EdcampNJ - How do we attract a more diverse group of educators?

11/23/2014

Yesterday for the 3rd year in a row I got to experience a incredible day of FREE learning with a group of over 400 educators from around NJ and surrounding states. My friend Paula Nagel even came from Louisiana to attend!

I love that it is participant driven learning. I love that it is parents, teachers, administrators, and superintendents all learning together. I love that it is conversation driven not "sage on the stage" learning. I love that one session can be on Google apps and the next on body language. I love that I get to connect in person with the people I learn from everyday on social media. There is so much I love about the EdCamp experience but what struck me most this year was how there are not many educators of color at it.

Let me be clear, I am not at all critizing the organizers of this great event. They spend a year of their time planning and putting this together all while working countless other jobs. Why I write this post is to start a conversation about this topic. . How do we get more educators of color to join us in this educational movement?

I don't know the answers but I believe it is a conversation that needs to be had.

4 Comments

Justin

11/23/2014 06:09:57 am

Is it that there aren't many teachers of color in education or they just weren't there yesterday? I did notice that it was really white yesterday. Was happy with the School Burger session cause it was a truly mixed crowd.

Kelly

11/23/2014 09:36:55 am

I had a great day on Saturday at my 3rd EdCampNJ. The organizers and participants were wonderful and it was a true day of learning. The participants in EdCampNJ come mainly from connections through Twitter. Finding ways to broaden PLNs will be ways to get the EdCampNJ message to a broader audience. There is great information and ideas shared. Thanks for raising the question!

Elissa Malespina

11/23/2014 12:51:37 pm

I did a quick search but could not find statistics about how many teachers of color we have in NJ schools. I am also interested to know that.

11/23/2014 12:54:43 pm

I agree that most people learn about Edcamp from social media. That is how I learned about it. But then maybe the question should then be how do we get more teachers of color on social media? Cause I also think that may be an issue but I am not sure.

EdcampNJ - How do we attract a more diverse group of educators?

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