UnboundEd Podcast

In the education profession, equity work can get deeply deffered, or get really messy, really fast. This is because it can reveal so much about professional and personal beliefs that are consequential to our students receiving grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful instruction. And these problematic perceptions can be emboldened by policies. I got a chance to talk with Sheldon Eakins to discuss his book Leading Equity: Becoming an Advocate for All Students. Join us as we discuss the the bold, graceful, and practical ways equity can be cultivated in schools.

If a table won't stand without well-distributed legs, a bridge won't hold weight without well-distributed force, and a car can't run without a well-distributed frame, what makes us think that we can accomplish goals in our school buildings without well-distributed leadership? Even in most dysfunctional school systems, distributive leadership can produce better collaboration and insight that can lead to better cultural and instructional outcomes. I got a chance to talk with Dr. Shaun Nelms about his book Leading With Purpose: Empowering Others to Create Lasting Change. Join us as we discuss the personal and professional journeys that are empowered when we see and recognize the power in others.

Our food choices can impact our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. So, while it can be challenging, it is important to be strategic about the food we ingest. Much like food, the ideas and practices we consume in education also shape our well-being and the well-being of those we serve. In this episode, Dr. Sonya Murray-Darden and I discuss her book Serving Educational Equity: A Five-Course Framework for Accelerated Learning, as well as the practical and essential ways our education systems can serve a diet of, and hunger for, grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful instruction.

Leverage the People Who Love and Care About You with Ron Rapatalo | The LP: EP 15 by UnboundEd

A truth that remains in the United States is that teaching is one of the most underappreciated professions in the country, financially and intellectually, as teachers are often cut out of decisions about what to teach and how to teach on a larger scale. As we advocate to reclaim the power taken, it’s important to analyze the power given, which can still seriously impact the quality of instruction in classrooms. I got a chance to build with Dr. Tanji Reed Marshall and discuss her book Understanding Your Instructional Power: Curriculum and Language Decisions to Support Each Student. Join us as we discuss the power overlooked within a profession undervalued and how it can be used to provide grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful instruction.

Teachers in the Movement with Derrick P. Alridge | The LP: EP 13 by UnboundEd

At UnboundEd, we pride ourselves on working to find justice in the details of teaching and learning. Instructional choices made in classrooms are included in those details, and it's important to see how policy choices impact those choices in instruction. Policy choices take place at our local level, our state level, and our national level. Depending on the equity value of these choices, this multi-filtered choice system can lead to compounded success or failure for the students the systems, schools, and staff are supposed to serve. It helps to understand the background of the politics that inform the domino effect. Sonya Douglass, Janelle T. Scott, and Gary L. Anderson help us do that with their book The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality. Sonya Douglass and I discuss the book and its ability to reveal the mechanics behind the madness and the engineering that can take place so our kids can experience democratic schooling.

We live in a country where calls to address racism in education have been responded to with book bans, parent shaming, and instructional witch-hunts, and also where these calls have prompted institutions to invest in DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Despite intentions, this isn’t always effective because it isn’t backed by another form of DEI: Deliberate, Earnest, and Inconvenient. Without the right mirrors, mindsets, and bold maneuvers, our structures and instruction in schools end up staying stay the same. It really does take a village to get this right. One village of experienced black women educators, Sharone Brinkley-Parker, Tracey L. Durant, Kendra V. Johnson, Kandice Taylor, Johari Toe, and Lisa Williams, came together to help other villagers and villages fight these injustices in their book Humanity Over Comfort: How You Confront Systemic Racism Head On. Join us as this band of sisters and I discuss the book and explore strategic, people-centered ways we can address system-fueled inequities in our schools.

Everyday choices and systems, both obvious and covert, hold truths about how we educate our children. Recognizing these truths allows us to course-correct and expand opportunities for students to receive grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful instruction. Author, speaker, and leader Lacey Robinson is a walking, talking testimony of this process. Her experience as a student, teacher, principal, and organization leader is woven together in her book Justice Seekers: Pursuing Equity in the Details of Teaching and Learning. Join me as Lacey, and I discuss the book and its purpose to help people see the power of our decisions in education and how they lend to the arc of justice or injustice in this country.

The Power of Dignity in Education with Charles Payne | The LP: EP 9 by UnboundEd