Alliance Building Across Cultural Differences
This week, Dean of Equity and Inclusion Rosanna Salcedo continues our Pocket Change spotlight on PACE with a closer look at our Grade 11 “Promoting Awareness” programming.
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Identify a specific group of people (different from the group you typically identify with). It should be a group you have little knowledge of and would like to learn more about. To develop a plan for how you will learn more about this group, consider the following questions: What resources and methods might you engage to educate yourself? What historical, cultural, and socio-economic contexts have impacted this group? What challenges, if any, does this group experience in our society today? How will you measure your understanding and depth of learning about this group? How might you go about being an ally to this group?
This is but one example of the types of exercises we engage in as part of ABCD: Alliance Building Across Cultural Differences, currently a CSW history course that will next year form the basis of the Grade 11 PACE morning PA (Promoting Awareness) curriculum.
Established to aid all CSW students in developing skills essential to thriving in our world, ABCD will challenge students to build and expand upon their sense of self, increasing their personal understanding of what they value, and how those values manifest themselves in their interactions with others. Students develop intercultural communications skills and study concepts related to equity literacy, such as privilege, systemic oppression, implicit and explicit bias, intersectionality, and more.
We hope that participation in this program will help students expand their ability to understand another person’s experience, by asking questions that deepen comprehension and by making space for reflection. Asking a question rather than stating an opinion can be a powerful tool towards gaining understanding. Ideally, we will all grow our empathy for others. We will practice calling each other in, rather than calling each other out.
Of course, everyone comes to this course with a different background and is at a different point in their development, and this is a good thing, because it allows us to learn from each other. When it comes to this type of work, there is no endpoint or finish line — the study of self-awareness, equity literacy, and cultural competencies is a lifelong endeavor — but it is our hope that this curriculum will move us in the right direction, giving each and every student the opportunity to gain insights that are personally unique to them.
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.