Erin Jones is an Independent Education and Systems Consultant Public Speaker. Mrs. Jones has been involved in and around schools for the past 26 years. She has taught in a variety of environments, from predominantly Black to predominantly White to some of the most diverse communities in the nation.
Dr. Michael Conner
Good morning, good evening, and good afternoon from wherever you are. I am your host, Dr. Michael Connor. And welcome to another episode within our Black History celebration, The Black Excellence series. And today’s guest, it is such an honor. So we were just talking about this story before, but I really want to get into it and then introduce her, because I remember last year around this time at AASA Conference, I saw my girl, Erin Jones. Literally, she had a book signing and the line went around the corner, if you know what I mean. It went around the corner, so I was looking and I said, man, Erin got everybody wanting her to sign her book. I remember after, at the end of it, I said, Erin, I want to… I’m ready. I’m ready for this line. I’m ready to write a book. Her face got serious and she said, are you serious about this? So I didn’t know what to do. I froze. So I said, Yeah. I said, Yeah, I’m serious about this. Everybody, eight months later, it’s because of Erin Jones. Erin Jones kept at me. She was my mentor. She connected me with Andre, who, again, did a fabulous job with my book, Intentional, Bold and Unapologetic: A Guide to Transforming Schools in the AC Stage of Education. But the impetus for that was my guest today, a renowned educator around the country, renowned author, speaker. I mean, just last week, she was she was on a panel with Bettina Love and Chris Emdin. I’m like, okay, Erin, you got time for a brother any more? But it is with great pleasure that I have Mrs. Erin Jones on the Black Excellence series for the celebration of our Black History Month. Erin, it’s so good to have you on the podcast.
Erin Jones
It is so good to see you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. I’ve been watching you on Twitter, too. I’ve been following you too. So it’s good to just be in your presence, even if it’s on Zoom.
Dr. Michael Conner
Listen, I’m going to end the podcast right now because I got Erin Jones saying that and that’s all I need. That’s all I need. I haven’t told you this, but I want to say thank you. You were a motivator for when I was writing my book. You put the idea in my mind at RSA last year. And then more important, as I was going through that process, while there was bottlenecks with me, with just trying to put ideas down on a paper. And you just provided that motivation of keep going, keep going, keep going. I just want to say thank you, Erin, because this outcome, this output of my book really started from you and that continuous, I would say, positive reinforcement and feedback during that process. And you were right, Erin, when you said it, when you develop a book, when you’re writing a book, it’s just words. Your mind translated into words. I remember you said that to me and you’re like, oh, this is easy to put together. I’m like, okay, I’ve never put together a book. I just want to say, Sister, thank you so much for everything.
Erin Jones
You are so welcome. Yeah, it is. I believe we have to lift others as we’re climbing, and I think this is a manifestation of that. That’s how I want to live my life as I get things, how do I pull people up behind me and with me and alongside me. And I think this is a great manifestation of that. And I just talk about it and be about it.
Dr. Michael Conner
You are about it, you are about it Erin. Let’s get into the podcast because you truly are black excellence. And I really want to have my audience unwrap your thinking, unwrap your strategies, but more importantly, notice or highlight your activism work that you’re doing in education as well. But this is a kind of a fun question, the first one. And it really is just kind of an open book to who you are as a leader, as a person, and me with music, that describes a person. But you know, when you’re presenting nationally, Erin, or you’re hosting an event around your book around the country… I’ve been following you around the country doing some really, really good things. You’re just meeting with students. That’s what I love about your practice with education as you really bring it down to the student level. Or students across the country when they meet you. What is your equity song that defines you when you walk in a room?
Erin Jones
Well, here’s… that’s such a great question because I had to really think about that. And the first song that really struck me, you may not know this, but my kids are all singers, and my oldest son actually auditioned for The Voice and he auditioned with this song. He had this thing with the song Change is Going to Come by Sam Cooke. And they wouldn’t let him perform it because they thought it was a religious song at the time when he auditioned at 18, he’s 28 now. So that was exactly ten years ago last week, actually, was when he auditioned. He did his audition and came out really upset and there was a black man, they go in as a group of five people, and this black older man came out with them and said, Oh my gosh, your son killed it. But they didn’t understand the song he was singing. They thought it was religious music. They don’t allow religious music but you just need to know your son killed it with the song. Well, my son, it took him about six months to sing again. He was so broken by the experience of the Voice audition, but it propelled him to go to college and he would go start at community college. And that year there was a Students of Color conference and he surprised me and showed up at the conference. I was the keynote speaker and I know that he’s a good enough singer that I can get him to just acappella. And so he opened my speech with that song. And just blew the audience away. So maybe the voice didn’t like it and didn’t think it was appropriate. But anytime that he’s around and can open for me, that is the song that speaks to my heart so much, partly because of the history of change is going to come and and the way it was used during the civil rights movement, but also because it’s my son’s manifestation of his most beautiful self. And I think for me that is what I want in any space that I’m in. I want young people and educators, superintendents down to the parent educator to know that they are beautiful and to step into their fullness and to believe that change is going to come. We have to walk into every space believing that change is going to come, even if we don’t see it. Kind of like your book in a way. We have to just keep stoking the flames when things are really hard, which I think they are right now for educators. I think… I’ve been in education for 32 years, but my parents were both teachers for over 40. So I’ve been in education, I feel like I’ve been in it since I was one. So over 50 years, I think it’s hard to believe change is coming right now. I think it’s harder right now than it ever has been. And I believe that my job in the world is to inspire people to believe that change is possible. And so I think for me that’s okay. But the other, just being kind of silly, the other song that I love to have played when I’m talking to adults is Happy by Pharell, because that’s also how I show up in the world. I don’t take myself so seriously. Like if I’m MC-ing a big event, that’s my walk on song and I will dance in front of the whole group. And as you know, like I’m six feet tall. So I got this big red afro and I’m really tall and I will dance in front of everybody. And I’m a good dancer, but I’ll be silly. And part of that is, I was a middle school teacher for ten years. So you’ve got to be silly in order to engage students. And I am not afraid to be silly in front of a bunch of adults either to lighten the mood, but also like we take ourselves so seriously sometimes and we just need to move through the world with some joy. And so happy is my joy song.
Dr. Michael Conner
Your joy song. And when you talk about change is going to come and you’re right, you reference as you were unpacking that, I just kept on saying to myself was the state of education and change is going to come but change, less subject to going, has to come. Think about black or brown students, 50% of Generation Alpha and Generation Z. We have to. We have to change and it has to come. And I love when you said step into your beautifulness. And I think that is important because we have to recognize our worth and our value add that we bring into the ecosystem, but we have to be happy, Pharrell Happy. And Erin, I’ve seen you around and that is passion. It is just is pure joy right of how yeah they you know some of the most hardest are persistent issues problems of practice that we deal with in education. But you know the way you presented it change does has to come. So yeah change has to come. So absolutely with that. But I want to segway to the next question, right? Because you engage in so many different and divergent and diverse set of activities within the ecosystem. But you are a bestselling author. And I want to bring that I want to bring this up because not many people would actually get to hear you now for about two or 3 minutes. But I have Erin Jones on stage, the best selling author, the National sought after speaker. So, yes, everybody, it’s free here for 2 minutes. I’m going get it right. But you serve on many national boards and your notable work is in education around policy to dismantle inequities as it pertains to students and families. What you’re doing is a lot of work, specifically your work on eliminating racism in our schools so all students have safe learning conditions. But what does that look like? When I think about threads from your book, when I think about threads from when you’re speaking nationally, when I think about threads when you’re engaging with students, it’s all around this dismantling the equity’s focused on racism, historic racism that we’ve seen within our systems. Erin, how do we do that? That’s a huge, heavy, cognitive, and physical lift for leaders as well in all levels within the ecosystem. But that’s a lot of work. How do we start unpacking that to really get to that utopia of exclusion of racism?
Erin Jones
I don’t know how I answer that in 2 minutes, but I’m gonna try. So number one and this may sound really silly, but it’s something that came up earlier before we did the podcast. I don’t look like I’m about to be 52 and part of that is because I really am focused on taking care of myself physically because this work is so hard. I think we don’t talk about this enough, especially for black educators. We don’t talk about this enough. I will go to Orange Theory after we’re done here. So I do, if you’ve not ever been to an Orange Theory workout, it’s super intense. It’s rowing and lifting and running and I am probably one of the fastest runners at Orange Theory. When I go, I make myself sprint. Yesterday was not a running day, so I walked eight miles yesterday. Today I will probably run 4 and then walk another 2. For me, physical self-care is really, really important and mental self-care. So I started my day today listening to the Bible. I happen to be a Jesus girl and I listen to the Bible out loud just to fill my mind with positive things. I eat really well. So I’m very disciplined about how I eat and then I get physical activity. Why is that important as a beginning place? Because the work is a heavy lift. It’s such a heavy lift. And if we have not cared for our physical selves and our emotional selves and our spiritual selves, it is too heavy of a lift and it will destroy us. And we’re seeing this work take people out right now. We’ve seen it take people out over the last generations. And so for me it begins with me. I have to be really intentional about how am I feeding my spirit, mind and body. Secondly, I do this work I think in a unique way, I don’t see many other people doing the work this way. I’ve already said this a little bit, but I am really intentional also about being around students, being around educators, being around board members and policy makers. So I am in every one of those arenas. I don’t believe I can speak to lawmakers if I haven’t spoken to students and teachers, I don’t believe I can speak effectively to lawmakers if I’m not talking to superintendents and school board directors because they’re the ones at the district level making the policy decisions and the legal decisions. But I have to know what they’re doing at their local level in order to speak to our state level legislators. In fact, tomorrow, not tomorrow, Wednesday, I’m speaking to our congressperson, too, but I can bring the voices of the babies that I talked to this week and the educators I talk to and the board members. I can bring those voices to the congresswoman. So I’m not just speaking what Erin knows. I’m now sharing the voices of all these other people and that becomes a much more compelling statement when I can say here is what my students are saying. And I actually meet with a group of educators every Monday night online. And in fact, any of your listeners is welcome to join. They can reach out to me on Twitter or Instagram for the link, but I host something called Equity Fishbowl every Monday night. It’s free from 6 to 7 PST. And we talk about all things education, equity. We are classroom teachers, educators, former classroom teachers. We have a superintendent who joins from Racine, Wisconsin. We have college students who, when they started, were in high school and now are still with me after almost three years. We meet every single Monday night. Wherever I am in America, we meet on Monday nights and we talk about all things equity. And so we both troubleshoot, but we also are hearing what’s happening across the nation as it relates to equity in education. So, for example, we talked about the AP African-American history exam a couple of weeks ago when that was the hot topic. Today, I think we are actually talking about a school where a student on the basketball team was called the N-word by another school in that district. We’re going to be talking about how should superintendents and principals be showing up when students are called slurs? So we really troubleshoot about practical things that are actually happening either locally and nationally. And so my ear is tuned in to what’s happening. I’m not speaking about stuff I read. I’m speaking about stuff that I’m living through and that I’m actually hearing from people who are on the ground in the work being impacted.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And Erin, I appreciate that because I like to call it this level of structural coherence. And what I mean by structural coherence is policy informing the state education agency. These get the state education agencies, informing the local education agencies and the local education agencies, informing the practice of the schools either through their school improvement plan or their school improvement processes that they’re doing. But I love that level of connectivity. And you are bringing the voices, the voices of our most important customers. I always say our students as well as our families. But you know, Curtis Valentine, it was funny. This is it was the first episode of the Black Excellence series, and he was talking about a lot of policy makers get policy through, adopt policy at the federal level, have the big celebration, make the big announcement and then move on to something else. But I think that you bringing the voices of the students and the constituencies to inform members of Congress, to inform members of Senate, where now policy becomes that much more informed, bringing the lens of black and brown constituents that are on the implementation level, the end user, as we always say. So I really appreciate that bringing the voices of the students. I’m huge on student agency. And when we talk about the first element of design, thinking, empathy, understanding our constituents needs to be the priority. Because I think that we still even… I see it in the initial phases of the AC stage of education, we’re still bureaucratic top down, static top down. Decision making as opposed to really having our constituents in mind, because if we really had our constituents in mind with the designed, it will look fundamentally different from the way we’re implementing it now. So thank you for that. And then please join again, Erin, if you can just repeat that for my audience one more time for me.
Erin Jones
Yeah, sure. Monday nights. Monday nights I host a class called the Equity Fishbowl from 6 to 7 PST. I also host a class on Friday afternoons from 5 to 6 PST. It’s class called Becoming, where we talk about all things identity. So we talk about race, gender, sexual orientation, region, language, all things related to identity and education. And it’s a multigenerational class, and both of those are free. But you have to reach out to me. So I don’t just let anybody into them. You have to reach out to me. So if you send me a message on Twitter or Instagram, I will send you the link to that. And you know, the last thing I’ll say, Michael, because I didn’t share this, I was a classroom teacher and instructional coach, and then I won Book and Teacher of the Year. And that propelled me to the State Superintendents office where I served on Cabinet for almost four years. So I was the assistant state superintendent over school improvement. You mentioned school improvement plans, but here’s why all of that is really important. I’ve been at every level in the system, so I’ve functioned professionally at every level in the system and have been at the state level working with the most failing schools, which anyway, that’s a whole other conversation, a whole other podcast. But I taught–
Dr. Michael Conner
Are they truly failing, right? Are they truly failing? Let’s really diagnose and unwrap that. But you’re right, that’s part two of another one.
Erin Jones
Yeah. Because what I learned when I was at the state superintendents office is five of the buildings that I had taught in were failing schools. But I will tell you, number one, they’re the most poor, the brownest, but not failing by any standard, because I knew the babies there. Anyway, I say this because I know what’s happening at the state level really intimately, because I got to experience school improvement as the assistant state superintendent and see what was coming from the national level, from the federal level down to us. And then what we were mandated to drive down to schools. But because I insisted on being close to the ground, I was able to really kind of provide some cover and then translate so much of that really academic, legal leads, I was able to translate that. And, I do speak 4 languages. So for me, I always see myself as a translator, even in English, like I’m translating from the academic legal language down to the real the common person. But I think it’s really important if we’re going to make change that we make sure everyone actually understands what’s being talked about and what’s being expected. And I think too often there’s no desire. I think we tend to use language in every country, but particularly in this country, to keep people out. We tend to use complex language and academic language to keep people in the margins. And I see myself as a translator. How do I bring more people in? By building bridges, using language. But I can only do that because I’ve been at the state level. I’ve been a school district administrator, I’ve been a classroom teacher, I’ve been a mom of two kids with learning differences. And I’m the wife of a teacher, so I am seeing it in all the different… and I see it myself as a translator now to help everybody understand what the others are thinking and saying.
Dr. Michael Conner
Yeah, thank you, Erin, for that. Because you know one thing, and I apologize that failed to mention your work in the K-12 sector because I’m just so I was just so happy to have you on air. And I forgot. Everybody, yes, Erin is a former assistant state superintendent. She’s one of those individuals. When you see her, you run right back in the day with Erin. And you’re absolutely correct with that, because I think that when I look at my own leadership practice. And one of the areas that I continue to try to grow in is to be able to differentiate my vernacular and differentiate between academic registrants. When I’m actually in front of my constituency. So the message is the same and is not, quote unquote, dumbing down or anything, but it is like learning or I should say, speaking in multiple languages to ensure that there’s a shared model around the outcome. And we have to be able to realize that lowering the standards of the academic language that we’re bringing is just we’re presenting in a different way to underscore that theme that you highlighted of we’ve got to get everybody on board. We’ve got to get everybody on board. And the language that, and trust me, being around a lot of people empowers me, being around a lot of people that are implementing policy at the state or even at the lower level, we have to make sure that our end users are understanding what is going on and that policy creation, adoption and even implementation. And Erin, I thank you for that because a lot of the times, it’s what you just said. It’s that vernacular gap between translating that policy, standardized English language, I should say, or terminology into something that is understandable and digestible for our constituents so they can get behind the policy, they can get behind this to be able to support that. But anyways, I want to get into the next one because I want to talk about your book. And of course, I have to bring that up. Your book entitled Bridges to Heal US: Stories and Strategies for Racial Healing. I ain’t going to lie, Erin, it’s provocative. The only thing I haven’t done… Erin, I’m a fan. I haven’t gotten it signed. So I’m going to do it, when it’s just me and you around, I’m going to say, Erin, you better sign my book right now. That’s what the little fan didn’t act like. I’m your boy. But your book is provocative. I love the end, Erin. It’s a great read. And my audience, please support Erin with this book. Specifically if you’re a black or brown educator, as well as our counterparts really understanding the magnitude of racism in the United States. But can you just elaborate a little more? My audience, who might even have your book, for people that don’t have your book and want to order it, what is it about? And how could educators use your book as a manual to improve education in their classrooms or in totality?
Erin Jones
Yeah. So I talked a little bit linguistically about my being a Brit, so I am black and white. I was abandoned at birth because my mother was white, but I am black presenting and I identify as black, even though my mother was white, I identify as black, because that’s how I move through the world. The dyed afro is how my hair grows, but it’s by intention that I wear it this way because it’s my signal to the world like this is how I move. I don’t want anybody wondering who I am because when my hair was straight, people would say, what are you? Don’t do that, by the way listeners. Don’t ask somebody what they are, don’t do it. But now that my hair’s natural, everybody knows. Like it’s just really clear who she is. But I was abandoned at birth and adopted by a white family who were basically disowned. They ended up… I mean, things worked out, but they decided to move to Europe because living in America in the seventies with an interracial family was just hard. And I think a lot of Americans don’t understand the history in this country of interracial families. Until 68, it was illegal in most places for a black man to be married to a white woman. Even though I was born in 71, it was still unacceptable. It was still unacceptable into the eighties for families to be interracial. And so my parents just said, we’re going to leave the country. And so we left the country in 76, and I was raised at the United Nations school, and that gave me this exposure to this really big world, but also policymakers at the world level. So I went to the United Nations school. I got to be around kids from Israel and Palestine and Lebanon and Brazil and I mean just literally all over the world and got to see what happened when people were able to make policy that brought peace. So I got to watch the PLO ambassador and the Israeli ambassador work on policy together. I physically was invited into the room to watch these men make policy together and build bridges. And obviously they still are in conflicts now. So that didn’t all come to this kind of fruit that I think they desired at the time. But I still got to witness that. And so I have always believed since I was a little girl, I’m meant to be a bridge. And so I’ve always had this thought of bridges in my head. I came back to the United States for college in 89’ and had a horrible, racist… I went to college and one of the most racist towns in America right outside of Philadelphia. I went to Bryn Mawr College, where they still had a sign up that said no blacks or Jews allowed at the golf course. I mean, it was that explicitly racist at the time. I thought about taking my life my freshman year. So imagine pre-Facebook, pre-Internet, I’m trying to navigate as a black girl who didn’t grow up here. I knew about history because my white parents made sure they taught me about Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin and W.E.B. Dubois. And I knew all that stuff. My parents had really done the best they could in Europe to make sure I was exposed. But I also thought we were much further along as a country because of shows like a Different World and The Cosby Show. I thought that’s where we were as a country, and that’s the America that I thought I was coming to. But I realized really quickly that was not the America I was coming to. And really it took about six months to break me down enough to the point that I thought I didn’t matter. I was not smart enough, I couldn’t change the world. And then on a basketball court, one day at night, I just turned 18, no, I was about to turn 19. I ended up playing with a guy named after Julius Erving, except I didn’t know who he was because I didn’t grow up in America. But I got to play with Dr. Dre and it wasn’t him that changed me. It was really the high school age boys on the court with me who shared afterwards that they had stopped going to school, that nobody cared about them. And I never wanted to be a teacher like my parents. But I realized that day, oh my gosh, God made me this way to be a teacher and to be a teacher of children who look like me, they deserve to have really amazing teachers. And I remember calling my parents in Europe that day and telling them I’m not coming back. I need to stay in America, and I want to teach children who look like me. And that was 32 years ago and I did not go back. And really the book is my story, but it’s a way of telling my story that challenges other educators to think about their own stories. So back to one of the first questions you asked about how do I do the work? I think it starts with me. I think too often in education spaces, too often in teacher education, principal education, superintendent education, we talk all about the systems, but guess what? You are in the system. And I think that what has been missing is the me story and the system, you actually can’t change the system if you’re not willing to change, if you’re not willing to look at yourself in the mirror and say, what do I bring to the system? Good, bad and ugly, What are the what are the the skills that I bring? What are the talents that I bring? What are the experiences that I bring? Also, what are the ways that my identities have shaped how I experience education? If we as educators have not worked through, how did I get to move through education? What were the barriers that I encountered as I move through the system? What were the ways that I experienced success? If we haven’t done that work, I think it’s really hard for us to effectively move other people. And so my book is really my invitation by modeling. I’m going to share my story and be really vulnerable with you as an invitation for you to be really vulnerable with yourself. So I provide each chapter with some questions for people to think about. Like, what does this mean for you? What are these? What do these terms mean to you? How have you been impacted by these terms? And I really hope that the book… it’s not so much a guide for school improvement as it is a guide for how I can show up in this work more effectively myself and then improve schools and improve the world. As an athlete, I played basketball for 40 years and tried out for two WNBA teams like, I have been doing anything halfway. So I have done a little bit of everything. But I one of the things that I believe as an athlete and a former coach, I’m on the road way too much to coach now, but I love coaching. I see the book as me as a coach and my persona as coaches. I want to I want to call you in and higher. I am not that coach that’s going to cuss you out. I’m going to call you in and I’m going to be honest. And I’m going to say look, man, your form sucks right now. Or I watched you run that sprint and I know that you got another gear that you could turn on. I think America, our form sucks around talking about racism. As a 51 year old who was raised by two Minnesotans in Europe, one of the things I believe is that the generation before me, my generation and the generations before me were told, don’t talk about race. So black folks had to talk about race because we had to live through race stuff. But white folks were told to not talk about race. And guess what? Black folks were taught to not talk about race with white folks. So white folks were told to not talk about race at all. Black folks talked about race with each other, but they were told, don’t talk about race. Don’t even talk about the racism you experience with white folks. And so guess what? We suck at talking about race with each other. And I don’t see it as because we’re more racist than we were 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. We are unpracticed at having these really important conversations with each other. And so I liken it to this. I also played soccer for 20 years. If I were to take a really great soccer player and put them on the basketball court and say, go shoot a three pointer, I don’t care how great a soccer player you are, unless you get super lucky, you are not making that three points shot, not because you’re not a great athlete, but because you have not been provided with opportunities to develop the skills to shoot a three pointer. And guess what? You’re not going to shoot a three pointer for a while. It’s probably going to take you several months to get good at shooting a three, even if you’re an expert soccer player. My book is suggesting to people you all could be expert soccer players. You may be expert singers, you may be expert artists. Right now, we need to get expert on this thing because it’s killing us. And it’s not killing us because you’re bad people. It’s killing us because you haven’t developed the skill. And I want to invite you to the conversation to get better. And that’s really what the book is about. I wrote it in my own speaking voice, so people have heard me speak before. You are going to hear my voice in it. I intentionally did not write it in an academic way. I mean, it’s academic, but I intentionally wrote it so that a middle school child could pick up the book and read it. And somebody who’s 84 and has been retired for a while could read it. I want anyone who wants to get on a journey to be able to be on a journey. And the other thing I’ll mention is I also have a free study guide because I’m a totally nerdy teacher and I wrote a free study guide for educators and I wrote a free study guide for non educators so that people can get into a book club and do this work. And so for me, the book is not about getting rich. The book is not about getting speaking engagements. The book is about I see our country going in a direction that is going to lead to destruction unless we are willing to do the work, on ourselves and with one another, that it takes to build bridges to our healing.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And you know what, Erin? I’m just referencing back to all my notes that I just wrote pertaining to your book. Your book is provocative, but I’m looking at this right now. And you said the me story and the system and you went through this eloquent way of how people, and I’m just thinking about me, how I navigated the system and navigation of the system and what I learned. Just kind of reflecting back, I learned how to be able to strategically code switch to the mainstream in order to have the outputs that I did in my activism trajectory. But was that really me? And I think that when I look at this work coming from a change agent perspective, I don’t want any black or brown students to have to develop this alternative identity in order to be successful in the system. That’s not fair. That’s just eliminating who I am, who we are as individuals.
Erin Jones
Can I invite another thought around that? So I told you, I speak four languages. When I go to France, I speak French with a French accent to get what I need and get what I want and to be understood. And it doesn’t… Erin does not change, but the language that I use changes. When I go to the Netherlands, I speak Dutch with a Dutch accent. I want to get what I want. I want to be understood. I go to Mexico every summer now, to keep my Spanish up. I played basketball there when I was 30, but we go back every summer now for at least a week, sometimes two. And I only speak Spanish and I do that intenionally to keep my Spanish up. But Erin does not change, the language I speak changes. I want our students to become multi-cultural. But here’s the danger. Here’s what America has done to our students. They have said your language has no value. Don’t speak it. I’m saying something different. I’m saying your language has incredible value. And let’s add one or two more. And let’s make you multi-cultural, let’s make you multilingual. But I think what American school is saying is shut that language off completely, don’t show up that way. We don’t appreciate it. I am saying, no, I see you. I see you. I want you to show up this way and I’m going to give you this other tool to put in your tool kit that you can pull out whenever you need to. But I see this too, and I think we send a really dangerous message to students and to black and brown adults that shed that piece of yourself, and it’s why I wear my hair big and bright. It’s why I wear the funky nails. It’s my way to say it’s the system. I must show up as me and I can speak your standard English, too. I can do that, or I can show up on a basketball court and hang too.
Dr. Michael Conner
And full disclosure, everybody, Erin will probably beat 95% of us and the 5% will probably be that pro level, you know. Because Erin is, I’m telling you she is a baller. Listen, she is a baller. And when she said she tried out for WNBA teams, yes she did. Her friends in the WNBA network, they’re bigger there than in education because I mean, I heard stories about Sue Bird and all that out there. But absolutely, Erin, and one thing I just want to just continue or just expand upon before we get to the next question is, you are right. We do not collectively as a country have the ability to talk about racism. And I think the way you put it is, I mean, is perfectly lying because when you think about, we talk about it amongst black and brown people, but that taboo is that interaction when you start talking about racism with white people. And now as we’re starting to move in the AC stage of education, Generation Z and Generation Alpha are 50% black and brown students. More importantly, and I think that this is a disaggregated metric that we should pay attention to, is that roughly, I believe, 12% of the student population in Generation Alpha and Generation Z identify with two or more races. My son is a part of that variable. So our schools have to become equipped to talk about race. When we have students come from nontraditional homes, we have students that identify with two or more races and they’re black and brown, and we have to talk about that because they’re coming into our classrooms. And I always said this, if you want to see what the next generation of our kids are going to look like, the level of diversity that we’re seeing, go to a pre-K classroom because you will see the United Nations in itself. It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful. But you’re right here. Our schools are not ready to have these conversations and our schools are not ready or I even say equipped to be, in a most aligned term from an education standpoint, to be culturally responsive. So that, Erin, that kind of goes into this next question, is eliminating that aspect when the demographic, the density of the demographic variables are concentrated, black or brown. A good friend of mine, Dr. Steven Perry, I just actually talked to him earlier today. He read through the 72 page curriculum of the AP course that was down in Florida as is. And essentially, he basically just said that, the curriculum reads as a history course where you learn a lot about African-Americans. But you hear the opposite, the contrary to why the AP course was–
Erin Jones
It has no educational merit.
Dr. Michael Conner
You said it and I was going to put it in a politically correct term, but yes.
Erin Jones
Nope, I’m just going to say it.
Dr. Michael Conner
No educational merit. So when I hear that statement, I hear this devaluing of the contributions that black Americans had in this country. And more importantly, it’s polarizing education. Because you’re basically eliminating or reducing black history to not bring any educational merit into the equation. So that was kind of demoralizing to me, just speaking about me specifically. But when we think about this and our student demographics today, how do we push back against these policies? Because now that we see this in one state, my big fear is that you might see this more in other states that are going to be adopting adaptive linear policies, adopting policies that are very linear, that don’t address all. But how do we stand against this? Because this really has to stop.
Erin Jones
Well, so I have so many thoughts about that one, too. So I have I have mixed emotions about AP. I took 11 AP classes My son also took 11 AP classes. My husband is an AP trained teacher, both history and English. So I actually sat in on his training. I happened to be the assistant state superintendent when he was going through his training for AP. So I took the privilege and said, I’m going to go see how they’re training teachers. So I sat in a class, I will never forget this, that was at Pacific Lutheran University, and they put a prompt up on the screen. My husband, I think, was the only black educator being trained. And then me, I was supposed to be a fly on the wall, but I could not be a fly on the wall because one of the prompts was… it was a a statue of Christopher Columbus. So this was a prompt for a sample test, a sample AP exam prep. There was a statue of Christopher Columbus, and students were asked to explain why he was a hero. What is the case that you can make for why this person is a hero and that was so problematic for me. And this was ten years ago. This was ten years ago when I sat in the training. And it was so problematic for me, that question that I had to raise my hand and not be a fly on the wall. And I said, first of all, he’s not a hero. And if that’s what your AP history course is teaching our students, is that Christopher… Like, are you willing to be honest about what he did to this country? Because there were people here before he got here. Let’s be honest. So I have a really complicated relationship with AP with the College Board. Anyway, so I just want to put that out there that I think what’s interesting, I think that the message that the African-American AP has no merit is problematic for so many reasons, because we have a European history, we have all these other histories of other people groups. So how is it that ours doesn’t have merit? But also the College Board is problematic and it has lots of racist tendencies and policies anyway. So think I think a conversation we need to be having is around the nuance of the College Board. It’s really easy to critique right now, but I want us to be critical of AP period and the ways that AP has benefited white students over some… white and wealthy students have benefited hugely from from the College Board. I had been throwing that out into the ether as we’ve been having this conversation. But there are nine states right now where it is illegal for teachers to talk about race. So I’ll just share with you. I was in Missouri last week speaking, and this is where Betina Love and Chris Emdin and I were on a stage together. And in Missouri, if a teacher is caught by a parent talking about race or gender, they can be fined $500. So they can send that name of that teacher to the board. And there is a hearing. And if they’re found to be in violation of the policy where you’re not supposed to talk about race… They actually had a policy that went through their state legislature January 11th that said no history shall be taught that makes any student feel bad about their skin color and what people who look like them have done in history. So what about the black children and how they feel? But that’s not what this is about. Secondly, the second element of their policy is we cannot hold whole groups of people responsible for things that were done. There are three elements of their policy. All of them are BS. Because I could say to all of those, and here’s what I think teachers need to do, here’s what I think parents need to do. You need to take those same policies and go to your school board, go to your state legislature and say, my black children feel like they’re being told they’re bad because all we ever hear about is slavery. So my black children feel bad in their history classes. Y’all are breaking this law for our black children. I think this is the movement that we need to take. We need to take those policies that are being written because white parents are worried about their children. I think we need to take those same policies, and a bunch of black parents and black leaders need to go to state houses and file suits and turn that policy around.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And Erin, I have I have a blog coming out in one of Tom Vander Ark’s pathways. Yeah, and I have, and you’ll see this. I’ll put it like this, the title is called Separate and Not Equal. And it’s talking about college pathways and about advanced rigor in courses for black and brown students as well. But this is the time to speak up. It’s time to be very critical of certain policies that we’re seeing in place, Erin. And thank you for your advocacy for that, because I know you’ve been a voice. You hosted, I believe, one of your Mondays on this discussion or discussion like this around AP courses and around the College Board itself. Because, again I’ve been saying this. What happened in Florida is an outright symptom of one of the root causes. And one of the root causes is to let’s really talk about the elimination of, or I should say, the stripping down of an AP course. But here’s the thing. Black and brown students, based off of that, only 36% of black and brown high school students are accessing advanced placement courses. We represent 50% of the student demographics within public education, in the ecosystem in totality. So me with numbers, okay, you have a combined or a cumulative 36% black and brown students, 19%, or I believe it was 21% brown students, and I believe it was in that 12% to 15%. I just know this data because I was just doing the blog, but 50% of our students. So the real problem. Yes, talk about access. But last question. Erin, I gotta get you back on for a second episode because there’s so many things. But last question, and I feel I’m going to be honest with you, I fail miserably with this question because everybody breaks the rules. But there’s been so many variations of this last question. I want you to take it the Erin Jones way. But for my listeners who just… and I hope that they get your book, I hope that they start following you. I hope that they join your free workshops that you have on Mondays and on Fridays with relevant topics around what’s going on in the country. But in three words, Erin, what do you want the audience to leave with regarding education, advocacy and voice? At all levels, especially around constituent level, students and families, how could we streamline these words into activation as a coalition?
Erin Jones
So I it’s funny that you asked for three words because I use three words in every speech. Gratitude, courage and love. And so gratitude is a huge part of my practice. I have a physical, mental, emotional practice where every day I practice being grateful, even on the really crappy days, because the science of gratitude says that if you make gratitude a habit and that means not just once a week, not once a month, but every day, we make gratitude a habit. The dendrites in your brain will literally reform to create a positive neural network. So I think we got to start from a place of finding. I’m not talking about toxic positivity. I’m talking about choosing to be grateful for something every day. And so start there. I would invite each of us to start their courage. This work requires courage, it absolutely requires courage. And courage is being willing to do the right thing, even in tough moments when you’re the only one who is willing to do it. It’s doing something in the face of fear. Courage requires fear. I mean, doing the right thing is going to involve some fear. And so you need to be willing to push through that fear. And so I talk a lot about courage, and courage is also uncomfortable. And courage requires pushing through discomfort. It’s part of the reason I run. I don’t run because I love it. I love playing basketball. I don’t love running, I don’t love running. Oh my gosh, I do it. I do it. And that first mile sucks every single time and I push through the first mile. If I can get to the second mile, I can get into a rhythm. But courage, courage requires pushing through that first mile when it really sucks, when things feel icky, when you’re when you feel alone, it’s pushing through. So gratitude first one, courage, and then love. And by love, I laugh about this with students, I say not the messy kind of love where you’re going around and hugging everybody. That’s not the kind of love I’m talking about. I’m talking about the love that chooses to see the humanity in everyone around you, even and especially those people that don’t like you and don’t think like you. It’s choosing to see them as human. Because here’s what I also see happening in this work as we write off all those people that voted for everyone, the scientists, all those people that have a particular, we write them off and we say they’re horrible humans. And guess what? If nobody engages them, how are they going to change? And so we have to be willing to love them too. But you also have to be willing to love yourself. And I think a lot of us haven’t learned to love ourselves yet. And I don’t think we can truly love other people if we’re not first loving ourselves. And so I really want people to sit with that. What does it mean to love you? For me, sometimes it means saying no to things. For me, sometimes it means saying no to relationships. For me, sometimes it means saying I just need a day of rest. Today I’m just going to sit and drink some tea, maybe go for a nice walk. But I’m just going to be today because I did too much yesterday and the day before and the day before that. But love is loving yourself and it’s choosing to love the people around you in such a way that calls people higher again, calls people in and up into the best version of themselves, no matter who they are.
Dr. Michael Conner
Absolutely. And Erin, the three words, gratitude, courage and love. When you think about the gratitude that is needed within this work, the courage to push through, but to love ourselves. And also love people on the other side, still respecting their perspectives. But I want to leave my audience with one question and the last question for them to really examine within their leadership and personal journey. And this comes straight from you, Erin. What does it mean to love you? Please, please, please find it in yourself to find that way or that approach to love you. And Erin, thank you from the bottom of my heart. These three words and especially the essential question that we’re going to leave with today’s audience is what does it mean to love you? I think I need unwrap that. I’m going to Texas tomorrow for TABSE and I got time. I think I’m going to unwrap that and that’s a long flight where I can look at that as well. But Erin Jones, my girl, my homie, my ace, my sister, thank you so much for being a part of the Black Excellence series for the Voices for Excellence podcast. Happy Black History Month, sister.
Erin Jones
Yes, you too. Thanks so much for having me on the show. This is so fabulous and I can’t wait till we’re physically in the same place again.
Dr. Michael Conner
Erin, I’m telling you, and I’ll put it like this, the next time we were physically in the same place, I’m staying away from you because you’re going to have a line around, I’m gonna be like, yo, Erin, I’m ready to write that other book, and you’re going to get me to write it. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Erin. And on that note, everybody, thank you for tuning in. Onward and upward. Have a great day.
