Schoolutions –S1 E4: Young Writers Using Their Voices to Reach Authentic Audiences with Jake Chernikoff and Alexander Brian McConduit
[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome toSchoolutions, where listening will leave you inspired by solutions to issues you or others you know may be struggling with in the public education system today. I amOlivia Wahl, and I am thrilled to introduce you to my guests Jake Chernikoff and Alex McConduit. Jake is an educator. He has taught in Ithaca, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Ohio.
[00:00:27] Olivia: Jake worked in a kindergarten class in London, England. He also facilitated programs for middle and high school students on an urban farm in New Orleans. Currently, Jake is a proud dad of his daughter, Sadie. Alex McConduit is an author, educator, and entrepreneur from New Orleans. Alex is the founder of Big Boot Media, a publishing company that produces children's books based in and about New Orleans and W.R.I.T.E. (Write, Read, Illustrate To Educate); a youth publishing program aimed at turning young students into published authors.
[00:00:59] Olivia: He's worked with students all over the world sharing his love for education, entrepreneurship, and technology. Alex has seven books, two of which he co-authored, which we're gonna be speaking to today, Peter and The Pelican; Snoballs for All; Thorn in My Horn, The Little Who Dat Who Didn't; Bloom: The Story of the World's First Flower.
[00:01:24] Olivia: And co-authored with Jake and Jake's third grade students, Our Vote Is Our Voice, as well as Amazing Activists: Real Stories of People Who Change the World. Welcome, gentlemen. I like to kick off each show asking my guests. Who have been inspiring teachers to you in your life? Alex, do you wanna kick it off?
[00:01:41] Alex: Sure. Honestly, I would have to say, although I've had a lot of great teachers, I have to give props today to my professor in college, Robert Bell, who not only helped me finish my first book, but I went to college right after Hurricane Katrina, hit New Orleans, and that book was therapeutic for me and he helped me do it. He helped me think I could be a writer and he was an English professor at Loyola University, so thank you.
[00:02:11] Olivia: Jake, how about you?
[00:02:12] Jake: I'm gonna cheat a little bit and give you two answers.
[00:02:15] Olivia: That's okay.
[00:02:14] Jake: Um, the first, I belonged to a group of teachers when I taught in Philadelphia called the Philadelphia Teachers’ Learning Cooperative. And that was a, a very important and meaningful experience to me, just in terms of, of the learning from a bunch of those people, but also being part of a, a consistent and meaningful community of teachers that were all rooted in this thing called the Descriptive Review Process, which is from a school called the Prospect School in Vermont.
[00:02:41] Jake: That was really a kind of a formative thing that has cycled back through my life. I did a fellowship at the University of Vermont and studied their process even more.
[00:02:48] Jake: But just the, the consistency, the positivity, the intergenerational aspect. A bunch of them were retired teachers who just had so much knowledge and, and expertise. And it was a way to constantly recalibrate, which I think is really important as a teacher. And then my second answer, I, I would say my wife, she's a fifth-grade teacher.
[00:03:07] Jake: We met in graduate school for education, and she's probably the most positive, engaged, constantly challenging herself. Taking on new things, learning new curriculum, and she embodies the lifelong learning aspect of being a teacher and is, is a constant reminder and inspiration to remain positive, keep growing and, and developing as a professional and also a, a great support.
[00:03:35] Jake: I think the two of us both recognize the, the challenges and the humor and the ridiculousness and the, all the things that are involved in this, this weird and wonderful job that we do.
[00:03:43] Olivia: Yeah, indeed. I know it's now important more than ever to circle up with people that have that learning vibe, but also, let's find solutions.
[00:03:53] Olivia: Let's make it work. That word recalibrate-that's what I think as people these days, we need to just be patient with ourselves. Press pause when we're feeling that overwhelm. Um, there's so much joy to be found with children, and I know that's at the, the heart of why we jump into this work with the, the excitement we do.
[00:04:13] Olivia: Henry, my younger son, had the gift of hanging out with both of you in his third grade year. Jake, you were his third-grade teacher, and Alex, I, I remember it was the year of virtual schooling, and Henry would run into the other room and say: Mom! I just had a conference with Alex. And I said: What, what, what happened?
[00:04:33] Olivia: He goes: I'm a writer mom! And here's the thing you need to understand. Henry, as much as it broke my heart, he never loved writing until he met both of you. You changed how he sees himself as a writer, and my older son was working on his resume a couple nights ago. Henry walks into the room and he said: Mom, you know what I'm gonna add to my resume?
[00:04:58] Olivia: And I said: What? He goes: I'm a published author.
[00:05:00] Alex: Yeah!
[00:05:01] Olivia: I get to add that to my resume. I said: Well, you are actually, Henry, you can add that. So, I just, I hope you know the reach you have. It's a full year later after that experience. He has a voice, he has messages to get out there in the world, and that's why I wanna do both as guests.
[00:05:17] Olivia: I'm seeing a lot of disengaged learners, especially when it comes to writing. And both of you took on the work to give kids an authentic audience and engage their voices through activism. I'd love to know how you chose that topic.
[00:05:34] Jake: I, I think we sort of tiptoed into that topic the year before. With a focus on people who had worked and fought and advocated for voting rights, which was, uh, timely in the midst of big elections in 2020 topic, as well as there were some bigger initiatives in, in our school district around civic engagement and, and voting rights and activism around that.
[00:05:54] Jake: So that was a really awesome experience and I think a little bit more targeted in who we were researching and writing about and, and we wanted to to do this process again. I think for me, it both would've been a little redundant to return to that exact topic and just sort of narrow in focus. So, if, if I'm remembering correctly, uh, I think Alex and I discussed wanting to have, uh, a similar focus, the ability for kids to direct their own interests a little bit more and, and open things up.
[00:06:26] Jake: Uh, while for me, a big priority was also having kids see themselves as agents in positive social change and learning about people whose models they could learn from and follow, and seeing themselves as advocates and doers and agents of change in that regard as well. Especially in virtual school and feeling a bit stuck in our own lives in some ways. That opportunity to learn about people who had overcome those challenges felt important to me.
[00:06:55] Alex: Yeah, I mean, really, you know, I want to thank, uh, you, Olivia, for telling me about how Henry's been affected, and I also have to thank Jake for two years in a row helping me accomplish something that if anybody ever took a look inside of my first book, when I published my first book, it was because the thing that pushed me over the top was knowing that if I did it, that it would show other kids in my city that they could do it too.
[00:07:23] Alex: And I had a goal of a hundred authors. This was 10 years ago. And so, Jake, thank you for these two years for the opportunity to do that. And then to hear that Henry's still is impacting his life, that's all you can ask for. I'm so happy that Jake allowed us to pick topics because you're right, it was the elections going on.
[00:07:42] Alex: We had Trump, Biden, Hillary, all types of crazy stuff happening in our world. The politics of the pandemic and the opportunity to, in a controlled way, allow these kids to engage in some reality, some real-world stuff, and for them to learn about people who had changed the world. That was the best thing that we could have done.
[00:08:04] Alex: I honestly don't remember how we selected the topic, but I, I, I have to give all credit to Jake because he definitely led the charge on that. I was just there to facilitate and yeah, it was great. I had an awesome time.
[00:08:17] Olivia: And I, I don't wanna neglect as well. Arlo is not here, but Arlo Chapel was an amazing force in the illustration work.
[00:08:26] Olivia: I know he was influential with Henry as well. It, it was a whole process, right? Involving a lot of people.
[00:08:33] Alex: Arlo had great energy.
[00:08:35] Jake: Absolutely. Yeah. The whole thing I think was just figuring out how to navigate our circumstances and, and what felt like maybe somewhat insurmountable logistical challenges.
[00:08:46] Jake: But, for me personally as a teacher, it, it, these projects were a way for me to kind of re-inspire myself and do something new and do something bold and challenging to say, this is a, a tough and kind of lousy school year in a lot of ways, just based on the circumstances, but we're really gonna make the most of it.
[00:09:05] Jake: I think that's what you have to do as a teacher is, is figure out how to inspire and challenge yourself sometimes.
[00:09:10] Alex: I knew that I would never be in a classroom just because I'm an open heart. I would try to take all of these kids home in New Orleans, so I knew I would never do that. I may do it when I'm 40 or 50, but the opportunity to go in classrooms, which I usually do for an hour at a time, but with Jake, I had the opportunity to really learn the kids, engage with them.
[00:09:31] Olivia: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:31] Alex: Figure out who they were. That was a special opportunity and it was great.
[00:09:36] Olivia: Yes. It is. I think, a main obstacle that could hold educators back from even trying to attempt this is funding and grants and all of that good stuff. I'd love to hear how in the world did you pull that off?
[00:09:49] Jake: I'm gonna insert like a, a major, major caveat into this, this response, which is, it would not have been possible without Alex Arlo, Irwan Awalludin in the year before who did the illustrations.
[00:10:01] Jake: Uh, a parent and helper the year before, John Carlson, without like a great deal of generosity and personal time and grace. So, the technical answer is that the project was funded by a grant by the Ithaca Public Education Initiative, I.P.E.I., which helped a lot, and I'm very grateful for that.
[00:10:22] Jake: And it was all about relationships. Alex probably made $2 an hour when it was all said and done, which what I mean to say is that, Alex undersold himself substantially. Which I'm incredibly grateful for, but it was those relationships and the generosity and willingness to do something that felt worthy and and worth making a a time and financial sacrifice for to some extent to do.
[00:10:46] Jake: So, there are definitely grants out there I.P.E.I. is a wonderful organization. I assume there are similar things other places, but as a teacher, I would say, don't hesitate to engage your personal network. We have the benefit of sometimes being viewed as borderline superheroes by people, uh, which I think is sometimes deserved and, and I'm glad to take it when I get it, but people are willing to help out in schools and they understand the value of that.
[00:11:12] Jake: And I'll spare you Alex's life story to the extent that I know it, but he's, he's the kind of person that intentionally has stepped away from things like a, a lucrative and personally draining career to do what matters to him. Um, and the same thing with everyone who worked with us. So, uh, step one, grant, step two ask really, really nicely if any of your friends will do you any favors.
[00:11:36] Alex: For me, it was very easy to step into the role because it's my mission, it's my life's purpose to help kids find their purpose. And so, Jake offered me this opportunity twice. I couldn't turn it down. It was such a cool thing. I love working with Jake, and I think one of the biggest lessons that the kids could actually take away from this, aside from feeling like a writer or being a published author, was actually doing the project, clicking around, just dealing with the frustrations of the virtual school, dealing with being at home.
[00:12:08] Alex: Dealing with Air Pods are not working. So, I think those are the life lessons and the humility and things that they learned during that process that'll be the actual lessons
[00:12:18] Olivia: And, it, it has, Henry now teaches me how to use some of the programs that you all were using; from Canva and the researching aspect that he learned of how to discover about another human and their impact in the world far beyond the surface level of what that person seems like in the media.
[00:12:39] Olivia: Henry studied LeBron James and he still goes around telling people about LeBron and all of the amazing impacts he’s had on the world and other children. So, the ripple effect was tremendous.
[00:12:52] Olivia: The, the last piece I'd love to talk about is how in the world did you get these books on Amazon for sale? and what did you end up doing with the proceeds? Because Jake, I recall a very heated conversation with third graders about, what to do? where, where are we going with this? And they had all different ideas.
[00:13:11] Olivia: I think it'd be interesting for teachers to have some ideas of how can you get it out there for an authentic audience.
[00:13:16] Jake: I'll let out and start with the logistics. And then at the risk of, of blowing my own cover a bit, I'll, I'll try and answer the second part.
[00:13:21] Olivia: Fabulous.
[00:13:22] Alex: Yeah. So, I never wanted to be a writer ever, especially not a children's writer.
[00:13:27] Alex: When I first started my journey as an author, I was 24 and I just got this idea about this book for the Saints, and I knew people in New Orleans would be crazy about it. So, I, I didn't want to go through a publisher. I was an entrepreneur. I wanted to make money. I taught myself everything I could about self-publishing.
[00:13:44] Alex: So, over the years, I just got better and better at understanding. Jake said he wanted to make a book with his kids. I'm like, look, we can make a book with your kids, no problem. Yeah. Sure, some problems. So yeah, Amazon uses, they have a service called K.D.P., which is Kindle Direct Publishing. And this was the thing, when I published my first book, I was like, whoa.
[00:14:05] Alex: All I did was click a button to attach something. It's like attaching something to an email. Anybody can do this, anybody.
[00:14:12] Olivia: Wow. Okay.
[00:14:12] Alex: And so, when I felt that and I was in a newspaper and on the radio and on podcasts, I knew that that gave me a sense of self. And so, yeah, so we used Kindle Direct Publishing.
[00:14:24] Alex: It's really simple. Once obviously you have to have, someone has some graphic design skills to put the book together.
[00:14:30] Olivia: Yes.
[00:14:30] Alex: But using Amazon makes it really easy. You can also just for anybody out there, IngramSpark all of these book marketplaces usually have some book publishing mechanism.
[00:14:42] Olivia: Okay.
[00:14:42] Alex: You do a quick self-publishing, a search on Google and you can find it out.
[00:14:47] Jake: And Alex, what's the thing called that that some universities have where they can print books easily? Remember we were trying to find somewhere that did that? You said there was one at Harvard?
[00:14:55] Alex: Oh yeah. It's called The Book Espresso Machine. It's actually not that expensive. They have this machine that prints books in like an hour or two.
[00:15:03] Alex: Does the whole book, the cover, the binding? There's one at Harvard's Bookstore and there a couple of them around the country. That's another way.
[00:15:10] Olivia: Wow.
[00:15:11] Alex: You can do it as well.
[00:15:12] Jake: We had looked into those options, but simplicity reign supreme and it costs like a, a fifth as much to do it through Amazon and it would be here three times as fast.
[00:15:20] Jake: But you know, as a teacher, simplicity definitely can be a priority sometimes in terms of the sales and money, we did have some heated conversations. I think the thing I tried to encourage and facilitate was kids coming back to the core of the project and, and the desire to focus on activism and, and, and social justice and that while a pizza party would be really fun, maybe that's not actually the best thing for the world.
[00:15:43] Jake: Let's think beyond ourselves. What we settled on the first time and second time was that this is a project that sort of reinvests in itself to some extent.
[00:15:50] Olivia: Yes.
[00:15:51] Jake: Um, the money that came in, uh, especially the first time around when I was feeling a little bit more inspired to do a press tour and get in a local bookstore, was that it paid for more books to be sold in our local bookshop at a pay what you wish basis, um, to buy books to then go into the school libraries and classrooms.
[00:16:08] Olivia: Awesome.
[00:16:08] Jake: And that was something we could all agree on, was we wrote this book so people can learn about these inspiring figures, and we want people to read our books. So, if we sell books, then we should get more people reading our book. That was a way to make everybody happy. And there was a little bit of teacher magic with, you know, Jedi mind-tricking people into, into doing the right thing.
[00:16:27] Jake: Yes. But that, that was, that was where we ended up.
[00:16:29] Olivia: Fabulous.
[00:16:30] Alex: We also used some of the proceeds from the last book to pay for some of the production for this book. So, you have to buy an ISBN number, which costs a couple hundred and we used some of that money to make it happen. Those students paid it forward.
[00:16:43] Olivia: That's awesome. I, I can't thank you enough for giving my son a voice and confidence to see himself as a writer. Again, this work has such a ripple effect because if he shares with five other people. That self-confidence. That's why I get up every morning to be an educator, to build kids up. You two along with Arlo, it was magic and I can't thank you enough. I hope hearing your process will help listeners take this on themselves and spread a little more goodness in the world. Thank you both so much. Thank you.
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