NAEA has created a wide-ranging and flexible repository of multimedia resources, readings, and materials that support our membership’s commitment to grappling with interpersonal and societal issues that still impact oppressed communities in the field. A key recommendation from the NAEA ED&I Task Force is to create space intended to support the ongoing learning of our members at all stages of their discovery of personal and collective agency to counter oppressive practices and structures in the art classroom and in the community, now and into the future.
This site is organized into four sections to facilitate the development of ED&I awareness, aptitudes, sense, and sensibilities, regardless of where you are on the journey. The nexus of offering a sequential and cumulative repository of resources is to self-gauge where you are in your journey of deep reflective work.
This process is centered in better understanding your biases, finding your multiple intersecting identities, and constructing your own personal story. By beginning the process of examining how you and others have been impacted by structural racism or systematic oppression, we are better equipped as educators to uplift and honor the differences and genius among people, which includes but is not limited to, racialized peoples, ethnicities, genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, languages, learning paths, accessibility needs, ways of being, income, citizenship, or tribal status.
For those just beginning to engage with the repository, or looking for foundational resources, check out Awareness: Getting Started. If an art educator is looking to do some more deeply personal work and introspection, they’ll want to access some of the tools under Inner Work: The Individual. Moving up a level, educators can consider their school or institution and ways to address learning as a community under Transformative Work: School/Organization. And for those who are thinking about broad systemic issues, spend some time in the Social Justice Work: Systemic resources.