November 02, 2007
PHS Reflections 11-02-2007
Last Saturday I ventured out to Danville with a handful of middle school students to attend the People of Color in Independent Schools Student Diversity and Leadership Conference hosted by the Athenian School. It was a beautiful day on the 75-acre campus at the base of Mt. Diablo, so lovely I was tempted to stay outside to revel in the sunshine. I resisted the urge and joined everyone else in the auditorium where I found a warmth and beauty of a different kind; poignant songs and poetry about ethnic and gender identity performed by talented youth in a room full of the electric energy only eager adolescents can emit.
After the opening session we split into groups. The students spent the afternoon in workshops on African Mythology, Body Image, and Women of Color in Literature and History. Later, they joined affinity groups with other middle school and high school students from independent schools around the Bay Area. I stuck with the adults in sessions about creating and incorporating multicultural curriculum, building and sustaining diversity clubs, and the role of white allies in diversity work.
Educators, non-profit leaders, and Heads of Diversity and Inclusions Programs led the workshops. It was exciting and difficult at times. In one of the sessions we broke into small groups and stepped into our “discomfort zones” to answer tough questions about creating inclusive environments in private schools which have traditionally been exclusive institutions, and asking ourselves to what extent diversity equates excellence, and why after all these years is there still so much inequality in education and in society.
I felt proud of PHS, proud of its history and community and that multiculturalism, diversity and service learning are central to the mission and practice of the school. I was also humbled and perplexed. What does it mean to be a privileged member of a society where inequality and racism are so prevalent? I left with many questions and one certainty: the responsibility we have inherited is urgent and immense, and until we rise to the occasion we are part of the problem.
At the end of the day I met the students and we climbed aboard a yellow school bus for a bumpy ride back to the BART station. The kids had fun on the train, laughing and singing and chatting all the way home. The day ended just as it began, meeting parents at 16th & Mission, a corner where both the rich diversity of this beautiful city and the devastating poverty and suffering that many individuals endure is apparent. It was a fitting end to an inspiring and exhausting day, a life-sized reminder of the work to be done.
Anna Cortesio
Admissions Associate