NHPS For-Teachers-By-Teachers 2023 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Conference Celebrated
This year’s NHPS Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Conference: From Theory to Action was a huge success. To quote one veteran NHPS teacher, “I absolutely loved the conference. It was by far the best professional development I have experienced in 20 years.” Now in its third year, the conference exemplified the kind of teacher-designed learning experience that educators so desire and deserve. During the two-day conference, participants had the opportunity to attend keynotes, select workshops from across four strands: What is an Anti-racist School?; Identity and Intersectionality; Curriculum and Pedagogy; and Community Connection and Youth Activism, and participate in teacher-facilitated collective debrief sessions.
The conference, organized by the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective for NHPS teachers, was a testament to New Haven educators' commitment to the lifelong work of becoming anti-racist educators. In this endeavor, educators benefited from a tremendous array of resources with which to engage - including The Word, Fair-Side, Citywide Youth Coalition, the Mohegan Cultural Foundation, Rethinking Schools and more - as well as the best keynote speakers imaginable as guides.
Dr. Curtis Acosta, a longtime high school teacher in Tucson, Arizona's renowned Mexican American Studies program, closed out the first day of the conference. Alongside his students, Acosta led the struggle for ethnic studies in the 1990s and faced the Arizona legislature who in 2010 passed a law that resulted in the closure of their beloved program. The echoes of this legislature reverberate with force today over a decade later, and hearing the stories of Acosta's struggles felt almost too prescient as we watch what unfolds around us.
The conference concluded with a conversation with the incomparable Dr. Eve Ewing, who showered participants with wisdom, magic, and possibility. Narrating the story she documents in her book, Ghosts in the Schoolyard, about the struggle to save one of Chicago's public schools, Ewing helped us see what we can build through collective struggle and coalition among educators, students, families, and communities. Even as discussion touched on mourning and grieving in the face of all we have lost and all the promises unkept, Ewing modeled the care, joy, and wonder we all need to sustain ourselves and continue this vital work.
Importantly, New Haven Public Schools graduates were essential to the conference’s excellence; they fulfilled various roles such as building the conference website and managing Zoom rooms for presenters and attendees. Not only were these graduates compensated for their great work, so too were all teachers who opted to attend the conference.
In so many ways, this conference represents what’s possible when teachers are trusted and empowered to construct learning experiences for themselves and recognized for the labor that they put into improving their craft.
Screenshot from conference website; click on image to be redirected to the website, where you can peruse keynote bios and workshop offerings.
Eve Ewing brings the magic to the closing keynote. Also pictured ARTLC members Nataliya Braginsky, Marco Cenabre and Lauren Anderson.