Network for EdWork Convening
Journey Towards Liberation
February 23-24, 2024
University of Washington,
Husky Union Building (HUB)
Individual and group registration (of 5 or more people) Early Registration by December 8, 2023.For invoicing options with group registration, please email nwew@techaccess.org.
Who Should Attend
the Convening?
The Convening has programming specifically designed for BIPOC educators in schools and educational nonprofits.
Clock hours available for all sessions
The Convening has programming specifically designed for advanced BIPOC education leaders in schools, districts, educational nonprofits, and higher education institutions.
The Convening has programming specifically designed for white leaders in traditional school, district, and university structures on their journey to redefine how they can create and sustain more inclusive environments.
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About Network for EdWork (NWEW):
The Network for EdWork develops collaborative partnerships with and among districts, schools, higher education, nonprofits, and government to close gaps in recruitment, encourage retention, develop internal and external competencies, and foster the promotion of BIPOC educators and education leaders to become more representative of their student populations. Supporting and connecting BIPOC educators and leaders is essential to creating education spaces where students of color thrive.
Join fellow educators and leaders in sharing, building, and re-energizing each other in our collective journey toward liberation in education.
The Network for EdWork’s Convening 2024 is a BIPOC centered space, which aims to support BIPOC educators and education leaders in imagining, healing, and building for liberation. This two-day gathering is dedicated to providing the tools and community to thrive, connect, develop partnerships, and advocate for change.
2024 Keynote Speaker:
Ruha Benjamin
Educators As Imagination Incubators:
Possibilities & Practices Toward Liberatory Education
A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly.
In this Keynote, Ruha Benjamin takes us into the liberating power of the imagination. Deadly systems shaped by the school to prison pipeline, ableism, digital surveillance, and eugenics emerged from the human imagination, and have real-world impacts. To fight oppressive systems and create a world that works for all of us, we will have to imagine things differently. Ruha Benjamin will show us how educators, artists, technologists, and more are experimenting with new ways of thinking and tackling seemingly intractable problems. Let’s explore the possibilities and practices required to imagine and create more just and habitable worlds of learning and being.
Overall schedule frame
Friday
Saturday
- Check-in & Continental Breakfast
- Keynote Session
- Break
- Session #3
- Lunch
- Session #4
- Break
- Affinity Spaces
- Ending Session
- Closing Celebration
Our Framework:
Liberation Pedagogy
Liberation Pedagogy is an approach to teaching, leading, and facilitating that asks all participants to use self-reflection and vulnerability to recognize and intentionally unlearn and undo white supremacist cultural norms. These norms subtly invade our behaviors (verbal, body language, and psychological state) but can have cumulative and colossal impact in upholding White supremacist culture.
Liberation Pedagogy also offers tools to replace those behaviors with more inclusive ones that are culturally affirming and sustaining for all. This is the ideal we constantly work towards and it is challenging work, particularly when alone or in isolation. But when we continually reflect and engage with decolonizing pedagogies and act in community with others, we create collective stamina and energy. Plainly speaking, being liberated is consistently and actively confronting our complicity in maintaining white supremacy.
How We Do the Work
Identity Work & Self-Care (Heartwork)
The key to retaining educators and leaders of color is helping them navigate the challenges and celebrate success along the way. The Convening will prioritize healing and the undoing of internalized and environmental oppression by regularly incorporating heartwork—care, flexibility, and celebration—into programming.
Disruption & Dismantling Oppression (Headwork)
We know that continual knowledge building is important, and, that as people of color, the Network for EdWork’s (NWEW) community of participants need and bring transformative knowledge and skill development in order to sustain their work and remain in education.
Liberatory Education & Practices (Community)
Connecting and communing for sharing, encouragement, support, informal mentorship, and networking is foundational to most cultures. Establishing and cultivating community is essential to the success of our programming and increasing the diversity of the educator workforce in Washington.
University Partners
Thank You to our sponsors
