Community Building

Throughout the process, Partners Inc. staff invites teachers and administrators to think about the prevailing norms of teaching and learning in their schools, and encourages teachers to be “reflective practitioners” who evaluate and adjust their practices and strengthen their skills to facilitate healthy social and emotional development without giving up high standards. Partners Inc. provides the all-important time to step outside of their daily duties to reflect, building both the individual and the community.

Involves Parents and the Community

Partners Inc. actively seeks out parents and community members who are willing to be part of this process as well.

In order for schools to build a civic culture that strengthens relationships and fully supports the social, emotional, and academic success of every students and staff member, schools must include parents and other community stakeholders in their work in an integrated and meaningful way. Consequently, Partners Inc. has a deliberate Parent/Teacher/Community Component (PTCC) and works to facilitate and strengthen their inclusion and an active, two-way dialogue.

Addresses School Climate

This Partners Inc. process significantly improves school climate, even in schools already functioning well, producing greater cohesion and collegiality among the staff, students, and home. Any school, however successful, always has room for improvement in this world of constant changes and continuous improvement. And communities need to be cultivated and nurtured. It’s all about connectivity.

Remember, a good team’s ultimate outcome has been proven to be superior to any of its smartest members! Community Building and Team Building from the classroom to the broader community around a school, is an essential goal of Partners Inc. and leads to better academic and social-emotional skill development.

If it’s true that everyone has a piece of the truth, consider how these statements complicate  what has become an educational imperative today: dealing with diversity.

The first impulse for many when discussing diversity in educational and societal settings is to focus “out there” and catalogue the ways things have changed.  Demographic shifts are cited, including the increasing number of children and adults of color—Asian, Latino/a, Black, Middle Eastern, multiracial, and the like—in suburban and rural schools. Children and adults with disabilities, those who are or whose parents are LGBT, those who worship many Gods, or no God at all, are accommodated and accepted as workmates and playmates in countless schools and businesses.  Still others point to political and social strife over the effects of immigration, including the lack of consensus on required use of English in teaching and commerce, even though it has never been our country’s official language.

Yet looking outward often misses the critical imperative for understanding diversity, for teaching about it, and for managing it well because it can remove the most important subject—you!  The truth of the human condition is that everyone is unique, different—diverse—and all differences matter.  In the language of diversity, this includes rich people, male people, non-disabled people.  Indeed rich, white, able-bodied male people have always counted, and continue to do so today!

While the latter may seem obvious, it bears repeating because the success of Partners Inc. relies on qualities and strategies grounded in mutual respect, equality, collaboration, equity, compassion, justice, peacemaking and problem-solving among all members of the school community.  That means the opinions of ALL are taken into account and the best win-win position possible is sought.

The long-term systemic change that Partners Inc. offers is made possible by an expansive, inclusive practice of democracy where diverse views, people, and perspectives are solicited, welcomed and employed to enrich the world for all of us and help remove barriers to achievement  for every student.

Addressing and removing these barriers is not easy, particularly given the disparate views reflected in the statements  above.  That these barriers can be academic, social and emotional, racial, cultural, structural, institutional or any combination thereof, challenges the goal even more.

Nonetheless, the bottom line for Partners Inc. is that diversity exists and is an asset in every school, regardless of how homogenous the community may appear.  Moreover, our diversity education, training and management practices help students, parents, faculty and staff not only affirm the value of the differences they bring, but recognize the power they have with Partners Inc. to realize their fullest potential.

The processes we use help teachers and schools better handle the inevitable challenges to inclusion that arise in diverse settings, including harmful stereotyping, racial and cultural misconceptions and conflict, personal bias, and institutional discrimination. Remember, one of the two most important qualities for success in the 21^st century according to the SCANS labor report was “the ability to get along with people different from you” along with “flexibility”.

Building Cultural Competence in the Partners Inc. Classroom

It is important for teachers, administrators and staff to recognize that many of the attributes, behaviors and practices that define educational excellence also reflect cultural competence.  This is good news for good and great educators because it means they have already acquired or possess the knowledge, skills and dispositions to work effectively across cultures—the essence of cultural competency and adeptness.

Cultural competence exists when an individual or organization develops and demonstrates a congruent set of behaviors, attitudes, and policies that support and allow respectful and mutually effective cross–cultural interactions.  These actions and orientations flow from both the acquisition of knowledge about other people and cultures and the integration of that knowledge in ways that allow us to adapt for the benefit of self and others.  The ongoing processes of Partners Inc. help all members of a school community acquire, develop and continually improve these skills. Obviously, all of these attitudes and communication skills are best built on a foundation of good individual and group social-emotional skills.

A quick environmental scan of classrooms or schools can provide important clues into the ways educators are currently attending to the dynamics of diversity and culture.

Remember, in Partners Inc. schools, little is taken for granted or assumed because in so doing we can miss invaluable teachable moments, or take actions that work against our goals and intent.  Since the essence of cultural competence is behavioral alignment and congruence with cultural knowledge and awareness, we have provided several basic assessments to help all members of the Partners Inc. school community grow and develop in this vital area.

 Adapted from True Partners, A Guide for Challenge and Change in Our Nations Schools, our forthcoming book about how Partners Inc. works! 

See how you or your teachers do with this:

Staff Cultural Competence Self-Assessment

Teachers and other instructional and support staff can use the following assessment in their initial or ongoing efforts to build more culturally responsive classroom experiences.  This inventory is designed to create “feedback” on faculty members’ practice; feedback that is essential to individual and organizational growth. We often recommend this be filled out by staff: “for their own eyes only” – and say so in advance, so they can truly see where they stand without fear of judgment or retribution.

FOR YOUR OWN EYES ONLY