Education Thought Leader, Dr. Michael Hicks, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

0:38 1. Although you and I don’t know each other all that well, we go way back. We were at Caddo Middle Magnet at the same time and then after that at Captain Shreve together.

I once heard you use the term “invisible backpack.”

Explain what that is and tell me, if you could, what was in your invisible backpack in those years at Middle Magnet and/or Shreve.

9:37 2. You hold a Doctorate degree in Education Leadership from Louisiana Tech University and your area of expertise is in leadership, justice and identity. You have a wide range of experience in education, starting as a substitute teacher in Caddo Parish, and later working as a community mental health specialist, school counselor, and faculty member at esteemed higher education institutions, including Southern University at Shreveport and Centenary College of Louisiana.

A couple of people have said to me recently how the Magnet school system might not be the ideal school system for our community, particularly in how it potentially has a negative impact on some of our neighborhood schools.

In your opinion, is the Magnet school system a bridge too far? Do you know of or see a better approach for our community?

19:44 3. You taught a course at Centenary College entitled “Doing Race”. We have talked quite a bit on this podcast about how to do better creating and accepting a multi-ethnic Shreveport.

How do we do better as a community dealing with our differences differently, and in fact better?

27:48 4. You have a unique perspective as your father, Dr. Raymond Hicks, was the President of Grambling University in the nineties. What is the same or worst today in terms of local race relations?

34:52 5. And, what is better you think now, in terms of race relations, than it was when we were growing up here and when your dad was President at Grambling?