Radical Welcoming

By Rudy Bankston and Vera Naputi

Here we are on the brink of another school year where we find ourselves drawn to the power of Radical Welcoming. We invite educators to reflect on their ideas and actions related to welcoming, recognizing that it begins with a strong foundation and ultimately requires sustaining that commitment long after the first weeks of school. 

At its root, we believe that radical welcoming is a profound commitment to reality. This means digging up and around the roots of identity, experience, culture, mindset, and skills. Commitment to reality means we learn and understand youth culture: Music. Fashion. Technology. Slang and Language. Social Activism. Subcultures. Digital Content Creation. Pop Culture References. Adventure and Experience. Peer Influence. This understanding is especially crucial for Black ‘n Brown youth, who often experience a lack of or inconsistent welcoming in schools that encompasses the physical, intellectual, cultural, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of youth.  It doesn’t mean we have to be immersed in their culture; it simply means we see and accept them as they are, with a genuine belief that they are on a journey of greatness. 

We recognize that everyone’s approach to radical welcoming may differ. For us, Haiku and poetry serve as the root of our radical welcoming, acting as tools to cultivate those inviting spaces. As educators and coaches, we offer six actionable ways to cultivate and maintain a welcoming culture.  

1. Embrace Change and Build Affinity 

Radical welcoming thrives on inviting change and promoting affinity in your classroom. This means cultivating a space that continually evolves in response to your students’ needs. At the beginning of the year, greeting youth at the door consistently is nice, yet over time, you might notice students congregating at the doorway because the dynamics of their interactions have changed, so the individual greetings might turn into small group huddles where their greetings to each other come to matter.  Perhaps on a Wednesday, the mood and tenor of the class feels low in affect, so instead of the typical routine, you decide to have a slow warm-up and instead, walk around personally checking in with each student. Sometimes students are resistant to these actions, but be patient. We know that young people embrace change and build affinity at different rates and paces, and although one might seem to actively be resisting, continue your welcoming journey and never position yourself to be in opposition to how they show up.  

2. Prepare for Unlearning 

Radical welcoming necessitates acknowledging that our knowledge is always partial, and unlearning biases we or students may have formed is essential. Students carry histories shaped by their experiences, some of which may have left them resistant to engaging with certain subjects. As educators, we have to be observant and sensitive—actively seeking to understand past grievances, such as why students may have disengaged with English, history, science or math. Sometimes we don’t find out about their aversions to a particular subject until we notice a trend in their performance. Sometimes it shows up in doodles, torn edges of their paperwork, or body language. Sometimes it shows in an expectation from the student that learning is urgent, highly structured, and fast-paced. Sometimes we have to teach students by our own modeling how to unlearn certain tendencies like this, so we can disrupt norms that do not serve a student’s well-being. Sometimes we have to flow instead of exist in a constant state of urgency.  A willingness to notice and act on your noticing is a way to open doors that may have been previously shut, inviting them to co-create their learning experience, which may involve an element of unlearning.

3. Share your story 

Sharing elements of our life narratives helps demystify the educator-student dynamic. When students see us as real people, it reassures them that they won’t be judged in return for sharing their own stories. We often make collages or slide presentations about our life in order to launch into the school year. We bring in family pictures or make time capsules together. We have a designated “show and tell" or "My One Thing" day. We use various forms of artistic expressions such as poetry, beat-making, lyric analysis and writing. We set up new ideas for communicating such as cyphers, writing for full presence, peer teaching or justice circles. We advocate using an inordinate amount of both structured and incidental modeling, allowing students to witness forms of communication as a way to establish trust and confidence to explore their own stories within the classroom space. 

4. Move Beyond Tolerance to Celebration

A pivotal distinction in our reflections is the difference between tolerating and welcoming. Tolerance of someone means simply allowing their presence; it is passive and often maintains the status quo. In contrast, radical welcoming actively celebrates existence. Tolerating says, “I allow you to be here,” while radical welcoming proclaims, “I am here because you are here, and I want to celebrate your presence.” We have to cultivate a vibe in the space so that students do not feel a need to diminish their identities to make others comfortable or to fit into a norm. We will never forget our students' feelings during an outing to a local arts center to see the musical, “Wicked.” As we walked into the Overture Center, students looked around and said things like, “I feel so rich right now,” and “Why do I feel like everyone’s looking at us?”  These comments tell us that as a community, in a community, we have to be confronting the daily realities of how students feel in spaces where they historically have not been seen.  

5. Provide Liberating Tools for Expression 

Students need relevant ways to express themselves. In hip hop education, we integrate elements of hip hop, such as rapping, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti art, and poetry. These enable students to articulate their experiences, struggles, and aspirations through a medium that resonates with them. We also offer the cypher, which is a collaborative space for individuals to come together to share their verses, thoughts, and talents in a supportive environment. This format allows students to express who they are and where they're from while they build connections and a sense of belonging and mutual respect. 

6. Opening Doors 

Radical welcoming also means committing to continuous inquiry: Why have certain doors been closed in the past? How can our spaces be reshaped to ensure everyone feels radically welcomed? It’s a call to action—not only to embrace students as they are but to work toward systems that uplift them. Every morning, we pray for openness in our observations of what we see and hear. Sometimes a seemingly micro moment is actually bigger than what we believe it to be. We recall the time when a student was frustrated all class period, and what eventually came out was how she was treated the night before while working as a cashier. She carried those emotions into a safe space where her peers not only listened, but helped her take a challenging next step. We often understand the potential injustices embedded outside and within our schools, so this method of observing and noticing among peers can also bridge environments. 

A Commitment to Radical Welcoming

In the coming year, we aspire to delve deeper into the practices of radical welcoming. How can it become a transformative practice? Art, in its various forms, has a unique ability to resonate deeply on an emotional level. It can challenge social norms and critique power structures. It can be a means to explore complex themes and inspire action in ways a simple declaration such as community norms or classroom rules, may not. 

In this spirit, we incorporate the Haiku as a poetic form that invites succinct and thoughtful reflection, encouraging participants to write their emotions and experiences in a few lines. The simplicity of Haiku, a short three line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable structure can distill complex ideas and emotions into visual and sensory imagery. We offer an example of a response Haiku written by Rudy who uses artistic expression to reflect on the principles of radical welcoming. We invite readers to incorporate haiku writing for radical welcoming, as one way to demonstrate that it is more than just words, but can be a living, breathing commitment to consider the six ideas we offered above. Let's begin our school year reflecting in community and individually by writing our own haiku that invites our students, and ourselves, to thrive.

Haiku 

Welcome the moments 

Where space invites connections

For trust to be built 

It’s an active move 

To create ways of being 

Based in truth and love  

Seeing us in us 

We imagine new futures 

Sourced from who we are

We are medicine 

Organic and holistic 

Healing Abundance 

--Rudy Bankston