The Perkins Platform

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 His most recent book, Take CHARGE of the Classroom, seeks to disrupt outdated behavior management models.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.

Join us on Wednesday, June 23rd @ 6pm EST for an informative conversation about the American history curricula in U.S. public schools with special guest, James Grossman, Executive Director of the American Historical Association.  James was previously Vice President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library, and has taught at University of Chicago and University of California, San Diego.  The author of Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929, Grossman was project director and co-editor of the print and digital Encyclopedia of Chicago and is editor emeritus of the series “Historical Studies of Urban America.” which he abandoned to his colleagues after 50 volumes. His articles and short essays have focused on various aspects of American urban history, African American history, ethnicity, higher education, and the place of history in public culture.  Short pieces have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, New York Daily News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and elsewhere. Grossman’s consulting experience includes history-related projects generated by the BBC, Smithsonian, and various theater companies, film makers, museums, libraries, and foundations. Currently President of the National Humanities Alliance, he has served on the governing boards of the American Council of Learned Societies, Association of American Colleges and Universities, and Center for Research Libraries.

Join us on Wednesday, June 16th @ 6pm EST for an informative discussion with special guest, Lindsay Stallones Marshall, on her critique of the 1776 Commission Report and her thoughts on representations in history textbooks. Lindsay is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Oklahoma and an M.A. in Liberal Arts from Stanford University and served as a high school history and civics teacher and department chair in San Jose, California for eleven years. She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the intersection between changing narratives of the wars of westward expansion of the late 19th century, secondary U.S. history textbook narratives, and public memory.

Join us on Wednesday, June 9th @ 6pm EST for an exciting conversation discussing humor as a skill with Andrew Tarvin, CEO of Humor That Works, a leadership development company that teaches professionals how to use humor to achieve better business results. Andrew has partnered with top organizations–including IBM, the UN, and the FBI–to solve human challenges with humor solutions. Combining his background as a project manager at Procter & Gamble with his experience as a stand-up comedian, he reverse engineers the skill of humor in a way that is practical, actionable, and gets results in the workplace. A best-selling author, Andrew has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc, and FastCompany, and was named a ‘Visionary Under 40’ by the P&G Alumni Network. His TEDx talk on the skill of humor has been viewed more than nine million times, only half of which were his mother. He loves chocolate and tweeting puns!

On Wednesday, May 26 @ 12pm EST, Professor Thomas Hatch joins us to discuss his latest book,The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict(Corwin, 2021) which focuses on the efforts to create more powerful learning experiences both inside and outside schools in developed and developing contexts. Thomas Hatch is a Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST). His research includes studies of school improvement efforts at the school, district, and national levels. He is also the founder and managing editor of internationalednews.com. He previously served as a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.  His other books include Managing to Change: How Schools can Survive (and Sometimes Thrive) in Turbulent Times (Teachers College Press, 2009); Into the Classroom: Developing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Teachers College Press, 2005); and School Reform Behind the Scenes (Teachers College Press, 1999).

Join us on Wednesday, May 19 @ 6pm EST for an informative talk with Principal, Dr. Dawn Brooks DeCosta, and 5th grade teacher, Ms. Lucile Middleton, of Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School (TMALS) to discuss how their students have engaged in conversations regarding the recent justice issues in our nation. Located in Harlem, TMALS was created in a collaboration between Abyssinian Development Corporation, New Visions for Public Schools and The Department of Education and is the perfect example of how to bring the world into the classroom.  

Dawn began her service of teaching 27 years ago and has worked as a teacher for the NYC DOE teaching in Harlem, NYC for 16 years and has served as Principal of TMALS for the past 9 years. Dawn has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work such as Teacher of the Year 1998, Heroes of Education Award 2002 for her work with students involving the 9/11 tragedy (highlighted in CNN’s, Through a Child’s Eyes), Outstanding Educator 2002, along with many others. 

Lucile, affectionately known as Ms. Lucy, is a committed teacher with over 20 years of experience.  She is currently serving as a teacher at TMALS, teaching Literacy, Writing, Social Studies, and Technology to the Fifth Grade. As a progressive educator, she believes that education is the tool to help students formulate their voice; to develop their own personal philosophy; and to gather the fundamentals and skills so they may change the world around them.