Welcome to The CREATE (Ed) podcast, where we explore key issues shaping the future of education. Today, we're diving into the importance of community in K12 education—how fostering strong connections among students, parents, educators, and the broader community can transform schools into places of empowerment and growth.
Together, Dr. Chantee Earl, and Dr. Melissa Speight Vaughn will discuss why community engagement isn’t just an added bonus, but a critical element in the success of every child. Whether you’re an educator, parent, or someone passionate about the future of our children, this episode will provide insights and strategies for creating a supportive, liberatory and inclusive environment in K12 schools. Executive Producers: The CREATE Project, Dr. Chantee Earl and Dr. Melissa Speight-Vaughn.
Let’s get started!
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product, or service.
Hi everybody, welcome back.
Welcome back to another episode of the Create Ed Podcast.
We're happy to have you back.
Today is a little bit overcast while we're recording this and so many things are going
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on.
We're going to be into fall, but with everything going on, can you take a moment with me and
just take a deep breath and let's slow things down a little bit, even just for this few
moments as we listen to this podcast.
One more breath, everybody.
Deep breath in.
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Go ahead and let that out.
Relax your shoulders.
Today's episode, we're going to dig into what does community mean?
How do you define community?
What does it mean to you?
What does it mean to us in education?
What does it mean to us who are not in education?
We're excited about this conversation because we have Dr. Melissa Spate Vaughn, who's a post
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doctoral fellow here at Georgia State University with the Create Project.
She's also the founder of the African Research Collaborative Nonprofit Organization.
We also have Dr. Shante Earl, who's a clinical associate professor of social studies education
here at Georgia State University in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education.
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In today's episode, like I said, we're going to be digging into what community means and
the intersection of community and education.
There's so many ways to frame it and so many ways to think about it.
Here's a couple of questions, ideas, statements to get your mind going as we hop into this
podcast.
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Community isn't necessarily bounded by space and time.
Also community is people, to be in relationship with people and knowing that you're not alone
in this world.
Another thing to think about is incorporating community in educational space is paramount.
How are we creating community in our classrooms, in our conversations, in our barbershops, in
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our hair salons, in the grocery store, in our religious spaces?
How are we connecting those communities to the communities of our children, vice versa,
and how are we talking about the people who care for the children that we teach and support?
Place-based education is also vitally important.
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What does it mean to have a deep, beyond surface-level understanding of the places in which we live,
work, and teach?
And community is not only parents.
It's our neighbor.
It's the candy lady, our friends, the barber, the hairdresser, the special leader, the cousin,
our teachers.
I have to know what you're learning in your community so I can support bridging it in
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the classroom.
And vice versa.
How do I get that deeper knowledge of community?
That's what we're going to be diving into as we listen to this incredible conversation
between Dr. Melissa and Dr. Chante Hurl.
Let's drop in on them as Dr. Melissa starts off by leading us to take a moment as we honor
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one of the all-time great members of our community who has recently transitioned to become an
ancestor.
Enjoy.
The purpose for this interview or this conversation is to talk about community and specifically
community in education.
I am Dr. Melissa Spate-Von and I am joined by Dr. Chante Hurl, someone who I very well
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respect and she's very deserving of all of that.
So we're going to give our introductions but I kind of want to just think about the moment
that we're in right now.
Frankie Beverly, the lead singer of Mays, made his transition this morning and we are
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really feeling it because he means something to the black community and he means something
to both of us.
I think that when we talk about community, we talk about having a good foundation.
We talk about, well for me, it's being loved, it's knowing that I'm loved, it's being affirmed,
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it's being chastised when I need it to be chastised.
All of those things are community.
We hold each other, we love each other, we care for each other and we want to see the
best for each other and that's the community to me isn't necessarily bounded by space and
time.
What is community to you, Dr. Earl?
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Oh, thank you Dr. Spate-Von for having me and I'm just so delighted to be a part of this
conversation of community.
When I think about community, I just think about people, people at the essence and at
the core of who they are and what they mean to each other.
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I think ever since I was a kid, when I kind of realized I was in this world, there were
always people around whether like you said those people were loving on me or chastising
me for something I did but as long as I can remember, there were people around and those
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people were important to who I was in development of me, whether it was my mom, my dad, my aunties,
my uncles, the next door neighbor, the teacher, there were always people around.
There was never this time where I felt like I didn't see somebody.
When I think about community, I think about that and it's interesting that you're talking
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about Frankie Beverly and Maze and what they mean.
I remember the first time hearing that music as a young child and I was around my family.
I was around people.
Then as I got older, I have an older brother who collect old records and so I remember
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my love for music sitting in the living room, laying on the floor and listening to Frankie
Beverly and Maze singing happy people.
When I think about community, I think about that happy people.
I think about people all together around each other, community, exchanging, supporting
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each other.
Then I also think about him and his music and the ways that they touch people and they
work people together.
When I think about that, that's what community is.
It's coming together, a coming of together, sharing of something.
That's what really... Then I think about my son.
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My son was a musician and he played the organ and a lot of Frankie Beverly and Maze saw.
You can hear that organ.
My son and I were generations apart, right?
That music brought us together.
That music brought us to a common place and a common time.
I think of community, those are the things that I think of, people and all the essence
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of what that means to be in relationship or connected to people.
Yes.
Knowing that you are not alone in this world because that means something.
It doesn't always have to be the people in your presence.
They don't have to be right there.
I could be miles away, countries away, but I don't know I'm connected to a community.
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Right.
Right.
But when you do need them, they show up.
Yes.
Yes.
They show up.
Community is so important and needed because you always... We're not in this space alone.
We weren't born alone.
We always need somebody, even if it's just that one person to show up.
Just, hey, I'm here.
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It don't have to be physically, I call you.
I'm praying for you.
My spirit is connected with you.
That's what community is.
Fairies room, fairies room.
Can you share or you've shared some of your experiences in community, your early experiences
in community?
Music is a big part of the black community.
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Music and food and for me, music, food and open spaces and when it comes to the research
work that I do, it started in community spaces.
I overheard I was good at eavesdropping.
I thought that I was good at eavesdropping, but I was really minding grown folks business.
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Of course, that was wrong, my chance to high-sment.
Of course, the things they were talking about, their animations around it looked so interesting
to me, but they would talk about at church anniversaries and the church that I grew up
at was down the street, like a mile down the street.
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So it was all the people that lived next to us that attended the church and we would
have Sunday school under this shade tree.
And then after church under that shade tree, there would be deacons, deaconesses, just adults
talking and what they would talk about would happen, it was like they had a perspective
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on what was happening in the world and I would watch the news with my mom and I'd get a different
story.
I'm like, well, that's not what they said at church or that's not what they said.
I grew up in Durham, North Carolina where there are a lot of black business owners and
my dad was one, so I would go down to his place of business.
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It was a mechanic shop and in the waiting room was Dr. Fitz and some of the North Carolina
Central University professors, but there were also homemakers and they're having conversations.
I'm like, that's not what Dr. Fitz said about the same story.
So when I went to school, I would say, I heard that there were black people that fought in
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the Revolutionary War or I'm telling these community stories and the teachers, they're
not really receptive of it and I was like, you know what, looking at you and looking
at the community, these people that I know love me, I know wouldn't lie to me, I know
wouldn't make stuff up, I believe them more than I believe you.
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So the research that I always do is community-based research because I'm all about the community
knowledge.
What is the perspective of, and it has to be of course a black community, but our marginalized
community, local, indigenous, African, descended, any of those are just curious places for me
because there's a lot of teaching and learning that's going on.
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I can base that on my experience and there's a lot of knowledge that I think will be beneficial
for everyone.
I don't know if it's like our kind of, if it's the kitchen table type of stuff that
stays in the kitchen, but it was, there was a lot of teaching and learning that was happening
in my community space.
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So that's why that's kind of framed the type of work that I do.
How has community impacted the work that you do?
Yeah, I would say similarly.
So you, as you know, I teach teachers and people that, I always, people ask me what
to do.
Why I teach teachers and people that want to be teachers.
I love teaching.
I believe that's my calling.
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When I look back on my family history, I have a lot of teachers in my family, whether they
were professors, whether they were classroom teachers or whether they taught Sunday school
in the community.
Teaching is my pedigree.
That's what I do.
And so when I think about what you were saying, talking about this community space and then
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the educational space schooling, there's often this big disconnect.
Because when we look at what knowledge is and what knowledge is valued, a lot of times
it's the stuff in the schools, right?
We send our children to schools to learn, but that knowledge doesn't connect often with
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our community spaces.
And our children know that in the community space, I am loved.
I am supported.
What they are telling me is true.
It's true because these people know me.
They know who I am.
They care about me.
And then when they get to school, they hear something totally different, totally counter
and opposite.
The way people engage them is often different than what they feel and experience in their
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community settings.
So that disconnect is problematic for me.
It's like having to navigate two words as a child or as an adult.
And who wants to do that?
You can never be your authentic self in that space, did you?
You're always trying to figure out, oh, am I saying the right thing?
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Oh, is this knowledge correct?
I mean, that's confusion one-on-one.
And who a kid having to engage in that is too much.
So for me, incorporating community in the classroom, in the educational space, is paramount.
It's actually the first thing when I began to teach and I talk about educating students.
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That's my first thing I talk about.
How are we creating community in the classroom?
Furthermore, how are we connecting to the communities of these children?
How are we thinking about their learning in those spaces?
How are we talking about the people that care for them and then learning from that in order
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to instruct and teach them?
So when I talk about what does that mean, that means that I need to connect with them
as an educator.
I need to know about the spaces and the people that care and teach them in those other spaces
I'll skydive soon.
So what I do, my students, we engage in community.
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We are connected.
We are talking to the communities, to the people, to just the parents.
Because community isn't only my parents.
Right.
It's the lady down the street.
It's the candy lady.
It's my dad.
It's my family.
You know, it's my friends, my neighbors.
It's the person that the group.
That's my community.
I'm learning from all of those people, all of those spaces.
They say, hey boy, don't talk to your mama like that.
Don't they?
Don't they?
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Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
They will correct you.
They will correct you.
And it's out of love.
So me as a teacher when I see behavior that is inappropriate, I got to come from that
same type of space, that same type of love.
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And oftentimes, I don't know that, because maybe I have an experience.
I don't know this community.
So I have to connect with them.
It is important.
I know, you know, sitting at the kitchen table, you learn a whole lot about who you
you are. Yes. Listening to people around you, you learn about information about history that
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is not taught in the school. For me as a teacher, I got to know that. I got to know what you
learning because it's important to who you are. So when I teach you about this, that,
and I talk about the American Revolution, I can't single out and not talk about those
black people that were involved in that fight. I have to learn it. And I'm going to teach
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you a contradictory narrative. No way. So when I think of why it is so important to
connect to the community is because in order to really educate the whole child, because
that's what we're talking about. We're not just talking about your mind, but we're talking
about your body, your spirit, your soul. And because that's what education is. In order
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to do that, you have to be engaged and connected to your community. I even tell my students
oftentimes I argue, I say, if you don't live in the community and what you teach, for me,
that's kind of problematic. Because you can't come dip in and out of a space and think you
understand and know the kids and the culture. Now you got to be there. It got to be part
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of who you are. You are part of that fabric. And so I often encourage my teachers, because
I remember when I was a teacher in Pittsburgh, I lived in the city of Pittsburgh, I lived
on the North side where I was. So my kids saw me. Yeah, I'm going to get some macaron
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cheese. I see you Sunday morning at church. But we didn't have to wait to call your mama.
If you haven't, I'm going to see her on Sunday and I'm going to talk girl, let me tell you
about her, him. We need to work on this, right? Or this is what they're doing. They're doing
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so great. You know, I had that, I had that relationship and there was more than me, just
the teacher, right? And so that's what I think is so important. When we think about teaching
and learning and community, they all go together. We learn in the community. What's our first
learning experiences? How can you take me out of that and put me into a system that's
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so rigid and don't really love me and care for me and see me as a neighbor anyway? So
that's why community, that's how I think about it and teaching and learning. Yes, yes. Oh,
well, I wish I would have had you as a teacher. I would, because I mean, we had, I don't know
if you recall these Budweiser posters in our basement that had Sonny, Oli, Bear and Mansa
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Moosa. There were four of them and I can't remember the other two, but we had those,
those Budweiser posters in my basement and my dad would talk about, you know, we are
Kings and Queens and, you know, this is the decorum of behavior and he would teach from
that. And but in school, it's like, no, no, no. And I was like, no, I just don't believe
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you. I just don't believe you. It's always, it's always a rub with me in this structure,
you know, of schooling. A lot of times teachers, it's just almost like, yeah, I just don't
believe you. I just don't believe you. I can't, I can't trust you. I can't trust you to tell
me the truth about the world because I don't believe that, you know, they even know and
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we kind of epitomize the book as the thing of, well, Melissa is not in the book. So I
was definitely traumatized by that. And I thank God for you and for your connection
with the, with the community because it really and truly matters the work that I was doing
in in South Africa was integrating indigenous knowledge into the STEM curricula. And there
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was a problem there. First of all, across South Africa, there are so many indigenous
knowledge groups and everyone, each group has their origin story. They have their, their
practices in community spaces. They have their rituals. They have their ways of doing science
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practice and science and astrology and, you know, all things, right? And what happens
is that there'll be a teacher that is polsa that goes into an area that's Khoisan. And
so they don't know the Khoisan indigenous knowledge. They don't know their, their story
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and they don't really care to know because it is just a job. And so that disconnect
of, of what these kids know and what is happening in the classroom is definitely a problem.
Just like you said, building that knowledge gap from home to school, I think it's very
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important. But I want to just talk with you about this thing. Some things I kind of don't
think should be, should be, you know, just full knowledge and in the, in the classroom
and having that discernment to know, okay, this is what we, we talk about, you know,
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we used to talk about the kitchen, you know, what we talk about in the kitchen, that stays
at home, that stays in, in our spaces. You don't take that to, to school. You don't use
that in that space. That's, that's only, only has currency here. So yeah, there were some
things that my sister would, you know, talk about in her class and she's teaching because
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we were the first class that, well, my sister is two years older than me. So she actually
was the first that went into schooling to integrate in North Carolina. And we actually
went to the high school that my father could not go to. And daddy would not come pick us
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up. He would not come have a good daddy. He would not neglect us, but he would not pick
us up from school because that was the high school, the white high school he could not
go to. We had to go across town to another school. But so my sister would kind of, you
know, she was a cheerleader. So she was trying to, to school the, the, the white kids about,
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you know, black hair and, and kitchen, those kitchens, you know, different from, you know,
I was like, I don't think that they should know that. Some things I don't think that
they should know. That's not helping. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's more about our,
our history and our, and our knowledge and our wisdoms that are beneficial for everyone.
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I don't think that that's beneficial for everybody. But yeah, that place based education
and the place of where you are is very important because I found that a lot of community knowledge
is tied to, it has some geographical knowledge, has some regional political, social political
knowledge that's embedded in there of who, who we are as a, as a people, as a group in
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this particular space, like in North Carolina or in the Northern Cape of South Africa or
in Johannesburg or, you know, that place based education is very important. What are
your experiences with place based education? Well, I'm glad you asked because I'm not
a native Atlantean. I would say that I'm from Hampton, Virginia. It's the South, but it's
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not like Atlanta. Okay. And so when I came to Atlanta and I became a professor, I knew
Atlanta history meaning right, I knew the still rights for MLK and all the stuff that
you learn about in the books, but I didn't really know Atlanta. I didn't know black.
Atlanta. You didn't know Atlanta. Right. I didn't know what it meant to be a A.T.
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Elliott, right. I didn't know about the community and the aspects of the different neighborhoods
and what did it mean to live in cascade by 285 versus the other part of cascade close
to downtown, right? And so that understanding of the place, the significance of place and
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the people in the place became so important to me. So I had to embed myself and learning
about that because if I'm teaching teachers who are going to be teaching in these spaces
in this place, I need to have the knowledge as well. I need to have the base. I need to
understand why the Pittsburgh community is the way it is. I need to understand the West
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in and why there's a large Muslim population in the West and there are quite a few months,
but I don't see any of those other other communities having it's important about the place and
understanding the place and the significance because I come from Hampton, Virginia. I can
count the number of mosques we have in our black communities. Very few. So that's even
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though a black community, there's a difference about the place particularly in Lansing, right,
particularly the one in which I live versus being somewhere else. And so that's why in
teaching and the knowledge of this place is very important and significant to this place.
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So now I'm doing, I'm currently doing a course right now. I've been working on for years
and years and I finally have the opportunity to teach it where we are learning not only
about Atlanta history and culture and the legacy of London, but we are also engaging
in the community and learning about the community knowledge of Atlanta because the books will
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tell us one thing. The museums will tell us another thing, but the people who have lived
in those spaces and so they're going to tell us something different. Yes. Yes. And it may
be connected to what's in the museum, what's in the books, but the actual right that down
and dirty stuff that we didn't know that we're going to learn that as well. And so one of
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the trips we took last week was to Edewa Mounds and we learned about the indigenous people.
But next Saturday we'll be going to the AUC Center and we'll be learning about Spelman
and Morehouse and the educational legacy there. But we'll also be talking to some members
who have been living in that community since the 1950s. So how they talk about Spelman,
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Morehouse, gentrification and all those things, it's going to be a very different than what
we are reading, reading about. And so that's going to be important because I have students
who teach over there at Staten Elementary. I have students who teach at young middle
school. And so those are important conversations for them to have and knowledge to know. Because
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when you think about, and I recently, a couple years ago, I learned that in that particular
community, the way it was created was that you could be a young person, start an elementary
school and go all the way up to college in that community. There was an educational space
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in that community for you to attend elementary school, middle school, high school and BAM.
You can be at one of those universities. That's it, talking about what the community wanted
for their children. And what education means. What was it, by happenstance that we designed
it that way? That was delivered and intentional. And if I'm a teacher coming to that space,
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I need to understand that because I'll be quick to say, oh, the parents, they don't really care
about or the community, they don't really care about because I don't see their presence visible
in my school. Right. They're not coming to my building. But I need to understand there's some
foundation there. And just because I don't see them every day in my building, don't mean that the
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people and the community itself don't know the value and care about the education of their children.
Exactly. Because that is, I can't recall anywhere else in the country where you could go,
you could stay in your community, go to elementary school, go to middle school, go to high school
and go to college in that community radius. Wow. That's why it's important. That's a place base.
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That's a thing about it. Yes, yes, yes, it is. It is. And it's not divorcing yourself from the
community. Thinking about Carter G. Woodson and the miseducation of the Negro and how we're educated
away from where we live, where we're educated to take all of our expertise and skills outside of
the community instead of helping the people in the place that reared us. So, yeah. But I want to
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know, are you the only teacher that has this perspective? How are you, I know that you're
duplicating yourself for lack of a better term with those that you are teaching, so those that are
going into the teaching profession. But when it comes to teacher education, how are you advancing
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this, the place-based education, the connection with community? Because that's necessary in English
class. That's necessary in science, of course. I know that's necessary in, of course, social studies,
music, physics. I can't think of any biology. I can't think of any aspect of those courses that
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we've learned in school not being connected to some level of community knowledge. So,
how is it that you are advancing this notion of community engagement and education with
some of your colleagues? So, interestingly, you would say that this idea that I'm talking about
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this community has been around for a long time and there have been educators that have been writing
about that, particularly black scholars. Like last building, she wrote a whole book called The
Drink Keepers, right? And in her book, she highlights these various teachers and she focuses on
community of one particular teacher and how she advanced her teaching and her work within that
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community. So, there's been work done about that, but I often say it's not enough because a couple
people writing about it, and why is it always black scholars that are writing about it? Right?
We're the ones that get it. We're the ones that understand, and we have to teach everybody
else how to understand that. But you see, I sometimes I've seen it in other disciplines,
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like in history, right? Or Africana studies. I've seen some of my colleagues doing similar
work. One of my students is taking a course now where they're learning about Georgia history
and they'll be going to Macon and Jackson and talking about those regional things and visiting
people and reasons. But it's this idea of connecting to community. It's kind of radical.
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Because a lot of times my colleagues see, well, we are the knowledge bearers. We're
in academia, right? We're the ones who can tell everybody what and how to do. And that's not
true and that's not right. That is so false. We have so much that we don't know and we can learn
from those spaces because we have to learn from those spaces. I just know where you are today.
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Somebody in your community, your mama, your daddy, your aunties, you taught you something.
Yes. Made you continue up. Because in this space called academia, they'll shoot you down. They'll
kill you joy every day. And schooling will do that. So you have to have that connection. And so
in this and I often present at conferences and share my work and encourage people. I'm a part of
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this teaching with primary sources consortium with the National Council for the Social Studies.
And being a part of that, we often able to present our work and share it nationally across the
country with other teachers and encourage and engage them in this type of work. And so last
year I presented on the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre and how we did some community engagement around
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that. And I shared that and did a facilitated session there. And so I had a couple of teachers
hit me up and say, hey, how can I do this in my own space? And I was like, here's a blueprint.
Try it out. See if it works. But you got to remember the context in which you were, right?
And you can't just implement something with not understanding at all. Right? We can't do that.
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I'm going to do this. But I haven't met an engaged in community. It's not going to be as effective.
So that's that's some of the ways I think about sharing this work and this knowledge. And there
are there are people that are doing this work and connected. And so I try to connect with those
across that are doing this work. Because it's so important. And when I think about teaching teachers,
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that's where it really matters because they're the ones that's going to be in the schools working
with the children and their communities and the family. So they got to be the ones there.
And I will tell you about five years ago, I did a, you know, I started doing this trip to Montgomery
and we talked about the legacy of enslavement and Jim Crow, right? And how it how it plays out.
(34:48):
And we see it today. And I took my students on my one of my students, he was teaching at a private
Christian school. And he came back and he was like, Dr. Earl, that changed my whole perspective
and understanding because you know, they teach about Christ and the biblical principles of going
out evangelizing and sharing and love. And he was like, I had to teach my students about this
(35:14):
history about this week. I took my students to Montgomery. And he said, and met and I was able
to make that biblical connection on a different way because you know, he said, I didn't desensitize
the history. So if we're talking about we're going to Christ like and love and connect and
(35:36):
evangelize and do things, we can't be racist. You got it. We got it. We got it going. We got to
talk to people. We got to understand our community. We can't come from this. I'm your savior.
And so for me, I was like, that's it. That's where it begins. Even if that's small, that's a win,
(35:59):
though. That's a win. Different. And he's working with privileged kids, privileged people who then
make these laws and do all these things, has this money, do all this stuff that oppress
oftentimes to oppress. Now he's engaging them in a different way of thinking and being as human.
(36:21):
Yes, yes, and a different conversation. That is awesome. As you're talking about that, I'm thinking
about the different ways of learning the multiple intelligences and how engagement with community,
(36:42):
you know, over the educational space, it's engaging your, you know, of course, your mind,
your auditory, your, its movement, its memory. It's all of these things into one. And so it's
almost like you have to feel it as well. Because community engagement is a feeling and those people
(37:03):
that are community people that know that feeling can create different places, you know, just like
you were like, I'm not, you're not an original ATLian, but you are now, but you've lived other
places and you've been a part of community in those other places as well. So it's, it does start
(37:28):
with your own experience, I think, and it kind of branches out from that. So giving those teachers
that experience that they might not have had, that everyone might not have had that type of,
that sense of security in their community space. So it's not a, you know, all people feel that or
(37:50):
all people have that experience. It's, can vary in different ways, but giving them that sense of
security in the classroom is so meaningful. And they come back and they tell you about it.
They come back and they tell you about it. And they remember you for it. Because they,
it's kids, the students, they remember how you feel. And that's regardless of whatever level
(38:14):
of student they are. Yeah, because I think about when you, when you leave a community space,
something in here, in your heart, in your, in your soul is different or you feel something.
And that's what, that's, that's what learning it should be. When I go into a classroom or a school
space, I should feel something different, something inside of me. That's what education should do.
(38:40):
And if it's not when that, and it shouldn't make, it shouldn't be a, a harmful feeling.
Because you think about community in those spaces, you, you, you may get chastised, you may feel bad
for a second, but you, when you think back, it's like, some people cared about me. Right, right, right.
So in that education, and I was learning something about myself and how I need to be in the work.
(39:04):
And so when I'm in the educational space, it gotta be the same way. That's what I tell my,
my students, it gotta be the same way. I gotta feel like this is a good space for me.
Yeah, I got in trouble, but they, they care about me. And what I'm learning somehow connects to me
and makes me feel something. That's when you really learn something. When I'm, when I'm feeling it,
(39:26):
like, you know how the line dances go and you be, and you learn to dance and you feel good.
What education in the school space should be like learning the line dance or learning the new
TikTok and I, I feel something. And that's from community. So I definitely can get that in my,
(39:47):
in my classroom. That's what the teacher, that's what I have to establish and create.
Right. Right. Cause that's, it's soul nurturing.
Yes. It's nurturing your soul and it's nurturing who you can become. It's kind of like massaging
it a little bit so that you feel like you can do anything. And it, and it's, it's, I think about
(40:10):
the people that inspired and encouraged me. And I never looked at their station in life that they
chose because it wasn't really about that. It was what they were pouring into me. And that happens
in those spaces. And it happens. I'm thinking about when I was in undergrad at Howard University
(40:34):
and, you know, when we talk about community as people, I remember there was this one, I was
walking down the street, going to some of my friends house and I passed by this elderly lady
and I said, good morning. And she said, Oh, you've been taught well, you know, and we just,
(40:57):
and, and you know, that's where it starts. That's where it starts. And I talked and walked with
that woman and sat on her porch and, and it was just like she was, she knew I was a student. I
told her I was a student at Howard and she just poured and poured what she had. And I mean,
(41:17):
I still remember that today. So that matters. It's that, that soul connection, that spirit
connection that you have with people that just makes you feel alive and know that you're alive
and know that you're not here for no reason. Like we'll say in North Carolina, you got,
you've got some purpose for breathing this air. Well, like I say, community for me is everything.
(41:44):
It's why I am who I am and how I got to be. And if I don't share that and create that
for my students and their students, then I'm not being who I'm supposed to be. Right. And so when
I think about community, that's what I think about music. I think about food. I think about,
(42:06):
I think about talking. I think about smiling. I think about flying. It incorporates all that.
And when I think about learning, that's what it should be. All of that. All of that. Yeah. All of
that. All of that. I totally agree. And in the, in the words of Frankie Beverly, that's the joy
(42:30):
and the pain. That's the sunshine and the rain. And I mean, we need all of that to grow and to
mature. It's not going to be all of one or all of the other, but it's going to be all of it at the
same time. So in honor of Frankie Beverly, who made his transition, if it's all right with you,
(42:55):
we're going to close out with joy and pain.
You know, thinking about community, I'm thinking about all of these instruments.
Oh my goodness. I'm part of this. Coming together to make a sound. Yes. Harmonizing. Food in there.
(43:22):
Hear that guitar?
And that's what communities like. We're all different pieces, but we ain't throwing in the same rhythm.
Yeah. None better than the other. Yeah. But just all together. Yeah. To make a sweet sound.
(43:47):
Education is that joy and pain. Because you learn and then you see your world.
I just love, love, love how they ended that conversation. We are all different pieces
in the same rhythm. That that is what community can be and what it is. None better than the other.
(44:10):
Thrown together to make a sweet sound. We hope you enjoyed that conversation. It really got me
thinking about so many moments where I have opportunity to be community. Community is a verb,
right? To be in communion with people. And as a noun, how do I approach that? A couple takeaways
that I picked up while listening. I wonder what you picked up. We're talking about educating the
(44:34):
whole child. The mind, the body, the spirit, the soul, their essence, who they are and who they
aspire to be. And in order to do that, you have to be connected to their community and support
them to be connected as well. Well, everybody, that's a wrap for this episode of Create Ed.
(44:54):
We love these podcasts and we hope you do too. Hope it's giving some things to chew on and think
about as you look at yourselves and the work that you do and we all do supporting and educating our
children. We hope our discussion and this episode has provided some valuable insights into the power
of community partnerships and the transformative potential within K through 12 education and
(45:21):
teacher residencies. Everyone, if you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and leave us a
review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. There's so many ways that you can connect to this podcast. Just
know that your feedback helps us continue to bring meaningful content and connect with more listeners
(45:41):
who are passionate about education. Also, stay connected with us on our website, the Create
Project, eduction.gsu.edu for more updates about the Create Project, Create Ed and more. We love
to hear your thoughts, questions or suggestions for future episodes. Thank you for listening and
(46:02):
until next time, let's continue to build strong partnerships, foster thriving educational communities
and transform teacher residencies into places of deep joy. How's that sound?
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent
(00:08):
the views, thoughts, and opinions of Georgia State University.
The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only.
The Georgia State University name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of
its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization,
(00:34):
product, or service.
Hi everybody, welcome back.
Welcome back to another episode of the Create Ed Podcast.
We're happy to have you back.
Today is a little bit overcast while we're recording this and so many things are going
(00:54):
on.
We're going to be into fall, but with everything going on, can you take a moment with me and
just take a deep breath and let's slow things down a little bit, even just for this few
moments as we listen to this podcast.
One more breath, everybody.
Deep breath in.
(01:15):
Go ahead and let that out.
Relax your shoulders.
Today's episode, we're going to dig into what does community mean?
How do you define community?
What does it mean to you?
What does it mean to us in education?
What does it mean to us who are not in education?
We're excited about this conversation because we have Dr. Melissa Spate Vaughn, who's a post
(01:39):
doctoral fellow here at Georgia State University with the Create Project.
She's also the founder of the African Research Collaborative Nonprofit Organization.
We also have Dr. Shante Earl, who's a clinical associate professor of social studies education
here at Georgia State University in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education.
(02:02):
In today's episode, like I said, we're going to be digging into what community means and
the intersection of community and education.
There's so many ways to frame it and so many ways to think about it.
Here's a couple of questions, ideas, statements to get your mind going as we hop into this
podcast.
(02:22):
Community isn't necessarily bounded by space and time.
Also community is people, to be in relationship with people and knowing that you're not alone
in this world.
Another thing to think about is incorporating community in educational space is paramount.
How are we creating community in our classrooms, in our conversations, in our barbershops, in
(02:46):
our hair salons, in the grocery store, in our religious spaces?
How are we connecting those communities to the communities of our children, vice versa,
and how are we talking about the people who care for the children that we teach and support?
Place-based education is also vitally important.
(03:08):
What does it mean to have a deep, beyond surface-level understanding of the places in which we live,
work, and teach?
And community is not only parents.
It's our neighbor.
It's the candy lady, our friends, the barber, the hairdresser, the special leader, the cousin,
our teachers.
I have to know what you're learning in your community so I can support bridging it in
(03:33):
the classroom.
And vice versa.
How do I get that deeper knowledge of community?
That's what we're going to be diving into as we listen to this incredible conversation
between Dr. Melissa and Dr. Chante Hurl.
Let's drop in on them as Dr. Melissa starts off by leading us to take a moment as we honor
(03:54):
one of the all-time great members of our community who has recently transitioned to become an
ancestor.
Enjoy.
The purpose for this interview or this conversation is to talk about community and specifically
community in education.
I am Dr. Melissa Spate-Von and I am joined by Dr. Chante Hurl, someone who I very well
(04:24):
respect and she's very deserving of all of that.
So we're going to give our introductions but I kind of want to just think about the moment
that we're in right now.
Frankie Beverly, the lead singer of Mays, made his transition this morning and we are
(04:49):
really feeling it because he means something to the black community and he means something
to both of us.
I think that when we talk about community, we talk about having a good foundation.
We talk about, well for me, it's being loved, it's knowing that I'm loved, it's being affirmed,
(05:13):
it's being chastised when I need it to be chastised.
All of those things are community.
We hold each other, we love each other, we care for each other and we want to see the
best for each other and that's the community to me isn't necessarily bounded by space and
time.
What is community to you, Dr. Earl?
(05:34):
Oh, thank you Dr. Spate-Von for having me and I'm just so delighted to be a part of this
conversation of community.
When I think about community, I just think about people, people at the essence and at
the core of who they are and what they mean to each other.
(05:58):
I think ever since I was a kid, when I kind of realized I was in this world, there were
always people around whether like you said those people were loving on me or chastising
me for something I did but as long as I can remember, there were people around and those
(06:18):
people were important to who I was in development of me, whether it was my mom, my dad, my aunties,
my uncles, the next door neighbor, the teacher, there were always people around.
There was never this time where I felt like I didn't see somebody.
When I think about community, I think about that and it's interesting that you're talking
(06:46):
about Frankie Beverly and Maze and what they mean.
I remember the first time hearing that music as a young child and I was around my family.
I was around people.
Then as I got older, I have an older brother who collect old records and so I remember
(07:08):
my love for music sitting in the living room, laying on the floor and listening to Frankie
Beverly and Maze singing happy people.
When I think about community, I think about that happy people.
I think about people all together around each other, community, exchanging, supporting
(07:29):
each other.
Then I also think about him and his music and the ways that they touch people and they
work people together.
When I think about that, that's what community is.
It's coming together, a coming of together, sharing of something.
That's what really... Then I think about my son.
(07:49):
My son was a musician and he played the organ and a lot of Frankie Beverly and Maze saw.
You can hear that organ.
My son and I were generations apart, right?
That music brought us together.
That music brought us to a common place and a common time.
I think of community, those are the things that I think of, people and all the essence
(08:15):
of what that means to be in relationship or connected to people.
Yes.
Knowing that you are not alone in this world because that means something.
It doesn't always have to be the people in your presence.
They don't have to be right there.
I could be miles away, countries away, but I don't know I'm connected to a community.
(08:37):
Right.
Right.
But when you do need them, they show up.
Yes.
Yes.
They show up.
Community is so important and needed because you always... We're not in this space alone.
We weren't born alone.
We always need somebody, even if it's just that one person to show up.
Just, hey, I'm here.
(08:58):
It don't have to be physically, I call you.
I'm praying for you.
My spirit is connected with you.
That's what community is.
Fairies room, fairies room.
Can you share or you've shared some of your experiences in community, your early experiences
in community?
Music is a big part of the black community.
(09:22):
Music and food and for me, music, food and open spaces and when it comes to the research
work that I do, it started in community spaces.
I overheard I was good at eavesdropping.
I thought that I was good at eavesdropping, but I was really minding grown folks business.
(09:44):
Of course, that was wrong, my chance to high-sment.
Of course, the things they were talking about, their animations around it looked so interesting
to me, but they would talk about at church anniversaries and the church that I grew up
at was down the street, like a mile down the street.
(10:07):
So it was all the people that lived next to us that attended the church and we would
have Sunday school under this shade tree.
And then after church under that shade tree, there would be deacons, deaconesses, just adults
talking and what they would talk about would happen, it was like they had a perspective
(10:32):
on what was happening in the world and I would watch the news with my mom and I'd get a different
story.
I'm like, well, that's not what they said at church or that's not what they said.
I grew up in Durham, North Carolina where there are a lot of black business owners and
my dad was one, so I would go down to his place of business.
(10:55):
It was a mechanic shop and in the waiting room was Dr. Fitz and some of the North Carolina
Central University professors, but there were also homemakers and they're having conversations.
I'm like, that's not what Dr. Fitz said about the same story.
So when I went to school, I would say, I heard that there were black people that fought in
(11:20):
the Revolutionary War or I'm telling these community stories and the teachers, they're
not really receptive of it and I was like, you know what, looking at you and looking
at the community, these people that I know love me, I know wouldn't lie to me, I know
wouldn't make stuff up, I believe them more than I believe you.
(11:41):
So the research that I always do is community-based research because I'm all about the community
knowledge.
What is the perspective of, and it has to be of course a black community, but our marginalized
community, local, indigenous, African, descended, any of those are just curious places for me
because there's a lot of teaching and learning that's going on.
(12:06):
I can base that on my experience and there's a lot of knowledge that I think will be beneficial
for everyone.
I don't know if it's like our kind of, if it's the kitchen table type of stuff that
stays in the kitchen, but it was, there was a lot of teaching and learning that was happening
in my community space.
(12:26):
So that's why that's kind of framed the type of work that I do.
How has community impacted the work that you do?
Yeah, I would say similarly.
So you, as you know, I teach teachers and people that, I always, people ask me what
to do.
Why I teach teachers and people that want to be teachers.
I love teaching.
I believe that's my calling.
(12:47):
When I look back on my family history, I have a lot of teachers in my family, whether they
were professors, whether they were classroom teachers or whether they taught Sunday school
in the community.
Teaching is my pedigree.
That's what I do.
And so when I think about what you were saying, talking about this community space and then
(13:08):
the educational space schooling, there's often this big disconnect.
Because when we look at what knowledge is and what knowledge is valued, a lot of times
it's the stuff in the schools, right?
We send our children to schools to learn, but that knowledge doesn't connect often with
(13:28):
our community spaces.
And our children know that in the community space, I am loved.
I am supported.
What they are telling me is true.
It's true because these people know me.
They know who I am.
They care about me.
And then when they get to school, they hear something totally different, totally counter
and opposite.
The way people engage them is often different than what they feel and experience in their
(13:54):
community settings.
So that disconnect is problematic for me.
It's like having to navigate two words as a child or as an adult.
And who wants to do that?
You can never be your authentic self in that space, did you?
You're always trying to figure out, oh, am I saying the right thing?
(14:15):
Oh, is this knowledge correct?
I mean, that's confusion one-on-one.
And who a kid having to engage in that is too much.
So for me, incorporating community in the classroom, in the educational space, is paramount.
It's actually the first thing when I began to teach and I talk about educating students.
(14:37):
That's my first thing I talk about.
How are we creating community in the classroom?
Furthermore, how are we connecting to the communities of these children?
How are we thinking about their learning in those spaces?
How are we talking about the people that care for them and then learning from that in order
(14:58):
to instruct and teach them?
So when I talk about what does that mean, that means that I need to connect with them
as an educator.
I need to know about the spaces and the people that care and teach them in those other spaces
I'll skydive soon.
So what I do, my students, we engage in community.
(15:22):
We are connected.
We are talking to the communities, to the people, to just the parents.
Because community isn't only my parents.
Right.
It's the lady down the street.
It's the candy lady.
It's my dad.
It's my family.
You know, it's my friends, my neighbors.
It's the person that the group.
That's my community.
I'm learning from all of those people, all of those spaces.
They say, hey boy, don't talk to your mama like that.
Don't they?
Don't they?
(15:42):
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
Don't they?
They will correct you.
They will correct you.
And it's out of love.
So me as a teacher when I see behavior that is inappropriate, I got to come from that
same type of space, that same type of love.
(16:05):
And oftentimes, I don't know that, because maybe I have an experience.
I don't know this community.
So I have to connect with them.
It is important.
I know, you know, sitting at the kitchen table, you learn a whole lot about who you
you are. Yes. Listening to people around you, you learn about information about history that
(16:27):
is not taught in the school. For me as a teacher, I got to know that. I got to know what you
learning because it's important to who you are. So when I teach you about this, that,
and I talk about the American Revolution, I can't single out and not talk about those
black people that were involved in that fight. I have to learn it. And I'm going to teach
(16:52):
you a contradictory narrative. No way. So when I think of why it is so important to
connect to the community is because in order to really educate the whole child, because
that's what we're talking about. We're not just talking about your mind, but we're talking
about your body, your spirit, your soul. And because that's what education is. In order
(17:17):
to do that, you have to be engaged and connected to your community. I even tell my students
oftentimes I argue, I say, if you don't live in the community and what you teach, for me,
that's kind of problematic. Because you can't come dip in and out of a space and think you
understand and know the kids and the culture. Now you got to be there. It got to be part
(17:39):
of who you are. You are part of that fabric. And so I often encourage my teachers, because
I remember when I was a teacher in Pittsburgh, I lived in the city of Pittsburgh, I lived
on the North side where I was. So my kids saw me. Yeah, I'm going to get some macaron
(18:00):
cheese. I see you Sunday morning at church. But we didn't have to wait to call your mama.
If you haven't, I'm going to see her on Sunday and I'm going to talk girl, let me tell you
about her, him. We need to work on this, right? Or this is what they're doing. They're doing
(18:21):
so great. You know, I had that, I had that relationship and there was more than me, just
the teacher, right? And so that's what I think is so important. When we think about teaching
and learning and community, they all go together. We learn in the community. What's our first
learning experiences? How can you take me out of that and put me into a system that's
(18:44):
so rigid and don't really love me and care for me and see me as a neighbor anyway? So
that's why community, that's how I think about it and teaching and learning. Yes, yes. Oh,
well, I wish I would have had you as a teacher. I would, because I mean, we had, I don't know
if you recall these Budweiser posters in our basement that had Sonny, Oli, Bear and Mansa
(19:11):
Moosa. There were four of them and I can't remember the other two, but we had those,
those Budweiser posters in my basement and my dad would talk about, you know, we are
Kings and Queens and, you know, this is the decorum of behavior and he would teach from
that. And but in school, it's like, no, no, no. And I was like, no, I just don't believe
(19:38):
you. I just don't believe you. It's always, it's always a rub with me in this structure,
you know, of schooling. A lot of times teachers, it's just almost like, yeah, I just don't
believe you. I just don't believe you. I can't, I can't trust you. I can't trust you to tell
me the truth about the world because I don't believe that, you know, they even know and
(20:02):
we kind of epitomize the book as the thing of, well, Melissa is not in the book. So I
was definitely traumatized by that. And I thank God for you and for your connection
with the, with the community because it really and truly matters the work that I was doing
in in South Africa was integrating indigenous knowledge into the STEM curricula. And there
(20:30):
was a problem there. First of all, across South Africa, there are so many indigenous
knowledge groups and everyone, each group has their origin story. They have their, their
practices in community spaces. They have their rituals. They have their ways of doing science
(20:50):
practice and science and astrology and, you know, all things, right? And what happens
is that there'll be a teacher that is polsa that goes into an area that's Khoisan. And
so they don't know the Khoisan indigenous knowledge. They don't know their, their story
(21:12):
and they don't really care to know because it is just a job. And so that disconnect
of, of what these kids know and what is happening in the classroom is definitely a problem.
Just like you said, building that knowledge gap from home to school, I think it's very
(21:32):
important. But I want to just talk with you about this thing. Some things I kind of don't
think should be, should be, you know, just full knowledge and in the, in the classroom
and having that discernment to know, okay, this is what we, we talk about, you know,
(21:55):
we used to talk about the kitchen, you know, what we talk about in the kitchen, that stays
at home, that stays in, in our spaces. You don't take that to, to school. You don't use
that in that space. That's, that's only, only has currency here. So yeah, there were some
things that my sister would, you know, talk about in her class and she's teaching because
(22:18):
we were the first class that, well, my sister is two years older than me. So she actually
was the first that went into schooling to integrate in North Carolina. And we actually
went to the high school that my father could not go to. And daddy would not come pick us
(22:40):
up. He would not come have a good daddy. He would not neglect us, but he would not pick
us up from school because that was the high school, the white high school he could not
go to. We had to go across town to another school. But so my sister would kind of, you
know, she was a cheerleader. So she was trying to, to school the, the, the white kids about,
(23:02):
you know, black hair and, and kitchen, those kitchens, you know, different from, you know,
I was like, I don't think that they should know that. Some things I don't think that
they should know. That's not helping. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's more about our,
our history and our, and our knowledge and our wisdoms that are beneficial for everyone.
(23:25):
I don't think that that's beneficial for everybody. But yeah, that place based education
and the place of where you are is very important because I found that a lot of community knowledge
is tied to, it has some geographical knowledge, has some regional political, social political
knowledge that's embedded in there of who, who we are as a, as a people, as a group in
(23:52):
this particular space, like in North Carolina or in the Northern Cape of South Africa or
in Johannesburg or, you know, that place based education is very important. What are
your experiences with place based education? Well, I'm glad you asked because I'm not
a native Atlantean. I would say that I'm from Hampton, Virginia. It's the South, but it's
(24:16):
not like Atlanta. Okay. And so when I came to Atlanta and I became a professor, I knew
Atlanta history meaning right, I knew the still rights for MLK and all the stuff that
you learn about in the books, but I didn't really know Atlanta. I didn't know black.
Atlanta. You didn't know Atlanta. Right. I didn't know what it meant to be a A.T.
(24:41):
Elliott, right. I didn't know about the community and the aspects of the different neighborhoods
and what did it mean to live in cascade by 285 versus the other part of cascade close
to downtown, right? And so that understanding of the place, the significance of place and
(25:03):
the people in the place became so important to me. So I had to embed myself and learning
about that because if I'm teaching teachers who are going to be teaching in these spaces
in this place, I need to have the knowledge as well. I need to have the base. I need to
understand why the Pittsburgh community is the way it is. I need to understand the West
(25:29):
in and why there's a large Muslim population in the West and there are quite a few months,
but I don't see any of those other other communities having it's important about the place and
understanding the place and the significance because I come from Hampton, Virginia. I can
count the number of mosques we have in our black communities. Very few. So that's even
(25:55):
though a black community, there's a difference about the place particularly in Lansing, right,
particularly the one in which I live versus being somewhere else. And so that's why in
teaching and the knowledge of this place is very important and significant to this place.
(26:16):
So now I'm doing, I'm currently doing a course right now. I've been working on for years
and years and I finally have the opportunity to teach it where we are learning not only
about Atlanta history and culture and the legacy of London, but we are also engaging
in the community and learning about the community knowledge of Atlanta because the books will
(26:40):
tell us one thing. The museums will tell us another thing, but the people who have lived
in those spaces and so they're going to tell us something different. Yes. Yes. And it may
be connected to what's in the museum, what's in the books, but the actual right that down
and dirty stuff that we didn't know that we're going to learn that as well. And so one of
(27:08):
the trips we took last week was to Edewa Mounds and we learned about the indigenous people.
But next Saturday we'll be going to the AUC Center and we'll be learning about Spelman
and Morehouse and the educational legacy there. But we'll also be talking to some members
who have been living in that community since the 1950s. So how they talk about Spelman,
(27:34):
Morehouse, gentrification and all those things, it's going to be a very different than what
we are reading, reading about. And so that's going to be important because I have students
who teach over there at Staten Elementary. I have students who teach at young middle
school. And so those are important conversations for them to have and knowledge to know. Because
(27:58):
when you think about, and I recently, a couple years ago, I learned that in that particular
community, the way it was created was that you could be a young person, start an elementary
school and go all the way up to college in that community. There was an educational space
(28:21):
in that community for you to attend elementary school, middle school, high school and BAM.
You can be at one of those universities. That's it, talking about what the community wanted
for their children. And what education means. What was it, by happenstance that we designed
it that way? That was delivered and intentional. And if I'm a teacher coming to that space,
(28:44):
I need to understand that because I'll be quick to say, oh, the parents, they don't really care
about or the community, they don't really care about because I don't see their presence visible
in my school. Right. They're not coming to my building. But I need to understand there's some
foundation there. And just because I don't see them every day in my building, don't mean that the
(29:06):
people and the community itself don't know the value and care about the education of their children.
Exactly. Because that is, I can't recall anywhere else in the country where you could go,
you could stay in your community, go to elementary school, go to middle school, go to high school
and go to college in that community radius. Wow. That's why it's important. That's a place base.
(29:34):
That's a thing about it. Yes, yes, yes, it is. It is. And it's not divorcing yourself from the
community. Thinking about Carter G. Woodson and the miseducation of the Negro and how we're educated
away from where we live, where we're educated to take all of our expertise and skills outside of
the community instead of helping the people in the place that reared us. So, yeah. But I want to
(30:03):
know, are you the only teacher that has this perspective? How are you, I know that you're
duplicating yourself for lack of a better term with those that you are teaching, so those that are
going into the teaching profession. But when it comes to teacher education, how are you advancing
(30:25):
this, the place-based education, the connection with community? Because that's necessary in English
class. That's necessary in science, of course. I know that's necessary in, of course, social studies,
music, physics. I can't think of any biology. I can't think of any aspect of those courses that
(30:47):
we've learned in school not being connected to some level of community knowledge. So,
how is it that you are advancing this notion of community engagement and education with
some of your colleagues? So, interestingly, you would say that this idea that I'm talking about
(31:09):
this community has been around for a long time and there have been educators that have been writing
about that, particularly black scholars. Like last building, she wrote a whole book called The
Drink Keepers, right? And in her book, she highlights these various teachers and she focuses on
community of one particular teacher and how she advanced her teaching and her work within that
(31:34):
community. So, there's been work done about that, but I often say it's not enough because a couple
people writing about it, and why is it always black scholars that are writing about it? Right?
We're the ones that get it. We're the ones that understand, and we have to teach everybody
else how to understand that. But you see, I sometimes I've seen it in other disciplines,
(32:00):
like in history, right? Or Africana studies. I've seen some of my colleagues doing similar
work. One of my students is taking a course now where they're learning about Georgia history
and they'll be going to Macon and Jackson and talking about those regional things and visiting
people and reasons. But it's this idea of connecting to community. It's kind of radical.
(32:26):
Because a lot of times my colleagues see, well, we are the knowledge bearers. We're
in academia, right? We're the ones who can tell everybody what and how to do. And that's not
true and that's not right. That is so false. We have so much that we don't know and we can learn
from those spaces because we have to learn from those spaces. I just know where you are today.
(32:52):
Somebody in your community, your mama, your daddy, your aunties, you taught you something.
Yes. Made you continue up. Because in this space called academia, they'll shoot you down. They'll
kill you joy every day. And schooling will do that. So you have to have that connection. And so
in this and I often present at conferences and share my work and encourage people. I'm a part of
(33:17):
this teaching with primary sources consortium with the National Council for the Social Studies.
And being a part of that, we often able to present our work and share it nationally across the
country with other teachers and encourage and engage them in this type of work. And so last
year I presented on the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre and how we did some community engagement around
(33:41):
that. And I shared that and did a facilitated session there. And so I had a couple of teachers
hit me up and say, hey, how can I do this in my own space? And I was like, here's a blueprint.
Try it out. See if it works. But you got to remember the context in which you were, right?
And you can't just implement something with not understanding at all. Right? We can't do that.
(34:04):
I'm going to do this. But I haven't met an engaged in community. It's not going to be as effective.
So that's that's some of the ways I think about sharing this work and this knowledge. And there
are there are people that are doing this work and connected. And so I try to connect with those
across that are doing this work. Because it's so important. And when I think about teaching teachers,
(34:26):
that's where it really matters because they're the ones that's going to be in the schools working
with the children and their communities and the family. So they got to be the ones there.
And I will tell you about five years ago, I did a, you know, I started doing this trip to Montgomery
and we talked about the legacy of enslavement and Jim Crow, right? And how it how it plays out.
(34:48):
And we see it today. And I took my students on my one of my students, he was teaching at a private
Christian school. And he came back and he was like, Dr. Earl, that changed my whole perspective
and understanding because you know, they teach about Christ and the biblical principles of going
out evangelizing and sharing and love. And he was like, I had to teach my students about this
(35:14):
history about this week. I took my students to Montgomery. And he said, and met and I was able
to make that biblical connection on a different way because you know, he said, I didn't desensitize
the history. So if we're talking about we're going to Christ like and love and connect and
(35:36):
evangelize and do things, we can't be racist. You got it. We got it. We got it going. We got to
talk to people. We got to understand our community. We can't come from this. I'm your savior.
And so for me, I was like, that's it. That's where it begins. Even if that's small, that's a win,
(35:59):
though. That's a win. Different. And he's working with privileged kids, privileged people who then
make these laws and do all these things, has this money, do all this stuff that oppress
oftentimes to oppress. Now he's engaging them in a different way of thinking and being as human.
(36:21):
Yes, yes, and a different conversation. That is awesome. As you're talking about that, I'm thinking
about the different ways of learning the multiple intelligences and how engagement with community,
(36:42):
you know, over the educational space, it's engaging your, you know, of course, your mind,
your auditory, your, its movement, its memory. It's all of these things into one. And so it's
almost like you have to feel it as well. Because community engagement is a feeling and those people
(37:03):
that are community people that know that feeling can create different places, you know, just like
you were like, I'm not, you're not an original ATLian, but you are now, but you've lived other
places and you've been a part of community in those other places as well. So it's, it does start
(37:28):
with your own experience, I think, and it kind of branches out from that. So giving those teachers
that experience that they might not have had, that everyone might not have had that type of,
that sense of security in their community space. So it's not a, you know, all people feel that or
(37:50):
all people have that experience. It's, can vary in different ways, but giving them that sense of
security in the classroom is so meaningful. And they come back and they tell you about it.
They come back and they tell you about it. And they remember you for it. Because they,
it's kids, the students, they remember how you feel. And that's regardless of whatever level
(38:14):
of student they are. Yeah, because I think about when you, when you leave a community space,
something in here, in your heart, in your, in your soul is different or you feel something.
And that's what, that's, that's what learning it should be. When I go into a classroom or a school
space, I should feel something different, something inside of me. That's what education should do.
(38:40):
And if it's not when that, and it shouldn't make, it shouldn't be a, a harmful feeling.
Because you think about community in those spaces, you, you, you may get chastised, you may feel bad
for a second, but you, when you think back, it's like, some people cared about me. Right, right, right.
So in that education, and I was learning something about myself and how I need to be in the work.
(39:04):
And so when I'm in the educational space, it gotta be the same way. That's what I tell my,
my students, it gotta be the same way. I gotta feel like this is a good space for me.
Yeah, I got in trouble, but they, they care about me. And what I'm learning somehow connects to me
and makes me feel something. That's when you really learn something. When I'm, when I'm feeling it,
(39:26):
like, you know how the line dances go and you be, and you learn to dance and you feel good.
What education in the school space should be like learning the line dance or learning the new
TikTok and I, I feel something. And that's from community. So I definitely can get that in my,
(39:47):
in my classroom. That's what the teacher, that's what I have to establish and create.
Right. Right. Cause that's, it's soul nurturing.
Yes. It's nurturing your soul and it's nurturing who you can become. It's kind of like massaging
it a little bit so that you feel like you can do anything. And it, and it's, it's, I think about
(40:10):
the people that inspired and encouraged me. And I never looked at their station in life that they
chose because it wasn't really about that. It was what they were pouring into me. And that happens
in those spaces. And it happens. I'm thinking about when I was in undergrad at Howard University
(40:34):
and, you know, when we talk about community as people, I remember there was this one, I was
walking down the street, going to some of my friends house and I passed by this elderly lady
and I said, good morning. And she said, Oh, you've been taught well, you know, and we just,
(40:57):
and, and you know, that's where it starts. That's where it starts. And I talked and walked with
that woman and sat on her porch and, and it was just like she was, she knew I was a student. I
told her I was a student at Howard and she just poured and poured what she had. And I mean,
(41:17):
I still remember that today. So that matters. It's that, that soul connection, that spirit
connection that you have with people that just makes you feel alive and know that you're alive
and know that you're not here for no reason. Like we'll say in North Carolina, you got,
you've got some purpose for breathing this air. Well, like I say, community for me is everything.
(41:44):
It's why I am who I am and how I got to be. And if I don't share that and create that
for my students and their students, then I'm not being who I'm supposed to be. Right. And so when
I think about community, that's what I think about music. I think about food. I think about,
(42:06):
I think about talking. I think about smiling. I think about flying. It incorporates all that.
And when I think about learning, that's what it should be. All of that. All of that. Yeah. All of
that. All of that. I totally agree. And in the, in the words of Frankie Beverly, that's the joy
(42:30):
and the pain. That's the sunshine and the rain. And I mean, we need all of that to grow and to
mature. It's not going to be all of one or all of the other, but it's going to be all of it at the
same time. So in honor of Frankie Beverly, who made his transition, if it's all right with you,
(42:55):
we're going to close out with joy and pain.
You know, thinking about community, I'm thinking about all of these instruments.
Oh my goodness. I'm part of this. Coming together to make a sound. Yes. Harmonizing. Food in there.
(43:22):
Hear that guitar?
And that's what communities like. We're all different pieces, but we ain't throwing in the same rhythm.
Yeah. None better than the other. Yeah. But just all together. Yeah. To make a sweet sound.
(43:47):
Education is that joy and pain. Because you learn and then you see your world.
I just love, love, love how they ended that conversation. We are all different pieces
in the same rhythm. That that is what community can be and what it is. None better than the other.
(44:10):
Thrown together to make a sweet sound. We hope you enjoyed that conversation. It really got me
thinking about so many moments where I have opportunity to be community. Community is a verb,
right? To be in communion with people. And as a noun, how do I approach that? A couple takeaways
that I picked up while listening. I wonder what you picked up. We're talking about educating the
(44:34):
whole child. The mind, the body, the spirit, the soul, their essence, who they are and who they
aspire to be. And in order to do that, you have to be connected to their community and support
them to be connected as well. Well, everybody, that's a wrap for this episode of Create Ed.
(44:54):
We love these podcasts and we hope you do too. Hope it's giving some things to chew on and think
about as you look at yourselves and the work that you do and we all do supporting and educating our
children. We hope our discussion and this episode has provided some valuable insights into the power
of community partnerships and the transformative potential within K through 12 education and
(45:21):
teacher residencies. Everyone, if you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and leave us a
review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. There's so many ways that you can connect to this podcast. Just
know that your feedback helps us continue to bring meaningful content and connect with more listeners
(45:41):
who are passionate about education. Also, stay connected with us on our website, the Create
Project, eduction.gsu.edu for more updates about the Create Project, Create Ed and more. We love
to hear your thoughts, questions or suggestions for future episodes. Thank you for listening and
(46:02):
until next time, let's continue to build strong partnerships, foster thriving educational communities
and transform teacher residencies into places of deep joy. How's that sound?
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