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Welcome to The Anti-Racism Leadership Institute, where we engage in thoughtful conversations with professors and visionary leaders who are dedicated to dismantling racism in schools and transforming education. Join us as we explore their inspiring journeys, innovative strategies, and impactful initiatives aimed at creating more inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist learning environments. Our podcast is a platform for sharing insights, stories, and actionable ideas that can help shape a brighter, more just future for education. Tune in and be inspired to be a part of the change!
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:13
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute podcast, where we ignite the sparks of change and inspire a world free of racism. This podcast is dedicated to highlighting the most cutting edge anti-racist research in education for the purpose of connecting practitioners to powerful, research based approaches to racial equity. I am your host, Doctor Tracy Benson, and today we invite you on a transformative journey as we delve into the efforts and triumphs of those dedicated fostering racial equity within education.
00:00:33:15 - 00:01:03:13
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute Research and Practice podcast. Today, we have the opportunity to talk with Doctor Spencer Sellars about his coauthored article, Teacher's Leadership and Black Boys Racialized Funds of Knowledge. Doctor Sallis is a professor of education in the Department of Middle Secondary and K-12 education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he leads a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, urban literacies, Tesol Sub Concentration.
00:01:03:15 - 00:01:16:08
Speaker 1
His empirical and theoretical scholarship focuses on the new Latino South and the intersections of Latino immigration with national and regional educational policy and practice. Welcome to the show, Doctor Salazar.
00:01:16:10 - 00:01:21:01
Speaker 2
Thank you so much, Casey. It's great to see you again. I'm excited about the work you're doing.
00:01:21:03 - 00:01:44:10
Speaker 1
Likewise. Likewise. I appreciate you coming to the show. And so let's start off with, you know, why we're here today is to talk about your article. The reason that we where Research Your Practice podcast is because we want, you know, as educators and education leaders, we have to have access to actual research to implement into practice. And so the reason we interview academics is because, you know, we often have the research side.
00:01:44:12 - 00:02:09:07
Speaker 1
We publish an article in in journals. But yet practitioners don't often access those journals to then translate into practice. And so your article Teachers Leadership in Black Boys raises funds of knowledge, I feel is one in which provides a lot of insight into the environment of being a leader of a teacher of color. And so can you tell me a little bit about why you chose to coauthor this article?
00:02:09:09 - 00:02:36:19
Speaker 2
Well, the articles about a a teacher who then became a teacher, leader, teacher, coach, and he was one of the first and only black female Stem licensure candidates that I ever worked with at UMC Charlotte. So there's a whole lot of literature about why black males don't enter teaching or why they leave teaching. But there aren't a lot of stories about how it is.
00:02:36:19 - 00:03:05:00
Speaker 2
Some black male comes into teaching and stays and builds a career and goes into the science of leadership. So I wanted so to me, what was really interesting was that he stayed, built a ten year plus career and went from teacher to teacher coach to educational researcher. So there was a trajectory that we don't see very or that was the motivation to see how, how, how did how was it that he did it?
00:03:05:02 - 00:03:24:01
Speaker 2
And when we started the piece, I sort of I thought of the Harry Potter series, you know. So one of the names for Harry Potter is the boy who lives race. So it was sort of the teacher who lived, the black male teacher who lived and grew a career not only in teaching but teacher leadership.
00:03:24:02 - 00:03:44:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So before we get into the the content of the actual sort of research article, you know, you've been in teacher education for a while, and prior to you were, you know, you were actual practitioner before becoming an academic. And, you know, both me and I was at USC, Charlotte for four years. And the leadership development department, and, you know, you're a teacher, leadership.
00:03:44:18 - 00:04:01:23
Speaker 1
And during my time through, there were very few, aspiring principals of color that came through the program, given the population of Charlotte. And I understood that it was an issue in teacher preparation as well. What do you think are some of the barriers to entry for teachers of color?
00:04:02:00 - 00:04:32:03
Speaker 2
Well, that's I mean, that's what we were writing about for the last five years, you know, and I've discovered a lot of different things. I think first, we have to recognize that it wasn't always the case. When I joined DC Public Schools in 1994. So the vast majority of the leadership and teachers were, black men and women who were carrying on a tradition of, or black teachers committed to, to, not only DC public schools, but public education more generally.
00:04:32:06 - 00:05:02:06
Speaker 2
So but DC, you know, but DC public schools was a little bit different than, let's say, a county like Charlotte-Mecklenburg or whatnot. So, so I think there's always been this is where the tension is. There's a nostalgia for the black school teacher or the black principal or the black superintendent, who really carried a lot of that civil rights movement on his and her on their shoulders.
00:05:02:08 - 00:05:27:18
Speaker 2
Well, particularly in the South, in the rural school schoolhouse. But so there's a nostalgia for that, because at the current time, you see very few, like I said, black and brown teachers of color or administrators of color in North Carolina or nationally. So there's a big, disparate disproportionality between what the student body looks like and with the teachers.
00:05:27:18 - 00:05:54:01
Speaker 2
Also what's. There's a white femininity to k-through-12 education. So why is it that black and brown teachers are taking up the torch? Well, for black males in particular, the researchers theorized that, you know, because potentially they've had very negative experiences in k-through-12 public schools as students that once they're out of school, they don't want to return to school.
00:05:54:06 - 00:06:18:05
Speaker 2
Right? Because there's, the care of the scars of anti-Blackness, you know, within their whole being. Right? And so the school wasn't a happy place. And so why would you want to make a career there? Another piece might be once they're in the classroom, or once they do take up teaching, they're often, pigeonholed into a certain type of school with certain type of class.
00:06:18:07 - 00:06:52:04
Speaker 2
And, and many times those schools or school systems or classrooms are underfunded, saying they're assigned a sort of policing role or an other fathering role. And, they're seeing less as teachers and more as an instrument of, disciplinary forces at work at the school, especially in relation to other black to to black children. Teaching is no longer the default pathway to sort of middle class prosperity, right?
00:06:52:04 - 00:07:28:01
Speaker 2
So for a to a certain extent, there are many more opportunities available. There is a shortage of black and brown teachers, but there's a shortage of teachers, generally speaking, across more because of the toxicity surrounding the discourse about teachers and teaching and public education. Low salary. Right. Precarious working conditions and whatnot. So all of this is to say, this is what to me, riding home, this story really stood out to me.
00:07:28:07 - 00:07:39:13
Speaker 2
Wow. He actually he not only entered teaching, he stayed in teaching and slowly became a teacher leader in a way that we don't we don't often see.
00:07:39:15 - 00:08:05:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So let's talk let's talk about that in terms of Brian Holmes, his trajectory and what you found in maybe his resilience. Right. In a program where he was the only black male in quite some time and then going in to, I'm sure, environments where he experienced some of the phenomena that you just named around. So what did you find in terms of his experience that gave him the, sort of the resilience factors to make it through all the different levels?
00:08:05:15 - 00:08:29:10
Speaker 2
Well, to begin, he was born in a very tiny little town, and we're calling it Maryville, South Carolina, population 4500, which was at one point, a crossroads of the tobacco industry. But by the time he was born, it's pretty much a ghost town. And, his mother had him very young in between his junior and senior years.
00:08:29:10 - 00:08:49:17
Speaker 2
So she was about 16, and a lot of people didn't even know he was born because she had him in the summer. And she went right back to school. So he was raised primarily by his mother. So she signed him up for a lot of things, especially because he was only child and she wanted him involved in different things.
00:08:49:17 - 00:09:16:14
Speaker 2
So, for example, from that very young age, he was placed into situations sometimes where he was the only black child. For example, he remembered signing, he joined the Boy Scouts. It was an all white group, with white leadership. He was one of maybe two black boys, but he really loved it. And or, for example, if his mother heard that, well, Ryan, Ryan should be with this teacher.
00:09:16:15 - 00:09:45:13
Speaker 2
She was she really intervened to put him in a class with a teacher who would push him and grow him and grow as potential. And so I think, but simultaneously, he was in a very segregated small town, as most towns are in South Carolina. Right? So he went to a black church, and if not black block, the metaphor for the or the image we have throughout the article is from a very early age, and he can remember when.
00:09:45:15 - 00:10:16:20
Speaker 2
But he learned, for example, how to navigate a grocery store parking. So if he were returning to his car with his groceries in first stop, take a look. Was anyone parked around the car? Or was a white woman parked around the car, getting in and out of her car? And and he'd very gingerly make his way to the car so as not to alarm anyone that he was.
00:10:16:22 - 00:10:30:22
Speaker 2
Going to attack her back safely. So he learned that from a very early age that the way he walked through navigated a parking lot was what's important, right? Right, right.
00:10:31:04 - 00:10:48:08
Speaker 1
And so when I hear you say and when to intervene, what I hear you say to to sort of summarize this for listeners that he had he had formative experience of his own racialization, what it meant to be a black person in society, understand a black man. There you go. From the small town experience at a very early age.
00:10:48:08 - 00:11:08:23
Speaker 1
It you know, he lived the life of segregation in a black community, going to a black church. But he was forced to interact in white space where he understood that his blackness could at times be just perceived as threatening just for being me. Right. And its mother also understood that she had to be very involved in her son's life to make sure that he was with an educator.
00:11:08:23 - 00:11:16:13
Speaker 1
It saw promise in him beyond the sort of pejorative tropes of black boys in the classics.
00:11:16:15 - 00:11:53:03
Speaker 2
Exactly. So it was that metaphor of him navigating the parking lot and the white fragility of that parking lot that that we use. We use it as a coding guidepost to look at different moments where he he activated this spider sense or this what we call racialized antennae or these racialized plants of knowledge. So, so, for example, he entered the classroom or, you know, classroom teaching.
00:11:53:03 - 00:12:18:09
Speaker 2
But again, in these institutions, he was often the only black male, right, with a lot of white female colleagues. And then when he became a teacher coach, he was again the only black male working with a lot of white women. So, for example, when he would go to visit a school to do professional development. Yeah. To dress. Overprepare.
00:12:18:11 - 00:12:57:00
Speaker 2
And part of it was this, southern, this, but sort of charm and sweet talking and put everybody at ease when he entered that cafeteria full of white women. But at the same time, he was super, super prepared for the professional development he was going to deliver. And so that's what we've we've we've followed him across the course of his career is these instances where he took what he had learned in that parking lot and then applied it into, questions about teaching and new teacher coaching.
00:12:57:02 - 00:13:20:18
Speaker 1
Right. And I that's yeah, that's a question about so the the importance of racialization especially so it sounds like it was very strong, Graham, in terms of understanding his identity and role to be successful and take it as someone of merit, being a black man in education and also have sort of the protective understanding that, you know, in order to be received in a way that, you know, maybe a white counterpart would be received.
00:13:20:18 - 00:13:46:17
Speaker 1
I have to sort of be hyper prepared because it's less an expectation for me to leave because he might not see me have the capacity. And so it reminds me of this movie. It's it's hilarious. Right. But it talked about this very phenomena. He should watch it. It's called the American Society of Magical Negroes. And it talks very much about this, about how being a black person in particular, how we have to be make white people comfortable for not only white spaces.
00:13:46:22 - 00:14:10:10
Speaker 1
Right. And it's it's throughout it's a through line through the movie. It's done in a comical sense, but the very real lived reality. And so do you remember any particular examples he gave either from his teaching career or is like progression, the leadership that you use in the research around where he talks about, you know, having to, you know, where that this racial phenomenon was, that's going upon him.
00:14:10:14 - 00:14:12:01
Speaker 1
And how did he respond?
00:14:12:03 - 00:14:40:05
Speaker 2
Sure. Well, for example, a lot of as part of a new so that was a new teacher coaching network that, that's part of the story to overnight sort of folded. But he, he served like a 200 square mile region and that would involve him driving several hours to a very rural county to deliver a PD and then to return the next day and continue with for several days.
00:14:40:07 - 00:15:01:13
Speaker 2
But what was interesting was that, you know, he never spent the night. I was like, I don't want you to spend the night there. The problem was, as soon as he entered that main Street, he felt unsafe. He was the only black man at town, and he really didn't want to spend the night in that space. So he would prefer to drive back.
00:15:01:15 - 00:15:24:12
Speaker 2
They always went in pairs, right? They had the option to spend the night in the hotel at. They never they never opted for it because then there was something that wasn't safe in a lot of these towns. And and another instance, he described how he started before you even started the PD, you know, they're all settling down. So the principal makes some announcements.
00:15:24:12 - 00:15:48:04
Speaker 2
Basically, the principal announced to everybody and nobody that we've dealt. We don't really need you here. I didn't ask for this, but we're just going to sit through it, you know? So it was that sort of, which really, you know, undermines any presenter or anything like that. He just smiled and carried on, you know, we asked him, so why did you stay?
00:15:48:06 - 00:16:11:06
Speaker 2
You know, if it was all, all of that and he felt that he wasn't just doing it for himself, but for the next generation of black male teacher leaders. The way we end the piece, it's right when we were finishing the piece, there was a song that came out on the concert billboard. I think it's called fry that in a small Town.
00:16:11:08 - 00:16:12:03
Speaker 1
Yes.
00:16:12:05 - 00:16:41:04
Speaker 2
It's a white nationalist anthem about, you know, better be careful coming around here. And this is what we do. The people, the cross, the line, small town. The refrain is, try that in a small town. Try that in a small town. And this was not much done just a couple of years after the the shootings in South Carolina, the, the, the jogger was going through the neighborhood was shot down by a brother and his father from a pickup truck.
00:16:41:06 - 00:17:01:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. So there's a we end with that. But but at the same time, you know what? What he heard Ryan Hall's heard was a choir of black boys, mothers reverberating across this whole being to never let go, to never give up that seat of that table.
00:17:01:21 - 00:17:24:11
Speaker 1
So let me pause here, because I want to think about this right, in terms of the content for responsibility for sort of the education sector in general. So I want to talk about pre-service at service. Right. And then leadership. Because I know that, you know, when you see there's a teacher to development program and we have, like you said, we have students of all races, races and backgrounds that come into this space.
00:17:24:13 - 00:17:52:14
Speaker 1
And there's a certain level of, I mean, from my perspective, responsibility of, schools of education to not only understand the role of of teachers of color in the context that they're going into when they work in these spaces. Right? The white female spaces, but also, be it be able to have the white women who come in without some level of racial, whereas themselves, so that they can be aware of try not to create that environment for educators of color.
00:17:52:14 - 00:17:57:02
Speaker 1
And so how does that look at uncW or how do you think it should look?
00:17:57:04 - 00:18:36:23
Speaker 2
I can't remember when they started, but they've done a lot more in terms of recruitment of Latinx teachers right now. The last five years has been a big that was something Jim, Jim Watson, I don't know if you remember Jim, but he started a whole, Latinx teacher to teacher leader pipeline. So they they have cohorts of of, principal candidates coming in that are Latin labs and I think that in the past and that's one of the reasons.
00:18:36:23 - 00:19:09:08
Speaker 2
But, you know, we're always we were sad to see you go, but we had some great, faculty, black male faculty. Right. Who trained generations of black male leaders so that we, we haven't had someone fill in. I'm thinking of as a colleague who he retired right in our life. But we had several colleagues who really had a huge.
00:19:09:10 - 00:19:20:22
Speaker 2
Who trained a lot of superintendents in the state of North Carolina. But since they've gone, you know, in the end, I think that it's helpful to have faculty of color.
00:19:21:00 - 00:19:44:03
Speaker 1
To so what I heard you say is more sort of differences in not just color, but epistemologies that folks who've been through the system as a leader of color to have that actual experience incorporate that into their pedagogy, not just for the candidates of color, but I think it's it's equally as important for the white candidates, you know, to, well, I mean.
00:19:44:05 - 00:20:12:20
Speaker 2
I'd have to say that, you know, it's not just ignorance to Charlotte, but just about everywhere. Everything's become so data driven. I mean, in other words, it's become very assessment driven. Data driven, sort of the science of leadership. So, I don't know to what extent we are addressing those things. And I can say that, you know, with, with, positions of, the Board of Governors has taken on, institutional neutrality.
00:20:12:20 - 00:20:18:16
Speaker 2
I'm not sure how we'll continue to address these important issues. That's for sure.
00:20:18:18 - 00:20:42:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. So let's take a look at service, because, you know, as you sort of said, in terms of the ranks in higher education around diversifying the the professor rank ranks, there's a lot of for in my work, my anti-racist work, a lot of school districts. So they, they understand that their deficit is that they just they have, you know, students of color that, you know, percentage of students of color within their school district or in their schools.
00:20:42:19 - 00:21:03:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. A an absolute lack of a pipeline of, teachers of color or they have, revolving door where they bring in a few there for years and they leave. Right. And their strategy continues to be, well, let's just try to diversify to push the brown folks into the into the positions. And that's going to fix the problem, but which hasn't been working.
00:21:03:18 - 00:21:14:17
Speaker 1
And so what advice do you have for school districts who continued had this carousel of teachers, considering that you did some deep research around the experience of this black male and when he was at practice?
00:21:14:18 - 00:21:42:18
Speaker 2
Well, I think long term, immediate and long term mentoring is really important, okay. Especially in a small town or, or big town in the South, at least I think, there's still a big old boy network in K-Through-12 public school systems. And so many times, first, securing the job was dependent upon, you know, someone within the school system that can recommend you.
00:21:42:20 - 00:22:22:18
Speaker 2
And so that's what I've seen, first of all. So if you're coming from outside, you don't already have that network of friendships. Right. Or or mentorships. So I think you need short and long term commitment mentoring. I think you need short and long term career advancement opportunities where they're mentoring them not only so the mentor is not just in the case of the pedagogical piece, but the career planning work life balance and also opportunities for advanced.
00:22:22:19 - 00:22:30:17
Speaker 2
So, yeah, I think that's what's really necessary, you know. Yeah, especially if they're coming from the outside.
00:22:30:19 - 00:22:31:07
Speaker 1
So what I heard.
00:22:31:07 - 00:22:33:06
Speaker 2
You say is local hire.
00:22:33:07 - 00:22:40:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. What I heard you say as one entry. Right. Because it's still a lot of like nepotism. Like you got to know somebody to know somebody to even get a job, right?
00:22:40:17 - 00:22:46:23
Speaker 2
I think so, unless it's a really unless the school system is super duper desperate for a teacher.
00:22:47:00 - 00:22:49:00
Speaker 1
Right? Right. Yeah.
00:22:49:00 - 00:23:27:00
Speaker 2
I'd like to try that. I learned from these articles is that these interview studies, it's like, well, a black woman or black man can't just teach anywhere, you know, because there's a safety issue, right? It is. They would it would be a place where they could live and work and feel safe, especially living in the place. Right. So, you know, a lot of these counties range in towns where historically what we call some sundown towns or sundown counties, there's white only there's everybody had to clear out.
00:23:27:02 - 00:23:43:03
Speaker 2
If you were black, you had to clear out after at sundown or really risk your life. And so, you know, there is a huge shortage of teachers in rural North Canada. But a lot of black men, black teachers would not be interested in working there because of safety issues.
00:23:43:05 - 00:24:11:18
Speaker 1
Interested are welcome. Right. You know, there there is that that issue that you're the first black teacher or your first leader teacher of color in any probably all white setting. I don't know how those parents got to feel. You know how you'll feel having your child in that class, assuming that the teacher's not as qualified or what might be indoctrinating my kids because you're a person of color, you have all these extra pressures because of the assumptions of a person of color being the first in a space.
00:24:11:20 - 00:24:14:09
Speaker 1
It might not might not be welcome at all.
00:24:14:11 - 00:24:49:18
Speaker 2
So then you have other school districts where, and this is what I've seen. If it's a really if it's a well-functioning school that's well-funded with great leadership, teachers don't want to leave. And it's really hard to enter those schools. So a lot of the openings are in underfunded schools with revolving door leadership, with, with different issues surrounding student achievement or school climate or school leadership.
00:24:49:20 - 00:25:13:16
Speaker 2
I think another challenge that, that I've seen too, is that, with that movement towards, standards based curriculum, that especially with the new teachers, there's a lot more emphasis on them developing curriculum. Okay. So for example, they've just not handed the curriculum and the lesson plans, so that sort of thing. But they're expected just to develop it.
00:25:13:18 - 00:25:39:13
Speaker 2
And so I think especially for the first couple years, maybe somebody needs to really have them making a template that they can follow so that they're not expanding so much energy, planning an entire curriculum when when there available. Right. And and maybe if they were made available to those teachers that they could concentrate on the delivery classroom environment.
00:25:39:15 - 00:26:01:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. That that and that that was my experience as a first year teacher. I started teach in Houston, Texas, and, you know, I was in one of these schools with a lot of needs. You know, 100% of my students were on free reduced lunch. I had some homeless students. I had some transient students. We I talked to portable building up back because the school had become too small within the building to hold everyone.
00:26:01:17 - 00:26:23:23
Speaker 1
You know, I think I had 30 students on average. And it was, it was, situation where, I was provided with what was called Project Clear. And that was awesome that we had the standards. We had this, you know, standardized test, which, you know, it doesn't matter if you agree with or not. But we had a scope in sequence with the lesson by lesson.
00:26:23:23 - 00:26:43:23
Speaker 1
And that made that changed my experience as a first year teacher. You know, after that, I sort of ran my own curriculum, for the first two years, you know, when you learning a teacher was a is an invaluable resource. And what you're talking about to in terms of these environment, like who's hiring where, and when we think about the desirable schools.
00:26:43:23 - 00:26:59:10
Speaker 1
Right. Because we've done that as a system in America that we have these schools that are they're deemed, you know, a top level schools that teachers want to come and stay at. There's not a lot of turnover. And when positions do open up, they tend to lean towards recruiting more of what was there, which is often white teachers.
00:26:59:12 - 00:27:21:23
Speaker 1
And then a closed door. Yeah. To the to the black teacher. And so I started a, I started a research project right before I left UMC with Rich Lambert, using a big data set on where do black teachers teach. And we saw far and wide because we, we organized the, the racial, racial concentrations into quartiles.
00:27:22:01 - 00:27:36:15
Speaker 1
Right. And then we looked at socioeconomic status, the schools, the turnover rates, you know, the funding sources and in the in the fourth quadrant, which was amongst the most highest need schools, that's where you found your teachers and leaders of color. Yeah. And so.
00:27:36:15 - 00:28:02:22
Speaker 2
I mean, well, so, for example, Brian Holmes was certified teach staff and, and he couldn't understand and he faced a lot of pushback when he asked to teachers, let me teach the AP class. Let me teach the gifted class. Do you see what I mean? So no no no no no. You teach you no more of this remedial low lower tract course with the black children and we'll teach.
00:28:03:00 - 00:28:22:05
Speaker 2
We'll find someone else to do the AP international Baccalaureate Stem curriculum. That's more qualified than that. The implication was, well, because he was black in class all the time, he couldn't handle that curriculum on the one hand, or because he was black and he really needed to be with the black kids so he could police style them.
00:28:22:07 - 00:28:40:09
Speaker 1
Right? Right. Is that double edge right there too? Right. Is that, you know, we also have school districts say that we need more kids of color in the AP and honors and IB courses, but yet we know very well that there's tracking, you know, that we tend to expect students to be in these low level courses. Hence you black teachers.
00:28:40:09 - 00:28:57:22
Speaker 1
You that's where you go. That's where you stay. So think so thinking about and this is something that I had to deal with with you know, my, my first book, which is that now why I do what I do, we run an anti-racism leadership institute. You know, we wrote the book. The hope of influencing many leaders became really popular, and folks wanted that.
00:28:58:02 - 00:29:28:17
Speaker 1
So what now? Right. We read the book, understand the the sort of tenets, but we don't know how to how to actualize it. And so I ask this question. I try to ask all the guests. So at the article that we talked about today, IT teachers, leadership and black boys, racialized funds of knowledge. If this was something that school districts chose to do a reading on, you know, as a district, from teachers to the leaders around the tenets of the article and what you found, what would be your hope following sort of a study of your study?
00:29:28:17 - 00:29:35:07
Speaker 1
What what would you hope be that would, in terms of practices that would they could glean from your article and implement for themselves?
00:29:35:11 - 00:30:04:11
Speaker 2
I think my biggest hope with this piece and the series I've done is that, for example, the ones we did together, right? Is that we would create spaces for black and brown teachers to share their experiences. And I think sometimes, at least for me, it's really powerful to hear the individual share how they came to this place and what were some of the obstacles, what they feel could have helped them, or what they want to give for to pay for it.
00:30:04:11 - 00:30:29:10
Speaker 2
So I think my, my biggest hope is that create a space where especially black and brown teachers and teacher leaderships can share their stories. Yeah. And just that's a starting point for for change. I think just hearing those experiences. So that's been my motivation is just to document some of them. And you know, each one is such a different experience.
00:30:29:11 - 00:30:48:08
Speaker 2
Right. And that is also the limitation of my research was qualitative. It's very small study. So it's more meant to disrupt or trouble, create space and spaces for, for thinking maybe in different ways.
00:30:48:10 - 00:31:10:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. And what I, what I appreciate about your work, you know, the this article and also the article that we did together and some of the other articles is just bringing one another, the life that is always exist for leaders of color. It's always existed. But bringing this as a narrative to understand the teaching and education in general is a racialized space is that doesn't exist in the powerful.
00:31:10:04 - 00:31:13:02
Speaker 2
That's why I would say stories are powerful.
00:31:13:04 - 00:31:35:15
Speaker 1
And it and my hope with your work, you know, constantly elevating the voices of teachers of color as well as, right. It's writing. Right. His his drive to be called the on the now towards making a space for people like him in the future that we won't have to have this spidey sense or intended or acted differently in the space because of our racial identity.
00:31:35:15 - 00:31:48:04
Speaker 1
So that's the hope that I see in elevating these these narratives and these stories, and it becomes a part of the consciousness that maybe one day it's no longer necessary. I don't think is going to happen in our lifetime, but.
00:31:48:06 - 00:31:54:19
Speaker 2
Do you really feel that way while chasing when you navigate a parking lot or a space?
00:31:54:21 - 00:32:12:12
Speaker 1
You know, it's it's when when you say that, I think I think most, you know, brown males can understand that. That's like that's just how we operate. If there's a car next to mine. Right. And as a white woman, I'm going to wait until she's in her car. Right. And I'm going to approach very gingerly, put my stuff in the trunk, and then make my way to my door to be approached.
00:32:12:12 - 00:32:22:08
Speaker 1
You figure she's going to get all freaked out. It's not like anything's going to happen, but just a response of fear in and of itself is traumatizing, you know, as often as it happens. So it's very important.
00:32:22:08 - 00:32:24:03
Speaker 2
That you learn that.
00:32:24:05 - 00:32:42:07
Speaker 1
It's interesting. I mean, we we sort of pick it up over time. I think if you pick it up over response the first time it happens, it's like, well, like I wasn't trying to do that as maybe a teenager, right? Because at some point you become a threatening black male, right? You're no longer that little boy. You start getting these reactions in response to white society.
00:32:42:13 - 00:32:49:14
Speaker 1
I think it's through trial and error in discussion it with your parents, discuss it with your friends, and we're like, yeah, this is happening. Right. And you learn how to.
00:32:49:14 - 00:33:12:08
Speaker 2
And that's exactly how Brian Owens explained it. And I also and that it was so normalized in this small town in North Carolina that that's just the way things were. So he was never sort of outraged for sharks by the racists that he encountered. It was just that's just the way things work.
00:33:12:10 - 00:33:36:11
Speaker 1
And I think that's, you know, unfortunate. Yeah. That it has to be. And I think that teacher preparation programs, I think that that service programs could acknowledge that in a way that it's act as a protective measure, because not everyone who's of color understands the difference between and between anyway, because of my color oppose it. And which in this way, because I actually have a lack of capacity.
00:33:36:12 - 00:33:38:10
Speaker 1
Right. I think that produces that.
00:33:38:14 - 00:34:13:01
Speaker 2
That is the challenge for teacher education and in-service at service teacher education. I'm I'd be interested to hear how you deal with that or address it. Is that also because of those experiences when when you have a class and you bring up these topics surrounding race and gender, it's not as if the black males are really eager to speak up or, you know, anybody is not interested in speaking up because it it's just exposing yourself to another potential aggression.
00:34:13:01 - 00:34:35:04
Speaker 2
Right? So but then a lot of times when we talk about diversity in teacher education, the audience is in default white female. So it is even when you do have the one black male teacher or two, you know, several, teachers of color within that group. It's really not designed for that. Do you see what I mean? So how do you handle that?
00:34:35:10 - 00:34:53:08
Speaker 1
I think that is a wonderful question to leave hanging out there. I think that's where we have the trouble. That's what we have to think about. Right? That's the sense of let's diversify. So these can be the represented. It hasn't worked right because it's a hostile space to those students of color. Right. They have to be represented. They have to absorb the white fragility.
00:34:53:08 - 00:35:07:23
Speaker 1
They have to absorb the doubts, the questioning and making their classmates uncomfortable. So thinking through like, what does that look like exactly in terms of curriculum, and how we build that for everyone and not just have the students of color be the representative. You know.
00:35:08:00 - 00:35:45:14
Speaker 2
When we craft the story for the manuscript, it's really an uninterrupted story. So, you know, we have access to that story in ways that if you were in a PD session, it's not not the same individual might not necessarily share any of that. Right. But in that privacy of the interview and then in the artistry of the manuscript, you can convey some of that experience in a way that, you know, the the white listening subject could then sit down and read it closely and think about it without feeling the need to respond to the participant, you know, maybe let it settle in.
00:35:45:15 - 00:35:53:04
Speaker 2
So I think that's maybe one of the reasons I've enjoyed writing the piece and any other. Like I said, stories matter.
00:35:53:06 - 00:36:10:12
Speaker 1
Awesome, awesome. And I mean, I really appreciate your level of work, your dedication to it, you know, your choice to write these types of articles. And I'd like to thank you for coming today. This has been the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute Research or Practice podcast with Doctor Spencer Sanders. He's at university of North Carolina at Charlotte. You can just Google him, right.
00:36:10:12 - 00:36:21:00
Speaker 1
And find him and his litany of work and a lot of these really powerful articles that he writes all the time. And I really appreciate you coming on today, doctor silence. And I hope to get together again in the future.
00:36:21:02 - 00:36:26:18
Speaker 2
Thank you Tracy, have a great school. You.
00:36:26:20 - 00:36:54:08
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Anti-Racism Leadership Institute podcast. Remember, the fight against racism starts with each and every one of us. Together, we can create inclusive environments in our schools that celebrate diversity and empower all students. For more information, visit our website at Anti-Racism institute.com and subscribe to our channel. Join us next time as we continue to shine a light on the champions of change.
00:36:54:10 - 00:37:02:03
Speaker 1
Stay inspired, committed and let's make a difference together.