Dr. Susie Wise is a design leader with experience in the education, tech, and the social sectors. She coaches leaders in equity design and innovation practices. She teaches at the d.school at Stanford. Previously she founded and directed the K12 Lab at the d.school and co-created Liberatory Design. She is the author of the book Designing for Belonging. She was a previous guest on Transformative Principal Episode 121 Where we talked about #shadowastudent and Episode 122 where we talked about the design thinking process. I credit much of the work I did to write my book SchoolX to that conversation with Susie. One of four books that kick of a news series for d.school. - Equity vs. Equality - Belonging is the feeling we are going for when we talk about equity. - Work that I was doing with School principals. - Design cultures with their school. - John Powell work around othering and belonging. - using design tools differently. - Contributing is a powerful way to get to belonging. - Flow is one of the moments of belonging. - Creating a container of belonging. - We’re not just trying to get to one version of belonging. - Feel it, see it, shape it - Shape - create safe-to-fail experiments - Understanding comics with Scott McLoud - If people could only read one part of your book, what should they read? Exercise on page 137 - Design an activity to inspire belonging. Why is it so important for groups of any size to hope its members feel like they belong? When people feel like they belong, they are able to do their best and be their best. When we work toward belonging, we’re working toward creating a space where collaboration and cooperation can flourish. This is true for every kind of group, big and small. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, business manager, community organizer, or leader of any sort, your group is unlikely to thrive if the individuals don’t feel welcome, included, and valued for who they are.
 
 What is Design for Belonging? Sometimes when we hear the word design, we think it means visual design – like logos or web design. Design for Belonging provides tools that any group or organization can use to build inclusion. These might be rituals that bring us together, spaces that keep us calm, roles that create a sense of responsibility, and systems that make us feel respected. How do you use design tools to create a feeling like belonging? The tools in Design for Belonging help bridge the gap between the logistical planning of your office meeting or organizational restructure and the way you want people to feel when they participate. Here are some great examples from teachers and school leaders who have used them: Reimagining the kinds of assemblies hosted at school to be more culturally relevant. Creating new roles to support English language learners. Reinventing parent events to help parents build relationships instead of just sitting passively in an auditorium. We could quickly see how the kids benefitted by changes like this. However, we were most moved by the teachers. The redesign connected them to what they hoped to create for young people. They were able to care about their students in ways that related to their own understanding and feeling of belonging. They tapped into their own creativity and the reasons they wanted to teach in the first place. Your book describes what belonging and its opposite, othering, feel like. Can you summarize that? Belonging feels like you are seen and heard. You feel alive. You’ve been invited into any given group, and you know you can be honest with the people in it. Students I’ve worked with describe it as being in a good place and being with people they’re comfortable with. They feel validated. Othering feels like you’re not wanted or that you’re not welcome. Feeling like you have to hold back in order to fit in. Some people will have negative roles or assumptions unfairly projected upon them based on their race, outward appearance, or other aspects of their identit