24 hours in Nebraska

Filed Under events, uu culture, uuism, workshops

I flew into Omaha yesterday to co-lead three anti-racism workshops at Prairie Star District’s Annual Meeting. People here have been extraordinarily nice. Sherry Warren, the district’s Youth and Young Adult Specialist, was a wonderful hostess. After picking us up from the airport, she took me and my Groundwork co-trainer, Braeden, to a steakhouse, where we all ate delicious Omaha Ribeyes with Wisconsin (?) cheddar mashed potatoes. Oh, gosh, that was so good. I hadn’t eaten a bona fide steak in a while. Sherry was excited that we were meat-eaters. Braeden ate every bite of his steak. They were big.

Okay, enough food chatter. Approximately 55-60 people went through our workshops, and the best word I can use to describe our reception is gracious. I’ve heard that Southerners are known for the hospitality, but I’ve found Midwesterners to be tops, so far. Just so earnest, and friendly. The people in our workshops thanked us profusely for being there, and were so engaged and - gasp - they filled out their evaluation forms! Amazing.

Last year, the Prairie Star District commissioned a team (now called GRACE: Growing Racial And Cultural Equity) to look at implementing specifically anti-racist policies and practices within the district. GRACE is the group that sponsored the workshops I co-led. I met Cheryll Wallace and Nathan Woodruff, who are on the GRACE team. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with them. Cheryll’s son and daughter-in-law attended one of the workshops along with her, and were active participants. The Saturday morning speaker, Rev. Meg Riley, weaved issues of race and racial history into her sermon/lecture about faith, family, and knowledge of self. What a great environment to come into!

After four plus years of doing Groundwork programming, this is my favorite yet. Even though it’s cold, dreary, and snowing here, my impression of Omaha, Nebraska, and the Midwest is very bright.

Comments

2 Responses to “24 hours in Nebraska”

Liqa Moin (Alazzawy) on April 13th, 2008 10:53 pm

Hafidha,
Last year, I helped organized a staff development day to learn and talk about racism and how it impacts our students. I have to say, even though we had an amazing presentor and good discussions, since then we don’t have any direction. I would love to get some advice from you as to what could be our next steps. I am hoping the same presentor can come back and work with myself and other teachers on integrating diversity into the curriculum, but not sure the funding is there.

-Liqa
hafidha sofia on April 14th, 2008 12:12 am

Liqa - one book you might want to look at for curriculum suggestions is “Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development.” A web resource that is geared towards teachers is: Teaching for Change; they have books, teaching materials and links to add’l resources that are all geared towards preparing/helping teachers to address social justice issues such as racism in the classroom, and beyond.

What the next steps at your school or organization could be would really vary depending on what the staff are empowered to do, informed about, and their relationships with the students and the communities in which they live. If you give me a little more information about the circumstances, I could probably get some suggestions to you. I have teacher friends who are actively engaged in anti racism with young people. If you don’t want to post on the blog, you can send me an email at lareinacobre (at) comcast (dot) net.

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