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“The chosen few are the few who chose to step up and open doors tightly closed. So you call yourself a leader, but what does that mean?”
Those are the first lines in Dr. Omekongo Dibinga’s poem, Leadership. Dr. Dibinga was one of the many influential speakers that I, along with 5 of my peers, had the honor of hearing from at the annual NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC). The SDLC is a gathering of multicultural student leaders that come together from different independent schools around the world to self-reflect, build community, and develop strategies to strengthen the diversity in their communities. This year, the conference was held in St. Louis and focused on matters of leadership, empowerment, oppression, and more. It was a 3 day event, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I know you may be wondering, “How do you fill up a 3-day conference where you're at the event for 13 hours each day? You certainly can’t be conversing for that long.” To that I’ll say, “Actually, yeah, we did.” When we weren’t eating lunch or dinner or listening to a guest speaker, we were in either our family groups or affinity spaces discussing the issues of diversity and inclusion that we each face in our different communities, where they stem from, and how to target them. We would spend around 7 hours per day in our family groups of about 40-50 students paired with 2 experienced facilitators, where we would spend time broadening connections with people who have differing global backgrounds. These family groups drove us to dig deeper with our peers into conversation of how socio-economic class, race, religion, gender, and ability can have an affect on our identity and how they appear in our spaces. One activity that we did that allowed me to seriously reflect on my identity was when we drew bubbles that each represented a piece of our identity (race, religion, etc). After we wrote those down, we drew lines between the bubbles that have effects on each other and discussed how that affects our lives and how people perceive us. This activity and others like it helped promote self-reflection, community building, and the creation of a more inclusive environment.
We also had multiple guest speakers at SDLC! Acclaimed educator and author Gholdy Muhammed presented on the first day, and author and activist Dr. Omekongo Dibinga presented on the second day. Muhammed was an inspiring speaker who dove into topics such as internalized oppression and the importance of a well-planned curriculum in achieving optimal educational outcomes. She kicked off the conference in a positive and motivating manner, and Dr. Dibinga maintained that motivating momentum well through the second day. Dibinga talked about how being an upstander no matter the situation is crucial and about how individuals often gain this ability from empowerment.During his speech, he recited many of his uplifting poems by “rapping” them, and let me just say, we students ate it up. We loved it. Occasionally, he would get us to repeat what he was saying, teaching us how to be confident in our voice and ability and how to be an upstander.
I would recommend SDLC to anyone who is interested, and even to anyone who’s not. It was an amazing experience that allowed me to make many new friends and build my knowledge on all types of diversity matters. I’ve returned not only with a newfound understanding of the many factors that go into a diverse and inclusive community but also with numerous ideas on how to positively implement it at Bush. For example, I’ve come back with a list of different activities that we can incorporate into our affinity groups, as well as a deeper understanding of how we display different parts of our identity when navigating through daily life. I can’t wait to apply the new things I learned to the Bush in order to make it more inclusive and accessible to all the diverse communities that we have.
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