Summary
In this professional development course for faculty and administrators, you will learn new strategies to 'listen-to' and teach diverse students. Your classroom is already diverse with a mix of students who have varying abilities, disabilities, cultural differences, and socio-economic backstories. An efficient and effective teacher can re-prioritize lessons to produce inclusive education. In this course, you will learn to see diversity as a living and breathing, 'learning opportunity' for all. Through story-listening you will uncover powerful narratives and become a change agent for the new reality of inclusion.
Lesson 1 - What is Inclusion? Telling my Purpose Story
Lesson 2 - Defining a Safe Classroom?
Lesson 3 - Analytical Lens for Identity, and Entity Creation
Lesson 4 - Autoethnography and Diverse Self-Narratives
Lesson 5 - Affinity Identity Fun Class Activity
Lesson 6 - Positionality Analysis
Lesson 7 -Culture Activity for Your Team or Class
Lesson 8 - Examining Your Calling Process Story
Lesson 9 - Implicit Bias
Lesson 10 - Personality, Stories, and Real Education
Each lesson in this course will include an instructional video followed by an activity and attached readings. Complete all readings and activities for each lesson in the course. At the end of the course your work will be reviewed and if results are satisfactory you will receive a certificate of completion.
The course and book provide narratives, counter-narratives, academic research, and activities to better understand the Art of Story-Listening in theory and practice. The selected voices are former students, colleagues, and professors who share their stories and lessons on inclusion. It is our hope that this book helps your everyday practice in the craft of mindfulness and the art of story-listening
Inclusion the Art of Story-Listening
Story-listening is the antidote to prejudice. It makes sense. Webster’s dictionary defines prejudice as, “preconceived judgment without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.” Prejudice is to pre-story tell onto someone else. It is to read our own life story, stereotypes, and experiences onto another person without ever asking them. Prejudice limits our ability to see others clearly.
Unfortunately, there is prejudice in the classroom, the boardroom, and the courtroom. It happens when we create a space where ‘others’ voices and ideas aren’t heard, validated, and eagerly anticipated. It happens when arrogant professors (of whom I am chief) believe they are the only authority on a subject, and assume the false role of ‘expert in charge.’ This attitude of arrogance strips away the agency and individual authority of each student’s privilege to intellectually disagree. For me, it is a daily struggle to forgo my storytelling, teaching, and professing to enter a space where we all can become story-listeners.
This certificate course is an effort to cultivate a mindset of inclusion and empower leaders to re-create this mindset through story-listening.
