Ep 7: 'Born a Crime' w Dr. Katrina Traylor

As a now middle-aged Dad with chronic back pain, today’s distinguished guest is someone Colin has known, in the words of the poet and philosopher, Earl “E-40” Stevens, since he "was knee-high to a caterpillar’s toenail.” This interviewee is someone Colin met as an undergrad at UC Santa Cruz in Oakes College (OAKES!), and has been inspired by up close when organizing with People’s Education Movement - Bay Area and at Ed. Conferences or Professional Development Trainings…and from afar via Social Media, over the last two decades. Today’s guest continues to grow her powerful family, grow powerful communities, and grows–and glows–powerfully, herself. Hailing from Richmond’s sibling city, the indomitable Vallejo, CA, this incredible Educator, Leader, Mentor, Scholar, Mother, sibling, friend, comrade, community member, and Golden State of Mind (and heart) Warrior, is someone Colin is absolutely honored to have on The Paper Plane , to discuss Trevor Noah's brilliant and complex memoir, "Born a Crime".   

Dr. Katrina Traylor is a National Board Certified Teacher with nearly 20 years of teaching experience in urban secondary classrooms. She began her teaching career at June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco, where she also worked as an administrator. Katrina then worked at her former high school, Jesse M. Bethel High School, in Vallejo, where she spent eight years as the Lead Teacher of the Law Academy. Under her leadership, the Law Academy earned the Diversity Champion Award from California LAW Pathways Advisory Council. Katrina is currently the Coordinator for Teacher Residency which is a partnership between Alder Graduate School of Equity and the Vallejo City Unified School District to recruit and train teachers specifically to work in Vallejo schools. Prior to this role, Katrina also worked as Alder’s Whole Child Initiative Manager, organizing many of the core components of Alder’s approach to whole child teaching and learning.

Katrina has taught high school English and history at all grade levels and loves teaching students to become engaged readers of history, literature, and the world around them. Katrina is deeply passionate about creating healing-centered classrooms through trauma-informed care practices including restorative justice, mindfulness, and culturally relevant curriculum.

Katrina holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz in American Studies, an MA in Education from Stanford’s Teacher Education Program, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from UC Davis where she researched how Black students define and experience joy within the context of school. When she’s not shaking things up in the world of education, she can be found reading historical fiction, conquering Beyonce’s dance moves, or delighting at the world with her four young children.

The Paper Plane is a podcast created and hosted by Colin Masashi Ehara, where he interviews people he is blessed and honored to share community with, and asks them about a book(s) that have had a transformational impact on their lives. In a society where literacy rates are steadily declining and a growing number of podcasts hosted by cishet men, un/consciously champion expressions of masculinity that come at the expense of women, femmes, and LGBTQIA2S+ (especially BIPOC) folx, this space aims to operate as a counter-narrative.

The Paper Plane is a space that intends to highlight the dire importance of relationships, community, dialogue, perpetual learning, honest expression as art, art as honest expression, and freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom. It speaks to planes of existence attached to the act of reading, but also as a metaphor for the “flights” we take as we sit in what Ta-Nehisi Coates calls “a one way interface” as readers, and how these “journeys” shape us...