More on Courageous Conversations about Race

As a leader, are you comfortable with the four agreements?  If so, how is this apparent in your leadership?

Four Agreements of Courageous Conversations

1. Stay engaged
2. Experience Discomfort
3. Speak Your Truth
4. Expect and accept non-closure

STAY ENGAGED: To stay engaged is to not let your heard and mind "check out" of the conversation.  ...Collective disengagement also exists in schools.  When a dramatic racial achievement gap persists, the children of the school pay the ultimate price for the adults' unwillingness to engage in difficult interracial dialogue.

EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT:  The Courageous Conversation strategy...asks participants to agree to experience discomfort so that they can deal with the reality of race in an honest and forthright way. 

SPEAK YOUR TRUTH: Speaking your truth means being absolutely honest about your thoughts, feelings, and opinions and not just saying what your perceive others want to hear.

EXPECT AND ACCEPT NON-CLOSURE:  ...the solution is revealed in the process of dialogue itself.  ... If people expect and accept non-closure in racial discourse, then the more they talk, the more they learn; and the more they learn, the more appropriate and promising will be their actions and interventions.


From:  Courageous Conversations about Race by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton
Published by: Corwin Press

Courageous Conversations about Race - Part 3 ...and Equity

As a leader, how do you engage your staff in Courageous Conversations and conversations about Equity?

All students can benefit from a focus on equity because an equitable school system is one that works to address the needs of each individual child.

We have developed the following definition for equity:

Educational equity is raising the achievement of all students while:

• narrowing the gaps between the highest- and lowest-performing students; and
• eliminating the racial predictability and disproportionality of which student groups occupy the highest and lowest achievement categories

Equity is far more than a state of being or an abstract ideal.  Rather, it is an operational principle that enables educators to provide whatever level of support is needed to whichever students require it.  In the classroom, this means providing each and every student with what each individually needs to learn and succeed. 

Equity is not a guarantee that all students will succeed.  Rather, it assures that all students will have the opportunity and support to succeed.


From:  Courageous Conversations about Race by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton
Published by: Corwin Press

Courageous Conversations about Race - Part 2

As a leader, how do you engage in conversations about race?

Many educators struggle to take personal and professional responsibility when it comes to meeting the needs of students of color who are not succeeding.  Instead, they tend to focus on factors external to the school for explaining why students' low achievement rather than examining their own instructional practices.

Addressing the impact of race in education is not a "feel good" experience.  Nor is it an attempt to make White educators feel guilty, promote pity for people of color, or extract revenge on their behalf.  The use of Courageous Conversation provides the foundation for a systemic strategy to build responsibility through more thorough and authentic personal inquiry and engagement by educators, students, families, and the broader community.  Educators participate in this difficult work for the sake of their students.  Schools need to become places where effective education is guaranteed to every child. 


From:  Courageous Conversations about Race by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton
Published by: Corwin Press

Courageous Conversations about Race - Part 1

As a leader, how comfortable are you with conversations about race?

We believe that the racial achievement gap exists and persists because fundamentally, schools are not designed to educate students of colour, and educators continue to lack the will, skill, knowledge, and capacity to affirm racial diversity. 

We have labelled the formal structure that exists for this type of dialogue Courageous Conversations, defined as utilizing the agreements, conditions, and compass to engage, sustain, and deepen interracial dialogue about race in order to examine schooling and improve student achievement.

Specifically, a Courageous Conversation

• engages those who won't talk
• sustains the conversation when it gets uncomfortable or diverted
• deepens the conversation to the point where authentic understanding and meaningful actions occur

If we understand the need for dialogue about the racial achievement gap, the question becomes how we open ourselves up to have a Courageous Conversation about these questions:

• Why do racial gaps exist?
• What is the origin of the racial gaps?
• What factors have allowed these gaps to persist for so many years?

From:  Courageous Conversations about Race by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton
Published by: Corwin Press