April 30, 2025 • 35 mins
Welcome to a new season of Ground Control Parenting!
This season starts strong with Dr. John B. King, Jr. — former U.S. Secretary of Education under President Obama and current Chancellor of the State University of New York — who joins Carol for a captivating conversation about the power of education. John reveals how education not only shaped his life but saved it — a story he explores in his inspiring new memoir, Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives.
John talks with Carol about his journey from a childhood filled with loss and instability to becoming one of the most influential voices in American education. He shares how teachers and other mentors guided his path and fueled his mission to ensure every child has access to great educational opportunities.
This season Carol’s bringing in a team of amazing experts to explore the parenting issues that matter most. Get ready to be informed and inspired!
Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
This season starts strong with Dr. John B. King, Jr. — former U.S. Secretary of Education under President Obama and current Chancellor of the State University of New York — who joins Carol for a captivating conversation about the power of education. John reveals how education not only shaped his life but saved it — a story he explores in his inspiring new memoir, Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives.
John talks with Carol about his journey from a childhood filled with loss and instability to becoming one of the most influential voices in American education. He shares how teachers and other mentors guided his path and fueled his mission to ensure every child has access to great educational opportunities.
This season Carol’s bringing in a team of amazing experts to explore the parenting issues that matter most. Get ready to be informed and inspired!
Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the new season of Ground Control
Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis. I am so happy to
have you join us for another season of conversations about
raising curious, confident, and healthy Black and Brown children. This season,
we're talking about lots of important parenting issues with an
amazing team of experts, starting with this week's great guest.
(00:21):
Thanks for listening, and let's get started. Hello and welcome
to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and now a podcast
creative of parents raising black and Brown children. I'm the
creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In this podcast series,
I talk with some really interesting people about the job
(00:41):
and the joy of parenting. Now. One of the most
important parts of our job as parents, right after making
sure our kids are healthy and safe, is to help
them get the best education possible. And today I am
so happy to welcome a very special guest to the
podcast who knows so much about the state of education
in our country, John B. King Junior. John served in
(01:01):
President of Barack Obama's cabinet as the tenth u S
Secretary of Education, and he's currently the Chancellor of the
State University of New York, the nation's largest comprehensive system
of public higher education. John has had an incredibly extensive
and influential career in public education. Okay, and this is
not the whole list. He has been a high school teacher,
(01:23):
a middle school principal, and a co founder of Roxbury Prep,
a very successful charter school in Boston. He helped launch
the Uncommon Charter School Network operation in New York City.
He was the first African American and Puerto Rican to
serve as the New York State Education Commissioner. He's been
a college professor. He was President and CEO of the
Education Trust, a national education civil rights organization, and now
(01:44):
he is also an author. His first book, Teacher by Teacher,
The People Who Change Our Lives, has just been published.
Teacher by Teacher is a celebration of teachers and John's
stories of how they saved his life. John is a
graduate of Harvard College, ye Law School, and Teachers College
at Columbia University. He and his wife, Melissa Steel King,
who is an education researcher and former elementary school teacher,
(02:07):
have two daughters and they reside in Brooklyn, New York.
Welcome to ground Control Parenting, John.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thanks so much I'm excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yay, I'm excited to have you here, and congrats, congrats
on the publication of your book. I'm so happy to
have you with us to talk about the book, your
journey that you describe in the book, and what parents
can learn from it all. It's such a big conversation.
We're going to do it in two parts, beginning with
how education paved the way for young John B. King
Junior and the lessons in and out of school he
(02:36):
learned along the way. So let's get started. So teacher
to teacher chronicles how your life was supremely impacted by
teachers and mentors, how they brought calm and comfort to
your life at a time when it was filled with trauma.
But before we get to the trauma, I want to
hear a little bit about the earliest years. Tell us
about where you were born and about your mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Sure, sure, so both my parents were educators. My dad
was African American, grew up just after the turn this
century in a very segregated New York City and decided
to pursue a path to opportunity through becoming a teacher
and then a principal and then he was an administrator
in the New York City schools. He was actually the
(03:18):
first African American principal in Brooklyn back in the nineteen forties.
My mother was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, came to
New York as a kid, learned English in the New
York City public schools, went to Hunter College in the
Cuney system as a first in her family to graduate
from college. And she too saw a path to opportunity
(03:41):
as a teacher and then a school counselor. And they
met actually because my mother was going back to school
to get her principal license and my father was teaching
at Fordham University in the administrator's program after he'd retired,
and that's how they met. And I grew up in
Brooklyn in Flatlands, which is sort of the East Flatbush,
(04:04):
and went to PSQ seventy six in Canarsie. And my
mom actually was the school counselor in my elementary school.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Wow, And so that fun or was that?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah? It was fun? And I always thought I got
a little advantage because she was good friends with the
first grade teacher and so we had a half day
kindergarten at that time. So after kindergarten was over, I
would go and sit in the back of the first
grade classroom in the afternoon, and so I had a
head start on the first grade.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Oh that's pretty cool. I usually ask about how your
parents influenced your perspective about school, But you have two
parents who are teachers, So did you have any shot
at not liking school.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
School was definitely the thing that was talked about at
the kitchen table every night, whether it was me talking
about my school day or my parents talking about my
mom's students. You know, at that time, she was a
middle school and elementary school guidance counselor, and so she would,
you know, share with my dad some of the difficult
(05:10):
situations she was navigating with her students, and so that
was always the conversation in our house. And I always
loved school. I found school to be a place that
was very familiar and nurturing.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Oh so I imagine it helped to have your mom
in the school. Yeah, definitely, it was easy to love it.
It's funny. Just a quick aside. My mom was a
public school teacher in New York City and when she
went to open school night for kindergarten, she taught me
to read an early age. She read early. I read early,
so I could read by the time I got to kindergarten,
(05:43):
you know, in the sort of teacher to teach her.
Kind of conversations they have when teachers are parents as well.
The kindergarten teacher said to her, can you believe it?
Somebody in the school taught their kid to read in
kindergarten and they're messing me up because they keep reading
all the captains on the slides. Why would anybody do that?
It's really disrupting the class. It's suffice to say. I
(06:05):
was moved to the other kindergarten class the next day,
So it does really help to have somebody on the
inside exactly. So, young John loved school, and unfortunately, at
a really young age, tragedy strikes. Your mom succumbs to
a heart attack. She's young. She's forty eight. You were eight,
(06:25):
and your dad was seventy five. He was significantly older
than your mom, So, as your book details, you continue
to live with your father, who, even before your mom passed,
had begun to show some signs of dementia, some signs
of difficulty coping, and you suffered for the next four
years and suffered as an understatement, I mean, you describe
how difficult it was living with your father because of
(06:49):
his increasing inability to care for you, and then he
passed away when you were twelve, so by the time
you were twelve, you'd lost both parents. In the book,
you describe the and the rage which was building in
you as you coped with all of this. At how
school was the only place where you found solace. Can
you talk about why was that and the special things
(07:10):
the teachers did that helped you cope. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know, when my mom passed, it was very scary.
She was the center for me. I love my mom
so much and she was by far the primary caretaker
in my life, and so I was really at sea
after she passed, and school was this very stable force,
(07:40):
you know. I remember in the morning that she she
passed away the night before. My dad told me that morning,
and I insisted on going to school because school felt
like safety. School felt like my mom. And I was
very fortunate to have a teacher in fourth, fifth, sixth grade.
He looped with us, which very unusual in the New
(08:01):
York City schools of the time. Alan Asterwhile who was amazing,
you know, He had us reading the New York Times
every day. We did productions of Midsummer Night's Dream and
Alice in Wonderland. He took us to the Ballet and
(08:21):
to the Cloisters and to the Museum of Natural History.
Just his classroom was sort of like Miss Frizzle and
Magic School Bus. You know, it was just every day
was interesting, compelling, engaging. He took us seriously and talked
to us with a real appreciation for our ideas and
our perspectives. And so that made school this place that
(08:43):
I wanted to be. And as my father got more
and more sick, home became more and more unstable. You know,
some nights he'd be angry, some nights said some nights
he talked to me. Some nights he wouldn't say a word.
Some nights he'd be violent, and I didn't know why.
Years later now, obviously I appreciate the impact that dementia
(09:04):
Alzheimer's can have on a person, but I didn't know
why he was acting that way, and it was terrifying.
But school was a place where I could be a
kid when I wasn't able to be a kid at home,
And so really was because of mister astraw that I
survived that period.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
You mentioned encountering him as you walked back into the school,
and it seemed from your description he handled the situation
with such grace and that he allowed you not to
talk about it because you didn't want to talk about it,
and just folded you. And as somebody I lost my father,
I was much older. I was in my twenties, but
I still felt very young. It is comforting initially to
(09:45):
not have to talk about it. And yet and so
was it as much that he was this amazing teacher
who sort of didn't treat you any differently the trauma
that you were experiencing at home. Did you just leave
it at home and you were able to be your
true self in his class? Or was he able to
help you in any way kind of modulate yourself with
what you were feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, you know, interestingly, I've gotten to spend a lot
of time with mister Asterol, now much later in life,
and we've reflected together on that time period. And he
didn't know what my home life was like. You know,
for a very long period, I didn't talk to anybody
about it. I didn't know that I could. I was ashamed.
(10:30):
I knew my home life was different from other kids,
but I didn't share that with anyone, and so in
many ways, what he provided was this place that was
separate from the things I was going through at home.
And I think about that, you know, having been a
teacher and principal, I think a lot about what school
(10:53):
can be for kids that many times, as educators you
don't know what's going on outside of school, and in
many ways you can't control what's going on outside of school,
but you can create in your classroom a space that
is safe, supportive, nurturing, engaging, interesting, and that is a
(11:15):
tremendous gift.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Now, the very impressive thing about as you describe the
sort of horrors of home, they did not impact your
ability to do well. You were an excellent student, and
in part because of teachers that encouraged that and nurtured
your natural intellect and your interest in learning. I don't
want to give away too much that's in the book,
but by virtue of your doing well, you ended up
(11:39):
having the opportunity to attend and over the boarding school
where your love affair with school came to a screeching halt.
Can you talk about what happened there? And how your
uncle Hal wasn't a teacher, but the mentor that helped
you with that pivotal point in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Sure, you know. So after my dad passed, I moved
around different family members, different schools. And Andover was supposed
to be an escape in a sense from some of
the difficult situations I've been in. And I got there
and the academics were fantastic, you know, very capable teachers,
(12:19):
very rich classroom discussions, but I felt very out of place.
It's a place where the students on the whole are
very affluent. I think it's more diverse today than it
was then, but at that time a relatively small number
of black and Latino students, largely from New York City
(12:42):
or Chicago or Philadelphia, and there was a real sense
of isolation within the community of color at Andover. And
I also, I needed parenting and that was not something
they did really. Yeah, there was supervision of the dorms,
(13:03):
that kind of thing, but I had really been on
my own in many ways since I was eight, and
I needed the parenting mix of nurturing and structure, and
that was not what Andover did. And to the extent that
there was structure. It was a set of rules that
(13:23):
felt sort of arbitrary because they weren't grounded in a relationship,
and so I really struggled with the rules, got in
a lot of trouble, and eventually got kicked out. I
always tell people in the first US Secretary of Education
kicked out of high school. And at that point I
went to live with my uncle Holm, who was a
Tiski yearman, and his wife, my aunt Jean, and they
(13:50):
ran a tight ship. You know, Dinner was at the
same time every night. There were chores, but there was
a lot of love, and the structure was delivered in
a way that was loving, and that is what I needed.
And he also pushed me to move on from andover you.
(14:11):
There was a point after I've been kicked out, they said,
you know, you could take some time off from the school,
take a year off, and maybe come back for another year.
My uncle said, no, you're going to finish high school
here where he lived at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and
go on to college. And you've got to put this
(14:31):
period behind you and decide what do you want your
life to be like now? What kind of man do
you want to be? And that was a really powerful conversation,
especially coming from him knowing what he had endured as
a Tuski yearman, the way that he had faced incredible
racism and persevered through it and had become a career
(14:54):
officer in the Air Force. His example was so powerful,
and so having him sort of challenge me to take
control of my life was really a pivotal moment.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
We'll be right back after these messages, welcome back to
the show. I loved that part of the book From
a parenting perspective. It was very impressive parenting on your
uncle Hal's part to push you to stay with him
and graduate from Cherry Hill. As you said, the school
(15:28):
offered you the opportunity to come back, and you talked
about how thrilled you were by that opportunity because it
would given you an opportunity to sort of make good.
You know, you were this smart kid who knew that
it wasn't a good look to be thrown out of school,
particularly because you had had your sights set on ivy
Lea education and you understood the import of getting kicked
out of a good school. And when he talked to
(15:50):
and the Endover administration, he was very angry, but he
wasn't angry at you, he was angry at them. You
say in the book that you had kept everything bottled up,
but at the very end, when you saw the writing
on the wall, you thought you would just share with
them some of what you had gone through, which would
explain a bit why you were not necessarily going to
toe the line, and that didn't influence them to keep you.
(16:13):
And your uncle's anger was properly with the authorities that
didn't do right by you, and his perspective was we
are going to do right by you. It's a really
impressive parenting moment. He could see how bright your future
would be, and it would have been easy to give
in to you, to say, okay, stay with us and
write go back there, and then your dreams of going
to Harvard or wherever would be more easily achieved. It
(16:37):
would make you happy in the moment, and I can
see a lot of parents thinking that's the mecha, that's
where you want to get to. But it was very
impressive for him, and as you say, and parted with
because he understood the way the world worked and it
wasn't a meritocracy necessarily, and that it was really the
most important thing was for you to understand the consequences
of your actions and the determine what kind of person
(16:58):
you're going to be. It was going to be harder
for you to stay in this local high school and
do well enough to get to your dreams. But that
was where you were. You made your bed. You wouldn't
lie in your bed, and for many people, it's very
hard to sort of make that call.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Definitely, definitely, And I think you know, in many ways
are shaped by his own life experience. You know, he
when he came back after World War Two, he was
trained as an accountant, but he couldn't get a job
in New York City as a black accountant, and so
he became a firefighter. And I always think about that
(17:33):
he just risked his life for a country that did
not fully recognize his humanity. He comes back and faces
intense racism that locks him out of opportunity, and he
chooses as a job running into burning buildings to save
other people. Right, he chooses as a job this incredible
service and risk on behalf of the community, even though
(17:56):
the community isn't valuing him in the way that it should,
and his self possession to make that choice to serve
always remain patriotic and committed to service even in the
face of prejudice, because of a belief in what America
could be such a powerful life example. And so when
(18:21):
he sat there telling me, you know, you got to
step up here and we can't fix the things that
happened in your life before this moment, but you can
forge the path going forward, that was really a powerful moment.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yes, absolutely so, in the category of what doesn't kill
us makes us stronger. Were there any positive aspects of
the traumatic experiences of your youth? I mean, how are
you able to move so far away from the impact
of the trauma?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
You know. A couple of things. I think one it
really deepened my love for school and academics right in
many ways. I can recall times where home was so
difficult with my father and I would just escape into
a book, and that passion for academics has defined a
(19:17):
lot of my life. The other thing I would say
is I have a lot of empathy for the struggles
people are going through. And I'm very conscious as a
person who was going through struggles and didn't tell anyone,
I'm very conscious going through life that when people are
(19:40):
upset or unhappy, you don't know what's behind that, you know.
I always think about that. There's a scene in the
movie It's a Wonderful Life, So it's a parent teacher
scene where the main character has had a very upsetting
situation and the school calls and he's very rude to
(20:01):
the educator on the other end of the line. And
I always think about that that for the educator, you
could internalize that, or you could have the perspective that
you just don't know what else is happening in that
person's life. When I was a principal and sometimes, you know,
folks were short with me or so forth, I would
(20:22):
think about, I don't really know what else is going
on with them, and let me just try to be
as empathetic and express express care as best as I can,
because you just don't know people's struggles.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So it's pretty remarkable the degree of emotional intelligence and
resilience that you demonstrated, because what you've just described, the
empathy doesn't necessarily follow out of a life where you
had a lot that you had to keep inside, you know.
And I noted in the book that you didn't really
talk about any kind of therapeutic help. I mean, there
was no talking to anyone outside. Do you think if
(21:02):
this were now that you would have benefited You ever
think about being able to talk to someone? I mean
it's professionals. When you were demonstrating the anger and the rage,
I mean, do you think it would have been helpful
to talk with someone?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Or sure? And look, I think today or I would
hope today at Andover or at any American high school,
that an educator would see a student clearly in distress
and help them find their way to therapy or group
(21:35):
counseling or some kind of mental health support. That was
just less true when I was a kid. Yeah, and
especially a kid who was doing fine academically. You know,
I think Andover had systems for a student who was
struggling in class, but I wasn't. That wasn't the thing.
(21:56):
It was all the stuff right outside of the classroom
internally that I was struggling with.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And you mentioned in your book, I mean, growing up
in an African American Puerto Rican household, black people, we
don't talk about that stuff. I mean now maybe more so,
but growing up it was very easy to not you know,
therapy was not for us. You know, we didn't. We
sucked it up. We did not do that, So it's understandable.
How you know, you mentioned that even with all of
(22:24):
the obvious trauma having lost your parents, so your mother
first and your father, and even in the throes with
your father, everybody was sort of like, he's good, you know,
he seems fine. We're not gonna We're not going to
talk about the fact that his father is increasingly incapable
until until he couldn't care for you anymore. So, yeah,
it kind of it's unfortunately part of our historically our
(22:44):
culture to not.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Definitely yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, there are some
family members I think honestly, when they read the book
will be the first time that they, wow, I have
really understood what my home life was like.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, again, kudos to your innate emotional intelligence that got
you through that. So now fast forward, you are now
a parent of two lovely daughters. How did the lessons
of your childhood prepare you for parenting? I mean, I really,
as I read this, you didn't have a lot of
role modeling. How are you able to figure out how
(23:21):
to create the family you wish you'd had. You talked
about looking out the window and seeing the neighbors next
door seemingly having this perfect family life. It was pre Instagram,
but it was your Instagram and Windstane they looked like
they were happy around the dinner table. But aside from that,
how did you once you start having children? How did
you know what to do? Or did you have any
concern about knowing what to do?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Such a great question. You know, I think really benefited
from having an amazing partner. You know, my wife is
developmental psychologist. She is a former kindergartener, first grade teacher,
She's an education researcher, and she grew up in a
very stable, supportive, nurturing home and her mom is a pediatrician.
(24:09):
Her dad is economists and right, so my in laws
and Melissa have been really incredible guides to what you know,
healthy home life should look like, you know. But I
also was fortunate, I think, to see my uncle Hallan
(24:29):
on Jeane and how they approached parenting there for kids.
And I've gotten to watch my cousins as they then
pass on some of those parenting traditions from their parents
to their children. But look, you know, I think every
parent struggles with the question of like, did I do
it right? Could I have done it? Better. I certainly
(24:52):
was always very committed, even with a busy professional life,
to being present and engage. I felt my father's absence
through my whole life. Really, even when I was very little,
he was pretty absent, and then obviously when he was
sick he was not able to parent. So I have
been very intentional about savoring the time with my daughters.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You were really independent. You made all of your decision
for better for worse. You made a lot of decisions
on your own. On the one hand, you saw the
value of being able to make your own decisions at
a very young age and be able to trust in them.
I'm sure that helped with self confidence, but you also
understand that there's sometimes when some people should step in.
So with respect to your children, you could swung either way.
(25:40):
You could be overly sensitive to them being too much
on their own, because you know how that felt vulnerable
and lost sometimes, or you could be like they shouldn't
be coddled because I know personally that independence can really
do good things for you. Was that a concern at all?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Definitely. I think we talked a lot about my wife
and I and something that I pondered what the right
choice was in different moments. I think we tried to
strike a balance of raising two young women who are
independent and strongwelled and clear about what they want to
(26:20):
do in the world, and also caring and sensitive to
the struggles that other people are going through. And you know,
I was very conscious that there's a lot of privilege
in my daughter's lives, given the professional success that my
wife and I have had, given the resources we have,
(26:41):
and I didn't want them to be spoiled by that.
I didn't want them to kind of lose perspective about
what it is to, you know, have to work hard
to achieve something that you want, And so I probably
was leaning in a little more on that than maybe
other folks might to make sure that they were going
(27:05):
to be resilient.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Right, right, you had authentic adversity, but I can imagine
that your daughters grew up in a world where my
husband and I joke about this. You need them to
have adversity so that you know that they can cope
with it.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, Yes, because everyone will face that at some point,
and you want them to have the internal fortitude to
be able to persevere through that.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
So for these last couple of questions, I'm going to
segue into the bigger picture of you having taken both
this incredible childhood trauma and then this incredible educational experience
and your devotion to teaching. How did your experiences lead
you to think about how to help all children succeed
and how to build schools in which they could do.
(27:50):
What was the special sauce that you wanted to add
to teaching that you didn't see? Was there already that
led you to not only work in schools but create
different schools?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, a few things. I mean, one is I knew
from my experience in mister Oswhill's classroom how important it
is for a teacher to create a space that is
truly engaging and compelling, that feeds young people's innate curiosity
and taps into the things they are passionate about. And
(28:24):
so when I think about what school can be, that
is what I want for our students. You know, when
I was a principal, I would always say to teachers
about the first day of school, please don't use the
whole time to go over the syllabus. You want the
kid to get off of the bus at the end
of the day and say, oh my gosh, Miss Sutton
(28:48):
Lewis's class is going to be amazing this year. Do
you know that we learned this about animals, or that.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We saw this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Photograph of you know, some fascinating part of the world.
You want kids to have that sense that, oh, this
is going to be an amazing adventure of learning. And
so that to me was always something I leaned into
because I benefited from that from mister Astraw and other
teachers that I describe in the book. Another piece is structure.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I'm acutely aware that kids need rules and normalcy and
I didn't have that at home, and that sense of
chaos and uncertainty and unpredictability is very difficult for young people.
(29:52):
And so you want to marry this environment that is
so creative and engaging with structure and consistence and see
and a sense of order about how life is going
to be. And then a third piece is I think,
at the end of the day, so much of teaching
is really about the relationship, and you want to create
(30:14):
schools and classrooms where there are genuine relationships of trust
and care and that matters at every level. I think
about that now leading a higher education system, it is
important for our students have a sense of belonging on
campus and a sense of connection with faculty members. And
(30:34):
the truth is, if you have that one adult that
you are connected to, whether it's in K twelve or hire,
that goes a tremendous way towards being successful.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Absolutely well, it's a wonderful thing that you managed to
take a really really difficult situation and that love of learning,
which I'm sure both your parents instilled in you and
nurtured in you to have that really carry you through
and get you to a position where you want to
share that with other people. So it's a really a wonderful,
(31:06):
wonderful story and I'm sure that parents that will read
it and people listening to this conversation will just really
take a moment and appreciate the value of teachers and
the value of that safe haven of education. It has
changed the world and saved and saved lives for sure.
So John, I'm going to wrap up this part one here,
but first I want to say thank you so much.
(31:28):
It's been a great conversation as I knew it would be.
And we're going to be back with Part two of
our conversation, in which we'll dive more deeply into how
parents can support our children. Because since you're an expert,
I want to grab a little bit that expertise as well.
So John's book is called Teacher by Teacher, The People
Who Save Our Lives. And it's out now, So parents
and everyone listening who's interested in education and all who
(31:50):
want to hear fascinating inspirational stories, pick up your copy today.
But there's one more thing I want to do. You
must participate in the GCP Lightning Round. Quick questions. Are
you ready?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Okay, good? What is your favorite poem? Or saying.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Victis, which was my uncle How's favorite poem and really
reflects so much about how he thought about one's responsibility
to guide one's own life.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Favorite two children's books, and they can be books you
grew up reading or that you read to your daughters.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I love The Sneeches, which is Doctor Seuss, just a
really powerful message about how how people sometimes don't treat
each other well but but need to learn to see
each other across lines of difference. And you know this
is kind of a silly one, but don't let the
(32:46):
pigeon drive the bus, which is which is quite quite silly.
I'm oh, Williams. But it's but it's delightful.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It is it is silly is really important. I love
silly and so that's a good example of it. Okay,
give me two dad moments. One that you would like
to have done differently, if you got to do over,
you would do it differently, and then one way you
nailed it as a dad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
The thing I would do differently is I wish we
had had better rules around the phone. You know. A
few times I was resolute that we were going to
all leave the phones in the in the living room
before we went to sleep and not take it into
the bedroom. And I don't know, I fold it every time.
(33:33):
I just I didn't hold to it. And I just
think for all of us, it would have been healthier
to have more boundaries around the around the.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Phone, certainly not alone in that. Yeah, and I'm nailing
it as a dad. I'm sure there are lots of examples.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
You know. One that was really proud of. I was
Commissioner of Education for New York. It's a very, you know,
intense job. But I said I was going to coach
Amina's softball team, and I was a little nervous about
it because it meant, you know, there'd be certain days
when I would need to leave early although I worked
(34:11):
all the time and I would go, I would work
afterwards and so forth. But it turned out to be
this incredible blessing to have that experience of coaching her team.
And I actually think it's sent a really positive message
throughout the organization that we were going to take time
to seriously engage in our in our family lives and
(34:34):
still work hard and still you know, put in all
the hours, but have a little schedule flexibility to take
care of our family.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Great. Those are all great answers, and John, I thank
you so much for joining.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Us, Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Great congrats on the book and everyone go by it.
I hope everyone listening enjoyed today's conversation with John King.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, this
was part one of a two parter with John, and
we'll be back with part two and we'll hear from
John about how parents can best support our children's academic development.
Thanks again for joining this episode of Ground Control Parenting.
(35:12):
If you like what you've heard, subscribe, rate and review
where you find your podcasts, and please tell your friends
For more parenting info and advice, check out the Ground
Control Parenting blog at groundcatrol parenting dot com. You can
also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at Ground
Control Parenting. Until the next time, take care and thanks
for listening.
Hello and welcome to the new season of Ground Control
Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis. I am so happy to
have you join us for another season of conversations about
raising curious, confident, and healthy Black and Brown children. This season,
we're talking about lots of important parenting issues with an
amazing team of experts, starting with this week's great guest.
(00:21):
Thanks for listening, and let's get started. Hello and welcome
to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and now a podcast
creative of parents raising black and Brown children. I'm the
creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In this podcast series,
I talk with some really interesting people about the job
(00:41):
and the joy of parenting. Now. One of the most
important parts of our job as parents, right after making
sure our kids are healthy and safe, is to help
them get the best education possible. And today I am
so happy to welcome a very special guest to the
podcast who knows so much about the state of education
in our country, John B. King Junior. John served in
(01:01):
President of Barack Obama's cabinet as the tenth u S
Secretary of Education, and he's currently the Chancellor of the
State University of New York, the nation's largest comprehensive system
of public higher education. John has had an incredibly extensive
and influential career in public education. Okay, and this is
not the whole list. He has been a high school teacher,
(01:23):
a middle school principal, and a co founder of Roxbury Prep,
a very successful charter school in Boston. He helped launch
the Uncommon Charter School Network operation in New York City.
He was the first African American and Puerto Rican to
serve as the New York State Education Commissioner. He's been
a college professor. He was President and CEO of the
Education Trust, a national education civil rights organization, and now
(01:44):
he is also an author. His first book, Teacher by Teacher,
The People Who Change Our Lives, has just been published.
Teacher by Teacher is a celebration of teachers and John's
stories of how they saved his life. John is a
graduate of Harvard College, ye Law School, and Teachers College
at Columbia University. He and his wife, Melissa Steel King,
who is an education researcher and former elementary school teacher,
(02:07):
have two daughters and they reside in Brooklyn, New York.
Welcome to ground Control Parenting, John.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Thanks so much I'm excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yay, I'm excited to have you here, and congrats, congrats
on the publication of your book. I'm so happy to
have you with us to talk about the book, your
journey that you describe in the book, and what parents
can learn from it all. It's such a big conversation.
We're going to do it in two parts, beginning with
how education paved the way for young John B. King
Junior and the lessons in and out of school he
(02:36):
learned along the way. So let's get started. So teacher
to teacher chronicles how your life was supremely impacted by
teachers and mentors, how they brought calm and comfort to
your life at a time when it was filled with trauma.
But before we get to the trauma, I want to
hear a little bit about the earliest years. Tell us
about where you were born and about your mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Sure, sure, so both my parents were educators. My dad
was African American, grew up just after the turn this
century in a very segregated New York City and decided
to pursue a path to opportunity through becoming a teacher
and then a principal and then he was an administrator
in the New York City schools. He was actually the
(03:18):
first African American principal in Brooklyn back in the nineteen forties.
My mother was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, came to
New York as a kid, learned English in the New
York City public schools, went to Hunter College in the
Cuney system as a first in her family to graduate
from college. And she too saw a path to opportunity
(03:41):
as a teacher and then a school counselor. And they
met actually because my mother was going back to school
to get her principal license and my father was teaching
at Fordham University in the administrator's program after he'd retired,
and that's how they met. And I grew up in
Brooklyn in Flatlands, which is sort of the East Flatbush,
(04:04):
and went to PSQ seventy six in Canarsie. And my
mom actually was the school counselor in my elementary school.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Wow, And so that fun or was that?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah? It was fun? And I always thought I got
a little advantage because she was good friends with the
first grade teacher and so we had a half day
kindergarten at that time. So after kindergarten was over, I
would go and sit in the back of the first
grade classroom in the afternoon, and so I had a
head start on the first grade.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Oh that's pretty cool. I usually ask about how your
parents influenced your perspective about school, But you have two
parents who are teachers, So did you have any shot
at not liking school.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
School was definitely the thing that was talked about at
the kitchen table every night, whether it was me talking
about my school day or my parents talking about my
mom's students. You know, at that time, she was a
middle school and elementary school guidance counselor, and so she would,
you know, share with my dad some of the difficult
(05:10):
situations she was navigating with her students, and so that
was always the conversation in our house. And I always
loved school. I found school to be a place that
was very familiar and nurturing.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Oh so I imagine it helped to have your mom
in the school. Yeah, definitely, it was easy to love it.
It's funny. Just a quick aside. My mom was a
public school teacher in New York City and when she
went to open school night for kindergarten, she taught me
to read an early age. She read early. I read early,
so I could read by the time I got to kindergarten,
(05:43):
you know, in the sort of teacher to teach her.
Kind of conversations they have when teachers are parents as well.
The kindergarten teacher said to her, can you believe it?
Somebody in the school taught their kid to read in
kindergarten and they're messing me up because they keep reading
all the captains on the slides. Why would anybody do that?
It's really disrupting the class. It's suffice to say. I
(06:05):
was moved to the other kindergarten class the next day,
So it does really help to have somebody on the
inside exactly. So, young John loved school, and unfortunately, at
a really young age, tragedy strikes. Your mom succumbs to
a heart attack. She's young. She's forty eight. You were eight,
(06:25):
and your dad was seventy five. He was significantly older
than your mom, So, as your book details, you continue
to live with your father, who, even before your mom passed,
had begun to show some signs of dementia, some signs
of difficulty coping, and you suffered for the next four
years and suffered as an understatement, I mean, you describe
how difficult it was living with your father because of
(06:49):
his increasing inability to care for you, and then he
passed away when you were twelve, so by the time
you were twelve, you'd lost both parents. In the book,
you describe the and the rage which was building in
you as you coped with all of this. At how
school was the only place where you found solace. Can
you talk about why was that and the special things
(07:10):
the teachers did that helped you cope. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know, when my mom passed, it was very scary.
She was the center for me. I love my mom
so much and she was by far the primary caretaker
in my life, and so I was really at sea
after she passed, and school was this very stable force,
(07:40):
you know. I remember in the morning that she she
passed away the night before. My dad told me that morning,
and I insisted on going to school because school felt
like safety. School felt like my mom. And I was
very fortunate to have a teacher in fourth, fifth, sixth grade.
He looped with us, which very unusual in the New
(08:01):
York City schools of the time. Alan Asterwhile who was amazing,
you know, He had us reading the New York Times
every day. We did productions of Midsummer Night's Dream and
Alice in Wonderland. He took us to the Ballet and
(08:21):
to the Cloisters and to the Museum of Natural History.
Just his classroom was sort of like Miss Frizzle and
Magic School Bus. You know, it was just every day
was interesting, compelling, engaging. He took us seriously and talked
to us with a real appreciation for our ideas and
our perspectives. And so that made school this place that
(08:43):
I wanted to be. And as my father got more
and more sick, home became more and more unstable. You know,
some nights he'd be angry, some nights said some nights
he talked to me. Some nights he wouldn't say a word.
Some nights he'd be violent, and I didn't know why.
Years later now, obviously I appreciate the impact that dementia
(09:04):
Alzheimer's can have on a person, but I didn't know
why he was acting that way, and it was terrifying.
But school was a place where I could be a
kid when I wasn't able to be a kid at home,
And so really was because of mister astraw that I
survived that period.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
You mentioned encountering him as you walked back into the school,
and it seemed from your description he handled the situation
with such grace and that he allowed you not to
talk about it because you didn't want to talk about it,
and just folded you. And as somebody I lost my father,
I was much older. I was in my twenties, but
I still felt very young. It is comforting initially to
(09:45):
not have to talk about it. And yet and so
was it as much that he was this amazing teacher
who sort of didn't treat you any differently the trauma
that you were experiencing at home. Did you just leave
it at home and you were able to be your
true self in his class? Or was he able to
help you in any way kind of modulate yourself with
what you were feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, you know, interestingly, I've gotten to spend a lot
of time with mister Asterol, now much later in life,
and we've reflected together on that time period. And he
didn't know what my home life was like. You know,
for a very long period, I didn't talk to anybody
about it. I didn't know that I could. I was ashamed.
(10:30):
I knew my home life was different from other kids,
but I didn't share that with anyone, and so in
many ways, what he provided was this place that was
separate from the things I was going through at home.
And I think about that, you know, having been a
teacher and principal, I think a lot about what school
(10:53):
can be for kids that many times, as educators you
don't know what's going on outside of school, and in
many ways you can't control what's going on outside of school,
but you can create in your classroom a space that
is safe, supportive, nurturing, engaging, interesting, and that is a
(11:15):
tremendous gift.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Now, the very impressive thing about as you describe the
sort of horrors of home, they did not impact your
ability to do well. You were an excellent student, and
in part because of teachers that encouraged that and nurtured
your natural intellect and your interest in learning. I don't
want to give away too much that's in the book,
but by virtue of your doing well, you ended up
(11:39):
having the opportunity to attend and over the boarding school
where your love affair with school came to a screeching halt.
Can you talk about what happened there? And how your
uncle Hal wasn't a teacher, but the mentor that helped
you with that pivotal point in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Sure, you know. So after my dad passed, I moved
around different family members, different schools. And Andover was supposed
to be an escape in a sense from some of
the difficult situations I've been in. And I got there
and the academics were fantastic, you know, very capable teachers,
(12:19):
very rich classroom discussions, but I felt very out of place.
It's a place where the students on the whole are
very affluent. I think it's more diverse today than it
was then, but at that time a relatively small number
of black and Latino students, largely from New York City
(12:42):
or Chicago or Philadelphia, and there was a real sense
of isolation within the community of color at Andover. And
I also, I needed parenting and that was not something
they did really. Yeah, there was supervision of the dorms,
(13:03):
that kind of thing, but I had really been on
my own in many ways since I was eight, and
I needed the parenting mix of nurturing and structure, and
that was not what Andover did. And to the extent that
there was structure. It was a set of rules that
(13:23):
felt sort of arbitrary because they weren't grounded in a relationship,
and so I really struggled with the rules, got in
a lot of trouble, and eventually got kicked out. I
always tell people in the first US Secretary of Education
kicked out of high school. And at that point I
went to live with my uncle Holm, who was a
Tiski yearman, and his wife, my aunt Jean, and they
(13:50):
ran a tight ship. You know, Dinner was at the
same time every night. There were chores, but there was
a lot of love, and the structure was delivered in
a way that was loving, and that is what I needed.
And he also pushed me to move on from andover you.
(14:11):
There was a point after I've been kicked out, they said,
you know, you could take some time off from the school,
take a year off, and maybe come back for another year.
My uncle said, no, you're going to finish high school
here where he lived at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and
go on to college. And you've got to put this
(14:31):
period behind you and decide what do you want your
life to be like now? What kind of man do
you want to be? And that was a really powerful conversation,
especially coming from him knowing what he had endured as
a Tuski yearman, the way that he had faced incredible
racism and persevered through it and had become a career
(14:54):
officer in the Air Force. His example was so powerful,
and so having him sort of challenge me to take
control of my life was really a pivotal moment.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
We'll be right back after these messages, welcome back to
the show. I loved that part of the book From
a parenting perspective. It was very impressive parenting on your
uncle Hal's part to push you to stay with him
and graduate from Cherry Hill. As you said, the school
(15:28):
offered you the opportunity to come back, and you talked
about how thrilled you were by that opportunity because it
would given you an opportunity to sort of make good.
You know, you were this smart kid who knew that
it wasn't a good look to be thrown out of school,
particularly because you had had your sights set on ivy
Lea education and you understood the import of getting kicked
out of a good school. And when he talked to
(15:50):
and the Endover administration, he was very angry, but he
wasn't angry at you, he was angry at them. You
say in the book that you had kept everything bottled up,
but at the very end, when you saw the writing
on the wall, you thought you would just share with
them some of what you had gone through, which would
explain a bit why you were not necessarily going to
toe the line, and that didn't influence them to keep you.
(16:13):
And your uncle's anger was properly with the authorities that
didn't do right by you, and his perspective was we
are going to do right by you. It's a really
impressive parenting moment. He could see how bright your future
would be, and it would have been easy to give
in to you, to say, okay, stay with us and
write go back there, and then your dreams of going
to Harvard or wherever would be more easily achieved. It
(16:37):
would make you happy in the moment, and I can
see a lot of parents thinking that's the mecha, that's
where you want to get to. But it was very
impressive for him, and as you say, and parted with
because he understood the way the world worked and it
wasn't a meritocracy necessarily, and that it was really the
most important thing was for you to understand the consequences
of your actions and the determine what kind of person
(16:58):
you're going to be. It was going to be harder
for you to stay in this local high school and
do well enough to get to your dreams. But that
was where you were. You made your bed. You wouldn't
lie in your bed, and for many people, it's very
hard to sort of make that call.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Definitely, definitely, And I think you know, in many ways
are shaped by his own life experience. You know, he
when he came back after World War Two, he was
trained as an accountant, but he couldn't get a job
in New York City as a black accountant, and so
he became a firefighter. And I always think about that
(17:33):
he just risked his life for a country that did
not fully recognize his humanity. He comes back and faces
intense racism that locks him out of opportunity, and he
chooses as a job running into burning buildings to save
other people. Right, he chooses as a job this incredible
service and risk on behalf of the community, even though
(17:56):
the community isn't valuing him in the way that it should,
and his self possession to make that choice to serve
always remain patriotic and committed to service even in the
face of prejudice, because of a belief in what America
could be such a powerful life example. And so when
(18:21):
he sat there telling me, you know, you got to
step up here and we can't fix the things that
happened in your life before this moment, but you can
forge the path going forward, that was really a powerful moment.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yes, absolutely so, in the category of what doesn't kill
us makes us stronger. Were there any positive aspects of
the traumatic experiences of your youth? I mean, how are
you able to move so far away from the impact
of the trauma?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
You know. A couple of things. I think one it
really deepened my love for school and academics right in
many ways. I can recall times where home was so
difficult with my father and I would just escape into
a book, and that passion for academics has defined a
(19:17):
lot of my life. The other thing I would say
is I have a lot of empathy for the struggles
people are going through. And I'm very conscious as a
person who was going through struggles and didn't tell anyone,
I'm very conscious going through life that when people are
(19:40):
upset or unhappy, you don't know what's behind that, you know.
I always think about that. There's a scene in the
movie It's a Wonderful Life, So it's a parent teacher
scene where the main character has had a very upsetting
situation and the school calls and he's very rude to
(20:01):
the educator on the other end of the line. And
I always think about that that for the educator, you
could internalize that, or you could have the perspective that
you just don't know what else is happening in that
person's life. When I was a principal and sometimes, you know,
folks were short with me or so forth, I would
(20:22):
think about, I don't really know what else is going
on with them, and let me just try to be
as empathetic and express express care as best as I can,
because you just don't know people's struggles.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
So it's pretty remarkable the degree of emotional intelligence and
resilience that you demonstrated, because what you've just described, the
empathy doesn't necessarily follow out of a life where you
had a lot that you had to keep inside, you know.
And I noted in the book that you didn't really
talk about any kind of therapeutic help. I mean, there
was no talking to anyone outside. Do you think if
(21:02):
this were now that you would have benefited You ever
think about being able to talk to someone? I mean
it's professionals. When you were demonstrating the anger and the rage,
I mean, do you think it would have been helpful
to talk with someone?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Or sure? And look, I think today or I would
hope today at Andover or at any American high school,
that an educator would see a student clearly in distress
and help them find their way to therapy or group
(21:35):
counseling or some kind of mental health support. That was
just less true when I was a kid. Yeah, and
especially a kid who was doing fine academically. You know,
I think Andover had systems for a student who was
struggling in class, but I wasn't. That wasn't the thing.
(21:56):
It was all the stuff right outside of the classroom
internally that I was struggling with.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And you mentioned in your book, I mean, growing up
in an African American Puerto Rican household, black people, we
don't talk about that stuff. I mean now maybe more so,
but growing up it was very easy to not you know,
therapy was not for us. You know, we didn't. We
sucked it up. We did not do that, So it's understandable.
How you know, you mentioned that even with all of
(22:24):
the obvious trauma having lost your parents, so your mother
first and your father, and even in the throes with
your father, everybody was sort of like, he's good, you know,
he seems fine. We're not gonna We're not going to
talk about the fact that his father is increasingly incapable
until until he couldn't care for you anymore. So, yeah,
it kind of it's unfortunately part of our historically our
(22:44):
culture to not.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Definitely yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, there are some
family members I think honestly, when they read the book
will be the first time that they, wow, I have
really understood what my home life was like.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, again, kudos to your innate emotional intelligence that got
you through that. So now fast forward, you are now
a parent of two lovely daughters. How did the lessons
of your childhood prepare you for parenting? I mean, I really,
as I read this, you didn't have a lot of
role modeling. How are you able to figure out how
(23:21):
to create the family you wish you'd had. You talked
about looking out the window and seeing the neighbors next
door seemingly having this perfect family life. It was pre Instagram,
but it was your Instagram and Windstane they looked like
they were happy around the dinner table. But aside from that,
how did you once you start having children? How did
you know what to do? Or did you have any
concern about knowing what to do?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Such a great question. You know, I think really benefited
from having an amazing partner. You know, my wife is
developmental psychologist. She is a former kindergartener, first grade teacher,
She's an education researcher, and she grew up in a
very stable, supportive, nurturing home and her mom is a pediatrician.
(24:09):
Her dad is economists and right, so my in laws
and Melissa have been really incredible guides to what you know,
healthy home life should look like, you know. But I
also was fortunate, I think, to see my uncle Hallan
(24:29):
on Jeane and how they approached parenting there for kids.
And I've gotten to watch my cousins as they then
pass on some of those parenting traditions from their parents
to their children. But look, you know, I think every
parent struggles with the question of like, did I do
it right? Could I have done it? Better. I certainly
(24:52):
was always very committed, even with a busy professional life,
to being present and engage. I felt my father's absence
through my whole life. Really, even when I was very little,
he was pretty absent, and then obviously when he was
sick he was not able to parent. So I have
been very intentional about savoring the time with my daughters.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You were really independent. You made all of your decision
for better for worse. You made a lot of decisions
on your own. On the one hand, you saw the
value of being able to make your own decisions at
a very young age and be able to trust in them.
I'm sure that helped with self confidence, but you also
understand that there's sometimes when some people should step in.
So with respect to your children, you could swung either way.
(25:40):
You could be overly sensitive to them being too much
on their own, because you know how that felt vulnerable
and lost sometimes, or you could be like they shouldn't
be coddled because I know personally that independence can really
do good things for you. Was that a concern at all?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Definitely. I think we talked a lot about my wife
and I and something that I pondered what the right
choice was in different moments. I think we tried to
strike a balance of raising two young women who are
independent and strongwelled and clear about what they want to
(26:20):
do in the world, and also caring and sensitive to
the struggles that other people are going through. And you know,
I was very conscious that there's a lot of privilege
in my daughter's lives, given the professional success that my
wife and I have had, given the resources we have,
(26:41):
and I didn't want them to be spoiled by that.
I didn't want them to kind of lose perspective about
what it is to, you know, have to work hard
to achieve something that you want, And so I probably
was leaning in a little more on that than maybe
other folks might to make sure that they were going
(27:05):
to be resilient.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Right, right, you had authentic adversity, but I can imagine
that your daughters grew up in a world where my
husband and I joke about this. You need them to
have adversity so that you know that they can cope
with it.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, Yes, because everyone will face that at some point,
and you want them to have the internal fortitude to
be able to persevere through that.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
So for these last couple of questions, I'm going to
segue into the bigger picture of you having taken both
this incredible childhood trauma and then this incredible educational experience
and your devotion to teaching. How did your experiences lead
you to think about how to help all children succeed
and how to build schools in which they could do.
(27:50):
What was the special sauce that you wanted to add
to teaching that you didn't see? Was there already that
led you to not only work in schools but create
different schools?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, a few things. I mean, one is I knew
from my experience in mister Oswhill's classroom how important it
is for a teacher to create a space that is
truly engaging and compelling, that feeds young people's innate curiosity
and taps into the things they are passionate about. And
(28:24):
so when I think about what school can be, that
is what I want for our students. You know, when
I was a principal, I would always say to teachers
about the first day of school, please don't use the
whole time to go over the syllabus. You want the
kid to get off of the bus at the end
of the day and say, oh my gosh, Miss Sutton
(28:48):
Lewis's class is going to be amazing this year. Do
you know that we learned this about animals, or that.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We saw this.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Photograph of you know, some fascinating part of the world.
You want kids to have that sense that, oh, this
is going to be an amazing adventure of learning. And
so that to me was always something I leaned into
because I benefited from that from mister Astraw and other
teachers that I describe in the book. Another piece is structure.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I'm acutely aware that kids need rules and normalcy and
I didn't have that at home, and that sense of
chaos and uncertainty and unpredictability is very difficult for young people.
(29:52):
And so you want to marry this environment that is
so creative and engaging with structure and consistence and see
and a sense of order about how life is going
to be. And then a third piece is I think,
at the end of the day, so much of teaching
is really about the relationship, and you want to create
(30:14):
schools and classrooms where there are genuine relationships of trust
and care and that matters at every level. I think
about that now leading a higher education system, it is
important for our students have a sense of belonging on
campus and a sense of connection with faculty members. And
(30:34):
the truth is, if you have that one adult that
you are connected to, whether it's in K twelve or hire,
that goes a tremendous way towards being successful.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Absolutely well, it's a wonderful thing that you managed to
take a really really difficult situation and that love of learning,
which I'm sure both your parents instilled in you and
nurtured in you to have that really carry you through
and get you to a position where you want to
share that with other people. So it's a really a wonderful,
(31:06):
wonderful story and I'm sure that parents that will read
it and people listening to this conversation will just really
take a moment and appreciate the value of teachers and
the value of that safe haven of education. It has
changed the world and saved and saved lives for sure.
So John, I'm going to wrap up this part one here,
but first I want to say thank you so much.
(31:28):
It's been a great conversation as I knew it would be.
And we're going to be back with Part two of
our conversation, in which we'll dive more deeply into how
parents can support our children. Because since you're an expert,
I want to grab a little bit that expertise as well.
So John's book is called Teacher by Teacher, The People
Who Save Our Lives. And it's out now, So parents
and everyone listening who's interested in education and all who
(31:50):
want to hear fascinating inspirational stories, pick up your copy today.
But there's one more thing I want to do. You
must participate in the GCP Lightning Round. Quick questions. Are
you ready?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm ready?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Okay, good? What is your favorite poem? Or saying.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Victis, which was my uncle How's favorite poem and really
reflects so much about how he thought about one's responsibility
to guide one's own life.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Favorite two children's books, and they can be books you
grew up reading or that you read to your daughters.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I love The Sneeches, which is Doctor Seuss, just a
really powerful message about how how people sometimes don't treat
each other well but but need to learn to see
each other across lines of difference. And you know this
is kind of a silly one, but don't let the
(32:46):
pigeon drive the bus, which is which is quite quite silly.
I'm oh, Williams. But it's but it's delightful.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It is it is silly is really important. I love
silly and so that's a good example of it. Okay,
give me two dad moments. One that you would like
to have done differently, if you got to do over,
you would do it differently, and then one way you
nailed it as a dad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
The thing I would do differently is I wish we
had had better rules around the phone. You know. A
few times I was resolute that we were going to
all leave the phones in the in the living room
before we went to sleep and not take it into
the bedroom. And I don't know, I fold it every time.
(33:33):
I just I didn't hold to it. And I just
think for all of us, it would have been healthier
to have more boundaries around the around the.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Phone, certainly not alone in that. Yeah, and I'm nailing
it as a dad. I'm sure there are lots of examples.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
You know. One that was really proud of. I was
Commissioner of Education for New York. It's a very, you know,
intense job. But I said I was going to coach
Amina's softball team, and I was a little nervous about
it because it meant, you know, there'd be certain days
when I would need to leave early although I worked
(34:11):
all the time and I would go, I would work
afterwards and so forth. But it turned out to be
this incredible blessing to have that experience of coaching her team.
And I actually think it's sent a really positive message
throughout the organization that we were going to take time
to seriously engage in our in our family lives and
(34:34):
still work hard and still you know, put in all
the hours, but have a little schedule flexibility to take
care of our family.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Great. Those are all great answers, and John, I thank
you so much for joining.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Us, Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Great congrats on the book and everyone go by it.
I hope everyone listening enjoyed today's conversation with John King.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, this
was part one of a two parter with John, and
we'll be back with part two and we'll hear from
John about how parents can best support our children's academic development.
Thanks again for joining this episode of Ground Control Parenting.
(35:12):
If you like what you've heard, subscribe, rate and review
where you find your podcasts, and please tell your friends
For more parenting info and advice, check out the Ground
Control Parenting blog at groundcatrol parenting dot com. You can
also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at Ground
Control Parenting. Until the next time, take care and thanks
for listening.
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