Stick, Rock, and Dam: The Materials for Building a Just Educational Ecosystem

Bea Butler, Racial Equity Advancement Specialist, Seattle Public Schools, Melia LaCour, Executive Director, Becoming Justice, and I led a session titled Stick, Rock and Dam: The Materials for Building a Just Educational Ecosystem. From our session description -

Creating a just education system is often imagined as occurring within the confines of early childhood education, kindergarten through 12th grade or post-secondary education.  However, the education system lies far beyond the walls of a school building. Therefore, the leadership moves we make towards creating just futures must also take place within this broader landscape. In this session, participants will have the opportunity to critically examine this notion by exploring the education system as an ecosystem. Through an interactive exercise, participants will locate themselves within the ecosystem and identify specific practices or actions that maintain the current  status-quo and those that can transform the ecosystem into one that is just for Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. 
Participants will anchor their learning, examination, and exploration in an illustration of the education ecosystem created by L4L students. In small groups, participants will “take on” parts of the ecosystem in order to identify their current impact on the ecosystem in service of creating a more just ecosystem.