2021: Cultural Humility in Practice

Is it radical to be vulnerable? 
Or is admitting vulnerability exactly what we all need right now? 
Building a better more inclusive world requires those of us who are comfortable and privileged to live in discomfort. That's vulnerable. Looking at the world through an equity lens can make us uncomfortable, especially if we pride ourselves on being progressive and inclusive. Resting on our laurels isn't brave, it's comfort. 

Let's lean in to discomfort so we can be better.
This week my students are creating fictional characters from the Civil War to keep a journal. They roll the dice to piece together their identity (gender, age, race or ethnicity, politics, etc.) Some students end up in very different shoes and attempt to empathize. We have a conversation about how hard empathy truly is.
Today I realized that the first roll of the dice demanded a binary decision: Male or female
I didn't notice this error until after the lesson, as I prepared the follow up for tomorrow. 
Certainly this binary choice existed in antebellum America, but does that mean people who are non-binary didn't exist? Of course not. Why would I commit erasure when I so often remind my students that every kind of person they see around them today existed throughout history? We know our job is to dig for the stories.
Practice means trying harder and getting better. I'm humbly work to repair this oversight.