25 JUN. 2024 · Andrea Foggy-Paxton brings a unique perspective to leading change across sectors, drawing from leadership roles in start-up organizations, established organizations, and philanthropic organizations supporting systems transformation.  This episode answers the questions: What is civics, and why should it be taught to all students? Andrea shares lessons from her experience as an industry titan and appointed school board member.  She also talks about philanthropy and corporations' responsibility for ensuring educational equity. https://www.edloc.org/

18 JUN. 2024 · Stephanie Allen does God’s work.  A career educator for more than two decades, Ms. Allen currently teaches high school in Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, North Carolina, the third largest school district in North Carolina. She was recognized as a Teacher of the Year in 2019 and 2024–a recognition she’s earned. This episode features the front-line experiences of a classroom teacher, centers stories about under-supported students, and describes necessary steps to dismantle the social hierarchy that relegates Black students to the lowest rungs of every quality of life indicator ladder.

11 JUN. 2024 · Dr. Hunter is a prolific scholar, prodigious author, and lover of Black people and our collective freedom. The inventor of the “Black Lives Matter” hashtag, Dr. Hunter’s latest book Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation (HarperCollins/Amistad 2024), has fueled a federal bi-cameral legislative effort to attain equity. This episode explores the genesis of NBJC's Equity Week, how slavery is thriving, the promises and possibilities of reparations, and the relationship between reparative justice and Juneteenth.  We also explore how whiteness is a recent and dangerous invention, lessons Dr. Hunter learned as a student and an educator at high schools and colleges across the country, and the importance of affirming people who have been force-fed a steady diet of white supremacy. Does the Negro need Separate Schools? https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/does-the-negro-need-seperate-schools.pdf  Radical Reparations Healing the Soul of a Nationhttps://www.harpercollins.com/products/radical-reparations-marcus-anthony-hunter?variant=41378013872162 

4 JUN. 2024 · Becky Pringle is an educator with more than thirty years of classroom experience. In 2020, she was duly elected president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union. This episode explores the responsibilities that teachers and leaders have for improving schools and defending democracy, the power and importance of labor unions, and the responsibility that caring and concerned adults have for supporting students and schools. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/action-center/take-action/demand-freedom-learn https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/action-center/take-action/demand-freedom-learn https://educationvotes.nea.org/take-action/vote-plan/ https://educationvotes.nea.org/take-action/vote-plan/

28 MAY. 2024 · Nancy Hanks of the Management Center joins the pod to discuss building, bonding, and boundary setting as necessary for all educators to #ProtectTheBabies. In addition to offering commentary on the recently fired attention-seeking educator, this episode explores the legacy of Reverend Oliver and Linda Brown and the toll that being a race warrior, challenging segregation, and upending white supremacy can exact on Black educators and Black families. Having gone from a life of poverty on the west side of Chicago to becoming a Harvard graduate, Nancy Hanks knows firsthand that one's circumstances do not predetermine one's future. As a teacher, principal, and systems leader, she has led both the development of technical systems and the cultivation of values and beliefs necessary to hold all students and adults to high expectations and provide them the support they need to meet that high bar. She shares lessons learned throughout her #TeachTheBabies journey.

23 MAY. 2024 · Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, former president of The University of Maryland, Baltimore County. This episode explores the extension of Brown's legacy by serving within the higher education administration, the power of praying, the literacy of Black mothers and mother figures, and the brilliance of our babies.

21 MAY. 2024 · Dr. Freeman Hrabowski is your favorite university leader. He served as President of The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, from 1992 to 2022.  This episode explores what it’s like to have lived through the Brown decision, marched and been jailed at the invitation of Dr. King, and extended the legacy of Brown by serving within the higher education administration.

17 MAY. 2024 · In the series opener, Dr. David J. Johns sets the stage for the upcoming season with a look back at the historical context of the Brown v. Board decision that transformed education in our country. In addition to important background, the episode offers three vignettes about pivotal figures in the struggles for educational access, equity, and opportunity in the "land of  the free".

10 MAY. 2024