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In Her Own Words: Keonna Hendrick '01
Keonna Hendrick '01 grew up in Baltimore and attended Bryn Mawr for Upper School as a B.E.S.T Scholar. After graduation, she attended Wake Forest University and graduated with a dual degree in history and visual art before going on to earn her Master's in Arts Policy and Administration from The Ohio State University in 2007. After graduate school, Hendrick moved to Brooklyn, NY to start her career in art and museum education, and is currently the School Programs Manager at the Brooklyn Museum. While she loves living in Brooklyn, Hendrick says Baltimore will always be home.
Bryn Mawr gave me a rigorous academic experience while nurturing me to be a well-rounded student that could apply content and frameworks for collaboration, analysis, and problem solving to life outside of the classroom. At Bryn Mawr, I found myself getting excited about classes like Environmental Science and Geometry, despite finding math and science intimidating. The teachers taught with passion and care while making the content personally relevant for students. I have tried to translate similar passion and care to my own teaching to both adults and children.
In 2013, I worked with Dr. Melissa Crum of Mosaic Education Network to develop Multicultural Critical Reflective Practice (MCRP), a framework for art educators to identify, analyze and challenge the cultural beliefs, values and assumptions that shape their interactions with learners and artworks. MCRP developed after many exchanges between Melissa and me, as we navigated inequities of art education in our respective institutions. We realized that while there was a great deal of writing about multiculturalism in art education, there was a need for more practical resources aimed at museum and classroom teachers addressing how to apply critical reflection in multicultural education with works of art. This was particularly true for museum educators. Since then, I have published book chapters on MCRP and facilitated workshops for educators across the country.
Today, as the School Programs Manager at the Brooklyn Museum, I have the pleasure of leading a department of skilled and empathetic educators to design programs for K-12 audiences that take place in the museum and in the classroom. Our programs are diverse in scope, ranging from thematic tours in the galleries to artist-led art sessions in schools to professional development workshops for educators. Whatever the format, our programs invite students, teachers and guardians to exercise critical thinking and expand their cultural perceptions of themselves and the world.
One of the things that attracted me to Bryn Mawr was the cultural diversity of the student body and how welcoming teachers and students were during my shadow day. It was the first time that I went to school with students who were not Christian, students were Asian, Jewish and Middle Eastern and students from affluent families. I learned a great deal about myself and the nuances of culture because of the diversity of the school. In fact, I served as Student Government Vice President during my senior year, and collaborated with peers to lead community building initiatives.
Still, I found myself questioning my own identity in terms of class, race and ethnicity as I navigated between my middle class African American neighborhood and the dominant affluent White culture of Bryn Mawr. Although I enjoyed my classmates and the school, there was at times a nagging worry that I didn’t belong in that world. That I wasn’t wealthy enough, White enough or even smart enough. None of those things were true, however, the worry was there under the surface.
I would code switch often and unconsciously, between home and school. My family even had a little joke that I would slip into my ‘Bryn Mawr voice’ at times, when I spoke with higher pitch or with formal grammar. Meanwhile in school, some students would giggle at my vernacular or little sayings that I picked up in the neighborhood because they seemed funny or silly to them. In my professional life, I can recognize these as racial microaggressions that were intended to be playful, but informed my self-development by challenging me to question how I define my Blackness, womanhood and relationship to institutions.
I’m glad that I had people at home and at school to talk to about that confusion. My parents, and teachers like Ms. Greene, Ms. Busby, Ms. Roberson, Ms. Munoz and others were always supportive and offered a listening ear. Spaces like the Black Student Union and the little sitting area in the gym lobby affectionately known by the Black students as “the corner” grounded me when I felt unsure of my place because I knew I could talk to a few other Black girls and non-Black allies who were struggling in similar ways. I hope that students who have similar experiences to those I’ve described can find affirmation there today.
I also have so many incredible memories of my time at Bryn Mawr and remain friends with some of my classmates. Whether it was conversations over morning snack time, hearing stories during convocation, sleeping in a tent for the first time during the freshmen camping trip, or traveling outside of the U.S. for the first time with the Spanish department, Bryn Mawr introduced me to a number of enriching experiences. The school did an incredible job of offering opportunities and resources to not only feed the things I was passionate about as a 14-year-old, but also develop new curiosities.
I participated in the first cohort of the Edith Hamilton Scholars Program. My project focused on studying the artistic and historical merits of objects created by African Americans between 1865 and 1945. I was paired with an incredible mentor, Phillip J. Merrill, who taught me more about African American history than I could imagine. I would spend the whole day with him and his team cataloging objects in his collection, typing notes, traveling around Maryland to interview families, and transporting objects to his collection. It was magical! I continue to reference the program in my work with schools today because it served as the foundation of my career in arts and culture.
I try to take an inclusive approach to management by encouraging multiple perspectives on approaches to teaching from works of art. I find that many people use the terms diversity, inclusion and equity interchangeably when they are very distinct concepts and practices. Diversity describes variation within a whole. A group of people might be very similar in some ways while demonstrating diversity in other areas. We practice inclusion when we respectfully engage with the diversity between individuals and groups. Equity involves sharing power in ways that respond to the imbalance of resources, justice, and inclusion that privileges some groups of people at the expense of others. In order to do this, it’s essential to critically interrogate the economic, historical, political, and cultural structures that have and continue to impact an individual or groups’ inclusion within institutions and society at large.
It’s very important for educators to move beyond the perception that having diverse student groups is enough toward implementing practices of equitable inclusion. Too often, I see educators make assumptions that the one queer student, or student of color, or immigrant will bring the diversity to the classroom just because they are there, or I find that the educator might ask the student to take on the additional labor of educating everyone about their experiences without making significant changes to curricula or charging all of the students to do the work of expanding their cultural perceptions. I advise educators who want to make their teaching practice more inclusive and equitable to try a few key practices.
First, develop a critically reflective practice in which you interrogate your own identity, biases and power. Second, explore multiple narratives and histories of marginalized identities, written by people who belong to those communities. Apply these to the curriculum so that students can see diverse perspectives on the content being studied as well as diverse representations of people in the conversation. Despite it being 2020, representation is still very important so that young people start to expect to experience the inclusion of diverse voices and experiences. Third, share power in your classroom. Consider how you can allow for collective decision making, and invite students to share their knowledge from life outside of school in the classroom. Finally, remember that there is no end point to inclusion and equity. This is an ongoing process that requires our attention if we intend to create spaces where people can show up with dignity, respect, and belonging.
