This year I have a head start. A couple of days to adjust to a 9 hour time difference and some good solid thinking time before the start of the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference. The pre-conference seminars will be in session on Wednesday and the official conference opening will take place on Thursday morning. On the PoCC website and in the conference program there are plenty of tips about how best to get ready for three jam-packed days of workshops, affinity group meetings, informal networking and social events throughout.
Thinking about my own insecurities and question marks heading into this good-sized event that is not like any other education conference I attend, I came up with this alternative list of points to consider.
- Expect to arrive more than once. PoCC as an identity-based conference means that beyond managing the usual scheduled sessions and social gatherings, “showing up” takes on a whole new meaning. From one hour to the next, I have found PoCC to be flurry of shifting contexts which means that we can and likely will arrive multiple times in different ways in the course of the next days.
- Consider your why before you jump into the stream. Try asking yourself some of these questions before you start your conference days: What brings you to PoCC (again)? What are you looking forward to? What kind of connections are you eager to make? What kinds of risks do you anticipate for yourself? How do you want to leave the conference? Any chance to reflect in advance can help smooth our transition from fresh arrival to fully engaged contributor.
- Allow space for disorientation and emotionality. PoCC is designed to provide a crucial space for educators of color to look at who we are and explore what that means for our practice. The conference is a rare and precious opportunity to do this in community of various configurations. It also means that we may find ourselves touched in deeper ways than usual, that we see ourselves in a different light or that we share stories we don’t even remember holding. All these things are possible. And it is precisely in these moments that each of us makes the conference our very own. That’s powerful. And it may also be intense or draining or overwhelming at points, hence one final suggestion:
- Carve out some alone time if you need it. Don’t feel that you need to make every session. Do what you can and when the time comes, rest. Walk outside or continue the deep conversation you just started. This is also critical to being at and creating PoCC – taking care of ourselves and each other along the way.
PoCC offers us so much and also demands a great deal of us professionally and personally. Liza Talusan who, like me, will be blogging during the conference captures the spirit of what makes PoCC a key experience for many independent school educators of color. She writes:
At PoCC, I get to be myself.
I get to be in community of other people of color who, too, are tired of making themselves smaller, invisible and palatable for others. I am surrounded by people who wait an entire year for PoCC just to be heard and to be in the majority. I am in the presence of brilliance at PoCC.
For me, attending a conference whose membership numbers more that a couple thousand produces more than a little anxiety. I love people but try as much as possible to avoid crowds; I enjoy talking one-on-one but tend to go silent when so many are gathered together. Even knowing that I am ‘among friends,’ the degree of isolation I can experience when we are all assembled in a large hall often surprises me anew. So as I post these ideas for others, I am also writing them very much for myself.
More than being at PoCC, I look forward to showing up, fully and unapologetically me, and building that crucial community, one connection at a time.
If you’re at PoCC and you’d like to chat about blogging, or Physical Education, or teaching abroad or digital privacy/security/surveillance or any other topic under the sun, please come find me. I’ll be presenting a session of building and sustaining community with the fabulous Min Pai on Friday 11:15-12:15 Room 209A. You can also find me on Twitter, @edifiedlistener
image via Pixabay.com CC0
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