Why POCC

Some schools send anyone who wants to go to the annual National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference (POCC). My school is one of many that rotates faculty, staff and administrators through the conference so that more people can feel its powerful impact. While I respect both strategies, I maintain that it is important professional development opportunity for me each year. Here are my reasons:

1. Being in and advocating for marginalized groups can be exhausting. POCC is a once-a-year reminder of the fact that those of us who do this work are in good company. It also serves as a break for being the representative for the marginalized. We can finally feel a power in numbers.

2. I am reminded of my roots. I get to visit with my former classmates, teachers, colleagues. This proves especially significant in the years that I go to the conference with something weighing on my heart and/or mind. I always have a trusted team through which to crowdsource solutions.

3. I learn concrete things. I have yet to go through a year of POCC and not come away with tangible ideas to implement in the classroom and/or in co-curricular programming. Each session is designed to share best practices. There's an outstanding bookstore to boot.

4. I also have yet to go to POCC and not come away inspired to dig into the work that I do. Because the work is hard, the challenges can be discouraging. The core message of POCC each year is that the work of independent schools is worth doing. We hear from keynote speakers who are high achievers and people of color. They talk about the skills that got them to where they are and about the importance of the cultivation of those skills. They talk about the challenges of the world and the fact that quality education is the only way forward. In short, they reflect our Light back to us.

5. There is nothing more inspirational about the conference than our transformed students. Just as I do, the students also come back each year fired up and ready to go. They develop an expertise in each of the core diversity identifiers that they are eager to share. The paradigm shift that they can have in two days reminds us of the impact that we too can have on their lives. This is especially true of the final, gendered affinity session on the final day each year. I get to hear each time we get together about how much it means to black girls to have black women at their schools. Some years that is exactly the motivation I need to sign my contract for one more year.

What an important annual reminder that at the end of the day the work and the professional development are not to serve us adults, but our spectacular students.