The Perkins Platform

Join us on September 15 at Noon EST to chat with Principal Mauri Chantel Melander Friestleben, the proud principal of Minneapolis' North High School. Mauri, the former leader of Lucy Craft Community school in Minneapolis was the subject of a featured documentary a the Minneapolis - St. Paul International Film Festival.  She is a member of coalition of local principals united around the purpose of providing the much needed support of students of color. Tune in for an enlightening conversation with Mauri as she leads us through her work and the work of so many other school leaders doing what they can to make a difference where its needed most - focusing on school culture and climate.

Join us for our BACK TO SCHOOL BROADCAST on Wednesday, September 1st @ 6pm EST for an informative conversation with noted scholar, lecturer and author, Dr. Na’im Akbar, discussing his work in Black Psychology. Dr. Akbar’s scholarship in this area has led to numerous honors including the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the National Association of Black Psychologists; Honorary Doctorates of Human Letters from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and Lincoln University as well as commemorative Days named in his honor in a half dozen major American cities and a Development Chief in Ghana, West Africa. Dr. Akbar has served on the Boards of Directors of several important civic and professional organizations, including the Board of the National Association of Black Psychologists to which he was elected president in 1987. In 2008 after twenty-eight years, he retired from the psychology faculty at Florida State University, to devote full time as President of his private consulting and publishing company, Mind Productions and Associates. He has received world renown for the important books that he has written, especially his widely read books New Visions for Black Men and Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery. He has been sought as an expert on numerous national television talk shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Tavis Smiley’s Annual State of Black America, the Geraldo Show and many others. Significant articles about him have appeared in many national and international newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, and Essence Magazine. Akbar has been lauded for his eloquence and expertise at Conferences on five continents and he is recognized as one of the great Thinkers and Orators of our time. He identifies himself as most notably, the father of three highly successful adult children and four young grandchildren.

Gabrielle Apollon co-supervises the Global Justice Clinic’s project on Human Rights in Haiti’s Emerging Mining Sector and certain components* of the Clinic’s project on Torture, Rendition, and Detention. Gabrielle previously served as Managing Attorney at The Door: A Center for Alternatives, where she represented young people in immigration and family law matters. While at The Door, Gabrielle expanded services for Francophone immigrants and became a New York Community Trust Leadership Fellow. A 2015 graduate of NYU School of Law, Gabrielle was an AnBryce Scholar and served as a student advocate in the Global Justice and Children’s Rights Clinics. As a student, Gabrielle earned a Ford Foundation Public Interest Law Fellowship to work with Conectas in Brazil for a summer, documenting human rights violations of Haitian migrants en route to Brazil. Prior to law school, Gabrielle worked at the United Nations Office of the Special Envoy to Haiti as a research specialist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University, where she was awarded the J.W. Saxe Memorial Award for Public Service and Harry J. Carman Fellowship. While studying political science and international development, Gabrielle interned with the Council on Foreign Relations and Haiti’s presidential commission, Groupe de Travail sur l’Education et la Formation (GTEF). Gabrielle speaks French and Haitian Creole. She serves as the Vice President of the Board of Directors of St. Hope Leadership Academy.

Founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development, Sharif El-Mekki, joins us for an informative discussion on the expectations held by educators for young black people. The Center for Black Educator Development exists to ensure there will be equity in the recruiting, training, hiring, and retention of quality educators that reflect the cultural backgrounds and share common socio-political interests of the students they serve. Prior to founding the Center, Sharif served as a nationally recognized principal and U.S. Department of Education Principal Ambassador Fellow. His school, Mastery Charter Shoemaker, was recognized by President Obama and Oprah Winfrey, and was awarded the prestigious EPIC award for three consecutive years as being amongst the top three schools in the country for accelerating students’ achievement levels. Sharif blogs on Phillys7thWard, is a member of the 8 Black Hands podcast and serves on several boards and committees focused on educational and racial justice. Tune in on Wednesday, August 18th @ 5pm EST to this broadcast!

Join us on Wednesday, August 11th @ 6pm EST for an enlightening conversation about the "voices in our head" with Dr. Ethan Kross, one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s top ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. The Laboratory’s mission is to improve the understanding of how people can adaptively control impulses and emotions that undermine their goals and compromise their health.  Ethan has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed about his research on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science.

Join us on Wednesday, August 4 at 6pm EST for what promises to be an important and deeply informative conversation with Dr. Rafael Pelayo. Pelayo currently serves as the president of the California Sleep Society and the chair of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Political Action Committee as well as on the boards of the National Sleep Foundation and Start School Later. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Pelayo’s initial exposure to sleep medicine was as a medical student working with Dr. Michael Thorpy at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He joined the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic in 1993 as a fellow and never left. In 2013, he was appointed as a clinical professor at the Sleep Medicine division of the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stanford University. Dr. Pelayo’s clinical focus has been the treatment of sleep disorders in patients of all ages. He has lectured nationally and internationally and has appeared frequently in television, radio, and print. He has served as chair of the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board of the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Heart Lung Blood Institute at the NIH. He has also chaired the pediatric special interest section of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Dr. Pelayo currently teaches the Stanford University Sleep and Dreams undergraduate course previously with Dr. William Dement. Together, they co-authored the course textbook.

Whether you are a classroom teacher or instructional leader, this conversation with author, Aaron Daffern is a must listen for you.  Join the conversation as we gain some insight from Aaron, a veteran teacher and instructional specialist, on how to deploy successful techniques in the classroom for the new normal.  Aaron has been a teacher, principal, and district administrator in the DFW area since 2000.  He lives in Ft. Worth with his wife Heather and four lovely children. He has written several books about student engagement, vocabulary instruction, and high-impact instruction. His most recent book, Take CHARGE of the Classroom, seeks to disrupt outdated behavior management models. Aaron also coaches educators and trains schools and districts. You can learn more about him at AaronDaffern.com.  See you on July 28, 5pm EST for what promises to be an amazing exchange.

Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (https://ncse.ngo), Ann Reid, joins us for an informative conversation discussing the importance of science education. The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the accurate, effective teaching of climate change and evolution. For 15 year, Ann worked as a research biologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, where she was responsible for sequencing the 1918 flu virus. She has also served as a Senior Program Officer at the NRC's Board on Life Sciences and as director of the American Academy of Microbiology. Tune in on Wednesday, July 21st @ 5pm EST for this broadcast!

Join us on Wednesday, July 7th @ 5pm EST for an informative conversation with educator, Dr. Gema Cardona, discussing Critical Race Theory.  Dr. Cardona earned her doctoral degree in critical studies of race, class, and gender from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is situated at the intersection of critical race theory (CRT), critical pedagogy, and Latinx studies in higher education. She has taught at the college level for the past six years, under the Education Minor Department at the GSE and in the Sociology Department at Mills College. She is also the author of “The Emotional Labor of Race-Gender Dialogue in Higher Education,” published in the Berkeley Review of Education. In this invited piece, she reflects on the role of emotional labor when employing the CRT tenet of experiential knowledge and storytelling in higher education classrooms. As an educator, Dr. Cardona practices Freirean principles of emancipatory and liberatory education to empower college students to be critical thinkers.

Join us on Wednesday, June 30th @ 6pm EST for an informative discussion with freelance journalist, Zaid Jilani, on his critique of the New York Times Magazine 1619 Project. There is much debate about the historical accuracy of key components of this project. Zaid offers a perspective for discussion among history scholars and aficionados alike. Zaid is a former reporter for The Intercept and has worked for Alternet, the Center for American Progress, and UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. He maintains a substack at inquiremore.com where he writes about current affairs and politics. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in international affairs and received his master’s in public administration from Syracuse University in 2014.