What if we told you that the complexities of identity and experience play a far more significant role in the world of education than you may think? Join us as we unpack this intriguing subject with none other than Hannah Wilson, the co-founder of Diverse Educators. Through her lens as a seasoned leadership development consultant, coach, and trainer, Hannah provides us with a fresh perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the school system. Together, we dissect the origins of Diverse Educators, a grassroots community born on Twitter and blossomed into a reputable training provider, reaching far beyond just one platform.
Our candid discussion navigates through the realm of intersectionality in education, and the surprising ways in which it intersects with data analysis. With Hannah's expertise, we uncover the power and limitations of identity labels and the generational differences that come into play in diversity work. We don't shy away from discussing the fear and consequences of getting things wrong in the school system, and how these fears can be addressed effectively.
Get ready to challenge your perceptions and gain a deeper understanding of diversity in education.
Follow us on Twitter
@UoWFEHW
@DIIverseHub
@VascoAdam
What if we told you that the complexities of identity and experience play a far more significant role in the world of education than you may think? Join us as we unpack this intriguing subject with none other than Hannah Wilson, the co-founder of Diverse Educators. Through her lens as a seasoned leadership development consultant, coach, and trainer, Hannah provides us with a fresh perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the school system. Together, we dissect the origins of Diverse Educators, a grassroots community born on Twitter and blossomed into a reputable training provider, reaching far beyond just one platform.
Our candid discussion navigates through the realm of intersectionality in education, and the surprising ways in which it intersects with data analysis. With Hannah's expertise, we uncover the power and limitations of identity labels and the generational differences that come into play in diversity work. We don't shy away from discussing the fear and consequences of getting things wrong in the school system, and how these fears can be addressed effectively.
Get ready to challenge your perceptions and gain a deeper understanding of diversity in education.
Follow us on Twitter
@UoWFEHW
@DIIverseHub
@VascoAdam
We are recording this podcast at the home of Wolverhampton University's multimedia journalism degree in the Alan Turing building on City Campus. The radio studio we are sitting in is kitted out to the same standards as places like BBC Radio 4 and 5 Live. It was installed alongside two studios as part of the new Wolverhampton Screen School. If you want to pop in for a guided tour, to discuss booking the studios or to chat about the journalism undergraduate degree, just email the course leader, gareth Owen. His address is gowin3.wlvacuk.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the diverse podcast with Make the Boat Go Faster. Today, I am delighted to be joined in the studio by Hannah Wilson. Hannah, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm really well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:No, thanks so much for coming on. Well, I always start off and say to guests let them introduce themselves. You wear many, many hats, so we might be here for a while. But, hannah, over to you.
Speaker 3:Well, me in a sentence. I'm a leadership development consultant, coach and trainer. That's how I spend my life. But I got to that point by spending 20 years in schools. So I was a secondary teacher of English, drama and ministries and I left the system as an executive head teacher. So that was kind of the formal trajectory. And now I work for myself and I also run a company called Diverse Educators which is a diverse equity inclusion training provider for the school system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. First of all, what a rich tapestry of experience really good. Being an executive head teacher blows my mind, so just a clap to you for managing to achieve that, because wow. But yeah, so let's talk about diverse educators. Then I know from personal experience what the great work that goes on. You're a model, what you're all about. So there are diverse voices, thankfully, from the diverse educators. As a network, we could start various different points. Shall we start with the fact that there is a rather wonderful book that's got many different contributors. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Sure. So we started Diverse Educators five years ago as a grassroots community and we existed on Twitter and Twitter only, and I think any educators who are on Twitter you can kind of get a little bit. What's the word I'm looking for? It's almost like misrepresented, that you think there's more people on Twitter than actually is, I think it's like 10% of teachers on Twitter.
Speaker 3:So we were building up profile and sort of traction and connectivity on Twitter. But myself and Benny Carver, the co-founder, we kept talking about the fact that how do we reach beyond Twitter? We've got people who know us and get us on Twitter, but that's such a small proportion of the workforce. So we kept talking about this idea of doing a book and I can remember sitting in my garden with her it's been three years ago now and her partner was there and we were chatting about this book and we just basically dropped down an idea and I sent it off to a director of publisher company that I'd met at the event and the idea was that the book concretizes the conversation, the conversation of a social media. But also the bit we were really keen to do was to make the narratives more formalized, because quite often the conversations are very centered around the lived experience of the person with the identity and that doesn't always resonate with everybody who hasn't walked that path.
Speaker 3:So we wanted to get this balance of elevating and amplifying the lived experience and the authentic voices whilst framing it with some referencing. So we're both English teachers. We kind of wrote a lot of briefs about how we wanted the book to be structured and each chapter to be structured in, each section to be structured, so the whole book is structured around the equality at. We've got 10 chapters, one for each of the protective characteristics, and then the 10th one is intersectionality, and then there's 10 voices within. Each and every piece was the same length, with some of our structure. So I think that was a really important way of kind of like framing it without constricting people. It gave it a kind of consistency for the how the reader then dives into a book with 123 I think it is voices. So the books, just over a year old, came out not this April, last April, and what's nice about it is you don't need to read it in a linear way.
Speaker 3:So, like, the one of the most popular sections at the moment is the gender reassignment section. We've got a trans male chapter editor and then 10 different voices and you could dip into any of those, and I think it's so topical what's going on in society at the moment and the concerns in the school and the elite. Guidance from the DfE this week you can just go to that one bit and that will help you unlock it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can thoroughly recommend the text. It is great and everything that you've said I didn't know that's how you thought about it, but it really makes sense. And from a reader's point of view that's exactly as it's framed is those lived experiences, but with that theory and referencing behind it, but also, like you say, it's generalizing more as well. That helps to widen the picture. So many things to pick up on there, I think. Yeah, it's no surprise that that's one of the chapters that's focused on so much.
Speaker 2:It's a challenging time for school. I mean, it's always challenging for schools, but it's a challenging time for school at the moment, particularly around society is struggling anyway with the whole gender debate. Schools seemingly sat right in the throw is at the crux, aren't they? They've having to weigh in on every subject, and so actually, we theme this podcast as will it make the boat go faster. That's actually really, if you're listening and you are thinking, that's something to look at. There is at least some guidance in terms of the lived experiences of people there to look at, which is really useful.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's just think about, then. One of the criticisms that sometimes gets leveled towards me and my role, I suppose is that diversity and inclusion is such a wide spectrum and brush, and there's the concerns that always get leveled. Are that, when you look at it through not even intersectional lens, but just that, the broadness of it, that you water down the plates of each particular issue, whether we're talking about racism, ableism, sexism, yeah, homophobia and all that type of thing? Is that something that you have to grapple with yourselves or has it just been something that it just comes completely naturally?
Speaker 3:It. I definitely grapple with it. We grapple with it as a team because I've got a team of associates. And then when we have our wider opportunities to blog, for us write, for us be on a podcast, speak at an event, like we're working with about 500 people in our database at the moment who have contributed at some point and we very carefully diversify that network but curate that network to think about the identities that everyone holds, the lived experience that everyone holds, but the balance between them as well.
Speaker 3:And I think one of the tensions of the Equality Act is that some of the protected characteristics are perceived to be almost in conflict with each other, and that comes up a lot in the schools, particularly around the triangulation of sex, gender, sex orientation with religion, belief and how can they coexist? So that's one piece we're constantly helping schools to navigate. But the argument around doing the work in an intersectional way or holistic way does get critiqued. Is it diluting and undermining particularly? I think one of the main critiques is around anti-racism, and actually we need collectively to be doing work at a structural, systemic and societal perspective when it comes to race. So if we're then holding it at the same time as Magistral Partnership or Punxing and Maternity, is it taking away the spotlight from race? I think so. I think it's primarily that argument that I hear the most within my circles and I can kind of see both sides of the argument. So I wouldn't defend either. I just try to find the space where we can forge connections and bridges and most of the schools I work with.
Speaker 3:we start with the more generalistic, holistic introductory to what it means to be inclusive within, by telling you the star voice, the student voice, the parent voice. It naturally gives you a course of action. Yeah quite often one of those lanes is an anti racism journey in the equity piece, but it can happen concurrently to peace around flexible working or peace around the university, and let's not forget that some of the people doing flexible work is the new divergent, also people of color.
Speaker 3:Yeah but so for me you can't. You can't do them in isolation, but I do understand where the critique comes from. Yeah, I think it's making sure we are aware of the critique and we consciously trying to make sure we're getting that balance of air time and focus.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I agree. I think, for me, the thing that I always hold is is is to say so, what's the what, what's the focus? Because it's important to name what, what the issue is. So you know, if we're looking at issues around disability, then ableism is the problem and that's the issue that we're working towards. If it is around the anti racism issue, then often we're talking about white supremacist being the thing that that we need to focus on. However, things don't sit so neatly in boxes, and so it is.
Speaker 2:I think there is value to it. Perhaps there's a chance that I just think that, because that's what my role is within. I'm like you. I wouldn't argue for one more than the other. So this is where my role is, and I'm confident that we do some good work towards that, whilst always learning that there are there are lessons to be to be learned. Certainly, it certainly is a challenge, but it's a challenge that's worth undertaking. You mentioned that the one of the chapters around intersectionality, which in itself is almost become a contentious piece, hasn't it? From the terminology and how that's been adopted? Obviously with its roots really looking at the plight of African American women and the intersectionality of being a woman of colour, and then the broader interpretation which which I use and which you use as well. This work has many pitfalls, and it's fair to say. But talk to us a little bit more about the chapter and the work you do around intersectional approaches, because I do think there is there is huge value in that, certainly.
Speaker 3:So I absolutely hear what you're saying and I again I get the criticism around Kimberley Crenshaw's original work and research and the case study around the experience of black women in the workplace, in particular in the States, and how it's in some ways been diluted or misinterpreted or it's diluted into a different kind of thing, which I think it's really important that maybe you need a different word or some clarity around the terminology. But for me the intersectional approach is the appreciation from an individual and institutional level that we are more complex than a tick in a box and we can't compartmentalise the different aspects of who we are. And if we're not doing this work in an intersectional way, where we are aware of the interplay between those different layers of one's identity, then we're not doing the work justice. Now, if you see the example of, I spent a lot of my early career working in boys schools in South London. If you walked into any of those boys schools in South London you'd see a sea of black boys. Like there were black boys schools. You couldn't make the assumption that all of those black boys were experiencing that space or that community in the same way, because some of those boys were black British, some were black Caribbean, some were black West African some were black English speakers, some were black EAL speakers some
Speaker 3:were black Christians, some were black Muslims. So that to me is the important bit. And when I share that with people, when I'm running training, you can see like this penny drop and I talk about the fact that when I was ahead of departments running hours, doing filters and spreadsheets and data analysis for my subject areas we don't call that intersectionality, but it kind of is. We're looking at data through an intersectional lens. We are thinking about how is this group doing versus this group, how is this subgroup doing versus this group? And we're looking at the patterns and as an English teacher, I always ask the question like what story is the data telling us who's attending, who's behaving, who's progressing and who's not? And then applying that lens to the staff which we don't look at that data enough at all.
Speaker 3:Who are we recruiting? Who are we retaining? Who are we promoting? Who's getting a pay rise? For me, that's where the intersectionality really kicks in, that we're looking at the multi-layered aspect of one's identity and one's experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you say, that it's always really illuminating to me because then I think it's the breaking down of again it's where there's limitations to the labels of identities that exist, because obviously, within all those protected characteristics, even the breadth of the communities that form is the LGBTQ plus IA group, which is obviously huge in terms of its breadth, or we use the term in University, global Majority, in which case then, yes, you were talking to Global Majority, because we're actually talking about such a huge, huge, diverse group and I know that we've looked at somewhere, we've got our associate director for EDI and HR, rawlsup Indus Singh, here and he's done a really, really interesting deep breakdown of gender pay gaps.
Speaker 2:And but really, on picking, it's when you really start to unpick, so forget Global Majority just as a barrier, where, actually, because you start to really dig deep and notice the patterns which sometimes those broader labels can hide to it, I think there is a huge power. I think in some of the intersectional work, as long as I suppose my take on it is that, whilst, as long as we're aware, like you said, you have recognition and you do if there's a, if you're not aware of where the term comes out, I think that's maybe, I don't know, is it more problematic? You should be aware of where it comes from.
Speaker 3:You should be aware of it and should be aware of the context and I guess the criticality of it and just as you were talking, that makes me think about like how I got into this work originally was because I co-founded women Eds and.
Speaker 3:Eds coming up to be I think it was eight years old now and women. Ed was like the first of the I guess like affinity grassroots groups, and it was the first because we're such a female high profession and a group of women leaders in education came together to have a conversation about the glass ceiling. But very quickly I became very conscious of the fact that we were predominantly white and predominantly straight and currently secondary school teachers and currently didn't have children.
Speaker 3:Like the conversation became deeper and deeper and we were bringing together people and having these events, and one of the events of black and brown said like, what about us? Like we're not. We're not talking about the whole picture here, and I think that to me, like if we just looked at the experience of women in education across the sector and we looked at women who are menopausal, women who have had children, women who are gay, like for me, that's where the data gets really interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't think we talk about that enough now, and I think this is where the same old phrase coined over and over again, the sort of comfortable being with uncomfortable thing, is because with each of the movements, within the protective characteristics, that there are barriers within this, where I think there's been enough documentation that there are some branches of feminism which definitely have a race issue. There are some issues around in the black community, around homophobia in some elements, and these are massive generalizations, but actually the intersectional bit does begin to help to unpick some of that. I think, and it's a is, it's really, really complex, but I don't suppose you can shy away from those difficult conversations. And that's before. You know, like you said that, that triangulation between different things, if we had religion into into that, do you think there's an element? And well, my, my belief. So, rather than ask a loaded question, I'll tell you what I think and you go from there.
Speaker 2:I think that we are in such polarized times in in society, ironically, everything's become so binary it's either this or is that and that people really struggle with actually more than one thing can be true at the same time, that there is nuance to lots of things. And and so you know what we've been offered, we've given some support recently to places where they are struggling with the balance between some religious teachings and say lgbtq plus rights, and we did a podcast on here and that the world cup talking about it and saying it's not necessarily having a definitive answer but facilitating some conversation around it is is a starting point. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be that that's got a hundred percent. You know, you, the world's a bit more nuanced than that and I think, as society and then places like education or obviously a microcosm of that we seem to have. Maybe it was never there, maybe I'm just getting old and it's a little back in my day because I've got new on conversations. Maybe we never have been able to, but.
Speaker 2:The does seem to be that this huge polarization and that's one of the tensions, I think, in the work.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting. So I spent a lot of time working with and training governors and I was running a governor session on Wednesday evening and it was the governor's office school and all you've on the training for the teachers and as a school. They're really progressive, they really get it. They've been doing this work for several years and they also are a church schools. The one of one of the governors was a Vicar and quite a few of the governors had corporate backgrounds and they were men of a certain age and they were white and they were straight and they were very, very aware of, of their identity, what brings the table. And we had this fascinating discussion and at the end of the training session the kind of the consensus was like how are we gonna fix this?
Speaker 3:Yeah but we get it. Yeah and the, and one of the biggest kind of concerns was the kind of the generational differences when it comes to this work and and are the younger generation pushing it so hard? It's just causing a bigger gap with the older generation, and I'm always mindful of that stereotype and I quite often challenge people when they make the assertion or the assumption that the people who don't get it Are the older people, because I've heard beautiful stories. We're actually the opposite.
Speaker 3:But but the vicar was saying and some of the older men were saying, like our generation, like we get, we need to lean into the discomfort we we get that things are changing. But it seems to be changed, going so far the other way that our opinions and our identities are no longer kind of like respect. Yeah, it was just really interesting. Yeah they were very honest and quite vulnerable in that moment of. Has it become so much about the agenda, as someone would?
Speaker 2:call it.
Speaker 3:That actually we're almost like disenfranchising a lot of people from the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you know what? It's such a great point to raise and something to ponder on? I certainly think, in general, the, the, you know, the new generation, when I think about the young people that work with or my own children. Their young people should come out and children actually, but they're the yeah, there's so much more adapt to. But then I sort of always challenge that and just think why is it then that as to forget that I won't use a generational thing, but why do we have to be so sure in our view? It's that speaks to part the problem for me, that we're so sure in our views that how dare anyone challenge it or or anything like that. I think it's social media.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the difference is that I know we're of a similar age, but I didn't get a mobile phone till I went to uni. Yeah and I used to write letters. I used to write letters with a fountain pen and then Everyone's world exploded with technology and devices and social media, and I've always been very grateful that I graduated from uni.
Speaker 1:Before all the social media arrived.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I don't want any photographic evidence of what I got up to, but, like for me, there's something there about the art of how we converse, how we interact, how we debate this idea of the binary. I mean, I think that's one of my biggest contentions with Twitter.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:There's. There's no agreement about holding multiple trees. It's you're right, you're wrong, you're this camp, you're that, and it's so divisive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that, then, is the world that our next generation exists in. They learn how to write on a text message, and so I feel like the art of communication Hasn't evolved to catch up with some of those things.
Speaker 2:I agree, I, so I totally agree on all that. But then I think that the art of communication models by the generation ahead of them, shall we say. I'm thinking about of, of governments, I'm not going to be specific to, to our country even, but with the exception of one or two Leaders, most of whom aren't in post now and most of whom are female, they just don't. There's no modelling of that, that nuanced debate of Um, you know, and I think so, the whether it's. I think social media definitely has an impact on the immediacy of of information Going out there, but um, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing is, is that I you know, we spoke before about the sort of the world of Twitter being an echo chamber almost working in this sector can be an echo chamber because you start to um, I was, I was talking, uh earlier to to someone else of the saying so, my understanding of things, um, like disability, for example, which I don't have a lived experience of Because I'm forced and I've read more around, I've listened to more lived experiences I, I'm genuine, I understand much more, understand where I've upheld, able to still do it, I'm sure, at points, but it's because it's I live and breathe it all all the time, and I suppose for for other people that isn't quite the case. And there's this whole fear, isn't there? When you speak to most people, whether it is around you know, anti-racism work or racism in itself as a thing, or misogyny or whichever else, the fear of Of getting it wrong is stifling, isn't it for? And I think when you then apply that to a school system, it's magnified because the implications are Huge. You get that wrong and it's a social media storm, isn't it? Um? It's, it's. It's so challenging In such a difficult space, um, which is you know good why places like diverse educators exist really to be able to help and support um, the very schools really have got a huge job.
Speaker 2:I would you agree, then the part of of the, the solution, if we're gonna say that is, um, just facilitating the dialogue, that that's the first. For me, it's acknowledging there's a problem. That's that's first and foremost. So I don't think our education system or society are equitable At all yet have to be really honest, but I don't think that's because of People's. It's not willfully like that, um. So there's the problem and I suggest most places, or lots of them, are good. Acknowledging that. And then the next step would be just to facilitate some conversation, I think, or is that too simplistic?
Speaker 3:I think there's probably some other steps to put in there as well. So how I break down the work is, um, I call it the three C's that we need to start with consciousness. Like are we conscious of our own identity and consciousness of the lived experience of others? And the inequities, the think, the things that perhaps we've been um Cushion from, if not kind of like yeah but touched us.
Speaker 3:And then the next C is the confidence piece of even just entering the conversation and and asking questions and and grappling with the language and and the behavioral changes and then, as the confidence piece, of what are the actual skills we need to develop and I always talk about the kind of the bias for action we have an education is that we like to do the doing, we like to find the solutions to the problems and I think so many schools, colleges, multiple coming to us, have have like jumped from zero to a hundred and just start to find the curriculum.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because then the quick ones problematic, yeah, so let's just sort the curriculum out. But they haven't done the steps up to that point of yeah. Who's actually Diversifying the curriculum? Yeah what identity and bias are we bringing to that conversation?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So actually you might be have very sincere intent about what you're trying to do, but you might be further perpetuating the actual issues you're trying to dismantle. So that's what I always kind of like bring to the conversation that it is about a process and a journey and we need to take it slower than some people want to take it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we need to make it sustainable, and actually I always talk about like it's the looking in the mirror before it's looking out the window, and I think it's often more comfortable to look out the window. What does everyone else need?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been service of others and teachers are, I'm asked, the cause? We're in service and it becomes all about the children. So many schools contact us. We need to do some DIY for the children. Yes, you do be all seated for the staff. So for like, for me, there's a whole like set of kind of like I don't know, like steps or questions or jigs or pieces that need to come together and we tend to try to bypass it and just get to the action.
Speaker 2:I mean, I couldn't agree more. So if any of my Well, yeah, there will be colleagues of mine who know that, or ex colleagues and those types of things who will know that my bug bear for a long period was the, the Decolonization of the curriculum, and not because of the movement, that's. That's. That's great. I really believe in the work. But, yeah, just a leap to that and the lack of awareness of who, who you decolonize in the curriculum for, who are your staff and who's doing that? And and do you not see the the paradox of that, of the fact that and and again, it comes from a good place, but I think, I think it really does perpetuate the problem.
Speaker 3:It's the Absolutely, I'd say 99% of the schools who tell them tell me, tell us the decolonization, the curriculum. When I actually listen to what they're doing, I think you're device diversifying. Yeah they're not synonyms, they don't mean the same thing. Like we need to start with the diversifying and the inclusifying and representation, you might get to colonizing in five years in ten years but everyone who's claiming to be talking right now.
Speaker 2:So this is what I've said. Have you ever I can put my hand up and say I have not seen it yet, I haven't seen a decol, I mean it's. It's really very tricky. For a start, we are products of a completely colonial that I think. So again I'll put my I don't think it's possible. In a country which is completely based on colonialism, how can decolonize it?
Speaker 3:It's I struggle with the terminology, but maybe that's semantics it's also going back to um, our conversation, everyone about um, dilution, um and intersectionality, and Trying to hold all nine protected characteristics in mind at the same time. Like for me, diversifying the curriculum is thinking about representation across the board, whereas decolonizing the curriculum is thinking about the dynamic of race. So the schools who claim to be decolonizing what I worry, what I fear, is that it's putting another black and brown faces onto their power points and they suddenly bring a few extra books into the library and it's very, it's very superficial, it's very surface level, and a lot of people who are doing that work are all white and the white majority.
Speaker 2:Based on a Eurocentric point of view of what education looks like in itself. So yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 3:So so, so that's where that's where the problem lies. So, like my degree was actually in post-claim on literature, um, and I was reading something on Twitter this morning about a conference that's looking at pre-colonial, post-colonial, anti-colonial. It's got all the layers to the steps, because post-colonial literature is what I did in 98,001, like 20 years on, more than 20 years on, 22 years on.
Speaker 3:That's evolved quite a lot as well, and the thing I always got curious about or was critical of like we're doing a post-colonial literature degree but all the books we're reading are in translation. So me the white person, me the English person, really passionate about reading global literature, by having a white English speaker translate a Latin American book, there's a coloniality there that we don't necessarily talk about because figures of language in Spanish is different to figure in English, so I'm not reading what the author wrote. I'm writing. I'm reading a white person's interpretation of it.
Speaker 3:So for me, there's a whole thing there for us to get into.
Speaker 2:I think ultimately for me it comes around. The learning from that is there are a lot of really knowledgeable, skilled, well-intended people not always focusing on the things that matter about. It's maybe too negative, I think.
Speaker 3:Well, let me add to that that we talk about that. You can have every sincere and good intention, but the intention is not enough. It's the impact. And I call out myself and my own teams and some of the work that we've done that actually, in retrospect, we were intentional, but we weren't intentional enough and we missed some opportunities. And then the impact was there, but it wasn't as deep or as far as it could be. So I'll give some tangible examples.
Speaker 3:When I was headteacher of the first college school in our town, we had a number of trans young people joining us. We did a big piece of staff training, a big bit of work around how inclusive our uniform policy, our toilet policies, all those spaces were, but the people doing all that work was cisgender. So what I constantly say to schools is you might be in service, but are you consulting the people you're trying to serve? Because we were quite progressive as a team with our level of understanding, but we were still all in that dominant group. A similar story would be when I was deputy head line, managing an English department who spent hours, hours like doing the work on the English Lit curriculum, but they were all women and they were all white women and when the long term plan came to me, I was actually quite horrified at how diluted the curriculum was. And when I had conversations with them, but they were mortified. They had basically just applied their own lens onto that text selection.
Speaker 3:So, for me, it's how we do that conscious as peace, but how we have the confidence to challenge it and call it out and disrupt and dismantle. That's the bit that's often missing from the actual work.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. So from a higher education point of view, like you say, I've always stopped with myself. So when first transitioned into higher education in Liverpool, there are a really small amount of teachers from black backgrounds. The figures are stark and so I wanted to do some work around. That was new to being an academic and so I needed to want to get some research done and I went off into the community and I think that the point I'm making is that even in higher education is a danger of doing two communities and again perpetuating that.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest moments of impact on my career in recent times was going into Toxseth, liverpool, home to the largest portion of the global majority people in the city of Liverpool, and meeting with a community member, their friend in the community, and just described that Toxseth has been the most consulted community in this country with the least amount of action. And it struck me and I've always thought about it of how often you know we talk co-creation in university and awful lot. Again, it's a word that's used a lot in education at the moment, but yeah, how often are we actually properly amplifying and empowering the voices of people to contribute or co-create the work and again, we can talk quite often but I'm not sure we truly co-create.
Speaker 3:It's making me think about and these we could guess for you to have on a future episode actually the work that Citizens UK do and I'm friends with two guys who are involved with it.
Speaker 3:So Dr Sebastian Chaplot, who was an executive head of the primary school and special school, he's part of the team. And then I met Paul Amusi on a course and he he worked like the kind of the London chapter and that is an amazing work within the community but also within schools around the idea of community organizing, and I was doing a leadership course and Paul came to run a session where he talked about just that that all these schools doing their DEI be work. They're not necessarily changing the ways we work and thinking about the structures and the systems that create that oppression and they're further perpetuating that power dynamic. So he gives the example of during the civil rights movement in America where the race leaders brought people together on kitchen tables to disrupt some of those power systems. It was thinking about what space do we meet in and how do we create a space where the people we need to talk to are going to come to that space?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, when you look at what schools are doing, to listen to their parents and their drivers, they invite them into the school building and the white deputy head is chairing the meeting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And he gives all these ideas about like how you just recreate the space we can shut up the space and think about, even like, who opens the door and who makes the tea and who starts the meeting and who's doing the minutes. All those you talk about nuance, all those layers of coding need decoding.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And that's what's often missing.
Speaker 2:It is and it's. I see this and I'm learning about it all the time and I absolutely hold my hand up to the times where I would continue to perpetuate and replicate. But we've been involved in some work recently. It's a health piece of work and it, you know, the fixes aren't complicated at times. So it's exactly that Obviously okay when the whole challenging as a community hard to reach no, not in my experience ever services surely are. And actually when you engage in the space and, by the way, that's often uncomfortable for the people they get to see how it must feel about that that power dynamic shift. So you know, we set up and we did some stuff in some places of worship and things like that on a Friday, going in and engaging, and it isn't that difficult. But the fact that you say all the power dynamics change where we're coming, and even that in itself lends to some authenticity because we're coming to you too and it's funny, isn't it, how we I say we, but it's very easy to replicate that all the time, but I don't think the changes are that difficult to make it.
Speaker 2:There's a really good example. I'm a governor in a school and we have it. That was Shops, actually Archbishop Blanchin, liverpool. It's an amazing school and they have two DEI leads doing lots of other work as well and they've done so much good stuff of going out into the communities where the school sits. But it's outward facing and then when that trust has been built up, yeah, there's absolutely engagement into the school and doing joint events and things. But it's a relationship that's built, it's not just an artificial thing, and that that's really really hugely important.
Speaker 2:So let's just let's get back to them a couple of bits. So you're here and obviously they. I've been really excited to talk into you about because we've, depending when this goes out, we've had a launcher about to launch. We probably have launched actually diverse, which is about, with the facing initiative, working within the sectors that our faculty represents, which are far and wide. It's a faculty of education, health and wellbeing and there's a whole host of divergent things in there, but and obviously diverse educators are doing great work and one of the things that I love probably the most about diverse educators is the amplification of stuff, because that's a model that I grab hold of and think absolutely there is so much good that's going on out there. We want to point out of all the things that are going on there, but we're hoping well, we're getting a date in the diary, just for the date to be confirmed of doing some type of joint events together. So let's have a little chat about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So we started by having an annual face to face event. And then obviously, for a while we didn't do anything face to face, so we went virtual and it's been interesting because going virtual when you're having conversations about DEI has created access for a lot more people to join us. So, like one of our virtual events just after George Freud's murder, it was already planned. Everyone was in lockdown, everyone was consuming the media and we had 13 and a half thousand people join us on a Saturday.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:And people who were teachers in schools were sat at home with their husbands and their kids or their partners and their kids and they were all listening to the event. So it's been quite hard, having had that kind of that reach and also making things accessible for people with disabilities and other responsibilities, to then go back to face to face. The second layer that has been tricky is that we've gone from being a grassroots community to being a training provider where we've got a commitment to pay all of our speakers. So trying to do a face to face event now where we're paying everyone but also still creating that hybridity of experience and access, it's blown my mind a little bit. So I keep going back to doing virtual events. It's just easier to organize.
Speaker 3:We made a commitment next year we're going to have a face to face event every long term. So we're going to Bristol in October, we're going to Newport in March and we're going to event together in June, which will be your one year anniversary of the launch of your hub. So I think that's pretty as far as we've got the weather with how this collaboration might work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, but I'm excited by it. But I think again, you could have a whole other podcast about that. That transition to the quick move to virtual and then the hybrid situation you find yourself in now. What an amazing reach, though, to have had so many people that engaged in the session. That's incredible.
Speaker 3:What's great about virtual is that we always record it, so you can obviously come into it and do it synchronously. But a lot of people catch it asynchronously and we've got a lot of schools we work with in the East, in the West, and you can just navigate those time zones. So or you can do a bit of it and come back later. So, during how we do our face to face events is that it very is community led by who wants to run a session. We have a mixture of keynotes and panels and workshops and it's facilitated conversations for you.
Speaker 3:Going back to your point about how do we start these conversations Everyone's there because they care and we think very carefully about the curation of the balance of speakers. So one of the things I'm doing with the Bristol event is making sure we've got a balance of local, regional voices and national voices, because sometimes these events are like busting everyone in but they're not from the community. But equally, going back to your point about echo chambers, if it's only local, regional people talking, then you're missing out on that wider lens. So just really carefully curating things like that and creating some sort of flow throughout the day where we're building a conversation but people get to choose which conversations they want to tap into.
Speaker 3:So I think between the two of us and how we work on networking and the fact that your early years are secondary, your HCI, like between us, we should be able to bring a brilliant group of people together.
Speaker 2:I think so. I have to say, one of the things that I think that you do amazingly well is that the range of voices that come on are varied in every way.
Speaker 3:I always get criticized for missing someone. I try very hard.
Speaker 2:When you look at the events over a period of time, I even mean in levels of experience, because it's important, isn't it? I had a conversation that day with one of our really early career researchers and he's just come into higher education, the School of Education, and almost the conversations that he's having. It didn't blow my mind, but it's so inspiring and you think it's really important that we amplify and platform people, all people, actually just everyone, that everyone gets a chance to share the voices.
Speaker 3:But I think also just listening to them thinking about how we build the bridges between research and practice, because I think a lot of this work has been practice driven, because it's been very reactive work, but there's been an explosion of people doing research in this space. So creating a space for the people doing the research to come and share the research with the people who are doing?
Speaker 3:the practice. I think that's really important. And then a second bridge would be the kind of the people in the schools and the people doing the work in the communities and doing that skills and knowledge exchange really across those two parties. I went to a really good event yesterday in Bristol about belonging and actually the talks that really resonated with me were the people who were doing the one-to-one work with the heart to each kid who's not attending school and how that links to belonging and how that links to connection in schools and how it links to representation.
Speaker 3:So for me that's exciting to like join up those dots and to think about how we can work better in partnership and service of a shared goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you know as soon as you say that?
Speaker 2:I think the whole notion about what we're doing here in the university with diverse really is that we know that we have lived experience and expertise and people who are literally experts in their fields.
Speaker 2:We also know that there's sometimes a gap between research and action and those things, and so the idea of it is providing the platform for staff to be able to go and share that and actually put it into practice, still to join the dots with research as well, and also knowing, then, that for our staff who but if we're in this work, normally they are diverse themselves in some way, but that also helps the pipeline here, because part of the progression in higher education is through more academic achievements and growing things like your regional and national profiles and, by the way, it helps the pipeline so that we get more diverse senior leaders here as well.
Speaker 2:I think you're right, the joining the doctors is incredibly important between those things and also providing one of the other things we want to do is provide opportunity for the grassroots people, the community leaders who are doing that work, to be able to, should they want to, because it's only if they want to come into the university and get the accolades for the work that they're doing, because that's one of the bits that I find really frustrating. That's missing. I think about I talked about before when I went into Toxseth and Earl, the person who I'm knowing there the community work that's going on there. They should be a professor in community really, but they're not quite sat in the ivory towers of higher education, the people doing the community work and who they represent, the learned-hift experience.
Speaker 3:and then who's got the letters after their name and their lines of the Gulf? Hey, as you were talking, I was thinking are we starting a counter movement to research ed, and we're going to start action ed?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm going to plead the fifth on that, but yeah, I mean yeah, I'm up for it. Yeah, there we go. That would be good indeed. So much that I could say, and I'll try not to you can cut that bit out, if you want.
Speaker 2:No, I think I'll leave it in. They know where I am. So yeah, hannah, I'm getting to the point in the podcast. It's cool when they make the boat go faster, as in. We just try and leave at the end, listeners with something that they can take away and think, ok, that's a, whether it's a call to action, direction to read something, it can be a promotion of something, whatever. There's no right or wrong answer. So I did warn you off first. I haven't just thrown it, thrown it on to you. So is there anything in particular that you think you could leave our listeners with to go away to make the boat go faster?
Speaker 3:For me, it really is about collaboration. I'm doing, I'm going to an event in a few weeks time and it's about racial equity in education, and there are so many organizations now doing that work. I feel like it's become competitive for them, collaborative. And that's just one example and I'm doing a very short input, where I was going to use my input to amplify the 10 organizations who I'm taking representatives with and for me, the power of this work is not to create further division and further fragmentation, it's to work in collaboration with one another. And there'll be some people listening to this who might think I'm a really competitive person. I'm not like I'm, I'm collectively competitive.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:For me it's that collaboration piece and I think the way the school system's gone, it's become fragmented, fragmented into the divisive and competitive societies. Going that way, if we can do one thing, can we look for what unites us and for the connection and how to work with each other and work with each other. That, to me, is the ultimate goal.
Speaker 2:I think so, and I think it's great quarter action, and I think that even even collecting and working alongside, where things are different, it's OK to have that bit of challenge in there. I honestly think you're so right about that. The polarization of things concerns me massively and I think that there is a there is an antidote to that and it is collaboration. So that's a great quarter action. So watch out then coming soon action ed. We'll work on that. Yeah, we'll work on that. But, hannah, thank you so much for joining us today, really looking forward to it and, yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much and if anyone wants to connect, please do look at the diverse educators website which is wwwdiverseeducatorscouk.
Speaker 3:All of our links to all of our other social media platforms are there and we have got so many open access resources there to help you. It's in Aladdin's cave Like. Once you delve in, you'll realize there's so much there. You don't know what you, what you need, until you go on to and realize this as well. So please have a look. Please drop me a line, give me a shout if we can help in any way.
Speaker 2:And I do need to add on there that you've got a directory as well, haven't you? So if people are out doing some work and would like to add to that directory, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3:One of my ways of connecting people and amplifying people is that I want to save schools time to be able to find the providers. So over the last two and a half years, I've closed a list of 188 organizations doing DIY work in various guises within the school system and you can search it in two ways If you know who you're looking for. There's an A to Z and I've tweeted out every day for the last 175 days one of those organizations.
Speaker 3:I'm looking forward to my break when I get to 188. But you can all. If you're looking for support specifically with one of the protected characteristics, you can also go to that page and they're grouped by who they work with. So, thinking about the fact that we are in this moment around gender identity, gender expression, trans inclusion in schools, that's probably the most used part of the website at the moment that schools are looking for help and guidance and clarity and there's eight or nine organizations there who are specialists and experts in that part of DEI and safeguarding.
Speaker 2:Excellent. So my contribution I don't normally add to the will it make the book go faster bits, but we'll be to go and look at that. I really do think it's vital to engage with the expertise and quite often the lived experience is normally of those, and that directory is a really really good start and point. So, yeah, well, I look forward to collaborating with you soon, hannah, and thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Detail Thanks Adam.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you.