All Y'all Social Justice Collective: with guests Adam Jordan and Rebekah Cordova
Episode Topic: The work of the All Y’all Social Justice Collective
This episode includes a wide-ranging discussion about the work of the All Y’all Social Justice Collective. All Y’all is primarily focused on providing professional development experiences for educators that promote social justice, diversity and equity in the southern region of the USA. We discussed institutional change, social foundations of education and issues facing teachers, particularly in the South.
Outline
Background of the All Y’all Social Justice Collective
Trying to bust stereotypes
What professional development should look like
How educators promote change
Having an honest perspective of history
Links
All Y’all Website: https://www.allyalledu.com/
All Y’all on Facebook (which includes many posts of friends and partners): https://www.facebook.com/AllYallEdu/
All Y’all fundraiser site: https://www.allyalledu.com/donate-1
Reading suggested by Adam:
Elizabeth Catte, What You are Getting Wrong about Appalachia https://elizabethcatte.com/
David Joy, fiction author https://www.david-joy.com/
Silas House, fiction author https://www.silas-house.com/
Kim Nielson, A Disability History of the United States http://www.beacon.org/A-Disability-History-of-the-United-States-P1018.aspx
Reading suggested by Rebekah:
Joel Spring, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States http://www.racialequityresourceguide.org/index.cfm?objectid=04447710-B655-11E6-87EE0050569A5318
Ronald Butchart, Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning and the Struggle for Black Freedom, 1861-1876 https://uncpress.org/book/9781469607290/schooling-the-freed-people/
Avery F. Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/ghostly-matters
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:01
Greetings, friends and colleagues. This is the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast. I am Scott Lee. Our guest today are Adam Jordan, and Rebekah Cordova, two of the founding members of the All Y'all Social Justice Collective. All Y'all provides social justice oriented professional development experiences for teachers and other educators, focused mainly in southern states. Adam Jordan is an associate professor of special education at the College of Charleston. He is a former k 12, alternative, middle and high school teacher. And his work focuses on creating equitable and healthy spaces for students. Rebekah Cordova, is a professor in the teacher inquiry program at the University of Florida. Adam and Rebecca, thank you for joining us.
Adam Jordan 1:00
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Scott Lee 1:02
So first off, one of you or both of you, however you want to do, it could briefly give us just a short description of what the all y'all social justice collective is all about?
Rebekah Cordova 1:13
Sure, I would be happy to. We are a group of we've got about 10, folks, and that make up the collective members, we are teachers, faculty members and education activists in the southeast. And so our work is to provide professional development that's justice oriented for teachers in the south at no cost. So that is our primary work,
Scott Lee 1:39
and no cost.
Adam Jordan 1:42
And no, at no cost to them.
Scott Lee 1:46
Yeah, nothing is free. Anyway, Well, great. And we're gonna get deeper into a lot more about that. As we go on. First off, Adam, I'd like to ask you, you curate and sometimes write a column on the all y'all site called the mouth of the South. And in your very first column, you state, people should be happy teachers should be happy. Now, it seems sad that it's necessary to say that in the first place, but can you tell us a little bit more about what you were thinking when you wrote that?
Adam Jordan 2:23
Yes, for sure. So first of all, Rebecca also really helps to coordinate them out to se so I can't take all the credit for that. But when we wrote that first piece, it was kind of our introduction in in the kind of column writing realm of things for all y'all. And I wrote those words, I'm old for a long time about what words are the right words to start a column like that with, right. And those words, if you read the whole piece, they were kind of rooted in the mission of all y'all as well as kind of my own background. So if you read the piece, I grew up in a very small place small town in rural North Georgia called Pokataligo. And I grew up, you know, working poor, and a lot of times in the academy or in higher ed, when you talk about that kind of background, people sort of have a sympathetic response like it just must have been terrible, right? You understand those foothills on dirt roads, and you must have been miserable. Two of our biggest supporters in All Y'all are David and Teresa Prince. I don't know if you know those guys. But David is a social studies teacher by day in Kentucky and, and Teresa is a preschool teacher. And by night, they're musicians. And they are go by a band called Luna and the Mountain Jets, or they have these alternate personalities that they use called the Laid Back Country Picker and Honey, who's this stoic, I would call feminist character. And he wrote a song called Bonaparte talking about this thing, talking about growing up in rural Kentucky and telling people like, you know, that I grew up here, the holler, I grew up in is underwater now because they built a dam and people rhetorically saying, oh, man, you know, that must have been terrible. It must have been awful. How can this be true? I feel for you. And his response was always I probably had it better than you think. Right. I know, I had it better than you think. And that's it. Those words for me, I had it way better than you think. You know, even though we're poor. And for me, the root of a lot of that happiness that I had was teachers. You know, when you go to school teachers provide continuity, teachers are always telling you, you can do this, you can do that.
Scott Lee 4:24
Well, and and in that column, to it was interesting to me that you were talking about food, even if it was just candy or something that different teachers or would hand out, man. Yeah. And the bus driver. And you know, you still think about it and my work in schools I taught my I have taught in rural areas too, but mostly in urban areas. You know, I mean, still that's where kids had to come to eat a lot of times was it was it school?
Adam Jordan 4:54
Yeah, that's right. And I think people sometimes mistake both rural and urban communities I mean, rural, rural communities. You know, they allege they stick together. It's not all this misery that sometimes gets perpetuated same in urban communities. If you ever follow Chris m does work, I remember him talking about giving cameras to kids when he was teaching in urban environments and expecting them and like a weathering lesson to come back and take photos of buildings that were falling apart or whatnot. And they would take pictures of sunsets and happy eggs. And I feel like that's sort of the theme is, as all y'all we were not, we're out to kind of bust some myths about the Saudis and bust some of these stereotypes that become stereotypes that end up marginalizing people, right, as all connected to me so that teachers are happy people are happy is connected to that breaking down a lot of those myths.
Scott Lee 5:44
And yeah, I'd like to bring Rebecca back in also further down in the same piece, you say that kind of how you all I guess, got connected got to know each other was conversations that you had, where you say that both of you share, and I'm quoting here, one, a love for the south and for teaching to a disdain for exploitive, unrealistic professional development and education. And I'd like for each of you to tell us a little bit more about what this means to you.
Rebekah Cordova 6:18
I would like like Adam, I grew up in rural areas, also from a family that was fairly challenged in terms of monetary resources. My dad was a clear cutter. And we moved around a lot in those arcs. And so but I didn't go to school until fifth grade in public school, my mom was an educator, and she chose to keep us home. And she was very focused on us learning, basically, not from institution. So I taught was taught from a very early age that education was not connected to institutions. And that pretty much imprinted my ideas around what teaching and learning was. So when I finally went to school in fifth grade, you know, it was very startling to me to finally see what schools were. And so as much as I loved, and made great relationships with teachers, it was very clear to me very early on that schools were really about control, and compliance, because I had lived without them and had been fine. You know, I navigated schooling pretty well. But I became a teacher, primarily because I hated school, I hated being controlled, I hated feeling like there's only one right way to do things I hated, you know, all kinds of, you know, I love my role spaces. But the reality was, is that it's also can be very hard to grow up in real spaces when you are religious minority or, or anything else. And so I also was very prone to understanding that not not everyone loves school, and and I wanted to be that teacher that would help make the difference for other kids. And so I think one of the reasons Adam and I clicked so much was because we came from some similar backgrounds. And we also can see through also a lot of the work that schools do, like we can both love them and critique them. And we critique them because we really believe in the work that they could do. But we critique them, because a lot of the things that schools and professional development and teachers are doing, don't always aren't always in the best interest of kids and their best, they're in the best interest of systems. So we wanted to try to make a difference. In the ways we could
Scott Lee 8:23
do you have anything to add to that Adam? or?
Adam Jordan 8:27
Yeah, sure. I mean, just terms to the first point, right, this this connection to the south and teaching, I think both of those in my head, kind of connect in that. I think like, you talked to a lot of rural southerners or urban southerners, and this is not true just for people in the south, this is true people anywhere you are in the world, right? There's, there's something in the human experience of being connected to your place, whatever your place is. And however you define your place, you know, for me, that is the rural south. And because when something is yours, you you can take the the criticism of it, and you can criticize it, but you also have to fight for it. Right. And I feel like teaching is the same way teachers right now are getting a lot of we love them in March, right. But right now, they're cool. They're not doing the right thing, right. So I'm shifted that narrative. And that means that we have to fight for those people. And we have to fight for it in places, because it matters. So I would just add that you I keep thinking about
Scott Lee 9:26
doing some work separate from this podcast dealing with social justice also. And so I always think about even the word "social justice" and talking about social justice is kind of taboo in the profession. Although, you know, maybe that could be changing a little bit in the culture around us. But you've both mentioned about the importance of teachers being involved in change. What do you think teachers could or should be doing?
Adam Jordan 9:56
I can, I can start this and so you know, That's a huge question, Scott. And yes, I know.
Scott Lee 10:02
We won't finish it today. But
Adam Jordan 10:04
any, anytime you get a huge question, you're not a southern Appalachian, if you don't quote your grandmama. So my grandma, okay, so my grandma always told me. So she grew up also very poor and rural North Georgia, and her dream was to become a teacher. But of course, she didn't ever get to realize that because of poverty and other issues. But she always said to me, when you see something wrong, you better use whatever power you got to make it right. And so the word social, just the phrase social justice being taboo, to me, that's neither here nor here, nor there to me. When I see things that are not right, not wrong, I have to use whatever power I have to make it right. And so to me, that is what all y'all is, it's looking and saying, What's going, where do people need support? what's going wrong? And what power do we have to make it right? So and in the professional development world to go back to to go back a second, professional development is often exploitive, because it always blows my mind that you have, you go into a school and you have a room full of people with degrees and and love kids, and they're signing up to do a job where they're not going to be wealthy. And they're giving themselves all the stuff you have all this intellectual capital right in front of you. And then what do you do you talk to them? Not with them?
Scott Lee 11:16
Right. We've all seen too much edutainment yes to professional development. But yeah,
Adam Jordan 11:21
that's
the phrase I want to be taboo.
Scott Lee 11:24
All right,
Adam Jordan 11:24
Not social justice edutainment.
Rebekah Cordova 11:28
It's perfect that Adam would say that, because I think that's also something I definitely grew up with. And my mom always, always told us, you know, if you have something, you share it, you give it? And I think she was mostly talking about material tangible items, terms of like, how does it mean to be in a small rural area? What does it mean to be in a small community, you share what you have you always surely. But it always, I think carried over into more intangible things like care and energy and labor. And if you can help someone build their friends, or you can help someone haul trash, it's not just the truck, you're, you're loaning out, right? It's your time, it's your care, it's your it's your compassion. And then when you pair it up with my faith drives a lot of what I do. And so I was raised very clearly to understand that, you know, Judaism, asks us to do one thing. And that one thing is to pursue justice, and everything else is pretty secondary. And so when you pair those things together, to me, it was like Adam said, it's almost irrelevant what certain systems may determine taboo or not taboo, because one, they systems that are exploit people and don't want to change. So they're going to make something taboo that might disrupt them and to, it's never wrong to fight for justice. That is that that is the foundation of my faith and my work in this world. And my mom raised me to believe that being a teacher was the most amazing and powerful and transformative thing you could offer to the world. I think, where I come from is it doesn't always mean that school is that place, right? And so I want to see education and teaching as something that we ask for more of in schools, because sometimes it's there. And then sometimes it's not. And I think we need to be clear about why. And so when we love on teachers, it's also this understanding that ultimately, we're there to serve the interest of education. And that's a powerful experience, and they deserve that respect. and professional development could be a place for that. And often,
Scott Lee 13:40
what you are bringing up talking about compassion and empathy and justice, you know, we almost in schools, put those in a box our bullying, prevention, or social emotional learning, rather than in everything that we do. So I guess my question, and it's another big one, how would you encourage teachers to take action,
Rebekah Cordova 14:02
I can just use my own daily experience right now. I think that there's a lot of variables in terms of how teachers can be agents of change. I think, mostly, it'll come down to your own beliefs and understandings of the purposes of education and your role in it, you know, like, What drives you to do this incredibly challenging and hard work? Because you're going to sustain yourself when you are clear on the reasons why you're in it. And I think that that's, that's crucial, because no matter what you do, if you don't have a foundation or a belief system about this hard work, then it's going to be hard to go do the the marathon work, right? You have to be sustained by something and, and institutions aren't alone are not going to sustain you. So I would say personal work is key. And then the second thing I'd say is like right now I am I'm an advocate here in my small district in North Florida. And we have a significant political meltdown happening here because of the reopening plans that Florida is forced to do, and the teachers that are having to respond to that. And so I'm watching and supporting teachers organizing, but they have a couple things that are a struggle, right, they number one, you know, when you don't have a strong union, to support your work, in some in our right to work states, that's a challenge. So when you really have, which, I am also kind of happy to help with this. It's kind of his most grassroots type of organizing, non institutional support work that that we're doing. And I think that's, that's key. And in order to do that, you need to find allies, and you need to take the deep breath and and find the courage that is going to propel you forward. And you need to be in solidarity with other people in ways you might never have thought about being before. And you need to take some bold steps in ways that are strategic. You know, I mean, I think there's a lot of different ways to do this important next phase work. And there are, of course, a million different reasons why it's scary, and people don't want to do it, and they're fearful. And all of those reasons are valid. My only response to teachers who come to me pretty much on the daily is, you know, how can I still do this, I might lose my job, how can I still do that I I'll, if I if I make the superintendent mad, he'll move me to the other side of the county and put me on, you know, ISS duty, you know, like, there's they're genuinely scared. The courage is key.
Scott Lee 16:38
It is interesting. I've worked in in myself and systems that have tenure protection and don't have tenure protection. But even teachers who have tenure protection seem to be just as fearful, you know, because you can be marginalized no matter what the fear is.
Adam Jordan 16:58
If I can interject,
Scott Lee 16:59
and yeah, please do.
Adam Jordan 17:00
And I would add to that, but I think the answer to your question has to be situated in time, you know? And so the answer is, the question really is what can you do right now? And not what can you do, like, in general forever, you know, because that's gonna change. And I think one thing that we're missing right now is we have teachers who have, are in the middle of a pandemic, we have students and families in the middle of a pandemic, we have people experiencing extreme stress, we have people having to teach virtually and in person simultaneously and get paid the same amount of money for two jobs. And so what can we do to support justice work, I think has to be supporting the well being the mental well being of teachers and students. And I think that that is really critical. To ask someone to be courageous is absolutely agree with every word that Rebecca just said, but you have to also be healthy to be courageous, you know,
Scott Lee 17:50
right
Adam Jordan 17:51
support it to be courageous. So
we have to do that we have to keep fighting for teachers, and family.
Rebekah Cordova 17:55
Yeah, and I would, I think the key in doing solidarity work is making sure that and this is something I talk to teachers about a lot is, none of us can be in this alone, you know, I'm just in my district, I'm just a parent, I'm not a teacher, I have one here. So I can do a ton of parent advocacy work on their behalf. Because I risk nothing, I'm not going to get fired, they're still going to take my kid to school. So when I talk about strategic organizing, like I think it's really key, what Adam is saying, like, health is key, because and there's a way to build solidarity and come together and say, This is what we need to do, who is best situated to do this well, right. And sometimes not a teacher, sometimes it's a parent, maybe it's another, maybe it's a professor that's local to the area, maybe it's students, right. And so but you can't have those conversations, when people just see themselves as, not together. Parents are here, teachers are here, students are here. We need to build coalitions for justice work, and then come together and say, because I mean, when we look back, and this is one of the things I love about all y'all is, too many people have deficit ideas about the South. But the reality is, is that our major social justice movements, and radical revolutionaries and people who pushed hard in the face of fear, these movements are born in the south. So we're we are then you know, we're just doing the next iteration of that work. And when you look at history, none of these movements were just isolated people, right? They came together very strategically, you just don't always know it, because you're not taught it. To me, solidarity work is the work. It's just we need to be we need to know how to do solidarity work. And I think that's one of the things all y'all likes to do. Because when we bring teachers together, we're not just bringing teachers together. We always say community activists, students, if you're just interested in education, if you're a parent, if you're a professor, if you're a lawyer, like everybody come because we really are all in this together. So let's act like we are.
Scott Lee 19:58
I am trying my best especially during this fall to remember to ask this to everybody, can you recommend a book or two or resource or two for folks out there?
Adam Jordan 20:09
I so I so I know that this has been, I brought a stack of things because I'm one of those people that can't read one book at a time. I like running read like 30 things at a time. So for me right now, I think, Elizabeth Catte What You Get Wrong About Appalachia. I don't know if you've read that I have. So it's not teaching related. But it is this repositioning, not a reposition as accurate historical positioning of these issues we face in Appalachia and the extent to the South. And I know that's not teaching related. But but All Y'all about, All Y'all is about place, right? And that always situates me in place, and I appreciate it. And then there's two authors that also do that right now, I can't just read academic things like I'm losing my mind a little bit quarantine. So I don't know if you've ever read anything about David Joy, who is in western North Carolina, or Silas House who's in Kentucky, both of those novelists right now, sort of get me through when I'm having a tough day, I would recommend teachers, if you're looking for an outlet and you're looking for something situated in the south of Appalachia, both of those authors are just they're just killing it. I'm also like steady making my class read. This may be the hundredth time I've read this book is Kim Nielson has a book called A Disability History of the United States. I'm a special ed professor. So she situates disability history and historical context in the United States, from Native Americans through you know, modern day, it always helps me when we think back to like, what should we be doing right now? What is the social justice work? That book always helps me situate the reality that the work we're doing is, we didn't start it like, it's so deep. So it's so connected, you know, you don't just do work in the area of race or class or gender or abilities, you know, you it's all it's all connected in a way of people being connected. So all those books, and I got about 30 more I could do but you know, yeah. I'll let Rebekah, name me some books.
Rebekah Cordova 22:12
And since most of my work is at historical foundations, this is a book that I make every single student read, this is a book, this is a Joel Spring book, The Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States. It's one of the few books where you can get a very clear understanding of the history of schooling, and how it can, as an institution act either as you know, an institution that normalizes or marginalizes, and that I think is key when we're having conversations about the role of justice work in schools is that it's not a current thing. This is something that has hundreds and hundreds of years. And so when we can position ourselves in that historical timeline, I think it helps us to sustain teachers because they don't see themselves as the only ones. And then there are two other ones, I would recommend Schooling the Freed People, which looks like this. And it's Teaching, Learning and Struggle for Black Freedom 1861 to 1876. Obviously, this is specific for anyone that's really interested in the history of education. But I would say this one in any other book that talks about black liberation through schooling, because it's not as when we learn about the history of education, we often just talk about it just generally, without being specific and saying, it's not the same. This history is not the same for everybody. Everyone has a different history with schooling, and we often don't come clean about that. Most I'm currently reading again, Ghostly Matters. I don't know if either one of you have read read this by Avery Gordon. It's called Haunting in the Sociological Imagination. And I only say this. It's a it's an academic. And it's a very surreal book, but it helps me specifically talk to teachers about what sociological haunting is. And the idea that so much of what's in the past continues to haunt us today in our actions. So we think that we are have like our own, I'm just doing this because I want to do this in my classroom. And so but when we talk about history and historical hauntings, it helps understand that so much of what we do is been shaped by cultural institutions. And so we want to always question what we do why we do it. So if we're thinking about classrooms, it's good to question why we do things. It helps us imagine new ideas a little bit better.
Scott Lee 24:43
I find it interesting' being a former history teacher myself, that you brought up the second book, because Reconstruction I think is the most misunderstood period. I keep thinking about going back to this one. Lies My Teachers Told Me, could I just reread that myself, it just continues to amaze me the narrative that is sometimes missed. And the importance of Reconstruction in the history of public education in general. I mean, that's when compulsory education started. Now, they didn't require everybody to go to school. But it was the first time every state created a public school system. You know, it was a Reconstruction, reform, changed the country forever. So yeah.
Rebekah Cordova 25:34
And I think that's a particular importance to us in the South, because we didn't have compulsory education at the same time as everyone else, right. I mean, we had the states had to rework our systems until the states were readmitted into the Union and drafted their own state constitutions, right. So this, so when we think about historical timeline, and the purposes of school, and why we do the things we do, and and we want to put things in a historic lens, which I think is really key for our profession, we have to see it from a very honest perspective and think regionally. People always want to talk about the history of schools, and they always start in the northeast, if we want to be honest about there's a huge difference between the South's history of education and the Northeast's history of education, right. And it matters when we do professional development. And it matters like Adam said, to be contextual, and a time and a place and a space. It's good to be accurate. And I think one thing in professional development, we always like to see is, how can we fill in some of the gaps that maybe all didn't get? either in your teaching program, or in your current professional development? Like what can we offer that's going to help you be a better teacher? Because you're going to know more than you did before? and not know more? Like you didn't know things? But because it was maybe by design? Not Not sure.
Scott Lee 26:58
It still amazes me, you know, just how much not just misinformation now, but misinformation about history and understanding. And you talked earlier, Rebekah, about institutionalization of schools, if we understood the history of schools better and why schooling, particularly in the South happened, it changes, it changes the mission of what it is that we do, it changes your understanding of the mission of what it is that we do. And you're nodding your head.
Rebekah Cordova 27:33
Yes, yes. 100 times. Yes. I'm sure Adam is probably. He's probably he's definitely heard me say that more than once before.
Scott Lee 27:43
I found All Y'all totally by accident, because I'm a fan of the Bitter Southerner.
Adam Jordan 27:49
Okay, I wanted to ask you how you found us Yeah, I wanted to flip the script to him. Like tell us Scott, how do you
Scott Lee 27:55
find I had been reading the Bi-Bitter Southerner for a while. And it was right after your the All Y'all in Daholongah in 2019 because I'm like, oh, man, I wish I had found out about y'all two weeks ago would have gone
Adam Jordan 28:11
Right. Right. You know, but the bitter accident the better the Bitter. Southerner you know, they are been huge supporters, Chuck and Kyle and Josina, they have they've been really good to us. So I'm, you know, we're we're glad you found us through them. And if anybody listen to this doesn't know the Bitter Southerner. You need to go check out the Bitter Southerner.
Scott Lee 28:28
Absolutely. Last summer, I had stopped doing interviews for this podcast. And so I was just doing commentaries through the summer. I did do an episode back in I think that was published back in June, about an article on the Bitter Southerner about Ahmaud Arbery.
Adam Jordan 28:48
Mm hmm. Yeah,
Scott Lee 28:49
I've always been a fan of or have ever since I found it had been a fan of the Bitter Southerner.
Adam Jordan 28:54
Yeah, the Bitter Southerner connected. The Bitter Southerner connected Rebekah and I. That's how we originally connected with
Scott Lee 29:00
Oh,
Adam Jordan 29:00
through the through the Bitter Southerner. Yeah.
Scott Lee 29:02
Okay.
Adam Jordan 29:03
My my friend Todd, Hoawley and I, who's at Kent State. He's a social studies professor. We wrote an education column for a long time for the
Scott Lee 29:09
okay
Adam Jordan 29:10
for the Bitter Southerner. That's how we got connected.
Rebekah Cordova 29:12
Yeah. Yep. And I just adored their work. And so it was a perfect opportunity for us to me.
Adam Jordan 29:21
We'll save that for next next time. To be continued. Yes.
Scott Lee 29:27
Thank you once again, and look forward to continuing our conversation.
Adam Jordan 29:33
Yeah, thank you, Scott. We really enjoyed it.
Rebekah Cordova 29:35
Yes, thank you, Scott. So much, really appreciate it.
Scott Lee 29:38
This has been episode number 20. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions. However, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guests were not compensated for appearance, nor did guests pay to appear. Transcripts are available following the podcast publication at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may also be made on the "Contact Us" page at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Please follow the thoughtful teacher podcast on Twitter @drrscottlee, and on Facebook at facebook.com/thoughtfulteacherpodcast.
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