Jonathan Santos Silva, Host:
Throughout this entire season, we've interviewed small and mighty nonprofits across the country that create positive outcomes for BIPOC students by investing in BIPOC educators, but there's one national organization we haven't featured that is also actively working to reimagine education by expanding opportunities for BIPOC teachers. Yep, that's right. I'm talking about our very own Teach for America. Today on changing course, we are looking at how Teach for America's investment in BIPOC educators is transforming America's education system one teacher at a time.
Elisa Villanueva Beard, Guest:
What I believe we have a duty to do as educators is ensure that our children actually are exposed to the full diversity of the world where kids really understand there is a big world out there with people with different backgrounds, experiences, religion. Our own students have to figure out what they care about, be really validated in their own culture and background
Jonathan:
From Teach for America's one day studio. You're listening to Changing Course. I'm Jonathan Santo Silva, A 2010 Teach for America alum on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. And since leaving the classroom, I haven't stopped partnering with educators, students, and communities to reimagine education. This season we're talking to innovative nonprofits from across the country that are committed to attracting training and retaining BIPOC educators and providing opportunities where they can flourish. We have so much to learn from leaders across America, moving education in a new direction and a change in courts will happen one school at a Time. Teach For America is a diverse network of leaders committed to creating access to quality education for all students. For over 30 years, Teach For America has been recruiting outstanding and diverse leaders to become TFA. Core members committed to confronting educational inequity. Core members often end up staying in the classroom beyond their two year commitment, and many others continue to serve their students by pursuing avenues that create systemic change in education through entrepreneurship policy or school leadership.
One of the major barriers TFA has been tackling for years includes increasing representation in the classroom, which has a profound impact on student outcomes. For example, when a black student has just one black teacher by the third grade, they are 13% more likely to enroll in college, and that jumps up to 32% when they have two black teachers by that age. Today we'll look at how Teach for America is intentionally addressing the barriers that keep BIPOC teachers out of the classroom. Let's hear from our guests starting with Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, chief of Equity and Belonging at Teach for America. In her day-to-day, she's responsible for creating a safe and inclusive space for TFA core members and staff across the country.
Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, Guest:
I am Dr. Barbara Logan Smith. It's important for me to name the doctor because I'm the granddaughter of sharecroppers. My grandparents met married in Baia, Mississippi. They sharecropped across Mississippi
Jonathan:
As the daughter of educators and activists. Dr. Logan Smith's parents taught her about the systems of inequity in the world. She also grew up believing that education was a pathway of possibilities, a tool for creating the change she wanted to see in the world.
Dr. Logan Smith:
My mission, the only reason that I have been placed on this earth is to illuminate brilliance. And so I know that it's there and I am a black woman, which is so obvious to so many, but that means so much to me about who I am, about the force that I am, about the strength that I am, and about the ability that I have to show up as myself, not a monolith, not somebody else's brand of black, but just me fully clear about the legacy and the ancestry that set me up to be who I am.
Jonathan:
One of the ways Barbara is pursuing her mission of Illuminating Brilliance is through her work as chief of equity and belonging at TFA. Before stepping into this national role, she was the executive director of the Greater Delta region in Mississippi and Arkansas.
Dr. Logan Smith:
Now, personally and professionally, Jonathan taking this role, I literally was stepping back into the place that did not do right by my family and standing in a space where I was now going to help them do better by their kids, by our kids in that space. And so the like mantle right was big and I understood that if I was out here trying to hold that mantle by myself, I'm the executive director, I do the things we were never going to have the impact that we wanted to have for kids in, for the community. And so if you want to do work for the kids in community, then you have to do work with the kids in community.
Jonathan:
Dr. Logan Smith was never far from the classroom. Setting aside time to visit several per month as a chief equity and belonging officer present and proximate is still her approach.
Dr. Logan Smith:
One of my favorite things about Teach for America is that we've always made a bet on proximity. We've always understood you have to be with the people who are closest to the thing that you are trying to create. And so if you want to create educational equity excellence, which is what we're up to, then you don't do that in a room by yourselves with your staff. You do that out in the field with people. You can't create equity and belonging in an isolated bubble.
Jonathan:
It's not enough to just survive every day. Educators need to be positioned to thrive at work. TFAs equity and belonging work is creating the environment where teachers can do just that.
Dr. Logan Smith:
We need a diverse body of identities because those folks represent all our kids. And so we need those folks in our classrooms. We need those folks in our schools because those folks are in our classrooms as the learners and they're in our community. So that's like critically important and my favorite term from undergraduate psychology, it is necessary and insufficient in and of itself just saying, Hey, we got all those people. We checked off all the boxes. Look, they're all here in and of itself. That doesn't actually create new conditions right in and of itself that puts a bunch of people against an old archetype that looks a lot whiter than them and doesn't look like people who've had their experiences, their backgrounds, their intersectionalities, like none of that is actually setting it up to be a place where those people can thrive. And so professional development allowed us to get to a place where we could talk about the groundwater as a way of saying what you are looking at right now is not about that individual person.
It is not that Jonathan didn't study well enough. It's about Jonathan having had this experience of all these intersecting lakes, the criminal justice system, what he had access to in terms of health and wellness, what he had access to in the education section, what he had access to economically. All those intersecting lakes all have the systemic racism in them. And that all comes down to the groundwater, which is feeding them all. And so part of what we understand at Teach for America is that you actually need professional development. I love and live for the opportunity to learn in a professional development setting, but in and of itself that is also necessary and insufficient.
Jonathan:
Once folks adopt shared language and gain an understanding of the groundwater, they have a baseline in which to engage, but then it's time to get to work,
Dr. Logan Smith:
Then you actually have to have all your teams make a racial equity commitment. What are you going to do to live into this understanding
Jonathan:
And how is this work translating into tangible outcomes and experiences for students?
Dr. Logan Smith:
We are now asking students because the reality is, Jonathan, most of the metrics that we use to gauge whether or not kids are learning don't include their voice, don't actually include asking children what is the experience that you're having? And so we are survey students and getting in conversations with them about the actual things that are happening for them, what's working, what's not working? Do they feel seen, love, supported as who they are or is there more that their educators can be doing to create those kinds of experiences for them? We're also through the work that we're doing in regions, setting kids up to be a part of the leadership to create the change. And so not just asking how's it going in your classroom, but also asking how do you help us lead children, in my opinion, are the most powerful, pervasive and plentiful resource that we have. And they're usually not at the table. We're not asking them, what are you learning? How are you learning? What do you need? How could the world be better? And this small group of grown folks tries to figure it all out when this wider group of young folks could be with us and informing us about how to move. And so that is another thing that is happening more and more at Teach for America. Students are at the table in the conversation and more and more with decision making rights about how we move this work forward.
Jonathan:
One of the ways we begin to reimagine education is by taking a step back to interrogate the system. We must ask bigger questions that help us get to the root of the challenges in education so we can work on structural solutions.
Dr. Logan Smith:
We've also not asked ourselves what is it about the way that we've created the context and container of a place called school that sets us up to have the vast majority of children be of color and the vast majority of teachers be white? There's something that we are not asking ourselves about why that's true because it's consistently true across the country. So why is that true? What is it about how we are creating programs and access and support? What is it about how we are not interrogating, what is not in place to have other people coming into that? What is it about the consistency in the research that says kids will do better if they have access to folks who look like them in classrooms and yet we keep not making that available? And so that's another set of things that I think is part of the answer to what are the barriers, what's getting in the way?
In general, we are not doing the work of examining systems of oppression and systems of organizational racism. And to add a finer point to that, Jonathan, what I mean is if you go back to the groundwater analysis, if you understand that this is in the groundwater, then you understand that all the systems and sectors that we talk about have the same kind of thing happening. It's why you're still having so many firsts, and I celebrate every first, it's the first black woman too. It's the first Latinx. I can be in celebration of that while also asking myself in 2023, we just got around to having a first. What is it about that? How are we still so far behind? And so it's not just happening in education, it's happening across the board, but education is one of the places that we're all paying so much attention to because our kids are telling us they need something different to be true about their experiences.
Jonathan:
When we have more BIPOC, students who share those identities have more role models, students with different identities can start to see beyond stereotypes. Dr. Logan Smith saw this firsthand when she was teaching in a majority white school in Wisconsin.
Dr. Logan Smith:
I went to a historically white college called Lakeland University in Shaboygan, Wisconsin. Shaboygan is an hour north of Milwaukee, and it is and certainly was in the nineties when I was there full of white folks, very full of white folks and I student talk in Shaboygan, Wisconsin and was identifiable like, Hey, that black here, because there just were not other black faculty and staff in the building. There were a handful of black kids in the school, but the majority of the students were white and had never had access to a black person that didn't fit a set of stereotypes about what black people were until me. And so part of what happened was any notion that they had that black folks weren't rigorous or studious or invested in learning was now challenged because I showed up and I was teaching them how to write English right because I showed up and I was helping them understand how to do long division because I showed up and they were having an experience that was different from whatever they did or didn't see on TV or whatever was or wasn't made up in their families about who black people are.
That's just vitally important in a world where it is still largely believed that to be educated and to be smart is to not be black, is to not be a person of color like that is critically important for all kids to have access to understanding that none of these people are the worst stereotypes you've ever heard about who they are. It's important for all kids to have access to that. And as I saw it in my own experience, I watched white kids and white parents start to shift in their understanding of what was possible because they could see me. And so I also think a lot about how do we set teachers up to not have to be everything all the time because that's not sustainable. And as people of color, we have been expected to be strong. Cue the trope. We've been expected to be black girl magic cue the trope.
We've been set up to think that we are somehow going to be superhuman, and the reality is we're actually still just people. And so how do we make what we're asking folks to do in these jobs more sustainable so that folks can actually stay in it with the help and support and guidance that they need? I told you that I'm Dr. Barbara Logan Smith. What I understand about me, Jonathan, is that while my mom and my dad and my husband and my people think that I'm special, I'm actually not special. I was able in spite of the systems as they are to navigate through, what should be true is that everybody who looks like me, the girls who grew up on my block with me should have had the same kind of access, but it needed to be special. It had to get carved and created out of a system that was designed to not have that be true.
There's something about having white folks have opportunity to experience folks of color who are teaching because it helps to normalize the idea that we are not the stereotypes and statistics that people have heard. It's not true that we're just not going to college. It's not true that we're just not showing up in a place called school. It's true that there's systems and structures designed to keep blocking us from getting in, which then helps folks come to a false attribution of, well, they're just not that smart. Oh, they just don't care about their own kids. Oh, they just don't. No, there's a whole set of things that folks have had to get over, around and through that have gotten in their way. But in a world where you don't have teachers of color, you can grow up believing that it's just true that they don't care about education, that it's just true, that they don't care about excellence and that has to get interrupted. And I think that having teachers of color when you are a white child going through the education process helps at a really young age to disabuse you of the world's notions of who people of color are.
Jonathan:
This commitment to BIPOC leadership is a deeply personal one and it goes all the way to the top. Teach for America's CEO. Elisa Villanueva Beard says that growing up in an environment that mirrored her background had a profound impact on her. As a young person,
Elisa:
I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and in my community we have a population that is predominantly Mexican American. And what I will say is that it was so powerful to have leaders and teachers who looked like me who could relate to my background. My culture really reinforced a lot of the values that I was taught in my home and made learning comfortable and a place where I could really be myself and really felt safe and able to engage. What I believe we have a duty to do as educators is ensure that our children actually are exposed to the full diversity of the world where kids really understand that there is a big world out there with people with different backgrounds, experiences, religion, of course, our own students have to figure out what they care about, be really validated in their own culture and background, and also get how powerful it is to be part of a diverse learning community that knows how to work across lines of difference, is able to create a sense of belonging and inclusiveness and really able to get to better solutions and great ideas because of that diversity.
Jonathan:
According to Elisa, there are three main reasons why Teach for America is committed to building and developing a diverse core.
Elisa:
One reason is we know that systems change requires a coalition of people that really touches every dinner table in America, and that's ultimately what we are working to create. And so that is one big thing that we know, gosh, we cannot do it without that. The second thing is a high quality teacher workforce is in fact a diverse teacher workforce, and we all know that there's this growing body of evidence that really suggests students and especially students of color benefit from a diverse teacher workforce. The third thing I would say is that at Teach for America, we aspire to live in a world where the predictability of a person's success or failure does not correlate with any social, cultural or any other identity-based factors. And to make the progress toward that vision, we know we've got to start with ourselves. We know that progress is only possible if each of us works effectively across lines of difference with our students, with our parents, with our partners, with each other, and each of us also understands and then leverages the assets that we all bring to the work based on our identities and life experiences, which is just rich, rich learning.
And so I would say the bottom line for us is that as we partner with schools and low income communities that serve predominantly BIPOC students, having a racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse core is essential to our impact.
Jonathan:
Since 2014, about half of all incoming core members at TFA identify as people of color. That's more than twice the percentage of BIPOC teachers joining the education field nationally, which in case you're wondering is only a mere 21%.
Elisa:
So we're really proud of that and 41% of the current core are first in their family to attend college, and that is extremely powerful for us in reflecting the communities where we serve. I Teach For America. We know that our students cannot be what they cannot see, and we know that in the aggregate, the national educator workforce is still just not as diverse as it should be, and so there's a need to recruit and retain more people of color as teachers, as school leaders and as superintendents. If we just look at school principals as one indicator that workforce remains predominantly wide, about 22% of all principals identify as people of color. I am proud to say to this, we look at our TFA Alumni, 37% of our alumni who are school leaders identify as BIPOC. And the same is true at the superintendent level.
Only 9% of superintendents are people of color. And when we look at our alumni base, 35% identify as BIPOC who hold those similar positions. And so we need to ensure that all educators feel like they belong, that they can thrive in the long term, and representation is not enough. It's only a starting point, and that's where the real work begins. The pandemic has really turned the cracks that we all knew existed in the system before covid it. They've turned into these gaping holes and it has also inspired this generation of young leaders to channel their commitment to social justice and into the classroom. Generation Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in American history, and future generations will be even more so. And these young people, they understand systemic inequity and they understand this much earlier in their age and in their grade levels than previous generations. And they also know that education is the pathway to so many solutions and they know how important it is to build diverse coalitions in order to drive the kind of meaningful change we are all interested in. They want to be in the arena and they want jobs that provide meaning and community and connection and teaching offers that from the very first day on the job, they are tech savvy. They're mobilizing in their communities and I believe they will be a transformative force in education in the next decade.
Jonathan:
After the break, we'll dive deeper into Teach for America's commitment to BIPOC educators, but first, we wanted to ensure you hear from students across the country who are being impacted by teachers who share aspects of their identities. Throughout this season, we'll be lifting up the voices of students of color as they reflect on their experiences. Here are some words from Marcell's Nation, a third grade student from BR School and conversation with his mom, Maisha Nation, executive director of TFAs Twin Cities region.
Marcellus Nation, Student Voice Memo:
Hello, my name is Marcellus. I share my identity as African American. My parents are from Jamaica in New York, and this is my first teacher, Ms. James, that has shared the same identities as African American. And I'm here to talk about my teacher and how she's special to me because my teacher is biracial and leads an infinity group of black students through second and fourth grade through middle school.
Mikisha Nation, Student Voice Memo:
Marcellus, tell me a little bit about why you think it's important for students that look like you to have teachers like Ms. James or teachers that look like you. Why do you think that's important? Because
Marcellus:
Then they think they might be more special, but I mean it also matters for the other kids students to feel special too.
Jonathan:
Here are some words from high school junior, Charlize Chung.
Charlize Chung, Student Voice Memo:
Hi, my name is Charlize and I'm currently a junior in high school and I'm a Chinese American woman. Fortunately enough, I live in a really diverse area that has a lot of Asian staff members that work in my school district, and my Mandarin teacher is also a Chinese American woman and she has been my teacher for the past three years. And I never thought that I would be able to open up to a teacher in any way because before high school, I never had any teachers that came from the same background as me, but having a teacher that was also a Chinese American woman made me feel like her class was a safe space where I could openly talk about any struggles or experiences I had that were specific to being Chinese American. And this is very important to me because it helped me adjust to high school and also made me feel a lot more comfortable at school.
Jonathan:
Teach for America seeks to develop a network of passionate leaders who make an impact in the lives of kids by getting up close to the problem at hand, whether they continue to lead in the classroom or in a different sector entirely. TFA hopes to recruit candidates who are committed to making a lifelong difference no matter where they serve. Our next speaker works really closely with a team responsible for bringing great teachers into the field. Here's Darin Lim Yankowitz, senior Vice President of Recruitment at Teach for America.
Darin Lim Yankowitz, Guest:
My name's Darin. I'm really excited to be here with you today. I live in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is a beautiful, amazing, wonderful place. Although I'm originally from Oakland, California, and for me, I just have such an enormous passion about bringing incredible people into classrooms in front of our kids. We primarily serve students of color, not exclusively, but primarily. And in doing that, you want to create both mirrors and windows for kids right through your curriculum, through the role that are standing in front of them in the classroom. You want them to be able to see themselves, but you also want them to be able to get a window into things that are outside of their experience. And so it's so important for us to recruit teachers of color because they can connect with kids who share aspects of their identity. They can be role models, they can help students see who they can grow up to become. And it's also incredibly important that we recruit teachers of color who are very different from one another, that we don't treat communities of color as a monolith because I want every little kid to be able to see people who are similar to them in some ways, but also really different from them and to understand that they can grow up to be lots and lots of different things, that there's no one right way to be the type of person who they are.
Jonathan:
That's the why behind the work at Teach for America. But what's the how?
Darin:
I often have conversations with people, schools, districts, other organizations who are saying that I can't find talent of color out there. And I ask like, okay, so what are your goals? Do you have goals around this? Do you hold yourself accountable to this? And the answer is often no. And I'm like, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are telling me that you can't find these people, but you are also not measuring your progress against it. You're not holding anyone accountable to it, you're just throwing up your hands. So first thing we do is we set goals around who we are seeking to bring in the classroom. You measure what matters. Second, you have to ask yourself, what are we offering to people that are making them interested in exploring this opportunity? And so we think a lot about what are the types of events that we want to do that are going to help people understand what our values are that are going to help them see themselves in our movement, to feel a sense of belonging and values alignment with the people who do this work and that's going to draw them in.
And so we do both virtually and in person a lot of events that are about exploring the issue of education, educational inequity that are about helping people to understand the role that they can play in addressing that issue, the power of being a teacher, but also the necessity for systems change and all the types of things that need to be different in our country that intersect with the classroom experience. And so we will have events where we talk about immigration. We'll have events where we talk about economic opportunity. We'll use that as the hook to say, if you are a person who cares about these things, let's understand how being in the classroom can help you understand this issue better and cut into this issue. And if you're a person of color, let's talk in particular about how this affects other people who are like you, how this affects communities like yours and the unique role that you could play in doing something about it.
From there, we try and have pretty personalized recruitment for folks. Recruitment is really about building a relationship with someone. It's about understanding what are the things that motivate them, what are the things that they're attracted to? What are the things that they're pursuing in their lives and helping them explore whether there's coherence between those things and the experiences that we're offering. Then once there's enough overlap, that's the moment that they say, yes, this is the place that I want to be. This is a place where I feel like I can be my authentic self, my true self, where I can pursue the things that matter the most to me. I'm going to do that by joining Teach for America.
Jonathan:
A question Darin sometimes gets in his line of work is, why don't you just recruit teachers of color? If you feel so strongly that kids of color need to see themselves and their educators, why even bother recruiting white teachers? For Darin, the answer is simple. We need a diverse workforce. Our differences matter and or a key solution to the problem we're facing in education.
Darin:
What will we be saying if we only recruited teachers of color? We'd be saying that white people who were colonizers, who were oppressors at various points in history who caused racism and economic inequity, their descendants now have no role in changing that. The entire burden of ending the impact of racism and poverty in our educational system falls on the people who are impacted by it. I don't think that's right for the same reason that I don't think it's right to say, well then maybe we should only recruit white teachers who should do something about the legacy of racism caused by their formers. Like, no, that's not right too. You of course need people of color playing a lead role saying, this is how I'm impacted this, how my community is impacted, and therefore the answer is we got to change together. We've got to have a coalition of people. We need people, a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds all united around the same thing, which is a deep, deep conviction that every kid in this country is capable of greatness if they have the right opportunities. We solve our nation's problems through everyone coming together,
Jonathan:
Teach for America Deeply values partnership and working in coalitions with a diverse range of community organizations. In recent years, it has done so in part through its national community alliances groups committed to creating culturally responsive leadership networks for BIPOC educators and equitable educational landscapes that improve outcomes for all students. Teach for America's pursuit of these goals has taken different forms over the years, but the commitment to this mission runs deep. We had the opportunity to meet with three TFA leaders in this effort, Soukprida Phetmisy, Wazihanska Cook, and our next guest, Tamila Gresham. Tamila began her career in education as a 2009 core member in Connecticut where she taught for three years. Today she consults with a number of organizations on diversity, equity and inclusion, and serves as the senior managing director of Black Community alliances at Teach for America.
Tamila Gresham, Guest:
My name is Tamila Gresham. I was born on the coldest day of the year in Birmingham, Alabama, and being born a black child, a black girl especially in Birmingham, really shaped a lot of my perspective, and so I have spent my entire career looking for levers of liberation wherever they might be.
Jonathan:
We asked Tamila about the barriers for BIPOC teachers and many of the pain points we discussed this season came up low pay, costly certification exams and the lack of community just to name a few for Tamila, each barrier points to a larger systemic problem which compounds when it comes to black educators. This goes back to the groundwater analysis we discussed earlier on the show. Before black educators even begin to pursue a career in education, there are barriers set in place systemically based on what these educators did or did not have access to entering the classroom without the necessary resources to do their work. Well always takes an extra tax.
Tamila:
We're looking at black folks who have come through this entire minefield of barriers to even get into the classroom. And for black folks graduating college, they're often like the first or second generation of folks in their family who have had access to higher education at this point, right? Much less advanced degrees or high paying jobs that are then open to you once you have those degrees. So I'm the first person in my family to get a graduate degree, and that's the same for most of my friends who also have graduate degrees who are black. And so given these histories of oppression, when we gain access to higher education, many of us are bringing our families along with us, right? We are the support for that family unit financially or with whatever skill we required.
Jonathan:
In most states, average starter teacher pay is between 30,000 to $55,000 and top salaries. For folks who do go on to get their master's and graduate degrees, their salaries are still often less than a hundred thousand dollars. After everything black educators overcome to get into the classroom, the payoff often ends up not being worth it. One of the ways Tamila and her team at Teach for America are addressing this barrier is through financial investment.
Tamila:
In my role as the senior managing director of Black Community Alliances, we have this thing called the Black Educators Promise Initiative, which is a 10 million grant over five years that we got from Balmer Group, and it's focused on increasing retention and recruitment of black educators. And so my role is to develop programming and decide where that money's going to go. The first thing we did was we researched and we just asked black participants, you know, what amount of money is going to be meaningful for you to make this transition possible? And the answer was $600. So since 2020, we've provided $600 grants to every incoming Black Corps member through the Black Educators Promise Initiative. We are also offering certification and testing support in specific regions that have a large percentage of their core members identifying as black, and then also to support and sustain our educators.
Jonathan:
Although it may seem like this investment is barely making a dent in the grand scheme of things, building out a system with incentives and rewards will have a ripple effect on the field and a positive impact on young people in the long haul. Every little bit counts.
Tamila:
It's so hard, Jonathan, because once you're looking at the whole system and all the cogs, it's like, well, where do we eat? Where do we jump in? What's the thing that's going to move the needle the most? And so I don't know. I feel like the first step is increasing teacher pay, so I'd like to see efforts to do that. We really shouldn't be in a situation where we have to go to private donors to sort of crowdsource a living wage for the folks who are doing arguably one of the most important jobs on the planet. So that would be on top of my list.
Jonathan:
Our next guest is Wazihanska Cook, the senior managing director of Teach for America's Native Alliances. For over 30 years, Wazihanska has been working to recruit and retain indigenous educators, and he and I share a unique connection. I taught several of his nieces and nephews math when I worked on the Pine Ridge Reservation back in the day.
Wazihanska Cook, Guest:
[inaudible] ska. I'm a enrolled citizen of the [inaudible] nation coordination and reside in the [inaudible], the sacred black hills of Western South Dakota, the ancestor home of the Che Chaco, the seven council fires of the Lakota Nakota Dakota speakers.
Jonathan:
Hanska primarily taught in tribal schools in South Dakota, like little wound Crow Creek and Lower Brule. He later served as principal at Pine Ridge High School before working for TFA. For those of us who may not live or work in a community with a lot of native folks, can you speak to us a little bit about the need? Why aren't there enough Native American or indigenous people becoming teachers today?
Wazihanska:
Well, I think this has been certainly a historic and generational issue that has impacted American Indian indigenous education throughout colonization and the taking of native land and resources and actually going through the system of the boarding schools. And so it was a direct attack on our culture by banishing our language, taking us away from our ceremonies, that was the systematic approach to doing that goal of a simulation and termination. And so throughout the years, we have struggled to be able to make sure that we're in control, local control of our education systems.
Jonathan:
Wai Hans's work at TFA helps him build national partnerships as well as oversee the strategic direction of native education within organizations, funding and appropriations through treaties and legislative policies and federal rights for native schools and communities.
Wazihanska:
And so we're working to be the rebuilds of our tribal nations and our communities and hoping to empower our students to be the next leaders of that movement.
Jonathan:
TFA's native alliances was created to foster native culture and expand opportunities for native educators by taking a closer look at some of those culturally specific barriers. There are over 30 tribal colleges and universities in the United States and TFA’'s Native Alliances help recruit and retain a sustainable network of native teachers by collaborating with these schools.
Wazihanska:
So over the, I guess the decade that I've been leading the Native Alliance, we've recruited nearly 400 teachers into the education field. One example of that is Lindsay Early who is an enrolled citizen of the Comanche nation, and she taught in her hometown of Laton, Oklahoma within the Comanche Nation. She's now the deputy director of the National Indian Child Welfare Act, which protects native children from being taken from their communities and their families.
Jonathan:
Wazihanska is clear that this work isn't just important, it's sacred.
Wazihanska:
In Lakota, the word for children is [inaudible]. Waka is sacred or mysterious. So children in our culture are very sacred in our families, and it's up to us as elders, as Lexis or uncles or aunties to ensure that our children are protected, that they're safe, that they're able to have all of the support for that. Many of our generation and prior generations didn't have
Jonathan:
Culturally responsive teaching can help heal those generational wounds and remind students that they have reasons to be proud of where they came from and who they are.
Wazihanska:
When Teach For America comes into our communities, we have to really look at the mission and vision of those schools. And if you look at the mission of like say, little Wound School is to give our students a great education, a global education, but grounded in our language, our culture, our spirituality, our community, and our kinship. And so that kinship, that extended family that we have is really important and I'm so proud that I teach for America, the native staff, the native alumni, and even the Native Corps members. They don't call me like Mr. Cook or Wazihanska, they call me Lehi because we've built that family and that support of what that means to be a Lehi, to be that person who is there and going to be there and to fight for their people.
Jonathan:
Our final guest, is Soukprida Phetmisy, the national senior Managing Director of Asian American and Pacific Islander Community Alliances at Teach for America
Soukprida Phetmisy, Guest:
Nai. My name is Soukprida Phetmisy, hello family. I am a first generation bi-sexual Lao American woman and an auntie who I take that role really seriously. I am also a settler visitor, learning, loving and living on Ojibwe, OWA and Potawatomi land, which is currently known as Chicago, Illinois.
Jonathan:
Asian American and Pacific Islanders are among the fastest growing racial groups in America, Haile from a multitude of ethnic and religious groups. However, they are largely underrepresented in the classroom making up only 2% of educators in the usa.
Soukprida:
And then when we disaggregate that or look at our Pacific Islander educators, that's even less, I think it's 0.5%. Why aren't there enough AAPI people becoming teachers? I do think it's one that they're not being recruited to become teachers. There's very little programs out there that are designed to specifically bring more Asian American and Pacific Islander educators into the sector and to help kind of start dispelling the beliefs that Asian American and Pacific Islanders are doing great, that they're successful, that they are succeeding. There's really a flattened story about their needs. And so a lot of times that's kind of what keeps them away.
Jonathan:
As we've heard throughout many of our conversations this season, our BIPOC educators are walking into the classroom with unique challenges. For AAPI educators, one of those challenges is the model minority myth. It assumes that AAPI people are able to better navigate systems of oppression because they worked hard to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This false cultural expectation also pits the AAPI community against other minority groups as smarter, more submissive and hardworking, while also preventing them from receiving support.
Soukprida:
I think a lot of times that model minority myth is putting undue pressure on a lot of Asian American folks to meet this stereotype that actually is unrealistic and also kind of, I would say it masked the disparities that actually exist when you start to really separate out the group and see that within the AAPI community, there's a lot of strengths in the diversity, and I think a lot of times what the model minority myth will do is make those disparities harder to see and not just for us folks who are trying to find them. It's really hard to see at the national level as well. That's actually why a lot of Asian American and Pacific honors get excluded from federal policies with the mono minority. We're setting them up to be already not needing any supports or resources. And then there's this other piece I'm alluding to around data disaggregation. We keep flattening the Asian American experience until one monolithic experience, and that's actually not true.
Jonathan:
While AAPI teachers face similar challenges as other racial groups, RTA says that underrepresentation of AAPI leaders makes teaching a particularly isolating experience.
Soukprida:
I've had the honor to work with so many AAPI teachers over the years and something I constantly hear when we talk about the resources they need or the things that they're seeking out in this profession, it is community. A lot of the times it is cultural warmth. A lot of the times I think the lack of representation leads to isolation. It can lead to loneliness and it leaves AAPI educators often feeling like they are the only one in the classroom. And I actually mean that literally. I've talked to many educators who say they had never met another AAPI educator in their entire career, and gosh, that makes me so sad. But I'm also not surprised when we remember that only a 2% of educators identify as AAPI. And so I think oftentimes AAPI educators are the only ones in their classroom and they're being asked to speak on behalf of their entire group, which we just talked about. It is so diverse that is just not okay. You can't do that.
Jonathan:
Part of their role is to make connections with AAPI teachers to make sure these teachers understand they are never alone. There's always someone to talk to because the isolation and pressure can add undue psychological stress.
Soukprida:
There is a lot of taboo still around mental health within AAPI communities. And so if you are isolated, if you are feeling lonely, if you are the only one and then you are also enduring this model minority stereotype, you may not be able to often say, I need support. I need help. And if you do say that, you might not always be believed. Oftentimes a p educators that I've talked to feel either hyper, hyper visible or they feel highly invisible and that like ping ponging can be very stressful, especially on their physical, their mental, their emotional health in the classroom
Jonathan:
To combat those feelings of hyper visibility and hyper invisibility. Sorita and her team work on a local and national level convening AAPI educators, their goal ensuring that all AAPI teachers have access to educators doing the same kind of work across the country and that they never feel like they are alone in their work.
Soukprida:
Some of them may never have considered like myself teaching as a pathway, but we try to make sure that they understand that they have a really unique value add in being able to connect with other API students like them. We're really lucky now that a lot of the work that we get to do is can be virtual. In the past couple years, especially in the midst of that pandemic, we've been seeing a lot of folks really realize that there has been a lack of AAPI representation, not just in the classroom, but also in curricula. And so a lot of the work I do too is organizing with other community organizations, national organizations to say, how do we get more representation of AAPI stories, the real stories in our textbooks, in our classrooms, and how do we empower not just Asian American Pacific Islanders educators to tell those stories and teach those lessons, but for all teachers to do that. And I think it's important knowing that there are only about 2% of educators who identify in that way that they are not the only educators burden with telling that story. And so working to pass bills or legislation that say, we need more AAPI representation and curricula is important.
Jonathan:
Recognizing and honoring unique identities and experiences helps us design unique solutions for unique needs, which ultimately creates a better future for the next generation of students. Speaking of that future, I spend a lot of time in spaces with Native American brothers and sisters in education, and the role of the auntie is such an important role, and you mentioned it earlier, and so I want to ask you to put that auntie hat on. As you think about the future of education, what are your hopes and dreams for your nieces and nephews with regard to our education system, the future for AAPI educators, and creating spaces where not just the adults but the students they serve, feel that sense of belonging, that sense of community that you were referencing earlier.
Soukprida:
Gosh, I do take this role really seriously. I have nine nibbling as I call them, and they're constantly looking to me for direction advice. It's a different relationship outside of other adults in their life, and it's really special. And so I appreciate you grounding me in that to answer this question because I think a lot of what I hope for the future for them is space where they really feel like they can 100% claim their LAO identity, their mixed race identity as not just percentages that they're trying to figure out like I'm 50% this and 30% that, but as 100% all of it. And I also would love to see them be able to see other Asian American spyders or educators that look like them in the classroom and early on be able to say like, I had mentors growing up. I have folks who are guiding me that were not just my aunties, but honorary aunties, honorary uncles, other folks who are in my life that didn't make them have the burden to tell their story or to seek permission to be who they are, but to just be.
So I think a lot of what I want for them is this space where it's second nature that they're already included, that they open a textbook, they see themselves and not just stories of tragedy, not just stories of war, but stories of triumph, stories of resistance as well, and that they lead with those stories before they say, oh yeah, the trauma was there, but we got through it in a different way and I appreciative of my ancestors, and I also want them to feel a part of the history. It took me a long time to come around to even accepting the identity of Asian American being a political identity, to be honest. And so I want them to claim that with more hope and more joy than I had to claim it because I was claiming it as an act of resistance, and I want them to claim it as an act of joy.
Jonathan:
We know that there are many obstacles out there that make it difficult for BIPOC educators to either enter or remain in the classroom, and there's likely not just one thing that will fix this problem, but we challenged our leaders today to dream as we've been doing all season long, we asked them to tell us what is one thing they would address if they had a magic wand. Here are our leaders from Teach for America with some final thoughts, starting with Elisa Villanueva Beard.
Elisa:
We need to have more representation, 100%, and there are barriers to entry that we could take on. What is also true is that once we get the representation in the schools, we actually have to take on the conditions that allow for educators to make their greatest contribution for them to actually feel like they are supported. They can be themselves, like they are part of an inclusive affirming community, that they have managers that are able to support them, and they're really able to thrive.
Jonathan:
And here's Dr. Barbara Logan Smith with how she'd changed the education system starting from the inside out.
Dr. Logan Smith:
I would use my wand to really help people internalize and operate according to a groundwater analysis because as long as people can tell themselves, well, that's just that school district, well, that's just that classroom. Well, that's just that kid. As long as we can keep ignoring the systemic barriers that we've actually created, we're not going to do the work to actually build a system that will work for everybody. I was able, in my first year of teaching to get my kids to a place where they grew two years in a single year. They were all like three. They were all two years behind, and we grew right more than two years in a single year. And that was incredible. They were proud. I was proud. And they still lived in one of the poorest zip codes in Milwaukee, and they still faced all the issues of systemic racism. They were still food insecure, they were still housing insecure, like many of them were still facing all the rest of the challenges that systemic racism makes available. And so it would either be about setting the kids loose, freeing them to actually help us create the changes that we need, or it would be about really getting to a place where people understood, internalized and acted according to the ways in which the groundwater as it stands, is interrupting all of our possibilities.
Jonathan:
Well, y'all, that's it for this season of changing course. Thank you so much for listening and learning about all the organizations we were fortunate to speak with this season. For more information, please visit Teach for america.org to explore ways to get involved and impact students' lives for the better. And if you loved the podcast, be sure to rate, review, and follow Changing Course on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Change in course is produced by Teach for America's one day studio and partnership with pod people. Special thanks to the Pod Father, Michael Kress, Georgia Davis, Stephanie Garcia, and the Akande Simons from Teach for America and the production team at Pod People. Rachael King, Matt Sav, Aimee Machado, Killer B himself, Bryan Rivers, Danielle Roth, the tag team Champs Chris Jacobs and Shaneez Tyndall and Carter Wogahn. Last but certainly not least, thank you to Marcellus Nation, Charlize Chung, and the leaders at Teach for America, who shared their time and experience. To help us make this episode, Tamila Gresham , Soukprida Phetmisy, Wazihanska Cook, Darin Lim Yankowitz, Elisa Villanueva Beard, and Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, I'm Jonathan Santo Silva. Peace.