Social Justice Symposium: The Stations and Logistics (Ideas to share your own learning!)
Introduction
This post and the next one are on the long side because they try to breakdown the logistics of (1) my design process for this unit [next post] and (2) the moving parts involved in running a day of sharing learning.
I love providing my class with authentic audiences and finding ways to engage the school or the community at large in our learning. Earlier this year, we had Mrs. Salter’s Arcade and the several previous years, we had The Museum of Forgotten History. When I taught 6/7 I hosted science fairs as well as Who created that?, which looked at technology invented by different ancient civilizations and each student tried to convince the people who came that their invention was the most important. Authentic audiences and real reasons to share learning raises the stakes of activities and the engagement.
Sharing learning in such a big way can seem hard to conceptualize, so let me help! I will explain what I do to to help you find ways to share your students learning in a more active way.
The first lesson I would like to share is that the work doesn’t have to be perfect because it represents authentic learning. The kids have to make it and understand it. They have to be able to share their thinking—which is along a journey! The kids will rise to the occasion, and they still might make mistakes because they are human.
For example, one student was at the Eco Justice table sharing when a teacher asked him what he knew about David Suzuki. He honestly said he didn’t know because he had read other books and learned other things. Sitting on the table in front of him was the Scholastic biography of David Suzuki. He picked it up and sat down to read it so he could keep learning. I loved his honesty and I loved this moment. When kids share, they are experts, but they also can make mistakes—as all of us can—and as long as you have worked together to create a vision of what you as a class want to share, you will find success, even with mistakes.
The Stations
My son loves museums that have interactive stations, so my students, so how can I bring that experience to life? I have explored hands-on stations and interactive activities that compliment static displays to increase engagement. About a week before the symposium, I explained all of the stations and the kids helped me come up with three categories that helped us all conceptualize the stations.
Type 1: Topic Specific
During this unit, we had seven different bins of mixed books (picture books, novels, nonfiction) that explored many different social justice topics. As part of the unit, one week each group made two PSAs about the topic (see blog post HERE). This poster PSA, books linked to the topic, and other artifacts were used to decorate tables.
We collapsed the tables to five topics:
Fighting Racism (Examples from Asian, Black, and Indigenous Social Justice)
Fighting Homophobia
Fighting Sexism
Fighting Ableism
Eco Justice
The tables had 1-2 students throughout the day who asked questions, shared facts, and pointed out powerful literature. These stations were to help give visitors a bit more information about the topics we explored.
Type 2: Look and Chat
For these stations, the participant had to do more reading/looking independently. The 1-2 students at these stations helped explain our learning and point out their favourite poem/art as a starting point. They also might ask the personal challenge question to get the visitors thinking.
The four stations we had were:
Pride Poster Contest: Our district had a contest for new pride posters based on LGBTQ2+ characters in literature. My class created several and we posted them along with the criteria needed to enter.
Intersectionality: We displayed a low-risk intersectionality of the class as well as the high risk examples we created based on literature. You can explore the original lesson we did about intersectionality HERE.
Social Justice Poetry: Students wrote powerful social justice poems. I haven’t written a blog post about them yet, but I probably will. Kids can write beautiful poetry and they can play with language in unique ways. I love poetry!
Social Justice Quilt: We displayed our quilt and artist’s statements with a grid system. You can explore what inspired the Social Justice Quilt and how we made it HERE.
Type 3: Interactive
Talking to students and reading work is a great way to input knowledge, but doing something helps transform ideas to powerful learning. Kids also love DOING things and CREATING things….so I like to provide opportunities for this to happen. For the last three years, I have included a loose parts station and this year, I built on it. Each interactive station had three students to help facilitate all parts.
Loose Parts Station: I set up six loose parts mats and a prompt. The students were asked to use the loose parts to represent their learning, their emotions, or a question they still had. The kids running the station provided sticky notes to write down messages, took photos of each build, and helped clean. We collected to sticky notes throughout the day to show the learning and how it grew. The students at the station also encouraged kids and adults to participate and treat the materials respectfully. It was a well oiled machine throughout the day.
2. Banned Books Bar Graph: Early in the unit, the class explored diversity in literature and banned books. You can read more about the lesson HERE. The kids loved this lesson…and I love collecting data. So I conceived of having students vote for the banned book they would want to read the most. When I told my students about this idea, they said we needed different colours for different grades so we could explore patterns across grades. Who am I to reduce complexity in data collection? So I chopped a TON of pieces of paper and made a massive graph. This was a very exciting station. A student and I made a chart with all of the data that my kids are using for math next week… I talk about this activity in the next blog post. It was super fun to watch the graph grow over the day and to introduce people to reasons why books get banned.
3. Graffiti Wall: Okay, so in the past, I have made mistakes with this by not monitoring it…I have learned! This station had 3 students who had 3 pens. There was a prompt on the wall: What will you do to make our school more socially just? The students who wanted to write, had to tell my kids what they were going to share, take the pen and return it. It worked much better. There were still a few silly things written, an my kids took care of these. They taped new paper overtop. There was only one rocket ship drawn and this was dealt with two ways: (1) quickly covered and (2) I had a powerful conversation with the student about violence against women and the harm of using genitals in imagery on the graffiti wall. We also talked about how this student believed in equality for women and girls (feminism) and what they could do to personally make restitution for what they drew. The student took the conversation seriously, and it was the perfect venue to share ideas and learn.
Logistics
So how do you practically run a day like this smoothly? There will be bumps, but here are my tips!
Plan the Space/Plan for Rain
I try to do big things like this outside, so I plan the space outside. I like being outside because there is more space and it stays cooler. Determining the layout might involve measuring the size of stations and having kids help figure out logistics. I always also make a plan for if it rains.
Since the forecast was for 80% chance of rain on the day of our symposium, the kids and I spent the afternoon before rearranging our classroom and setting up the stations. Since I don’t have a ramp, it upset me because we have a student with a wheelchair who I knew wouldn't be able to get in. It ended up being cloudy and we moved the topic specific tables outside as well as some of the introductory materials and the graffiti wall. This allowed for the visitors to move around the sample more easily and the classroom didn’t overheat.
2. Schedule the Stations
This is a big deal. If you are running the event for only the afternoon or part of the day, the kids will be okay at one station for that time. I find with all day events, they get tired of saying the same thing or being at the same stations. For this reason, I moved the kids three times (before recess, recess to lunch, and after lunch). I also scheduled 1-2 floaters each time block to help our VIPs and also relieve students who needed a bathroom break. The kids were allowed to switch stations between classes as long as both parties agreed.
This has the duel purpose of reducing boredom from redundancy AND showing me how much more the kids know as they move to multiple stations.
3. Practice the Stations
It is important to have a dry run. Sometimes we set up the stations the day before and practice with classmates. I have also had a practice class come through and test stations out to help iron out the kinks.
Because the symposium was so collaborative and had so many moving parts, we actually spent time as a class looking at each station. We decided the most important message for each station and the big learning we were hoping to give to visitors. This discussion was crucial to every student finding success and understanding the focus of our work during the symposium.
4. Schedule the Day
Determine your space and the amount of time classes will need to explore and enjoy your event. For my arcade, I gave each class 15 minutes and for the symposium, they had 20. Because I was able to spread my display both inside and outside, we had two classes at a time at the symposium. For the arcade, however we only had one class at a time because we wanted students to play all of the games.
Another consideration is the energy your students will use throughout the day. I alway schedule a five minute break between groups for a stretch or running a lap. I also don’t start until 15-20 minutes after each break time and end 10 minutes early. This gives kids the downtime they need. Finally, the next is a low key day. We had a PJ day after the arcade, and a boardgames/reflection day after the symposium.
Your students will get tired throughout the day and they will need to breaks. They will also still be tired the next day—as will you! Be gentle with yourself and with your students.
5. Invite Guests
There are three types of guests I like to invite to create an authentic audience:
School Community: When you think about your event, decide who in your school community it would be appropriate for. For example, for the arcade, we invited the entire school but, for the symposium, we only invited intermediate classes. We did stay open during primary recess however and extended an invitation to all of the primary teachers.
Family/Parent Community: I like to invite family (chosen or related) and parents whenever I can. I try to provide at least two weeks warning of the date. Kids love sharing their learning with family and I love seeing it! Family is also a very authentic audience that matters deeply to the kids, which means they will work even harder preparing.
Community VIPs: I like to invite District Helping Teachers, Superintendents, and admin to events like this because it provides further authentic audiences. We had four helping teachers visit throughout the day, which was amazing. This was a very cross-curricular unit, which allowed me to connect with many teachers (who are also colleagues I have worked with). My kids were very excited and even made VIP cards. They couldn’t wait to show off their learning.
So how do you invite/schedule these people? You know your staff best. I like to send an email introduction and put sign up sheets by the sign in. The day before, I usually send a follow-up email and touch base with people who might not have seen the sheet. The day of the activity, I send an email with the schedule and any logistical information.
Sample Invitation Email
Sample Day of Email
6. Include Set-Up/Clean-Up Time
Set up and clean up as much as you can WITH the kids. We set up the symposium the afternoon before inside because of the forecast. The kids came about 20 minutes early the next day and helped me move some of the displays outside. I also didn’t schedule the day to start until about 25 minutes in so that we had time to (1) get name tags with pronouns, (2) choose awareness ribbons and (3) reflect on the purpose of our symposium.
If you are planning to setup outside the morning of, have all of the stations organized into bins that are easy to move outside and setup. Make sure you have tape and any other materials you might need within easy reach to make setup smoother in the morning.
We also ended about 20 minutes before the end of the day so that we could do a general clean. Some of the displays were left up, and many things were stacked on my rainbow table, but our room was back to useable before the bell. This made finishing cleaning much easier to do the next day.
7. Create Entry Points for All Guests
Some activities like the cardboard arcade need very little introduction. Others, like the symposium might need a bit more to create powerful learning. Because of the complexity of the topics, we wanted to make a real experience for the people coming. The students made video PSAs about the main topics and we sent those a few days in advance to all invited guests on a SWAY. Additionally, we made a Kahoot! for classes to do together after visiting that would reinforce many of the big ideas.
Between all of the types of stations and all of the formats used to share information, each person who came learned something. They all connected in some way. It was exciting to watch.
Running the Symposium
If you do all of the prep, your students will be ready and the event will zoom by. Your job is basically time keeper to make sure classes move through and get any important information. 99% of the work is done by the kids and you as the teacher get to sit back and watch.
I saw shy students speak with passion about LGBTQ2+ issues. I dove into loose parts and listened to the deep learning being experienced. I helped encourage students who were tired or not sure at first what to say. I connected with previous students and pointed out my favourite work.
Remember to stay hydrated. You will be on your feet and having powerful mini-conversations with people of all ages.
What might this look like in your room?
Do you have to run a daylong conference with multiple moving parts to have a powerful experience? Nope! You can start small.
Does your class know lots of math games? Have them set up around the room and invite another class in to play the games.
Do you want to work on oral language? Have you students learn how to read picture books modelling oral language and buddy read with several different classes.
Learning about forces? Have kids work in groups to learn a quick low materials science experiment that they can share with other students. Invite a few classes in to try out the experiments.
Think about what you are already doing and what skills you want your kids to internalize. You can even have your students help plan what they want to share with other classes-even one other class. Students love sharing and they love being experts. So take a chance and see what your kids can do.
Final Thoughts
An authentic audience and scaffolding help students create powerful learning experiences for themselves and others. When I work on a day like this, I think carefully about the components I want to share. I help the kids complete the components over the course of weeks (the arcade) to two months (the symposium). These activities are always cross-curricular and are the culminating celebration of learning. When it all finally comes together the students are always amazed at the complexity and depth of their learning.
I loved the symposium. It was exciting to experience while thinking back to March when it was an idea scribbled on a page. I loved eavesdropping on my kids and watching their confidence grow as they shared throughout the day. They treated to topics with dignity and respect.
At the end of the day, I asked a few kids what their favourite part was and they said ‘all of it’. One student asked if we could do another thing like this symposium this year…and I reminded them we only had about 24 days of school left, so it wouldn’t be possible, but I was glad they had fun.
At the start of the unit, my kids didn’t know what social justice was—or a symposium. By the end, they ran a daylong conference that changed hearts and minds in powerful ways. I will keep doing things like this symposium with students because these experiences are transformative beautiful ways to share deep learning. They also build school community and can create connections with the community at large.