Spring 2021 | Diversity and Inclusion at Viewpoint School We are proud to introduce this inaugural issue of a new newsletter, inspired by our students and communicating the important work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at Viewpoint School. Each quarter we will be sharing updates with you, with news and inspiration of how we are uniting our community across difference and preparing our students and school for an inclusive future. Our goal is to ensure that all students and families experience a deep sense of belonging at Viewpoint.
Viewpoint’s purpose is to inspire a love of learning, bringing students together in a diverse and welcoming school culture grounded in shared values. In these complex times, preparing students for the future means preparing students to find their voice as individuals with the skill set and mindset to communicate, listen, and understand across cultures and differing lived experiences. There is no place in our world for anti-Asian, anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic sentiment, or for any hatred or discrimination, and Viewpoint’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs play an essential role in developing students academically and personally with the skills to thrive.
Inspiration from poet Amanda Gorman, Los Angeles independent school graduate:
Every day, we write the future / Together, we sign it / Together, we declare it / We share it / For this truth marches on / Inside each of us. - "Believer’s Hymn for the Republic"
Amanda Gorman is an American poet who mainly writes about oppression, racial issues, feminism, marginalization, and African diaspora. In April 2017, Gorman became the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. In 2021, she delivered the poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration ceremony of the U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris.
NEWS AND UPDATES: TAKING ACTION
Viewpoint has taken significant actions to develop our people and programs in line with educational best practices to promote equity and inclusion in our school. These include:
NEWS AND UPDATES: IN MOTION
We must remain responsive to today’s needs as we look beyond tomorrow. Here’s some of our current commitments:
Viewpoint’s Board of Trustees has created a new board-level Task Force for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, co-chaired by Lindsey Spindle, P’26, and Jonathon Wolfson, P’09,’11,’17,’19. This task force will partner with Viewpoint’s leadership and faculty to conduct an audit of campus policies, practices, programs, and climate, ensuring we are continually improving programs and processes and delivering on our values.
Viewpoint Board of Trustees Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:
On March 22, Viewpoint School launched Viewpoints at Viewpoint, an initiative created to foster deeper understanding of the diverse experiences and perspectives within the Viewpoint community, with a kickoff event in the evening.
We extended our Viewpoints at Viewpoint initiative to invite our entire community to read Irshad Manji’s book, Don’t Label Me: How to Do Diversity Without Inflaming the Culture Wars. We hosted a videoconference with the author on Wednesday, April 21. In partnership with Heterodox Academy, this initiative modeled intellectual humility and inclusive dialogue.
Inspired by our students’ leadership, we are creating a Youth Council specifically to engage Upper School student voices in dialogue about how to make positive change in their school and community.
FACULTY REFLECTIONS: STEPHEN CHAN, HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL
I am a history teacher by training, so I can’t help but talk about the past. I teach because I remember. I teach because I was inspired. I teach because I am grateful – to my own instructors, to my deans, and to the teachers in my family who came before me.
In addition to my work here at Viewpoint, I also work for Teachers College, Columbia University at a summer institute for new instructors at independent schools – essentially my job is to teach teachers how to teach best. When I am at Teachers College, I walk in the footsteps of alumni who have gone on to teach at and lead many of our country’s schools.
I am reminded of my own family’s past as these same halls were traversed by my great-uncle Willie Chen over 75 years ago. He was my father’s father’s youngest brother. I know that Uncle Willie was thrilled to be admitted to Teachers College, much like all of our students will be thrilled to be admitted to their colleges. Uncle Willie understood that admission to an institution of higher education is only one part of a journey, an important part, of course, but just one part of a great journey taken over the course of a lifetime.
Uncle Willie was born during the period of the Chinese Exclusion Act, but since he was born in California he was a U.S. citizen by birth. He had what would undoubtedly be considered the marks of success. He was the pride of his family with a Bachelor’s Degree from Cal Berkeley. He had a distinguished record serving during World War II as a liaison between the American government and Chiang Kai-Shek’s government in China. But what he really wanted to do was be a teacher.
He received a Ph.D. from Columbia before returning to California to follow his passion and do what he saw as his calling. He wanted to teach. But this was 1951, and no one would hire an Asian American educator. His chosen field of teaching was closed to him because of racism and xenophobia. Having a doctorate from an Ivy League school did not matter. The color of his skin did.
My father has a vivid memory from 1951. Uncle Willie posed with my dad and his siblings on their porch in South Los Angeles. He was about to start the next phase of his life’s journey. Since one door closed, he opened another one. He was leaving for China to take a position as a university instructor. This was after the Communist Revolution, and he heeded the call to serve the land of his ancestors by bringing his skills to a place he believed sorely needed them. New China beckoned, and he answered. This, he believed, was the best choice he could make – it fulfilled his passion, it fulfilled his aspiration, it fulfilled his inspiration. In America, Uncle Willie was always perceived as being Chinese, a perpetual immigrant in the land of his birth. But in China, he was always perceived as being American, something I don’t think he truly understood until he got there. It was soon apparent; his identity papers listed his class background as being “capitalist.” He was murdered during the Cultural Revolution by marauding Red Guards.
My great-uncle made all the right decisions, and his destiny ultimately took him to a place where he was needed and he found great satisfaction and meaning in his life, even if ultimately it ended in a way he had not anticipated. I began my teaching career fifty years after Uncle Willie failed to get a position in California. I am reminded every day I come to work here at Viewpoint School that I’ve achieved something that he could not.
SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: From Lizz Melendez, Teacher of Social Studies in Middle School & Diversity Coordinator
To our APISA (Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian) Community: We see you. You matter. You belong. You are loved. We are not going to stop trying to create a safer world for you and your families. Lean on us. Lean on our Viewpoint community. We are here for you.
Over the course of the last year, there has been a rise in pandemic-related anti-Asian violence, discrimination, xenophobia, and racism. The recent news out of Atlanta reminds us of the importance of recognizing the current lived experience of our APISA here at Viewpoint and across the country. APISA communities are having to deal with not just the fear of COVID-19 but also fear over a rise in hate crimes targeting their communities. Raising awareness about these experiences and denouncing this violence is critical. AND we must also be ready to stand in solidarity with our colleagues, students, and families. This is a call to action: please, educate yourselves and find ways to support impacted communities. This is not a one and done effort. And, it cannot just be work done in the wake of this violence. We must learn to see and recognize the subtle daily experiences with racism, discrimination, and bigotry APISA and BIPOC folx have to deal with.
If you are wondering how, I invite you to take the following actions: Learn more. Check out resources, such as toolkits, articles, and websites that can help you learn more about the APISA experience and histories.
FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL, MARK McKEE
We have learned so many lessons from the last year, and one of the most profound is how much we need one another—and how much we can learn from one another. We are interdependent, and we are stronger together, as a community and as a people.
We undertake the important work of diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools with at least two goals, present and future. One goal, that we build a Viewpoint where every student belongs, where every family feels the belonging that is a value and a hallmark of our community and that enables us to learn from one another and our varied life experiences. And another goal, that aspirational truth that education changes lives. This work of diversity, inclusion, and community life, which now goes by the acronym of “DEI,” is essential to being a learning community and is indivisible from our goals of educating students for the future.
One of Viewpoint’s values, enshrined in our mission, is optimism, and amidst the many challenges of the world around us, working with our students gives me optimism, confidence, and hope. We look forward to keeping you up to date and including you in this work, as we aspire to fulfill these goals in the lives of our students every day.
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