Yin and Social Justice in Jamaica with Dia Penning

 A guest blog from my excellent co-teacher Dia Penning. Join us in Jamaica Feb 16 to March 2nd. 

As the Director of Curriculum and Education for World Trust Educational Services, I travel around to support people in learning about inequity and the systems that hold it in place. One thing that I often focus on is the idea that privilege isn’t free. It’s costing someone something.

When you travel you are invoking many privileges. Unexamined, you can potentially do harm in the places that you land. As a leader you have a responsibility to examine the ways that you impact others from your interpersonal relationships to investigating how we support structures and policies that keep inequity in place. Like the systems in your body, the systems around inequity work together to keep things moving. When you make changes and focus attention in one area, you are able to put pressure on other systems

Over two weeks in Jamaica we will

·      Learn to embrace that many contradictory things may be true at once (e.g., someone can be both a loving parent and a racist)

·      Develop a framework and vocabulary for talking about inequity

·      Practice thinking and speaking about inequity with all kinds of people

·      Identify resources to support deeper and long term inquiry about inequity

·      Identify strategies for interrupting inequity  

In our time together you will get to practice critical thinking as well as creative problem solving. Some of these conversations might make you feel uncomfortable. And just like yoga these moments are part of the process of moving toward being a more reflective human. You are joining us in the goal of creating a more reflective, just and equitable world.

You get to start here, and we will develop the tools to KEEP MOVING.