By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter
The Archer School for Girls took a break from the traditional school day last month to invite students, faculty and staff to a daylong conference on diversity dubbed “Windows and Mirrors: Reflecting and Revealing Our Multicultural World.”
The school said the project, held on Tuesday, Jan. 23, “underscores Archer’s commitment to an ongoing exploration of our commonalities and differences.”
Workshops and activities aimed to empower individuals, break down assumptions and stereotypes, and foster “a greater sense of trust and acceptance.”
Windows and Mirrors featured keynote presentations from Youlonda Copeland-Morgan of Enrollment Management at UCLA and Jason David, the co-founder of AWARE-LA, an organization that organizes white activists to take up the work of social justice and “deepen their self-awareness.”
Emily Styles conceived the conceptual framework for the event as part of a national project called SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity).
“Mirrors are stories that reflect your culture/reality and help you understand yourself. Windows are books, movies, art, etc. that offer you a view into someone else’s experience. We all need both in our lives,” Archer literature explained.
“When you just have mirrors, your worldview lacks the beauty of a wide range of perspectives. When you just have windows you feel like you don’t belong. But when you see life through this lens and make room for both windows and mirrors, a rich, diverse, global world reveals that there are multiple ways of being.”
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.