8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
(CENTRAL TIME)

Punished for Dreaming: The Case for Abolitionist Teaching & Educational Reparations

Dr. Love tells the story of her generation, the Hip Hop generation – children of the ‘80s and '90s – who came of age when mass incarceration and educational policies put unmistakable, identical targets on the backs of Black children. Crime reform and education reform merged to label Black children as crack babies, Super Predators, and thugs, and told the nation they were nothing more than an achievement gap.

Dr. Love’s presentation vividly explains how the last four decades of educational reform laid the foundation for each book ban, CRT ban, and the never-ending goal of reformers to extract from Black education for their own gain. Her talk will end with a road map for repair, arguing for educational reparations with transformation for all children at its core.

10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
(CENTRAL TIME)

Barriers to Transformation in Learning Spaces: Conversation Techniques that Cut Through the Noise

Because dominant white culture encourages us to avoid conflict, many of us raised in it have not fully developed the insight, skill, and emotional stamina necessary to broach and navigate differences of perspective and opinion, especially when harm to a member of a marginalized group is part of the mix. Too often these conversations are completely avoided or broached only to go from bad to worse, leaving people in divided camps teeming with assumption and anger that further divides us and wreaks havoc on our communities. There is a different way. In contrast to the social norms of whiteness are norms designed to develop the vulnerability, skill, and courage necessary to create deep connection and resilience; ways of being that sustain and grow us personally and collectively. Through a generative conversation, this session will discuss how to embed new, transformational norms into our personal and institutional practices.

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
(CENTRAL TIME)

Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity

Educational Equity Movie Series

This film asks America to talk about the causes and consequences of systemic inequity. Designed for dialogue, the film works to disentangle internal beliefs, attitudes and pre-judgments within, and it builds skills to address the structural drivers of social and economic inequities. Cracking the Codes supports institutions and communities to deepen and shift the framing of racial disparities. The current conversation is not only shallow, but actually harmful. We continue to primarily focus on individuals, when institutional and structural inequities are the bigger problem.

In the United States, race - more than any other demographic factor - determines levels of individual educational achievement, health and life expectancy, possibility of incarceration, and wealth. This film reveals a self-perpetuating system of inequity in which internal factors play out in external structures: institutions, policy, and law. Designed for dialogue and learning, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity works to disentangle internal beliefs within, as it builds skills to recognize and address the externals drivers of inequity. Watch the trailer >>

1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
(CENTRAL TIME)

Operationalizing Love: Developing A Critical Theory of Love in Our Education for Social Justice

Love within the US context is often defined in overly individualistic, anemic, and depoliticized ways. It is discussed almost exclusively in the context of romance and its familial dimensions. Why? What of love and its role in social transformation? Grounded in Black liberation theology and Black feminist thought, this session will interrogate the Westernized construction of love. It will analyze the ways in which the everyday notion of love operates as a tool of oppression and perpetuates white supremacist ideology to shape our social realities, desirability, and diminishes our possibilities for social transformation. Instead, this session will offer us all an opportunity to interrogate what love is, how we have been socialized by it, and how it shapes our capacity to lead change and hold each other with loving accountability within the moment. Ultimately, this session is about reconceptualizing love in ways that help us resist erasure and dehumanization, and defining it in ways that helps us heal. We will explore a Critical Theory of Love framework to interrogate our own social justice practices to ensure that we are not perpetuating oppression, but instead helping ourselves and others discover their power and heal.

Participants will leave with the following:

1. An Operational Definition of Love That Is Based In Healing Justice

2. A Framework For Applying A Critical Theory of Love To Our Social Justice Work

3. Principles & Practices of Love To Help Us All Heal From The Effects of Systemic Oppression

2:15 PM - 3:00 PM
(CENTRAL TIME)

Engaging in Practice Centered in Love & Belonging

At the conclusion of each Institute, members from the Department of Public Instruction Equity Advisory Team will lead an Institute debrief and actively participate in engaging activities with participants. These opportunities are specifically designed to enhance the overall experience of the participants.