Do you find yourself weary of the “self-care” pronouncements made in education? How many Starbucks gift cards before I feel relaxed, positive and enthusiastic? How many baths before the grinding sense of defeat fades away and I can show up like a Hollywood movie teacher? If I practice mindful breathing until I hyperventilate, am I doing it wrong? And why do I feel uncontrollable hostility to people who work out every morning, and proceed to tell, like EVERYONE about it?

The fact is that self-care is only a small part of the issue of social and emotional wellness in education. We have attended professional development sessions, taken steps to address our students’ social and emotional needs, and some schools and districts have even stated that they will adopt SEL curriculum for the foreseeable future.

So why don’t educators feel any better?

In an illuminating roundtable discussion with the Center for Cognitive Diversity’s Emily Santiago, school leader Dr. David Gutierrez and doctoral student Paulina Whitehat, Gerardo seeks a deeper understanding of the social and emotional needs of teachers, and how school leaders may better create the conditions for true social and emotional wellness and support. By sharing their own research-based insights, experiences, and specific programs and practices, the panel delves deeply into a neglected and understated issue. With over 40% of teachers stating that they will depart the profession in 2021, this episode is a must-listen. Take the free dynamic empowerment assessment to identify your needs at https://www.centerforcognitivediversity.com/dynamic-empowerment.html and check out the incredible programming of the CCD at https://www.centerforcognitivediversity.com/.

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One of the understated stories of the 2020 election cycle was the rising tide of youth activism and participation in what was considered a crucial election. Beyond the top of the ticket, a number of state and local resolutions had massive implications for young would-be voters.

Across the country, electorates have been considering lowering the voting age. While this is not a new effort, various cities across the United States have considered a change to the electorate. In some places, voters sixteen and up would be allowed to vote in certain circumstances, like school board elections. In others, there were proposals to allow young citizens sixteen and up to vote in any and all elections.

In Colorado, some of Kevin and Gerardo’s students voted in the 2020 election, because they would be 18 by election day. However, part of the fallout from November 3 was the passage of Amendment 76. While the amendment was regarded as uncontroversial by some, it has dire implications for historically disenfranchised voters, as well as young voters.

Project VOYCE, whose motto “Nothing About Us Without Us” brilliantly characterizes its ethos, philosophy, and commitment, has been working on campaigns to expand youth voice across the system, including Student Voice Student Vote (SV2). These brilliant young activists and policymakers have worked hard to amplify a dynamic and needed demographic: the youth of our community.

Amendment 76 represented a gut-punch for Malachi Ramirez and the rest of the young activists at Project VOYCE and they found that a lot of their could be nullified by this amendment. They were forced to regroup, and the result has been the SV2 Listening Campaign, in which youth are invited to share their experiences, struggles, dreams, and concerns as they not only approach adulthood, but as they face and address issues TODAY.

Kevin and Gerardo sit down with Malachi to learn more. To sign up for a listening session, please complete this survey! Listen and support. More information can be found at https://www.studentvoicestudentvote.org/

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Rodney has over 20 years experience as an educator with Richmond Public Schools. He graduated from King William High School in rural Virginia in 1996. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Virginia State University in 2000 and a master’s in educational administration and Supervision from VCU in 2011.  He started teaching at Virgie Binford Education Center in 2015, a school inside Richmond Juvenile Detention Center, in an effort to better understand the school to prison pipeline.  His classroom is a collaborative partnership between him and the students.  He provides a civic centered education that promotes social-emotional growth.  The knowledge he is gaining from his students is also helping develop alternative programs to keep students from becoming part of the school to prison pipeline.

His accomplishments in education vary from his professional growth to his students’ personal growth.  He has been published four times by Yale University.  He has received numerous awards for his accomplishments in and out of the classroom, most notably the R.E.B. Award for Teaching Excellence.  He has worked with Pulitzer winning author James Foreman to develop curriculum units on race, class, and punishment as a part of the Yale Teacher’s Institute.

He was named the 2019 National Teacher of the Year by the Council of Chief States Schools’ Officers.  He used his time as teacher of the year to advocate for cultural equity to make sure students have teachers and administrators who look like them and value their culture.  He was recently named HBCU male alumnus of the year by HBCUdigest.com. He was also named #8 on the Root magazine’s Top 100 influential African Americans of 2019. Last December he was named Richmonder of the Year by Richmond Magazine. He is currently a senior advisor with Richmond Public Schools. He has started the RVA Men Teach Program to recruit and retain male teachers of color in Richmond Public Schools.  He is also working with the district to implement anti racist policies and pedagogy.  His passion is helping the underprivileged and underrepresented populations in America.

We get a chance to chill with Rodney, laugh, get deep and of course, a fire top five rappers.

Follow Rodney on Twitter @RodRobinsonRVA and on Instagram @rodrobinsonva, and at https://rodrobinsonrva.com/

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Welcome to Episode 4 of the Exit Interview with Asia Lyons and Kevin Adams!

This week we hear Shalelia Dillard share her story. It is a similar refrain for Black educators who have experienced institutional alienation and rejection within the education system. We invite you to listen and take in her story of optimism, belief in schooling as an equalizer and in her own brilliance and talents to provide a quality education for children generally, only to see her confidence and professionalism come under attack by the same forces that permeate our system.

But, as we have seen during the life of this podcast, the process has been liberatory while still painful. Shalelia has discovered that most dangerous of discoveries: that it is possible to continue to be an educator without teaching in a school. She shares her inspirational path and reminds us of what it means to be not an industry artist, but an artist in the industry.

Catch the Exit Interview monthly in the Too Dope Teachers and a Mic feed.

The Exit Interview is a production of Too Dope Media.

Music composed and performed by Kevin Adams

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This week, Kevin and Gerardo connect with Dr. Apryl Alexander, professor and researcher of Forensic Psychology at the University of Denver. Initially, we hoped to discuss Social/Emotional Learning and Trauma-Informed practice as we prepare for a possible increase in in-person teaching and learning, as well as a potential full return to in-person schooling in the fall. What we got was so much more. Dr. Alexander challenges prevailing notions around trauma and sexual violence, comprehensive sex education, and her assertion, as articulated in her writing and TED Talk, that “sexual violence is preventable.”

We discuss all that not only as it pertains to a return to in-person schooling, but as it pertains to education more generally going forward.

Plus a FIRE top five.

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In this emergency episode, Gerardo hosts a roundtable with five Asian American/Pacific Islander-identifying educators from across the United States to discuss the horrific murders of eight Asian and Asian American people in Atlanta a few days ago. Carla, Erika, Tran, John, and Kim share their stories of struggle, triumph, purpose, pain, and invisibility as this threat of violence and death hangs over them, as is has over all Asians since they first came to these shores.

In this episode, they express pain, anger, frustration, disappointment, and more than any other emotion, numbness. The draw critical connections to a larger AAPI Civil Rights struggle, acts of murder and violence faced by their community, and ways in which anti-Asian hate and violence are acceptable in our world, as they have always been.

This episode is heart-wrenching and inspirational. Listen today and stand in solidarity with our AAPI neighbors and friends.

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Just the fellas today. This harrowing adventure of schooling during a pandemic is fraught with contradiction, anxiety, frustration, joy, disappointment and doing one’s best with what one has. We engage in some real talk around returning to in-person schooling, including our own experiences, as well as across the country.

Additionally, we shout-out our financial supporters with nicknames (can you find yours?) and look ahead to the final weeks of school. Don’t call it a comeback! Actually, call it a come back. Because we’re literally coming back…to school buildings…

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To talk with LaChanda Garrison, the 2021 Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA), is to be taken to school by next-level brilliance, compassion and intellectual and spiritual depth. Her story is unique and fascinating, and reminded us that each person has a unique path and set of experiences. A self-proclaimed “military kid,” LaChanda shares her story of racial insecurity and a desire to “be received” and be seen for who she is.

We could not be prepared for the deeply honest and open experiences that LaChanda shared. She shares stories of her biracial identity, her work in the “family business” of DODEA teaching, and living in Bahrain. She shares her praxis of student-centered, relationship-driven mathematics instruction, and takes us to school. And finally, a wonderfully constructed Top Five rappers/performers that gives us even more of a glimpse into this amazing spirit.

A longer episode, and worth every second.

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Being a Black educator in the American system of schooling will test the faith of the strongest. In this powerful episode, Doctoral candidate Donna Druery (who has her defense the day after this episode!) shares the long journey through education that ultimately ended with her departure. She shares upsetting experiences, ranging from the hostile to the absurd. An excellent educator once highly recruited and touted as exceptional in her context, she experienced what so many Black educators experience. Her professionalism was not simply questioned, but outright attacked. She was the subject of gossip among White teachers. For over a decade she found herself in a textbook abusive relationship with her job. At times, she felt that “we were turning a corner” only to find herself attacked again.

Listeners will find resonance with Donna’s story. The “constant strategizing” simply to be heard in her community the physical manifestations of her racial battle trauma.

Through it all Donna’s faith carried her to a degree that is jarring and powerful. Don’t miss this episode of the Exit Interview!

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Juliana Urtubey’s family came to the United States to escape the Civil War in Colombia. Their transition was aided by existing citizenship, and Juliana has made the most of her opportunity, not only in her own educational attainment, but as a highly skilled and accomplished elementary educator. She brings a different energy, one that is completely consistent with her nickname “Ms. Earth” a moniker given her by a student. She is a person of many worlds, who crosses borders daily in her quest to humanize the schooling process in Nevada, where she is the first Latinx educator to be named Nevada Teacher of the Year. She is also one of the four national finalists for National Teacher of the Year, and this interview tells you only SOME of what you need to know about this well-deserved distinction.

Over the course of an energetic, healing and fun conversation, Juliana shares her experiences with community gardening at the school, National Board Certification, grassroots teaching and learning, humanizing pedagogies, and teaching to thrive in a space where multiple worlds meet. Also, a top five rappers list that is completely on brand with her worldly and colores de la tierra ways!

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