S10E15 – Rebuilding The Black Educator Pipeline with Sharif El-Mekki

S10E15 - Rebuilding the Black Educator Pipeline with Sharif El-Mekki

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Dr. Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is Rebuilding the Black Educator Pipeline with Sharif El-Mekki.

Dr. Val: Okay. I am super excited about this episode as a Black educator–

Andrew: That’s right.

Dr. Val: –who deeply values Black educators in the system.

Andrew: Absolutely. If you did not listen to our last episode with Dr. Leslie Fenwick, author of Jim Crow's Pink Slip, it is great context. We talked a lot about the decimation of the Black teacher pipeline and how we lost at least a hundred thousand Black teachers in the wake of desegregation attempts and how it wasn't just the, you know, political and intellectual capital that was lost in that, but also the pipeline, the deep networks of people who were invested in building up new Black educators to (as Dr. Fenwick said) serve as an oasis for Black students.

Dr. Val: That's right.

Andrew: And so we figured we'd come back and talk about people who are doing work to do something about that today.

Dr. Val: You need to go back and listen to it because it's a phenomenal episode. And it's important to know and understand the history because I think that informs what we're gonna talk about today with Mr. El-Mekki, because Mr. El-Mekki had Black educators who led the way for him.

Andrew: You know, I first came across Mr. El-Mekki’s work by listening to The 8 Black Hands Podcast. And if anybody has not listened to that, we'll put a link in the show notes, just phenomenal.

Chris Stewart who was on our fifth episode ever, Interview With a Skeptic (still one of my favorite episodes we've ever done). Chris Stewart was amazing and he was joined by Sharif El-Mekki and a couple of other Black educators. They called their podcast The 8 Black Hands, and just was a constant source for me of, you know, checking my assumptions and making sure that I was always listening to other perspectives. So, was really moved by that podcast and that's where I first came across Mr. El-Mekki's work.

Dr. Val: Yeah, I came across this work via Twitter. His work around recruiting Black educators and specifically the support of Black male educators. We had an initiative in my school district when I worked there because we recognized the same issue, like, where are the Black educators, and specifically Black male educators?

Because I wanted my children to have that as an example.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Someone who actually wasn't their father, right? Can we get more than one? Can we get more than one Black male educator? And I'm really excited to see how his work has grown and really dig into the conversation today.

Andrew: He has this deep commitment to nurturing, fostering, supporting existing Black male teachers, of which there are so few. And then also figuring out how to, how to bring new Black males into the profession. He runs, I think they call it BMEC, the Black Male Educator Conference that happens every year.

He launched an organization called The Center for Black Educator Development back in 2019 and really focused on this question: How do we rebuild the Black educated pipeline?

Dr. Val: It's clear that Mr. El-Mekki is committed to this work and I, I know that we can attribute his dedication to Black male educators (and Black educators broadly) to the love and the support and the advocacy that was poured into him by his Black educators.

Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely. His educational experience growing up, I think, is unlike many people nowadays and I think was certainly far more common in the “pre-Brown” days. He went to an elementary school called Nidhamu Sasa that was an African freedom school, just full of Black educators.

Dr. Val: That’s what's up? I, I wanna hear more.

Andrew: All right, let's take a listen to Sharif El-Mekki.

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Sharif El-Mekki: It's great to be here. I'm Sharif El-Mekki. The founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development. Before that I was a teacher and a principal and all in West Philadelphia, but, glad to be here and diving into this topic.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Dr. Val: I'm resisting. I'm resisting. [Andrew laughs] I want to say after “West Philadelphia,” I'm so!

Sharif El-Mekki: “West Philadelphia. Born and raised …,”

Dr. Val: “On the playground is where I spent most of my days.” [Everyone laughs]

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, that’s right!

Dr. Val: It was really hard. I was trying, but I'm a child.

Andrew: Tell us a little bit about your, you know, your upbringing, the, the people who poured into you that led you to this place where you are still pouring into, to Black educators everywhere.

Sharif El-Mekki: You know what, I had, contrary to so many of my friends and colleagues that I've met over the, you know, over the years, like, I didn't have that single Black teacher or that one or two Black teachers. Like, my elementary school was full of Black, dope Black teachers. You know, I'm still in touch with many of them, you know. Mama Fasaha and Baba Juhudi, two of the founders of the school, and Mama Fasaha was the founding principal.

Like, we still go to their house for Kwanzaa every year. This might be, like, the 53rd anniversary of them hosting in their home, right? Like, so many of my old classmates, and this, the school was called Nidhamu Sasa was a, you know, African freedom school, so to speak. Almost year round. You know, it wasn't, like, formally year round. But like, with the summer programming, it was like, you know, we were pretty much there year round. I mean, it was such a community and I would say like, even though I didn't think about becoming a Black teacher until I graduated from college, but I would definitely say that, you know, between my parents, and the community and, you know, that they kind of stitched together and chose for us as children.

They planted the seeds for becoming an educator.

I don't recall any of them saying specifically, like, trying to recruit. You know, “Hey, you'll be a teacher one day!” But I, they definitely talked about, you know, activism, social and racial justice, leading and serving in our community and with our communities.

So all of that was, look, we had political science as fifth graders, so you know, that, that, like, that's how in depth they looked at education. So they were, like, anti-schooling, but very pro-education.

Andrew: Mm mm Yeah. Your parents were both in the Black Panther parties.

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. Look, I had two parents, mother and father as well as two of my father's cousins. So, you can imagine the community we grew up in. Like, looking back, I'm like, that was a little bit of a, a bubble, but it was also porous because they were so engaged with other members of the community, right?

So it wasn't just the Panthers or anything like that, but there was so many people who were activists and who were trying to make changes, in Philadelphia and beyond, that they poured so much, so much, into me.

Dr. Val: . One thing I, I try to continue to share on the podcast is the power that I have felt in Black spaces as a young person growing up. And so, the idea that all Black schooling spaces would be negative was completely not my experience.

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Val: I felt whole and complete. Can you talk a little bit about that and your identity growing up and how it filled you?

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. I, I mean, I think just the, the deliberate space that they created. The environment that they curated, the sense of community, the sense of student leadership. Like, you know, we had Friday community meetings, every week. And students could put things on the agenda that they wanted to discuss–

Dr. Val: That’s what’s up!

Sharif El-Mekki: –and problems that they wanted to address and, and solve.

And, you know, it also meant that you could be put on the agenda if you were, you know, treating your peers a certain way. Like, “Hey, I wanna talk about how Sharif is treating me during lunchtime.” You know, I was never on the agenda

Andrew: That’s good!

Sharif El-Mekki: You know, one of my classmates are probably listening to this, they’re like, “Yes, you were! I remember I put you on it.” [Everyone Laughs] I don't recall….

Dr. Val: “I put you on the agenda!”

Sharif El-Mekki: I don't recall that, you know. But even now, we, we say, like, when one of us are, like, doing something like, “Don't make put you on the agenda, yo,” you know.

Dr. Val: Oh my gosh. I love that!

Andrew: That’s good.

Sharif El-Mekki: We, you know, it was a, it was such a loving space, right?

And, you know, I tell people, like, I never felt unloved and unheard as a kid. And, learning later, you know, of course we'd read about it, but like actually seeing it, how it's systemic in so many spaces. You know, where a kid could be unloved and unheard, unwanted in, in an educational space.

And, you know, to be able to, to be in an environment with these Black teachers. Having history, not Black history, having history, having political science. So, you know, all these things we're learning, early on. I remember being an elementary school and our art teacher (who was also our martial arts teacher and political science teacher) drew a picture of a, a Black woman with full lips, full nostrils, curly hair. And I remember someone snickering. And I remember him talking through the idea of like, “What does it mean to love yourself? And to love Black people.”

I remember him, he said, “You know, one day you're, you guys are gonna hear people talk about the ‘classics,’ and they're only gonna be referring to Eastern European or White, whether it's literature, art, music.”

He said, “As soon as someone asks you about the classics, or say something about the classics, ask them about what part of Africa they're referring to. What part of the Deep South or Harlem are they speaking about?” You know, he said, “Because every group has their ‘classics.’”

Andrew: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: He said the way that society, the media, and the world discusses it, Whiteness is the centerpiece of everything that's elevated. Everything that's sophisticated, everything that's a higher level. And he said “That's the exact opposite of how you should think.”

So I remember us listening to Malcolm X speeches and then discussing them, writing opinions about 'em.

So we were constantly reading, constantly thinking, constantly engaging. So, bro, you asked a question about, like, “How did this pour into me?” It was nonstop. It was, you know, kindergarten through sixth grade school, and we still mourn that it no longer exists, because it could do some real damage to educational injustice these days if it was still here.

Andrew: This educational experience seems pretty unique. Your experience was not what many, any kind of students, but certainly many Black students in Philadelphia were getting. But there was a lot of direct ties, it seems, between activism and education. Between the idea that, the point of education is to lead towards activism, is towards making things better.

It seems like that has followed you through. That that was poured into you early and is still with you. You are still deeply invested in education as a tool for liberation. Can you talk a little bit about that, the kind of, the thread that was tied through your education that you carry on today?

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. I mean, I, I think definitely the inextricable link between educational justice and racial justice, um, was paramount. The idea that this educational piece did not start here, in Americas. Even though it may have been strained by the middle passage, education, schooling, the first library, the first universities, these were on the content of Africa.

And so, making sure that we were aware of that, making sure we were aware of the depth that people would go through in order to teach each other how to read English. Even though the threat of loss of limb or life, you know, people were passing along syllables and words and sentences, right?

Because they looked at this education being part of their liberatory practices, this freedom fighting. You know?

And that, that's probably the phrase that I probably remember the most, is about this idea of what's a freedom fighter.

Dr. Val: Hmm.

Andrew: Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: You know, the songs we used to sing, and it was international. I remember a song saying, you know, “Hands off Nkrumah, that's what the people say,” right? Like, this is a whole song.

And I don't remember a lot of them, but I have classmates who remember every word, you know? I remember a song basically talking about someone going through a journey and it was like, “I went to a meeting last night and my feeling just wasn't right. I thought all this Black stuff just wasn't for me. But then when I found out it was for me, then I joined in the fight for Liberty,” right? And so, like, even just talking to the journey of like, Hey, this person's like, “I'm not down with all of that. I don't know,”

But then going to the meeting and saying like, “Oh, you know what? Like, no, I am joining this work. I am joining this fight. I am gonna be part of the community and organizing.” And the line between home and school was razor thin if it existed at all.

Andrew: Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: And so where today there are, like, barriers and institutionalized practices that may create these moats between the home and school. For us, home and school was one, it was about being freedom fighters and raising freedom fighters, so….

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm

Sharif El-Mekki: And all of you're not necessarily thinking about, like, “career-wise” as, as kids, but we definitely had a sense of community organizing, uh, orientation towards justice. All of those things from what we read, the people that would visit us, you know. Angela Davis visited our school.

Andrew: Wow.

Dr. Val: Yeah, he's flexing now.

Sharif El-Mekki: Um. Yeah, flexing. [Val laughs] You know, listen! I remember us, one of our, one of our class trips was walking over the bridge to Jersey to, to visit one of her talks, you know.

Um, I remember a guy was, uh, murdered by the police (shot in the back), you know, on tv you see the chalk outline. They actually did that back in the day. So we, that was our walking trip. We went to see this and then had a discussion.

Dr. Val: Wow.

Sharif El-Mekki: This guy, he was carrying a TV, cops pulled up on him real quick, real aggressively, like, “Freeze!” He ran, they shot him in the back, right? 'Cause running is a capital offense, you know.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: If you’re Black.

Turns out it was his TV. He just panicked. That was a class trip. I remember going on a class trip to a courtroom and seeing one of the brothers, one of, uh, the babas of the community, like, shackled to the chair during the trial.

Like, and so we're, you know, we're, it is just–

Dr. Val: This is all pre-sixth grade?

Sharif El-Mekki: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they didn't separate the political struggle from education.

Andrew: Mmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: And I think that was a big part of the consciousness. You know, when you think about the global aspect. If we're singing about Kwame Nkrumah, if we're read, reading and learning about Patrice Lumumba, uh, Thomas Sankara, like, we're learning about these folks who are on a, this global struggle for independence, for liberation. And it was tied to, “Okay, what's the struggle here and what, what can we learn from each other?” So these are all things that were, like, just a matter of fact. Just part of our, our daily existence.

So later, to become an educator, that was already my orientation. So it just made sense, once I was invited into the classroom to, to lead it, was just part of the paradigm that had already been shaped through my experiences, both here and, and abroad.

Andrew: Talk about that, that journey, because I, I think you, you were on your way to being a lawyer, is that right?

Sharif El-Mekki: That's right. You know, and a lot of it I think was from, you know, what I saw in experiences, you know? Like, I was a lawyer really, uh, against police brutality was like, kind of how I was thinking about this work.

Just like, “All right, I'm gonna be a lawyer for the community. This is one of the things that, that they're addressing and, and needs.”

I think they still need that. You know, shout out to folks like Michael Coard who are out there, and Tariq Shabazz, fighting a good fight in, in the courtrooms, among many others. But, you know, like that's, uh, I still think about that.

Man. I, look, I was, I was arrested as a principal leaving my building one day, right? Like, and so, you know, like that.

Dr. Val: Yeah, what happened?

Sharif El-Mekki: I left the building. It was late at night, Southwest Philadelphia, was leaving Shaw Middle School, and a cop pulled me over. And, one of the things I remember was, like, one, there was a student that I didn't see at first, but the cop, uh, started accosting me.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: And I remember seeing a student across the street, I'm like, wow, this is like what he's seeing, you know, his principal being assaulted by, by the police.

Andrew: A student from your school.

Sharif El-Mekki: A student from my school, yeah, eighth grader. And ended up taking me to the police station, didn’t charge me. Like, this is harassment. Didn't charge me. I had to be there for a couple hours, and then they just let me go. Right? Like just to, you know, the attempt to intimidate. And later they were like, “Well, why didn't you say you were a principal?” I shouldn't have to.

Dr. Val: I don't have to. I shouldn't have to! No.

Sharif El-Mekki: Right? Like, I'm not using that as a card to, you know, get outta jail card. Like, yeah, I'm not your pacified negro. Like, nah, I, I'm not telling you jack. “Here, here's my license, here's the thing.” And I'm not telling you my profession, you know, and they didn't ask anyway.

But I'm just saying, like, you know, they wanted me to lead with that so you could kind of negotiate your criminal behavior, you know. Like, nah, like, nah, do, you know, do you. Keep that same energy, right? But eventually I did get a letter from them saying that they were disciplining the officer because of this unlawful arrest. You know, so one of the probably, you know, few times, you know, and who knows, maybe he took it to arbitration and got that overturned. But, again, all these things are connected. I'm in the community.

I'm a Black man driving, I'm leaving work, and I'm being harassed, you know? So, all connected.

Dr. Val: Take us back. You are a principal and you are looking to hire, like, the best teachers that you could possibly can have for your young people.

Sharif El-Mekki: Dopest classroom leaders we can find, you know?

Dr. Val: Yes. And so, are you able to recruit the Black educators that poured into you, or what was, what was the reality there?

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. Some. Some, you know. And then I think this is when I started seeing like, “Wait a minute. Where, where is everybody?”

Dr. Val: Where are we? Where are we?! [Val laughs]

Sharif El-Mekki: You know, what's going on here? And, you know life is best understood by looking backwards. Right? And so, now I see that the experience I had as a principal ambassador fellow at the US Department of Ed, you know, I got to see that this wasn't just a Philly problem, it was a national issue.

Andrew: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: I got to see that it was a global issue where, you know, whether it was the Maori people in New Zealand, Aboriginal people in Australia, that, you know, they also lack Indigenous schooling in Canada, where they were also speaking about the lack of Indigenous teachers. You know, about Hawaii and losing the native Hawaiian language because there was fewer and fewer teachers to teach them, right?

So we're seeing like, wow, this is really a global issue where white supremacy has really dominated the educational workforce. And so, just seeing like, yo, this is jacked up! Um, but it makes sense, right? Like if I'm going to colonize, if I'm gonna oppress, if I'm gonna enslave, I'm going to infiltrate it with–

Dr. Val: Education.

Sharif El-Mekki: –what I want them to learn. And education, you know, uh,

Dr. Val: Absolutely.

Sharif El-Mekki: Biko said it best, you know, “The most powerful weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” And using that to kind of, you know, inject their own way of thinking, way of being, into these constructs, what easier way. Right? You know, so when Malcolm talked about “Who taught you to hate yourself,” kids could say, “My school did!”

Dr. Val: I got a long list! I got a long list. [Val laughs]

Sharif El-Mekki: My curricula did. My, you know, my ever, blank, blank, blank, did.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm

Sharif El-Mekki: My teacher did, My principal did. My school board did.

Dr. Val: Mm. And given that you were raised to be an activist, you're like, “Okay, I can't just sit around. There’s got to be something I gotta do about it.”

Sharif El-Mekki: Again, when we were little, they would say, there's two types of people in the world. Some who are like, “Somebody ought to do something about that!” There's another group who says, “Hey, we're going to do something about that.” So, we were raised to try to be part of the latter as much as possible.

You know, I'm still out there like, “Yo, somebody need to do something about,” you know, certain things.

Andrew: Right. [Andrew laughs]

Sharif El-Mekki: But things that I feel are like, you know what? Like, yo, we can actually have a community and we have access points. Knowledge, expertise, that we can actually lean in and weigh in on this, and try to rebuild something, you know?

So we, I had to rebuild a Black teacher pipeline. And obviously that's not something that you do by yourself, just like people conspired to, to design policies to undermine a Black teacher pipeline. So that means we have to also organize and work together to rebuild it, right? And that's how we look at ourselves as part of the constellation of efforts to, to pour into, as my Eight Black Hands buddy Chris Stewart talks about, you know, Black educational capital.

Andrew: And so this, this led you to create the Center for Black Educator Development. You left the classroom.

Sharif El-Mekki: Don’t make me cry on the show, bro. Don’t make me cry on the show. [Andrew laughs]

Dr. Val: It's hard. It's hard not for that not to be the best job ever. Like, teaching and leading in schools is, like, the best job ever. I've had several since then.

Sharif El-Mekki: The best, most important, like, most impactful. Like, you see immediate results and long-term results, you know? Um,

Dr. Val: I miss it every day. I do.

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. The first year was the hardest, like, leaving and not being, and just, like, whew! Every time somebody would ask about it, I would get, like, emotional, like I would see students and I'm like, “Hug me. I'm so sorry.”

Dr. Val: Look, I lied for like two years. They were like, “What do you do?” I'm like, “I'm a teacher!” [Val and Sharif laugh]

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Yes. That was crazy. I didn't, yeah, listen, I had the same thing. I was like, I'm doing it. “Well, I'm a principal, but I'm doing this, you know?” Yeah.

Dr. Val: I'm here with you. I'm here with you. Just straight up lie! Just lie to people's faces all the time. “I’m a teacher.” Sorry, you had a real question, Andrew.

Andrew: No, I mean, I'm imagining obviously it was hard to leave, hard to leave the school, hard to leave that role, hard to leave that direct contact, but must have felt important enough to be worth doing to, to really sort of dedicate full-time energy to, as you say, rebuilding the Black educator pipeline.

What was it that drew you to that? And tell us a little bit about the work of, of the Center for Black Educator Development.

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, you know, it happened in stages. So, I mentioned the Principal Ambassador Fellowship and I was on the Mayor's Commission for African American Males, here in Philadelphia.

Launched a fellowship, Black Male Educators for Social Justice, really looking at okay, Black male educators experiences in schools and classrooms. And then, people were just reaching out like, “Hey, you know, I'm thinking about leaving the profession or, I love your advice and you're a veteran.”

So I started meeting and then selfishly I was like, “Look, I can't do these individual meetings. Can, uh, we all come together like, you know, once a month just calendar-wise.” You know, coffee here, lunch there, dinner there was, like, adding up and they agreed, you know. So then called a couple of my homies who were veteran educators, “Like, Hey, I got these brothers, you know, y'all should come and help, you know, mentor, support,” blah, blah, blah.

And so, you know, we started, ended up being 17 of us. And one thing we realized is while we were talking, this was in 2014, that not a single one of us had been invited into the profession until we had graduated from college.

Dr. Val: Stop!

Sharif El-Mekki: And so we, you know, we asked our colleagues. Most of 'em were White women.

Like, Hey, when did someone tap you on the shoulder? Invite you into the profession? Average response was third grade.

Dr. Val: Wow.

Sharif El-Mekki: Third grade for one group, post-bac for another group. So we're like, “Yo, that's crazy.” So, you know, I remember our first commitment was like, yo, our, our youth, invite them into the profession.

You know, and just say like, “Hey, you'd be a dope teacher. You'd be great. Oh, I saw, I saw you helping with that homework. Oh, I saw you helping to de-escalate. Oh, I, I saw your leadership. You know, what you should consider becoming a teacher.” So, did that for a couple years, was able to raise enough funds to hire a CEO and then, you know, maintaining as a principal, but also we were still supporting, hosted convenings, Black male educated convenings, et cetera.

But at some point I realized, “You know what, like that's not enough.”

Andrew: Mm-Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: The few who are there who identify as Black men, to host, you know, uh, basically affinity spaces. We weren't calling them affinity spaces at the time, but we're like, all right, that's not enough. We actually need a pipeline that intersects with the ecosystem.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: Right? So if the ecosystem or those who are there and how to retain and how to support, what's the pipeline that's feeding into that? And so, at that point, I decided to try to build an organization that can do more work with the pipeline and programming for recruitment and retention.

Andrew: And how's it going? You started in 2019, is that right?

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah. We started in 2019, you know, slowly but surely, you know, I'm excited, also frustrated. You know, most days, you know, a little combination of the other two.

Andrew: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: Umm, the frustration comes when people, you know, there are a lot of people who reach out. A lot of people who are supportive.

But unfortunately a lot of folks also think we have Black teachers in our back pockets. [Andrew laughs]You know, so when they’re reaching out, they're–

Andrew: “I'd like to order a dozen Black teachers”

Sharif El-Mekki: “You got Black teacher?” I'm like, “Yeah, let me look in this cabinet and I'm sure I can find one for you.” Like, you know? And what we have is a model for you to develop and interest your students into becoming teachers, you know? But it's more complicated than just inviting them.

You have to make sure that, one: their experiences as students are much better than what they are right now for Black children. Like we've spoken to Black children who say, “I wouldn't wanna be my teacher's colleague.” You know, and I'm like, damn. Like, what a, what a damning statement, you know, for our profession where they're saying like, “I wouldn't wanna be the colleague based off of the experience I'm having as your student,” right?

Where other folks, like, I'm like, man, I'm the colleague, so to speak. I mean, not really, she's my elder, but like, I'm the colleague of Mama Kamara. Like, I'm in the same profession as Mama Fasaha. Like, whoa, what an honor, what a weighty honor and responsibility to be in the same profession as the folks that I, you know, was just enamored with as educators.

You know, the ones that I, even as a child understood it to some level, but now as an adult, as an educator, understand it even better. Like, how amazing they were. And they were just in our school, it was like the average. Like, this is what the norm was and then, you know, compare that to what the experiences are of so many people, you know.

And, when Dr. Chris Emden spoke at, at one of the BMAC, um, early on, and he talked about, you know, recruiting Black youth to become teachers is like recruiting someone to return to the scene of a crime. A crime committed against themselves. It's like, that's what it, it might be like for many of them to even think about returning. To a place that they found, you know, hell.

And so, you know, that's been part of our conversation with youth, right? And some of them are often thinking about, “You know what, I'm gonna consider becoming a teacher I wish I had and knew I needed. I'm gonna be there for this next generation.”

And the excitement that I have, you know, I talked about the frustration a little bit, the excitement that I have are the youth. You know? To see them, career technical education, you know, so it's a teacher academy. They're in high school. They're taking this course, basically “teaching 101,” but from a Black pedagogical framework, a Black historical lens. Uh, as Dr. Akosua Lesesne talks about Black teaching traditions. Here's the Black pedagogical framework that you, that you should know about. Here's the Black historical lens. Like, we weren't introduced to education, you know?

Dr. Val: Yeah. Yep.

Sharif El-Mekki: It is something that we are very, very familiar with, very intimate with. And here's the evidence of that, and here's how that continued to be passed along.

Here's the relationships we have with teaching and learning. and what you're rejecting, what you're thinking about is because you might not see yourself in this curriculum, this curriculum may be disrespectful of you, of your history, of your community, and that's what you're rejecting. You're not rejecting learning.

Dr. Val: No.

Sharif El-Mekki: You're rejecting this paradigm that's being forced on you. Two different things. And so be careful about letting people tell you you don't like to learn, you don't like it, you don't value education. Your people don't value education. Like, nah. It's two different things. You don't value White supremacy being rammed down your throat

Andrew: Mm.

Sharif El-Mekki: That's what you're rejecting. Helping students disconnect that, you know? They're like, “Oh yeah. I actually, yeah, I do love learning. I've always like, yeah, actually I remember having a better experience up until this point, then I–”

Dr. Val: “Up until this point.” Yep.

Sharif El-Mekki: Right? Like, like, you know, some of that rejection is self preservation.

Dr. Val: Yeah. Yeah. So what has your work taught you about what the system needs to do to sustain Black educators

Sharif El-Mekki: How long is this podcast? [Everyone laughs] No, you know, I, I think one is, just the level of respect. I often say that, you know, being Black in America and being Black in American schools have a lot of similarities and traumas, right? I think a lot of times people have this nostalgic view, revisionist history about school and education, and school systems. And policies and procedures, and rules and regulations.

Like, that, you know, those are very similar to rules and regulations that you see being imposed on Black communities in general. Whether it's disinvestment, whether it's over-policing, whether it's, you know, just outright racism in, in different forms and shapes. And so, we have a school-based version of racism.

And so, one: the, the more anti-racist a school is the more just it’s gonna be. The better experience Black educators, but also like, it's one of those things that it lifts all ties. If you're, if you're an anti-racist, it's actually good for all–

Andrew: For everybody.

Sharif El-Mekki: –educators, all students.

Dr. Val: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: Like, you're right. It's not just like, “Oh, all right, we, we, for you Black folks, we're gonna be anti-racist, and here's our three things we're gonna do.” Like, nah. Have that anti-racist orientation instead of the anti-Black orientation that you've been.

You know, there are folks who enjoy the idea, the notion of having a colorful website,

Dr. Val: Mmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: but still maintain their anti-Blackness inside the, the system.

Right? And so they're like, “Oh yeah, we're diverse,” right? Like, really? Are you? Are, are your policies reflective of this desire to be diverse?

Is the power structure–

Andrew: Power. Yes.

Sharif El-Mekki: –shared? I often talk about like, you wanna integrate something, integrate the power in the bank account. Integrate that.

Dr. Val: What else? What else you learn?

Sharif El-Mekki: I learned, you know, again, back to Dr. Lusane's work and, and so many others, right? You know, whether it's Vanessa Siddle Walker, whether it's Gloria Ladson-Billings. Whether it's Tatum, Delpit, like, all of these folks, Cardi G. Woodson, Baba Carr, Greg Carr, right?

Like this, you know, this Black pedagogical framework, Black teaching traditions can actually save America.

Dr. Val: Mm.

Andrew: And not just save Black people, save America. Talk. Talk a little bit more about the Black teaching tradition.

We're coming up on the anniversary of Brown v. Board. We know that in the wake of Brown v. Board we lost a massive number of highly qualified, highly educated, well credentialed Black teachers. It wasn't just the sort of physical bodies that we lost, but we also, I think, lost some of these kind of Black teaching traditions that, at least from my look at, at your work and some of the ways that you've explained it, feels to me like, you know, would be beneficial for my White kids, for sure.

I mean, I think even just the story you're telling about the songs that were part of your education when you were in elementary school that are still with you here today, you know, at least a couple of years later. Right? But they're still in there. The, the, the learnings from that are still in there.

There's this Black teaching tradition that you talk about that, that we've lost in, in so many places (and obviously you're trying to hold onto it), but, you know, tell us about that tradition and, and what's lost by not having that as part of our education system.

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, I mean, here's a, a really concrete example. As a principal I was often talk about like, you know, community and engagement and, and, like, what that….Not as this theoretical approach, like a practical necessity, you know? And I remember, someone from the district office was like, “Nobody ever told me about the community,” you know? Uh, it was a White guy. You know what I mean? Just, I was like, “That's a fundamental difference of, like, what education looked like for me and what it looked like for you.”

And this is why now, as a White man with, with authority and power in the school system, you're perpetuating that, which is the opposite of how, you know, communal people of color are.

I was like, “You're promoting and insisting on this individualism.” We have individuality that's also linked to community.

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Hmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: Right? And so this idea of, “I think, therefore I am,” or something. And as opposed to African philosophy is “I am, therefore we are,” you know? Like, it's, it is connectivity. This idea of sankofa, this idea of Ubuntu, right? Like these are, like, fundamental components of society. And you're talking about individualism.

And this is why we can go across America (and not just hearing from White educators, but hearing people, people, educators, period), tell kids like, “You know what? I get paid whether you learn or not.” That is so anti-child. That is so anti-intellectualism. That is so anti-communal. But I've not been in an auditorium yet where people didn't know the second part of that. I can say, I get what have, “Who's heard of ‘I get paid whether you’”, and then I ask them to finish it.

Oh, “whether you learn or not,” whether you do that. Right? Like, and so that's part of the, the orientation. Or the idea that you can talk about a new teacher and say, “Let's see if they sink or swim.”

Andrew: Mmm.

Sharif El-Mekki: Right? That's the opposite of communal. Like, oh no, we are in this together. Right? Like, where a Black teaching tradition would be, “I'll be successful if you're successful, and you're gonna be successful if I'm successful.” So let's collectively work together. Right? So those, those Kwanzaa principals, that was part of our school's overall year-long value system.

It wasn't just the week of between Christmas and New Year's. The, the Nguzo Saba was our values, so we had the, the values and the meaning memorized, right? And so, when we talked about collective work and responsibility, the teachers were talking about collective work and responsibility.

We were talking about it as students. The family, the parent teacher association was talking, right? Like, it was this collective work responsibility and accountability. We're all doing this together.

So it goes from classroom management, like how do I manage kids' behavior? And I see this in formalized texts, managing kids' behavior to how do you build a community of cooperation. A culture of respect and cooperation, right?

Because we're all going towards the same goal. That's very, very different than, “Oh yeah, let me manage it. Let me create this system in order to do this, and this is how they're gonna do XY.”

Dr. Val: In order to control. Yeah. Yep.

Sharif El-Mekki: That’s very, very different. So you want a culture of control or a culture of cooperation? I'd want my kids to be in a culture of cooperation.

Dr. Val: Absolutely.

Sharif El-Mekki: Our teachers used to say, you know, “Students are known by their teachers, and teachers are known by their students.” Right? And that means one thing as a kid, like, “Oh, all right, like, you're gonna be known by me? What does that mean?” But now I'm like, oh yeah, they are a student and what they're able to do and how they respond, how they engage. You are like, “Who's your teacher? What's your intellectual genealogy?” Like, where'd you learn that from?

Dr. Val: That was literally my question that's around my dissertation work. It was like, who is Martin Luther King's teacher? And that's literally–

Sharif El-Mekki: I love that! I center that around the three women who taught Martin Luther King. So, that was part of, like, what we share with our students. Like, hey, you know, everyone loves Dr. King. Who were the three Black women who, who poured in into Dr. King? Where, what's part of his intellectual genealogy? Because we share with them like, “Yeah, you heard about the Montgomery bus boycott. A lot of, you know, folks erroneously think that he began, he started it. Like,

Dr. Val: Oh! No.

Sharif El-Mekki: No, dog. He was called in to support it.

Dr. Val: Exactly.

Sharif El-Mekki: Oh, who started it? A Black woman teacher, Joanne Robinson. She was the catalyst for it. She helped organize the initial stages. And then they said, “Dr. King, come here young man. You got a platform, you got a following. We need you to help down here.” So he was invited to support Joanne Robinson was, was that person. Or Septima Clark who, uh, he–

Dr. Val: That's who I led through. I know.

Sharif El-Mekki: Like, hey, SeptSeptima Clark, where he asked her, “Hey, can you help train folks who are gonna be part of this movement?” Including Rosa Parks went to one of our workshops right before the Montgomery bus boycott that we know.

Dr. King's mom was a classically trained HBCU teacher. And back then, once you got married, you were fired basically. You were let go because you can't be married and–

Andrew: And a teacher.

Dr. Val: Working!

Sharif El-Mekki: At the same time. Right. And so we're just like, all right, well who's their first teacher? Well, my parents, especially my mom. Like, all right, well, if your mom's your first teacher and she was also a teacher, how much do you think she poured into him in this before he actually went to school? Like, who was teaching him from a classical HBCU teacher development person as well as a mother in the struggle?

Like, them seeing it, like, yo! Right? We're like, yeah, these, uh, these pedagogical frameworks, we have some. And then introducing them to Vanessa Siddle Walker's work and others who've, you know, collected some of these stories. When you look at her book where she writes, about, this Black school reminded me of Nidhamu Sasa, you know, the school we went to, and it's like all Black teachers and how dope it was, and how people poured into it and how, you know, kids left there feeling about their people and about learning. About education, about community.

And as she's going around the country talking about it, people are coming up to her like, “That sounds like my school.” “That sounded like my school. That sounds like the school I went to.” And they're from all over: North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri. Right? This was a more common experience.

So then she writes about that. Right? And then she writes about, like, the activism that was actually happening with those teachers, right? And what was really going on. Whether you were this leadership, not just within the schoolhouse, but in society.

Dr. Val: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: That's, that's dope, right? Like, I, I can't get enough of her.

Andrew: You know, 70 years since Brown, your work seems to me at least to be kind of squarely situated and undoing some of the harms that came from the wake of the Brown decision.

How do you think about, you know, fulfilling the promise of Brown?

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, you know, it, it is interesting, I think often about, Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, where he says, “We weren't fighting for integration, we were fighting to end White supremacy.”

And so, I think the promise of Brown, if there's a promise, is that you know how to interrupt whatever racial injustice our students are experiencing, that communities are experiencing in schools. Right?

It's a, it is a promise, but it was an unintended promise, right? That integrating when people's hearts are so steadfast against it, means that it's gonna be done on the backs and, and spirits of Black children.

Andrew: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: You know, because I remember, some of the, the violent attempts to not integrate was in Boston, as a kid watching that. 'Cause everyone thinks initially about the deep south and little kids being spat on.

I remember Boston throwing bricks at the cheese buses full of Black kids. Right? And this is in Boston, where're supposed to be like, “progressive liberalism,” all those kind of things. And I'm just like, yo, this is how Black children are treated. You know? Because they're trying to access a school.

I think the other, you know, huge lesson for me has always been around (and again, this is some of the things that they taught at, at Nidhamu Sasa), was around the resources.

Andrew: Yep.

Sharif El-Mekki: You know, like, what was actually available, how far you had to go to get to your designated neighborhood school, but you're passing other schools that are well invested in, you know, but you can't go there, you know?

One of the things that was interesting that often gets lost, immigrants who had to figure out, you know, sometimes the courts or the school district would decide who and what you are.

Andrew: Right. Yep. And it, and it didn't stay the same, right?

Sharif El-Mekki: Right, you had–

Andrew: “Oh, there's only a handful of Chinese. Yeah. you're, you can be White. Oh, wait, there's too many of you? No, no.”

Sharif El-Mekki: Right, right. And just how often that played out, That, that story doesn't get told enough.

And then, you know what, Vanessa and, and, uh, Baba Greg Carr and, and others will talk about as well is, like, these plaintiffs actually loved their teachers and for that, they were well cared for, well taken care for, well educated.

And then how often, even in the segregated school, these Black teachers were looking at, “We are fueling, informing, educating the next generation of freedom fighters.”

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: Yeah.

Sharif El-Mekki: Talking about losing education capital, that collective work responsibility and accountability for raising the next generation of freedom fighters was also lost a little bit.

Not everywhere, right? Because it was still folks out there fighting, but, you know, when you have that concentrated in a school that's segregated and when folks are looking at it as “This is why we're, we want you to be a deep problem solver, a deep thinker, a high level reader, et cetera, is so that you can do it.”

We saw that, right? Who were the civil rights workers? They, a lot of them went to these, segregated schools, right? Like and that's where they were, that's where they got their fire.

Dr. Val: I wonder if that decision for the plaintiffs and their, and everyone to get on board was about the “we” for Black people in a way that I hadn't even considered it before. Right? Knowing that you were sacrificing all that you just described for something that we could not guarantee was going to be better, and in many places has not proven better for our young people.

Like, if there was a decision or a deeper feeling that like, “I'm gonna sacrifice my young kid walking into the school for a larger ‘we,’” that I just don't… And that's the first time that I thought about it that way. And it's, it's a wondering, I don't know.

Sharif El-Mekki: There were decisions and strategy, right? Like, they didn't just show up to court, right?

People were, like, trying to inform and, and understand that what's the best strategy, and the best strategy ain't always what you most want. It's like, how do I get to win what's most likely to, to win?

Dr. Val: Right.

Sharif El-Mekki: It’s not always consistent with what you actually want or what you actually believe.

Right? And so they're like, “All right, how do we press–

Andrew: What’s achievable?

Sharif El-Mekki: –this forward? How do we move this,” exactly. “What's most achievable in this context, in front of these people, in front of,” right?

Dr. Val: Oh, that's tough. Oh, that's tough. I'm sure these conversations are tough!

Sharif El-Mekki: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Right? But then the other part of it's like, where are the resources?

Because, you know, White schools are going to be funded. In hindsight we're like, “Yeah, we should have fought for funding,” right? Like, I hear people say that all the time, like. Okay, would that have happened? Right? Because we already knew, like, Black folks who didn't even have schools were paying taxes for White schools. We know that, right? Like, and so when you see that the, the economic racism.

That's levied across communities where, you know, sometimes like, “Hey, you gotta, your taxes gonna pay for this.”

So then they were like, “Alright, I'm being taxed for the White school, but we gotta build our own school. So, all right, so now I'm building my own school.” 'cause the government is like, “Nah, y'all don't need a school.” So we're like, “Yes, we do.” So we're building that our own, we're felling the trees, we're building the school house.

We're bringing the ox in to clear the land. Like, we're doing all of that and we're paying for your child's education.

Then you layer on top of that, like, Black women were responsible for a lot of White children, right?

Like as nannies. As wet nurses, as, you know, caretakers. And now you have a majority of White women taking care of Black kids. Who's accountable? In those two scenarios who's the most accountable?

Dr. Val: Oh, gosh.

Sharif El-Mekki: And who's not?

Dr. Val: That's heavy!

Sharif El-Mekki: Yeah, I know. That's a hell of a thing to, to bring towards the end of it. So that just means I, I do that sometimes just when I have a good time, I'm like, yeah, you gotta invite me back now because we gotta dive into that!

[Laughter]

Andrew: We gotta, we gotta unpack all of that!

Dr. Val: Done!

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Yeah, we do have to unpack that!

Andrew: Yeah. This has been great. So grateful for you coming on and, and spending the time. Really grateful for all the work that you, I mean, and clearly, you were poured into and you are pouring right back out into the world, making it a better place. Grateful for that work as well.

Dr. Val: Thank you for being here!

Sharif El-Mekki: Tt's my pleasure, duty, and honor to do this work. We lean and stand on, on our giants, on there shoulders. Not just stand on them, you know, I tell people that some of them are still around right now, so we're leaning on on them as well.

Andrew: Right. There will be a, there will be another generation standing on your shoulders. I'm sure. So thank you for, for all your work.

Thank you.

Sharif El-Mekki: May we be, may we be worthy.

—------------------

Andrew: So Val, what did you think?

Dr. Val: So much. And I think coming off of the conversation with Dr. Fenwick, just the, the history lesson from her episode and then just being in community with Mr. El-Mekki and understanding his story, how he got to the place where he was passionate about this work, and what he's trying to do now, just really, I think, crystallizes for me the power of Black educators specifically, but any educator who is rooted in education as a racial and social justice issue.

Andrew: Mm mm-Hmm.

Dr. Val: Right? because you're showing up, recognizing that we are teaching and we are learning so that we can make the world a better place. Right? Not just so I –

Andrew: Get a better job.

Dr. Val: –consume and get, right! Right. Like, this is really about something bigger than self. And I love that these episodes have gone back to back because I think there's a, a throughline. And I am not surprised that Mr. El-Mekki became who he is based on the people he had in his life to guide him the entire way. Right?

I'm thinking about what he said in terms of there was, like, real no real line between school and home, right? And there was no real line between, like, school and civic and political education. Like, it was all deeply connected. And so I'm thinking about our role as educators and how we have to step up, you know, and we have to be intentional with our young people if we are going to expect that they will become the adults who help change the world.

Andrew: Right. He's not even in sixth grade yet, and they're going out to see the chalk outline of somebody who was shot by the police. They're going over to Angela Davis' house to hear about activism.

And he talks about,t this kind of Black educational tradition, and I think that seems deeply rooted in this idea that education is liberation. This idea that education is a tool for the betterment of everyone. For the betterment of your community, not just for the betterment of your self.

And you know, maybe it all comes back to this kind of collectivism versus individualism idea, but is your goal to get yourself the best job you can so that you can buy yourself the best house you can so that you can, whatever, or is your goal to, to uplift your whole community and find that kind of collective drive for success?

Dr. Val: Yeah. And, I can only speak from my experience, and I'm curious about yours, but that feels like the way to think about it, Andrew. And I feel like that's always been part of my story. Do you feel like that was a part of your story? I know you went to schools where you were in the racial minority. What do you think you got from that experience?

Andrew: Hmm, that's a good one, Val. I mean, I went to schools where I was in the racial minority of students, but I never, I certainly didn't go to a school where all the teachers were Black. And, I mean, I was thinking about this before the Dr. Fenwick conversation, I, I don't think I had a Black teacher until high school. Despite being in schools with overwhelmingly Black student bodies.

And I, I certainly now have thought a lot about this idea of collectivism versus individualism. And I do think that, you know, like you have said before, the only way we win is together that like collectivism has to be the–

Dr. Val: That's it.

Andrew: –the answer. No one is free until everyone is free. Collective liberation is the goal. But I don't think I got that from my education. I mean, I was not explicitly taught that, for sure. That was not part of the curriculum.

I think the demographics of the schools that I went to probably prepared me to come to that in a different way. If we think of ourselves as all having some responsibility to each other, like, “Who is that ‘each other?’” I think was broadened by my school experience, but that certainly was not part of the explicit instruction that I got in the way that I think Mr. El-Mekki got.

Dr. Val: I'm glad you're making that connection because I think that my experience growing up in a family of Black educators and educator activists, going to a school with Black teachers, prepared me for the work that I'm doing now. And I think what you just said, I think it got you further, faster in your journey.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Right?And so your critical consciousness, you developed that quicker. Your empathy, you were able to develop that quicker, right? And so, the promise of integrated schools does provide us the opportunity to get further, faster together. Right?

Because I, I do think, there's lots of learning that I had to also develop by being in integrated spaces when I got there later. And I think it's made me a better human overall.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: And my foundation in Black liberation spaces helped me understand the role I had to play. And so, there's value in being together, right? And we can learn a lot from one another.

And what I get sad about when I think about the teachers that we lost, or the fact that you didn't have a Black teacher until high school, is that we have just lost so much time. We've lost so much time. Right? And we have to be intentional about making up that time. We have to be intentional about being in places together. Because, in addition to the racial and social justice issues that we have going on, we also have to save our planet. I know that's not what this episode is about, [Val and Andrew laugh] but we have lots of big jobs to, to deal with that we, we have to do together.

Andrew: And that we'll only be able to do together. And I do think, like, yeah, obviously the power of an integrated space was super influential in for me, and you know, I think both, both Dr. Fenwick and certainly Mr. El-Mekki highlight the potential dangers, if we don't do that thoughtfully, if we don't do that in a way that, that recognizes everybody's shared humanity and we don't do that in a way that, that sees the real value in the cultural traditions that I think our education system so often erases and says, “You can come into these spaces if you can fit yourself into this space.”

Dr. Val: Mm-Hmm.

Andrew: Right? Rather than saying, “How do we,” you know, we go back to Dr. Shanette Porter, right? Like, “How do we create a sense of belonging where the space is different because you're here?”

What, Mr. El-Mekki got in his schooling was a space that was different from, certainly the space that I got despite a, a potentially similar student body, the space that he got was very different from what I got because of the people who were there, because they were able to enact education in a way that felt true to them in a way that represented their values and their history and their culture. And that's what we lost.

And so, there, there is this real power in creating these integrated spaces, but if we don't do that in a way that brings in the gifts that everybody has, then it's bad for everyone.

Dr. Val: We really have to be intentional about our, our integrated spaces because plantations were also integrated. And that didn't work out! That didn't work out. [Val chuckles]

Andrew: Right. Like you said, we have these massive problems we have to solve. The only way we solve them is if we bring everybody's good ideas to the table. And I think about–

Dr. Val: Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew: –the experience that he had. You know, I think to come to a, a recognition of there being a role for me to play in an, in advocacy, in social justice, was work. That was not something that was instilled in me through my education.

Dr. Val: Yeah. So here's something else that I'm thinking about and Mr. El-Mekki and his work. He's one man doing the good work, as quickly as he can, scaling it as fast as he can, and I know that there are other folks around the country who are deeply passionate about making this a reality.

When we were trying to do some work in our district, several years ago. I made the assumption that I could just show up at the College of Education, find all the Black folks, issue an invitation to come to work at our district, they would all say yes. And then when I got to the job fair, there were no Black folks for me to issue an invitation to.

And something that Mr. El-Mekki said, “When you ask a young person the question like, who taught you to hate yourself?” Right? And it's like “My curriculum, my principals, my teachers. Those are the folks who taught me to hate myself.” And I wouldn’t wanna go back to a place where I didn't learn to value myself, where I didn't see myself there. And I wanna applaud anyone who's had that experience and then decides to come back and be a different educator so that other folks won't. But I can't blame you if that's not your path, right?

And I do believe everyone's a teacher. And if we can't right now, because of the many ways that the system doesn't support educators, whether it's pay, value, schedule, workload, that communities can connect with other Black, quote educators, right? Or adults in the community who deeply care about what is happening in their community.

We don't have to throw up our hands and say, “We have nowhere to go. We don't have any black educators, so there's nothing that we can do.” You have -hopefully!- some Black people in your community or at least adjacent to your community where you can make sure that you are building those connections, for young people. Right? Because we know that that social capital, and those social connections are really important to add to the sense of belonging.

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I was really struck by his, you know, distinction between, you know, trying to convince kids “You don't hate learning, you hate White supremacy being shoved down your throat,” right? Like, what you're rejecting here is not being educated, is not learning, is not, you know, growing yourself. What you're rejecting is the way that it's being presented to you.

I mean, you know, in some ways it's this, like, timeline problem. You're like, look at all these problems. We wanna fix them all immediately. And there's no magic wand you can wave that would make our teaching staff mirror the racial demographics of our student bodies tomorrow. Right? That's a long process. It's gonna take the work that, that Mr. El-Mekki and others are doing to actually make that happen. And so, we need to support that work.

And, to anybody, any school leaders, district leaders, people who are listening, we'll put a link to the Black Educator Development Center in the show notes, but they have a whole pipeline program with really clear steps that you can take to begin this work. And so everybody should do that.

And in the meantime, while we still have an 80% White female teaching force, like, what do we do? And I think that idea of, like, tapping into your community, finding the other people who are, who are educators in some way, even if they're not actually teachers to, to draw in and, and share.

Obviously, you know, first and foremost for the benefit of those Black students because we know the power of that, but, you know, as Dr. Fenwick said, this, like, idea of diverse models of intellectual leadership is valuable for everybody–

Dr. Val: Absolutely!

Andrew: –bringing it into your schools, into relationship with all students, is good for everyone.

Dr. Val: I wanna double click, underline, highlight, circle, that last point: what we strive to talk about in every episode is good for everyone, right? We believe that wholeheartedly! I go back to one of our faves, Heather McGee, right? It's not, it's not zero sum. I heard her speak recently, and she said in her research folks of color did not see gaining rights and access as, anyone else losing anything, right? However, White folks saw the gaining of rights and access for folks of color as a loss of something that they have.

And I think we really have to, to break that paradigm, if we're gonna be able to do this well, and by “this” I mean survive, right?

Andrew:Have a, have a planet to live on. Have a country to live in, have a democracy. All of those things are gonna require,

Dr. Val: All really cool things.

Andrew: Yeah. They're pretty important, I guess! [Val chuckles] You know, if you're into that sort of thing.

Dr. Val: Yeah. I'm inspired by the work of Mr. El-Mekki because I can see his Black educators looking at him as like a kindergartner and a first grader and having so much belief in his potential and in his possibility. And then for him to be able to be at this place, and some of it's luck, right? He, he talks about being arrested, and we know that there's lots of people with potential and people believe in them, and they don't necessarily have the luck. Right?

But to know that educators that he’s had and he is still celebrating Kwanzaa with them, 50 plus years later. Like, I just get happy when one of my former students, like, sends me a note on social media right? And so, to, to know that that is the type of - we talk all the time about the generational work. It is happening. It is alive in Mr. El-Mekki, and it was gifted to him from his educators and his family, and we know it was gifted to them from the people who poured into them. And I just, I just get goosebumps thinking about that. I, it's just the most incredible thing to me. It really is.

Andrew: Yeah. It's deep in him, obviously, like all the names of all these teachers who are still with him, the songs that he sang, 40 plus years ago.

Dr. Val: His classmates!

Andrew: It’s still in there. The classmates who, you know, put him on the agenda or maybe didn't put him on the agenda. We'll never know! Although, if you're a former classmate of Mr. El-Mekki’s and you put him on the agenda, definitely send us a voicemail and let us know about that! [Andrew laughs]

Dr. Val: Call in.

Andrew: Um, and he's clearly a teacher through and through it mean, I feel like we got a whole Black History lesson in the middle of that, of that episode because he just, like, can't help himself but teach all the time. And this was probably, you know, instilled from an early age that you're gonna receive these things, and then it is your responsibility to then give them back and, and pour them back out into the world. And, and what a beautiful thing that is to witness.

Dr. Val: Absolutely. Thank you Mr. El-Mekki and all of Mr. El-Mekki’s teachers.

Andrew: Absolutely. If you wanna support the work that he is doing again, there'll be a link in the show notes to the Center for Black Educator Development. Obviously the resources, time, energy, financial resources you can donate to that organization would go a long ways towards supporting his work.

And of course, we would appreciate your support of our work as well, patreon.com/integratedschools. Throw us a few bucks every month. Help us continue making this podcast. We would be grateful for that.

Dr. Val: Yeah. And you can also, if you enjoy this at all, ever, even once, we encourage you to leave a positive review for us, 'cause we love those! It elevates the podcast in the algorithms also, we want you to share and have these conversations with your communities.

We have a conversation here, but we know that it goes far and wide outside of these microphones, and we encourage you to be part of it.

Andrew: Absolutely. Val, it is an honor for me as always to be in this with you as I try to know better and do better.

Dr. Val: Until next time.