Diversity: "The work is not the workshop"

As we start the new year we have an opportunity to expect more of ourselves and to strive for progress in our lives. We would like to publisize all the great efforts of CCC in this direction. On November 30th we had Tarah Fleming from Start Dialog (www.startdialog.com) come and talk to our community. She said things like "the work is not the workshop" meaning our work to continue anti-bias education is in our everyday lives. Especially at those inopportune moments when your child springs a question on you that you may not know how to answer. She also said intention and impact are two different things.

Tarah shared with us what she believes is the key to peace. She shared Sue Miller Hurst's five disciplines of dialogue:
1.) Listen
2.) Suspend Certainty - for a minute believe and practice "I don't know"
3.) Hold the Space for Difference - Can you stay at the table with someone you consider culturally and ethically rude? How you interact with this person is a skill.
4.) Slow down the Inquiry - allow for silence, pauses, suspend interogation, summarizing, and clarifying. Allow people to share and tell more without interruptions.
5.) Speak from Awareness - Bring forth your experience. Do you speak from a place that you always speak from? Speak from who you are right now.

You can download these principles in more detail: mfinley.com/kraken/sue_miller_hurst.pdf

As we move forward let us continue to do the work in our community!

Our diversity chair Mollie could not have said it better: "Our next challenge, from my perspective, is to figure out how we are going to utilize and practice the information Tarah exposed us to in our work together."

Mollie and Rikki have sent out extensive e-mails with resources and information for us to continue to gain heightened awareness and consiousness building.

Please share with us your comments and what you think the next challenge is for our community in relation to diversity.