The workshops on Friday, January 17th, marked the official start of Community and Equity Day, which celebrates the diverse and inclusive student body here at St.Mark’s. After a kickoff party earlier that morning, students proceeded to the different workshops by form. The four workshops were Gender & Leadership, 5Cs, Climate Change & DEI, and Mindfulness. Different from last year when workshops were led by St.Markers ourselves, all of these workshops were presented by speakers from the Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI).
These workshops touched upon various topics respectively. The one on gender and leadership was led by Roxanne Kruger. Different terms such as sex, gender, and gender expression were introduced to the students. Furthermore, students were inspired to come up with and challenge many stereotypes of various groups of people. Another, which discussed identifiers and understanding, took place inside Taft. The speaker, Ingrid Valdez, brought up the 5Cs, which are context, character, culture, class, and color. Students stood up and presented parts of their own identity. Through this workshop, we were encouraged to explore how we identified ourselves. Thirdly, Matt Link shared his concern on the global environment and presented potential solutions. He encouraged students to think about what we can do to make an impact. Lastly, the workshop on mindfulness was facilitated by Ambrose WB. He talked about the roles stress affects our lives and what we should do to adopt a healthy mindset. Overall, these workshops focused on the connection between ourselves as individuals and the world around us.
Community and Equity day workshops introduced us to progressive ideas and various solutions to current issues. However, many believed that they didn’t do a good job of discussing the central theme—culture. The C&E day was created to celebrate different cultures and identities so that everyone would feel welcome in the St.Mark’s community. The workshops did explore personal identities, but they failed to explain how people connect with others from different backgrounds. Moreover, because of the audience’s size, most of these workshops were structured in a way that’s similar to lecturing. Although there were certain activities, I felt disengaged for the most part. I believe learning, especially on non-academic topics such as identity, is more effective through hands-on activities and interactions. Last year’s workshops which were led by St.Markers allowed participants to have small-group discussions and to interact in various ways. The ideas were not just told but explained to us through activities. In essence, the workshops did a great job of imparting their messages, but how they convey the central ideas could be more effective.
