The Metro

Shirley Brezzell didn’t plan to become a teacher. But after a stint as a banker and home-schooling her children, she dived into the profession.

Now, Brezzell is being honored by a state organization for her work teaching science at Detroit's Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School. One of her most interesting accomplishments is getting students to engage in a garden to learn healthy eating habits.

She is retiring in the fall, at a moment when thousands of Michigan teachers are leaving the profession, and the state is struggling to replace them. So, we wanted to speak with the science and social studies teacher about what she’s learned as a teacher, and the advice she has for new educators and parents.

Wafaa Mustafa is an Iraqi American poet from Dearborn and a teaching artist working with InsideOut Literary Arts. She is also a mentor with the Arab American National Museum Teen Writing Fellowship.

As an Arab American artist, her voice sits at the intersection of culture and history. It offers reflection in a time when many are searching for deeper understanding.

Wafaa joined The Metro’s Tia Graham to talk about poetry, identity, and what it means to hold space for youth voices in this moment.

The Detroit Youth Poetry Slam, hosted by performer and InsideOut coach La Shaun phoenix Moore, will gather 15 talented young artists together from InsideOut’s Citywide Poets after school program. 

Audiences will have a chance to support the teens as they perform their original work and compete for a spot on InsideOut’s 2026 Detroit Youth Performance Troupe. That experience includes intensive coaching and future performance opportunities.

The poetry slam is happening Thursday, May 7 at The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. 

Jassmine Parks is a program coordinator at InsideOut Literary Arts, a 2021 Kresge Artist Fellow and an award winning poet. Justin Rogers manages InsideOut's award-winning after school program Citywide Poets. Justin is also an alum of InsideOut. 

In this conversation, Jassmine and Justin explain the impact poetry has had on their lives and how they are uplifting the next generation. 

For the first time in decades, more people are seeking talk therapy over medication. The good news is there’s less stigma preventing people from accessing care. The bad news: A lot of people struggle to access therapy.

Some clinicians argue that one of the big issues is private equity. Private equity investments in health care have grown to over $750 billion over the past decade.

Linda Michaels says that’s had devastating consequences for both clients and clinicians. People are less likely to get the therapy they need, and therapists are in a worse position to offer it. That’s the premise of Michaels' talk this Sunday at a local fundraiser for a metro Detroit clinic. She is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and a co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network. She spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent.

One of two public campgrounds in Wayne County is reopening this summer after extensive renovations.

Located in Lower Huron Metropark, the Walnut Grove Campground features 15 ADA-accessible campsites and connects to the Iron Belle Trail, Huron River Water Trail and the rest of the 13-park, 25,000 acre Huron-Clinton Metroparks system.

While camping outdoors requires some equipment and knowledge, those resources are within reach, and the new campground is more accessible.

A number of education and community events are available for camp-curious metro Detroiters, including a Family Campout Night on July 24-25, and weekend programs for first-time campers to try out equipment for the first time.

You can reserve campsites online, with dates open early May through Mid-October.

Guests:

Sidetrack Bookshop is an independent book store in Royal Oak. It’s nestled between Washington Avenue and the train tracks there. Jenny and Jen Carney opened the store four year ago, and decades before that, Jenny's mother operated a plant store in the very same building. 

She joined the show to share how Sidetrack Bookshop is more than a store, it's a place where community, family, and inclusivity are prioritized. 

There’s something special about the way nature creates its own art, and it's even more special how creativity can live, breathe, and grow right alongside those green spaces.

As part of Earth Day celebrations, that experience comes to life at Palmer Park. The old growth woods themselves will become a gallery in celebration of sustainability, community, and the power of art to transform how we connect with the world around us.

Mark Loeb is an art fair organizer and president of Integrity Shows. He’s putting together Art and Music in the Trees at Palmer Park. He joined me to talk more about the Earth Day experience happening on Saturday, April 25.

Detroit surrounds it, but Highland Park is its own city — with its own mayor, its own story, and a history many have forgotten.

It's the birthplace of Ford's moving assembly line and Chrysler Corporation. At its peak, nearly 53,000 people lived here in a town they called the City of Trees. Today, fewer than 9,000 remain. WDET reporters have been listening to the people who stayed.

WDET News Director Jerome Vaughn joins host Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss this reporting as a part of the ongoing series Crossing the Lines.

This month marks four years of war in Sudan. Nearly 14 million people are displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. Both the U.S. State Department and a United Nations fact-finding mission have called the violence a genocide. And yet, in America, there is a silence.

Sudanese American poet Khadega Mohammed joins Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about that silence, her work at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, and the identities that live in between.

The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration. President Donald Trump has conducted more ICE raids, signaled tougher security at the border, and has prevented fewer legal immigrants from entering the country. The Trump administration is also trying to end humanitarian immigration programs. One of those is Temporary Protected Status or TPS. 

The Department of Homeland Security says many countries on the TPS list are no longer in crisis. But many representing immigrants in court say otherwise.

Megan Hauptman is a litigation staff attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project. She is fighting the Trump administration to keep TPS for over 6,000 people from Syria. Over 1,500 of them live in Michigan alone.

What exactly is TPS status? And what would happen if more people were to lose it? Megan Hauptman spoke with The Metro's Robyn Vincent about this and more.