Carolyn McKanders & Ochan Powell

Diversity as a Systems Driver: How can we unlock the potential of individuals and the community by embracing difference?

CAROLYN McKANDERS & OCHAN POWELL

Many individuals, groups and communities remain under-served, despite the wealth and depth of learning opportunities available to them. Even with the best of intentions and heartfelt invitations to participate, some individuals and groups refrain, because they “don’t see themselves or their stories reflected in the faces of the individuals who would invite and teach them.”

In order to engage, people need to feel invited; and, to feel invited, the invitation needs to be perceived as authentic by the recipient. How do we communicate to others that they belong and are valued, especially when their cultures are so different from our own?

An Invitation to the Circle of Light: Embracing diversity & unlocking the potential of individuals and communities

CAROLYN McKANDERS & OCHAN POWELL

Connect & Engage

Many individuals, groups and communities remain under-served, despite the wealth and depth of learning opportunities available to them. Even with the best of intentions and heartfelt invitations to participate, some individuals and groups refrain, because they “don’t see themselves or their stories reflected in the faces of the individuals who would invite and teach them.”

In order to engage, people need to feel invited; and, to feel invited, the invitation needs to be perceived as authentic by the recipient. How do we communicate to others that they belong and are valued, especially when their cultures are so different from our own?

Learn

In working with diverse cultures, especially where individuals may have had a history of feeling under-valued, the capacity to recognize, receive and accept an invitation is not a technical decision, but an adaptive, complex endeavor that strikes at the heart of beliefs, values, and identity.

It is critical for us who would extend invitations to signal a sincere welcoming, that all are valued. This requires that we develop and monitor our own consciousness and practices in several arenas. Participants will have the opportunity to explore aspects of their own awareness, refine practices, and develop greater efficacy, including:

• sensitivity to the use and nuances of language, including metaphor;
• presentation of self as non-threatening and non-judgmental;
• understanding of our identity as a lens for cultural competence;
• the powerful energy generated when we are open to learn from others;
• lenses and tools to support developing welcoming and safe cultures.

Reflect & Apply

Being highly metacognitive of our communication allows us to calibrate our decisions, choices and behaviors in working with others. From moment to moment, it is important to intentionally notice and read verbal and nonverbal cues coming from others and respond in ways that signal encouragement and acceptance of all.

Participants will have opportunities to assess and reflect on their internal states and how they directly influence external behaviors, and envision how their behaviors might be read by others.

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Managing the Polarities of Holonomy: Embracing Divergence & Diversity

CAROLYN McKANDERS

Connect & Engage

Polarities are natural competing tensions inherent in all individual and organization systems. Honoring and embracing polarities is about resourcefully engaging the fullness and complexity of life. As human systems increase in diversity, change, uncertainty, and conflicting demands so does the need for understanding and developing holonomous/paradoxical mindsets.

In order to function holistically, honor diversity, and produce collective results, individuals must recognize their dual identities within systems as being both autonomous and interdependent, and the resulting tensions. Participants will initially engage with foundational principles, and then explore contextual paradoxes and strategies to manage them.

Learn

The diverse and dichotomous conditions in which all humans exist give rise to certain tensions and challenges such as self-assertion and integration, ambiguity and certainty, and embracing one’s culture while honoring another’s cultural norms. Participants will engage in:

• identifying such tensions in their school and community contexts;
• developing maps to make invisible tensions visible;
• refining talking and facilitation skills and structures; and
• experimenting with strategies to invite, engage, embrace and integrate all voices.

Reflect & Apply

After exploring principles, maps, strategies and structures, participants will reflect on the role of their own personal identities in navigating holonomous tensions. They will develop and share a plan with a few next steps for integrating these ideas into their work and life.

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Choosing Optimism: Adaptive Leadership for Turbulent Times

OCHAN POWELL

Connect & Engage

As our world becomes increasingly turbulent and polarized, the decision to remain optimistic becomes critical for all of us who work with young people. It would be too easy to go with the flow, take on negativity and become seduced by pessimism. Choosing optimism – choosing adaptive leadership -- requires courage, conscious decision-making and the resources to stay the course.

Participants will engage in a simulation to provide a common experience to review principles of complex systems and recognize what we can and can’t influence or control.

Learn

What resources are available to us in the face of external forces? How do we maintain a sense of courage and optimism? Drawn from the work of Garmston & Wellman; Wheatley, and Powell & Kusuma-Powell, participants will explore four different elements that are always available to us and support an optimistic mindset. These are:

• Being clear of our identity
• Developing relationships of trust
• Recognizing and tapping into energy sources
• Developing a learning community

Participants will review their own levels of resourcefulness in each of these categories, using a segmentation tool for analysis, and then undertake a secondary processing to make connections with the current situation(s) and trends in their own settings: In what ways does my sense of resourcefulness influence the forces within the school/class/organization?

Reflect & Apply

After reviewing the analyses of their own resources, participants will brainstorm ways in which they might “resource-atate” themselves when feeling in low resource.

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Save paper and effort where possible!

For your convenience, and to support our efforts in being "green", all handouts/files posted here have been notated with an A, B, C or D indicating the following:

(A) hardcopies needed at workshop
(B) electronic version on laptop is sufficient (for viewing during the workshop)
(C) required reading PRIOR to the workshop
(D) file not needed for workshop itself, but simply material of additional interest/reference

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Updates to handouts may be made until shortly before the start of the conference.