Only One Mic Podcast
Carl Jerard, Brooklyn Dre, and JRob welcome you to The Only One Mic Podcast. We are joined each week by authors, activists, advocates, community leaders, and professionals from several walks of life who would like to offer their experience, expertise, or commentary on the various topics you will be interested in learning.
Only One Mic Podcast
When Education feels like Freedom with Dr. Gholdy Muhammad
In this episode of I sit down with Dr. Gholdy Muhammad — scholar, educator, and author of Cultivating Genius and Unearthing Joy. From her roots teaching in Gary, Indiana, to shaping national education policy, Dr. Muhammad breaks down what it really means to teach to the soul — centering identity, intellect, criticality, and joy in every lesson.
We dive deep into how culturally and historically responsive teaching can transform classrooms, communities, and futures. Forget the buzzwords — this is about education that liberates.
Welcome to the Only One My Podcast called your Rad Rodder Solo, but I'm not alone. I'm honored to welcome a powerhouse in education and culture, Dr. Goldie Mohammed. She's a scholar, scholar, and author, and thought leader redefining what it means to teach, learn, and lead with purpose. Doc, it's good to have you here. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_02:I'm so good to be here. I'm doing well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:That is good to hear. So I'm gonna give you your flowers, and I hope you're ready to receive them. Okay. So the look on your face. So you are the author of two groundbreaking books: Cultivating Genius, an equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy and Unearthing Joy, a guide to culturally and historically responsive teaching and learning. Now, you challenge educators to move beyond test scores and teach to the soul to spark brilliance and identity and liberation in every learner. Now, I gotta say, you know, I remember you speaking and you're saying like one of your things is you like the right co curriculum for like fun. You know, like that's your thing. That's your thing. And I love what you're doing here because we actually need that today, and especially in the climate that we're in, of how I'll just say it, our history is slowly being erased. And I always say as the generations go, the less and less they'll know. And it's up to us, you know, especially as the elders, not calling you, elder, elder, elder, but as an elder, like to know like this is the type of stuff that we have to keep in the forefront. All right. So I welcome you, I thank you for being on, and I just want to ask you, I'm gonna start off with this question. I want to take it back to Young, young Goldie. Like, what inspired your journey into education? And when did you realize this was like bigger than just teaching curriculum?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, you know, ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a teacher. I love to, I was born and raised in Geary, Indiana, right outside of Chicago. And um I would watch teachers. I could I could tell you the different moves they would make. I looked at how they dressed, how they spoke, how they um led the classroom, how they, you know, made children feel better, how they taught. I mean, and then I would go home and like emulate it and practice it. So I remember doing that with my with my teachers at Banneker Elementary School in Gary, Indiana. And I remember playing school with my older brother. He had to be my student. I had a little green chalkboard and I was writing little lesson plans to teach him. I didn't know I was they were lesson plans or curriculum back then, but you know, I loved like reading a book or learning something new and then going and teaching it to someone else. And I just remembered the feeling in my body. You know, like we remembered feelings in our bodies at certain moments in our lives. And to me, that's what made it special and significant. And I knew this is what I'm supposed to be doing because I love that joy that flowed throughout my body, that, you know, that just excitement, those butterflies. And I started to feel it more and more when I decided to, you know, go into education, start my student teaching, volunteer, you know, at the local school or library and just be around children. I just I love the way it made me feel. And I love the power it gave me when I would read something and then then teach it to someone else and see the look on their faces. And that I like that just felt so empowering to me. Um, and you know, I still feel it. It's still the same feeling when I when I do the work now.
SPEAKER_01:And it's good that you never lose it because that passion, you know, I believe that God gave everybody a talent. And yeah, you know, when you say you feel it all through your body, that's what I immediately my mind went to is that God gave you that talent to be able to relay that messages to the kids and all that. Um let me just ask you, as as a as a young like teacher, you know, what was like one of your most challenging moments in the classroom?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, I think I started teaching when I was 21 or 22. I I may have been 21 still. I don't know. Maybe I I don't know what uh with my birthday mail, but either way, I looked like I was in middle school. And one challenging, like teaching middle school and looking younger, right? Um it was fine when I taught sixth grade, but when I moved to eighth grade, you know, it was it was interesting. I made a lot of connections with child with the children, but it was challenging. And I wore suits and I dressed up because I was trying to also look older.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got to differentiate yourself. So, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, differentiated outfits. Yeah, yeah. You might be onto something there. You know, that that was a challenge. Um, sometimes other there there were people in the building. I had I work with a lot of amazing teachers and educators, but there were a lot of people in the building that did not love children the way I did. And that was a challenge. Right, you know, and especially when they think that they could just tell you what to do because you're a new teacher. You know, I had teachers tell me, don't smile for your first few months. And I'm like, but I love to smile. I wake up smiling, like I love smiling, and I want them to see my joy while I'm teaching. You know, so I would, I would, it wasn't a challenge because I never something told me like, don't take that in. You know who you are, you stay true to who you are. But you know, I think we don't talk about this enough, and I don't know how much new teachers experience it now, but it is a form of bullying, you know, new teachers, and you're always you're trying to already figure out who you are and have confidence in what you do. You know, we don't need that extra. But you know, I didn't have a whole lot of challenges starting out. I had supporting and black women administrators. I would come to my principal's office with a proposal. Every time we met, I had put it in writing because she knew I was proposing something, uh overnight program for girls, uh, you know, girls' circle, this group I would start um after school, um, career day. I mean, she I had all these ideas, new websites for your classrooms. And you know, that was big back then to have a classroom website.
SPEAKER_01:Classroom website, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And she just said, Okay, you got it. I wanted to propose to have five minutes of each faculty meeting to have an each one teach one. And she said, Okay, you sure you want to do this? This is your first year, you know. Um, so I just had a spark inside of me. And once I had an idea and I love the way it made me feel, I would just run with it, regardless if people were with me or not. Um, so I had my my first years teaching, I always say were my best years teaching. And part of it is because I was learning with the children too. You know, I was teaching ancient civilizations, and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'm ready to teach this. I don't know much.
SPEAKER_01:Ancient civilizations.
SPEAKER_02:Because they gave me a social studies block as well, and I thought I would only have ELA, which is what I was preparing for. And when I taught social studies, and they said it was ancient civilizations, and I said, I I can't teach this, I cried. And I cried to myself, not in front of everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Not in front of everybody. Yeah, you did it in the car, like everybody else did.
SPEAKER_02:And what made me a great teacher is that I was learning with them. You know, like sometimes when you don't know much about something, but you put in the energy, the time, and the work, yeah, and it your teaching comes alive even more.
SPEAKER_01:And when you're able to unlock something that you didn't know when you can share it, yeah, with that enthusiasm, you know, exactly pick up on that. So I'm looking at like back then when we look at the different generations of children, and of course, like now we're dealing with, you know, they say the COVID babies, COVID babies, and of course, we know attention spans, things are not the way that they um were probably when we were growing up, and even in terms of the way classrooms are run. Like, what is one of the biggest differences that you've seen from your experience starting off teaching and growing into that role into now this role where you pretty much teach the teachers? Like you I'm pretty sure you've gone in classrooms as of late. Do you see like a very stark difference between then and now?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean I wish curriculum was different. I don't see much of a difference with curriculum, sadly. You know, when I was coming up to be a teacher, like, you know, I guess 2002, 2003, um, they would tell me, you know, well, kids are not sitting down in church like they used to back in the day. So their attention span may not be the same. That was the attention span issue.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:If they go to church like you know, generations did before them, because that's that taught many of us um to sit still and to listen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know why I'm laughing, because you had to do that. You didn't have a choice. It was you know, you know why. So, like you didn't have a choice if you didn't do it. You're gonna have a rough Sunday afternoon, but go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And that well, and I'm Muslim, I grew up Muslim, but I was in my grandma's church.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:And so they would say that. Um, they would say those kind of narratives, and then you know, as technology, I mean, the biggest difference is technology, right? Yeah, um, books and seeking knowledge and isn't the same, and getting that, you know, the the biggest difference, right, is what children and what we had to do in order to write and to read and to seek knowledge. It didn't come so quickly, right? You know, it was a car catalog. And then you read the book, it wasn't like AI or these search engines. So, you know, we're in a different era now, and where you have phones and people are still debating, this has been going on for so long. You know, do they do students bring the the technology in the classroom? Does it help? Does it hinder? Does it interrupt the instruction, right? So, you know, these things are still going and things that we really didn't have to deal with, those of us who started teaching, you know, back then.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let me ask you, your opinion. Because I mean we all we all have our opinions on this. Do you think it the technology does it hurt, hinder, help, you know, move forward? Um, what what do you what is your opinion on that?
SPEAKER_02:Depends on how's it how it's used. It it doesn't matter what technology you're referring to. If it stifles intellectualism and critical thought and creativity and independence, it's going to hurt. You know, many of us use like a GPS. I use a GPS everywhere. I go down a block and I put it in.
SPEAKER_01:Even when you know where you're going, I just got to check traffic or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then at some point, I had to ask myself like, is this sort of in like creating a barrier of me figuring it out and critically thinking and remembering and and looking. You know, I had to really ask myself that. And it I think it was, you know, like AI can be used as a useful tool for many people for writing, for thinking, for researching. But if you use it to replace thoughts, and that's the key everything, it should enhance something you already have and know to do. You should be able to write first before you use these tools. You should have some sense of direction before you use GPS. So, you know, if it is elevating something, it can be a tool like anything else. And if it's going to be used in any way, whether it's intentional or not, to replace critical thought, intellect, I think it's a problem.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm I like to, you know, and maybe I like a good primary source document. Like, you know, I I haven't, I probably need to move a little faster in technology and learning it than I than I am. But I do like moments where we can remove tech, pick up a book, smell it, feel the pages. Yes, look at it, you know, be have an experience, a transaction with it, an experience with it, you know. So I like to return to those things and not to ever lose them. And I want children to have relationships with books. I want children to read and pick up books in their hands too. And, you know, I know a lot of I had a friend of mine, she did some research and she said, you know, in middle class households, she found like this was like 10, 15 years ago, I think. She says there were more technology kind of electronic games than there were books in middle class and upper class homes. And I thought that was interesting because, you know, our books sort of being a thing of the past, and you know, I hope not.
SPEAKER_01:I hope not either. I tell everybody because I notice your library, I have my library. Um you better get these things, and especially when it comes to black history, world history, US history, um, you gotta have these things on deck. And we often have, you know, these conversations in our circle with the uh Kindles and the um you know, uh different type of e-books and all. You know, I'm just gonna put my ten foil hat on for a minute. I always believe that that's good in a pinch, like if I'm out and about, I may not want to walk with a book bag full of books like I used to or something. But I always believe that technology can also be manipulated. And so if you're trying to get this particular book or things, who's to say that these things can't be manipulated with an update, you know, and erase certain things out that you didn't know.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. That's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01:That's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_02:And that's why they're trying to ban books from libraries, burn books. I mean, this is not anything new what we're seeing. No, if they can remove these the books from museums, from libraries, they can pretend as if this history never happened. And and this has been ongoing since the inception. And you know, people gotta understand this is not anything new. They've tried and people push back, and then what they do is they'll threaten and you know, scare tactics for publishing companies, so then they won't choose to publish certain content or they try to erase certain content. I've experienced that in my life where I've had folks come to me and editors come to me and say, just in my own writing, and say, Well, can we change this? And and I'm thinking in my mind, if you change this, this erase all of the history black history, this little one.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But see, who's telling you? Is that already in you? Is somebody telling you? Is your boss telling you this? Is the uh who I don't know, but it's happening. It's been happening, it's been ongoing, and I think people are getting more comfortable with it right now due to the social climate, the political climate that's happening right now. They're doing it even more.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And that's the thing is you gotta keep, especially with the youth aware, you know. Um, I interviewed someone uh some time ago and they were talking about how we should keep generational stories going. And so it's like even your particular family history, you know, as those generations die out, somebody should be there to kind of document you know, your own family's journey. Um and the same goes with history. Um I know you said like you had taught ancient texts in in classrooms and things. And it's like sometimes that text don't affect us. Like they don't they you can know about you know you know the Aztecs, which is good, it's but then you don't know basically, you know, history that African Americans and you know Latin Americans have contributed to this country and so on and so forth. So those are things that I look out, you know, and say, Man, you know, get these libraries in your book, in your house, you know, get these books in here. Yeah. Because we're gonna come to a point where they're gonna probably shut down libraries, they're gonna probably tell you everything's online. You know, you don't need to have a physical book. Do you know how many kids can't even turn a page in a book? It it's it's it's staggering. Like they don't know how to actually flip the pages and find what they need to find, and it's it's crazy within itself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So um You know, I remember doing like a study abroad. Oh, let me just add to that. And they were writing letters home, and they didn't know, these were 19-year-olds, uh, undergraduate students. Uh, we did a study abroad in France, and some of the students didn't know how to write the address on the envelope, like where does it go? Wow, you know, you know, so these early literacies and things, it's important to keep, it's important to retain, in addition to, of course, our liberatory histories, our joyful histories. And and you know, another point to that folks are so like they're trying to erase what really happened because they don't want to tell the truth about white Americans during that time. It would make so much more sense if you spend a little bit more time adding to the curriculum into books about white abolitionists. Yes, a lot of people don't know that stuff saying won't you spend some energy focused on white abolitionists who fought with black folks and indigenous folks. Yeah, but the fact that they're not doing that, it shows you who they really are.
SPEAKER_01:Because you never hear nobody talk about John Brown at all.
SPEAKER_02:Right, he was like, We're burning down everything.
SPEAKER_01:He trained them to do this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So nobody talks about that. And um this is actually a good segue into my next question because in in your book, you also talk about the influence of the 19th century black literary societies. Um so can you break that down for our audience? Um, what would those societies were and why were they central to the work that you're doing?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and so like in urban cities in the north um east part of our country and cities like you know, Philadelphia and New York and DC, Rochester, Boston, where black folks had around, you know, 1820s, had uh uh some more liberties than brothers and sisters in the South. They organized around education, around literacy and literature. And we would call them today like a book club, but they called them literary societies or lyceums or reading rooms and literacy clubs and things like that. And they had membership dues, they started in about around 1828 with young black men, you know, adolescent age, young teenage uh teenage, young men, 20s, older that age. Some literary societies had 10 members, some had a hundred members, and they had membership dues. When you became a member of this society, you had to pay a membership due. And the membership dues, you know, it went to the bills of the organization, but most of the money went to to establish a library and it went to books. And then when members would check out books, they were expected to kind of give like a deliver like a few-minute lecture, summative speech, sort of on the book, because you as a member might want to check it out after me and learn, but it was like that each one teach one uh mentality where learning and literacy was like a flame. And they said to keep it to yourself was like a selfish act. So it was like this collectivism around education and literacy. And I found that they they not they weren't just reading to develop their skills, they were reading to develop, like most of us today, when we read books and choose books, they read to develop their identity, their individual identities, their collective black identity. They read to engage their intellect and their minds. They they read for criticality, which was, you know, to understand equity and justice and and use literacy as like a tool against oppression. And then they they read and they learned for joy, you know. Like I saw one literary society, a group of black men reading and women reading about Chinese fashion and you know, and style, you know, that to me that was joy in a world in a society that was full of so much turmoil and pain. And you would find around the start of literary societies, you'll find the rise of black press, starting with the Freedom's Journal in 1827. And so the same members of literary societies were often these editors of these um black newspapers because the white newspapers were not reporting the truth, they were not reporting their genius, their joy, their justice. They made it, you know, kind of how news is today.
SPEAKER_01:News is today, yeah, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02:Tell a lie.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And they said, you know what, we're gonna speak for who we are, we're gonna tell our truths, we gon' we gonna celebrate ourselves, uh, and and they have poetry sections, they have family sections, school sections for parents. They they so these newspapers almost became like a circulated moving library within itself, because you can pick up the black news press and get your literature, get your nonfiction, get your news, get your poetry, get so much. And these literary societies was just a special part of history, and when they dissolved, uh many of them sort of repurposed into like historically black sororities and fraternities because they kept that same mission around service and education.
SPEAKER_01:So, do you think that's like the model that you see a lot of times now with the uh free press and all is like almost like community news and information, and that that what you're describing sounds exactly like just community news and information. Yeah, and and good news, because I was changed you were stealing my thoughts because I was just gonna say don't no, don't don't be so we good, don't be you're not stealing wisdom. So what happens is that you know to speak to your point about the the the negativity of what's being reported about us, you know. Um that's a big thing because you see more about crime and even in just general social media, everything that you see is just almost like a negative strike against you know African Americans, especially in particular our young people, where it's often portrayed as fights and foolishness and things like that. And there's so much more to it. And I guess that that's the general fight of what you see now, even in preserving history, is that we were so much more than slavery. So much more than oppression, you know, with so much more to it. And that that's the one thing that I I love that you were saying about these whole literary societies, is that they gave that information out and let people know, let people know who who you know they are.
SPEAKER_02:And and they started the story off right. See where you start the story, you don't start the story with the teenage mom or the fight. But you might have to start the story off with rape, abuse, neglect, pain, suffering that happened to that child before it happened. And that's what to me, Black News did. We started the story where it really starts. It don't start with what you just happen to see as a result of something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, so much news is that way. So, and and cultivating genius, that's just not a framework, right? So it's like more like a call to action and what educators do and communities often get wrong about equity in education, right? So, um, you want to speak more towards that? Like, what is it, what is it that educators and communities are getting wrong in in terms of teaching the teaching the children?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, first we have to start the story in education offright. Yeah we have to teach, I think, when we prepare the next generations of like teachers and leaders and educate those that are doing the work today, we have to really teach them about education in the United States and where it came from. How did we get to where we are today? That's not really given across a lot of programs, or it might be like one class, but I think we need to really historicize curriculum, policy, standards, assessment, evaluation. We got to really understand where it came from and we got to go through timelines of history. You know, a lot of people think the first desegregation case or the major one was Brown versus Board of Education. It is a major one, but they may not know about Lemongrove School District in 1931 and how they were, you know, segregating Mexican-American children. So we have is so much to understand. That's the first thing we're not getting wrong. I mean, we're getting wrong. We're we're not given that rich depth of history and understanding of what education really is in this country and how it was formed. And the other major thing that you know we're getting wrong are these larger problems in society. Like I always say that all of the social ills and problems that you see in society will be the same problems you see in schools. If you see divisiveness and confusion and you know, ignorance in society where people aren't questioning, they just take anything as truth.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Guess what? We see that same thing in schools. So we have to, this is why we need leaders and community folks and organizers to get the policy and get communities right across society so we see better schools. When we look at the school level, what we're not getting right is the goals we set and what we deem as important for success and achievement. If you look at the first school in the United States from the schools we see today, we're almost setting the same standards and goals. We are in a skills only world. We might teach more multicultural. Cultural text, we may have advanced in our technology, but at the end of the day, we are still teaching, practicing, measuring, and assessing skills written in the form of state standards. Standards that no one teacher can tell me who wrote it. I do so many talks, I get to be in front of so many educators, and I ask one simple question can somebody raise their hand and tell me who wrote the common core standards or the state standards that your district uses.
SPEAKER_01:That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02:And it's crickets. You know how powerful these standards are. These publishing companies will then write the curriculum based on these standards, right? And I I study the standards. I know all the standards and know science standards, so studies, because I write, I write curriculum every week. So I'm always studying standards, and I gotta I ask myself, huh, I wonder, like even for science. Um, I I did a unit on a lesson plan on like what is a mathematician? Who is a scientist? And there was no K2 standard that addressed that. And I said, Well, who why wouldn't they start off the standards with students who will learn the meaning of science and math? Wouldn't that be like and I said to myself, who wrote these standards? Nobody knows. So we are honoring these standards, we we build our assessments, we build our evaluations. Some leaders are even their salaries are based, their jobs are based to these standards. People are going to jail, you know, for cheating on Tes because of the pressure of these. I cannot tell you how powerful they are, powerful they are. And I don't know why in 2025, 2026, we don't have goals, objectives around identity development for children, around intellect, you know, the things of my model around criticality and joy. Why are we still in a skills-only world? All we have to do is turn on the news, even looking at the school shootings. Most of those shooters were children in that district just a year or two before. Skills are not enough to navigate and be successful in this world. But see, skills are enough if your world is maintained, if you honor capitalism, but if you honor humanity, skills are not enough. And they've never been enough for black people.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You can tell.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What we experience and what we see on a daily basis, it doesn't matter if you got your PhD, you got a good job, you're still experiencing words of harm and hurt and violence. So the main thing, we're getting wrong, all those things. But speaking from like curriculum and you know, the ways in which we know what works and what we're seeing and what we're assessing and teaching, it does not match.
SPEAKER_01:So we yeah. I can see the passion. Yeah, about that. But now that we know what's wrong, what would be the solution? Like if we had to put the ball in your court and say, you know, Doc, give us a solution. How do we fix this? Do we get rid of the the you know common core standards and kind of reboot this thing based upon you know equity?
SPEAKER_02:Um education is large. If you're talking about K-5 or K-12 education, pre-K-12, there are things you can do. There are things that higher education needs to do differently, in my opinion, as well. You know, I don't know why education costs so much, you know, and and why property taxes are associated with schools instead of dividing it out to make sure children across the United States, our nation's babies, have all quality education. Like there's so much, but it can be understood where the right leader can address it. So, you know, in terms of what are the solutions in K-12 education or pre-K-12, I'll say, um, one of the very first things we can do is start to have better policies. See, when we just have like professional development and workshops and book clubs around culturally responsive pedagogy and humanizing pedagogy and all these wonderful things, but we don't put it in the teacher's evaluation. When teachers are on strike, do they ever strike? And I've I've sat and been across a lot of strikes. Do we strike for culturally responsive policy? Right? Do we strike for a better curriculum? And we have to go on strike for like money, benefits, those things matter. But uh similarly, we need better educational experiences for students and for teachers in in terms of pedagogy. So, what I would like to see is having uh a more advanced, I'm calling it advanced, but it's historical. If we go back to black folks and ancestors, they've given us the guide and the blueprint and the black print, right? So if we reframe our learning standards, or as the ancestors called them, learning pursuits, and we say that these things matter. And just like we have, you know, students will be able to ask and answer questions, we have goals set around identity, criticality, intellectualism, and joy. And then our teachers have better curriculum to teach around culturally responsiveness, perhaps around these five pursuits. So we're still teaching skills, but just in the context, we have better themes and topics and texts being selected. I think we have to change the school day and the school structure. The way we set school has not really changed since the farm days when kids had to be home to work on the farm. Why are we making teachers teach with no sabbaticals? Why are we making teachers teach the whole day with one planning period? Geniuses do not plan in one period. They need time to cultivate their genius and to co-design and work that curriculum and get to know their students. We're asking so much of teachers with such small pay and not a lot of time. So if you're gonna pay me this, give me my time. That's the next best thing. I would even take time more than pay the older I get, right? So we need to restructure the school day. Principals, we need to think about roles differently. Principals and superintendents need to go in those classes and teach.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I've always thought that. Like you never really see the principals come in and just take a day and just say, you know, let me come in here and teach. Let me see what's going on.
SPEAKER_02:And I be a pedagogical leader, I've never seen you teach. Come on.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:My department chair teaches. About all the department chairs I've had have always taught like a graduate class or undergraduate class. It's not just because it's important for us to see each other as partners in that way, but it's important to experience that joy of teaching if you're gonna lead teachers. I still go, even though I'm a professor, I still go into classrooms and volunteer and teach. So we need to um change roles, schedules, um, expectations. We need a better set of um assessments. We always assess what we value. I don't care if you're on a date, I don't care if you're in a job interview, you're going, you're always gathering and observing and assessing to see if it holds true to the things you value and the things that you want. So the fact that we're only assessing skills based on standards that we don't even know who wrote the standards, right? That's a problem. You can assess joy, you can assess anything you value. So we have to change the standards, the curriculum, the assessment. We have to change teacher evaluation. Teachers need to know that you cannot just teach in this using a packet teaching skills only in these deconscialized ways without any justice being or joy being involved because you're being evaluated on it. So now you're talking about making sure teacher programs and teacher education, the university programs match this. But see, I would like to say that universities program, university programs like teacher prep, they've been doing a lot of this stuff. One university program had a whole class on joy for teachers.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:The problem is they're learning this at the university oftentimes, not all universities, but most. And then they go into the districts, and then like, uh-uh, you can't use any of that stuff you learned. You gotta read this script or you gotta follow this curriculum that's non-responsive, you know. So that's the problem. Like these pieces all have to match, but ultimately we need policies and mandate mandates around it because folks were so easily to come in to say you cannot use the word culture, identity, justice, oppression. You can't teach these books because there was no policy to for them to even remove. So they just came in with a swooped in with their policy, and somehow, no, there wasn't enough pushback on it. Right. So policy, policy, policy really matters, and that, and people need to know that if you're going to be a teacher or a leader here, that this is what is mandated, required, or expected. I hope all that made sense. Because I've been thinking I think about it every day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I thought, yeah, I could tell. Yeah, it made sense.
SPEAKER_02:Like the secretary of education when I was like 20 years ago, I'm like, one day I'm gonna be secretary of education. I would just keep a journal and everything I would change. But you know, I just think about it, just as an educator who's been doing this for 24 years.
SPEAKER_01:I tell you, because now I'm gonna have to do my diligence. Like, who is writing these state standards? That's a good, that's a good, that's a good thing to research. Maybe if you want to rabbit hole deep enough, you can't.
SPEAKER_02:Have they been teachers? Yeah, because I was working with a publishing company, like one of the oldest publishing companies, uh, textbook and curriculum companies in the US. And I asked them, how many of you have been teachers? It was crickets.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So I said, You're writing for our nation's teachers, but you don't know, you don't know what it's like to listen. We gotta ask who is the author of everything. I don't care if you're watching a news report, you read in a book, you read in a book about, you know, indigenous history, disability history, whatever it is. Who wrote this? Who's the author?
SPEAKER_01:Because anytime you hear them words right on this, you hear them words study shows, you don't know who's doing the studying and who's being studied. It might it might not be us. You know, that's just what it is.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I want to say that I've heard you emphasize the word joy a lot in our conversation, uh, you know, up to now, you know. Um why is joy just as roof as revolutionary as resistance in the classroom?
SPEAKER_02:Well, joy was the purpose, the result, the reason for the revolution. You know, I don't care what social cause for the good that you want to study across world history, where people are fighting for their rights, they're fighting against things like apartheid, enslavement. They're really fighting for their joy. So, you know, I look at how the ancestors defined joy and how I think about joy. It wasn't just, you know, having fun or celebration. Joy was peace. Joy was a content, it wasn't smiling every five seconds. It you could be like that, peace, a contentment, and have joy. It was like the sustained, unmoving kind of peace. It was wellness, it was healing. The ancestors fought for joy. The reason why Sister Harriet Tubman kept going back and back again, because she wanted her people to have joy. Because she didn't have to keep going back, she must have been exhausted and scared. And she wanted people to have joy, to feel happiness and peace and wonderment and whimsicalness. So the joy was the ultimate reason for the revolution. It is what we remember in our life. We remember joy. We remember that, like I was talking about the joy that flowed through my body when I was become wanting to become a teacher. That's the thing that keeps us alive. Joy is connected to love. So when people say like joy is not a serious goal of education, then I would say you don't know what education is.
SPEAKER_01:Hold on, I gotta hit the applause on that one, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's I don't know which finger to use though, but um but you know what I'm saying? You don't know what education is. If you think joy should be removed, and why are you even talking about education? You shouldn't even be talking about it, let alone be in the schools or classrooms. So joy is what we fight for in our lives. As soon as we wake up, we are trying to get our joy, retain our joy. If so, if something takes it away, or someone, we try to get it back. Joy is what moves us, and I guarantee you, you know, I have a 99-year-old grandmother.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, God bless.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And she would tell me that all the the sort of words that are connected to what I I how I connect words to joy like peace, kindness, love, gratefulness. That is when I ask her, like, how what's the secret? You know, we ask our elders, what's the secret to living 99 years? She always says that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Joy and peace.
SPEAKER_01:Joy and peace.
SPEAKER_02:So it is is very much serious. It helps with our health, it helps us to understand purpose, it helps to balance out the justice. There's no joy without justice. Um, you cannot fully experience and understand joy if you don't understand justice of humanity. And people who don't look like you, they're justice, right? Because if it happens to them, you should feel it. That's one of the problems in society. You know, we had so many children dying and being hurt, and people just kind of slept well at night and kept going. And it's like, no, we should feel if we're all one, if humanity is all one and we're connected to each other, really, we should feel when a different when a group of people is hurting, even if they don't look like us or speak our same language or share our religious views or whatever, our sexuality. It doesn't matter. Humanity is humanity and harm is harm. So joy is very serious, and I gotta tell you, people, people have gravitated to my work, but it's that joy piece that they love the most. Teachers became a teacher because of joy. Leaders are saying, Oh, I'm changing my staff meetings to talk about joy and to bring some music in. This is this is what we all need. It's not just the students and the children, the adults need it too. Sometimes even more.
SPEAKER_01:It keeps you coming through the door every day, you know.
SPEAKER_02:It keeps you coming and it keeps you happy, you know. I know there are people out here who have to go to jobs that they don't love and and they don't have any inspiration by. And we we want to feel fulfilled, we want that fulfillment. That's what joy offers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then you can look in the faces of people who may come back later on and thank you for the joy you brought down. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So that's a that's a good way of looking at it, and I'm glad you said it that way because a lot of people need to hear this because you're losing educators and droves because they lost their spark and they lost that joy. So it's good that they they hear this. So let me ask you, in your opinion, what is the most dangerous myth currently being taught, or intentionally or unintentionally, in American schools? What's the most dangerous thing that you can see right now in schools in America that's being taught?
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's a good question. The most dangerous thing that that's being taught Well that you know, well, one, it's very dangerous to keep doing things how we've been doing with this changing and moving society. Going back to that idea of just teaching decontextualized skills um is dangerous. The most dangerous thing is also erasing truth and history and lying to children, thinking that they can't handle it. Um it's also dangerous to believe that if I teach children that um oppression happened and the people who were oppressing looked a certain way, that they're going to feel bad or guilty for it. That's very, that's a very dangerous, inappropriate thought.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, why would a child today, a seven-year-old, feel bad for what Christopher Columbus did and his violence and abuse and killings? Nobody is making that child feel bad. There's this idea that just because they look like me, that people are gonna think this is who. Instead of letting white children or other people say, you get to define your white identity, you get to say, This is who I am. You don't have to see, you know. I ask people, do you see yourself more in Harriet Tubman or Christopher Columbus? I ask white people this you should see yourself in their character. I mean, again, Sister Harriet was no joke. She was not to be played with, she knew the mission, she stayed on code, she helped everybody. Are you somebody that helps everybody? So it's it's like we become this, but you know, when people feel that way and think that way, that's because they're really thinking more like Christopher than Harriet.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Like deep, deep, you confront all you want to, but I don't know if you really feeling bad, maybe it's because you may have some of those thoughts. So that's between them and their creator. But my point is it's dangerous to say that children have to be this way just because they look a certain way. And and sometimes I joke and say, you know, if somebody robbed the the corner store down the street with the same big hoop earrings on, the same braids, the same glasses, the big bowl, and they got the same fit on as me. I don't think I'm gonna like feel bad about it because I didn't do it and I don't want to rob the store. So folks gotta really grapple with you know what's inside of them. I love my sisters and my best friends' work, Yolanda C. Liberty East, because she helps people to unpack that and unlearn stuff that's in them, whatever it might be, whether it's racism, sexism, bias, Islamophobia, whatever it is, it's been taught in condition, and we have to, and is in the fact that we just ignore it and we just try to cover it up is dangerous for children. Like we try to cover it up and say, Well, children can't learn it. And then we look at what kind of adults they become oftentimes, and then like we really needed to teach them that. It shouldn't just be about enslavement. We gotta balance it out. You know, I don't want to teach it either. I don't want to teach a, you know, I wrote a unit plan with a writer, another writer, on the Black Wall Street and the Tulsa race massacre.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Writing the unit, I'm editing it, I'm like, oh, I don't want fourth graders to have to relive this pain. I'm reliving the pain. You think I want this for a child? I don't want the pain either. But then they might grow up thinking that black people don't come from wealth. They they don't know that we came from communities. We had it all, and folks burned it down. See, they won't know. They may think that the story started here instead of way back there.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So we have to know purpose, we have to tell the truth. That's the only way we reconcile and heal from the past.
SPEAKER_01:And see, like I I love what you just said right there, because even when I'm around children, and I love when I'm around different race race children, you know. I don't care how old you are, I'll tell you straight up and down. There was a period in time where you guys couldn't sit together. You know, there are a lot of people who fought and died for this particular situation. If you know they're acting up in class, hey, you know, somewhere down the line today there's a child who's running for his or her life in another part of the world, and you have the opportunity to sit here and learn comfortably. You know, and I think that if you don't kind of put those things in them, they don't know what the mission is anymore, you know. So it's like you're here and you're able to, you know, be here and be comfortable and learn and and take this thing you know seriously, as opposed to I'm just here and I'm just gonna go forth and not take my learning seriously. But I think to your point, Dad, it's because we in education shelter that portion of the story where they don't know. And so if we don't present it to them, then they won't know what the mission really is. How far we've we've come. So I want to ask you also like right now, we live in a climate of books being banned, like we talked earlier, history being rewritten, and just the you know, the critical race theory backlash, all of that. So, how do a teacher stay bold if you know you're able to give this message to a teacher? And and what's your message for those who feel like they're being silenced when they want to teach these things?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, it it's my hope and prayer that every, as I said before, like teachers get to walk into their their spaces of work, their institutions, their schools, and feel that joy that flows throughout their body, but feel like they don't have to stifle or silence parts of themselves to be loved, accepted, and to grow, you know, more importantly, to like grow, to have their genius cultivated to to if you're afraid, and this is like joy is a safe space to be free. But if you don't feel safe, you can't be free, you're not gonna grow, you're not gonna live up to your potential as a teacher. So, like my hope is that teachers get to be in buildings that honor and support and love on them and that allow them to feel safe and grow, right? That's the first part. And I know that folks are kind of feeling stuck in a school because they're like, I've been here, it's too hard to leave. I can't, I got retirement builds up. It's so much right when you can't go some of that, you'd be free because you know, professors do that because we have to leave the field, then we have to go to school. Some of us go to school full time, major pay cuts, and then we go, we got like pensions and retirements across different states. It's almost like we're starting new every time, right? But it is something that feels a little freeing with it too, because you don't feel like you just have to stay in a job just because you got your years in.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Do you got your freedom in? Do you got your joy in? That's the question. But I'm going to always suggest once they're in a space that really nurtures them, I'm also gonna suggest to get your people, get your village. You can't, if you're in a space that is very stifling, I've been at jobs like that. The best thing you can do is realize it's a job, go home and take care of yourself, drink water, exercise, be with your family, love on your children, yourself, uh, your spouse, whoever, like you gotta take care of yourself. You can't get sick.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And then I'm gonna suggest get your community, your people, community. As um a sister friend told me recently, like, this is the thing that's gonna save us right now. Like, who's your community? And even if it's not people in proximity to you, like in terms of location in your city or town, you know, get together, virtual meetings, healing sessions, whatever you have to do to lift and grow together and to talk about these dilemmas and problems. Like, I was I was with my sisters, Bettina Love and Um Annalise Singh and Tori and Dr. Dillard, and it's a bunch of us. And the first question was asked to us on a panel. Um, what are the problems in education? And you know, my my answer was, well, damn, I forgot the problems in education because I'm having so much pure joy, you know. It's like I forgot about the problems for just a second, you know. That's what sisterhood, that's what community brotherhood, that's what happens when you have community. You get to kind of just be in a loving vortex, and that's what I want. Get your people together to get your mind right, right? Study the stuff, get ahead of them. You know, like I'm always ready for the people that agree with me. Those are nice. That's always nice, but I'm even more prepared for the people that don't. And so cultivate that mind to be ready. You know, I go through scenarios in my mind. Oh, what about somebody say this? Hit you with this, Goldie. What you gonna say? That's what that's I don't spend all my time doing that, but I spend a lot of my time like really preparing myself and preparing mentally for it so that when it comes, I I have some self-preservation around it and I'm prepared to speak on something and to protect myself and my livelihood. So those are some things I would suggest for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And I wanted to ask too, um, I know you you you have the Hill model, right? And this is just something that just popped in my mind as this conversation was going. So the histories, identities, literacies, liberation. We focus a lot on schools and we focus a lot on teachers and we focus a lot on students. But what about community? Like, how do we get the community involved, the village, if you would like to to in regards to nurturing these kids? I had a teacher one time Professor Neum actually was a principal of the uh at a school, and he said the one thing that he did um with his staff before the the school year started was walk them around the neighborhood. It's like inner city school. So they walk them around a neighborhood, let the teachers see what the kids are dealing with and who they're dealing with every day once they leave this building. And it kind of gives you like an idea of what's coming in the door when school starts. So when I'm looking at that model and I'm looking at the history, the identity, the literacy, the liberation, how do we get the community involved in something like this? We can take that hill model and still put it in the community so they can teach the children even when we're not in school.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, when we say the heel and what those letters stand for, it's not just a broader societal or nationwide histories or ancestral's histories. It's the history of the community, the people in the community, the history of your family, the history of your neighborhood. It's not when we say, you know, I For identities, it is the identities of the community. How has it shifted, changed? Um, who's there, who's among us in the community? Um, it's the literacies of the community, too. You know, isn't and when I say literacies, I'm not just talking about like spoken language, but um the words we say, the things we know, the looks, the nonverbal, the body language, the you know, as well as all the different kinds of spoken languages. And then when I say liberation, I'm talking about the liberation of the teachers of the community too, in the families. So all of that has community ties. I also think um community must be tied into our curriculum. So, you know, I've been writing my K5 curriculum, um, and I'm still in it right now, I'm still doing the writing. But I asked myself that same question like, how can we involve? I got tired of like, I remember reading like some of Detroit's history, I mean curriculum, and I didn't really see Motown prevalent at the time. This was just one point of time, it's very different now. But I said, wow, do students get to know the genius of their community, the justice of their community, the joy, because I talk about genius, justice, joy. And so with my curriculum, I said, Well, there has to be a localizing the content section. So there's a section called localizing the content. So if you're teaching about Tulsa, which is one of the units on the race massacre in the Black Wall Street, children are finding the businesses that are black-owned in their communities, whether you live in Gary, Indiana, Chicago, Atlanta, who wherever you are, or a small town, you're looking at those local businesses. So I think that's one way with the curriculum to involve the community. I also have a section called like family engagement, where they can engage families, caregivers, communities. There's a social action at the end of every unit plan where it takes the community and brings them into this is what we just learned, list extended with community members. So, you know, our schools don't exist without communities. We we should not neglect them or not involve them. We should build around them, we should build our curriculum around them. See, so much uh is already created in schools, and then we say, Oh, and then the community. No, it's the community and everything else is built with it and around it.
SPEAKER_01:And I also want to add on to that because even you know, with all that said and community, everything you said is excellent. I also think two things that aren't really taught within the communities or schools of that nature is um knowing your rights, which is a big thing, like just knowing your legal rights to law. I don't think you're never too young to learn that, especially now with this political climate where they're sending these agents to go do whatever and people don't really know their rights. And I don't care if you're black, brown, or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, it's we're getting every the black and brown folks are getting that right now. I remember a teacher sent me a unit plan maybe about seven years ago, because her children were being taken and put it and put in like detainee centers in San Antonio, Texas. Wow, and so she taught them how to engage in argumentation and and immigration discourse. She was teaching them these things. I think it was like sixth or seventh grade. Yes, that's genius, and is it's helping them protect themselves and their people. And when I say their people, it helps them to protect the people they love and care about.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. So I'd say that also financial literacy, like we can talk about you know Tulsa and all of and not just Tulsa, but all the black communities that were destroyed that actually were thriving black black towns at the time. All of them built that wealth, they built that community, you know, and they knew how to to you know build wealth and financing. And yeah, there's something I think that it's a liberation in that as well to be able to build that wealth for your family and all generationally. And these are things that I think the community don't know. And even in terms of um going back to legal standards, a lot of parents who come into schools are not, you know, um taught the legalities of having special needs children. Like a lot of them don't know that these are the things that you need to ask for, these are the things you need to advocate for. Um they don't know.
SPEAKER_02:So uh where would they know that if they didn't like formally study it? Like who should give it to them? The schools.
SPEAKER_00:They should.
SPEAKER_02:It could be the libraries, the community centers, and things like that. But you know, I think there's an expectation that, you know, parents have to be, you know, should already come in knowing that information. Okay, well, teach them it, you don't complain that they don't know, and then as a school community or district community, you provide no, you didn't create any kind of space to to educate. Here you are, supposed to be the hub of education, right? And you're not educating. Come on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think it's a grave injustice, you know. Uh let me ask you, you know, as we're in our final moments together and all, uh, 10 years from now, what's your vision for education? And what scares you in a direction that we might be headed?
SPEAKER_02:Well, anytime we go backwards, that's scary. Backward thinking, backward, and what didn't work before. I remember I saw a school leader say, Oh, we need longer school days. And I said, Oh, they tried that 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it didn't work then. You know. Any kind of backward thinking scares me. And you know, I like to think these last 10 years, we were making great progress. We had, you know, across districts, and we still do have great leaders. You know, equity was like the cool thing to do. Everybody wanted it, and then people got scared, and then it's like shut down. They changed the names of offices. But I want people to see that it's a good thing. It's not just good for black and brown folks, it's good for all folks. Um, and I just want to see that same progress. I would love to see joy being spoken, just spoken and enacted and a serious pursuit, as serious as the state learning standards, um, as well as identity and consciousness and criticality, as we've been saying. I want to see curriculum come alive.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You know, in in writing, I think by uh the spring, I would have written 120 lesson plans, uh that you know, and then um 36 unit plans. And I I mean I have a unit plan, a lesson plan on knocked out jokes. I just I want people to see like the joy and the the ways in which a curriculum can be manifested to like be like the thing worth living for. Like it it can be so special and beautiful and thoughtful, it can be silly, it can be knock-knock jokes, it can be, you know, I also have like the Asian Exclusion Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1800s in there in the same group level, you know, like it can be all the things, it doesn't have to just be the injustices, it can be the joy. So that's what I would like to see in 10 years. Um, I'm I hope that you know the the things that I'm creating, I'm creating them not just because it's fun and joyful for me to write curriculum, but I'm creating curricular curriculum for parents, for educators, because I want them to see the possibility of what we can be teaching and how we can teach it. If I get people to kind of come along with like the different things we can teach and then the different ways we can teach it, I think you know we could feel a difference in our schools.
SPEAKER_01:That's wonderful. That's wonderful to hear. Now, what's one truth the world tries to silence that you'll never stop speaking? Um because you said you said a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we really didn't land on the moon. I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_01:Listen, if if my brother J. Rob was here, he'd tell you. He's like, we don't believe in the moon landing, but you know.
SPEAKER_02:Don't watch those conspiracy theory videos. But you know, I don't I don't think all truths or falsehood needs to be said. I feel like God knows the truth. I don't need to say that in my in my life. But one truth I'm just gonna keep saying, you know, uh that humanity is worth it. Like we are worth fighting for that black folks are genius and joy. And um, because my work, my life, being a black woman, uh, you know, that's always the closest to me. Um, so I'm always going to talk about genius and joy um across humanity. And when it's time to talk about the the giving some specificity to blackness.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wonderful. Okay. And finally, what's one worthy piece of advice you will give to the next generation? And I deem you as this a freedom fighter, you know, educator and a cultural truth teller. What what advice can you give to that person that's looking at you and saying, you know what? I wanna not say so much as be like Dr. Muhammad, but maybe go a little bit further than what Dr. Muhammad did with what she taught us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, um, I'm gonna say the advice that was given to me um in Islam by my Muslim mother. Um she told me to always um say what is best or or do not say anything at all. Be be quiet, like just be quiet if you got nothing, if it's not the best things off your tongue. But when I write and speak, I was advised to answer three questions. Um is what you're about to say or what you're about to write, is it truthful? Um is it number two, kind? You know, I've never really weaponized knowledge, like learn this, learn the hill model. I don't do that. Um, and then the third question, is it necessary? And you know, that gets me through a lot, and sometimes it it may just not be necessary or in that moment, but 10 minutes from now, okay, it's time. It doesn't mean like I'm always asking myself that, even if it's you know, in the same moment.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that's wonderful. And I know that we have the two books. Are we working on the third one?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the the the next sort of generation of work um is all about curriculum. So there are two more books coming, and those are the 120 lesson plans, right? So there's a book of 60 lesson plans across mathematics, science, ELA, arts and culture, and social studies. So you have all the different disciplines and content areas. Um, these are lessons that can be taught in like 30 minutes or extended to a full um longer days or weeks. So um that's called Nurturing the Mind and the Heart. So it takes the two books that I wrote previously and put it into like really practical pick-up and go lesson plans for parents to use, paraprofessionals, teachers, community members, anyone who loves education and have children in front of them. And then the second major project, which is my heart, um, is uh the genius enjoy curriculum. So again, it takes my model, my work, uh, my 24 years in education and all the roles I've played and everything I've come to read and know and experience of what's needed in teaching and learning and pedagogy, put together in a K5 curriculum. And uh it is so beautiful. I cannot understand that, y'all. It really is like the learning is so innovative and cool and differentiated. It is and I work with a team of we call them the genius garden of writers. I wrote uh worked with an incredible writing team because writing curriculum is such a it's a task. It's a lot to it.
SPEAKER_01:I have interviewed a lot of a lot of writers on this show, and I always have to take my hat off to the commitment that it takes to put something on the page, you know.
SPEAKER_02:And it's a different genre of writing for a teacher you've never met, for children you have never met, but you love them. So that'll be out in uh so my first book will come out April 2026. The second one is um January for K2. The K2 version of it of the book is um January 2027. That's the plan. And then the K5 curriculum will be ready for um, I guess pre-order this spring of 2026 and be released fall 2026. So, you know, hopefully maybe a little break after that, because it's been go, go, go since 2020, since cultivating genius for sure.
SPEAKER_01:All right. And do you see yourself, I just had to ask this, do you see yourself um writing anything outside of you know, curriculum or anything like that, anything education related?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I've been writing outside of education, you know, since I learned how to write, you know. Um, but in terms of like where in my life I have written, I you know, they're not published, and maybe they will be someday. Several children's books. Um, I write a lot of poetry.
SPEAKER_01:I can see you doing it.
SPEAKER_02:I write letters. I've been writing letters to myself since I was a little girl, and I have them all. And I used to um also write acceptance speeches for like made-up awards and honors. I've been doing that also since I was a little girl, and I did it throughout grad school. I would I would make up like, oh, you're gonna get the community award. But you know what it was really doing? It was helping me to work toward what really matters. I was working toward the community because I had already accepted the fictitious award. So I write all sorts of things, um, whatever, you know, songs and um wherever like my pen takes me, I just go.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I gotta say, that letters to yourself title sounds. I don't know if anybody ever used that title for a book, but you might want to consider that one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I think all right.
SPEAKER_01:I thank you so much for your time, Dr. Muhammad. You freedom fighter, educator, cultural disruptor. I'm loving every minute of this conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. You gave us a lot to chew on, you know. So I think, and I want you to know um, on behalf of myself and my brothers, even though they're not here right now, once you have something you're ready to promote, you got a space here.
SPEAKER_02:I appreciate that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:No problem at all. And I just want to say thank you once again, all right, for making space for us. Yeah, it's a very enriching conversation, y'all. So please check out those books, Unearthing Joy. And also the um, oh I'm I'm sorry, I gotta get old, guys. I'm getting old. Alright, so Unearthing Joy and also the uh cultivating genius and equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Please, even if you're a teacher, student, whatever, pick this up. Especially if you're in college, you love stuff like this. Alright, the only one mite podcast is available on all my on all platforms to stream your podcasts on. Also check out our Only One Might Podcast YouTube channel to catch up on the past and coming episodes. Please don't forget to rate the share and subscribe. We thank you for all our new subscribers. Thank you for the engagement. Please like, share, keep doing what you're doing, we appreciate it. We're on Instagram and X at the Only One Mike D1, Facebook and LinkedIn at the Only One Mike Podcast, and you can also contact us via email at the only one mic00gmail.com or call or text us at 302 367 7219 and have your comments and questions played on the show. Thank you once again, Dr. Mohammed. Always a pleasure. And all right, and you of the audience, we thank you for your time and encourage you to speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant, because they too have their story to tell. So until next time, Doc, this one is for you. Each one, teach one. If you can't find one, then talk to the little ones, and you'll see that they're listening to Feel the Missing Peace to Rise and Shine. Peace up.