Following is a pair of reflections written by two members of the Newark Academy community who attended the recent People of Color Conference and Student Diversity Leadership Conference, respectively. The conferences were hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools and were held in Houston from December 6-8, 2012. To see a full commentary piece written by these two women, elaborating on how the experience of the PoCC will be a “game-changer” in our everyday lives at Newark Academy, please see Minuteman Life, our annual print publication.

By Candice Powell, Humanities Department

To say that the People of Color Conference (PoCC) was a “game-changer” is not hyperbole. The 3-day conference was geared toward helping participants understand their roles in advancing equity and justice around racial and ethnic identity within independent schools. What made it so moving, was not that I, a first-time attendee, met a group of people who looked exactly like me, or with whom I shared identical experiences. Rather, it was that I met so many different people with whom I shared a strong like-mindedness about issues of diversity and inclusion that made the experience so affirming.

As a black female educator, I recognize that conversations related to issues of race, ethnicity, and class are rarely, if ever, neat, comfortable and easy. Instead, they are messy, awkward and, quite often, extremely difficult.  Still, we must learn to become comfortable with the (potential) discomfort of these conversations, if we hope to ever engage in real dialogue about these issues in our independent schools and, in particular, at Newark Academy.

Within the school community, we as educators must also be intentional about staying silent rather than embracing these valuable, albeit tricky, opportunities for conversation—whether in the classroom, outside in the halls, or on the athletic fields.  Recognizing that silence (“not saying anything”) is also a statement we’re making to our students, we need to remember the age-old adage of our profession: our students are always watching. Therefore, what we are teaching when we’re “not teaching” may sometimes matter more than the lessons we plan for each day in the classroom.

By Alyssa McPherson ’13, Special Contributor

The Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) became real when we turned off all of the lights in the large room where our family group—a random assortment of about sixty students from various states, ethnicities, and grade levels who had only known each other for two days—sat in a large circle, our two facilitators sitting cross-legged in the middle, and took an oath of confidentiality.

In the pitch dark with only the faint glow of some candles on the floor, our faces hidden from each other, the stories told were those that I couldn’t imagine sharing with my closest family members. People began to cry, and when a particularly heart-wrenching anecdote was told, the room was filled with the sympathetic whisper of sixty pairs of snapping fingers. In those moments, I realized that the conference was about more than just the differences in race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or religion that characterize our experiences at independent schools.

During that candlelit exercise, I could not see the faces of anyone around me. I could only hear their voices, devoid of the cultural identifiers we had discussed at such length over the past couple of days. This point really stuck with me: even more important than the surface disparities that divide us is the diversity of experiences that unite us.  Embracing diversity isn’t just about embracing people of different colors, or classes, or backgrounds; it’s about recognizing that everyone has a unique “I” perspective. Everyone has a story, and the validation of all those stories is necessary—no, vital—if we want to advance the work of tolerance and inclusion in our independent schools and, in particular, at Newark Academy.