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In this rich conversation, Shane and Alcine welcome education icons Debbie Meier and Matt Alexander to explore what democratic schooling has meant across generations — and what it demands of us right now. Debbie traces her path from accidental kindergarten teacher to founder of Central Park East and the Coalition of Essential Schools, sharing stories of children whose ideas revealed what becomes possible when we trust learners and honor their ideas. Matt reflects on growing up in intentionally integrated Columbia, Maryland, and how that blueprint for equity shaped his dissonance with injustice and his commitment to democratic education from the classroom to the San Francisco school board. Together, they wrestle with a hard truth: progressive schools don't survive on pedagogy alone — they need political organizing and community power behind them. And at the center of it all is a deceptively simple principle that threads through Debbie's decades of work, the Coalition of Essential Schools, and the Street Data framework itself: relationships are the foundation of hope, transformation, and the core belief that everyone is truly created equal.   For Further Learning:  Read Debbie’s seminal book, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem Read “What Happened to the Coalition of Essential Schools?”  by Larry Cuban (one of Alcine’s favorite professors at Stanford) as he talks about the origin and demise of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Be sure to read the comments as well to get a fuller picture of CES as an organization. Read this 1994 article Debbie Meier and the Dawn of Central Park East: When Teachers Take Charge of Schooling by Seymour Fliegel about the school that Debbie started in Harlem. Read this 1999 article “A Conversation about Schools with Deborah Meier” where Debbie shares her ideas on key school issues at the time.

In this re-release of Episode 10, Alcine and Shane talk with thought leaders, and mother-daughter dynamic duo, Drs. Linda and Kia Darling-Hammond about their new book The Civil Rights Road to Deeper Learning: Five Essentials for Equity (Teachers College Press, 2022). Drawing on their intersections across 25 years in the field of public education, these four educators begin with a retrospective on the seminal Williams v. California lawsuit in which Shane and Linda both served as witnesses, pivoting to explore the next historic fight for equitable access. They dig into the legacy of the test-and-punish era and how testing has served as a barrier to deeper learning, and Linda drops some mind-blowing knowledge about the double discrimination baked into test questions. Finally, they dream together about equitable and just schools that elevate student voice and center performance-based assessments rather than tests.     For Further Learning: Read Linda and Kia’s book The Civil Rights Road to Deeper Learning: Five Essentials for Equity Read The Right To Learn by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, the seminal book that inspired us to create schools that actually work for learners. Visit the Learning Policy Institute to learn more about Dr. Linda Darling Hammond’s work to support equitable school reform policies and practices. To learn more about or work with Dr. Kia Darling Hammond, visit her website Watch Sherrilyn Ifill, law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, explain the Voting Rights Act on a clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Enjoy an oldie but goodie: If They’d Only Do Their Work by Dr. Linda Darling Hammond that Alcine would use with her staff every year!

In this episode, we sit down with the brilliant Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul — founder of Red Clay Educators, co-director of the Institute for Racial Equity and Literacy, and author of the bestselling Anti-Racist Reading Revolution — for a conversation that is equal parts fire and tenderness. Sonja shares how growing up in Brooklyn shaped her expansive understanding of literacy and community, why she's "irrevocably salty" about the science of reading movement, and how she approached adapting Stamped for Kids and How the Word Is Passed for young readers without watering down the truth. We also explore the dandelion framework at the heart of Anti-Racist Reading Revolution, the deep resonances between Sonja's work and Pedagogies of Voice, and what educators can do right now — even in the most constrained environments — to center student voice, honor the full humanity of Black and Brown children, and keep fighting for the books and histories that belong in every classroom.     For Further Learning:  To learn more about Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul’s work, visit her online at sonjacherrypaul.com or Red Clay Ed  To order any of the following books, visit the publications page on her website: Antiracist Reading Revolution How the Word Is Passed (Adapted for Young Readers): Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America Stamped (For Kids) Breathing New Life into Book Clubs Flip Your Writing Workshop Teaching Interpretation Here is the podcast with Dr. Milner Episode 7: Science of Reading Interview With H. Richard Milner IV Read the Executive Summary of Fact-Checking the Science of Reading by Rober J Tierney and P. David Pearson

Are you ready for another re-release? Season 5 closes with a tender and inquiry-centered conversation between Alcine, Shane, and the luminous Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz who shares that “Critical love is a profound and ethical commitment to the communities you’re serving… to the human flourishing of those young people in your classroom.” Dr. Sealey-Ruiz discusses her powerful Archeology of Self framework, quoted in Shane’s forthcoming book Pedagogies of Voice (PoV), making deep and seamless connections to Street Data and PoV. She invites us into the “Warrior Work” of solidarity, explaining how these respective bodies of work speak to each other, specifically how the 10 toxins in Pedagogies of Voice intersect with her racial literacy development framework. And the conversation ends with an emotional conversation about the 2024 election and the need to “name the suffering” as a condition for healing while also “hospicing grief to make room for something new to be birthed.” Don’t miss this episode, which ties together so many threads of our Season 5! For Further Learning:  Pre-order  your copy of the Archaeology of Self: The Introspective Educator’s Guide to Racial Literacy Read the article “ An Archaeology of Self™ for Our Times” by Dr. Sealey-Ruiz Enroll in Dr. Sealey-Ruiz’s virtual Archaeology of Self Certificate Program at the Acosta Institute (Sundays, May 31st-June 28th, 2026) Learn more about The Acosta Institute: https://www.acostainstitute.com/ Watch Dr. Sealey-Ruiz’s TEDTalk: Truth, Love & Racial Literacy Read Dr. Sealey-Ruiz’s recent titles:  All About Black Girl Love in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love, 2024 Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces. 2021 The Peace Chronicles, 2021 Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, 2020

In this energizing conversation, Alcine and Shane sit down with Canadian educators Dr. Shelley Moore and Dr. Leyton Schnellert to explore how their lived experiences with disability shaped their paths as educators. Shelley shares how Leyton was her art teacher in an innovative 90s middle school — a class where she, as a neurodivergent adolescent, finally felt a sense of belonging. Years later, Leyton — raised in the Canadian disability rights movement as the child of blind parents who fought for curb cuts and community-based education — became her mentor and helped her earn her doctorate in special education. Today, both champion radically inclusive, asset-based pedagogy that affirms the brilliance of every learner, especially students with disabilities. Leyton connects radical inclusion, intersectionality, and the First Peoples’ Principles of Learning. Shelley offers a sharp analogy — comparing test prep to preparing for a red-eye flight — as she pushes back against standardization.Their message: there’s nothing radical about inclusion, because inclusion just is. For Further Learning:  Click HERE or HERE to learn more about Dr. Leyton Schnellert  Watch this info video about Dr. Leyton’s Change Projects, Equality, Co-creation Watch this info video about Dr. Leyton’s Schnellert’s work in Rural Education To learn more about Dr. Shelley Moore Visit her website and reach out if you’d like to work with her Learn about her work here www.outsidepinconsulting.com Subscribe and hit notifications for Dr. Shelley Moore’s YouTube channel Listen to The Five Moore Minutes Podcast with Dr. Shelley Moore Facebook: Five Moore Minutes with Dr. Shelley Moore Read the short article “Which Should Be Defended: Inclusion or Segregation?” by Kathie Snow Read the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines 3.0

Get ready for another re-release! 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

In this Season 6 episode of Street Data Pod, Shane and Alcine sit down with veteran math educators Nolan Fossum and Manny Medina for a grounded, urgent conversation about what it means to teach—and to teach math—in this moment. Nolan reflects on decentering teacher voice, redesigning classroom space into circles to disrupt hierarchy, and resisting grading as harm, while Manny shares how he teaches as a proud immigrant and “ambassador” for students navigating hostile systems, building belonging through micro-affirmations, math autobiographies, and joyful translanguaging that turns multilingual students into co-teachers. Together they connect classroom moves to larger political realities—math as a historical gatekeeper, teacher learning as an agency-building practice, and professional development that must be rooted in choice, trust, and safety—culminating in a powerful closing truth: teaching is a political act, and to pretend otherwise is to preserve the status quo.   For Further Learning:  Read more about Nolan Fossum’s classroom and work in Chapter 5: Pillars & Practices from the 2022 NCTM Publication Success Stories from Catalyzing Change. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework by Gholdy Muhammad Unearthing Joy by Gholdy Muhammad

Get ready for another re-release! 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

In our first-ever LIVE podcast, recorded between Oakland and New Orleans, Shane and Alcine engage in a heartful conversation with Pedagogies of Voice co-author Marlo Bagsik. They excavate stories from how Marlo and Shane became collaborators and co-conspirators to how PoV came to be to what a focus on pedagogies of student voice mean to all three of the humans in dialogue here. Honoring the FullScale (formerly Aurora) Institute's focus on competency-based education, they explore what pedagogies are worthy of being paired with authentic competency-based education so that young people and educators alike feel empowered and excited about their futures. The energy in the room is abuzz as the hosts close with audience questions and from the gut, truthful reflections about why, how, and in what ways to navigate this work in these critical and often-hostile conditions.   For Further Learning:  Visit Corwin Press to your copy of Pedagogies of Voice or Street Data Visit https://symposium2025.fullscalelearning.org/ to learn more about the FullScale 2025 Symposium where we recorded this episode To learn more about competency-based education, visit FullScale’s website Read Dr. Asa Hilliard’s essay, “No Mystery: Closing the Achievement Gap Between Africans and Excellence” in Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students Read Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis

Get ready for a re-release to kick off season 6! 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 tracks two teams of teachers as they move through the messiness and richness of the Street Data process! Finally, this episode offers vibrant 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: Visit Corwin Press to get your copy of Pedagogies of Voice  Listen to 7 Teaching Practices that Nurture Student Voice, an episode on Jennifer Gonzales’ Cult of Pedagogy podcast where  Crystal, Marlo, Sawsan, and Shane talk about Pedagogies of Voice, a “seed store” of practices that describes small, replicable moves that educators can use to center student voice, nurture agency, and create space for meaningful learning Check out Jennifer Gonzales’  Cult of Pedagogy podcast and blog on The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies Access 9 hours of free professional learning in Street Data Cult of Pedagogy video series

Season 5 closes with a tender and inquiry-centered conversation between Alcine, Shane, and the luminous Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz who shares that “Critical love is a profound and ethical commitment to the communities you’re serving… to the human flourishing of those young people in your classroom.” Dr. Sealey-Ruiz discusses her powerful Archeology of Self framework, quoted in Shane’s forthcoming book Pedagogies of Voice (PoV), making deep and seamless connections to Street Data and PoV. She invites us into the “Warrior Work” of solidarity, explaining how these respective bodies of work speak to each other, specifically how the 10 toxins in Pedagogies of Voice intersect with her racial literacy development framework. And the conversation ends with an emotional conversation about the 2024 election and the need to “name the suffering” as a condition for healing while also “hospicing grief to make room for something new to be birthed.” Don’t miss this final episode, which ties together so many threads of our Season 5!   For Further Learning:  Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s TEDTalk: Truth, Love & Racial Literacy Read Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s recent titles:  All About Black Girl Love in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love, 2024 Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces. 2021 The Peace Chronicles, 2021 Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, 2020 An Archaeology of Self™ for Our Times Visit The Acosta Institute

Tune in for another re-release! Shane and Alcine are back with this on-FIRE conversation with Cincinnati math educators Crystal Watson and Dr. Dawn Williams who remind us that “The sun does not ask permission to shine, and neither do I.” These Black women leaders take us on a journey to understanding the type of math pedagogy that will transform and empower future generations of learners. We learn from Dr. Dawn why it’s important for leaders to create a place called home for teachers and, in turn, for students. Crystal and Dawn model a culture of listening to students, always asking, “How will that one child feel…?” and engaging in learning alongside students, all in efforts to affirm to students that the classroom is “your space.” They also teach us how to have a student-centered Data Meeting, how to support teachers to practice active listening- even when it’s uncomfortable! They explain how anxiety specifically with math triggers fight or flight, diminished executive function, and distracting behaviors in the classroom, and how building authentic and trusting relationships can help teachers guide students through that anxiety. Finally, we celebrate the truth that Black educators are “everything” while acknowledging the emotional labor of being a Black woman educational leader.   For Further Learning:  Principles for the Design of Mathematics Curricula: Promoting Language and Content Development with specific Math Language routines classroom teachers can implement The Memo and Right Within by Minda Harts on overcoming racial trauma and discrimination in the workplace Choosing to See by Dr. Pamela Seda and Kendall Brown Crystal Watson is co-author of Shane's upcoming book Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency! Pre-Order at Corwin Check out this Webinar about Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency which features Crystal Watson on 5/21:

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

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

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