Our Dirty Laundry
Our Dirty Laundry
Rethinking Schools
Embracing Arts and Social Justice in Education: A Conversation with Dr. Cierra Kaler-Jones
In this episode of 'Dirty Laundry,' Mandy Griffin and Katy Swalwell interview Dr. Cierra Kaler-Jones, a social justice educator, writer, and the first executive director of Rethinking Schools. Dr. Jones discusses her background, the importance of creating educational spaces rooted in joy and love, and how the arts intersect with justice work. They explore the origins of Rethinking Schools, its mission to combat whitewashed curricula, and the transformative work educators are doing to promote social justice in classrooms. The conversation extends to the challenges and successes of incorporating arts and critical pedagogy in education and offers insights into how parents and community members can support these efforts. This enlightening discussion concludes with practical advice on enhancing community involvement in the education system.
Hi, this is Mandy Griffin. And I'm Katie Swalwell, and welcome to our Dirty Laundry, stories of white ladies making a mess of things and how we need to clean up our act.
mandy---she-her-_2_09-11-2025_131539:Hi everybody. We have such a great interview for you today. We're very excited. We have talked a couple of times, about the organization Rethinking Schools, and today we are talking to Dr. Sierra Taylor Jones Katie knew of her from some of her connections. We find out about some other connections that they have. It is a really good conversation. I just love the way she thinks. And then also. Like the way she tells stories, which is really a focus of hers. And I think everyone is gonna love this. I we say that about all of our interviews, but it's because it's true. It is because it's so true. So just to introduce her, Dr. Sierra, killer Jones is a social justice educator, writer, scholar, and artist. Originally from New Jersey, now based in Washington DC She is a graduate of Rutgers University and Douglas Residential College. And also has a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the George Washington University. She has a certificate in Women's Leadership from the Institute for Women's Leadership and a certificate in Global Perspectives in Education. She earned a PhD in education from the Department of Teaching and Learning Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland College Park. a community-based researcher, Dr. Taylor Jones, research broadly focuses on how to create and sustain educational spaces rooted in joy and love, while refuting control and management tactics in school that deny young people opportunities for creativity and critical consciousness building that is amazing in and of itself. Just breaking down all of the facets of that statement. She's also a dancer, which we get to talk to her about, which. We go off on tangents and it's great choreographer, storyteller, writer, and the second black woman to be crowned, miss New Jersey. We es especially wanted to talk to her because she is the first ever executive director of Rethinking Schools, the nation's leading grassroots publisher for racial and social justice in education. Previously, she served as the education and new fellow with Communities for Just Schools and Teaching for Change, and then as the first director of storytelling with Communities for Just Schools Fund. In this role, she worked to help shift national narratives and education by centering youth, family, and educator organizers. Experiences and stories in education work as Sierra explains my life's work. And heart's work is dedicated to storytelling for social justice, using narrative change to disrupt the status quo and dismantle oppressive structures and systems. I believe that with stories, we have the power to create fuller, deeper, and richer connections and in turn, a more radically empathetic and just world. And that pretty much just encapsulates.
k-guest81_1_09-11-2025_151538:inspiring. I know that the bio is super solid and just amazing the work that she's been doing, and I loved how we were able to talk about the arts connection and how she personally has made the arts such a big part of her life, but how she sees that connected to justice work. Intimately connected, like you can't disentangle them and how that shows up in schools. It was just a really beautiful conversation. I left feeling very inspired and excited and even more motivated than I normally am to support rethinking schools. Because I love that organization. We'll link to them in the show notes, but if you aren't familiar, please, please check out, different publications they have, campaigns they have going on, ways you can support them. just a beautiful organization that is celebrating its 40th year and hopefully 40 more.
mandy---she-her-_2_09-11-2025_131539:Yep. All right. Enjoy the conversation everybody.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:We're here.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Hi. Hi. Oh, we are we, Sierra. Thank you so much for being with us. I think one of the first questions we always ask, whoever says yes, is why. Why did you say yes? When we reached out to talk to you, I imagine you get lots of requests to, to speak and to share your experiences, your expertise. So what was it that made you say yes to this?
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. And when I got your request, I think part of it was because we have so many connections and so many folks that we love in common, and also because of, commitments to educational justice and what does that look like and what does that mean, particularly through the frame and the lens of this podcast and. As I was thinking about my own personal experiences, particularly being somebody who was really introduced to feminism through the lens of white feminism and academia. And it wasn't until later in my life that I was introduced to theories and frameworks and life practices of black feminism and womanism that I thought that this would just be an important conversation. And also I think any opportunity that I get. To talk about rethinking schools and lift up the stories of the educators to lift up the important narrative power building work that we are doing and that we need to continue to do. I'm always up for that. So thank you for the invitation and I look forward to the conversation.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:We are so excited. We really nerd out and get jazzed to talk to anybody who wants to come. But we just think your work is amazing. And something that really struck me when we were prepping for your bio is this, mission statement that. You share on your website that says you are committed to working on how to create and sustain educational spaces rooted in joy and love while refuting control and management tactics in school that deny young people opportunities for creativity and critical consciousness building, which I loved so much and it rang as such the exact opposite of the mission of the women we've been. Reading about who've been for generations doing work in school to do just the opposite of that, like fear and ignorance and control and punishment and eugenics honestly and trying to. Make sure that kids don't notice or think anything is wrong with the oppressive conditions that they're experiencing. So you mentioned already a little bit just your introduction to feminism and how that has changed over time and it, so I think we're curious to hear just where your commitment for that vision of education came from. What shaped that, what sustains that? If you can just walk us through, how you came to that commitment so clearly.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:So it comes from a lot of personal experiences. I remember being a young student in K through 12 public schools, and there are specific stories that I remember. I remember reading Huckleberry Finn Popcorn style in my AP English class, and there were two black students in the class, and we would always get called to say the N word and the teacher being like, oh, it's okay to say that word, because that was part of the culture of that particular period in history. And without any reflection, without any critical conversations with the students. And so there were many times where I felt isolated. There were many times that I felt cast aside in my own educational experiences. I had a lot of wonderful educational experiences as well that showed me the power and the possibility of. Teachers that believed in me and that teachers that encouraged me to be curious and to ask critical questions. Especially as a black and Filipino girl in a pretty rural area of South Jersey. For me to be able to take up space, not only with my voice and my questions, but also I grew up dancing. And so in the dance classroom, I was able to physically take up space with my body in a society that has often policed my body and. Space taking. So my personal experiences definitely impact and influence my teaching and my approach to education. And when I became a teacher, a dance teacher, I've been a community-based educator in dance for about. 13 years now I had my own experiences where I had to completely rethink my teaching strategies. I wrote this piece in Rethinking Schools. It's called Teaching Dance for Transformation, where I sort of recount this pivotal moment in my teaching. And as a dancer, as a dance teacher, we're oftentimes taught 5, 6, 7, 8. Do it again. Stand up straight. Look at yourself in the mirror. You have to be perfect again and again. So I very much internalized this perfectionism complex that then started to seep into my teaching. Now it's interesting because I, flow through wanting to create space for freedom and liberation, and also reflect critically on my experiences as a teacher. And I had a group of students at the time when I first moved to DC mostly black girls, and they had all of these questions. They were like, miss Sierra, can we learn about black history and dance?'cause we don't learn it at school. Or can we talk about current events because the world is messed up and I wanna figure out what to do about it. And I'm like, sure. Let's figure out how we can do this. And through the course of this semester, this couple of semesters with the students, we started to just co-create our own curriculum. And that was long before I knew anything about curriculum development. Ended up going back to school'cause I wanted to be better for my students and actually have a theoretical backing. And what we were doing. But through that, they wanted to learn how to improv because that's important in dance, especially if they wanted to become professional dancers. But I didn't scaffold the lesson. I didn't really ever create space for them to be free in their bodies. It was always like, I'm the teacher with the choreography. You do the choreography, and that's sort of it. And so I had this moment when I was teaching, we're doing the improv. I turned on the music and I'm like, just do whatever you feel like. Now I made a lot of mistakes, of course, right? Didn't scaffold it. And also just had not created a container in my classroom for students to be free, and it was really hard for me. But then I moved out of that sort of pedagogy of thinking about how, as me as a teacher have all of the knowledge and the information to how can we co-create this experience together? And so my students were the ones that really influenced and helped to change and shift my pedagogy to now where it's really important for me to create these joyful spaces because the world is harsh, right? The world is on fire in so many different ways. So how can my classroom be a space where students can ask those critical questions? Because they're already asking questions about the world around them. So how can they feel safe to explore, to test out new ideas, to experiment, and then also to create change and act in service of the questions that they have.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:That's such a great vision, I think for the education system and where it could be different from how it is today. I think we've been learning a lot in this recent, bunch of episodes that we've done and throughout our recording history about the educational system in our country and how it started and the fight over it.'cause it really has been a fight, For the vision of what education and public education in particular. Should be and is. And I think it's been really eye-opening to just see how pivotal the education system has been in shaping the narrative of our history and our country and how we view everything. And we've been reading a lot about The recent episodes that we've been doing. It's just, it's fascinating to me when people can see a different vision. So I guess I would wonder have you come up against a lot of pushback against the vision that you've had, and why do you think that controversy exists? And why is public education so important for how we teach our children and the vision that we have for the world?
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Hmm.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:absolutely. There's been a lot of pushback. I think, especially in my role as executive director at Rethinking Schools. I'm very fortunate in that I get to support educators all over the country and all over the world that are living out these visions every day in their classroom, finding spaces that they can carve out to. Be in conversation with students to engage in critical consciousness building, to have joy, to have art, to do community building exercises and work, especially in an education system that is so confined by standards and accountability and standardized testing. And so I think all of it, like you're talking about. Goes back to the roots in the history of public schooling and of education with the, within the United States and the history. So when I think about the history, I think about the conformity and control. That has been really at the helm of what education has been, or I would rather say schooling than education because I think they're two totally different things. And when I say schooling, I'm talking about this process for conformity, this process of control versus the education, which is a lifelong learning process and commitment to learning and to growing and to developing. So I think about us schooling, I think about things even like the school bells. That are in schools, right? The history of that is part of industrialization to in embed students in the process of becoming factory workers, right? So a lot of. Schooling in the United States has also been about capitalism, is about quote unquote producing students, making them producers for capitalism. And then I also think about colonization as part of the control process. I think about indigenous boarding schools and having students cut off their hair, which is really important in and critical in indigenous communities as a way of making them conform and having them change their clothes. I even. Had this opportunity a couple of years ago to travel to Alaska. To learn from the Association of Alaska School Boards and a lot of the really incredible work that they're doing. And part of what the students were fighting for was to be able to wear their traditional clothing to graduation instead of a cap and gown to be able to eat their cultural foods like moose, stew, seal stew at school rather than frozen pizza as part of their federally funded lunch programs. So I see so many different ways that. Young people that educators are really fighting back and I think that the roots of all of the pushback are so deep and I think what we are navigating now is part of what. Many historians and scholars and educators have shown the connections between periods of advancement towards social and racial justice have always been met back with periods of white supremacist backlash. And we are in this period of backlash, we can see go all the way back. Enslavement, there was resistance, and then there's backlash reconstruction, there's backlash. The gains of the Civil Rights movement backlash, right? So every period where there's been advancement, there has always been backlash, and that backlash is a means of controlling us and a means of keeping, Up systems of oppression so that capitalism can continue to thrive so that the wealthy can continue to have power by way of having more resources in a capitalist system. So all of this is so deep and so that's just, those are some of the different things that I've been thinking a lot about is just always grounding myself. In the history, always grounding myself in the patterns and also having conversations with students to help illuminate and be in discussion about the patterns. Because if we don't learn about this history, which is what those in power don't want us to do, when we know about this history, then we know. That we can organize against it. And that's what they don't want. They don't want that action piece. They don't want that next step. And then we also learn about multiracial coalitions that have always led us closer to justice, and that's part of what they don't want us to learn either. So there's so many pieces of it. So many details, but just wanted to lift up. Those are some of the things that I'm thinking about even as we experience the backlash and the pushback against this really important. View and this really important orientation to what education can and should be.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Those connections, being able to make those links between white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, hetero patriarchy, colonialism, like all of those pieces, how they sink. Together and are so interwoven an education that is actively gaslighting students to say, there's nothing to see here. That only serves those in power who want those systems to last. But I really appreciate your point that as, as old and as as deep as those roots are of those systems. So too are the roots of resistance and the communities and the ways that people have been in solidarity with each other and what we can learn from that too. Something that I, listening to you talk and knowing about your experiences as an artist, and I'm listening to you talk about being a dancer and I dance for my own joy. That is it. That's the only reason anybody would ever want to see me dance is oh, that lady looks happy. That would be it. But I'm wondering if you can just share a little bit before we start talking to you about rethinking School specifically just. Of the power of art as resistance and dance as resistance. When I think about, your work as a dancer or your time as Miss New Jersey there are these communities that are deeply embedded with hetero patriarchy, white supremacy, all of these things. You gen, ableism, sexism, all of these things, but they're also. They Art can be such an incredibly powerful space for healing resistance, all of that. So do you wanna just share a little bit about how you see dance or just the arts broadly as a place for resistance work?
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Oh, yes. There's so many ways, and I'll first start by saying part of the research that. Is a part of my heart's work has really been about examining why arts education is often the first to be cut. That's how I got actually interested in and involved in education in the first place, was being a high school student whose school board cut the arts programs and we started organizing long before I knew what organizing. And we were successful in our campaign. They reinstated the arts programs from the organizing, but I started to have a lot of questions of why arts was the first to be cut. And so part of what I try to argue in my research is that one of the reasons why is because. The folks in power don't want us to create, and they don't want us to dream. Because when we dream and when we dream in community and we dream in collaboration, then we're able to see that there are other possibilities than what currently exist. And that's why I think art is so important because it does offer us the capacity, the possibility. The strategy and the vision for being able to create the worlds that we deserve to live in. So I always like to start there because I think that's an important piece of doing arts work is it is something that is deeply personal. It is embodied, but it's also something that can be very powerful and collective. And when I think about the work. With dance. When I think about the arts work, I think about the work that I do organizing with young people In dc I co organize a program called Black Girl Soar and SOAR is an acronym for Scholarship Organizing, arts and Resistance. And I work with black girls in DC and helping them and supporting them in creating Art for Change. So we've done everything from creating zines about social justice topics. They love, I'm doing some work right now with a group of young people. And young people, meaning both girls and also transgender, non-conforming young people as well. We are doing a project in partnership with the Monument Lab in Philadelphia where the young people are creating monuments from scratch. They're creating monuments and reimagining what monuments can be and look like, especially in this moment where we've seen. The resistance of community make it so that some of these harmful monuments are taken down, and now we're seeing the resurgence of placing those monuments right back up. And so there are so many ways that we can create and create for a future is what I think is an important piece of this. Another critical part that I would love to lift up is just the healing the joy, like you said, Katie, like just the joy of movement, the joy of moving together. Because not only am I a dance teacher, but I also teach bar. I've been a fitness instructor for a long time, and there's something really important to me about creating space for people to take care of themselves. In this oppressive society, in this harmful society, we need to be well in order to fight. And so the. Those in power, the opposition. They do not want us to be they do not want us to have joy because they don't want us to resist because they know when we show up in our full humanity that we can resist and we can resist powerfully. So that's another piece of art that I think is really important is the healing aspects of it, but also how it enables us to really take care of ourselves, especially when those in power don't want us to be able to do that.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:That is so true. I had an experience that just. Totally fit in with that. This weekend I was up in Salt Lake for a conference and just happened to be over the same time that John Batiste had a concert, At an outdoor amphitheater there at the Red Butte Gardens. And so a friend of mine and I went to his concert and Andre Day was performing with him as well. And it was so amazing because this is Salt Lake City, Utah. There's. That place was full of some old white people. There were so many old white people there, but at one point, like he stopped the song that he was doing and said, listen. We are here to bring joy. We are here to get you moving, to inspire you to make this a night where you feel connected with yourself and connected with others. He's this is not gonna work if you don't get up and dance. And he was like, everybody get on your feet and move your body. And he actually came like out into the audience with his whole band and they all came out and danced with people out there and it was like. These are the experiences that do bring people together. They All where we can connect and you think that it's just a concert and it's just a bunch of people out, having a fun time. But Deeper than that. Like the joy and the healing that brings is so much more important than the surface
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:yes.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Now we're down an arts rabbit hole bed. This is so great. I'm thinking of the, the stereotype of the white audience being just so stoic
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yes.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:white church, like hushed tone, sit in your seat, don't move. And there, I think it's a trope for a reason. Like that is my experience that it is. Like painful sometimes to be in a space where that is the norm, that is the expectation that you do not emote. You do not emit, you do not make a peep. You know that it is, that the way that whiteness operates in terms of how you experience. Music the way that you are in community together and just how truly awkward it can be to start trying to let go of those lessons that have been taught to you from such a young age to, and it's connected to class in general and all sorts of other things, but I just I have an experience too when grad school. Back in the day, this hip hop artist canine who I love just is wonderful, happened to be coming through Madison in this like tiny little venue and a friend and I were so excited, and he came in. It was all these like Midwestern white dudes, and a few young women in this audience. And it's, it. was impossible to tell that people were enjoying themselves. And I believe that they were, but it was like the way Midwestern, like maybe there is like a sway of a quarter inch, which should tell you that they're really into it, and he got on the mic, he's I don't understand what's happening. And he is I'm out and left. He's I can't with you. And I. So much appreciation for that decision. Yes, this has to be impo. It's like the, and then the way that it is so liberating and beautiful and powerful to be in a space where people are fully human and embracing that and just how disorienting that can be for people who've in, in their religious community, their family life, their neighborhoods have been taught over and over again. Don't move, don't feel
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah,
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:that disconnect.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:Well, And we bring that, I Bring that back to schooling, like the way that children just are. You sit still, you listen, you don't interact. That's just so built into all of it.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:absolutely. That's what I was gonna say is that even the different ways that we police when students can go to the bathroom and when they can't. Like it's all, I believe in service of getting them, like you said Mandy earlier about getting away from being connected with our bodies. Also the intuitive knowledge that our bodies hold. I'm really big on talking about that because we know oftentimes what we need, but this schooling in particular as a colonizing, as a conformity practice tries to get us away from some of that intuitive knowledge. Favor of fact. And I'm not trying to dispute that there are facts, but I'm just saying that also we have to regard like this level of spirit. I think a lot about Dr. Cynthia Dillard's work and the spirit of our work and what does it mean to reclaim our relationship with our intuitive knowledge and our bodies and schooling so often gets us away from that. For example, I'm a trained yoga instructor as well. Okay. And there was a period of time where I was traveling to different schools and doing yoga with young people dur oftentimes during their gym period. And I will never forget, there was a school that I went to that had lines on the floor. And students could only walk on those lines during certain periods of the day. And if you got off of the line, you got a demerit. And I'm like, what is going on? And then they bring this yoga instructor in. I'm like, this does not feel like it's aligned at all. And then I go into the gym room and the gym teacher Was like, alright, the yoga teacher's here, sit down, close your eyes and be quiet. I'm like. That's not what yoga is, right. Getting us away from our body. And this also, I think this weaponization and the sanitization of these important spiritual connective practices for us, how oftentimes they get. They use it as a form of punishment when in reality it's not that. And, that's just one example of one story. I know so many teachers that are also doing really great work in bringing those practices into their classrooms and really thoughtful and intentional ways and creating space for students to be free. So I, I never wanna leave that part out.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:We, Sierra, we're gonna have to have you back. We have all these other seasons mapped out. We're focused right now on motherhood, but we keep coming Up against beauty and wellness industry and
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Oh, yes,
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:operate in those spaces. That's like a whole other season for, 15 years that we could do next. But it's making me think of the one of the recent articles you worked on about mindfulness in schools and how that is being co-opted in a way. To just uphold white supremacy. I have a former doc student that I worked with who moved away and started working in K 12 again and wrote me that she couldn't believe this district did restorative justice and was really excited and then came to realize that there was a closet in the school that had been converted to the restorative justice room with a stack of pre-printed blank apology templates. And so a student would be sent. To the closet to go fill out the apology and come back. Like how things can be just so mutated. Truly, I wanna have you back on for a conversation about the way that wellness. Is weaponized, as i, but in schools too, mindfulness being something that's brought in as a part of social emotional learning, but it's really just let me do breath work to get you to not react to the racism that I'm doing to you. Or, it like putting it on the kid to somehow navigate a horrible system. But just be more quiet about it with these techniques. I, in the article you wrote, we'll link to in the show notes, but anything you wanna say, I swear we'll ask you about Rethinking Schools, but that is just too good to ask you about right now.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah, so I, it, yeah, so many things about that. And I'm so grateful to the, my collaborator, collaborators, and co-authors on that piece. That really shepherded that piece forward. And I came into that piece with a background in social emotional learning work because at the time that I was, writing with my collaborators and thinking about these topics. I was working at an organization called Communities for Just Schools Fund and Social Emotional Learning was really emerging amongst the partners of the organization. So their partners are a lot of grassroots community organizers that are. Fighting for education justice in different ways, shapes and forms. And so we did skill shares around it. We did a community of practice, lots of just learning together of what does this mean? What does it look like? And so throughout that process, I was traveling to different schools also, and I went to a school that had the castle, SEL tenants. On in every hallway, in every classroom posted. And under the under the point about social and cultural awareness, it said keep your hands, feet, and property to yourself, or something like that. And I saw it and I took a picture of it and I brought it back to the community that we were working with. And we were all just what? Out of all examples of social and cultural awareness, you choose something that's not. Even related at all, and in many different cultures, one of the ways that we communicate with each other is through play and through roughhousing. That's how we show each other, that we care about each other and we love each other. And in schools that's not allowed. So you know all of the different pieces of it, but
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Even just the idea of property too.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yes. Your
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:a uni cultural universal.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yes. Yes. The idea of property. So we were really examining that and then we were able to put out a a report that we wrote about social emotional learning and about how people were weaponizing castle's, tenants as a way of making it so that I, in this other article that I wrote on Medium, it's called When SEL is Used as another form of Policing, I was writing about. How they were using SEL for policing to say, if you do not act and you do not express your emotions in these very rigid ways, which is like what you were talking about, Katie, with the way that it, as you were talking about the way that white people are often taught to not emote it. It's if you don't conform to this really whitewashed standard of expressing your emotions, then you are punished or you are policed when we all experience and express emotions in different ways. And that was just a big. Noticing that I had as I was going to different schools and seeing how people were really taking that and then running with it. Now it's interesting because after putting out that article and being in conversation with a lot of folks, a lot of schools started to change their practices and a lot of it too, I also have to lift up, was really grounded in Dina Simmons work and how she was one of the first to really push forward of how. Mindfulness and social emotional learning. And emotional intelligence was really being weaponized in schools and also in workplaces as a way to make particularly black and brown and indigenous folks and students with disabilities and transgender transgender students and non-conforming students to make them conform by way of only expressing their emotions in. In very rigid ways. So I've seen that. And then you were talking about restorative justice. I've learned so much from the restorative justice partnership and work that I've been able to do with them over the past couple of years. Just in how a lot of these, there's so many, oh my gosh. ESEL too does this where they have the, these companies emerge and they have this SEL curriculum or this restorative justice curriculum, right? All capitalism. And then it's like you buy this prepackaged curriculum. And then tell teachers that in a matter of less than a week, they have to then go implement this curriculum and it's really expensive curriculum. And that's not at that, at the root of what social emotional learning and restorative justice and mindfulness is supposed to be about. It is completely erased when we have this type of prepackaged curriculum. Because it has to be based on the individual. It has to be based on the community. It has to be co-created, right? Like you have to use these processes by way of being in relationship with each other and taking this curriculum that people pay for and just plopping it into an already unjust system. That doesn't do anything. And from organizers, I've learned that transformation means that once something is transformed, it can never go back to the way that it was. So if you're just plopping justice or equity or restorative justice on an unjust system that doesn't do anything, it's just, it's Bettina Love talks about this concept of these cosmetic changes. Like it looks good, it feels good on the surface. We pat ourselves on the back, but. It doesn't do anything. It just makes something that is supposed to be restorative and loving and liberatory and just it sanitizes it and makes it something that's actually really harmful. I could talk about that forever.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:Yeah. Oh yeah. I can think of examples of it, like my own kids going through elementary school and know and seeing those programs come through and watching how they're taught those programs and thinking, this is not what this is supposed to be This is not working and it's not at all the vision that they're meant to actually carry out,
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:think it's so hard, knowing that the demographics of the profession in public schools being so overrepresented by white women in specifically, and this is not the experience of every white woman. So I'm talking white women. I'm not, I'm talking broad strokes here, but if you have never experienced. That kind of community or relationship, or you've never ex, experienced what it feels like to engage with people and have it not be. Ruled by white supremacy or ableism or sexism. It's so difficult for you to facilitate a community that doesn't center those things. Even if you, that, even if you don't want to participate in that, it's so difficult to imagine how else it could be. And to your point about the arts being so important, just being able to A, have those experiences so you even know what it means when we talk about, liberatory practices or a community of a beloved community, like what that even is. And then to be able to imagine something different when you're talking about these systems that are so entrenched and even the ways that teachers are prepared and how that education is standardized and what's left out of most teacher prep programs and you know what, so it's just such a cycle. And I think part of what we've been reading about with the work of these white women is just how deliberate they've been for generations. I, we always go back, should we say they should. We say we. It's, I don't, we don't wanna affiliate ourselves with these people. They're like pretty just the ways that they have so expertly influenced these systems and then the ways that they've hidden the work, like really explicitly. Hit papered over what they did or downplayed as a strategy for protecting that work too. So there we joke about how there's all these, like commemorations monuments and organizations that have these really innocuous, sounding names, but are the vehicles for all sorts of really horrible things. And so they, there have been a million different organizations on the other side, organizations that have been working for. Transformation of those systems are alternate systems. It's harder to find those organizations, and yet I know that they've existed. The resistance has always been there, but at least for me, rethinking Schools is one of the organizations that comes to mind immediately as an organization that has been really dedicated and. Really meaningful to so many people as a space to help people imagine, to help them connect, to help them understand what's happening so that they can start to interfere with those systems and to build something different. So can you tell us a little bit of just what the roots of that organization are, how it got started, its mission? Just introduce us to Rethinking Schools.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah, so Thinking Schools is a nation's leading grassroots publisher for racial and social justice and education. Our work is really aimed at strengthening and. And protecting public education through education activism and through social justice teaching. And I love the origin stories of rethinking schools particularly, especially as we are entering into our 40th anniversary as an organization, which I think is really important and special to uplift, just as gratitude to the founders and the volunteers who have really shepherded this political project forward and been at the helm of not only the creation, but. Holding it together for so long because many other organizations have not been able to withstand this political backlash, not only of this moment, but of other moments. And so I think just the longevity of the organization is really powerful to uplift. And I love the origin stories and thinking about the founders of Rethinking Schools who were teachers in Milwaukee. And realized that the curriculum that they were receiving, the standardized testing was harmful. The curriculum and the textbooks were whitewashed and sanitized. And so they were finding ways to resist within their own classrooms. And then they got together and created their own tabloid that they just started printing off of the printers in their homes and then distributing to all of the teachers in Milwaukee. And after a lot of organizing and a lot of, working in coalition and community with other, cities and other locations across the country. The organization started to grow and grow to where this tabloid became a quarterly magazine to where the quarterly magazine also seeded books for publication that also led way to campaigns. And so right now we have several campaigns, some of our newest. Being teaching Palestine and supporting educators and talking about ongoing genocide transgender justice in schools, especially in light of all of the legislation that is seeking to police and punish transgender students. We have teacher unions and social justice teaching for black lives and so many other ways that we try to support teachers that our work is, it's. It's multifaceted in that there is the narrative piece of this in that at a time when so much of the legislation is trying to erase our histories. For us to be able to write our own stories and our own words and pass them down in print is an act of resistance. So that we have a story, we have a history that we can pass down for years to come. But then there's also the piece of the organization that is really about. Bringing educators together to share strategies, to share glimmers of possibility in the classroom to help. Educators experience hope, especially when we know that there is a teacher shortage and teachers are carrying so much. Teachers are being doxed and terminated. And suspended and punished for teaching the truth to children. So to be able to create spaces where educators can come together to talk about these issues, but also to strategize and to feel a sense of community is really important. We get so many of those stories from teachers that say that, our. Our virtual sessions where they get to come together, it helps them feel like they're not alone. Because some of them are really isolated and some of them are the only in their school district or in their school that are teaching in service of social justice. And so I think we have to really be intentional and strategic and creating these spaces so that we have a teacher, a trying to think of the word, like a groundswell of teachers who are really embedded in teaching for social justice, but also so that they have to support, to do because I know it's not easy period, but it's also especially not easy during a time period of political backlash.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:Yeah, I was looking over the website and there are just, there's so many resources on there that I think even from a non-educator. Perspective. I'm like, oh, I need to read this and I need to like, I need to know this myself. And I think about, I come from a different background than education, and so my question is always how does more of like just your regular everyday mom. Go about using this material or asking for this material to be brought in schools or Finding teachers who are interested in teaching this material. And do you have any thoughts on that or any resources that just regular community members can use to support rethinking schools and how to get that information to our public schools that our own children go to?
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Oh yes, definitely. I think first and foremost that a lot of our materials, even though geared toward teachers we've had parents who have written for the magazine as well, so there is some parent stories in the pages of the magazine to also lift up their experiences. And I think that while written. For the teacher lens. A, just as you're saying Mandy, that there are ways that parents and community members and organizers can really use the materials to advocate and to organize. And I think too, finding some of those educators in your community who are really deeply embedded in social justice and interest, introducing them to rethinking schools. We always encourage people to also show up at school board meetings because we know that. Some folks that show up to the school board meetings that are very well organized and very vocal. And so we have to be just as vocal or even running for school board yourself is what we encourage people to do so that we have we're building that political power within the lens of local organizing. And I also will lift up at Zen Education Project, which is co-ordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Every year we have a Teach Truth Day of Action, and that Teach Truth Day of Action really started as a way to push back against the anti critical race theory bans. And it is a day when teachers publicly pledged to teach truth regardless of the law, but also parents and community members. Publicly pledged to support teachers regardless of the law. Because one of the ways that we are inviting and encouraging and asking parents and community members is to show up is that if you see or hear of an educator that is being doxed or terminated, to be able to show up for them and offer support by ways of, lifting up the ways that they may have had an impact on. On your student, on your child or on the community or something that they've done to say, actually, no, I support them and I support what they're doing. And this is what we need more of in our schools because they need that as part of the file. They need those positive stories. And I'll also lift up one of the partners for Zen Education Project and the Teach Truth Day of Action is Red Wine and Blue. If y'all have been involved or introduced to them
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:No. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I came across them in the last election cycle and thought, oh, we should reach out to have a conversation with them. So that's, thank you for.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah. They've been
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:so what, how have they partnered and how did that relationship get established? What are the kinds of actions that they're taking? This is a group of, I don't know if they're exclusively white women, but I think of it as like white moms who are trying to use their, like leverage whatever capital they have for progressive political lines. And maybe that's a, like broad strokes what they do, but yeah how are they partnering? What are the actions they're taking?
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah, so for the Teach Truth Day of Action, one of the ways that they've been really supportive, of course, is lifting it up within their own organizing strategies and also within the schools that many of their children go to. And, one of the reasons why I lift them up is because of y y'all's focus on talking with and thinking about moms. And they've also done some. I'm trying to think of the name of it, but they've basically done, they've done different workshops and strategy sessions for their members in teaching them about why education justice is important. So I think that's something to lift up as well. And teaching them about narrative strategies, teaching them about organizing tactics and techniques because they're really trying to fight against the Moms for Liberty and the other really conservative mom groups by saying, actually no, there are moms that are fighting for just. And this is what it can look like. And here's, they're providing a lot of really tangible hands-on tools and strategies to be able to do that. So I would definitely lift them up, especially in the work that you all are doing. They've been a really good partner for the Teach Truth Day of Action
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:any specific stories stand out to, you're a storyteller. Storytelling is important to you, and I'm wondering at what, in your time with Rethinking Schools, what are one or two stories that stand out as. Ways that parents, families, and educators have worked together to push back on something, to create something new. That's amazing. What stories of maybe hope or possibility when people are aware and are taking action together.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah. One thing you know I'll lift up is the study groups that we have. There are groups of educators, of parents, of community organizers who get copies of a book, say for example, teaching for Black Lives. Right now. We've actually just launched our teaching Palestine study groups and we have had people from Puerto Rico. We've had groups, in Nebraska groups really all over the country and all over the world who are coming together to engage in deep political study because we think that's an important part of this education work is to ensure that people are really equipped with the knowledge and the information to understand some of these issues, to understand the historical context of the issues, and then also what teachers and. Parents and organizers are doing. And so some of these study groups have been able to change policies in their school. I think about the teaching for Black Lives Study groups, who is, there's over 300 study groups across the country now. For that book in particular. And as part of that work, yeah, there's just so many stories of groups that have changed racist dress code policies because of something that they, one of the articles that they read in the Teaching for Black Lives book. There have been groups I think about the new teacher book as well for. Groups that have bought copies of the new teacher book and then shared it with all of their new teachers every year as a way of providing hope and in inspiration and being like, you're not in this alone. We can do this together to help really keep up the morale and the spirit. So there, there's just so many ways in so many stories. And then one. One of the stories too that's also really close to my heart is just thinking about the teachers that we've been able to work with, who have been terminated and that have been doxed. We did a webinar actually with several of those teachers and some of those teacher stories are featured in Rethinking Schools Magazine and one of our editors and one of my comrades and good friends, Jesse Hagopian, in his new book, teach Truth also lifted up those stories. And I just think about those teachers who. We're creating spaces for students to be free, to be liberated in their classrooms and to engage in critical dialogue and conversation. And there's so many stories of those teachers who. Would also in thinking about communities and parents, there were so many communities and parents that rallied behind them, that showed up at school board meetings, that wrote notes for their files that talked about how great of an educator that they were as a means of showing that support. So I also like to lift up those stories as well as I think there's change in that too, is even changing the trajectory of a teacher's experience because of the power of community around them. And. And I think that's really important too, is like we have to really rally around teachers right now. We are experiencing what is another McCarthyism era. Like a lot of these teachers are being put on trial. A lot of these teachers are, are being talked about on the House of Representatives floor in Congress because of the justice work that they're doing. So we have to be equally as. As vocal as our opposition, and we have to lift up these stories of resistance and these stories of hope and of possibility for what education can and should be.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:Yeah, I appreciate all of those thoughts. That makes me also think of a parallel in healthcare of. Where people I know that I work with, and I've had these thoughts myself, a lot of is it even worth it to stay in this Can I really fix it in any sort of meaningful way? Or is it too much on my, emotional state, on my spiritual state, on, all of those things to just fight against that continued oppression and pushback and even danger. Really People who stand up to these oppressive systems are in. Um, and I'm so grateful for people who are willing to do that in Spheres. But I just think of how hard it is, and I think there's so much beauty in rethinking the way that things could be. And I always credit Katie for being the one of us who is like the hope and the vision and the joy. And I'm always like the Debbie Downer over here just but I love having resources and stories that inspire us of, people who are doing things and who are pushing ahead and still trying to make that difference because it certainly isn't gonna happen without it. Yeah.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yes.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:I think that's great. I'm gonna ask one last question that I'm looking at the time. It feels like a Pandora's box question to throw out there at the last second, but I think to Mandy's point. Thinking of transforming systems versus, and it doesn't have to be, versus transforming systems as one place to put our energies. Another place to put our energies is creating something new. Creating your own community, your own way of doing things. I think for some people. Sometimes the charter system or even voucher system seems like perhaps a, way to enter those spaces. I have qualms about that, just knowing the history of those tools and the politics of those tools. But it, I'm curious how Youmake sense of, that. Work from within system, transformational approach, and create our own community and world where kids can thrive and be who they are. Those aren't mutually exclusive, but how do you apportion your energies or how do you think about that?
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Yeah. So one of the things that I have been trying to adopt is this mindset of both, and that we can have both. And think that we have to invest in public schools because it touches so many children. And when we take away those resources for charter schools and other schools, it takes away resources from being able to create really incredible learning spaces for all students. And. I also think as we look historically, there are so many beautiful models of liberatory education, like freedom schools. I think about the Black Panthers. I think about even like the Highlander Folk Center and the organizing that we can learn outside of schools. I think we have to have both. We have to have a really strong, robust critical. Education, public education system and all of the promises of what it can and should be. And then we also need some other spaces too that are really subversive learning spaces. I think about for Zen Education Project, we also do this Teach the Black Freedom Struggle Course series where we have educators and conversation with a historian. One of the stories that oftentimes stays with me is that of Jarvis Gibbon's Fugitive Pedagogy. I really love the framing around that, where he talks about how black educators have always engaged in this practice of fugitive education that is fugitive, that is illegal. And he says this to make it really tangible. He talks about this story about Tessie McGee a young teacher, a young black woman teacher in the South. Who would have Carter g Woodson's textbook, like on her lap and then the corporate textbook on the desk. And then when the administrator would come in, like all the students knew the drill of like how to position the book so that the administrator would see that they were reading this corporate textbook. But reality, they were learning Carter g Woodson. And so much of that is already happening in classrooms. We need that fugitive pedagogy in those spaces. And then we also need the freedom schools. We need the community based education. We need the political education and deep political study and community. And I think too, because so many schools have operated as fortress schools and keeping families and communities out there is a need to bring more community, bring more family into school, and then vice versa, right? All of the learning that we can do together, the intergenerational strategy and learning that can happen in community, that is equally as important as what we learn in school. So I'm gonna lean into the both end because I think all of it is possible, and I think all of it will lead us closer to what could possibly be liberation for us all.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Ah, to Tessie, I feel like we just should toast,
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:to Tessie. Yes. I like, think about Tessie's story all the time of like how can I, and how can rethinking schools, how can we as a community support educators who are doing that kind of like tessie fugitive pedagogy work and support inside and outside of school. And I, I think. There's so many possibilities there that we have to continue to lean into and explore, and also be open to experimentation of what the model can look like.
katy_1_09-11-2025_110921:Thank you so much for talking today, but even more importantly, just thank you for all the work that you have done, all the work that Rethinking Schools is doing. We'll link to everything in the show notes and I hope anyone listening who isn't already connected to Rethinking Schools finds a way to. Support them. Subscribe to the magazine, buy a book, gift a book to someone, donate to the organization. It's incredible work. So thank you so much and we will circle back when we inevitably will wanna talk to you again about so many other things. So thank you for your time today.
cierra-kaler-jones--she-her-_1_09-11-2025_120921:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
mandy---she-her-_1_09-11-2025_090921:you.