Event Resource Page

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HSESI Scholar Series: How Do We teach Pacific Island Matters in High School Ethnic Studies Curricula?

Event Description

On March 18th, the UC Berkeley High School Ethnic Studies Initiative held the scholar series panel discussion, “How do we teach Pacific Island matters in High School Ethnic Studies Curricula?” Moderated by undergraduate students Fine Ashley Tuitupou & Kahel Joem Zedekiah and featuring guest speakers Estella Owoimaha-Church, ...

HSESI Conversation: How do we create healing spaces in response to controversial topics?

Event Description

On March 26th, 2024, the High School Ethnic Studies Initiative (HSESI) hosted the event "How do we create healing spaces in response to controversial topics?" with Kyle Beckham, facilitated by Jason Muñiz. Kyle Beckhan is a lecturer and co-director of the UC Berkeley Teacher Education Program (BTEP). Beckham is also a veteran classroom teacher who helped to co-create SFUSD's Ethnic Studies program.

Participants Featured Speaker: Kyle Beckham, Co-...

HSESI Scholar Series: Hope, Healing and the Warrior Women Project - A discussion with Dr. Elizabeth Castle

Event Description

On January 30th, 2023 the High School Ethnic Studies Initiative (HSESI), held "Hope, Healing and the Warrior Women Project - A discussion with Dr. Elizabeth Castle”. This event took place at the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley and was a part of the HSESI Scholars Series. The series hosts panel discussions year-round aimed at supporting California high school Ethnic Studies educators.

Filmmaker and scholar Dr. Castle shared her experiences with...

HSESI Scholar Series: Teaching the Black Panther Party Legacy

Event Description

On October 23, 2023 the High School Ethnic Studies Initiative (HSESI) team and the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley hosted the first event in the UCB-HSESI scholar series.

Teaching the Black Panther Party Legacy is a panel discussion featuring Professors Ula Taylor and Waldo Martin, scholars on Black Panther Party history. This...

HSESI Events & Resources

About

The High School Ethnic Studies Initiative hosts various events for students and instructors that focus on approaches to teaching Ethnic Studies high school courses.

More Than Words: In Conversation with the Language of Racial and Social Justice-Making

About

Commitments to the work that connects diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging/justice, anti-racism, anti-Blackness, anti-white supremacy and abolition work, are deep and rich. Each of these terms also have motivations and genealogies. During this event there was a discussion focused on unpacking the relationships between these frameworks and how they help us better understand and situate the work and the questions that they generate. When we think about the relationships that we hope to foster with and between students, how do we use these frameworks to inform our practice?...

Difficult Knowledge, Trauma Informed Pedagogy and Safe-ish Spaces

Event Description

Violence and trauma are all around us—fatal shootings by police, sexual violence, family separations, addiction, abuse, displacement of refugees. Often, these situations give rise to individual healing journeys and collective efforts to create change. But the pain and loss embedded in them also have a damaging effect long after the events have passed.

We invite many difficult experiences into our classrooms, historically intimate and distant, often through written and visual text depicting traumatic events and experiences. At the same time, we have many students...

Antiracism Pedagogy & Equity-Based Learning Winter Institute

Event Description

Since 2018, the CDF program has supported instructors in developing creative design assignments, assignments that are intentionally built to support faculty and students in ways that are adaptive, equity-oriented, and foster antiracism. In the CDF Winter Institute participants developed actionable strategies that build antiracist and equity-based education.

In conversation with CDF faculty, staff, and students, the Winter Institute discussed how within the current condition of remote instruction and the devastating effects of the...

The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading

Event Description

Building on the groundwork of the Antiracism Winter Institute, the CDF Program co-sponsored and co-facilitated a follow-up seminar in late April centered on contract grading. The two-day workshop, The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading, invited participants to explore two models of contract grading, Specifications Grading and Labor-based Contract Grading. On the first day, participants engaged in current research that explores how traditional grading methods structure...

Inviting Students to Bring Themselves to Class: Connecting Learning and Lived Experiences

Event Description

In higher education, we want learning to be relevant to students’ lives, but how often do we explicitly incorporate students’ lives--who they are, what they know, where they come from--into our teaching and research? How do we take an asset-based approach, drawing upon the diversity of Berkeley's student population as well as our own subject matter expertise, to create a richer learning experience for everyone? What does this look like across different disciplines and what's at stake?

Panelists:...