and Middle School Director : Deepening Affinity Work as Educators 

This year, we've been busy "affinitizing" at Redwood Day as a way towards cultivating the "diverse, inclusive community" envisioned in our mission statement. As you know, we started a third- through fifth-grade Students of ColorS group, as well as a Middle School diversity club this year. What you may not know is that all faculty and staff have also participated in the experience by meeting and working in adult affinity groups this year. The work has been deep, productive, and sometimes surprising, forging new relationships and shedding new insights into our shared experience as a school.

Affinity groups have long been a way for people to share commonly-shaped experiences, whether defined by racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic identities to hobbies, philosophies, or other interests. At our August work week, diversity consultant Alison Park led us through a discussion of the purpose and opportunity that affinity groups afford an institution and facilitated our own organization into adult groups. Some are organized around age and work experience, some by gender, class, and socioeconomic status. We have two people of color groups, one to discuss the interests and concerns of people of color in general and the other specifically organized around the experiences of men and boys of color. Finally, there are groups organized around faculty and staff who are caregivers or new parents. The groups either reflect an identity that the group wishes to explore or a shared area of interest or concern.

Faculty and staff affinity groups serve several purposes. They offer teachers, staff, and administrators an opportunity to deepen relationships around shared identities and interests. Affinity groups also enable individuals to experience a setting in which they are in the majority around an identity or interest area, empowering creative thinking and institutional problem-solving. We meet by affinity group once a month for 45 minutes, then reconvene to share insights. Before we break into our groups, we remind ourselves of this essential question:

"Practice using identity as a lens: How do our perspectives as [a particular affinity group] impact the way we think about and engage issues/opportunities at RDS?"

During the debrief, each of us hears perspectives on our common life that we may not otherwise consider. This is where the "aha!" moments happen. Here are a couple of examples:

• Some current families have children who are too young to attend RDS. How can we support them better so that they may actively participate in RDS events?
• Instead of asking students to describe vacation travels, teachers are encouraged to ask students to bring to mind moments of happiness, who they might have helped, or who they spent their time with over a break. These questions invite all students to share their experiences without economic bias.

Faculty and staff affinity groups cultivate a diverse, inclusive community through the explicit recognition of difference and intentionality around providing a voice for every member of our community. To learn more about our diversity work, I encourage you to visit the diversity page on the RDS website.