We Can Solve Homelessness

Hope Dialogue: Disrupting Us vs. Them

In a lecture-style webinar, educator, author, speaker Erin Jones led School of Education (SOE) students and faculty through her life story. Over 26 years, she has taught in a variety of environments, and in some of the most diverse communities in the nation. She has received a multitude of awards and honors: the Most Innovative Foreign Language Teacher in 2007, and “Champion of Change” by President Barak Obama at the White House in March 2013. Adopted and raised by white, Scandinavian-American parents in Minnesota and the Netherlands, Jones’ family faced backlash for adopting a Black baby. Because of the discrimination she faced growing up, Jones felt called by her intersectional identity to be a bridge for understanding. She believes she was put on this earth to advocate for black and brown children in America while also facilitating dialogues for change. Jones asked participants to do three things: 1) express gratitude, 2) be brave, and 3) push through the discomfort to ground themselves in the conversation. “Safe spaces are never going to be safe for everyone,” she noted. Furthermore, to make change meaningful some people will feel uncomfortable. Jones advocated for “brave spaces” where meaningful work can be done with the understanding that participants are there to learn and continue the work into the future. Jones shared her experiences with racism, self- doubt, and finally finding community in her life. She made it clear that her path to educating others is not for everyone. It is hard work that should not be required of every black or brown person to facilitate.

Dean Yolanda Gallardo began the Q&A portion with a strong affirmation that, “We have to have these conversations; it is our moral imperative.” The conversations that Jones and Gallardo are calling for require active engagement and carrying forward the lessons learned. With gratitude, bravery, and commitment, we will continue the path toward community and healing.

A Word About the Office of a Pedagogy of Hope through Research and Practice

Unquestioned practices, within the classroom and society as a whole, contribute to issues that have been discussed for decades within the institution of education. Institutionalized practices such as the school-to-prison pipeline and the achievement/ opportunity gap, for example, affect minoritized students as early as the first day they enter school. In like manner, the classroom situated within the university is a space that is complicit in perpetuating the social reproduction of inequity for marginalized populations if it does not function as a principal actor in transforming the institution of education and the ways in which systems of oppression thrive and operate. As with many K-12 classrooms, faculty within university classrooms (often with the best of intentions) can engage in practices that are a) unresponsive to the needs of marginalized students, b) lack a variety of perspectives or lenses through which their curriculum can be interpreted, and c) omit concepts or information, which further aids in the perpetuation of implicit bias in both theory and practice. Therefore, faculty within the university setting need to have a space in which they can engage with questions and conversations around how their professional practice can go beyond the surface and instead reflect a critical pedagogy where students are taught to read the world through particular conceptual lenses and apply their understanding in ways that interrogate systems of oppression. The School of Education’s Office of a Pedagogy of Hope through Research and Practice provides an avenue where faculty, staff, and students can engage with critical questions that will change curriculum, practice, and relationships. The goal of the office is geared toward enhancing existing partnerships with organizations both on and off campus so that learning and acting with and for one another is a true community experience. This newly created office within the School of Education is an extension of the Gonzaga University ethos that claims the importance of questioning systems of oppression, since it is founded upon values that are centered on and support the “commitment to the dignity of the human person, social justice, diversity, intercultural competence, global engagement, solidarity with the poor and vulnerable, and care for the planet.” Drawing from this mission, the office seeks to include community members as co-teachers, co-creators, and co-authors of transformation in a variety of settings – most importantly, the school.

gonzaga.edu/opoh