Creating Safe Spaces for All Students

MA faculty and staff engaged in professional development sessions with both Dr. Dena Simmons, an expert on articulating and addressing the crucial intersections between social and emotional learning and racial justice work, and Dr. Claude Steele, a social psychologist and author of Whistling Vivalidi who has conducted a great deal of research and written about navigating stereotype threat and churn in interracial interactions. Both scholars and educators spoke about transforming our pedagogy and facilitating student experiences in a way that creates safe, inclusive, and transformative environments for all students.

During both sessions, employees reflected upon the importance of learning a student's full story so that all students can thrive in a socially diverse community. Dr. Simmons and Dr. Steele challenged faculty and staff to consider how to proactively build trust into pedagogies towards the goal of fostering the safety and belonging of socially minoritized students. In particular, Dr. Steele offered up researched practices for how to systematize building educational spaces that will lead to thriving multicultural communities. MA faculty and staff will continue to reflect on creating and refining student support practices that intentionally eliminate barriers so that we can continue the important work of creating a diverse, thriving, multicultural, and racially integrated community at Marin Academy.