Welcome to the second part of  a three-part special series, The Educrats, a focus on educators who work within state and county departments of education. This episode takes us back to the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) in the Language and Cultural Division.  The educrat is Dr. Kadriye El-Atwani or otherwise known as Dr. Kad, Multicultural Education Specialist, in NMPED. Dr. Kad's journey to responsiveness begins in Turkey, then goes to Indiana (of all places), and lands in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her journey is multicultural and multifaceted, meaning it is fascinating because of the complexity and intersectionality of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. But Dr. El-Atwani's resonating ring of culture is her "immigrant" culture, which takes the listener to an under-spoken space culturally. Dr. Hollie continues his cause for us to validate and affirm our students as they are culturally and linguistically and not buy into how our society and our institutions have defined them as deficits. Our students are fine as they are.

Learn more about CLR and Dr. Hollie at www.culturallyresponsive.org and Twitter @validateaffirm