The Gordon School Institute on Multicultural Practice gathers teachers from around the country who think critically about their role as multicultural practitioners and leaders in the field of teaching for social justice. Through a workshop series, guided inquiry and individual and group reflection, the Institute showcases best practice for multicultural education and provides opportunities for participants to further develop an existing piece of their curriculum.
The first Institute was held in June 2007. Eighteen teachers from eleven independent schools across the US brought specific curriculum units to the institute to be honed and sharpened. Response from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, and the next three Institutes included representatives from dozens of schools.
In 2011, the Institute was restructured to focus solely on Gordon's faculty.
The Institute is committed to enriching and sustaining teacher practice by providing teachers with resources on theory, opportunities for collaborative work, and instruction and support as they become more reflective practitioners.
Everyone attending brings a specific lesson or concept from their classroom curriculum that they wish to transform. Examples from previous years included:
Teaching To Kill A Mockingbird in a school that is predominantly—but not completely—white and upper class.
Helping students understand both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Using issues of diversity to illustrate the real-world applications of fractions and decimals.
Adapting a high school unit on racism in French-speaking culture for a middle school French class.
Environmentalism and its connection to wealth and poverty.
Participants are placed in mixed-discipline advisories. Each advisory is led by a Gordon faculty member.
Participants establish a common understanding of the history and theory of multicultural practice. Using this foundation, groups provide each other with direct, specific feedback on the curricular challenges they brought to the Institute.