I remember an internal feeling of a groan when the word “diversity” came up again in a faculty meeting. We had these discussions about diversity at my school, and while they were interesting but they didn’t feel at all central to our work. If what we do at a school is a Christmas Tree, “diversity work" when I first came to this school felt like an ornament that we hung on the tree, sitting on a branch, making the school look prettier, but not central to our work.
I would hear teachers complain that these discussion around diversity were the same every time, or that nothing came of these talks. Other complaints included people not wanting to just talk about race, “what about other diversity issues, why do we always have to talk about race?” There was a just a general feeling that this wasn’t all of our work, and often I shared these thoughts in my first couple years here.
I almost shuddered as I wrote these past two paragraphs, because the feelings that I describe there, are really not congruent with how I feel right now. I’m slightly embarrassed about how I used to feel, but I’m trying not to be, because this is all part of my journey. As I help other’s through their own journey, it’s important to remember where I started.
Slowly, all of these discussions, and talks started chipping away at this wall I had created. I made sure to have diversity of repertoire in classroom, and I thought I had this down, so I closed myself off to doing more of the work. My approach was to have composers with different racial backgrounds to reflect our society, but I didn’t talk about what was behind their lack of inclusion in other music classrooms. I expanded my students’ world of music, but I didn’t make them question how people through music, perpetuated a dominant narrative, and exclude marginalized voices.
I got ideas and I tried different things related to diversity in music, and with the persistence of the assistant principal and other teachers, I started getting more excited about learning more and doing more related to diversity in education. There was no specific moment that changed my thinking about diversity in education, but there’s a couple of experiences that come to mind that moved me along.
My school ran a faculty and staff of color luncheon a couple times a year. When I first saw the email, I didn’t go because I didn’t see myself as a person of color. However, when the invite for the second meeting came around, a colleague who was Asian-American like myself encouraged me to go, and what I found was amazing. Faculty and staff of color were hanging out, sharing a meal, and welcoming me, some literally with open arms. There was a wonderful sense of community I felt in that room, which gave me a glimpse of the incredible and loving diversity practitioners I would meet in the coming years.
Moments of racism I encountered at my school from faculty, parents and students made me realize that my racial identity shaped the way people in my community saw me and treated me. The administration supported me in all of these instances, but they remained harsh reminders if this was happening to me, it was happening to my students. Something had to be done, and maybe that something could be done by me.
The main thing that moved me along in this process was my students. A student asked me why the fact that a popular musician was a women kept coming up in other students’ observation. This pushed me to dive deeper into gender inequity in music. It was my Black students’ enthusiasm around songs that by Black artist that we studied that opened up my eyes to what it meant for students to have mirror in education. Then there were the questions from my students that showed that they were thinking about systems of oppression and social justice in society. They wanted to know more, and I feel didn't equipped to help them in their wonders, and for some of them, their pain.
Then two things happened in my personal life that pushed my progression in diversity work along. The birth of my first son, and the 2016 election...
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