Date: Saturday - September 9, 2023
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members.

Description: Rates of violence, natural disasters, and suicide in schools are at an all-time high, and as the world continues to battle uncertainty that threatens everyday normalcy, educators are forced to contend with the reality that none of us is immune to mental health vulnerabilities. Living in unprecedented times presents an unprecedented need for one to take intentional pause for mental health, especially in grind culture where educators and students are expected to push through and keep going at all costs. 

This session seeks to: 

1. increase awareness of factors that affect one’s emotional and mental wellness;
2. augment understanding of the intersection of mental health and psychological safety; and
3. facilitate reflection on how educators can promote mental health on a personal, classroom, and school level.

About Dr. Josephine Kim
Josephine M. Kim is Senior Lecturer on Education at Harvard University and the former faculty director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and National Certified Counselor who works at the intersection of mental health and diversity and inclusion, steering equity and anti-racist practices of senior executives while promoting social and emotional wellbeing. She is an internationally known speaker and consultant who lends her expertise on cross-cultural, diversity and inclusion, mental health, and anti-racist leadership to media sources, organizations, corporations, and schools in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. She is a DEI Expert in the University Managers Training Executive Series at the Center for Workplace Development and a former resident fellow in the Administrative Fellowship Program at the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity at Harvard University. She is an Expert on diversity and inclusion training design focused on anti-racism in the workplace at the United Nations, a Diversity Scholar at the National Center for Institutional Diversity, an Expert in The Inclusive Policy Lab at UNESCO, and a Mental Health Expert at The Steve Fund.

Date: Saturday - September 23, 2023
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: Recognizing the rich diversity of our international schools, we have a moral imperative to ensure our classrooms leverage the cultures and identities of our students. This session is a call to both instructional leaders and classroom educators to “look for” and “learn to see” what culturally responsive teaching looks like within the backdrop of an international school in Asia.

In this session, we will:

• • Reflect on the connections between students' cultures, identities, and classroom learning experiences.

  • Examine classroom observation tools with culturally responsive 'Look-Fors' and 'Listen-Fors'

  • Explore culturally responsive teaching strategies that can be integrated into classrooms tomorrow

Join us on this journey as we learn just what culturally responsive teaching looks like in our classrooms.

About Dr. Darnell Fine
Dr. Darnell Fine is a middle school deputy principal in Singapore. He is an experienced facilitator of adult learning, focusing on curriculum, assessment, and culturally responsive teaching. He has provided hundreds of workshops and keynote presentations for conferences and educational institutions throughout the U.S. as well as Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. As a curriculum consultant, he reviews manuscripts and curricula for publishing companies, arts organizations, and universities. Darnell is a 2012 recipient of the Learning for Justice Award for Excellence in Culturally Responsive Teaching and was named a 2021 Emerging Leader by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. After earning his Bachelor’s in Africana Studies and Education at Brown University, Darnell obtained his Teacher Support Specialist Endorsement at Georgia State University and his Master’s in Creative Writing in London. Dr. Fine holds an EdD in Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California.

Date: Saturday - October 7, 2023
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: This workshop addresses the need for diverse school leadership and faculty who mirror the global student body. We will explore essential strategies for recruiting and retaining educators from underrepresented groups. Join us as we uncover the barriers hindering diverse hiring, identify practical solutions, and discover effective approaches to create a supportive environment for long-term success. Engage in the exchange of expertise and experiences as we focus on how to create an inclusive faculty to drive success in our multicultural world. Attendees will gain valuable insights, practical tools, and a renewed commitment to creating an inspiring and inclusive learning environment.

About Alan Phan & Aparna Sundaram
Alan is the Founder of the Diversity Collective and Associate Head of School at The Evergreen School in Seattle, Washington. Before joining Evergreen, he was the Head of School at North London Collegiate School HCMC in Vietnam. He also served as a Principal at international schools in Shanghai, Chennai, Barcelona, and London. With more than 15 years of recruitment experience in international schools, he witnessed the lack of diversity in faculty and leadership positions. Thus, Alan focused his doctoral research on the intersection of gender, ethnicities, and leadership in international schools. Furthermore, as an openly gay Asian American leader, he experienced how international schools lacked inclusivity and resources for marginalized individuals. These same experiences provided the motivation to move school communities forward by critically considering the roles that gender, sexual orientation, and race play in hiring practices. With the Diversity Collective, he's acting to bring transformative change to international schools.

Aparna is the Chief Operating Officer of the Diversity Collective. She's been an educator for 30 years with over 12 years of recruitment experience in independent and international schools. Aparna understands the challenges of navigating predominantly white spaces as a person of color and the sweet sense of belonging in racially diverse settings. Therefore, she has committed herself to ensure the educational settings she enters prioritize diversity and inclusion work. Aparna has led workshops and courses helping board members, parents, administrators, faculty, and students develop cultural competence and foster inclusive environments. She served on the Independent Schools Association of Central States (ISACS) Equity and Justice Committee, where she helped rewrite the equity and inclusion standards for accreditation, and she is a founding board member of Cleveland's South Asians for Justice and Equity (SAJE). As the mother of biracial, bicultural children who attend an international school, this work is not only professional but personal.

Date: Saturday - November 11, 2023
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: In this session, we will explore the cycle of socialization and the influence it has on individuals and societies. Through thoughtful analysis, we will think about how we learn and internalize social norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors within their cultural and social contexts. We will foster self-awareness, exploring our own socialization experiences and the profound impact they have had on our perspectives, biases, behaviors, and overall outlook on life. By gaining a comprehensive understanding of the cycle of socialization, we can empower ourselves to actively participate in the transformative process of social change.

About Margaret Park
Margaret Park is a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant who works with organizations to make positive changes for all community members.  She is the former Elementary School Assistant Principal at Seoul Foreign School and is currently on the Advisory Council for the Association of International Educators and Leaders of Color.  Margaret is committed to fostering leadership development with experience in facilitating professional development, training leadership teams, counseling, mentoring, coaching, and curating innovative learning spaces. Margaret is a Fulbright Scholar and received an Education Masters and Certificate of Advanced Studies from Harvard Graduate School of Education.  She also holds an Education Masters in Childhood General and Special Education from Hunter College.  Margaret is a NETKAL fellow and a member of the Council of Korean Americans. Margaret is particularly interested in thinking about leadership through an equity and justice lens.

Date: Saturday - December 2, 2023
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: This workshop provides you with the framework and tools to decenter whiteness and characteristics of white supremacy and, instead, center the experiences and epistemologies of historically marginalized peoples (specifically, Indigenous people and communities of color) in order to transform our classrooms into sites of liberation. By engaging in the theories and principles of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal) and other decolonizing methodologies, you will be able to jumpstart and/or deepen your ability to decolonize your curriculum, lesson plans, and classroom. 

About Dr Soojin Pate
Dr. SooJin Pate is a professor, podcaster, and DEI consultant who is committed to creating antiracist spaces in every space she inhabits. She has devoted the past two decades to increasing workplace diversity, fostering inclusion, and embedding equity in policies and practices in order to level the playing field for those who have been historically left out. An alum of Howard University and the University of Minnesota, she teaches courses on race and ethnic studies in Minneapolis, MN. She is the author of From Orphan to Adoptee: U.S. Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption, co-host of the Antiracist Parenting Podcast and host of Decolonize Yourself, as well as a proud steward of Million Artist Movement.

Date: Saturday - January 20, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: Participants will learn about the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Rubric to Evaluate Asian American and Pacific Islander American Youth Literature (https://www.apalaweb.org/talkstorytogether/resources/). We will discuss the rubric in the context of current and historical representation of AAPI individuals and communities in various media. Participants will learn how to 1) evaluate individual books containing Asian and Asian American content and 2) conduct classroom library audits, with attention paid to how these books fit into larger classroom and library collections. 

About Sarah Park Dahlen
Sarah Park Dahlen 박사라, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is also affiliate faculty in the Department of Asian American Studies and the Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies. Her research is on Asian American youth literature and transracial Korean adoption. She co-edits Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, co-created the Diversity in Children’s Books infographics, and co-edited Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. Her next book with Paul Lai addresses Asian American youth literature. She is represented by Tricia Toney Lawrence of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. sarahpark.com

Date: Saturday - February 17, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: This session will offer participants an opportunity to dig into the identity, beliefs and values of women leaders and women of colour while examining the skills and competencies women in leadership require to stand strong and true to who they are. The session will be structured so that participants have multiple opportunities to connect with each other and process the material. They will engage with the literature to deepen their thinking and the session will end with some time to create an action plan going forward.

About Nitasha Crishna
Nitasha Crishna has been a school leader for over a decade in international schools. A core focus of her work is to nurture and facilitate strong and healthy relationships between all key stakeholders of the community to create the greatest impact on student learning. 

Date: Saturday - March 2, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: Students' heritage languages are one of the most valuable assets that enhance learning, especially for multilingual learners (MLs). Fortunately, this does not mean teachers have to know students' languages for intentional integration. Teachers who are monolingual can also create authentic opportunities for students to tap into their heritage languages while learning. After participating in this session, teachers from K-12 will leave with a practical, easy-to-implement framework to make every learning experience a multilingual one.

About Tan Huynh
Tan Huynh (@TanKHuynh) is a secondary school teacher specializing in English language acquisition, an author, podcaster, and consultant. His suggestions are rooted in his experience teaching students from 5th to 10th grade in public, private, charter, and international schools.  He also taught secondary social studies and spends much of his days co-planning and co-teaching. Tan shares his application of research-based strategies on his blog, podcast, and online courses with the hopes of celebrating teachers who answer the call to serve multilingual learners. You can learn more about his work by going to TanKHuynh.com.

Date: Saturday - April 13, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: In this workshop, participants will explore the international school and its systems through an Identity Lens– an approach associated with Identity-Centered Learning (identitycentered.com). What systems exist within international school classrooms, staff rooms, boardrooms, communities, and networks– and how do these systems empower (or disempower) certain identities in overt/covert ways? How can we recognize, unearth, analyze, and transform hidden systems within these micro/macro ecosystems that prevent them from becoming more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just? This workshop will challenge educators to move beyond the common scope of identity work (personal and interpersonal) to a broader systemic outlook– with the goal of sparking systemic evolution in our schools.'

About Daniel Wicker
Daniel Wickner (he/him) is the founder of Identity-Centered Learning (www.identitycentered.com), a framework for supporting students’ healthy identity development in schools. This work builds on culturally-relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies and is informed by his own biracial, multicultural, and multilingual identity, along with his fourteen years in international education. He is currently an elementary PYP teacher at Branksome Hall Asia in Jeju, South Korea and supports schools as a consultant in the areas of identity and DEIJ. Daniel holds a B.S.E. from Princeton University, an M.S.E. from Keio University, and an Ed.M. in Independent School Leadership at Columbia University Teachers College.

Date: Saturday - May 25, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM HKT
Format: Zoom Meeting (Zoom link will be sent 2 days before the event.)
Fee: Free for EARCOS Members / $100 for Non-Members

Description: In this session, we will explore dispositions, mindsets, and frameworks to support us in courageously leading anti-racist, anti-bias change at schools, particularly in our learning cultures and ecosystems. In congruence with our belief that our action on DEIJ is a personal as much as political act, this workshop will hopefully enable us to understand that "education is a practice of freedom".

We will develop our understanding by engaging with some of the provocations from the research, brilliance and wisdom of bell hooks, Christopher Emdin, Lorena Escotto German, Zaretta Hammond, Dr. Bettina Love, Dr. Danau Tanu, Daniel Wickner, Dr. Jamila Dugan, Shane Safir, Django Paris and Samy Alim.

About Joel Llaban
Joel Jr LLABAN (siya, he, him) is the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice at the International Schools Services (ISS). He is committed to our collective work for the transformation of international education grounded on anti-racism, DEIJ, and belonging. He leads professional learning for faculty, staff and leadership teams in international schools and organizations. He coaches, consults, and supports educational leaders in designing professional learning and strategic planning, from intentions to impact on DEIJB. Prior to ISS, Joel worked at the International School of Kuala Lumpur, International School of Brussels, International School of Beijing, and Cebu International School. He also serves in accreditation as a team evaluator representing NEASC and CIS. 

Joel served in the advisory role of the Council of International School (CIS) Board Committee on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Anti Racism. He is also a member of the Editorial Team of The International Educator. Joel holds a Master of Education in International Education Administration from Endicott College in Massachusetts and a Certificate of International School Leadership from The Principals Training Center (PTC), where he also teaches a course Leading for DEIJB in the International Schools. He is a proud member of  the Association of International Educators and Leaders of Color (AIELOC)  and a lead facilitator of the Diversity Collaborative and the DEIJ Learning to Action Institute for International School Leaders at ISS. Follow Joel on Twitter @JoelJrLLABAN or on LinkedIn.