Starting with Self-Awareness

Why I learned to incorporate self-awareness reflections into as many trainings as possible

The truth is, reflection is tough work because it requires that we all take responsibility in creating the future we want.

- Dr. Shawn A. Ginwright

In the field of equity and justice work there are four foundational components: awareness, knowledge, skills, and advocacy. This is often represented as four pillars or four sections of a spiral. It’s important to understand that we never truly “master” any of these areas - we do  continue to grow, expand, and deepen in each one of them though. 

The awareness component is primarily about developing greater self-awareness. This drives our knowledge of people who are different from us, the ways in which we build skills to meet needs, and how and when we advocate. In strengthening self-awareness, we examine the various aspects of who we are - our various identity markers. These can include (and are not limited to) socio-economic status, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, education, gender, sexual orientation, spoken languages, physical abilities, religion and more. As Elena Aguliar writes, “The way that we understand ourselves, and the way we understand that other people understand us, has a big impact on who we are and how we show up in the world.”¹

Now, I knew that self-awareness is important and impactful, but it wasn’t until I attended a training on mentorship early in my role as Equity Specialist that I gained a deeper insight into how our understanding of ourselves affects everything. Our identity markers are always influencing us whether we are aware of it or not. Our internal identity (how we see ourselves) impacts how we see, understand, and experience the world. Our external identity (how other people see us) also impacts the way we are treated, what we experience, and the type of access we have in various systems (healthcare, education, housing, etc.).² For these reasons, my teammate and I prioritized incorporating identity reflections into all (not just some) of the trainings that we developed going forward.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

For me, it was important to align questions with the specific training topic as closely as possible. General self-awareness questions are helpful in certain contexts. However, I wanted to ensure that participants saw the relevance of the questions for each particular topic. Here’s a few ways I did this: 

For a training about how to screen for problematic bias in instructional materials, I asked:

• What was your favorite childhood book? Describe the main character.

I encouraged educators to think of a book they loved when they were roughly the same age as the students they currently teach. These questions set us up for a conversation later in the training about who sees themselves reflected in instructional materials more  easily and often and who does not. For example, what were the similarities and differences in identities from the main character of the book to you as a child? Were there more similarities or more differences? 

For a training that introduced microaggressions, I asked:

• What do you tend to notice about people when you first meet them? 

• What do you think people tend to notice about you? (Think about what people often comment on, appropriately or not.)

This laid the groundwork for recognizing assumptions we make based on inaccurate and/or incomplete information, which can lead to microaggressions and thereby have a harmful impact. 

For a training that introduced the connection between relationships and bias, I asked participants to reflect on themselves when they were around the same age as the students they teach and answer: 

• What beliefs, values and interests that you had at that time still influence who you are today? Why?

• What no longer or minimally influences who you are today? Why?

• How does who you are today influence how you interact with your students?

Since we naturally gravitate towards sameness, we tend to interact with people in ways that work for us. We more easily relate to people who share similar interests and values. As educators, we must build relationships with all students, not just the students who are most like us.  It takes more intentionality to build authentic relationships with people whose identities are different from ours as well as awareness of our own influences so we don’t (unconsciously) expect people to be the same as us.

I also strongly encouraged (ahem, “required” as much as I could) equity teams to incorporate self-awareness conversations into their agendas. It’s important to understand the perspectives and experiences that people bring to the team. This also helps make us aware of what perspectives and experiences are missing from the group. The better we understand ourselves, the better we’re able to relate to those around us and make intentional choices rather than unconscious ones. 

What are some ways that you strengthen your own self-awareness? What’s a question or prompt that you’ve found to be valuable?

I’m excited for us to be able to learn from each other as I share what I’ve learned. It’s important that sharing and learning be welcoming and inclusive. 

Expectations for comments:

1. Be curious

2. Be kind

Comments not aligning with these expectations will be deleted.

1. Aguilar, E. (2020). What You Need to Know about Identity. Coaching for Equity: Conversations that Change Practice (pp. 200). Jossey-Bass.

2. Aguilar, E. (2020). What You Need to Know about Identity. Coaching for Equity: Conversations that Change Practice (pp. 200-209). Jossey-Bass.