What draws you and keeps you in the classroom?  Many days teachers  ask themselves this exact question.  Dr. Becky Thompson’s vision for teaching is clear: she’s in the classroom to experience those moments of “amazing intellectual work that also [have] some heart in it.”  It keeps her coming back, year after year.

Join scholar, poet, and activist Becky Thompson and I as we discuss teaching and learning broadly and the role of contemplative practice as a means of fostering deep connections between teachers and students within the classroom.  Important to this conversation is the consideration that not all classrooms are within the four walls of the institution.  Dr. Thompson shares her experiences she’s had within a refugee center in Greece, witnessing the resilience and fortitude of people fleeing everything they knew in order to start a new life in a foreign land.  

This is a truly special conversation about the important role that teaching can play to open conversations, shape our humanity, and ultimately change our own lives and the lives of those we are fortunate to encounter.  In a time when students are increasingly reliant upon artificial intelligence as a source of “safe” supportive information, we need to consider how we change our interactions in the classroom to foster increased sense of safety and belonging?  In what ways can we allow students to express their tension and frustrations, leaving them freer to be who they are?  What is intellectual work without full expression with access and opportunity to explore, wonder, and be?

Becky’s work that you may  consider:

Teaching with Tenderness: Toward an Embodied Practice by Becky Thompson

Beyond a Dream Deferred: Multicultural Education and the Politics of Excellence Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi

Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by Refugees by Becky Thompson and Jahen Bseiso

To Speak in Salt by Becky Thompson

Other Texts:

Dignity-Affirming Education: Cultivating The Somebodiness of Students and Educators

Justice Seekers: Pursuing Equity in the Details of Teaching & Learning by Lacey Robinson

This fall I had the opportunity to sit down with John Pellman, Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Capital College and Career Academy (CCCA), a new charter school that opened in August 2023 in North Sacramento.  CCCA’s mission is to ensure that all students graduate having experience taking both dual enrollment courses and internships so they have a clear understanding of their college and career options in order to make more informed choices.  Within that, John teaches a class called Innovation, Design, and Implementation, which uses Makers Education as a means to center student agency to help them take an idea and bring it to fruition.  In doing so, students practice socio-emotional skills such as wellbeing, mindfulness, as well as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and grit while working with a partner, researching, and putting their project together.  Rather than rely on standardized tests, in John’s class, students complete self-assessments on these various skills and participate in design challenges where they operate in real world situations.  Drawing upon a diverse student population, located in a historically disenfranchised area of Sacramento, CCCA’s goal is to help nudge education in the direction toward helping students access opportunities and situations that help them realize their potential, one student at a time.  Join our conversation as we talk about CCCA, education as a business, and Makers Education specifically in this episode of Uncommon Voices, Uncommon Visions.

John, working in partnership with the Sacramento County Office of Education is offering three more classes for local educators on using Maker Education in the classroom: February 20, March 19 and April 16, 2024.

Suggested Materials:

The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnick

Stuck in the Shallow End by Jane Margolis

How does Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. impact your leadership?  How can businesses, schools, and individuals seek to embody his dream today? 

These were two questions asked during a fireside chat at a breakfast I attended this morning.  Two local African American leaders/business owners were asked to respond.  From their responses, I don't believe that either of them were raised in Sacramento.  Interestingly, I found my own experiences fell between theirs.  As a person who came from a poor single-parent household, yet, who did have the privilege of having a mother who'd grown up in the north (Detroit, Michigan) attending all White schools and was the great-granddaughter of an educator, I had the advantage of knowing how to navigate predominately white environments and feel at home in them.  

 As we consider The Dream and how we are still working to achieve it in all aspects of our society, we need to consider a variety of voices and experiences of people to answer these questions because as the new movie American Fiction demonstrates, the Black experience, like any other human experience, is multifaceted.  When we can begin to wrestle with and be okay with the complexity of this fact, we can begin to build the kind of lasting coalitions that can create the reality that so many of us desperately desire.

Hi there!  It's been a while since I've been on the air, so I wanted to reintroduce myself. I'm Dr. Valerie Nyberg, former HS administrator, teacher, and single-parent to three accomplished young men.  

In this episode, I share my recent experiences traveling and gaining clarity in my work and with my business.  My purpose is two-fold, to make a difference in the lives of others, but also to change and heal myself. Join me as I explain what I've been up to in order to achieve that purpose and what it means for the future of my podcast.  Don't miss out an insightful glimpse into becoming what I'm meant to be.

Jacob and I get together again to continue our conversation, this time after watching the documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed on HBOMax (newly renamed Max) to further discussion about race and identity.  Jacob and his brothers are Swedish, Irish, Eskimo, Native American (just a smidge), and Black.  It’s clear that during our conversation, despite my efforts to ensure that my children can correctly identify themselves racially/ethnically, Jacob is confused about the name of his grandmother’s tribe, Inupiaq, and his grandfather’s country of origin, Finland.  Though, interestingly enough, he’s intrigued to think of himself as a second generation immigrant, though he doesn’t think it counts.  Should I be alarmed, or is this just a result of the assimilation process?

We discussed my efforts to help my sons be successful by listening to them when they expressed interests in activities, even when it was outside of my own comfort zone.  The unintended consequence of which meant my sons had far more in common with their White peers than their Black peers.  This led to a conversation about access and opportunity.  How do kids’ programs recruit diverse participants in an equitable manner?

It’s important to emphasize this is not a scripted conversation. In fact, unlike my typical episode preparations, we didn’t even use a discussion guide.  Instead, it’s simply a mother and son having a conversation about a difficult topic, sometimes discovering for the first time, what we think and how we feel about the complexity of an issue that impacts both of us.

May 8 - 12, 2023 is Teacher Appreciation Week.  As a product of the public schools, by and large, I wanted to take a moment to recognize and name numerous educators who helped me to become both the person and the educator I am.  

Today there's a lot of debate about the role education plays in children's lives.  Many question the lesson content, the pedagogical strategies and beliefs that inform teachers' approach, and even teachers' worldviews.  Teaching is hard.  It's a profoundly human endeavor that requires one to show up day after day and  start anew, in many cases.   In this episode, I share how various teachers played pivotal roles at key moments in my life.  At the end, I ask you to set that all aside in order to thank an educator, whether that educator is in the classroom, in the building, or at the district or maintenance department.  It takes a village to raise a child; educators in various forms are an important part of that village.  Whatever your political beliefs, please take a moment to recognize and name the important work our educators do each and every day.

Sometimes awkward, sometimes revealing, last November I sat down with my youngest son, Jacob, to talk about what it means to be multi-ethnic in a time when race and identity are topics that have become highly politicized and polarizing.  Before we sat down, both of us committed to speaking honestly about our experiences and acknowledging that I consciously raised my children  to ensure they understood what it means to be Black in America, while not believing that being Black means that they are limited or that they can't achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve.  This is one of three parts where we discuss these topics, which is not neat nor linear.  It's a behind the scenes conversation that we wanted to share with others in hope that it can prompt additional conversations about identity, racial performance, discrimination, and opportunities.  To be honest, even as we wrapped up nearly two hours of taping, we still didn't feel we'd gotten to the full conversation.   One conversation can't answer it all, but it all starts with a conversation.  

We often hear about people who’ve achieved great things, but we don’t necessarily know the back story.  Nancy and Elizabeth Jorgenson, with Gwen Jorgensen, have recently released their book, Gwen Jorgenson: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete.  Intended to help inspire as well as represent women athletes, Gwen wanted the story to be geared toward middle school readers.  When doing their homework on this market, Liz and Nancy, already published authors in their own right, found that there were few stories of women athletes available to young readers.  In this episode, we talk about how Nancy forged a path for her daughters through her own hard work and determination.  Besides setting an example, she established three guiding principles, which Liz shared that she thought served them well.  With the passage of Title IX in 1972, Liz and Gwen had access to more possibilities than Nancy ever had, and were able to take advantage of them.  Though Gwen's experience wasn't linear and wasn't always full of accolades and recognitions, she continued to keep at it.   With guidance and mentoring from close supporters, she eventually became an Olympic Gold Medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics.  Within the conversation, Liz, Nancy, and I discuss the importance of mentors, supporters, and perseverance. 

Resources:

Amazon: Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete

Signed copies: https://www.booksco.com/signed-copy-gwen-jorgensen

Free Educator Guide: https://download.m-m-sports.com/extras/GwenJorgensen/Teacher_Guide.pdf

Family story:Go: Gwen, Go: A Family's Journey to Olympic Gold 

Other Works:

Hacking Student Learning Habits 

Things They Never Taught You in Choral Methods

If you use social media to find out what educators are talking about, undoubtedly you’ve seen a post by Tyler Rablin.  In Episode 22, Tyler and I talk about the importance of building students’ confidence for learning while being their whole selves.  Currently he teaches high school ELA and is an education consultant in Central Washington.  During our conversation, Tyler shared a number of great perspectives that can help teachers to remember what the true focus of schooling is: to help students learn and grow.  As a teaser to his forthcoming book, Hacking Student Motivation Through Assessment, Tyler shared how he's grown as an educator.   Through the process of digging deeply into Standards-Based Grading, he began to better understand his teaching and assessment processes.  It's not just about data collection and being able to have a number to signify the completion of a task.  Instead, it's about really helping students to access the learning from wherever they are and understand their own growth and development over time.  Today, his students often choose different ways to demonstrate their learning, which they document with a Choice Memo.  Responding to my question about time limitations and the need to cover the curriculum, Tyler stated, “What I’ve found over the course of my career [is that]  most often the limitations I put on what I can do are my own limitations.”  We talked at length about the need to humanize ourselves and our students as we engage in the teaching and learning process, which is not nearly as neat and linear as research would suggest.  In the end, Tyler said, “When a building gets behind [the notion] that agency is centered around what kids need…that’s where powerful and important things can get done for kids.”  I couldn't have said it better myself!

Recently I learned my great-grandmother, along with her uncle were forced to leave their homes in South Carolina.  Though she was a teacher in South Carolina, when she moved, she had to take work as a kitchen worker.  Blacks weren't permitted to teach in Detroit in 1919.  Until just recently, I'd assumed that my great-grandmother was part of the Great Migration.  In textbooks we're told that many moved of their own volition in order to seek better opportunities.  My family members left in order to save their own lives and the lives of their children.  

When we consider issues of economic loss, lost opportunities, and family separation that such dislocations created, it becomes evident that reparations are not a hand-out to people who haven't worked hard and earned equitable access to opportunities.  Rather, it's the chance for our country to more fully own our past and reconcile the harms and damage done to generations of Black people who were first treated like property, then once liberated from chattel slavery, had one impediment after another placed in their way to self-sufficiency and full access to the American Dream.