EDUCATION

What we do: Support educators to more effectively meet the needs of ALL students and prepare ALL students for a diverse and changing world.

Curriculum, pedagogy, policy, achievement…all begin with an educator who has the courage, skill, & inspiration to honor & celebrate our commonality & our differences.

“This model has totally changed how I do things in my school…especially the way I use power more consciously.  For me, it’s so important to do no harm.  And while I understand my role as a Latino leader in my school – I am learning from the PDS, the model, and from consultation with The Sum how my power and my privilege across many sociocultural differences can be used with more awareness, effectiveness, and care in my relationships to our school secretary, our custodian, the teachers, parents and, of course, the students.”

~Guillermo Medina, School Principal, Columbine Elementary, Boulder Valley School District

What’s the PDA?

The PDA is a groundbreaking online tool that:

• measures individual’s and group’s unconscious patterns related to race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, disability, class, and culture as described by the Power of Difference Model (see a summary of the PDM below).
  
• Is asset-based and is a scientifically valid and reliable assessment.
• Identifies areas of strength and specific areas for growth.
• Can be used as a pre and post measurement, strategic plan accountability, and/or as a coaching tool.

Benefits:

• The PDA supports people in becoming aware of how the patterns of the PDM (see below) operate within us, between us, and in our communities, organizations, and society.
• It gives us a kind of “map” of our patterns and our learning edges –without blame and shame!
• This awareness allows us to integrate the assets all three primary patterns for greater effectiveness across differences and greater clarity of purpose.
• From here, meaningful systemic change is engendered.  

See the PDA study summary from North Carolina State University:

“This model has totally changed how I do things in my school…especially the way I use power more consciously.  For me, it’s so important to do no harm.  And while I understand my role as a Latino leader in my school – I am learning from the PDS, the model, and from consultation with The Sum how my power and my privilege across many sociocultural differences can be used with more awareness, effectiveness, and care in my relationships to our school secretary, our custodian, the teachers, parents and, of course, the students.”

~Guillermo Medina, School Principal, Columbine Elementary, Boulder Valley School District

“The Training I took from The Sum was the most important learning and training I have ever experienced in my life.  It was completely transformative. It supported me to dramatically change me first, and from there I knew how to change my pedagogy and curiculum–to better support all my students where they are!”  

~Laura Yaussi, 1st grade teacher, Cottonwood Plains Elementary, Loveland, Colorado

Leave your information below and we’ll contact you to discuss your questions and unique needs.

The Power of Difference Model (PDM) in 4 Points

1. The PDM identifies 3 primary patterns of behavior, thought, feeling, and worldview related to our differences of race, sexual orientation, gender, socio-economic class, religion, disability, and ethnicity.  We call these patterns: Sensitivity, Oneness, and Strength

2. Each one has assets and limitations as well a learning edge. The primary learning edge for Sensitivity is Strength, for Strength it’s Oneness, and for Oneness it’s Sensitivity

3. These patterns operate unconsciously within us, between us, in our communities, organizations, and society. They both reproduce and are reproduced from systems embedded with the same patterns. Each appears to conflict with the other two and this tension between them effectively creates and maintains a “dysfunctional balance” within us, in our families, organizations, cultures, and institutions.

4. By becoming aware of these internal patterns and learning to integrate and “leverage” the assets of all three patterns, individuals report greater:

Education Pricing

1. Model Introduction:

An hour-long model introduction (online or in person) can be helpful for a faculty, staff, department, school board, or administrative group in developing a common conceptual framework and language; learning the patterns of the PDM, and how they play out within individuals, in classrooms, schools, and campuses.

$400 (standard pricing is $600).

2.  Group assessment:

A group assessment typically follows a Model Introduction and requires a week or two to allow group members to take the PDA as their schedule allows. The PDA is comprised of 70 likert scale items and takes about 20 minutes. Then a single, whole-group consultation  (online for about an hour) presents the aggregate of all the individual’s scores in order for group members to see where they are as whole, their assets, learning edges, and support needs for growth.

$30 per person to be assessed and included in the group results (standard pricing is $40 per person); 

$600 for a group consultation (standard pricing is $900).

3.  Individual Assessment/Consultation:

The group consultation can generate interest for a individuals in their personal results. This can take place at the convenience of the individual by scheduling a consultation on The Sum’s calendar. Individual consultations, like the group consultation, take place online and take about an hour. They focus on the gifts, learning edges and support needs and recommendations for the person.

$130 per person for individual consultations minus cost of group participation – so $100 additional (standard cost is $200 for an individual consultation).

Note: some organizations cover the cost of individual’s consultations, subsidize the cost, or leave it to individuals to cover the cost)

Contact us to arrange a group or multiple individual PDA’s or for our sliding scale.