Uncommon Voices, Uncommon Visions

What draws you and keeps you in the classroom?  Many days teachers  ask themselves this exact question.  Dr. Becky Thompson’s vision for teaching is clear: she’s in the classroom to experience those moments of “amazing intellectual work that also [have] some heart in it.”  It keeps her coming back, year after year. Join scholar, poet, and activist Becky Thompson and I as we discuss teaching and learning broadly and the role of contemplative practice as a means of fostering deep connections between teachers and students within the classroom.  Important to this conversation is the consideration that not all classrooms are within the four walls of the institution.  Dr. Thompson shares her experiences she’s had within a refugee center in Greece, witnessing the resilience and fortitude of people fleeing everything they knew in order to start a new life in a foreign land.  This is a truly special conversation about the important role that teaching can play to open conversations, shape our humanity, and ultimately change our own lives and the lives of those we are fortunate to encounter.  In a time when students are increasingly reliant upon artificial intelligence as a source of “safe” supportive information, we need to consider how we change our interactions in the classroom to foster increased sense of safety and belonging?  In what ways can we allow students to express their tension and frustrations, leaving them freer to be who they are?  What is intellectual work without full expression with access and opportunity to explore, wonder, and be?Becky’s work that you may  consider:Teaching with Tenderness: Toward an Embodied Practice by Becky ThompsonBeyond a Dream Deferred: Multicultural Education and the Politics of Excellence Becky Thompson and Sangeeta TyagiMaking Mirrors: Writing/Righting by Refugees by Becky Thompson and Jahen BseisoTo Speak in Salt by Becky ThompsonOther Texts:Dignity-Affirming Education: Cultivating The Somebodiness of Students and EducatorsJustice Seekers: Pursuing Equity in the Details of Teaching & Learning by Lacey Robinson

This fall I had the opportunity to sit down with John Pellman, Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Capital College and Career Academy (CCCA), a new charter school that opened in August 2023 in North Sacramento.  CCCA’s mission is to ensure that all students graduate having experience taking both dual enrollment courses and internships so they have a clear understanding of their college and career options in order to make more informed choices.  Within that, John teaches a class called Innovation, Design, and Implementation, which uses Makers Education as a means to center student agency to help them take an idea and bring it to fruition.  In doing so, students practice socio-emotional skills such as wellbeing, mindfulness, as well as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and grit while working with a partner, researching, and putting their project together.  Rather than rely on standardized tests, in John’s class, students complete self-assessments on these various skills and participate in design challenges where they operate in real world situations.  Drawing upon a diverse student population, located in a historically disenfranchised area of Sacramento, CCCA’s goal is to help nudge education in the direction toward helping students access opportunities and situations that help them realize their potential, one student at a time.  Join our conversation as we talk about CCCA, education as a business, and Makers Education specifically in this episode of Uncommon Voices, Uncommon Visions.John, working in partnership with the Sacramento County Office of Education is offering three more classes for local educators on using Maker Education in the classroom: February 20, March 19 and April 16, 2024.Suggested Materials:The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison GopnickStuck in the Shallow End by Jane Margolis

How does Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. impact your leadership?  How can businesses, schools, and individuals seek to embody his dream today?  These were two questions asked during a fireside chat at a breakfast I attended this morning.  Two local African American leaders/business owners were asked to respond.  From their responses, I don't believe that either of them were raised in Sacramento.  Interestingly, I found my own experiences fell between theirs.  As a person who came from a poor single-parent household, yet, who did have the privilege of having a mother who'd grown up in the north (Detroit, Michigan) attending all White schools and was the great-granddaughter of an educator, I had the advantage of knowing how to navigate predominately white environments and feel at home in them.   As we consider The Dream and how we are still working to achieve it in all aspects of our society, we need to consider a variety of voices and experiences of people to answer these questions because as the new movie American Fiction demonstrates, the Black experience, like any other human experience, is multifaceted.  When we can begin to wrestle with and be okay with the complexity of this fact, we can begin to build the kind of lasting coalitions that can create the reality that so many of us desperately desire.

Hi there!  It's been a while since I've been on the air, so I wanted to reintroduce myself. I'm Dr. Valerie Nyberg, former HS administrator, teacher, and single-parent to three accomplished young men.  In this episode, I share my recent experiences traveling and gaining clarity in my work and with my business.  My purpose is two-fold, to make a difference in the lives of others, but also to change and heal myself. Join me as I explain what I've been up to in order to achieve that purpose and what it means for the future of my podcast.  Don't miss out an insightful glimpse into becoming what I'm meant to be.

Jacob and I get together again to continue our conversation, this time after watching the documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed on HBOMax (newly renamed Max) to further discussion about race and identity.  Jacob and his brothers are Swedish, Irish, Eskimo, Native American (just a smidge), and Black.  It’s clear that during our conversation, despite my efforts to ensure that my children can correctly identify themselves racially/ethnically, Jacob is confused about the name of his grandmother’s tribe, Inupiaq, and his grandfather’s country of origin, Finland.  Though, interestingly enough, he’s intrigued to think of himself as a second generation immigrant, though he doesn’t think it counts.  Should I be alarmed, or is this just a result of the assimilation process?We discussed my efforts to help my sons be successful by listening to them when they expressed interests in activities, even when it was outside of my own comfort zone.  The unintended consequence of which meant my sons had far more in common with their White peers than their Black peers.  This led to a conversation about access and opportunity.  How do kids’ programs recruit diverse participants in an equitable manner?It’s important to emphasize this is not a scripted conversation. In fact, unlike my typical episode preparations, we didn’t even use a discussion guide.  Instead, it’s simply a mother and son having a conversation about a difficult topic, sometimes discovering for the first time, what we think and how we feel about the complexity of an issue that impacts both of us.

May 8 - 12, 2023 is Teacher Appreciation Week.  As a product of the public schools, by and large, I wanted to take a moment to recognize and name numerous educators who helped me to become both the person and the educator I am.  Today there's a lot of debate about the role education plays in children's lives.  Many question the lesson content, the pedagogical strategies and beliefs that inform teachers' approach, and even teachers' worldviews.  Teaching is hard.  It's a profoundly human endeavor that requires one to show up day after day and  start anew, in many cases.   In this episode, I share how various teachers played pivotal roles at key moments in my life.  At the end, I ask you to set that all aside in order to thank an educator, whether that educator is in the classroom, in the building, or at the district or maintenance department.  It takes a village to raise a child; educators in various forms are an important part of that village.  Whatever your political beliefs, please take a moment to recognize and name the important work our educators do each and every day.

Sometimes awkward, sometimes revealing, last November I sat down with my youngest son, Jacob, to talk about what it means to be multi-ethnic in a time when race and identity are topics that have become highly politicized and polarizing.  Before we sat down, both of us committed to speaking honestly about our experiences and acknowledging that I consciously raised my children  to ensure they understood what it means to be Black in America, while not believing that being Black means that they are limited or that they can't achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve.  This is one of three parts where we discuss these topics, which is not neat nor linear.  It's a behind the scenes conversation that we wanted to share with others in hope that it can prompt additional conversations about identity, racial performance, discrimination, and opportunities.  To be honest, even as we wrapped up nearly two hours of taping, we still didn't feel we'd gotten to the full conversation.   One conversation can't answer it all, but it all starts with a conversation.  

We often hear about people who’ve achieved great things, but we don’t necessarily know the back story.  Nancy and Elizabeth Jorgenson, with Gwen Jorgensen, have recently released their book, Gwen Jorgenson: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete.  Intended to help inspire as well as represent women athletes, Gwen wanted the story to be geared toward middle school readers.  When doing their homework on this market, Liz and Nancy, already published authors in their own right, found that there were few stories of women athletes available to young readers.  In this episode, we talk about how Nancy forged a path for her daughters through her own hard work and determination.  Besides setting an example, she established three guiding principles, which Liz shared that she thought served them well.  With the passage of Title IX in 1972, Liz and Gwen had access to more possibilities than Nancy ever had, and were able to take advantage of them.  Though Gwen's experience wasn't linear and wasn't always full of accolades and recognitions, she continued to keep at it.   With guidance and mentoring from close supporters, she eventually became an Olympic Gold Medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics.  Within the conversation, Liz, Nancy, and I discuss the importance of mentors, supporters, and perseverance.  Resources:Amazon: Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal TriathleteSigned copies: https://www.booksco.com/signed-copy-gwen-jorgensenFree Educator Guide: https://download.m-m-sports.com/extras/GwenJorgensen/Teacher_Guide.pdf Family story:Go: Gwen, Go: A Family's Journey to Olympic Gold Other Works:Hacking Student Learning Habits Things They Never Taught You in Choral Methods

If you use social media to find out what educators are talking about, undoubtedly you’ve seen a post by Tyler Rablin.  In Episode 22, Tyler and I talk about the importance of building students’ confidence for learning while being their whole selves.  Currently he teaches high school ELA and is an education consultant in Central Washington.  During our conversation, Tyler shared a number of great perspectives that can help teachers to remember what the true focus of schooling is: to help students learn and grow.  As a teaser to his forthcoming book, Hacking Student Motivation Through Assessment, Tyler shared how he's grown as an educator.   Through the process of digging deeply into Standards-Based Grading, he began to better understand his teaching and assessment processes.  It's not just about data collection and being able to have a number to signify the completion of a task.  Instead, it's about really helping students to access the learning from wherever they are and understand their own growth and development over time.  Today, his students often choose different ways to demonstrate their learning, which they document with a Choice Memo.  Responding to my question about time limitations and the need to cover the curriculum, Tyler stated, “What I’ve found over the course of my career [is that]  most often the limitations I put on what I can do are my own limitations.”  We talked at length about the need to humanize ourselves and our students as we engage in the teaching and learning process, which is not nearly as neat and linear as research would suggest.  In the end, Tyler said, “When a building gets behind [the notion] that agency is centered around what kids need…that’s where powerful and important things can get done for kids.”  I couldn't have said it better myself!

Recently I learned my great-grandmother, along with her uncle were forced to leave their homes in South Carolina.  Though she was a teacher in South Carolina, when she moved, she had to take work as a kitchen worker.  Blacks weren't permitted to teach in Detroit in 1919.  Until just recently, I'd assumed that my great-grandmother was part of the Great Migration.  In textbooks we're told that many moved of their own volition in order to seek better opportunities.  My family members left in order to save their own lives and the lives of their children.  When we consider issues of economic loss, lost opportunities, and family separation that such dislocations created, it becomes evident that reparations are not a hand-out to people who haven't worked hard and earned equitable access to opportunities.  Rather, it's the chance for our country to more fully own our past and reconcile the harms and damage done to generations of Black people who were first treated like property, then once liberated from chattel slavery, had one impediment after another placed in their way to self-sufficiency and full access to the American Dream.

Recently, former colleague and friend, Francisco Pepin, sat down to discuss his journey as a non-native English speaker from the Mission District in San Francisco to becoming the first in his family to graduate from college.  His foundational experiences impacted who he is as an educator and building leader.  Specifically, we talk about how to cultivate a building culture and climate that works to close achievement gaps and address student needs, especially as a person of color..  Today’s schools are complex and educators need the same support building leaders ask them to provide to their students.  Successful school leaders seek to model and mentor teachers as work directly with students to ensure they have access and opportunities to learn the skills they need for success.  Sometimes that involves reminding the teacher of his/her/their strengths when she/he/they may not feel confident.  Ultimately, leadership is about having a strong sense of who you are, knowing what’s important to you as an educator, and demonstrating and modeling both for your staff.

My gal pal, Dr. Nicole Gainyard, and I team up again to discuss where we are in our personal and professional careers.  A decade after completing our PhDs., we are at a point in our lives where we have the privilege to transition from survival mode in order to redefine what we, as individuals, define as success so we can begin to live and thrive in new ways.  Both of us are currently engaged in separate, "Second Act" projects.  Hers is called Beloved Lotus.  It involves creating in-person and virtual spaces for Black women to come together to write, read, and talk in ways that help to build community and support.  My project is my education consultancy, Liminal, which centers around providing professional development and mentoring around trauma-informed, restorative practices in an effort to shift the secondary educational landscape.  These projects  bring us as much joy and energy as they also bring uncertainty and doubts.  In this episode we talk about all of these aspects as we also share our knowledge as well as the lessons we are learning.  

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.  Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot."  These are the opening lines from the 80s sitcom Cheers.  During my childhood, my mother and I faithfully watched the show each week, singing along to the theme song.   In episode #18, I explore the reasons behind my brief pause in podcasting in order to understand myself, and to recognize the experiences I've had over the past couple of years.  How do you know what it feels like to be overwhelmed, if that's your natural state?  How do you navigate and make sense of things when all you want to do is duck and cover?  Healing begins when we can recognize the pain and hurt and begin to feel it and make sense of it.  This is my personal journey toward healing and sharing my experiences with others.  We all want to be able to emerge from our darkest days feeling like we've won, or we've been seen and/or heard.  Winning for yourself, does not require that someone else loses, in fact, you've truly won when you can share your winning with others in a way that uplifts and helps them to win as well.  It's my hope that this episode can help others.

Listening to the news, the current state of education seems to be at an important juncture.  Student learning loss.  School safety.  Teacher shortages.  All top the headlines.  Recently Roark Horn, former School Administrators of Iowa Executive Director and currently a Pomerantz Endowed Professorship in Education Excellence instructor of  Superintendency, sat down to discuss the purpose of education and ways to reframe the current view of education to one that includes the opportunities and possibilities before us, based on the things we’ve learned along the way.  While many are focused on the outcome of the midterm elections, I think the biggest impact on the US is the degree to which our educational system changes or remains the same in light of so much transition and change in our broader society.  Now is a time to invest in ourselves and those around us by ensuring our democracy survives through creating a strong, engaged, electorate, who understands the importance of investing in education and helping our children to access the learning and skills that will carry them forward.

Recently while visiting a hairdresser for the first time, I was fortunate to meet Mrs. LaDeetra Kincy, a multiple subjects and special education teacher who works remotely with K-12 students enrolled in her school district.  Our conversation was so rich that I wanted to invite her onto my podcast.  In this episode, we talk about our mutual desire to provide the most vulnerable students and families with access and opportunities to engage in learning environments that support and help students and families to become.  Leaning in requires a willingness to listen, to understand, and to build community.  It also requires curiosity, compassion, and patience.  In a post-Covid environment, will we as a society begin the work of reimagining and reevaluating what it means to educate our children and the means we employ to accomplish that goal?  Neither Mrs. Kincy nor I have the definitive answers, but we both have the courage and will to lean in and do what we can to lift the veil on the educational process so more students and families can contribute to the great experiment that is the United States.

Advocate, mother, racial justice warrior, creator of safe spaces for women of color, especially Black women, LaTasha DeLoach and I sat down to talk about her Joy Journey and how she’s learned to be her own place.  As Black women in predominantly White spaces, trying to make the paths wider, and the space more comfortable for those who come with us, we talked about her work and her life; specifically how music feeds her soul as she traverses the many responsibilities and versions of herself that are required for her to navigate.  Blackness is not a monolith just as Whiteness is not a universal.  We are all trying to learn, grow, and become the best versions of ourselves in order to be well and do well in the world.

For more than a week now, I’ve struggled with finishing this episode.  Why, you might ask?  Put simply, it’s hard to admit that you have $243,746.89 in student loan debt.  Even with the recent Biden-Harris Student Loan Debt Relief, I haven’t hit the magical 120 payments in order to receive loan forgiveness, despite having initially started repaying my loans in 1999 when I was a high school teacher until I reentered school to obtain my Master’s degree in 2002.  Then I started anew in 2009, while I was still trying to finish my doctoral program (completed in 2012) and working in education in different capacities; one position was with a company that wasn't a qualified public service employer.  Though the Biden-Harris actions have angered and upset many, it is truly the best way for people like me who single-handedly put themselves through school, raised children to be upstanding productive, wage earning citizens to actually reap the benefits of our own hard work and efforts.  This episode is my personal story and struggle with my student loans and how limited I’ve been in helping my own children avoid the same student loan pitfall because I had so much in loans.  I hope it can illuminate the conversation in a way that other accounts and/or arguments have not. (Warning: In order to finish it, I gave up on editing it because the more I tried, the more I found that I avoided doing it, so this episode is what it is.)

Roderic Cockhern, a retired Air Force serviceman, is currently a junior high counselor for the Arlington Independent School District in Arlington, Texas.  In the lead up to the 2022-2023 school year, Mr. Cockhern and I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss how he became a school counselor, what schooling is like in Texas–specifically speaking to recent controversies over Critical Race Theory–and the changes that Covid-19 has had on students as they learn to readjust to school.  Mr. Cockhern emphasized that his primary job is to help 7th and 8th graders understand that who they are now leads to who they want to be in the future, based on their academic and behavioral choices.  He is unabashedly “passionate about helping students direct themselves toward what they want to do with their high school selves,” and knows how important it is to build strong relationships with students in order to help them understand what they need, what they want, and what they think they need and want.  One strategy he recommends for those starting school, pick the toughest/hardest student in your class and spend 5 minutes regularly asking the student about him/her/their selves.  The conversation may start slowing with one word answers, but by helping the student to understand that you’re trying to get to know the student and that you’re not going to give up trying, you’re able to break down walls and forge connections.  For the classroom, doing so changes the overall dynamics, and for that student and their friends, it creates a bridge over the sometimes troubled waters that can be adolescence.

Listening to parents and school officials, every generation is decried as being more difficult than the last, but in the case of iGens, is there some truth to this fear?  Concerns about lack of adulting skills, preoccupation with social media, and higher rates of anxiety and depression are common refrains used to describe this generation of young adults and adolescents.  My youngest son, Jacob, and I sit down to discuss addiction, focusing specifically on gaming, social media, and marijuana and the impacts that these elements have had on his teen years.  As a college junior, Jacob continues to struggle how to balance his responsibilities and instant gratification that gaming and social media provides.  We talk about how parents and educators can help teens navigate the various pitfalls that smart phones and easy access to nicotine and other substances can threaten to derail teens’ health and well-being.  As mother and son, we talk candidly, sometimes disagreeing regarding the best ways parents can help their children. 

Another year, new possibilities.  As Dr. Jared Smith prepared to transition from his position as the South Tama Superintendent to his new role as the Waterloo, Iowa Superintendent, I was fortunate this summer to have the opportunity to talk with him.  As a Waterloo native, Dr. Smith looks at this opportunity very much as a chance to come home.  His years in leadership have taught him, though he may have great ideas about leading Waterloo into the future, it’s more important to listen to various stakeholders’ perspectives, which he does by asking three key questions.  We also take the chance to talk about his venture into edupreneurship through his podcast, The Group Project Podcast, his first book, Learning Curve: Lessons Learned from Leadership, Education, and Personal Growth, and his soon to be released second book, Turning Points: More Lessons on Leadership, Education, and Personal Growth.  Join us for our collegial conversation about education, leadership, and personal growth.  We offer some of our currently most influential books and discuss priorities for preparing the next generation of students.

Schools are under enormous pressure to close educational gaps, respond to community expectations and needs, and meet students where they are.  It’s no wonder students, educators, and parents are on a seemingly never-ending anxiety feedback loop.  Dr. Kimberly Granderson, School Psychologist for Aspire Schools and I talk about the importance of helping kids to name what they feel and develop appropriate coping strategies to deal with setbacks, disappointments, and difficulties they will experience within their lifetimes.  As a January 24, 2022 blog post on the American Psychological Association, “youth alone offers no shield against the emotional hurts, challenges, and traumas many children face.”  Parents and educators working together as partners can guide students through the many uncertainties and disappointments that happen along the way.  However, as adults, we, the educators and/or parents, also have to recognize when we ourselves are in need of guidance and assistance to cope and build resilience.  Through a conscious focus on the WHOLE child, we can help students to weather small, temporary, momentary experiences in a broader context of life-long learning.Recommended Resources:Childhood in an Anxious Age and the Crisis of Modern ParentingResilience guide for parents and teachersChildren’s mental health is in crisis

In a time of economic, political, and cultural turmoil, we continue to have an educational system centered around the concept of competition, despite the recognition that not everyone enters the “game” with the same skills, equipment, and prior exposure. In Episode 9, Dr. Anthony Jones, current Ames Community School District Director of Equity, and future Director of Laboratory Schools at Illinois State University, talks with me about the current state of public education and our concerns that like white flight of the 1960s and 1970s from inner cities, we may begin to see larger shifts of students and families away from public education in favor of homeschooling, online learning platforms, and charter and private schools, leaving the most vulnerable in our society to once again fend for themselves. As educators prepare for the summer “break,” Dr. Jones urges them to push pause and dig deep within themselves. Why are you an educator? What are the elements that ignite your joy and passion? Like I said in #8 Me, Myself, and I, how educators show up impacts the learning environment as much, if not more so, than how students show up. We urge to create communities of caring where students and teachers are free to bring their whole selves and learn with one another, rather than in silos. Now is the time to break the cycle and begin to create a new system that honors our educators and the students they serve.

Education is a profoundly human endeavor.  To teach and to learn requires establishing relationships, making connections, and being vulnerable to challenge what you thought you knew.  How we, as educators, show up matters.  Our ability to help students grow into their authentic selves through the educational process is pivotal to making positive strides.  Using myself as the example, in this episode, I make the case for why being your authentic self and helping students to be their authentic selves is central to teaching and learning.  “Until we learn to distinguish non-learning from failure [to learn] and to respect the truth behind this massive rejection of schooling by students from poor and oppressed communities, we will not be able to solve the major problems of education in the United States today.” (Herbert Kohl, 1994, p. 32)

The world is changing. This, most people can agree about this.  How each of us responds is part of the current challenge in our society.  In Episode 7, Civil Rights lawyer Thomas Newkirk and I discuss Implicit Bias training, his approach and five common barriers people experience to this work.  Educators, as some of the most taken-for-granted, highly important positions in our society, engaging in these efforts to understand how to create better processes, policies, and experiences for all that are truly inclusive, requires some personal work of our own.  Mr. Newkirk aptly describes his impetus and motivations for engaging in implicit bias training in schools, law enforcements, and other entities across Iowa, while also providing easily an easily understood distinction between racism and bias.

For the last ten years, my friend Dr. Nicole Gainyard and I have talked about collaborating together to share our experiences as single mothers and doctoral students.  Though our paths were somewhat different, we have many parallels in our motivations for seeking a terminal degree as well as common experiences in Iowa City as we both separately and together, strove to make a path where there really wasn’t one.  Join us as we discuss our experiences and provide advice for those who wish to pursue a similar path.

I was fortunate to meet 2018 Illinois Teacher of the Year, Dr. Lindsey Jenson, through our mutual roles on the Regional 9 Comprehensive Center Advisory Board.  As women passionate about equity and challenging systems, in this episode, Lindsey and I talk about why she’s “unapologetically passionate about education.”  The key to Dr. Jenson’s classroom success lies in trusting her students and ensuring they have agency to make choices regarding how they demonstrate mastery of key concepts. We also touch upon her current work with aspiring teachers and the need to diversity the field of education.  During a time of so much exhaustion and demoralization in education, Dr. Jensen and I discuss hope, empowerment, and the need to be uncomfortable in order to change the system of education so it works for ALL students.Suggested Readings:Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can StayFlip the System US: How Teachers Can Transform Education and Save DemocracyA Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School

Join Empowering Youth of Iowa (EYI) Founder and President, Sarah Swayze, as we talk about EYI working to help struggling adolescents catch up and graduate with their peers.  The key is having the flexibility to work directly with youth through the establishment of trusting facilitative relationships geared towards helping them understand how they learn and how to advocate for themselves.  Schools and educators are under enormous pressure to shift an industrial model educational system, designed for a homogenous population, to a 21st century system, which is much more heterogeneous, needing to serve students where they are.  This amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic, the cultural debate, and the expectation of an unprecedented number of educators leaving the classroom.

What is taught?  Who are “our” students?  Who are “our” teachers?  What role does the community play in working within the educational system?  These critical questions have been asked and argued since shortly after the founding of the United States.  Pete Clancy, South Central UniServ Representative for the Iowa State Education Association and current doctoral student at the University of Iowa in the Schools, Culture & Society program focusing on the History of Education, and I discuss the current culture wars, where that history begins and the ways in which our communities can work together to ensure our system of public education continues to address the needs of all students.  Additional resources on this topic include: (Modern situation)  Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door; (History of Culture Wars in Education) The Other School Reformers and Whose America?; (General history of the culture wars since the 70s) A War for the Soul of America.

Current Director of Diversity & Cultural Responsiveness in the Iowa City Community School District and entrepreneur, Laura Gray, joins me to discuss the importance of helping educators to find inspiration and fill up our cups during these stressful and demanding times.  She believes that through checking in and taking care of ourselves, we’re better able to serve our students and communities.  Through the upcoming launch of Tier Three (http://tier3.shop), Laura hopes that educators can be inspirated, uplifted, and supported through the receipt or giving of an educator-oriented subscription box.  Find out what’s inspired her work and how she’s connected this work to local artists and entrepreneurs in Eastern Iowa.

Just a short teaser about the launch of my new venture, Liminal Education Consultant, which includes creating a podcast, "Uncommon Voices, Uncommon Visions," as well as several writing projects.

Speaks to the importance of investing in education, specifically educational workers such as teachers, counselors, engagement specialists, para-educators, custodians, secretaries, administrators, food service workers, and the multitude of others who contribute to schools and the educational process.  In this way, those adults can invest in the students and their families and the broader community.  This will enable us to create communities of practice wherein we maintain the classical view of seeing “Education [as] the cultivation of wisdom and virtue” as we strive to infuse a 21st Century Education with the following attributes:  connectedness, digitally based, contextually situated, requiring creativity and critical thinking; provides socialization – from parts to whole; creates the ability to discern micro and macro details; and the ability to be agile and adaptive.Here is the link to my presentation: https://bit.ly/3IbKnyT