Hello, world! My name is Eunji Kong, and I am proud to be part of the Sisterhood of Healing Courage (GEDI 22). As a Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) scholar, I had the privilege of working with the Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP), where I supported equity-focused evaluation projects and learned what evaluation can look like when it is grounded in community.
I made many wonderful memories during my GEDI internship, but one experience left a lasting visual impression on me: the drum circle led by members of the Sankofa Soul Collective during a two-day educational leadership conference hosted by LAEP as part of the 21CSLA program. The entire conference was intentionally centered on care, community, and equity, but the drum circle stayed with me because it allowed me to see care and community come to life.
Members of the Sankofa Soul Collective shared how rhythm can foster healing, strengthen community, and even synchronize our heartbeats. They invited everyone to participate through drumming, movement, and reflection. As I looked around the room, I saw educational leaders, facilitators, and even some of their children laughing, dancing, and making music together. For a moment, titles and roles disappeared. The room was filled with connection, joy, and a shared sense of belonging.
Lessons Learned: The Ripple Effect of Our Choices
At first glance, this experience might seem unrelated to evaluation. Yet it had a lasting impact in my thinking of what we evaluate and why it matters. As I watched educational leaders and their children laugh, dance, and build community together, I realized that the impact of a program extends far beyond what we typically measure. Additionally, the choice to attend the conference did not only lead to the leaders gaining professional knowledge, but also building relationships, finding a sense of belonging, and, for some, creating meaningful memories with their children. Those experiences may shape how they lead schools, support educators, and ultimately influence the students and families they serve. The choices that they make ripple outward across classrooms, families, and future generations.
This realization also made me think more deeply about the choices we make as evaluators. We decide which questions to ask, whose voices to include, which outcomes to measure, and what falls outside the scope of our evaluation. We cannot examine everything, but those decisions still matter. What we choose to capture, and what we leave unexamined, shapes the story an evaluation tells. That story can then inform decisions made by practitioners, leaders, policymakers, and communities, creating ripple effects of its own. As evaluators, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that our work reflects the people and communities it is intended to serve.
Hot Tip: Be Curious, Be Intentional, Be in Community
Stay curious about the community you are learning from and what your evaluation captures, what it might miss, and how the choices you make along the way may shape its impact. Ask, “What might happen because we chose to ask this question, include these voices, or leave something out?” Even choosing not to examine something is a choice.
These choices do not have to be made alone. In fact, they are often better made in community. Talk them through with colleagues, community members, and the people most connected to the work. Different perspectives can challenge our assumptions, reveal what we may not see on our own, and help us better understand the potential consequences of our decisions.
Staying curious, engaging in dialogue, and making choices in community can help us be more intentional about the stories our evaluations tell and the ripple effects they may have.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please do so using the form on our website. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.