By Uzma Chowdhury, Director of the tiltForward Fellowship at oneTILT
The tiltForward Fellowship team is so thrilled to announce our 2022–2023 cohort! In this 9-month fellowship, 11 education leaders in DC, NYC, and Philadelphia will work together to reimagine education in alignment with the tiltForward north star: to build a community of aspiring-anti racist, inclusive, education-focused, people managers consenting to learning and growing. We want to change ourselves, our communities, and our systems to build a more inclusive world through community, learning, and loving accountability.
Education is the single greatest socializer outside of the media, it is one of the most relationship-based institutions, and, in United States history, has a deeply painful and entrenched history when it comes to racial harm to teachers and students due to anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and anti-Immigrant policies and practices. In this fellowship, education leaders work together to reckon with the past in order to reimagine the future. Our fellows are doing the deeply humble and difficult work of naming and understanding an accurate history of education in the United States, unpacking the ways in which they have participated in both harm and healing as a result of both personal and national history, and creating the kind of community that can be a space that exists at the borders of what is and what could be. In this in-between space, our sacred community participates in discussion and dialogue, deconstructing and rebuilding, exploring topics like how to navigate change, nurture relationships, embrace accountability, reduce harm, participate in generative conflict and principled struggle through lessons from Black feminist wisdom and beyond. We apply these lessons to improve our management and leadership in order to bring our schools and students to places closer to healing. None of this is easy, but our work is deeply rooted in hope, because as Mariame Kaba reminds us, “Hope is a discipline.” In the fellowship, we practice building the schools we want to work and learn in.
We are so proud to officially introduce the teachers, principals, non-profit workers, coaches, PhD candidates, education recruiters, and managers, in this years’ cohort. Check these stars out by reading their bios. To learn more, or join future fellowships, email hello@onetilt.org to have a conversation with our Fellowship Directors, Uzma and Cary!
— Uzma
