Introducing: Pivot Points
The movement to fight racial injustice is not new to our country; however, the events of the summer of 2020 led to a new awakening for racial justice in our nation. The Nora Project, since its inception, has fought to dismantle oppressive, dehumanizing cultural narratives and will continue to do so in an effort to challenge systemic racialized inequities. We find it imperative to examine and amend our classroom materials through the lens of intersectionality, in an effort to explicitly tie our anti-ableist agenda to an anti-racist one.
Due to this, we sought out educational experts in the field of equity and anti-bias and anti-racist (ABAR) work. This led to a partnership with the co-founders of Conscious Roots LLC, Nady Persons and Porscha Williams, and a TNP Project Leader, Alex Parker. Nady and Porscha, former classroom teachers, founded Conscious Roots in 2015 with a mission to make outstanding diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice professional development accessible and available to all. Their goals and passions are rooted in “designing excellent, engaging content that makes examining and reimagining oppressive, racist, and harmful structures feel do-able.” Within his school district, La Grange District 102, Alex leads ABAR work, providing professional development for staff. He has also worked with members of his Teach Plus Illinois Policy Fellowship to create the “Teach to Change Illinois Collective,'' a coalition of teachers who, through the support of grants, provide educational spaces for educators to develop their ABAR prowesses.
Conscious Roots and Alex have been working in tandem since last June to revise and edit our suite of curricula to enhance its capacity to honor individual student identities, to ensure every student can see parts of their identity represented in the classroom, and to work to create a more equitable world as a whole. The final piece of their work is the creation of a Pivot Points Companion Guide. This addition to our Storyteller Curriculum will denote areas in our curriculum where teachers can foster a conversation that is focused on intersectionality, thus taking the conversation from one that focuses solely on disability to one that focuses on all aspects of identity, to further promote our mission. Participating TNP teachers can view the Companion Guide as a “lesson extension” where they may go to find more resources, talking points, conversation starters, and questions which can guide teachers in their journey into going deeper into the goals and vision of the organization.
The Companion Guide’s appearance in the Storyteller Curriculum is done with the utmost intentionality in its operation amongst our Lifecycle of Programming. Students are first given the foundations for these conversations in the Primer Pack, and are given the space and opportunity to have conversations regarding identity and intersectionality, all through a strong social justice lens. Once students arrive at the Storyteller Project, they are ready both developmentally and from the foundation laid by the Primer Pack, to deeply explore and discuss how TNP is working to challenge the status quo of oppression and how students can work towards being allies to promote a more equitable society. Following their year-long journey in the curriculum of the Storyteller Project, they may then choose to participate in the STEMPathy Club, wherein they can take these lessons, and their newly developed lens, to construct a school community which actively works to support the needs of every student.
As our organization continues to grow, evolve, and promulgate our vision, we view the Companion Guide as an integral part of this growth. The Guide will be available for all of our partner schools for the 21/22 school year.