Street Data Pod: Imagining the Next Generation of Education

“Another World Is Possible… It’s Already Here”: Exploring Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies with Dr. Django Paris

In this penultimate episode of Season 4, Shane and Alcine explore the contours of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies with the illustrious Dr. Django Paris. Their conversation explores the ideas of shared communities and solidarities across difference, intersectionality, and chosen kinship. We learn how Django’s experiences of reading, writing, and art as a little person inform his scholarship and remind him “what it means to keep that voice and dedication to expression” as a scholar. We unpack the central tenets of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, including CPS as a pedagogical expression of both community care and the abolitionist ethos, “We keep us safe.” Finally, this intimate fireside chat uplifts the student-led movements for a Free Palestine that have emerged across the U.S. and beyond as spaces of abundance that resist a scarcity mindset. Don’t miss this groundbreaking, heartstring-tugging conversation with one of today’s educational dreamers and thought leaders.
 
For Further Learning: 
To learn more about Dr. Paris and his scholarship, click here.
You can find his book Education in Movement Spaces: Standing Rock to Chicago Freedom Square at Routledge Press and the book series Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Book Series at Teachers’ College Press.
Dr. Paris’s new conversations series can be found at An Educational Otherwise
To learn more about the Popular University for Gaza at UW, click here.

[RE-RELEASE] Episode 6: “We Need to Marginalize Standardized Testing” with Young Whan Choi

We are back for another re-release from season 2 with Young Whan Choi! In this episode, we explore ways of being and leading in education that truly center students. Young Whan implores us to “marginalize” standardized testing, or at least push it to the periphery, as he offers a vision of authentic, community-based, performance assessments that demonstrate what students know and are able to do. He exposes the irony that, while many new leaders evoke the principle of being “student-centered”, students themselves are often painfully absent from professional learning agendas, except perhaps as an aggregated data point. And finally, Young Whan helps us rethink where knowledge lives and where power exists within the system.
 
For Further Learning:
Get a copy of Street Data on Amazon, Corwin Press, or from a BIPOC-owned local bookstore.
Get a copy of Young Whan’s book, Sparks Into Fire: Revitalizing Teacher Practice Through Collective Learning at Teachers’ College Press.
Read Shane’s recent Ed Week article on standardized testing.
Watch Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, Wayne Au, Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian discuss the racist history of standardized testing and its impacts today in The Racist History of Standardized Testing
 

EP 28: “All the Data is Story”: Taking a Pause with Wayi Wah Educator and Author Jo Chrona

In this beautiful conversation with BC-based education leader Jo Chrona, we step into Jo’s childhood as a voracious reader with a love of the land. We visit Jo on the bone-shaped, forested island of Haida Gwaii where she first learned the value of taking a pause to breathe in and out. From there, we visit the First People’s Principles of Learning, which Jo helped to author and describes as a “framework” for instructional decision-making. We engage in an important conversation about how to best use large-scale standardized data as a mechanism for moving toward equity, in which Jo offers guiding principles: it must not be high-stakes or negatively impact students’ wellbeing, and it must be a way to hold ourselves accountable for racialized disparities. We explore the interconnectedness between various parts of the education system, including teacher prep, curriculum, and student learning, accessing a window into the future from BC’s forward-moving approaches. Through this dynamic conversation, Jo helps us reframe the “achievement gap”, emphasizing that it is about the system, not the learner. Finally she challenges us to ensure we never homogenize groups of students, but rather get to know who our learners are through their stories. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss this enlightening glimpse of the future!
 
For Further Learning:
Visit https://luudisk.com/ to learn more about Jo Chrona’s work.
Explore the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) 
Other podcasts featuring Jo Chrona:Brave New Teacher, Ep. 159
Free Range Humans, Ep 57
Additional Professional Learning Resources for Learning In Indigenous Education:Continuing Our Learning Journey: A professional learning experience (videos and workshop facilitator's guide) for educators on how to include authentic Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and content in BC’s curriculum.
Pulling Together: A series of resource guides developed to support systemic change in post-secondary education.

[RE-RELEASE] Episode 18: CULT OF PEDAGOGY! “A Seat at the Table” with Jennifer Gonzalez and Amanda Liebel

Get ready for another re-release from Season 3! In this delightful dialogue with the wizard behind Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzalez, and middle school drama teacher Amanda Liebel, Shane and Alcine walk alongside two brilliant educators to think about service, street data, and pedagogy. You’ll learn the origin story of the magical blog and podcast called Cult of Pedagogy. We’ll think about what it means to have a “heart of service”, as Amanda characterizes the deep work of teaching as always a reflective practice. We’ll also discuss how Shane, Jamila, and Jennifer came together to create a 9-hour free video series that follows two teams of teachers as they move through the messiness and richness of the Street Data process! Finally, this episode offers one-inch windows into a pedagogy of student voice, including:
How to receive difficult street data from students with an open heart
How to take deeper risks in the classroom (for example, to “Indigenize our learning spaces”)
Why being a perfectionist works against you as a teacher 
And what it means to “walk alongside students” and listen to what they want
Enjoy this priceless conversation!
For Further Learning:
Listen to the original Cult of Pedagogy podcast episode with Shane and Jamila, “Street Data: A Path Toward Equitable, Anti-racist Schools” (October 5, 2021)
Access 9 hours of free professional learning in Street Data Cult of Pedagogy video series
Listen to the follow-up Cult of Pedagogy podcast episode about this learning series with Shane, Jamila, and Amanda (January 29, 2023)
Check out the mentioned Cult of Pedagogy podcast and blog on The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

Episode 27: “A Good Theory Always Starts with a Good Question" with the esteemed Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings

From West Philly to Stanford University to becoming a field-shifting scholar, Dr. GLB is here to drop the mic for Street Data Pod’s Season 4. We learn about Little Gloria and her largely positive educational experience growing up in Philadelphia before attending a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). We get the inside scoop on her groundbreaking research as a post-doc at Stanford, including what happened when she flipped the dominant, deficit-based research paradigms and asked, “What’s right with Black kids?” From there, GLB enlightens us around the core tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, which starts with a set of beliefs about children and families (not practices!) and a willingness to interrogate knowledge. Finally, we talk about the transformative value of focusing on the “big ideas” of one’s discipline versus the millions of little facts that suck the life out of so much curriculum. To continue our exploration of pedagogies of student voice, GLB takes us to Matamoros, México where a science teacher with few resources in an “underperforming” region breathes life into his content by believing in the brilliance of his students and building an experiential learning simulation. Don’t miss this phenomenal episode!
 
For Further Learning:
Here is a recent article by Dr. Ladson-Billings: “I’m Here for the Hard Re-Set: Post Pandemic Pedagogy to Preserve Our Culture”
Here’s a trailer for Radical, the movie Dr. Ladson-Billings referenced as an example of culturally responsive pedagogy in classrooms.
At the time of the recording, Dr. Luis Moll just transitioned into being an ancestor. We want to honor his brilliant contributions to our field by sharing an article on his seminal theory of funds of knowledge.