FACILITATOR SPOTLIGHT: TOBIAS K DAVIS

“I’ve been working with Think Again Training since it was just me and Davey, teaching people stuff, back in 1999,” says Toby Davis, “but it wasn’t a business back then.” Since those early days, Toby has built his skills as an educator by partnering with a wide variety of clients and receiving formal training in social justice education through a master’s degree program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. One of the reasons that he loves working with Think Again is the practical approach to diversity and inclusion training: “There’s so many workshops out there with a lot of academic jargon, but with Think Again we’re talking about real stuff with real world applications. We help participants understand why a topic matters to them in a particular context, or how they can apply the material to their work and their lives.”

Reflecting back on his college days when the work that would become Think Again first began, Toby remembers “messing up” when learning about racism and white privilege, and how fear of messing up sometimes kept him from trying. This experience helped illustrate for Toby the importance of using his privilege to connect with other privileged people and help them reflect on it from a place of compassion and empathy. “I’m really good at picking up on a group’s energy and figuring out how to challenge them. I help move them along in their learning in a way that doesn’t shut them down.” Toby’s goal is to keep everyone at their “learning edge,” particularly when working with people around privileged identities at the intersections of race, class, and gender. Toby is also working on some new curriculum with Think Again around trans resilience and non-toxic masculinity.  

Outside of his Think Again work, Toby is also a playwright! Check out his theater-related work at https://tobiaskdavis.com/.