In this episode, I chat with Marlena Gross-Taylor, the founder of EduGladiators and a nationally recognized ed leader with a proven track record of improving educational and operational performance through vision, strategic planning, leadership, and team building. A Nashville transplant originally from southern Louisiana, Marlena’s educational experience spans several states allowing her to have served K-12 students in both rural and urban districts. She has been recognized as a middle school master teacher and innovative administrator at the elementary, middle, high school and district levels. Because of her sound knowledge of both elementary and secondary education, Marlena has broad-based experience creating and implementing dynamic interactive programs to attain district goals while leveraging her flexibility, resourcefulness, and organizational and interpersonal skills to foster learning through a positive, encouraging environment.

Marlena’s professional development expertise has national attention and she serves as an AMLE middle school expert.  She has also leveraged her past experience in corporate management to also include corporate training and leadership coaching in her repertoire of consulting services focused on culture, engagement and increased productivity.  Marlena is a seasoned presenter keynoting conferences and delivering dynamic professional development sessions.

As a proud Louisiana State University alumni, she is committed to excellence and believes all students can achieve.

During our conversation, we explored both code switching and assimilation, recognizing our own roles as parents who contributed greatly to teaching our children to fit into the dominant culture as opposed to defying standardized norms that so often do not accept our own definitions of fashion, style, and beauty. Marlena points out that we are not alone in this mishap because we, like so many others, were not taught our history and thus were primed to regurgitate the same messages that we consumed while growing up in diverse deficient communities. All is not lost however, as we explore potential solutions including becoming knowledgeable about our ethnic journeys and sharing that information with as many people as possible. We must make as much noise, if not more, if we too want to be heard.

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