The National Conference for Community and Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis (NCCJSTL) NCCJSTL's Inclusion Institute for Educators
(formerly known as The Dismantling Racism Institute for Educators)
One institute will be delivered in 2008 July 13 - July 18, 2008
ToddHall Retreat Center in Columbia, IL (20 minutes from downtown St. Louis)
Applications:
Inclusion Institute for Educators Application in Word
Inclusion Institute for Educators Application in pdf Charisse Jackson
314-865-3042 x112 or charissejackson@sbcglobal.net Cost for the institute is $2,800 per participant. The cost includes food, lodging, training materials, and follow-up support. The training process is limited to a group of no more than thirty participants. Application materials are available upon request from the office of The National Conference for Community and Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis (NCCJSTL). Applications received early receive priority. NCCJSTL reserves the right to accept participants based on the need to create diverse training groups. For additional training opportunities: http://www.nccjstl.org The Inclusion Institute for Educators (formerly known as the Dismantling Racism Institute and the Dismantling Racism Institute for Educators) has been delivered annually since 1994. This program has received numerous national and regional awards and recognitions for its effectiveness in empowering leaders to build more inclusive institutions, thereby transforming communities to make them more equitable, whole and just. In August 2001, the first Inclusion Institute for Educators was presented exclusively for educational leaders (building level to district level). This training process has been delivered successfully for since 2001, providing powerful support to education leaders in the St. Louis region, including Missouri and Illinois, who are addressing education equity issues. The Institute is organized and implemented to meet National Staff Development Council process and content standards for staff development. Basic components of organizational development and systems thinking - group behavioral stages, group roles, group culture and values, power, and interpersonal dynamics - are subjects of study and "real time" examination during the week. The Institute curriculum promotes a multicultural view of organizational development by linking core knowledge, skills, and attitudes with a framework for understanding and critically analyzing several forms of social oppression. Based on knowledge about human learning and development, a supportive learning environment is co-created to facilitate the participants' learning process. The environment is responsive to a progressive sequence of confronting, engaging, and eventually incorporating new learning. In each of three stages defined as defending or embeddedness, surrendering or differentiation, and reintegration or transforming there is a corresponding facilitating environment of confirmation, contradiction, and finally continuity (Kegan, 1982). This progression in the facilitating environment can also be viewed as parallel to the three phases of the change process - initiation, implementation, and institutionalization. The content of the Inclusion Institute for Educators has proven value in increasing student learning and development. It is presented through a set of interactive, experiential processes that help participants understand the meaning of social difference and oppression in the lives of their students and in the operation of the institutions within which they work. Participants will grow in their understanding of concepts such as structured disequality, privilege, and internalized oppression. Participants will learn to assess school environments and lead constructive change processes that ameliorate current disparities in education. The content of the Inclusion Institute for Educators is grounded in emerging anti-oppression and social justice literature in an approach that weaves together theory and practice. The theoretical foundations and frameworks that form the roots of this practice - how power operates through normalizing relations of domination and systematizing ideas and practices - are shared with participants. Within the context of local institutions, participants examine relationships and practices that promote equity and quality in education for all students. Participants develop a lens to take into account how individuals hold multiple and cross-cutting social group memberships and how oppression resides not only in external social institutions and norms but also within the human psyche. Specific skills of perspective taking, empathic listening, self-examination, and allyship are part of the Institute curriculum. Educators are guided to employ these skills and their newly developed lens to hold high expectations for all students and to move other stakeholders (students, parents, families, staff, and community leaders) to join in efforts for improving student performance. Participating school staff members learn and apply collaborative skills to conduct meetings, make shared decisions, solve problems and work collegially. Processes modeled by the facilitators are explicitly suggested for participants' use beyond the workshop. It is anticipated by the facilitators and borne out by experience during the Institute that as participants move through the week they increasingly take responsibility for setting the agenda, leading activities, and directing group process. There is a specific part of the agenda early in the week devoted to teambuilding among the participants. Continuing small group work in change teams, identity caucus, and function/role teams offers participants a number of vehicles for observing and analyzing group development and experimenting in building team cohesion. Participants produce a list of potential follow-up activities that are categorized into three areas: programmatic responses aimed at students, personal and professional development responses for staff, parents, and community leaders, and policy responses appropriate at the building, district, and state department levels. Participant comments from the final, comprehensive evaluation included the following: "One of the only life-changing professional experiences I have ever encountered." "Significant, powerful, gut-wrenching, profound." "I learned enough to understand I still have so much to learn." "I had no idea. I thought I understood. I thought I knew. I now know how much more there is to know, understand, accept." "I have a new lens and a sustained level of commitment to address institutionalized racism in schools." "Overall, I found this experience to be very enlightening and enriching." "Exceeded expectations - now to get it to make a difference in the lives of staff, students, and community." "Thanks so much for what I too now know as a life-altering experience. I will do whatever is necessary to spread the word and make this experience a part of every educator's learning."
Participants receive resource material in a workshop binder as well as a bibliography for further guidance in accessing resources for continued learning. The Inclusion Institute for Educators provides education leaders with an opportunity to explore personal leadership issues related to race and difference and to identify constructive strategies for addressing institutional racism and educational equity. IIE will challenge and enable educators to initiate institutional strategies to decrease the achievement gap associated with race and other difference in the St. Louis Region. For more information, please contact: Ms. A. Charisse Jackson, Program Director
The National Conference for Community and Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis (NCCJSTL)
4609 Shaw Blvd #142
St. Louis, MO 63110
314-865-3042 ext. 112 (phone)
314-865-3052 (fax)
charissejackson@sbcglobal.net | 
