Hamline University, along with Sankore Consulting, is hosting an online Equity Education Edcamp this summer for the Northeast Metro School District 916.
The event, titled Minnesota Educational Equity Edcamp, is to equip teachers to better help families and students of color. The session is called “Decolonizing Forgiveness: Moving from Apologies to Accountability.”
The event description reads “As educators, we need to be champions for students and families of color, challenge systemic educational disparities, and work to dismantle existing systems of oppression and build new, equitable systems and pedagogies in their place.” They will be having “two half-days of conversation, sharing, and action advancing the work of educational equity in Minnesota.”
Educators can have the edcamp count towards a continuing education unit (CEU) and participants will be given a CEU certificate. Hamline University also offers graduate credits for those who attend the sessions. The course for graduate credit with Hamline University is listed as “EDUC 6998 Minnesota Educational Equity Edcamp 2021” and is proctored by Trish Harvey.
The purpose statement for the credits reads: “Minnesota Equity Edcamp engages participants in a collaborative process of exploring educational equity and justice. Within the context of a safe, supportive and collaborative community, participants will be asked to participate in self-examination, critical thinking, and problem solving in order to be prepared to be more effective agents of education change.”
An attached final assignment rubric for the “Personal Action Plan Assignment” states that the participants must “Identify an existing inequity and engage in a personal action project to better understand and help dismantle it.”
According to the Minnesota Educational Equity Edcamp website, they have been holding annual edcamps since 2017. Their website shares that “The first Edcamp was organized in Philadelphia in 2010 by a small group of passionate educators inspired by the idea that everyone is both a learner and a leader.”
The edcamp for 2020 was rescheduled from it’s initial date in May of 2020. An email written by the Educational Equity Edcamp on June 11, 2020 said “Our planning committee paused following the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department. We felt that focusing solely on digital equity felt inadequate and inauthentic to the pain in our community.”
– – –
Hayley Tschetter is a reporter with The Minnesota Sun and the Star News Network. She graduated with a degree in Communications from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. Send news tips to [email protected].
Photo “Hamline University” by Hamline University.
