Manchester schools 'Wheel of Power' packet still stirring strong emotions
The May 12 Board of School Committee meeting was the first since word of the packet spread late last month. Several speakers expressed concerns with the materials during the public comment portion of the session, while others — including some board members — spoke on the importance of recognizing diversity in the Queen City.
'When our district started to become more diverse, it was a challenge in schools, and I witnessed firsthand some of the prejudice against students that might speak a different language,' said Bob Baines, who is a former mayor, educator and current school board member. 'At West High School, before I got there, French was the dominant language that people spoke in their homes. English was the second language. I had a teacher one time in class tell a student to go back to Puerto Rico, where he belonged, because he was from Puerto Rico.
'We have to create an understanding of where people come from, that's how you create a community. Manchester is becoming a minority majority school district.'
Eighth graders in a class at Henry J. McLaughlin Middle School brought home a packet Thursday, April 24, titled 'Cultural Fluency 2.0: Microaggressions.'
The packet was distributed in connection with a unit on the Holocaust. School officials said the packet contained some materials intended only for staff development.
Microaggressions are defined by Merriam-Webster as 'a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority).'
In response to concerns aired by some parents, the district issued a statement saying they understand the topic can 'create reactions and conversations within our classrooms.'
'In this isolated incident, students were asked to complete an anonymous self-reflection form to explore their understanding of self to text within the unit,' the statement read. 'Unfortunately, materials intended only for staff professional development were used for this anonymous student self-reflection.'
On Friday, April 25, Amadou Hamady — executive director of Student Engagement, Outcomes and Success for the Manchester School District — sent staff an email regarding Cultural Fluency training PowerPoint slides asking them to 'refrain from sharing any training materials, especially presentation slides, surveys, facilitator guides, or discussion content with students or external parties.'
At Monday's meeting, Alderman Crissy Kantor said the packet is a divisive element in a city home to 'so much beautiful diversity.'
'When I was 10, 11, 12, I was one of the most brown kids in school, and now there's even more colors, more cultures and everything,' Kantor said. 'So to push this divide — and it is a divide, it's a complete divide — we're just dividing our children up and making them feel bad about themselves.'
Manchester resident Camille Craffey called the 'Wheel of Power and Privilege' a 'very divisive piece of paper.'
'Wheel of Power and Privilege,' list cultural identifiers — such as White, middle-class or citizen — and the degree of power and privilege associated with each. It listed categories including skin color, sexuality, ability, citizenship, neurodiversity, body size, housing, wealth, and gender identity (options there were trans non-binary, female identified, male identified).
'There's even a portion in this packet that says, if you say you don't see color, then you are expressing a microaggression,' Craffey said. 'Is that not where we want to be? Is that not part of Dr Martin Luther King's message, to judge someone by the content of their character and not the color of their skin?'
Manchester resident Callie Rojas said the Google definition of the Wheel of Power is 'a visual tool illustrating how different social identities can be associated with varying degrees of power and privilege within a society.'
'So if we left segregation in the past, then why are we telling individuals that they are limited?' Rojas said. 'My father is the first of his 10 siblings who came to America from Colombia. He is proud to be an American and blessed to have achieved the American dream. He worked hard his whole life and has now retired from a company that he has worked for for over 25 years. He has college degrees, certificates and a pension. According to this wheel standard, he should be large, homeless, poor, with an elementary education. This is blatant racism.'
School board Vice Chairman Jim O'Connell said he thinks people are looking at something and claiming that it's creating division, not recognizing diversity, when 'actually it's doing exactly the opposite.'
'I think it's very important that we as a district recognize that we do have a diverse population,' O'Connell said. 'It is important that our students learn to live in the society that we live in today, and we'd be doing a disservice if we were not helping them to understand the world that they're living in.'
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