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Emergency Episode! Mayday Strike!

We’re dropping this emergency episode from the organizers of a Mayday walkout tomorrow. This group of concerned citizens–parents, teachers, youth and others is hoping to spark a larger general movement to demand common sense gun policy. Listen for details, and find them on Instagram and Facebook, Mayday Walkout!

Throwback: Dr. Bettina Love and the Abolitionist Imperative in Education

You may remember the summer of 2020. We were caught in the grip of the initial months COVID-19 pandemic. A racial reckoning was beginning to materialize across the nation and, frankly, the world. When our guest that summer, Dr. Bettina Love, spoke with us at the NEA Racial & Social Justice Virtual Conference that year, she uttered the words “it is good to be here” and it was. We were surviving under constant threat of disease and violence.

Nearly three years have passed since this incredible conversation, and we wanted to revisit it. Dr. Love is a light of joyful tenacity in our work, and we look back and realize with greater appreciation, how much she got us all through it. Many of you have reached out to ask us for this episode, so please enjoy this throwback to a more bootleg time for us (audio much less cute than now), but this beautiful liminal space that we found ourselves with great minds and spirits.

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(Dr.) GLOVE(r) and Basketball and Student Voice with Dr. Erica Glover

Dr. Erica Glover is brilliant, and able to speak on most anything, from hoops to equity to student voice to hip hop! In this joyful and amazing conversation, we get Dr. Glover’s take on QUEENS Angel Reese and Caitlin Clarke, the weather, the origins of Disrupter University, and, most importantly, her new book, Centering Student Voice: A Guide for Cultivating Emotionally Intelligent Educators and Culturally Responsive Classrooms. Plus a top five rappers that is straight out the barbershop.

Dr. Glover is a servant of education, committed to equity, inclusion, and justice. Throughout her career in education, Dr. Glover has worked as an educator, administrator, and Human Resource/Diversity, equity and inclusion professional. 

As a former student-athlete and former professional basketball player, Dr. Glover realized that her passion to impact change was not limited to the basketball court. She remained committed to her community through the development of her non-profit, OKBNU, Inc. Through this non-profit, she was able to provide local youth with the opportunity to participate in AAU programs without the financial burden that deters many youth today.  

In 2017, Dr. Glover earned her doctorate degree in Urban Education, from Cleveland State University. With an emphasis on Policy and Planning, Dr. Glover has transferred her learning into reimagining the ways in which we socialize future teachers (current students and pre-service teachers), and in-service teachers. 

Today, Dr. Glover supports school districts and scholars through her organization, Disrupter University. Through this organization, she provides intercultural coaching for scholars and educators. She believes that advocacy is the key to liberation and peace, and develops training that allows others to see themselves in this work.  

Dr. Glover is also an author. She has just released her first book, Centering Student Voice: A Guide for Cultivating Emotionally Intelligent Educators and Culturally Responsive Classrooms.  

In her spare time, Dr. Glover enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with family.

Centering Student Voice book

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116. Educators as First Responders with Dr. Deborah Offner

Dr. Deborah Offner is a clinical psychologist with expertise in adolescent development, student mental health, and school life.

She serves as Consulting Psychologist at Beacon Academy in Boston, a 14-month program between eighth and ninth grade that prepares students from communities with limited resources for entry into independent day and boarding high schools. She also provides ongoing professional consultation to several independent middle and secondary schools.

Dr. Offner maintains an active clinical practice where she works with middle, high school, and college students, and their families.

Her book, Educators as First Responders, shares the truth known all too well by educators: often, when a student is struggling, particularly in their adolescence, that student will often speak to a teacher first. Not a family member, not a parent, but a teacher.

Dr. Offner shares with us her observations and recommendations for how we may better support our unsung first responders: teachers.

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115. Moms for Social Justice, Fighting Book Bans and Gag Orders

In this timely conversation, Gerardo is joined by Taylor Lyons, who represents Moms for Social Justice, an educational advocacy organization in Tennessee. The organization formed as a way to bring teachers and families together to raise consciousness and encourage diversity in the curriculum, especially through children’s and youth literature. This is a true grassroots organization that has been working side by side with classrooms and teachers for the last few years.

The right wing narrative would have you believe that progressive forces in your public schools are secretly brainwashing your children in the six-to-eight hours they are away from you. In fact, the opposite is true. According to numerous polls, most parents are very pleased with their children’s schools and teachers.

This is a deep conversation. We explore the pain of these manufactured culture wars, but the joy inherent in being in community with each other.

Learn more: https://www.momsforsocialjustice.us/

114. Pelo malo no existe/Bad Hair Doesn’t Exist with author Sulma Arzu-Brown

Sulma Arzu-Brown is the perfect bridge between Black History Month and Women\’s History month. Brilliant, spirited, creative, and lively, Sulma carries her Afro-Latina and Garifuna pride with her daily.

Like so many of us, becoming a parent renewed her commitment to cultural maintenance and pride. When her child came home having learning the concept of \”pelo malo,\” or \”bad hair,\” Sulma acted. She wrote the beautiful book El pelo malo no existe/Bad Hair Does Not Exist. She made sure that her children would love their hair, their culture, and their language, and resolved to bring those gifts to us.

113. Real Talk About Deconstructing Karen with Saira Rao!

Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of White supremacy, violence, and racism. Be advised.

Central Park Karen. BBQ Becky. These incidents have become tropes. Many of us laugh, if even in an exasperated way, when reminded of these incidents. But there is a deeper and more insidious reality for Black and Brown people. Violence, literal and symbolic alike, stalks us. If we are lucky, we only get angry and frustrated. But like countless others, too numerous to name, the results may be worse.

Our guest this week is author, filmmaker, and activist Saira Rao. co-author with Regina Jackson of White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better, co-founder of Race2Dinner, and creator of the film Deconstructing Karen, joins Gerardo to discuss how she began on this path. She shares the deeply upsetting moment following the 2016 Presidential Election, when she discovered her “friends” true beliefs. She lambastes White Supremacy, and calls upon all of us to end it.

All this and a Top Five that will surprise you.

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112. Kevin Discovers #ChatGPT

Kevin forgot the podcast email password years ago. He texts Gerardo stuff to tweet. He has a vague notion that Instagram and Tik Tok might not be the same thing. He doesn\’t answer 67% of texts.

And yet, he is using #ChatGPT for lesson planning. Our good friend Angela Watson of 40 Hour Teacher Work Week fame has developed content around the same topic, although way better and detailed than we did, and our friend Donnie Piercey vanished into a #ChatGPT rabbit hole, periodically surfacing to make fun of Gerardo.

But, peoples, this isn\’t the act of a lazy teacher. Kevin and Gerardo discuss ways in which #ChatGPT may streamline the lesson planning process for teachers who are overwhelmed and stretched too thinly (this of course means ALL teachers). Kevin discusses how his framework for teaching is more personalized having used the AI. He is able to see exactly what it is that he does, reflect, and tweak. Gerardo muses about the way that #ChatGPT may support neurodivergent educators. He recalls being paralyzed by the instructional choices he had to make as a teacher, and how it caused him to spend too much time looking for materials, and wandering off track.

What do you think about #ChatGPT for lesson planning? Let us know!

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110. Poetry for the Revolution with Poet Queen Valyn Lyric Turner

Valyn Lyric Turner is a spoken word poet, theatre artist, songwriter, and activist hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, the ancestral homeland of the Cherokee and Creek native nations. Valyn is a Senior Posse Scholar at Boston University where she double majors in Theatre Arts and Spanish. Some of her acting credits include starring in the radio drama “Iris”, local online safety series “Digital Citizenship,” and most recently, “LORENA: A TABLOID EPIC” at Boston Playwright’s Theatre. She is currently in rehearsals for the world premier of Kirsten Greenidge’s new play, Little Row Boat, or Conjecture at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. As a spoken word artist and activist, Valyn has collaborated with several equity initiatives across the country, including the Minnesota National Association for Multicultural Education, Gwinnett Educators for Equity and Justice, Kalamazoo College, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Eden Prairie Public Schools, Georgia First Generation Association, and Kern County Superintendent of Schools to help educators foster cultures of inclusivity and equal opportunity for all students. She has recently been moved to use her platform to champion human rights in light of issues of systemic racism on display in the United States. Her work has been featured on numerous episodes of the LA-based podcast “The Only One in the Room” with Laura Cathcart Robbins, available on all streaming platforms. Valyn’s mission is to inspire, empower, and serve others through her craft.

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