Upstander is created by and for educators who want to combat microaggressions in their classrooms, schools, and communities.
Sticky situations around race, identity, and politics can catch us off guard when they happen in school. As educators, we know that our in-the-moment response to these scenarios is high-stakes because students learn from how quickly and seriously we address them. Upstander is a digital platform that provides teachers the low-stakes space to practice their in-the-moment responses to a multitude of curated micro- and macroaggressions. It provides guiding questions, lesson plans, and multimedia resources for problem-solving a variety of diversity, equity, and inclusion issues that might arise in school.
Upstander is made up of decks of microaggression flashcards along multiple identity areas (e.g., race, class, gender & sexuality, ability, age, and spirituality), and comes in two modes: Self Practice and Team Practice.
Self Practice is meant for the anti-racist educator-in-training to practice their responses to microaggressions on their own, at their pace. Team Practice is designed to make providing Diversity & Inclusion professional development easier for administrators. If you are an administrator who is looking for a quick way to create space for your staff to discuss issues around intersectional identities, have them download Upstander and use it to collect feedback on which issues your staff excels and where they might need more support.