Pilot

When your teacher training provider sets up a series of networking events called ‘cock-up clubs’ (which were described both as ‘events focus[sed] on individual challenges that leaders have overcome that have informed their development as a successful leader’ and ‘meetings with successful leaders speaking about ‘their own career low points and how failure and despair can be turned around’), you'd think that the invitation to share your own stories of triumph and tribulations was a given... But what happens when the choice to share career low points and near misses is seen as an act of career sabotage? To Black educators, the inability to be vulnerable in professional spaces (like a staffroom) is akin to the butterfly effect. What to make of the consequences of decisions made or not made based on a feeling, an anecdote or an unsupportive workplace environment and we haven't even mentioned the additional tax on the mental health of Black educators. #EducatingWhileBlack is intended to be a starting point to share these (and other stories) in a ‘virtual staff room’ that is set up for Black educators (and run by a Black educator), with an understanding that there is an acute need to include more diverse voices in storytelling and this platform is there to both focus on the Black educator and provide them with an unrestricted opportunity to reflect on their experience. @Supermahrio