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Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds
Welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat Podcast—an inclusive space for educators, DEI practitioners, and all individuals eager to foster diversity and understanding! If you're seeking a vibrant, authentic podcast to guide you in implementing Multicultural Education, look no further. Are you yearning for inspiration to cultivate a truly inclusive classroom community? Join us on a journey filled with insightful resources, practical tips, and a touch of humor, all led by the knowledgeable educator, Jebeh Edmunds.
Our podcast is designed to uplift and empower you, offering a blend of expertise and laughter to spark creativity and engagement in your educational endeavors. Tune in to discover a wealth of valuable insights and strategies that will ignite your passion for inclusive teaching practices and multicultural learning.
Embark on this enriching experience with us, and together we'll champion diversity, inspire change, and create welcoming spaces for all. Subscribe now to stay connected, join the conversation, and access more empowering content. Let's make a difference, one episode at a time! Thank you for being a part of our mission.
Cultural Curriculum Chat with Jebeh Edmunds
Season 5 Episode #3 My Conversation with Dr. Deonna Smith
As I sat down with Dr. Deonna Smith, the air buzzed with anticipation for the stories and insights this educational justice advocate would share. Our discussion journeys through the landscape of Dr. Smith's childhood as a student of color navigating a predominantly white education system, uncovering the roots of her commitment to anti-racist work and the crucial reform needed within our schools. With the guidance of Dr. Smith's experienced voice, we dissect the concept of culturally responsive pedagogy and how it's imperative that curricula serve as both mirrors and windows for students, reflecting diverse identities and opening perspectives to new worlds.
There's a transformative power in a teacher's mindset, a theme we unravel as Dr. Smith and I consider the positive ripple effect of fostering inclusivity within the classroom. We share heartfelt narratives of educators who have discovered their teaching vocation later in life, and the unique hurdles they must leap in creating a nurturing educational space. This episode is a clarion call for teachers to embrace creativity and community building, equipping them with strategies to navigate the choppy waters of systemic constraints. Tune in for a heartfelt exchange that promises to enlighten and empower educators to harness their autonomy, inspire their pupils, and weave a stronger fabric of community within their classrooms.
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Hello, welcome to the Cultural Curriculum Chat. I'm your host, jeppa Edmonds, and in the guest chair we have today, dr Deanna Smith. Dr Deanna Smith is a former teacher and school leader and educational justice advocate. With over a decade of experience, deanna has worked with students and teachers in grades K through 12, and even in the higher education setting. As a student teacher, dei practitioner and administrator.
Speaker 1:Deanna saw firsthand how inequitable our schools could be, but she also saw the potential for schools to be spaces of liberation and joy. Deanna's passion for connecting theory with practice led her to pursue and complete her doctoral degree in education and social justice. In her work, she strives to make theories and pedagogies accessible and applicable to teachers and learners. After wearing many hats inside the school building, deanna transitioned into her advocacy work. Now Deanna works with education stakeholders across the country to fight for joyful, inclusive and equitable spaces for students. Deanna's latest book, rooted in Joy creating a classroom community for equity, belonging and care, is a guide that blends theory, narrative and practical tools to help teachers and leaders build spaces for their students to thrive. When Deanna isn't working, she enjoys hiking, baking and dancing.
Speaker 2:In the guest chair we have Dr Deanna Smith. Dr Deanna, I am so excited that you're here today. I gave our listeners your background in being raised in your work, especially in social justice, so could you just build up your story? What is your story? How did you grow up and discover this passion of anti-racist work in the education system?
Speaker 3:Yeah, hello everyone. Thank you first, so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you today as we can go back to my experience as a student going all the way back. I am from Spokane, washington, so it is a very homogenous, very white area of Washington. So I grew up as the only student of color at my elementary school and almost always the only student of color and especially the only black person in my advanced classes or honors classes and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So my experience of education was very much that I had to learn how to codeswitch from an early age. I had to learn how to navigate a system that was just not designed for a student like myself. I also was neurodivergent. I was undiagnosed at the time as a student but I had different hurdles to overcome in my educational experience and I had two very wonderful parents that did not necessarily know how to navigate that either, because they were working busy trying to provide for us so they didn't have a lot of time to devote to giving us the internet and how to navigate that system. So a lot of it I had to learn, maybe trial by fire, on my own, but what I experienced and what I knew was that it was that I had to really leave my culture at the door, that I had to leave a lot about who I was at the door. To be successful, to be a straight A student, to get those scholarships, I had to leave, in some ways, my blackness at the door and figure out how to navigate this very white school system that was set up to accommodate specifically white neurotypical students.
Speaker 3:And as I experienced that, I became more and more passionate about paving the way but also making sure that other people could follow the path that I forged and wanting to be the teacher that I never had I never actually had a black teacher and so, as I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life post-graduating, I wanted to be the black teacher for students. I wanted to see them in their fullness and how wonderful they are. So that's really what started my journey in education. And then, because of my own personal experience, I knew from day one that anti-racism, culturally responsiveness, was going to be something that was embedded in my pedagogy from the beginning. So that's what really motivated me to learn more, because I didn't get a lot of that in my teacher ed program. So I knew that I was going to have to find the resources one way or another, because it was important to me. So I started to build my skillset that way as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, and we are cut from the same cloth because I also grew up out of the Twin Cities area, never had a black teacher K through 12 as well, wanting to be that black teacher that I never had. And you know you are right. And in seeing that in equities and in trying to be that change agent, that's what I like following your work. Another quick question that I had for you too. A lot of educators you know when we're talking about looking at the systemic racism and looking inward. Do you have an example of that for our educator listeners that can kind of get their head wrapped around. What am I missing?
Speaker 3:An example of how systemic racism works in education.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, let's go to the very Sunday, okay, or however you think is best.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I think for a lot of teachers, what we don't necessarily see is that the normative I'm using air quotes the normative standard way is not designed for students of color, students who don't speak English at home, you know, neurodivergent students, and so when we think of the standard student, that's really what we're taught to accommodate and that doesn't work for it. It never worked for all of our students, but now we're at the point where it doesn't even work for most of our students. And so it's so important that we recognize that the normative atypical student that our classes are designed to teach us how to interact with, a lot of times that's not the actual student that we're interacting with when we get into the classroom setting. And so, for me, one challenge that I consistently had is you know, I wasn't.
Speaker 3:Curriculum for me was always a lens into another culture. It was always like looking at someone else's experience. I never had an opportunity of the curriculum being a mirror. I didn't read stories about people that were like me. I read stories about other experiences than it. So I was always on the outside looking in when I would be in social studies. I didn't learn about blackness as it exists as itself, as this beautiful, deep culture. I only learned about blackness as it pertains to whiteness, which was slavery and civil rights. I never got any other investment. I never learned about other ways of being and understanding what it means to be a black woman, or even what it understanding about other cultures that wasn't focused on white American culture. So my experience as a student was very much oriented towards an experience that I didn't have firsthand, and that's okay, but I think for a lot of teachers they don't even recognize how much we're leaving out of the average experience.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you, deanna, and I feel like and you know, to be in that educational space. So many of us are gripping that scope and sequence. They are gripping their guides that they have to do and we're going to talk about your book in a second. But I love how you wrote in your book in thinking about, and I quote do we see our students in their full humanity? And just like you were saying, you know that mirror, we're missing that mirror and these are the only two pillars are going to focus when we're talking about blackness, everything else doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:And I can totally see what you were saying of leaving our blackness and our other cultures at the door, leaving our ways that we learn at the door in order to get what we can get in the day to day school, and I think that is really important. A lot of us educators have that fear of letting go of that. You know that scope and sequence because we've already done it. I used to always tease my colleagues and say you can leave the tub, you can leave the tub, but what is your favorite part of Jack Rary's film rights movement in your band.
Speaker 2:A lot of the other people in that movement that we can always highlight and amplify, and I always would say to the honor when we would teach if we start with African civilizations before we even talk about slavery, because so many of us growing up were like, oh, this is it, this is all that we're taught and all that we are reflected about you know so.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that what you said. Another thing, too, that I really want you to kind of add up is so many of us, especially in this day and age, talking about. I just want the strategies. Jebs, tell me what I gotta do, and I love how you talk about mindset, you know. Can you, can you just give us a little taste about your theories about mindset and doing this work?
Speaker 3:Right, right. So one thing that I say all the time is that a classroom is only as anti-racist as a teacher leading it. A curriculum is only as culture responsive as the teacher that is delivering it. Because I get this a lot, so on social media, people will DM me what do I do about this particular scenario, and I love to give advice and help and support, but what I never want is for people to assume that by simply checking a box or doing a thing that all of a sudden you are, you know, unpacking all of the huge inequities that we have in education and it is important to boil that down to a day to day. But there's some bigger challenges at play and so that's where the mindset comes in. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 3:A lot of times teachers will talk about, you know, how do I get my kids to stop talking? Well, I can give you a strategy for helping the kids quiet down, or one mic or one voice, or whatever it is. But I also want to talk about what is your mindset about who is talking in class and who is doing the learning, and should kids be able to talk, and what is the discussion and what does it mean to like have a classroom where we're not just going back and forth with the teacher but we're actually learning collaboratively. Because I think a lot of times that's at the bottom, because we as teachers are looking for ways to get kids to conform to rules and expectations, but sometimes our mindset is not there to say, does this rule of expectation even make sense? Right, because I don't want to tell you, like, how to get your kids to stop talking. If I go to your classroom alone, behold, the kids are talking because they never get to talk, because they're just in direct instruction. They just sit there and listen and then you know they're trying to talk anyway, that they can, and we're trying to squash that out. So that's one example of like a strategy is good, but we have to talk about the mindsets, and a lot of teachers don't realize that they have internalized a deficit mindset about our students, and what that means is we're seeing our students as lacking, and if you engage with social media at all, you will see this over and over again Kids these days, they don't want to, they don't da-da-da, they can't whoop-de-whoop. And now let me tell you there are a lot of challenges because, for folks who don't know.
Speaker 3:I sub from time to time. That's how I kind of stay fresh as subbing, and so there are definitely some things going on in the closet room. There are some serious challenges, but our mindset is so focused on what the kids are lacking, what they can't do, that we're missing. Okay, maybe, or maybe our system isn't setting them up for success and we have to address our mindsets and our system. So we're talking about kids have a really short attention span. Okay, that might be true. But also, like, do you like to be talked out for 10, 15 minutes at a time when you have to sit? Perfectly still, because I don't. So two things can be true Maybe our mindset about how we run our classroom and what our expectations are needs to be unpacked and we need to get to the root of that deficit, and also we need to strategies for supporting our kids in classrooms so that they can do well. So I think people are giving it kind of an either or, but it's really a both and yes, a both, and I love that.
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like with us as educators. I feel like they need to sacrifice one in order to gain the other, and I love that when you say they both need to work collaboratively. And you know, as I do when I'm thinking, especially how I process. I need to talk it out, I need to practice talking it out, and I was that kid that talked too much in class, but it wasn't like as big as roughly. But I'm just trying to gather my thoughts and thinking of how we were, as young people too, in that classroom and having to sit and, and, and even that part of your book where you said there's a teacher that wouldn't let anybody go to the bathroom, like I'm getting you prepped for the next grade level, and it's like, well, who are we prepping and why?
Speaker 3:And where are they going, yeah?
Speaker 2:Now, do we want to have that fear of that child going to the next grade going? Well, I can't even do this, so I better hold it, you know. And so that whips up more anxiety as well. I love that how your delivery Deanna is very like, attainable, you know, and in your delivery and your Instagram you got to follow her. I'll have all the details, everyone. But, yeah, you think the laugh it makes you go. It makes you go. Yeah, I got to look into that and oh, I've done that too, you know, because we all want the best for our student, but we also have to sit back and go, wow, what works for me doesn't work for everyone. And, like that, we need to start making that shift in order to be more equitable for all of us. And you're right with that, and I'm going all over the place, but that deficit mindset so many of us still don't have that asset mindset, you know, with our kids that are learning a different way, yeah, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, and yeah, it's what I try to hope. What I hope people understand is that I'm coming from a place of support and I think for so long, for some reason, all of this work kind of got this bad rap that it was like one more thing to do. And so I've been at PDs where I come in and they're like I have to grade and I have to do this. I can't also be culturally responsive and my responses are always like y'all this is going to help you, like you are going to be less frustrated. This isn't just one other thing, this is a pedagogy, it's a way of life, it's a way of being that will not only sustain you but sustain your students. And it's coming from my experience, and I talk about this in the book as well.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of these bad things that I'm talking about that I have done. Some of my students are on my social media, so from time to time you'll see them in the comments. Be like yeah, this myth used to be too straight. Da, da, da, da. And that's the truth.
Speaker 3:I have made a lot of these mistakes, so it's not coming from a place of trying to shame anyone. It's saying it'll be okay with being wrong about something. I was wrong about the way that I did some things when I first started teaching, and I'll probably be wrong about things that I keep doing today. But I I try to continue to embody that asset-based approach so that I can keep learning and getting better. And when you engage with it that way, when it's something like exciting, when it's something interesting, when you think of yourself as a lifelong learner, it's really sustainable. But if you keep thinking about it as one more thing to do or something that the district says I have to do, it's never going to feel good. So it's about changing our mindset about this work in and of itself as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I love how. You even said in your book too how it's so interconnected and it is not just one other thing. You know, we're already establishing our classroom community from the jump. We're we're constantly making sure that kids can feel that they belong in that space. It's just fine tuning some of those things. It's important for us educators to remind ourselves, you know, and our love of teaching our future is so important. So you know when. I also would love for you to just share more about your book. I'm such a fan. As soon as you drop your listeners, I am with on Amazon and I'm like, yep, I'm glad you're in it. So everyone, deanna's book is called Rooted in Joy Creating a Classroom Culture of Equity, belonging and Care. When I love about your book, before you share it, it's so practical, you can dog ear, go back to it. I really highly recommend them using it in their professional learning communities and in your chapters are, like I said, easily digestible with pedagogy as well as practice and your own self-reflective. You know experiences. So, yeah, tell us more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the book was like I mean, it was really a love letter to teachers, to my students, to the learning that I've done, because, you know, I really wanted to marry this, the pedagogy, the frameworks, because I, you know, I got my doctorate and education right and I read all of these amazing scholars who had all these things to say. But then, at the same time, I was translating it into social media. So I'm trying to take or you can't see, but I have like hundreds of books behind me. That's my setup. So I'm trying to take all of this but turn it into something that can be distilled on social media and shared, because the reality is a lot of teachers won't have the opportunity, like I did, to get their doctorate or to learn more and go deeper at the same time. So I was in that, that mind of how can I make this accessible? How can I bring this down at the port folks? And then it was also really important to me for my former students to understand that, like I made mistakes as an early career teacher and I you know some things that I still, that I did, I would still do some things I wouldn't do, and I wanted them to see that I was reflective about it. I'm a learner. So my former students that had me first-year teaching I'm able to go back and see this is what I did, right, this is what I would have done differently. And so to kind of honor you know the fact that my students were learning along with me, I mean when your first couple, your teacher, especially because I was like 21 years old, like we were all learning together, we were children so I could really wanted them to be honored in that way and then all of my colleagues I had some amazing colleagues that I learned from that I still talked to to this day. That helped me shape what it looks like to put this stuff in practice.
Speaker 3:And then I tried to marry that with all of the research that I was doing and it was so important for me to have something that teachers can reference, can look back on, Because when I first started teaching I don't want to name drop and get in trouble, but there was a couple books that were recommended to me as like the field guides, right, Like these are the things you look back and you reference, but none of them were about working, supporting, uplifting kid the color. It was very much training teachers to have classrooms about conformity and control and not about learning and community. And so I wanted my book to kind of disrupt that a little bit, because I was like I'm seeing all of these teachers. The first gift that they get out of their teaching credentialing programs is like no shade, teach like a champion, and to me that a lot of those strategies don't resonate with what I would call a community. That's about learning over control.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to add something to the work and I'm working on book two already. So I'm and I think I'm like two, but I want to continue to add to that so that teachers have something and can really feel seen, like. For those teachers who are out there who are feel like they're alone. Maybe they're the only person in their building that cares about this stuff, Maybe they're like not you know, they're not getting the grade level lead job because they asked the tough questions. I just wanted them to feel like, really seen, and like somebody was there walking with them. So this book was all about kind of trying to create that and it's been a wild ride, Like somebody just told me that they got my book for Christmas and I brought tears to my eyes because it's like this is so crazy that people you know are this is a gift to people, so it's been the most rewarding thing probably I've ever done for sure.
Speaker 2:Ah, and I cannot wait the honor for your next one and the more to come after that. You know I went into education later on in life. I had my two kids, you know my youngest was six months old and I got my first grade teaching job. And I'm like, what do you mean? You can't read like I was working Teeth reading with them, and you know this was an in my 101 Management class, and all this and I'm like, ah, I would have loved to have had your book going through, especially the first three years.
Speaker 2:But even as a seasoned teacher, going back and you know, learning things that I in the back of my mind was, oh, this has always been this way. It's like no, I can disrupt it. You don't have to keep going because of something that you saw and and leaning with, like you said, being that teacher that disrupts and and questions For the best and the betterment of their students. You know, and that's something a lot of us educators are too afraid to do Because they're like well, if I do ask, then what are the repercussions on me and I want you to kind of talk to us too with your book is, how are ways that educators, when they read your book. What do they need to really keep in mind? We talked about mindset and the pedagogy. Is there another like nugget? You want them to kind of keep in mind while they're reading your book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's so important, which you just said, which is that you I so, as a teacher, you feel a lack of autonomy, right? You feel like the district comes in, the principal comes in, and I hear this all the time from teachers that say I'm afraid to do what you said because I'm worried that my principal will come in and have an observation and I'm not going to be doing it the way that they want, right? And I think it's yes, and your classroom is your e-mail classroom is your ecosystem. You are building your own little community and Whatever the terms and ways of being that y'all agree on in that classroom is the way that it is in that classroom, and so I want teachers to not to minimize the very real challenges that come along with being observed and being supervised and all of that. But y'all, we have a lot more power than we realize. You are shaping these little minds and what, what you say in that rule to them, it really goes, and so I highly recommend for teachers to lean into that and To freedom dream what it means to create a classroom where, like, we do something different. So you know, if, if the school culture is toxic, what if it's not what if it's not inside your classroom.
Speaker 3:And so I I want to invite people to live in that spirit of why not? Of Saying how are we going to do this? Not we can't do this, but strategizing and saying like, okay, technically we're not supposed to, but how can we be creative and get around that? Because the second you ask, how can we do that, your creativity turns on. If you say you can't do something, your creativity is off. You're not, you're not thinking right because you've just given up. But if you say, how can I subvert, how can I? You know finesse, how can I weedle around? That? Like that kind of energy is what I want teachers to bring into it, because I know there's gonna be folks that read this and think I am in Florida. I am not supposed to be talking about any of this stuff right now and I'm not trying to get you all fired, but there are always ways to Circumvent, subverse and finesse. So go with into it with that spirit for sure.
Speaker 2:I love that and yeah, no matter what state you're teaching, once you close your door it is your classroom ecosystem child, you know, not knocking on your door on a right run has been around. Maybe he is not coming in your classroom, not coming in or see if not come in your class or what a little thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love this, deanna. And before we wrap up, one more question. I happy before you share where we can find you. Yes, oh, can you give us a great, just a quick tip on how to get the ball moving in your ecosystem? We're already over halfway over of our school year. There's something teachers can do to kind of continue that sustainability.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So one thing that I see a lot for teachers, especially when things start to go south or when they have challenges, is we think that we need to like, circle the wagons and be even stricter. We think we need to crack down, and it's this very really. It comes from the carcerality of education, but in our minds we think, you know, the kids are getting out of control. So I got to tighten it up a little bit and what I invite you to do is instead to lean in and double down on community. And at first it might seem a little scary because you're thinking like, well, wait, if I don't crack down, they're going to go cray-cray, it's going to be out of control. But when kids feel embraced and part of the community, they have a invested interest in maintaining that community and so we have to give them a little bit more credit.
Speaker 3:So what if you're seeing a lot of big behaviors and kids really like going? You know losing it or you feel like you're losing it in the middle of the year? Instead of cracking down, think about the antecedent, think about what might be underneath and then double down on those community builders. Double down on like this is our space, and it could be scary, like I said, because you want to like there's like a knee-jerk reaction to when things are going badly to try to regain control. But I invite you to A sit with why you feel such a deep need to control and then B think about how you can really double down on community. And it takes time, but you will start to see the seeds sprout because we're sowing seeds. We're not. Nothing is transforming overnight and punishments don't transform overnight, even though that might take. A bigger community is a better way to humanize our students and really create that robust, healthy classroom ecosystem. So that is my tidbit when things start to feel a little out of control, don't lean, don't double down on control, double down on community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I used to always say when February is run around I was like, forget for February.
Speaker 3:they forget who?
Speaker 2:I am. I hear you on that, my friend. Awesome. Where can we find everything, deanna Smith, and where can we get your book, my dear?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So definitely pick up Rude and Joy. This conversation is interesting to you. It is available at Target, amazon, bonson, noble, and if you'd like to support a black owned business, it's at Mahogany Books and they do ship nationwide. So check that out and you can find more information just about me and what I do. I do do this work with schools, districts and teachers, so find more info at deannismithconsultingcom. And, of course, please follow me over on Instagram where we talk. I mean, we have these conversations daily, so I try to do so much like so many free tips, so much free content for people, because I know that there are so many teachers that want to do it. They just need the tools. So I try to provide that as much as possible over on my Instagram, which is just my name, at Deanna Smith, and I'd love to connect with you over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to love her channel. You're going to love this book. She's got wonderful prompts, listeners, for just how to do your own reflective practice, because as educators, we're always going to be lifelong learners and always reflecting everything Yep. So she's got you and you know what I have to say. You're not just a field guide, honey. You have worked this book to a point where educators knew, seasoned, even retired, can enjoy this book and share the knowledge that you have instilled in all of us. To continue this work, because it's not going away and I'm so proud to get to know you in person. Like I said, I've been your fan for a long time on Instagram and even reading this book. My husband's like he's like you're talking to somebody. I'm like uh-huh, yeah, I had a kid that would run around too. Yep, yep. I'm like my poor husband. I'm like yelling at your book because I'm just so excited.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's so true, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:Now can we start on class on the economy?
Speaker 3:Okay, oh Lord, that's the whole little podcast.
Speaker 2:That's the whole little podcast child. Well, Deanna, thank you. Thank you everyone. I will have Deanna's contact information in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the cultural curriculum chats. I will see you here next time. Bye-bye, Thank you.