Street Data Pod: Imagining the Next Generation of Education

Episode 34: “Everything is One:” Land-Based Learning, Reciprocity, and the Educational Transformation in British Columbia”

Come and join Alcine and Shane as they visit with British Columbia educators John Harris and Denise Augustine. We begin in the realm of story as Denise describes being situated “between generations” in her renowned Coast Salish family of carvers, artists, and leaders and John shares his experiences of growing up on the land and watching his father negotiate treaties as the official liaison for their community. Drawing on her legacy as the Superintendent of Indigenous Education for British Columbia, Denise provides powerful historical context for the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, which created space for residential school survivors to tell their stories and led to 94 distinct “calls to action” in 2015. She pulls this thread into the fabric of educational change, illuminating how BC is leading the way in reconciliation through a Tripartide Education Agreement and the more recent Declaration of the Right of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which requires that school districts create Indigenous Education Councils that view First Nations as “governing bodies”, not just “special interest groups.” From this exploration of reconciliation in education, John takes us into his own family’s legacy of the “Sixties Scoop”, in which his father was taken from his grandparent’s home nearly a dozen times, all the way to his family’s recent visit to the Field Museum of Chicago, which holds over 4,000,000 cultural artifacts, many of which were purchased from Indigenous Nations in the Pacific Northwest. John describes the unsettling experience “as if someone went into your house and took everything.” They end their visit discussing the nuances of place-based versus land-based education and the ways that John has woven his upbringing and community cultural wealth into his pedagogy, which is depicted in the integrative case study which concludes Shane’s forthcoming book, Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency (Corwin, 2025). Speaking to student agency, John reminds us that “When we give youth opportunities to give back to their communities, they really shine.” Join us for this incredible and luminous conversation reinforcing relationality and reciprocity as core values from Indigenous knowledge systems that hold the potential to transform education everywhere.
For Further Learning:
Learn more about John and his family’s artwork and clothing line at www.aylelum.com
Learn more about indigenous ways of knowing and being by reading
Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit by Jo-Ann Archibald
Land as teacher: understanding Indigenous land-based education - UNESCO Canadian Commission June 21, 2021
See land-based education in action by following Land-based Education K-12 Plains & Woodland Cree Tanya McCallum on Facebook
Learn more about the work of the First Nations Education Steering Committee in British Columbia, Canada
Read up on the The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People Act

[RE-RELEASE] Episode 19: “We’ve been looking for you”: A Conversation with Dr. Sidney Stone Brown on Native Self-Actualization, Maslow’s Hierarchy, and the Data We Need

In this re-released episode,  with Blackfoot scholar Dr. Sidney Stone Brown, Alcine and Shane are gifted many stories and teachings. We learn about the Native Self-Actualization model that Dr. Stone created and how she was told by her elders, “We’ve been looking for you” before she wrote her book. We dig into her original research into Abraham Maslow’s archives and discover the truth that Maslow’s concept was not originally a hierarchy, but that the corporations utilizing his work asked him to convert it into a pyramid to “motivate their employees”. We also explore the deep layers of what it means to heal, to come back to our wholeness, to understand time as circular rather than linear, and to situate listening as the ultimate act of transformation. Your heart will sing as you listen to Dr. Sidney Stone Brown.
 
For Further Learning:
Visit Dr. Sidney Stone Brown’s website www.transformationbeyondgreed.com/ to learn more about her work
Get your copy of Transformation Beyond Greed by Dr. Sidney Stone Brown, PsyD

Episode 33: “Standing Among Others”: Transforming Our Schools with Student Leader Karime Reyes and Educator Tamar Sberlo

In this touching episode, we center the voice of middle school student leader Karime Reyes who helped to spearhead a radical redesign of her school’s first week last August. In conversation with Peer Resource class teacher Tamar Sberlo, Karime brings insight and depth to what students really want in a classroom, what it means to belong, and how it felt to be part of a school transformation process. We also get a window into Tamar’s “low control” teaching style and the ways she strives to give learners choice and voice. Walk with us as we enter the world of MLK Jr Middle School in San Francisco and see the Street Data model come to life!
For Further Learning: 
Watch Sir Ken Robinson’s mind-blowing video (~12 minutes) on “Changing Education Paradigms” to situate the conversation with Tamar and Karime in a historical context.
Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools by Glenn E Singleton
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Chris Emdin

[RE-RELEASE] Episode 12: “We Made Classrooms Public Spaces” with Jessica Huang and Matt Alexander

Get ready for a re-release! Shane and Alcine dream with colleagues Matt Alexander and Jessica Huang, surfacing shared learning from a combined 80 plus years in education. Matt and Shane reminisce about the early years of teaching in San Francisco pre-No Child Left Behind and how they aspired toward a pedagogy of student voice. Jessica shares her experience working in international education in Asia where the West is “exporting stereotypes into neocolonial schools” and ways she is disrupting the Model Minority myth. These four leaders explore how the American Dream is a facade, lessons in democracy from the world of community organizing, and why leaders need a power analysis of their school communities. Finally, they consider what authentic accountability looks like and what it means to walk toward becoming elders in the movement for educational justice, and preview a project they are working on to “radically dream” together with educators across US + Canada.
 
For Further Learning:
Dive deeper into the 6 Key Aspects of Social Justice Pedagogy developed by June Jordan School for Social Justice educators.
Learn more about Faith in Action Bay Area and the work that they do to uphold the dignity of all people.
Read up on AB 540 which expanded in-state tuition eligibility in california and check out whether you may qualify.

Episode 32: Navigating the “Groan Zone” of Pedagogical Transformation with Marlo Bagsik and Nina Finci

Get to know transformational teacher leaders Marlo Bagsik and Nina Finci in this beautiful conversation and new episode! Co-hosts Shane and Alcine explore with their guests what it means to “choose the margins” of our classrooms as they hear about Marlo and Nina’s development of a districtwide Humanizing instructional framework. Together, they unpack how to create the conditions for belonging as a core domain of Student Agency for students at the margins. And they conclude with a poignant moment of witnessing Marlo’s experience of collaborating with Shane, Sawsan, and Crystal to develop Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency, the sequel to Street Data which will be on the shelves the first week of August!
 
For Further Learning: 
Pre-order your copy of Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency today HERE
Watch this powerful video of educators from across the country sharing their thoughts about about student and teacher agency.
Learn more about the Bridge Program, where Nina teaches
Learn more about the Youth Legacy Project by Carlos Hagerdon, where Nina first learned about the Heartifacts task
Visit your local library or bookstore to find some of Marlo Bagsik + Nina Finci’s favorite books that have help them teach and lead from the heart:
Everything We Never Had- Randy Ribay 
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison 
All About Love – bell hooks 
Community at Work - Sam Kaner
Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning – Andratesha Fritzgerald