  see  this  move,  that  we’re  not  necessarily  talking  about  culture,  but  we’re  just  inviting  everybody  to  the  table  and  honoring  their  experiences.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  And  another  piece  of  this.  When  Dennis  says  this  is  just  about  best  practices,  he’s  right.  He  is  absolutely  right.  But,  and  here’s  my  but,  but  because  we  live  in  a  place  where  there’s  oppression,  where  there’s  privilege  and  disadvantage,  we  have  to  name  and  be  specific  what  we  mean  when  we  talk  about  best  practices.  Because  what  DeVoka  said  about  we  might  go  to  a  place  and  we  might  say,  oh,  this  would  look  better  if  you  arranged  your  house  this  way,  or  this  would  be  better  if  you,  you  know,  set  things  up  for  your  kids  this  way,  that  is  because  we’re  privileged,  right?  And  we’re  looking  at  it  from  our  vantage  point,  from  our  lens.  And  so  what’s  best  practices  for  us  might  actually  not  be  possible  for  other  families.  

I  do  this  example  with  my  students.  Duquesne  University’s  located  next  to  the  Hill  District  in  Pittsburgh.  And  if  you  know  anything  about  the  Hill  District  has  this  awesome  history  about  African-­‐American  community,  but  it  has  been  depressed  since  1960s  and  the  riots  in  Pittsburgh.  And  what  you’ll  know  is,  you  know,  we  talk  about  childhood  obesity  and  we  talk  about  health  issues  and  diabetes  and  families.  And  so,  you  know,  my  students  are  very  passionate  and  they  want  all  the  kids  to  be  fit  and  everything.  And  so  we  go  and  take  them  on  a  tour  of  the  Hill  District  and  I  say,  you  see  any  grocery  stores  in  this  community?  You  see  any  grocery  stores?  Where  would  a  family  shop  to  buy  their  groceries?  And  there  is  family  dollar  store,  there’s  like  a  Quikimart,  and  a  Sunoco.  Now  what  kind  of  foods  can  you  buy  in  those  places?,  right?    

So  if  you  go  into  those  communities  and  you  go  into  that  home  and  you  tell  Ms.  Johnson  to  pick  better  choices  for  her  kid  on  a  budget,  and  she  can  get  to  the  grocery  store  once  a  week  on  three  buses  because  the  transit  system  has  been  cut,  right,  what  you’re  saying  to  her  might  be  what  she  actually  knows  she  needs  to  do,  but  is  not  actually  possible.  

So  best  practices  means  that,  yeah,  we  want  people  to  do  what’s  best  for  them  and  what  is  possible  for  them.  Can  we  create  other  possibilities?  Absolutely.  That’s  why  we’re  doing  this  work,  right?  Because  we  want  to  create  other  possibilities.  We  want  to  petition  for  a  grocery  store,  we’re  going  to  do  all  this  other  stuff.  But  until  then,  we’ve  got  to  think  about  best  practices  in  this  cultural  context.  Okay?  So  those  are  the  tools  that  we  need  to  have  with  folks.  

All  right,  so  here’s  where  you  all  get  to  ask  us  some  questions,  where  we  get  you  all  really  engaged.  So  our  next  steps,  you  know.  So  I  hear  that  this  work  has  been  incorporated  in  the  three-­‐year  training  plan,  and  I’ll  hopefully  learn  more  about  how  it  is.  We  have  some  resources  that’s  available  for  you  on  the  master  site.  Unfortunately,  I  didn’t  get  all  of  them  on  there,  so  blame  me.  But  I  have  my  card,  so  if  you  want  them,  I  can  shoot  them  to  you.  So  just  let  me  know.  And  you  know  how  to  get  in  touch  

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with  these  folks  as  well.  But  I’d  like  to  open  it  up  for  Q&A  right  now.  I  don’t  know,  what  time  do  we  have?  How  much  time  do  we  have?  Oh,  perfect.  Oh,  that’s  good.  Okay,  that’s  really  good.  Okay,  so  if  you  have  any  questions,  comments,  your  own  experiences  with  this,  some  ways  in  which  you  might  add  to  our  learning  and  to  our  experience  would  be  great.  I  get  to  be  Oprah.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  My  question  is,  I’m  a  first  grade  teacher  and  I  was  wondering  how,  as  a  first  grade  teacher  with  students  who  are  very  young  who  are  starting  to  notice  different  things  in  the  world  they’re  observing  and  they  notice  things  and  they  say  things  that  they  see  without  really  having  any  kind  of  competence  about  other  people’s  feelings  or  being  able  to  take  perspectives,  and  I’d  love  to  be  able  to  develop  group  norms  for  students  in  class.  That  way  we  can  talk  about  things  and  not  worry  about  hurting  people  and  being  able  to  listen  to  other  people.  But  I  wonder  how  successful  -­‐-­‐  like  for  the  folks  I  guess  who  work  with  young  children,  how  can  I  do  that  successfully?  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  So  I  have  a  great  resource  for  you.  It’s  called  -­‐-­‐  it’s  a  book  by  Vivian  Paley,  and  it’s  called  You  Can’t  Say  You  Can’t  Play.  All  right?  And  she’s  been  a  classroom  teacher  for  years  and  she  writes  wonderful  books.  You  Can’t  Say  You  Can’t  Play  is  an  experiment  she  did  in  her  classroom.  And  again,  we’re  really  talking  about  modeling  behaviors.  Your  kids  -­‐-­‐  Dennis,  I  took  this  straight  from  you.  They  don’t  do  what  you  say,  they  do  what  you  do,  right?  And  so  what  she  did  was  she  set  her  classroom  up  and  said  there’s  certain  things  that  you  just  cannot  do,  that  are  not  a  part  of  our  classroom.  And  so  because  what  you  see  are  kids  beginning  to  group  in  these  ways,  right,  and  to  play  in  these  ways.  

I  mean,  it’s  very  real.  If  they’re  not  playing  with  Jerome  in  their  home  environments  and  Jerome  doesn’t  come  in  their  home  and  they  don’t  see  Jerome’s  family  ever,  anybody  looking  like  Jerome  coming  into  their  homes,  then  they  think  it’s  not  okay,  right?  And  I  hear  this  all  the  time.  And  this  is  real.  If  white  kids  don’t  see  their  families  interacting  with  people  who  are  brown  and  black,  then  they  somehow  internalize  that  that’s  not  okay,  right?  And  so  in  a  classroom  environment,  if  you  don’t  set  it  up  so  that  those  things  seem  very  natural  and  normal,  then  they’re  just  modeling  what  they  see.  And  so  that  resource  is  a  good  one.  Do  the  consultants  have  others?  

DEVOKA  GORDON:  I  think  that’s  on  the  order.  Has  anybody,  and  I’m  dating  myself,  seen  was  it  Brown  Eyes,  Blue  Eyes?  Okay,  that’s  not  an  older  [inaudible].  You  may  be  too  young,  but  it’s  very,  very  old.  And  they  go  through  and  the  woman  -­‐-­‐  this  was  before  culture  was  even  really  considered.  I  think  it  was  maybe  in  the  60s?  Okay.  And  she  had  her  class  set  up  where  she  decided,  you  know,  because  she  saw  some  things  going  on.  And  these  were  white  kids.  I  don’t  even  think  any  black  or  brown  kids  were  in  the  -­‐-­‐  and  it’s  a  movie,  but  it’s  also  a  book.  Maybe  you  can  go  to  the  library  and  get  it  because  it’s  hard  to  find  now.  

But  she  set  her  classroom  up  so  that  all  the  kids  that  were  brown  eyes  had  privilege.  And  she  didn’t  say  anything  to  them,  she  just  set  it  up  and  kind  of  let  them  follow  through,  you  can’t  do  this,  you  can’t  do  -­‐-­‐  if  you  have  brown  eyes,  you  have  to  play  this  way.  You  can’t  play  -­‐-­‐  if  I’m  her  friend  and  my  eyes  are  brown,  hers  are  blue,  I  couldn’t  play  with  her.  So  it  really  divided  the  class.  And  then  she  

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switched  it,  she  flipped  it  on  them.  When  they  started  getting  comfortable  and  kids  saying,  yeah  I’m  -­‐-­‐  look  at  me,  she  flipped  it  on  them.  And  now  it’s  all  the  blue  kids,  the  blue-­‐eyed  kids  had  the  privilege.  

And  one  guy,  he  was  so  happy  that  he  was  brown  he  took  his  glasses.  And  he  wore  glasses,  really  thick  glasses,  he  took  them  off  to  show  everybody  his  eyes.  He  was  so  prideful  and  so  happy  that  he  was  -­‐-­‐  you  know,  he  had  gotten  extra  things  to  do.  And  later  on  they  went  back  and  they  did  when  they  like  had  kids  of  their  own,  so  it’s  a  really  powerful  movie  that  she  made.  And  like  I  said,  she  did  this  on  her  own  and  it  was  very  good.  It’s  still  used  today.  

DAVID:  Gretchen,  we  never  had  this  conversation,  but  I  was  so  happy  to  hear  you  mention  Vivian  Paley  because  when  I  entered  the  world  of  early  childhood  and  started  reading  Vivan  Paley’s  work,  I  started  saying  when  I  grow  up,  I  want  to  be  Vivian  Paley.  You  know,  that  was  the  role  model.  So  please  -­‐-­‐  she  really  did,  she  was  the  first  one  to  really  look  at  group  meetings  with  very  young  grades.    

Also  to  your  question,  I  think  that  in  the  PBS  network  and  in  that  structure,  we  know  that  we’re  -­‐-­‐  young  children  in  particular,  we  want  to  teach  those  roles.  Once  they’re  established,  once  you  do  your  site-­‐wide  expectations  and  develop  the  rules,  it’s  very  important  for  early  childhood  to  spend  time  teaching  those  and  what  that  looks  like  on  an  ongoing  basis.  And  I  think  embedding  into  that  this  idea  of  respecting  others  and  culture  ties  in  very  nicely.  

AUDIENC  MEMBER:  I  just  want  to  speak  about  the  movie  that  you  had  mentioned.  My  education  was  in  Pennsylvania,  but  I  went  to  teach  in  Florida,  in  South  Florida,  and  that  was  my  first  year  teaching.  So  I  noticed  it  was  a  diverse  group  of  students,  but  I  saw  little  groups  forming  in  the  common,  and  so  I  actually  did  a  little  model  of  that  video.  And  the  principal  called  me  in  and  said,  how  dare  you  do  something  like  that.  I  got  into  a  lot  of  trouble  for  it,  actually.  But  it  wasn’t  -­‐-­‐  it  was  the  parents  who  came  back  and  the  positive  comments  that  they  gave  that  helped.  And  then  the  principal  said,  well  I  guess  it  was  okay,  but  don’t  do  it  again.  But  I  just  thought  I  felt  like  I  needed  to  teach  those  fourth  grade  students  what  the  world  would  be  like  and  what  it  should  be  like.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Good  for  you.  So  it’s  interesting  because  when  -­‐-­‐  I’m  blanking  on  the  woman’s  name  and  I  should  know  it.  I  could  get  that  for  you,  though,  so  -­‐-­‐  she  got  in  trouble  as  well.  So  in  her  community,  this  was  a  community  in  Illinois  in  the  60s.  Her  father  had  a  business.  People  stopped  going  to  her  family’s  business.  You  know,  she  -­‐-­‐  I  mean,  it  was  -­‐-­‐  she  really  got  into  a  lot  of  trouble  for  this,  but  she  was  very  committed  to  it.  And  ultimately  she  left  the  school  and  started  doing  some  other  work,  but  good  for  you,  right?    

So  that’s  another  one  of  those  examples  of  the  institutional  piece.  So  individually,  you  might  be  at  a  place  where  you  want  to  incorporate  it,  but  you  have  to  be  mindful.  And  we  say  this,  I  don’t  want  anybody  to  like  lose  their  jobs,  right?  So  you  have  to  be  mindful  of  the  institutional  barriers.  So  we  talked  about  barriers  at  different  levels.  You  have  to  be  mindful  of  the  institutional  barriers.  Now  are  there  ways  to  get  around  that?  Yeah.  Okay,  I  won’t  put  that  on  camera.  But  we  need  to  -­‐-­‐  you  do  need  to  be  mindful  of  that.  

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DENNIS  CULLEN:  Just  one  resource  that  you  might  consider  which  might  be  a  safe  way  to  start  approaching  this  is  The  Sneeches,  the  Dr.  Seuss  book,  The  Sneeches.  You  know,  real  easy,  real,  you  know,  not  talking  about  anybody’s  color,  sexuality,  ability,  but  it’s  a  real  nice  way  to  start  talking  about  that.  And  it  can  go  across  multiple  grades.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  And  I  also  want  to  say  that  you  also  -­‐-­‐  this  idea  of  calling  people  out  and  calling  colleagues  out,  you  know?  That  callout  sounds  like  aggressive,  but  it’s  not.  So  if  you’re  thinking  about  it,  like  my  son  gets  this  all  the  time.  And  I  have  to  push  back  on  his  seat  because  he’s  a  tall  kid,  right?  So  I’m  always  like,  oh,  William,  I  bet  you’re  really  good  at  basketball.    

Now  his  mother  has  a  PhD,  his  father  has  a  law  degree,  you  know,  like  really?  Like  yeah.  So  we  say  to  -­‐-­‐  what  I  say  when  I  hear  this,  when  people  are  saying  this  all  the  time,  I  say,  he’s  really  good  at  math  as  well,  you  know?  So  people  say  it  and  they  really  think  they’re  complimenting  him,  right?  But  really  you’re  using  a  stereotype  of  African-­‐American  males  and  you’re  not  modeling  these  other  things,  right?  So  that  kind  of  awareness  -­‐-­‐  and  so  if  you  hear  colleagues  say  this,  you  know,  just  say,  and  he’s  really  good  at,  you  know,  and  put  in  an  academic  thing.  I  mean,  that  kind  of  individual  stuff  to  address  when  you  hear  it,  again,  making  visible  what  people  have  rendered  invisible.  Let’s  go  back  here.  

DONNA:  It’s  a  Class  Divided,  that  blue-­‐eyed,  brown-­‐eyed  experiment.  And  it’s  Jane  Elliot  is  the  teacher.  And  also  I  just  -­‐-­‐  another  resource.  I’ve  been  doing  a  lot  of  work  with  the  Annie  Casey  Foundation  and  the  Race  Matters  Institute,  so  if  anyone  has  an  opportunity  to  attend  any  of  those  sessions,  I  would  highly  encourage  you  to  do  so.  They  really  pave  the  way  for  you  to  have  these  conversations  with  young  children,  other  educators.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  That’s  right,  thanks.  

DEVOKA  GORDON:  And  another  resource  for  early  childhood  that  I  have  used  as  my  textbook  for  teaching  college  was  Roots  and  Wings  by  Stacy  York,  as  well  as  The  Anti-­‐Bias  Curriculum,  Louise  Derman-­‐Sparks.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Yeah,  we  had  -­‐-­‐  with  the  Annie  Casey,  the  other  thing  they  had  that’s  really  good  is  they  like  track  families  who  may  come  back  like  from  World  War  II,  right?  And  sort  of  look  at  economic  disparities  and  opportunities  based  upon  whether  the  people  can  get  loans  and  where  they  might  have  been  forced  to  live  because  of  it.  I  mean,  so  that  resource  is  a  great  one.  I’m  going  to  get  to  -­‐-­‐  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  I  don’t  even  know  if  I  can  say  this  in  a  microphone,  but  as  a  mother  of  a  gay  man,  I  think  that  invisible  is  a  word  that  really  -­‐-­‐  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Oh  no.  Yeah,  I  understand.  I  mean,  you  know,  and  here’s  why  this  is  so  important,  right?  Because  we  have  families,  right,  who  have  to  operate  in  systems  and  structures.  They  entrust  their  kids  to  us  every  day.  And  there  are  families,  there  are  mothers  who  know  that  they’re  sending  their  kids  into  harm’s  way  because  people  are  not  aware  of  them.  And  that’s  what  -­‐-­‐  that’s  what  

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we’ve  got  to  address,  right?  So  thank  you  very  much  for  sharing.  But  that’s  what  invisibility  does,  right?  So  absolutely.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  I  kind  of  have  a  question  about  -­‐-­‐  in  the  groups  that  I  sit  in,  I  wonder  if  they’re  even  able  to  identify  the  invisible.  And  what  we  do  -­‐-­‐  and  I’m  just  saying  the  invisible  that  are  the  -­‐-­‐  maybe  even  that  aren’t  as  talked  about  as  often,  but  the  invisible.  And  is  there  -­‐-­‐  you  know,  is  there  something  that  you  can  use  to  kind  of  stimulate  the  conversation  so  that  other  people,  okay,  okay,  we’ve  got  some  other  kids  we’re  not  talking  about  here.  We’ve  got  some  -­‐-­‐  I  think  that’s  a  concern,  that  you  can’t  even  identify  them.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Yeah,  I  mean,  here’s  the  thing.  And  I’m  not  tooting  my  own  horn  because  I  have  colleagues  who  are  much  better  at  this  than  me.  But  you’ve  got  to  have  a  good  facilitator,  okay?  You’ve  got  to  have  someone  who  -­‐-­‐  I  think  of  my  grandmother  because  she  was  such  an  influential  person  and  is  an  influential  person  in  my  life.  And  I  would  say  to  my  grandma  at  times,  you  know,  this  person  is  really  making  me  angry.  I  don’t  like  this,  I  don’t  want  to  do  this  anymore.  And  she  would  just  say,  baby,  you  got  to  love  them  the  most.    

And  that’s  really  hard  to  do,  right?  And  when  I  first  started  doing  this,  I  was  not  good  at  it  at  all,  and  I  didn’t  even  want  to  do  it,  right?  Because  it  was  so  painful  for  me  to  bare  my  soul,  because  that’s  what  I  felt  like  I  was  doing,  I  was  baring  my  soul  because  I’m  bringing  in  my  own  personal  experiences.  They  even  shared  one  of  my  own  publications  with  the  group,  right,  that  goes  through  my  own  personal  experiences.  And  it  is  hard,  right?  And  people  walking  away  and  not  validating  that,  okay?  

But  if  you  can  approach  this  where  knowing  that  you  are  in  it  for  kids  and  for  the  mothers  and  for  the  fathers  who  entrust  their  kids  to  you,  and  that  you  are  right,  you  are  absolutely  right  when  you  say  that  you  can’t  talk  to  Jalynn  that  way  because  he  has  special  needs.  You  are  right  when  you  say  you  can’t  treat  this  kid  this  way  because  he’s  black  or  because  his  family’s  poor  or  his  mom’s  a  drug  addict  or  all  of  these  reasons  why  we  think  that  these  kids  are  less  than.  We  have  a  whole  list  and  we  know  who  the  kids  are  who  you  treat  differently.  I  know  who  the  kids  who  get  extra  because  they’ve  got  cute  little  bows  in  their  hair.  And  you’ve  got  to  get  beyond  that  because  they’re  kids.  And  that’s  what  we’re  here  to  do.  

So  yes,  it’s  hard.  But  if  you  get  a  masterful  facilitator  who  can  call  people  out  in  loving  ways  -­‐-­‐  because  it  truly  is.  I  mean,  a  lot  of  folks  have  never  had  this  material.  That’s  what  privilege  does.  You  don’t  have  -­‐-­‐  you  don’t  have  to  deal  with  me  if  you’re  privileged.  There  are  communities  in  Pittsburgh  where  you  don’t  have  to  see  me  if  you  don’t  want  to,  meaning  I’m  not  your  neighbor,  I  don’t  go  to  your  church,  you  can  go  to  medical  offices  and  not  see  me,  right?  That’s  what  privilege  does.  But  in  the  schools,  that’s  not  the  reality.  So  if  you  don’t  want  -­‐-­‐  and  there  are  people,  there  are  colleagues  tell  them  absolutely,  go  do  that  somewhere  else.  But  don’t  hurt  any  more  kids.  And  that’s  how  you  have  to  approach  it.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  Well,  I  have  to  say  that  I  like  what  I’m  hearing  from  this  group  because,  number  one,  you’re  using  this  word,  journey,  and  it  is  a  process.  And  I  can  relate  to  your  experience,  you  know,  

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as  an  immigrant.  I  mean,  I  was  raised  and  born  overseas  and  I’ve  been  around  for  20  years,  and  I  know  what  you’re  talking  about.  It’s  a  journey.  The  second  idea  that  I  take  from  you  is  the  fact  that  you’re  talking  about  making  the  invisible  visible.  And  for  me,  you  know,  this  journey  is  an  inside-­‐out  process.  You  know,  you  start  dealing  within  yourself  and  then  you  try  to  adapt,  you  know,  to  the  environment.  And  also,  in  my  case,  you  know,  you  will  say  making  the  familiar  unfamiliar,  and  the  other  way  around.  You  know,  when  I  first  came  here  and  I  looked  at  behaviors  and  all  kinds  of  stuff,  making  that  unfamiliar  familiar.    

And  let  me  finish  with  one  question.  In  your  group  and  in  this  initiative,  how  are  you  trying  to  integrate  the  experience  of  immigrant  families?  You  know,  I’m  an  assistant  principal  in  [inaudible]  school  district  and  I’m  in  charge  of  what  we  call,  quote,  international  schools.  So  I  deal  with  500  kids,  and  half  of  them  are  recent  immigrants.  And  talking  about  diversity  within  diversity,  you  know?  We  have  more  than  80%  of  Latino  students.  And  being  Latino  myself,  you  know,  Latino’s  come  from  20  plus  different  countries,  and  we  are  an  ethnic  group  with  all  the  races.  So  we  are,  I  can  say,  you  know,  the  one  particular  ethnic  group  with  all  races  involved.    

And  a  lot  of  the  issues  take  place  when  the  families  come  talking  to  the  faculty.  And  sometimes  I  sit  in  those  conferences  and  they  are  talking,  you  know,  at  different  levels.  And  one  of  the  things,  and  this  can  be  a  resource,  you  know,  there’s  a  lot  of  research  out  there  on  the  mainstream  American  values  and  the  values  people  from  overseas,  you  know,  bring  into  the  equation.  So  there’s  a  group  from  UCLA  working  with  a  district  where  they  have  a  lot  of  English  learners,  and  it’s  called  the  Bridging  Cultures  Initiative.    

And  basically,  you  know,  my  faculty  members  are  talking  from  a  very  individualistic,  competitive,  you  know,  point  of  view,  and  dealing  with  economies  that  are  very  collectivistic,  where  identity  is  we  as  the  helping  and  stuff  like  that.  So  even  though,  you  know,  we  go  through  this  process  and  we  have  good  intentions,  sometimes  we  don’t  see  it,  what  is  behind.  You  know,  and  just  listening  very  clearly  and  talking  about  classroom  management,  you  know,  there  are  some  issues  also  as  well.  And  I  have  found  some  teachers,  you  know,  celebrating  Cinco  de  Mayo,  but  violating,  you  know,  blatantly  the  collectivistic  perspective  of  those  students.  Thank  you.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Does  someone  want  to  speak  to  what’s  the  immigrant  piece?  So  he  was  asking  how  that  might  be  incorporated.  Has  it  been  incorporated  in  any  way?  

DEVOKA  GORDON:  I  was  just  talking  with  Mike,  just  asking  him  a  question.  And  EITA,  we  do,  in  early  childhood  we  do  look  at  families,  and  all  because  we  are  going  into  those  families’  homes,  so  we  have  to  acknowledge.  I  don’t  think  it’s  as  strong  as  it  will  be  from  today.  I  will  go  back  as  our  group  and  we  will  make  sure  that  that’s  brought  to  the  table  so  that  it’d  be  more  visible.  You  know,  I  just  whispered  to  Mike,  do  we  have  it?  And  we  do  have  some  consultants  that  are,  that’s  their  job  to  work  with,  only  because  we  don’t  have  it  across  the  state.  And  our  group  covers,  PaTTAN  covers  -­‐-­‐  we  cover  one  end  of  the  state  to  the  next.  So  that  will  be  more  so  on  our  agenda,  our  table.  We  just  have  a  little  piece,  but  it  needs  to  be  brought  more  to  the  surface.  

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AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  One  of  the  things  I’m  wondering  is,  you  know,  you’ve  been  on  a  journey.  Is  there  a  plan  in  your  training  plan  to  do  some  turnarounds  so  that  those  of  us  who  are  in  roles  where  we  touch  a  lot  of  folks,  are  we  going  to  have  an  opportunity  to  develop  some  of  those  facilitation  skills?  Maybe  not  to  the  expertise  level  that  you  are,  but  at  least  become  better  or  growing  facilitators  in  important  conversations.  And  that  seems  to  me  to  be  a  real  significant  piece  of  training  at  the  state  level  for  many  people.  

DENNIS  CULLEN:  I’m  really  glad  that  you  asked  that  question.  I’m  really  excited  to  answer  that  question  so  that  I  can  go  back  and  say,  hey,  guess  what  we  got  a  request  for?  Because  the  plan  is  in  development  right  now,  so  anything  -­‐-­‐  it’s  categorized  under  needs  development.  So  Donna’s  and  my  job  will  be  to  develop  these  things.  So  we  are  just  starting.  We’re  just  starting  to  have  conversations,  just  started  thinking  about  how  we’re  going  to  approach  this.  

  My  dream  is  to  do  this  and  to  start  doing  it  in  schools.  If  you  are  -­‐-­‐  and  there’s  been  a  lot  of  talk  about  SWIS,  school-­‐wide  information  systems.  If  you’re  in  a  school  or  working  with  schools  that  are  using  SWIS,  if  they’re  not  using  -­‐-­‐  it’s  mislabeled,  just  called  the  ethnicity  report.  It  should  be  the  race  report.  But  if  they’re  not  using  that,  they  need  to  start  using  that  so  that  you  can  start  getting  some  data.  And  you’ll  look  at,  you  know,  the  disparity  in  office  discipline  referrals.    

And  so  that’s  my  dream  where  I  see  this  going  is  for  us  to  be  doing  the  same  work  in  schools  who  are  tracking  this  data  so  we  can  start  closing  that  achievement  gap.  But  I’m  so  glad  that  you  asked  that  because  I  can  now  tell  them.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Yeah,  that  piece  is  really  important.  You  know,  we  didn’t  just  -­‐-­‐  again,  we  started  with  data.  And  one  of  the  things  we  do  know  is  that  certain  districts,  there  are  districts  that  are  not  collecting  this  data  because  they  don’t  want  to  have  to  report  the  data,  okay?  So  in  your  work,  encourage  people  to  disaggregate  that  data.  Because  I’m  not  anyone  who  operates  from  -­‐-­‐  you  know,  I  wouldn’t  be  doing  this  work  if  the  disparity  didn’t  exist.  But  again,  you  have  to  speak  to  people  and  say,  look  at  what  it  is.  Look  at  what  we  have.  You  know,  because  people,  they  don’t  think  it  exists  because  they’re  not  disaggregating  the  data.  Or  they  know  it  exists,  but  they  can  ignore  it  because  they  haven’t  disaggregated  the  data.  So  again,  get  that  information  into  that  system  so  that  you  can  begin  to  disaggregate.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  I’m  happy  to  see  the  people  in  this  room  that  are  here  because  I  think  that  you  want  to  be  culturally  sensitive.  But  the  last  slide  you  had  up  there  about  the  LEAs,  my  concern  is  how  are  you  going  to  roll  out  to  the  LEAs?  And  I  just  feel  that  this  presentation  needs  to  be  in  the  Chocolate  Ballroom,  not  here.  Because  we  came  with  a  group,  I  know  that  we  split  up  and  tried  to  cover  everything,  but  I’m  very  disappointed  that  there  aren’t  more  people  here.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  We  talked  about  the  younger  children,  but  as  he  was  talking  about  the  immigrants,  we  need  to  also  look  at  the  high  school,  the  middle  school  and  the  high  school.  Because  the  high  school  students  are  very  shortly  going  out  there  if  they’re  already  not  parents  themselves.  So  they  need  to  learn  that  too.  

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GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  One  of  the  powerful  learning  moments  for  myself  that  recently  was  I’m  sure  you  all  heard  of  Hunger  Games,  right?  So  did  you  all  hear  the  conversations  going  on  around  race  in  the  Hunger  Games  about  the  character  Rue?  So  that  was  an  awesome  opportunity  with  middle  school  aged  kids.  Like  my  son  had  read  the  book.  He  said,  we  had  this  wonderful  conversation  about  what  people  read,  and  when  they  are  reading  through  their  lenses.    

In  the  book,  the  character  is  described  as  brown,  having  dark  eyes.  Like  all  the  people  from  that  -­‐-­‐  forgetting  what  their  community  -­‐-­‐  district.  I  did  read  all  three  books,  though.  From  that  district  were  brown.  And  they  had  dark  eyes  because  they  were  out  in  the  sun  and  blah,  blah.  So  the  author  describes  this.  So  when  the  character  is  cast  as  black,  a  lot  of  white  kids  were  tweeting,  why  did  they  make  Rue  black?  It  really  made  me  not  like  her  as  much  and  blah,  blah.  You  know,  why  did  they  -­‐-­‐  if  she  wasn’t  that  in  the  book.  Right,  I  mean  this  is  -­‐-­‐  you  can  go  follow  the  tweets  and  all  the  stuff  online,  right?  And  the  reality  is  is  that  the  kids,  it  didn’t  click  in  their  brain  they  read  that.  But  because  of  their  lens  and  privilege,  you  know,  maybe  they  thought  she  was  Italian,  I  don’t  know.  But  they  didn’t  read  her  as  black.  Or  Cinna  as  black  either.  They  didn’t  read  the  characters  that  way.  

So  that  is  an  awesome  example  of  lenses  that  you  could  use  with  that  age  group.  It’s  everywhere  in  our  work.  You  just  -­‐-­‐  again,  once  you’re  aware  and  you  have  the  skills,  you  can  pull  it  in  and  kids,  they  get  it.  They  are  like,  oh,  okay,  right?  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  I  come  from  Pittsburgh  public  schools,  and  so  we’ve  been  fortunate  enough  to  have  a  disagreement  with  some  racial  disparities  and  a  lawsuit.  We’ve  actually  brought  in  Glenn  Singleton  to  do  Courageous  Conversations.  So  if  you’ve  had  an  opportunity  to  pick  up  his  book,  to  do  any  training,  or  if  you’re  looking  at  that  to  bring  about  in  your  district,  that’s  an  excellent  opportunity.  

  Through  that,  I  hear  people  saying  in  conversations,  let’s  have  a  little  [inaudible]  conversation  now.  You  know,  and  so  that  opens  the  door  to  really  talk  about  some  of  the  disparity  that  people  may  not  actually  realize  that  is  existing  or  that  they’re  perpetrating.  But  it’s  kind  of  like  one  of  those  -­‐-­‐  the  master  kind  of  meetings,  you  know?  And  let’s  really  talk  about  what  is  actually  going  on  instead  of,  you  know,  just  making  it  invisible,  bringing  it  to  be  visible.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  We  have  time  for  a  couple  more  questions,  five  more  minutes.  

AUDIENCE  MEMBER:  I  just  wanted  to  -­‐-­‐  I  recently  was  reading  an  article,  and  I  feel  like  I’ve  been  doing  -­‐-­‐  I’ve  been  trying  to  do  a  lot  of  this  kind  of  like  cultural  competence  and  race  relations  and  gender  relations,  and  this  and  that  and  the  other  thing  for  the  past  few  years.  But  then  I  -­‐-­‐  so  I  felt  really  like  confident  and  I  felt  like  I  understood  a  lot  of  this  stuff  and  I  was  like  a  sensitive  person.  And  so  I  was  really  excited  I’m  actually  going  to  move  to  the  South  and  teach  in  rural  Arkansas,  population  very  poor,  mostly  African-­‐American.  I  was  really  excited.  

  And  then  I  read  this  article  about  a  guy  who  did  something  similar,  and  he  was  feeling  the  same  way.  And  he  got  down  there  and  then  realized  he  knew  he  was  a  sensitive  person  who,  you  know,  understood  his  privilege,  but  no  one  else  did.  And  so  the  kids,  his  own  students,  were  looking  at  him  as  

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the  white,  privileged  man  who  was  in  the  same  group  as  the  people  who  had  historically  oppressed  them.  And  I  was  like,  oh  my  god,  no.  Like  they’re  not  going  to  know!  And  so  then  I  really  started  to  wonder.  

  So  now  that  I  have  done  this  -­‐-­‐  and  I  mean,  it’s  a  journey  that’ll  never  end,  right?  So  now  that  I  have  done  this,  how  am  I  going  to  prove  to  my  students  that  I  am  their  ally?  Like  that  is  my  biggest  question.  

GRETCHEN  GENERETT:  Be  different  from  what  they  know.  I  mean,  reality  is  is  that  -­‐-­‐  again,  I  go  back  to  that  statement  that  the  wounds  are  in  relationships,  right?  They’re  wounded  from  relationships.  And  they  don’t  even  have  to  be  their  own  relationships.  They  could  be  their  parents’  relationships,  right,  the  historical  relationships.  I  mean,  I  actually  believe,  you  know,  that  there  are  experiences  in  our  DNA.  I  mean,  I  hear  this  all  the  time  with  my  students’  stories.  If  their  grandparents  came  as  immigrants,  right,  you  know,  they  have  a  certain  sensitivity  to  -­‐-­‐  well,  that  wasn’t  their  experience,  wasn’t  their  parents’  experience.  But  that  gets  passed  on,  right?  

  And  so  we  have  to,  again,  honor  it.  But  be  the  opposite  relationship.  So  be  the  relationship  that  heals  that  wound.  Okay,  so  just  be  something  different.  Continue  to  do  it.  I  mean,  again,  if  you  have  privilege  and  you’re  trying  to,  quote  unquote,  prove  to  people  that  you’re  aware  of  it,  then  you  are  having  to  do  what  I  think  people  of  color  have  to  do  every  day,  and  that  is  to  prove  that  you  belong  in  that  room  and  that  you  have  the  credentials  and  all  that  to  be  there.  

  So  it’s,  again,  that  awareness,  right?  M.K.  Asante,  who’s  a  poet,  he’s  at  the  University  of  Delaware,  he  says  -­‐-­‐  in  a  poem  he  wrote,  he  said,  if  you  make  an  observation,  you  have  an  obligation.  Okay,  if  you  make  an  observation,  you  have  an  obligation.  So  you  can’t  just  see  something  and  not  do  anything  about  it,  okay?  So  if  your  kids  see  you  doing  that,  then  they’ll  say,  oh,  Ms.  Catherine,  she’s  a  good  one.  They  will  tell  people,  don’t  mess  with  her  because  she’s,  you  know.  They  will  know,  right?  And  you  will  -­‐-­‐  you  will  then  be  that  model  for  them  of  how  they  can  then  trust  other  people,  okay?  

  I  think  we  are  -­‐-­‐  are  we  out  of  time?  We  are  out  of  time.  I  will  be  around.  Thank  you  so  much  for  your  presence.  To  Mike,  to  the  consultants,  you  guys  are  the  best.