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Boston Latin students, teachers to get diversity training
By adamg on Tue, 01/26/2016 - 10:37am
Boston Latin School will develop "required educational opportunities for students that include space for critical dialogue on issues of race" as school administrators react to complaints from black students about everything from microaggressions to outright racism, Head Master Lynne Mooney Teta wrote BLS students, faculty, parents and alumni yesterday.
In a lengthy note, Head Master Lynne Mooney Teta outlined a series of other steps the school is taking following meetings with the black students who last week launched a Black at BLS protest.
In addition to classroom work, the school will also facilitate a daylong "Teach-In - a full day of workshops for students" by black and other minority groups, Mooney Teta wrote.
Also, the school will:
- Conduct and strengthen professional learning to develop greater cultural competency for faculty and provide them the tools to better facilitate discussions about issues of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender and social class.
- Clarify the mechanisms by which students can report inappropriate, hurtful or degrading behavior that they encounter within the school community. We need to insure that hateful, intolerant, disrespectful speech or actions will not be considered acceptable anywhere at BLS.
She added:
On a personal note, I have been moved this week by the demonstrable passion and commitment of so many students and faculty to making BLS a better place. Our community's willingness to support one another, to acknowledge the experiences we have had at this school, and to believe that it is possible to advocate for important, meaningful change while maintaining the pride and affection we have for alma mater is inspiring.
This is an important moment in the continued evolution of Boston Latin School. We welcome the participation of students, faculty, families and alumni as we continue this critical conversation. Since 1635, BLS has inspired generations of students to envision a better world and to work to make that world a reality.
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| Attachment | Size |
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 Lynne Mooney Teta's complete letter | 5.24 KB |
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Comments
In MSM BLS coverage today ...
The Globe reports School Superintendent Tommy Change met with black students.
The Herald reports Marty Walsh got into a Twitter snit involving City Councilor Tito Jackson over the BLS issue.
I didn't see the original tweet as a dig on Tito...
I saw it as a response to that other guy who hashtagged Tito in his tweet.
Careful, the Twitter Mullahs
are watching....
Twitter prevented the Olympic debacle, cured cancer, stopped WWIII, stifled the Trump and Sanders campaigns, eliminated space savers and snow proving millennial hipsters are smarter than.... everyone.
Millenial hipsters and twitter
Since when? That's a geezer zone.
They may have been wearing
skinny jeans when you were in kindergarden but they are ageless technocrats.
"technocrats" using Twitter, oh yeah
Don't use big words that you don't know the meaning of, kid.
Ibb you are a fine technocrat in
asshattry. Going through life as the smartest person in an empty room must be fun.
BPS Budget Reduces Diversity of BLS Teacher Pool
The $700,000 cut in the city's proposed budget for Boston Latin School would eliminate seven provisional teachers who lack job protection seniority, a set back for efforts to diversify the teacher pool to better reflect the race and ethnic background of the student body. If Chang really wants to address the situation at BLS, then BPS should reverse this cut. Money reveals intentions more than words.
Similar steps are needed at Copley Square Boston Public Library.
Similar steps are needed at Copley Square Boston Public Library for library users, staff.
Diversity training wastes a
Diversity training wastes a workday of employee time while paying a useless consultant $3000 to give a seminar nobody wants.
Did you bother to read any of this
Clearly not. Much of this program will be peer led.
But you are exactly the sort of person who needs diversity training.
Quite MIZZOU
Melissa Clark of you.
"But you are exactly the sort
"But you are exactly the sort of person who needs diversity training."
This sounds like a line out of Sleeper, and not in a good way.
Microaggressions
How can any sane, intelligent person say that word with a straight face?
Someone with a spine needs to tell these young adults to grow up.
New words are hard
That's OK. I suspect people who do know what the word means will leave you be and go on with their lives and training.
Is microfart
a word?
I just
Micropeed
As Bill Maher said lon his show last week...
...if it's a microaggression, shouldn't we only be micro offended?
I'm going to pretend you want a serious answer
One little thing, you shrug it off. But when they start piling up, you begin to get annoyed. If it keeps up, and you stop to think about it, you get angry.
It's not that once something happened, it's that these things keep happening, over and over again.
Unfortunately
they also keep getting littler and littler, and past a point they get pettier and pettier. My in good faith opinion is that getting miffed when the white kids look in you direction when slavery comes up in history class is past that point. Also, kimono.
I got a new word for ya
Whitesplaining.
What sane, intelligent people do
When confronted with a new and unfamiliar word or phrase, sane and intelligent people either:
a)spend some effort to find out what it means, or
b)decide not to spend some effort, and move on.
The concept of "microaggression" is a useful one, I think. It describes actions, situations and events that, individually, are not a big deal, and that are sometimes (often?) hard to characterize as an act of deliberate hostility, but that happen to certain people persistently because of those people's race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., and that add up over time. Having a male executive walk into a room and single out the only woman in it and ask her to do some copying for him is not, by itself, a big deal. Having it, or something like it, happen to you over and over and over again, is a problem. If you want to eliminate problems, you do need to start at the source. Thus, while each of these individual things is no big deal, they are nevertheless where you need to start. Calling them "microaggressions", I think, acknowledges that they are "micro", and perhaps not deliberate -- but also points to them (collectively, not individually) s the source of the problem.
Yes and most of us have been
Yes and most of us have been "microaggessed" our whole lives. Really, who hasn't?
Who here has gone through life without any "microaggession"?
Overweight people? Less than attractive people? People with learning disabilities? Women working in a male environment? A male working in a female environment? Poor people? Rich people? Etc., etc., etc.....
Every single one of us can be the target of unwanted attention. Most of us learn to ignore such aggession and move on with our lives.
It's been that way since the dawn of time.
Yes, and what about the opposite?
Let's say you are the purveyor of such microaggressions. Let's also say that someone identified the worst of those that you were doing and could help you identify when and why you were doing them and even provide you coping mechanisms to do something differently which wouldn't be as insensitive/aggressive as well as demonstrate how by doling out microaggressions you actually work against your own goals.
Why wouldn't you want to receive that advice, let alone act upon it, if it were offered up freely?
Are you afraid to change yourself to work better with others and accomplish everything you need as well as they need without unneeded extra burden on either of your behalfs?
Nobody here is saying that people on the receiving end of microaggressions shouldn't try to shrug their shoulders and move on. The training is to identify when YOU might be dealing out microaggressions, possibly without even realizing it, and why that increases the barrier between you, the other person, and what either of you want out of the relationship.
Unless your response is taken to say "I'm going to keep saying and acting out my microaggressions because you can't stop me and you have to take it and just deal with it. Fuck you, it's easier for you to deal with it than it is for me to improve." At which point, no, fuck you.
I need training to figure out
I need training to figure out what I want in a relationship????
I know that's not your point but gee, what a lot of big words just to say to someone - Hey, knock it off!
Usually works.
Would I intentionally hurt someone with words or actions? Nope. That's the best any of us can do.
Who is going to instruct me on my misgivings, mmmmm? Freely you say? Does that person have their own prejudicies? I would think so, unless they are a robot or they found a certain type of human that is completely objectionable (impossible), free of their own prejudices (nope) and someone that holds no opinion.
To have someone that doesn't know me, my background instruct me on how offensive I am, well I am offended and so shouldn't most people.
I am a straight shooter. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I prefer any issue be brought to me personally. I can take it. You got a problem with me - say so. I won't be upset. I appreciate and respect the honesty.
This is B.S. but go ahead and fall in line if it makes YOU feel better.
You know, this whole thing falls into a category of a microagression against me. You assume I need training - how do you know this? You assume something about me and you should ask yourself why. Why do you feel I need this training? You know nothing of me.
Patricia, racism is involved here.
which means it is no longer a microagression and is now a racist act. Which means your opinion on how you would handle the situation (assuming you are white) isn't credible.
On another note, this surely sounds like Tito is starting to get the ball rolling like I predicted.
This is indeed racisim and
This is indeed racisim and the students complaints were ignored.
That is not a microagression and not what I have an issue with.
I can't get over the fact that in this day and age, a school administrator would ignore such a claim. Even if the claim ended up having no legs, all claims of racisim by anyone should be taken seriously.
There are differences between racist acts and microagressions
For example, the theoretic looking at the one black girl in class when slavery comes up is more of a microagression, while referring to a classmate using a racial ephitet is obviously racism.
Honestly, giving some (maybe most) of the white students a theoretical dope slap about dealing with people of different races and ethnicities is a great idea, so long as it is in the context of overall respect for fellow classmates (and residents overall.)
Words hurt
Ask Sol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNzSYMHRHP4
Sucks doesn't it
My whole post was hypothetical ("let's say", "unless you meant it as", etc.). But you took it to mean I was belittling you directly and making assumptions about you. That must suck. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that day in and day out.
If you're directing this post
If you're directing this post at me, then no. I didn't see you belittling me at all.
Just a difference of opinion which is OK.
You feel you would get something out of this, go for it.
(Maybe this post isn't directed at me and why it is confusing, my apologies if that's the case. If it is directed at me, I have no idea what your point is)
The best
"Would I intentionally hurt someone with words or actions? Nope. That's the best any of us can do."
I have a lot of sympathy for your observation that we all suffer slights and must learn to get over them, Patricia. But I must disagree with this assertion. I believe we can do better. I believe we can learn more about how we hurt people without meaning to, and try to cut back on that as well.
Who is conducting the
Who is conducting the training?
This Is All Very Nice
I'm glad Lynne is trying to get her hands around this and away from the Wingo / Trump Musings Today mouth breathers. It would have been a shame if she was kicked out the door for short term political game. She is a hard working person who cares about the staff and the students, all students. Another headmaster or two I cannot name may have had 6 or 7 people secretly killed by Mike from Breaking Bad to make this problem go away a few decades back.
May we now drop the Ave Louis Pasteur kerfuffle and get back to how latent suburban racism is being used to kill the Mattapan line or how another study, yes another study, is being fostered on GLX?
John here is what I predict......
They will blame her for not taking action, and say she is doing the same old things they always do without seeing any change or action. Look at the "power" words she even uses in her letter:
- establish a structure.....
- explore opportunities....
- clarify the mechanisms.....
- facilitate opportunities....
-support plans....
These buzzwords come right out of the book on how not to take action. From the CIA guidebook on how to slow down organizations who are against your cause:
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-feature...
Not saying I think this is what is going on, but this is what BLS will be blamed for next (because you know this issue will never be solved in the current system of busing and exam schools)
Maybe you can answer this, Adam
How often does BLS have outside speakers at full school assemblies (or any other BPS for that matter)? With today's "teach to the test" environment, I imagine full school "disruption" of their handing out workbooks and prep tests for state evaluation exams is probably frowned upon.
However, when I was in high school, I attended a leadership conference in DC for a week and we received talks from a lot of interesting parts of our government from top to bottom and from all three branches. It was probably some of the most intellectually formative time I had in high school. I noticed that for MLK Day, BLS had Tito Jackson as the keynote speaker. Sure, a high ranking city official who is also black is a great person to have in that role.
But I also feel like a Dr. Cornel West or Naomi Tutu or Michael Dyson or someone more local like Dr. Gates at Harvard would probably be available and willing to speak for free to a school full of high school kids if asked. How often does BLS bring in outside speakers of a wide range of opinions to speak and open the kids' eyes to the greater world outside their school?
Yeah Skip Gates
He could lead an in depth "discussion" on how to bury your ancestors unfortunate slave holding proclivities a la Ben Affleck.
Too bad Louise Day Hicks can't contribute as well. They're pretty equally matched in the legitimate racial voices department.
Honest opinion Kaz....
I've seen good black speakers talk in front of HS kids at other High schools (Madison park, English, Burke), and to be honest the kids don't really pay attention if they are forced to go. In fact, teachers can appear bored as well during mandatory trainings/workshops where speakers give talks.
Keeping HS kids attention during mandatory assemblies is an art form that most adults cannot master.
I don't think anyone would sleep through Cornel West.
Unfortunately I can't imagine that anything like that would ever happen at BLS or any BPS. I don't recall any broadening assemblies, though I'd also say that these kids have a good sense of the "greater world"--they're pretty sophisticated. They also have the advantage of a citywide high school where you do in fact interact with a pretty broad cross-section of people from different neighborhoods and backgrounds. No doubt there are cliquey pockets of kids who stick together for whatever reason but it's not a bastion of privilege or whiteness by any means.
I imagine the Kindergartens are next
No more calling your playmate a doodie head.
No more saying a girl gave you the cooties.
On a serious note, what happened to personal responsibility?
If someone calls someone a hurtful name that person should be dealt with.
The way things go today it's a blanket approach and everyone has to listen to blather about micro aggression and diversity training because of a few or even less than a few knuckleheads.
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJJpziU7wSs