[0:02] Well, thank you all. That was terrific. I really appreciate it. It's always such an honor to recognize so many people for so many different things. Every year I get up here and I try to give you a little pep talk about what's going to happen this year and why it's so great to be part of Hartford. And it is great to be part of Hartford. I usually tell you a little story about some of the teachers I've had in the past.

[0:29] I tell you about Ms. Crawford, right?

[0:32] I love Ms. Crawford, just passed away last year.

[0:36] One of the things that's nice is my sister is actually a teacher in the district that I grew up in.

[0:42] So I get to keep up with all the news of my former teachers and who did what and who's retiring and what not.

[0:50] But Ms. Crawford was first year teacher the year I had her.

[0:56] And she noticed that I was having a little difficulty reading.

[1:01] So she would come to my house on Saturday mornings and work with me on my phonics.

[1:07] As you can tell, I still, not perfect, but I think that's more Rhode Island than my actual phonics, but

[1:14] my family might think differently.

[1:17] I talk about Miss Walsh, seventh and eighth grade math teacher.

[1:21] And Ms. Walsh was a big part of the reason why I'm here today because in a time that I didn't think I had any leadership skills at all,

[1:32] Ms. Walsh encouraged me to run for student council.

[1:36] And she encouraged me because she thought she saw some leadership skills in me.

[1:41] And she wanted me to run for student council because she thought the current students who were running were just in a popularity contest.

[1:49] and she thought I might actually get something done.

[1:52] And it seemed like such a small thing at the time,

[1:54] but I look back on that and I reflect

[1:56] about how powerful that was to me and my future life,

[2:01] that little bit of encouragement.

[2:04] I think of Mr. O'Connell, 10th grade teacher.

[2:08] And Mr. O'Connell was constantly preaching

[2:11] about how to be the best person possible

[2:14] and the most beautiful person possible

[2:16] and you've got to love his spirit

[2:18] and every once in a while he just scream out and clap.

[2:21] Ooh, love that, oh she's spirit.

[2:24] And it was like, what is this guy talking about?

[2:27] But he was literally working.

[2:32] He was literally like high on life.

[2:34] I think that sort of fist pump sort of blew up the mic.

[2:37] But, you know, his energy and his love for life

[2:41] was just powerful, very powerful.

[2:45] But, you know, the other day I did this similar sort of talk

[2:48] for the new teachers.

[2:49] teachers. And one of our veteran teachers came up after me and she said, you know, Tom,

[2:55] not all of us got into teaching because we had great role models. Not all of us got

[3:01] into teaching because we had really strong teachers. Some of us got into teaching because

[3:05] we didn't have great teachers. We weren't encouraged. You didn't have the experience

[3:13] that you had. You know, and I understand that. And you know, we really hit me in the head

[3:18] like a sledgehammer, that kind of privilege. I lived in a good neighborhood and I had really

[3:24] good teachers. I'm sure even in my good neighborhood with really good teachers, there was some

[3:29] that didn't have that experience, but I did. And this teacher, it was so powerful for her to say

[3:36] that to me because I said I really got to recognize the people who haven't been encouraged. They didn't

[3:43] have Mrs. Walsh pull them in the hallway and encourage them.

[3:46] They didn't have Ms. Crawford who said, oh my goodness,

[3:49] this kid isn't learning the way he should be.

[3:53] I got to help, I got to do something, because every kid is important.

[3:57] And that's really what my message is today and

[4:00] our message is for the whole year and why Louvel Brown is here is to talk about every single kid.

[4:08] Every kid is important and every kid needs that teacher is going to go out of their way.

[4:14] and encourage them, and support them, and help them to be the best person possible like Mr. O'Connell used to do for me.

[4:22] Everybody's going to be the best person possible. And I know you all do that. I know you work so hard and you do a great job every single day.

[4:30] Believe me, I know that. I understand that. I see you here working so hard. But I just want to make sure people remember to encourage every single kid, to love every single kid,

[4:41] and to help them to be the best they possibly can.

[4:45] And I think what struck me in,

[4:48] and what's given me the courage and the energy

[4:52] to go on this mission this year,

[4:55] is that even though we do such a great job in Hartford,

[4:59] we still have kids who aren't doing that well.

[5:04] We have kids who have dropped out,

[5:07] because they didn't feel encouraged.

[5:09] They didn't feel part of us, part of heart for part of everything we did this morning.

[5:15] And that hurts, that hurts deep.

[5:24] And I don't want to be standing in this position or sitting in my chair realizing that some kids are failing.

[5:30] And some kids aren't doing well, and I take that to heart, and I want to do everything we can to help every single kid be successful and be supported and

[5:43] I can feel like they can do whatever they want to do in this world.

[5:47] So that's why Louvel, part of why Louvel's here, part of why there's a really powerful message today.

[5:53] And I'm just so excited to get this year started and start working on that mission.

[5:59] So I'm going to do a little bio on Louvel and

[6:05] get him up here.

[6:07] I'm probably sick of hearing from me now, but thank you.

[6:11] So Louvel Brown, Dr. Louvel Brown is an experienced educator who has held many

[6:16] positions in schools. He's a teacher, assistant principal, principal, school chief information

[6:22] officer, superintendent of schools. Currently, Dr. Brown is the superintendent of Ithaca

[6:28] City school district, a little bigger than Hartford probably.

[6:33] During his tenure in Ithaca,

[6:36] Ithaca City school district has experienced unprecedented levels of success. Dr. Brown has facilitated

[6:43] conversations in multiple communities that have resulted in transformational shifts in culture and achievement.

[6:51] Using systems thinking in schools, Dr. Brown's leadership has led to innovative programs,

[6:57] redesigned learning spaces and numerous technology initiatives.

[7:02] Dr. Brown has received various awards and recognitions.

[7:06] He was named the 2017 New York State Superintendent of the Year.

[7:10] He has been listed by trusted Ed as one of the nation's top educators and thought leaders.

[7:17] Dr. Brown has been recognized by the National School Board's Association as a 20 to watch in Difference Maker.

[7:25] He received the Center for Digital Education Top 30 Award and also received the 2014 E-School News Tech Savvy Superintendents of the Year Award.

[7:37] He was elected by the U.S. Department of Education as one of the nation's top 100 innovative

[7:43] superintendents.

[7:44] Along with that distinction, Dr. Brown was invited to be a speaker at President Barack

[7:51] Obama's first national superintendents summit at the White House.

[7:56] Additionally, Dr. Brown has served on the New York State Council of School Superintendents

[8:00] Executive Committee, the School Superintendent Association's Digital Consortium, the Center for Digital Education Advisory Council, and the Consortium of Empowered Superintendent's Advisory Panel.

[8:16] Known for his building experience and leading culturally responsive learning environments, Dr. Brown believes that equity is an achievable goal in all schools.

[8:27] As part of this program, Dr. Brown will encourage us to engage the team with questions and

[8:33] deep, immersive professional learning designed to change your culture or our culture

[8:40] through a combination of process, reflection, and action.

[8:44] So thank you, and without further ado, Dr. Louvel Brown.

[8:53] All right, let's see if this thing works.

[8:56] When I say, let's get, you say, started.

[8:58] Let's get let's get let's get it works it works. Thank you coach. Thank you Tom

[9:07] Thank you all for being here. Thank you

[9:10] You see I'm in a lot of spaces and whenever I'm about to get to that particular area

[9:17] I'm afraid and a little bit nervous about whether or not anyone's gonna show up

[9:22] So thank you all for being here

[9:24] Thank you for not leaving doing that long bio, thank you for not sneaking out after the

[9:30] service awards, thank you for not sending your principal a message saying you have an

[9:34] appointment you must get to.

[9:37] Thank you.

[9:39] If y'all take nothing from me over the next hour, take this one instructional strategy right

[9:46] here.

[9:48] Begin every session, every lesson, every opportunity with learners, begin it with a thank you for being here.

[9:57] Why?

[9:59] Is it, and see, having our young people showed us over the last couple of years, they can be anywhere else other than the place they're supposed to be?

[10:06] So could you.

[10:08] So when they show up, when you show up, I'm going to say thank you.

[10:11] Why am I telling you this to, see I am, you're going to learn a lot about me today.

[10:15] The young people I serve in Ithaca have said very clearly, and they've said it often.

[10:20] We cannot learn from you unless we know you.

[10:24] If we don't know you, we can't learn with you.

[10:28] So why do you only give us your last names?

[10:32] See, I am a twin.

[10:35] I know after hearing that bio, many of y'all probably would think, and I thought he was taller.

[10:41] But yeah.

[10:41] I, I, look, I, no, I, the superintendent, I'm in my 14th year too, and I have lost

[10:50] a lot of hair and a few inches.

[10:53] But I am a twin, and I have a twin brother.

[10:56] My twin brother's name is Rovel, that's me and Rovel right there.

[11:01] And he has always been taller and better looking and even today he has all of his hair.

[11:12] I'm in a y'all gonna catch me a raw form and beta form so I apologize you didn't know you were getting this time

[11:16] So I have not practiced this presentation before y'all are getting it brand new. So I hope some of the jokes work

[11:23] Say I'm telling you this story because a rovel and I I'm in this reflective mode today because

[11:29] Rovel and I his name is Rovel and I'm Lou Vales my mom. I had a good time

[11:36] Rovel and I are writing a book together and

[11:39] And please, don't try to write a book with your sibling,

[11:43] everybody in the room, hear me?

[11:45] But we're writing a book this summer about our experiences

[11:47] in schools and our experiences in a small little central

[11:50] Virginia town, anybody heard of Charlottesville, Virginia?

[11:53] Charlottesville, Virginia, central Virginia.

[11:55] I'm from just outside of Charlottesville,

[11:57] a place called Fluvanna County.

[11:59] Anybody heard of Fluvanna County?

[12:01] If you heard of Fluvanna County,

[12:02] you're probably one of my cousins anyway.

[12:04] Now, it's small.

[12:06] very rural, just outside of one of the best college towns in America. I hope I'm

[12:11] painting a picture for y'all. Now in Virginia, Central Virginia, every county has

[12:18] that one dirt road, all right? They still have those one dirt roads in every

[12:23] county down here, and typically every county that have that dirt road, that's what

[12:27] typically all of the families of color live. So my twin brother and I,

[12:31] I wrote Val and I, and that's on the dirt road right there, actually.

[12:36] We grew up there, and I'll get to the date in a while, but at the time we were born, there

[12:42] were 10 African-American male boys born between September the 6th and October the 13th.

[12:50] Now, I'm precise with my language because we're writing about it, all right?

[12:54] Between September the 6th and October the 13th, 10 black boys were born on the dirt road

[13:00] in Central Virginia.

[13:02] All right, math teachers, you've already done the math.

[13:06] It was a good New Year's Eve party, y'all feel me?

[13:09] It was a very collective and close knit community, y'all feel.

[13:13] Yeah, people, we stood up to this day, there was a lot of love on that road.

[13:20] Ten of us were born, all right, let's fast forward graduating high school and I'll get to the

[13:26] date we graduated in because that's the day I'm really fixated on.

[13:30] When graduating high school in that small community where there were a few people of color in Central Virginia, a guy showed up to graduation and he announced a special award.

[13:42] The award that he announced that day was, you know, I, he said, I travel around the country and every year we find one or two students who have earned perfect attendance, not just as seniors but perfect attendance,

[13:58] pre-K through end of course high school and at the graduation we were

[14:03] looking around like who are they talking about today we have two at the same

[14:08] high school Rovel and Louvel Brown you know we were so embarrassed feel like you

[14:13] know you can't say that that's not cool yeah my twin brother and I Rovel and

[14:21] Louvel we are in perfect attendance we never missed a day of school now for the

[14:25] post-pandemic, let me be clear.

[14:28] This was well before COVID protocols, y'all feel me?

[14:33] We were at the school.

[14:34] Many days, it'll runny nose, it's costs.

[14:38] But we went.

[14:40] Why?

[14:40] Because my mama said y'all ain't standing at home.

[14:45] We were poor, we were growing up in severe poverty.

[14:48] Most of the houses on our road didn't have,

[14:50] like they didn't have indoor plumbing.

[14:53] A few of them rarely had electricity.

[14:56] And, you know, food was scarce.

[14:59] So she said,

[15:00] Y'all are going to eat there. Shout out to the food service directors in the room who took care of us. Yeah, we got more than three meals a day. She said, y'all got to eat. So you going to school today. And she also said, you know, she knew it. Young people on our dirt road were dying. My twin brother and I to this day, and he's still here. He's, he's one of the largest business owners in central Virginia. He owns a security company. And he, he, he employees about 200 black men in one

[15:29] in. I'll get to him later. But he and I of that cohort of 10, now let me be clear,

[15:37] they call me the run of the group. My nickname was turkey.

[15:43] I have attacked you. The only

[15:44] time you have ever gotten, it says turkey. I'm sorry to tell you all that. They call

[15:49] me the run of the group. I was literally the shortest. The least athletic. They were all

[15:54] the best out of these lessons I've ever known. Finkers. They were all reading, going at the

[15:59] kindergarten. I had the significant speech delays. I was nonverbal for most of my early

[16:06] years. Shout out to the occupational therapists in the room. It took 20,000 hours for me to

[16:12] be able to speak. And another 10,000 to be able to talk to y'all in a way where y'all can

[16:16] understand me. And let me be clear, as I get excited or get tired because I've been up since

[16:21] 1 a.m., you're going to hear it come out again. So hang with me y'all. That's why I check

[16:26] have to make sure y'all can hear me on a microphone in a gym.

[16:30] You see, I was the one who had all the delays.

[16:34] I'm telling you all that story.

[16:35] Now, there's Rovell.

[16:36] He's doing well.

[16:37] I'm still here.

[16:38] But the other most brilliant people

[16:41] have ever known are all dead.

[16:43] And even today, Rovell and I are the only two who

[16:47] have survived that dirt road.

[16:49] You can do a Google search.

[16:50] Look up Fluvanna County, one of the younger kids

[16:52] who grew up with us, just got murdered in front of his mama

[16:55] a house last week.

[16:59] So, as I talked today about this conversation and these stories and

[17:04] this data and this research, please know what's beyond tech scores and graduation rates or

[17:10] who's participating in athletics or co-curriculars. This is about life and death now. Why am I telling

[17:16] you all this story and why did I start with a thank you? Because we went every single

[17:20] day to school and no one ever said thanks for being here. How could that be? You

[17:28] want every single day and no one said thank you.

[17:34] So I have vowed as a

[17:36] professional educator and I've been in every state in 22 different countries

[17:42] over the last three years having this conversation and I've started every

[17:45] session like this. Sometimes with an interpreter thank you for being here. Do

[17:53] One of y'all start, when the young people come back, try that, see what happens.

[18:00] And okay, here's another strategy, take this one if you wish.

[18:03] Here's another one to do, after saying thank you for being here.

[18:07] See no one did there for us.

[18:09] And no one ever did what I'm about to do with y'all right now.

[18:13] Why did you show up?

[18:15] Why didn't you leave after the service awards?

[18:17] Please note, my convocation is on Thursday and people typically leave after the service awards.

[18:23] That's why I tend to, you know, I walk to the back of the room to make sure they can't walk by me.

[18:26] But anyway,

[18:30] why are you staying?

[18:32] What do you want to hear?

[18:34] What do you want to do?

[18:35] What's on your heart or your mind?

[18:38] No, if that thing that's on your heart or your mind right now is I hope he's briefed because I've got to go set my room up.

[18:44] I got you.

[18:46] Or he better be good because he seeks a heart.

[18:50] I'm sitting in the bleachers.

[18:52] Whatever you're thinking right now, or and or what you want to hear, I want to know.

[18:57] But first, because we have a lot of people in here, turn and talk to someone.

[19:02] Now here's an opportunity for you to meet the stand up, stand up.

[19:06] If you can sneak out, now's a good time, but I hope not.

[19:09] But I'm going to give you just about 30 seconds to tell someone, what do you want to do for

[19:14] the next 40 minutes?

[19:15] Go.

[19:16] As

[19:31] a teacher, I called every one of my parents within the first two weeks of school to introduce myself.

[19:38] Oh, I love that.

[19:39] Okay?

[19:40] And so when I took over my first school, I said,

[19:44] we are calling.

[19:46] We are calling.

[19:48] It changes the dynamic immediately, doesn't it?

[19:54] Relationship ability.

[19:56] About 25 seconds, about 25-30 seconds.

[20:08] Yeah, it does change.

[20:18] about 10 seconds about 10 seconds all

[20:29] right when I say bring it you say back bring it bring it

[20:36] thank y'all we're gonna have y'all know calling responses like this we're gonna have a good time

[20:41] for the folks who care I'm working in living in the most academic town in America all right I can't

[20:49] do anything without backing it up with a significant amount of academic literature and research

[20:55] and data, all right?

[20:56] So everything that we do, everything, including the call and responses for the folks who

[21:01] care about this, 99% of the referrals in this country have been written because of the lack

[21:07] of structures and protocols I'll share with you to study.

[21:11] You can share with everybody.

[21:13] Now that 1% of referrals that are written in the country are for drug use, significant drug

[21:17] usage and dealing and fight. But let's be clear, 99% of the referrals that now

[21:22] come to you are for other behaviors. They're about to do it me so far. And we

[21:26] write those not because of the young people, but because of a lack of

[21:30] protocols and structures that we can control. One of which is what protocol do you

[21:36] have in place to transition? I'm a former kindergarten teacher now, so I know

[21:41] this one. If you have no protocols in place to transition, something's going

[21:47] We want to go down,

[21:50] we just transition 500 people, 600 people, in seven seconds.

[21:56] Y'all see how we did that?

[21:58] And I can sense that I got you back, all because of the protocol call and response, which is

[22:04] connected to the brain research, and the call and response triggers the brain to pay attention.

[22:08] About it still with me so far, and that was more of a transition to get us back.

[22:12] Now, we're going to practice another thing, a behavior that's really validated and affirmed

[22:17] in our academic settings.

[22:20] As you can tell right now, we've had people get up

[22:22] and move a little bit for the kinesthetic learners.

[22:25] I'm a kinesthetic learner.

[22:26] I, you know, you're not gonna see me stand still all day,

[22:28] y'all feel me?

[22:29] But I was told to sit down and be quiet in a classroom.

[22:33] And really without allowed to get up and walk around

[22:35] and talk, my kids can't sit at it.

[22:37] My only children don't sit at it at dinner table.

[22:39] They walk and eat in the classroom.

[22:41] They're up all the time because their kinesthetic learners

[22:44] like daddy.

[22:44] There are also some stationary learners, and some of y'all are upset that I asked you

[22:49] to move just now.

[22:50] We all feel, and later this afternoon, I'm going to get you to move a whole lot more,

[22:53] and that's going to be uncomfortable.

[22:56] That's how it's up in school every day.

[22:58] So this behavior now, I'm going to ask you to do is call it a spontaneous response.

[23:04] I'm going to ask some folks to tell me what you want to hear and what you want to do or

[23:08] what's on your heart and your mind.

[23:09] However, I don't answer to raising hands, see my household you don't get into the conversation

[23:15] unless you interrupt,

[23:20] it's called verbal overlap, which is consistent with my cultural background

[23:25] in behaviors and others, whereas in school I was always told to take turns to talk.

[23:32] So that spontaneous response, much like my Baptist church that I go to on Sundays or the movie

[23:41] I'm spontaneously responding, so I'm going to ask y'all now, just spontaneously respond to me what you're thinking.

[23:46] Everybody got that? Go.

[23:52] It happens every time, Tom, because we have all assimilated into this dominant culture.

[23:58] There is so much, so we're uncomfortable even spontaneously responding without raising our hands.

[24:04] Even though most of you do that at home, or if you like me, I'd be like, I can't move with the data.

[24:10] come on let's do it again what do you want to hear go music I got you this afternoon

[24:18] said again ideas oh I'm gonna get you thank you for sharing somebody else data

[24:28] laughter appreciate you someone else inspiration I got you

[24:43] anybody else ever said

[24:46] again? Encouragement. Yes,

[24:50] stories. I got you. Thanks for sharing. Positive thinking, no doubt.

[24:57] Thanks for sharing.

[25:01] All right, let me pause. Everybody was talking. I love how nobody's talking

[25:05] now, but only a few people are talking now. But I loved it. And, you know,

[25:12] what are we doing right now?

[25:14] We're doing validation and affirmation. We could go on for another 20 minutes or so, but I'm just

[25:22] That's validating the firm first.

[25:25] Thank you for being here.

[25:27] I see you.

[25:29] Hey, what do you want to talk about?

[25:31] What do you want to learn?

[25:32] What's on your hearts and your minds?

[25:34] What will make you feel safe?

[25:36] That's called validation and affirmation

[25:38] and it's grounded in a significant amount

[25:40] of academic literature around how

[25:42] to engage young people today.

[25:46] You see, we are going to get to the next part of this,

[25:49] what I call the building and the bridging, the B and the B. You say Tom, your team, Julia,

[25:57] yeah, we've talked several times. Tom has texted me this morning at 7 a.m. Please hear

[26:02] me. I know exactly what your superintendent wants me to cover during convocation. The academic

[26:10] standards, the requirements, right? I know what they are, but none of that matters if

[26:19] I have not validated it in a firm first. Or know why you showed up or what you want

[26:27] to learn. I learned a lot by watching y'all in Iraq with one another. I learned a lot

[26:32] by what you shall about and ask me to talk about. See, I as the professional educated and

[26:39] And now I'm going to take what I learned about you all and connect it to the academic content.

[26:46] That's the building and the bridging.

[26:48] For the educators in the room who love the acronyms like I do, we call it VAD-ing, V-A-B-B.

[26:56] About a guy that won, validation, affirmation, building and bridging.

[27:02] We should be doing that all day.

[27:04] I'm going to now connect what I learned about y'all to the academic content in a way where

[27:09] you won't have to give up who you are in order to be successful.

[27:14] Hold me accountable to varying my pedagogy to make sure some people can move, some people

[27:19] can stay still, some people will talk, some people can talk independently, some people can

[27:24] reflect along.

[27:25] Y'all see me?

[27:26] That's what I'm going to do right now as I engineer this learning experience so that you don't

[27:32] had to give up who you are in order to be successful here.

[27:36] See, I call it batting.

[27:38] A friend of mine, she rocky, highly calls it

[27:40] causally responsive teaching.

[27:43] Now, as some person who's been in every state in 20

[27:47] plus countries, I could tell you a lot of folks don't want me

[27:50] to call it causally responsive teaching anymore

[27:52] for some reason.

[27:54] So for those folks, I say, what we just did

[27:56] was called differentiated instruction.

[28:02] As a professional educator, my job

[28:03] is to differentiate and to meet people where they are.

[28:07] We're going to do this now, too, see.

[28:08] You got to know more about me.

[28:09] You got to know a little bit more about me.

[28:11] And I want to know more about you.

[28:13] And please treat me.

[28:14] This is connected to everything else we're going to do today.

[28:17] Who am I?

[28:18] See, there's this thing called surface culture.

[28:21] See, the surface culture, things like the holidays you celebrate,

[28:26] the clothes you like to wear, the music you listen to,

[28:29] the food you eat. For the folks who say they know about Virginia, Central Virginia,

[28:36] you know there's a certain type of music we call go-go music. Anybody heard of

[28:41] go-go music before? Yes. You know what I'm talking about. If go-go music was to come

[28:45] on right now there would be an emotional reaction for me because it's a mix

[28:48] between jazz and R&B and it has oh my god it sounds so good. But you know as

[28:55] As I've moved to Central New York, no one knows what that music is, but they do know

[29:00] country music in Central New York.

[29:04] And as I've grown up on Southern Comfort food, I love my sweet tea and fried chicken.

[29:11] I've been looking for sweet tea for 14 years and I have yet to find it.

[29:16] They keep bringing this brown water out there with sugar on the side.

[29:20] You can't put sugar in it after the fact.

[29:25] And then the chicken y'all send me Kentucky fried chicken is not fried chicken y'all.

[29:31] If someone were to bring me with surface culture, like with all of us, you can be uncomfortable

[29:37] but you can shift, all right.

[29:39] I am now listening, I've been to a couple of country music concerts.

[29:42] I love my country.

[29:43] Kenny Chessney is my guy.

[29:45] I love my tofu.

[29:47] I drink a lot of water now.

[29:49] See, we shift when it comes to surface culture.

[29:52] You can get uncomfortable but you can shift when you're challenged.

[29:55] But here is where I guess I'll live in more interesting.

[29:59] Educators.

[30:00] This is where we see the conflict starting to take place when it comes to young people, young people having to give up a part of who they are in order to navigate the dominant culture. See the shallow culture, see those nonverbal communication patterns, the ways in which we relate to time and space, that was a big one for us during the pandemic. An example, I'm from a culture where time is relative.

[30:28] I went to church every Sunday and you better not ask how long you're going

[30:31] want to be in there. Y'all feel me?

[30:34] We done when we'd done. The relationships we build

[30:39] are much more important than the preciseness of a clock. That was on Sunday and then on

[30:44] Monday we had bell schedules.

[30:48] See, some cultures embrace precise time, others very relative.

[30:53] The same with space, communication patterns, verbal overlap versus taking turns of talk,

[31:01] relationships to elders, think about who you are, and then this is this one right here.

[31:06] This is the one I'm seeing, the struggle in the United States of America right now.

[31:11] The young people we serve are begging to talk about their deep culture, their deep cultural

[31:17] beliefs, and their behaviors.

[31:20] Heck, our young people are asking for us to embed deep culture into the curriculum.

[31:27] However, instead, we write laws not to talk about it.

[31:32] See, what do I mean by deep culture, spirituality, relationship to animals, to nature, this thing

[31:40] called world view, I.E. politics, everywhere I go people say school shouldn't be political

[31:46] sense.

[31:47] Who?

[31:48] Because everyone who comes into a school has a belief when it comes to their world views

[31:53] of a politician and we can't talk about it? See, who are you? This is important right

[32:00] now, y'all. I'm going to ask you to explore something about yourself with someone next

[32:07] to you, just for a few minutes, but I'm also modeling this because I hope you're doing your

[32:11] classrooms on your buses, in a learning space, on an athletic field, Thursday. Now, spoiler

[32:22] When I do this with educators, I always ask educators,

[32:27] because we don't have much time.

[32:28] And because the young people have been clear about what they want us to do,

[32:32] I want y'all to talk about deep culture.

[32:35] Who you are when it comes to your deep culture of beliefs and behaviors in three minutes.

[32:41] Now, because Tom, y'all told me this was an amazing school district,

[32:46] so I'm expecting y'all to actually do it.

[32:48] Because most places I go, I say, I want y'all to talk about deep culture

[32:51] educators. When we come back and people report out, they only ever get past

[32:55] surface. Why is that? So yes, I'm pushing you right now. This is a test.

[33:03] I'm

[33:03] gonna give you three minutes to talk about who you are with somebody and hey

[33:07] for the folks who are kinesthetic learners. You can even walk across the gym and

[33:10] find somebody else, all right? Well, let me let me add something to it because

[33:15] Because surface culture includes how we interact with one another, be a space.

[33:21] I want you to find someone you have not spoken to today.

[33:24] And I want you to greet them with a, because we're post-pandemic, right?

[33:28] I hope it can do this.

[33:30] Greet them in a way that's closely responsive to your culture and behaviors.

[33:35] Like for example, if I see a coach across the room, we're not going to say a word.

[33:39] We haven't practiced this, have we coached.

[33:41] I'm going to walk over the coach.

[33:42] and I'm going to, y'all see, there was no planning for that,

[33:50] but we didn't, and we didn't

[33:52] talk. So the room should be silent. You're going to connect with someone else in the room

[33:57] without saying a word. And then when you get to that person, you're going to greet them

[34:01] in a way that's consistent with your cultural beliefs. Everybody cool with that so far? Don't

[34:07] get me in trouble with this, all right? Please don't get me in trouble. I watched that soccer.

[34:10] I watched what happened with the soccer team, all right?

[34:13] There's a big effort.

[34:14] Nobody knows their story.

[34:15] I probably went too far here.

[34:17] Please don't get us in trouble.

[34:19] If you're going to kiss somebody, ask for consent.

[34:24] But I think everything else is going to be okay.

[34:26] Hugging is all right here.

[34:29] All right, go.

[34:29] Three minutes.

[34:30] Three, go.

[35:14] Are you going to be here this afternoon as well?

[35:15] Yeah.

[35:17] You're going to go around the season right now.

[35:22] But I know you guys bust down and you've got everybody.

[35:24] And that was

[35:28] the goal, working up to that point, never got it.

[35:32] We did some sets along the way.

[35:41] 90 seconds, 90 seconds.

[35:50] And folks care, you know, they're trying to find their way.

[35:56] They don't know they don't know the other afraid, it's a journey.

[36:02] As you can see, they want somebody to check a box and give them the lesson plan.

[36:07] You just gotta sit down and write that free case.

[36:17] He's gotta do it.

[36:20] 30 seconds.

[36:22] 30 seconds.

[36:53] about 10 seconds wrap it up.

[37:08] Let's make our way back. How about this? When I say move

[37:13] your feet, you say back to my seat. Move your feet back to my seat. Move your feet

[37:21] back to my seat. Thank y'all. Thank y'all.

[37:29] Cool. I appreciate y'all doing that. Yes. Awesome.

[37:38] Thank you.

[37:41] All right. Wow. I learned a lot. Watch y'all do that.

[37:48] How did that feel?

[37:49] Anybody want to share? How did that feel doing that? How did it feel? Good. Why? Why did it feel like that?

[37:56] had

[38:01] an immediate connection with someone you didn't know at all thank you for

[38:05] sharing anybody else how did it feel anything you want to share great talk

[38:11] openly yes other thoughts

[38:26] thanks for sharing if we have more time say it again

[38:31] please yes

[38:49] the young people I serve say we're ready and want to do this y'all

[38:57] don't.

[39:01] Here's an activity you can take with you tomorrow to do in a classroom. Do it multiple times.

[39:08] Who are we?

[39:11] How can we use the teaching and learning, the learning spaces that we all have

[39:15] engineered? How can we use this to understand something about ourselves and others? We have built

[39:22] identity exercises in lessons into everything we do. Every board meeting, every admin team meeting,

[39:31] every lesson must have an opportunity for young people and the adults to explore something

[39:38] about themselves and others.

[39:41] They about to hear that part, we'll come back to it this afternoon.

[39:45] Because this is the key to providing access and opportunities to everyone.

[39:53] We're building empathy, we're building understanding, we're building a common understanding and mental

[39:59] tomorrow for what we mean by words like diversity.

[40:03] We'll talk about that a little bit later.

[40:07] Stay with me y'all, stay with me y'all.

[40:09] If we have more time, we will go deeper there.

[40:11] But I really wanna go to this year right here.

[40:14] I need, please, this is gonna be therapeutic for me.

[40:16] I'm telling you all right now.

[40:18] Go on a journey with me.

[40:20] Let's go to 1992.

[40:22] It about it with me in 1992 right now.

[40:24] Some of y'all are like, if he was alive in 1992,

[40:28] two, he's old. Some of y'all are saying, oh, he's a baby, if he was alive then. Some

[40:34] of y'all are like, 19 what? All right, 1992 was the year my twin brother and I graduated

[40:40] high school. And I'm here to tell y'all, 1992 was a year for the culture, y'all feel me?

[40:49] Look it up, you do your own research all I have been in that year. That changed the world.

[40:58] If we just think about movies, the bodyguard,

[41:03] the bodyguard having interracial couples on screen together

[41:07] was a new one, and about it, remember juice?

[41:11] What kind of audience do I have?

[41:12] Some of y'all know juice.

[41:13] You were afraid to evade your hand, but juice was real.

[41:16] Two pockets was in that bad boy.

[41:20] And okay, hold on.

[41:21] Gas was $2,013.

[41:23] The average home price was $68,000.

[41:25] today is 483, Barry Barnes played for the power at the time.

[41:31] If anybody watches baseball, he made $4 million a year and

[41:36] people say he's way overpaid.

[41:39] Show hair is about to make $75 million a year this summer.

[41:44] I'm a commander of sand.

[41:48] I got to even practice saying it.

[41:49] My favorite player growing up was Darryl Green.

[41:52] We used to be called the Redskins.

[41:54] They're about to know what I'm talking about.

[41:56] 1992 was the last time you won a Super Bowl, all right.

[42:01] Why my Bill Clinton became president?

[42:05] 1992 was a special special year.

[42:08] And it was a year that I, you know, my basketball team,

[42:12] again, I told you I was drunk.

[42:14] My high school basketball team, we were state champions back-to-back

[42:17] and they were runner-ups my senior year.

[42:20] We lost.

[42:21] My last game we lost.

[42:23] Everybody heard of Alan Averson,

[42:25] Bubba Chup.

[42:26] Alan Averson was a virginian.

[42:28] Alan Averson is shorter than me

[42:30] and is the best athlete I've ever seen.

[42:32] He was a much better football player, by the way.

[42:35] But at the University of Virginia,

[42:36] you hall on the University of Virginia's campus,

[42:40] we play these state championships every year.

[42:44] Alan Averson dunked on me twice.

[42:46] All right, friend about who knows what that looks like and feels like.

[42:51] he jumped up and I saw the bottom of his feet and he dunked the basketball all right and all I

[42:58] could do in the state championship game was smile and laugh and keep playing. There was a guy

[43:05] named Michael Mallory. Michael Mallory loved watching Allen Aberson. He didn't know who Lou

[43:11] Bell Brown was but he loved what he would travel all around watching Aberson play because he was good.

[43:17] Now, look up the story of Alan Albertson after that state championship, by the way.

[43:21] If you're able to get a lesson in oppression and marginalization in historical racism.

[43:27] But Alan Albertson was the most famous person in America at that time, at that time in that

[43:34] game.

[43:35] And people would come from a long way away to watch him play.

[43:38] Now, Aberson did something special that day, but

[43:43] Michael Mallory, who was watching did something even more special.

[43:47] See, Michael Mallory at the time, you know, Michael Mallory,

[43:50] if you look him up, he's the CEO of the Ron Brown Scholarship Program right now.

[43:56] And it's the largest scholarship program for

[43:58] African-American students in the world.

[44:01] He gives out, I don't know, but a couple hundred,

[44:03] fifty thousand dollar scholarships every year.

[44:05] and I would say he's saving lives.

[44:09] At the time, he was not in charge of the scholarship fund,

[44:11] he had just been given a grant to reward the nation's

[44:17] top 50 black students.

[44:20] And at this game, he saw one get dunked on.

[44:24] And see, we were poor.

[44:26] We had been to school every day,

[44:27] but we had no intentions of leaving fluvano

[44:30] or going to college, my twin brother and I.

[44:33] Michael Miley found my mama in the standout.

[44:34] She's loud now she does a lot of spontaneous responses y'all feel me it wasn't hard to find out who Lucille was

[44:42] He found her and he said your son is gonna come to UVA

[44:47] for free

[44:49] Micomality I get emotional micomality saved my life that day

[44:54] He said he's gonna come for free. He will leave a rural central Virginia and he will

[45:00] Let me be clear. I grew up six miles from UVA. You've heard of the University of Virginia, right? Thomas Jefferson's University?

[45:09] No. The University of Virginia. My dad delivered beer for 46 years. He drove a truck. 46 years in Charlottesville, Virginia. Let me be clear. If you knew college towns, he delivered a lot of beer. But he was never allowed to walk on the historic lawn. If you know anything about the lawn at the University of Virginia.

[45:31] It's where Jefferson started it, it's where people walked to graduate, all that stuff.

[45:36] My dad wasn't allowed to be there because of his race.

[45:41] The first time he stepped foot on the lawn was when I graduated.

[45:44] And because he cried that first time and I saw something to him that I'd never seen before,

[45:49] I graduated four times.

[45:52] I'm the only one to have done that.

[45:55] But my, my grandmother said, he's going to come to UVA for free and I'm telling on the

[46:01] story for a reason now because I, if I'm going to go to college, I'm going to come be

[46:06] a coach because athletics is the only thing that saved my life and micro-malorie.

[46:13] So I'm going to coach basketball and football and I hope that I can afford a Honda Accord

[46:17] one day.

[46:19] Oh, and I would love to have a two-bedroom apartment.

[46:22] That was my dream,

[46:26] Michael Miley gave us a scholarship, I signed up for classes, I was going

[46:29] to go into the teacher education program at the University of Virginia.

[46:34] Michael Miley found out about it and sort of some other folks who had contributed to the

[46:38] scholarship fund, they came to my house on that dirt road in the summer before my first

[46:44] semester in college.

[46:45] Why did they come?

[46:47] I thought they were coming to congratulate me and to say thank you for being a teacher,

[46:51] We need your service. We'll forgive you.

[46:53] No, they came to say, you can't be a teacher.

[46:57] Would I give you all this money to go teach?

[47:02] You can't change the world doing that.

[47:05] Come on now.

[47:08] After about two hours of trying to convince me

[47:11] in my moment that I shouldn't be a teacher,

[47:13] my chameleon left and I became a teacher.

[47:17] Because we changed lives.

[47:19] Yeah, y'all do too

[47:23] This is how you change and save the world right here y'all feel me

[47:29] My my little story goes, you know that first class. I was all dressed up. I'm on campus

[47:34] I'm going to class and y'all know some of y'all know it's the class is called contemporary trends in education

[47:39] Y'all remember that class we have to take that class. That's our first class

[47:43] It's part of the teacher ed program and as I want to be trained as an administrator

[47:48] It's also the first class you take in your administrative program too, contemporary trends

[47:53] in education.

[47:55] And I don't forget, when I went home this two summers ago, to clean out some stuff

[47:59] because my mama passed, we had to clean out the house.

[48:02] I found the paper I wrote in the fall of 92 for contemporary trends in education.

[48:09] And I want to share with y'all the things that were happening in our industry at the time.

[48:16] This is what I wrote about low pay.

[48:20] Yes, I knew I wasn't going to get paid a lot,

[48:22] but I wanted to complain about it in my paper.

[48:27] The lack of administrators, my mother was a teaching assistant

[48:32] for 46 years.

[48:33] She had double knee replacement, and she would always say because

[48:36] I stood in front of classrooms for 46 years.

[48:41] And she would complain about not only the pay,

[48:43] she finished her career making $13,000 after 46 years.

[48:48] But she would also complain about the superintendent, every day, and the principal, and how we can't find good administrators, and how administrators are the reason why this thing is all messed up.

[49:00] Oh, then I wrote about, here we go, discipline.

[49:04] I was a part of the discipline problem.

[49:06] So all my boys, disciplines as fad as it's ever been, and then I wrote about Lord Maluma Rao.

[49:13] Nobody wants to do it.

[49:15] People have fleeing the industry.

[49:17] More hours at an all time low.

[49:20] This was 1992 when I wrote about this.

[49:26] So I poured the survey data from our school district.

[49:30] We administered the survey last spring.

[49:33] I'm looking at the national survey.

[49:35] There have been some surveys done nationally.

[49:36] Y'all want to know where the trends are now?

[49:39] Check it out.

[49:44] No, no, no, it's not the same.

[49:46] We've got smarter.

[49:47] We all call it student behaviors instead of discipline.

[49:53] I got Michael Mallory in my ear y'all as I'm my journal, I'm in my journal this weekend

[49:57] like, oh, with Michael Mallory, right?

[50:02] Then, so this weekend, let me look at the only test information I can find that goes back

[50:09] this far.

[50:10] So I found the nation's report card, and about it, hopefully you've heard about the nation's

[50:14] report card, it's the NAEP assessment.

[50:16] We've been given the Nape Assessment in this country since 1967, I believe.

[50:21] It's a standard of assessment that gives us an indication of how well students are doing in our schools.

[50:27] Now, they used to, they didn't start tracking it by a membership group,

[50:32] I.e., looking at black and brown students until 2011, by the way.

[50:38] But if you go back to 1992, you can't see this part, but I'm here to tell you what's on the screen.

[50:46] We can look at our Nate assessment data, we can go all the way back to 1992, and then

[50:53] we can look at the Nate assessment data from 2022, and what I'm here to present to y'all

[50:58] is that the data is the same.

[51:02] For the folks who are going to fact-chip me, let me back up.

[51:06] The data has gotten worse, particularly for young people of color, and those growing up in

[51:13] poverty.

[51:15] I hear Michael Mallory now, I began my journey in this field 30 years ago,

[51:24] and I stand

[51:24] before you all now humbly, invulnerably saying, we have not shifted student achievement.

[51:33] And the stuff that plagued us, we're having the same conversation today,

[51:41] but this is what

[51:41] I know.

[51:43] I'm more optimistic and hopeful than ever, because in our industry we haven't done a good job of holding multiple truths.

[51:52] Multiple things can be true at the same time.

[51:55] While we have struggled over the last 30 years from my perspective to shift the conversation,

[52:01] we have struggled to significantly raise through an achievement.

[52:04] We have struggled to provide access and opportunities for everybody.

[52:08] I now know we know how to do it.

[52:10] And I'm going to, I'm here today to y'all with y'all to share with you what we know about

[52:16] what works.

[52:17] Now, doing it is something different.

[52:21] I want to share with y'all the activity that the young people in my school district have

[52:25] led to summer.

[52:27] See, as we said, we're embracing student voice and agency, we've turned over everything

[52:31] to the young people we serve, including professional development.

[52:35] They're leading the sessions, and they came, I'm stealing this one from them.

[52:38] They came in this summer with this sticky note activity.

[52:42] And they said, Dr. Brown, teachers, when you leave today,

[52:45] you're going to have sticky notes that include things

[52:47] that as educators in 2023, you must know.

[52:52] And there's some things that I want you to do.

[52:53] You're going to write them down, Dr. Brown.

[52:55] And then there's some place you want to be.

[52:58] Stay with me right now, y'all.

[52:59] Because here's some things we should know.

[53:01] What should be know?

[53:03] See, we should know.

[53:04] You should know.

[53:05] The folks in this room should know a couple of things.

[53:07] most importantly, you should know this. Check it out. In my clicker would work here.

[53:12] Boom.

[53:14] Y'all have the most boldest statement I've seen in the country. This is your statement, right?

[53:24] I've been doing my research. I don't know how you did it. I know how you did it. I can't believe you did.

[53:32] You know how many people are running away from this term? Who are running away from words like equity and inclusion?

[53:39] your statement is as bold and as clear as any I've seen in the nation. That's

[53:45] y'all. I hope everyone in the room knows that you have a statement like this on

[53:50] your website because my whole community does. My convocation on Thursday is

[53:56] going to be this screen to start. And us in Africa we think we are the leaders of

[54:01] this work we're doing so much good stuff. I'm your superintendent. Hey there's a

[54:04] in Vermont, that's on fire.

[54:08] Y'all should know that.

[54:10] And so should the young people you serve.

[54:13] Now, we can define it, we have more time,

[54:14] we would define it, we would do all that stuff.

[54:16] You should also know that that statement,

[54:17] when I see that statement, I see you embracing

[54:20] the intersections of culture, religion, class,

[54:25] ethnicity, nationality, age, gender.

[54:29] When you did your activity earlier,

[54:31] I heard all that come out.

[54:34] Too often, if someone who's in a lot of spaces, I mean spaces like this, where I'm one of

[54:38] the few people of color in the room, and people will say, hey, we're not a very diverse

[54:43] school dish, however, please don't ever say that again.

[54:47] Because as I look around and hear this room, I see and hear the intersections of culture.

[54:54] For some reason, the last five years, particularly white people have become a homogenous group.

[54:59] All right?

[54:59] right? For some of y'all who know what I mean by that. There's a significant amount of

[55:04] diversity in every space we go into. It's up to us to understand and recognize it. And

[55:10] yeah, I'll share with y'all this image right here. This is from Aiden Brown, my 12-year-old

[55:14] comic book fan. And he said that you cannot use the word diversity with the group again unless

[55:21] you share an image of the X-man. For the comic book fans in the room, you know what I'm

[55:26] to say he sees diversity when he sees this image. He sees the intersections of culture.

[55:32] He sees race, gender, orientation, class, religion. He said, Daddy, what is wrong with

[55:39] educated? How come you still haven't explained diversity to people all over the country?

[55:45] But what most profound for the folks who know the story, he followed up because we were on

[55:49] a Zoom call when he shared it with me. He said, Daddy, you do know that because the X-Men

[55:54] were so diverse. People were afraid of them. Because they were so diverse and powerful, people

[56:02] segregated them. Daddy, he's telling me he's 12 now coming to a classroom near you.

[56:10] They wrote

[56:10] laws to marginalize and oppress the X-Men if you know the story. Daddy, ain't that happening today?

[56:22] Everything that's happening today was told in the comments from the 50s and the 60s. You're all

[56:25] feel me. In fact, check me. These young people who are coming into our classrooms and know this.

[56:32] You see, they also know this.

[56:36] I've been saying this for 25 years. I've been saying that

[56:39] this conversation we're having today is good for everybody. I grew up in a white community

[56:44] and it was good for my community there. Most of the young people that I serve in Ithaca are white

[56:48] students. And they know that this conversation about multiculturalism, diversity equity inclusion,

[56:55] embedded in the curriculum is good for us all.

[56:58] I've been saying it for 25 years, but for some reason I have to keep saying it, but

[57:02] now I'm dangerous, though, because now I can share that it's grounded in the significant

[57:06] amount of academic research.

[57:08] I said on a dissertation committee last summer that had the best review of lid I've ever

[57:11] seen.

[57:12] So I want you all to hear me when I say this.

[57:14] It is educational malpractice if we do not embrace this work at scale.

[57:20] I can argue that our white students in this country are,

[57:27] excuse me, my old practice law white students,

[57:29] if we do not include these stories in this conversation.

[57:32] For the folks who care about it, for the capitalist in the group,

[57:35] I have breakfast there, because some people get upset

[57:37] when I say this next name.

[57:39] If you care about the economic future of this country,

[57:42] we do this work.

[57:44] Go to the United States Chamber of Commerce website.

[57:46] If we have a conversation about racism at scale, which means having a conversation about racism in schools?

[57:52] If we have a conversation about it in schools, we can add $8 trillion to our GDP.

[58:00] Our current GDP is $22 trillion, they're about to follow the math for the capitalists in the room.

[58:05] We should know that.

[58:07] We should also know this, what am I talking about?

[58:11] Because I am now convinced, after a 30-year career,

[58:14] that this is the work we're going to be doing.

[58:17] And if we do this, we have access and opportunities

[58:19] for everybody.

[58:20] Reduce the predictability of who succeeds and who fails.

[58:24] I just shared with you all data that shows

[58:26] that our data is pretty much predictable.

[58:28] If you are a poor, if you're growing up in poverty,

[58:31] if you are kid of color, you haven't

[58:32] been doing so well in our schools.

[58:34] It's pretty predictable that by scale, when

[58:37] we look at it at a macro level, it's probably going to get worse.

[58:42] So I am asking y'all to contribute today.

[58:44] get fired up to do something to interrupt that predictability.

[58:50] That will require us to interrupt the things that we know are contributing to that data.

[58:57] Now, if you work with me, if y'all invite me back, typically I don't get anybody back coach.

[59:02] But if I get to come back, I will share with you all the things we do every single day I've done that have contributed to that data.

[59:09] I know what it is. I feel liberated because I can see it and I now know how to talk about it.

[59:17] We know what to do. My mother said it very clearly.

[59:21] If my mother said it now, no college degree, but she was in a classroom for 46 years.

[59:27] If by design that the literacy rate for African Americans was higher at the time of the great migration than it is today.

[59:37] We've done this before, well, fact check me.

[59:43] And see that last one is most important.

[59:45] What will we do to cultivate the joy and genius in everybody?

[59:51] Most times when I said it to folks like,

[59:53] how do you seek out joy in the classroom?

[59:56] Why do you embed that into the curriculum?

[59:59] Okay.

[1:00:00] Show you how. But I need you to sit here and look at this. This will be done. My next 30 years, if I can survive it, I probably won't go. If I can survive it, I'm doing this. Now, you can call it whatever you want. You can call it strategic planning. My folks, my friends, they can tuck you call it strategic planning. If you're in North Carolina, you call it. What did they call in North Carolina? We call it, uh, check it out. They call it continuous improvement. All right. Uh, you know, in my home state, the commonwealth of Virginia, we can't

[1:00:29] use the word equity in the more. So we call it, check it out, future focus schools.

[1:00:35] I don't care what you call it. I know in Iptica, I know based on your website,

[1:00:40] you're all calling it equity. Call it what you want to call it. That's the work.

[1:00:46] And if you want to challenge it, tell me which part of it don't you agree with.

[1:00:49] And I put these images up here now by design because in my school district,

[1:00:53] the conversation starts with our bus drivers, our food service workers.

[1:00:57] I support professionals, the people in the office.

[1:00:59] Yes, I went to school every day because we needed to eat and because we didn't want to die

[1:01:03] But let me be clear Uncle Nelson was a bus driver who made sure we got on the bus every day

[1:01:07] Any way to the next five minutes when we were late

[1:01:10] Well, he made sure we got home

[1:01:13] Let me be clear. Helen Carter was in the office when I hurt my knee in seventh grade

[1:01:19] And we didn't go to the doctor. She made sure she saw me coming off the bus to check on my home a stitches y'all feel me

[1:01:27] Let me be clear, I know more about the federal food guidelines because of many who worked

[1:01:32] in the cafeteria, who helped me understand that, you know, those dairy products aren't

[1:01:36] working so well for your stomach, Louvel.

[1:01:39] Here is an alternative for you.

[1:01:41] This is back in the 80s.

[1:01:44] And, you know, I can share with you, like, what should we know?

[1:01:49] This work that we're talking about impacts each one of those areas to, I'll send you the

[1:01:53] links.

[1:01:54] There are articles that would be asking you all to read.

[1:01:57] They'll connect all of the work of the organization

[1:02:00] till this work.

[1:02:01] I will say I have more time there, but I don't.

[1:02:03] Because now, the time I'm going to ask you all

[1:02:04] to make a decision, because you only got about 15 minutes left.

[1:02:08] I'm going to give you an out right now.

[1:02:09] There are two types of journeys.

[1:02:12] I'm going to be asking you which one are you on.

[1:02:17] You're going to start to school you on Thursday no matter what.

[1:02:20] You can be on that academic journey

[1:02:22] that we've been on for the last 30 years.

[1:02:24] We can read books, we can listen to the great speaker, but don't do anything after that.

[1:02:30] We can write statements like your statements online now, but what you doing to make that

[1:02:34] come alive?

[1:02:35] I've seen statements, not as bold as that.

[1:02:38] You can talk about, hey, there are a couple of school districts in the country right now

[1:02:41] who send their anti-racist and they're working hard this year to change the names of holidays

[1:02:46] on the calendar.

[1:02:48] That's important, but does that work?

[1:02:52] Well, Charlottesville, Virginia, I worked in Richmond, Virginia, some of y'all, if you've been following the stories, we can have conversations about Statues for Generations.

[1:03:03] My dad is here, who's been in Charlottesville for 85 years, when those statues came down and they nothing changed around here.

[1:03:13] I'm done with that work. It's important. I'm with educators in there. Don't give me wrong. I'm not saying anything bad about a book study.

[1:03:20] You all feel me, all right?

[1:03:22] But most places I go into country ask what is the plan for this work?

[1:03:25] They say, we're doing a book study this year, Dr. Brown.

[1:03:27] They're like, really?

[1:03:28] That's it.

[1:03:29] And it's voluntary.

[1:03:32] We're going to pay a couple of folks to do it if they come after school.

[1:03:35] Come on now.

[1:03:37] This work I'm talking about is, do we have a mindset that our classrooms,

[1:03:42] our courts, our playing fields, our buses, our cafeterias,

[1:03:47] our places for social change?

[1:03:50] I can show you where it shows up and come back this afternoon and I'll show you where it shows up in the academic standards.

[1:03:54] For the folks who don't think so, activism has a place in schools.

[1:03:59] You see, this work is about pedagogical shifts.

[1:04:02] We got to talk, relate, move differently.

[1:04:05] This work is about changing the policies, board members, changing the handbooks, changing the rules on the walls.

[1:04:10] This work is about love.

[1:04:13] Now, the academic conversation is writing books and reading articles that say we're loving.

[1:04:18] Everybody hear me when I say that, I'm being vulnerable right now.

[1:04:22] If you want to make money and have a lot of people love you, write a book about love.

[1:04:28] But if you want an authentic journey and you start to change the culture to be loving,

[1:04:33] it's a struggle.

[1:04:35] Love is not the default. Love is a struggle.

[1:04:39] If we'll talk about that this afternoon and we'll talk about it a little bit later.

[1:04:42] See, because after we're going to shift into what should we do.

[1:04:44] So all those things, you should know what journey you want.

[1:04:47] Every day you're going to be challenged.

[1:04:48] should I be authentic here, should I be academic?

[1:04:50] Somebody up there went authentic earlier

[1:04:53] when you could have chosen to be academic.

[1:04:56] You're gonna have to make those decisions every single day.

[1:04:58] The authentic journey is hard and it's a struggle

[1:05:01] and it's controversial.

[1:05:06] If you're a leader or if you're an educator

[1:05:08] leading authentic work, people will come for you.

[1:05:11] Trust me, 14 death threats last year.

[1:05:14] People create websites to discredit me.

[1:05:17] They come out to my family.

[1:05:18] my front yard is not even safe anymore, but to disrupt oppression you have to give up privileges.

[1:05:27] I know what privileges I've had to give up and one of those is safety. But you do it anyway.

[1:05:34] But what else should you do? I'll come back this afternoon and we'll talk about what we mean by student

[1:05:38] voice and agency. I'll give you very practical examples of how we can embrace the student voice

[1:05:43] and agency, so they see themselves changing things. I will give you examples of how we can embrace

[1:05:48] thinking, come back later for a crash course on how humans think. Because we don't spend a lot of

[1:05:56] time talking about that. And then come back this afternoon and I'll talk about how these academic

[1:06:01] standards can allow for us to do all of this work. That's the do. But I'm going to finish with the

[1:06:08] You know, B. Check this out.

[1:06:13] Who should we be?

[1:06:15] This was a sticky note that I struggled with the most.

[1:06:18] And if I come back later this year, we're going to spend a lot of time on this one too.

[1:06:21] Who should we be? This is Lucille and Bobby right here, y'all.

[1:06:26] The most impressive people I've ever known, Mama Daddy.

[1:06:30] Mama was a teaching assistant, daddy was a truck driver.

[1:06:34] Mama passed and the whole community is still struggling to recover, including myself.

[1:06:38] So, Tom mentioned in 2017, in 2017, we were in Albany, New York, with the first time

[1:06:46] my parents had other left Virginia.

[1:06:49] In Albany, New York, in March, there was some snowflirt, if you all can imagine that.

[1:06:53] And my family freaked out, they were like, what is happening?

[1:06:56] It's snow, mama?

[1:06:58] Anyway, they sat up at the front of the room, and a little table just like that, my mama

[1:07:04] daddy, my brother, my sisters.

[1:07:07] And they announced me as winning the 2017 Superintendent of the Year Award.

[1:07:13] And as I'm standing up, I have a little fancy speech there.

[1:07:17] My mama stopped me.

[1:07:19] You know, I stopped my daddy stopped me.

[1:07:22] Because you know, Southern gentlemen, they always stop you.

[1:07:25] And then they let mama talk.

[1:07:25] Y'all feel me?

[1:07:26] I was seeing that.

[1:07:28] So daddy stopped me.

[1:07:29] And then he waited.

[1:07:30] And he's like, what are we doing?

[1:07:31] And then mama starts talking real slow.

[1:07:33] hey they can give you all the fancy awards they want but you've done nothing until

[1:07:39] you've changed the way this room looks and for the first time I turned around

[1:07:44] and looked at the room and when I looked my family was the only family I

[1:07:48] called in the entire room of 1200 people of

[1:07:53] all the superintendents in the room 95

[1:07:55] percent were male and all of them are white and Mama had heard about this great

[1:08:03] diverse state, the most diverse state in the country and she couldn't understand how that

[1:08:08] could be.

[1:08:11] So we've been doing some work. You can follow our story what we've done since

[1:08:13] then. But then my daddy, because you know he's emboldened, must Lucille start giving it

[1:08:17] to me, he got to give it to me too.

[1:08:20] That is a, hey, who you be? She growing up in the African-American

[1:08:24] vernacular, the habitual bee means something about her to the habitual bee, who you be, where

[1:08:29] you be going, where you be at. It's a habitual action done unto someone or something. Now that

[1:08:36] That habitual B was never validated in a firm where we was in school.

[1:08:38] People would always just correct us.

[1:08:40] They were going to build and bridge without saying, oh, you're using the habitual B.

[1:08:44] You're bringing your home language into the school.

[1:08:47] How beautiful.

[1:08:47] Y'all see how I validated in a firm right there?

[1:08:49] But instead, it was always, you can't do that.

[1:08:51] That's like, we'll get you a 900 in the SATs, Louvert.

[1:08:53] I know.

[1:08:55] But my dad said, who you be?

[1:08:58] And hear me y'all.

[1:08:59] Because it was a moment that took me from the academic journey to the authentic one.

[1:09:06] who we be. I said, Dad, we be, uh, we be testing. I had just read the study and there's one

[1:09:13] that just came out from the University of Kansas, I believe, around standardized testing in public

[1:09:19] education. If you don't know this, you should. Everybody in this room should know that. We now

[1:09:23] test in a standardized way, young people, particularly in urban centers more than 12,000 times before

[1:09:33] before they graduate, that we'd be testing, that we'd be denying after the great

[1:09:43] honor of serving a superintendent in Ibbica, New York.

[1:09:46] We have the second best STEM high school in the country.

[1:09:50] We send more kids to Ivy League institutions than any other high school in the country

[1:09:54] in the republic.

[1:09:56] But when I used to walk through the hallways, I would say this is an apartheid system.

[1:10:02] I could tell the level of the class based on the demographic makeup of the students.

[1:10:07] Y'all still with me so far?

[1:10:09] We had bi-policy and structures and systems denied all young people opportunities to the

[1:10:16] best high school and school district in the world.

[1:10:19] We know how to deny.

[1:10:22] And see, hear me on this one, y'all.

[1:10:23] This is the most important one.

[1:10:25] We eat that at being, because this is why most of my friends are dead.

[1:10:38] We can't wait to get our babies back.

[1:10:42] I can't wait for them to come back and be in person with us.

[1:10:45] We'll figure this out.

[1:10:46] Post pandemic.

[1:10:47] Look it up.

[1:10:48] That checked me.

[1:10:49] We're now suspending more than ever before.

[1:10:53] And more disproportionately.

[1:10:56] We're suspending four-year-olds at the highest rate ever.

[1:11:02] We're suspending four-year-olds at the highest rate ever.

[1:11:02] We be punishing.

[1:11:04] That we be punishing, denying, and testing, and he and his brilliance, and he didn't

[1:11:09] graduate.

[1:11:10] He got to seventh grade until segregation hit him in the face.

[1:11:15] He said, when will y'all be loving?

[1:11:19] And that put me on this journey that I hope y'all go on with me.

[1:11:24] Check it out.

[1:11:25] These principles, these behaviors are most important.

[1:11:30] Think about how you will engineer an experience for young people to model Thursday, whether it

[1:11:38] is in a cafeteria, whether it's in the hallway on the bus in your classroom and run it through

[1:11:46] this lens.

[1:11:48] But first, run yourself through this lens.

[1:11:51] Who are you?

[1:11:53] How will you when it comes to these principles?

[1:11:57] I've done the work.

[1:11:58] I do it every day.

[1:11:59] I write about it every day.

[1:12:00] I still know, after six years of doing this every single day, I struggle with forgiveness.

[1:12:06] It's why I'm always in a good mood, because the folks, those death threats come, people

[1:12:11] make up stuff, they say things into my kid, I compartmentalize it and forget, and I don't

[1:12:18] go try to forgive the people who I know did it.

[1:12:21] Y'all still with me?

[1:12:22] And that has impacted my leadership.

[1:12:24] But

[1:12:27] I also know that as an organization, we have struggled to forgive, too.

[1:12:32] Even with a new code of conduct that said we won't suspend, we still find ourselves

[1:12:36] excluding young people from instruction based on discretionary behavior.

[1:12:41] Y'all still with me.

[1:12:44] I know we don't forgive because even despite my best efforts around grading practices, we

[1:12:48] still give zeroes.

[1:12:51] I know y'all don't do that here.

[1:12:54] But in Ezeka, we still give zeroes.

[1:12:56] How was that forgiven?

[1:12:59] We take points off of work that comes in late, even though we know they're home, the things

[1:13:05] going on at home that have contributed to the work coming in late.

[1:13:10] So I ask you to think about who you are and where you are and then think about the organization

[1:13:16] as we run through this lens.

[1:13:18] This work is hard because it's hard y'all.

[1:13:21] If we work together, we're going to have to think about some things.

[1:13:24] When it gets challenging, when it gets hard, how will you, how will I cultivate joy

[1:13:29] and love.

[1:13:32] I'm at this place in my life in my career where I'm more inspired than ever to do

[1:13:37] this work. But I also know that I got to figure out how to find joy in it too and how to find joy

[1:13:45] when it gets hard. This is my oath. I'm going to ask you, I'll send it to you, take a screenshot,

[1:13:51] take a picture.

[1:13:55] What will you do when the challenges come this year? After today's session, how will you

[1:14:01] You cultivate joy in your life.

[1:14:03] How will you cultivate joy when it gets challenging?

[1:14:07] Or love?

[1:14:08] Because as you do this individually, then it will easily flow as you engineer something

[1:14:13] for the young people we serve.

[1:14:16] And I'll leave you with this as I'll tell you one last story to Dr. Acer Hilla said, I have

[1:14:23] never encountered any children in any group who are not geniuses.

[1:14:26] There is no mystery on how to teach them.

[1:14:29] The first thing you do is treat them like human beings.

[1:14:32] And the second thing you do is to love them.

[1:14:37] You have a bunch of babies who are coming into a space

[1:14:39] on Thursday y'all.

[1:14:40] They need us and expect us to love them.

[1:14:43] I've given you the principles and the behaviors

[1:14:45] that you can use to love.

[1:14:47] No one that is going to be hard.

[1:14:49] Will you love them too?

[1:14:51] When they don't love you back?

[1:14:57] Will you love them when they don't love you back?

[1:15:00] I wish someone would have asked their question when my brother and I were going to school every day, because if so, then the eight most brilliant people I've ever known would be here, and more importantly, for me, I would have survived it without giving up something about who I am.

[1:15:20] The conversations we're having today in our industry have been had before. The game plan has been the same for the historians in the room. If you remove the words,

[1:15:33] diversity, equity, and inclusion, and critical race theory from the conversations today.

[1:15:39] And we plug in integration, busing, and communism.

[1:15:43] We have any exact same conversation.

[1:15:47] And the game plan has been the same.

[1:15:51] Let's go after the superintendents, let's flip the boards, let's go after the books and

[1:15:56] the standards.

[1:15:59] There's a book about this, a mother's of mass resistance if you want to fact check me,

[1:16:04] that unpacks the last 140 years of our industry.

[1:16:08] And we'll ask you all to read it because I hope

[1:16:12] you are now more inspired than ever to do this work.

[1:16:15] We know what to do.

[1:16:16] We know how to do it.

[1:16:18] We also know what's happening, what the resistance is

[1:16:21] looking like.

[1:16:22] And my mama would say, I'm going to give you our two last

[1:16:24] mama quotes and I'm going to be done.

[1:16:25] She would say, if you know what's going to happen,

[1:16:30] you can plan for it.

[1:16:32] And when you can plan for it, you can be unbothered.

[1:16:37] I'm now unbothered more than ever before.

[1:16:41] And the last thing she said to me,

[1:16:42] which is what I'll say to y'all before,

[1:16:44] we send y'all off to the next thing.

[1:16:47] Doing this work, it's like a relay race.

[1:16:50] We do, we do, we find joy, we find love,

[1:16:52] we do, we smile, we struggle,

[1:16:54] and then we hand it off to somebody else.

[1:16:57] She said to me,

[1:16:58] If you do this work well, you won't survive it.

[1:17:02] The resistance will be fierce.

[1:17:03] She had predicted the death threats and the websites that her son has to experience on

[1:17:09] the daily basis before she passed.

[1:17:12] See, you won't survive it.

[1:17:13] But what I hope I've done, Louvel, and what I hope I've done, which all today, it's inspired

[1:17:18] somebody to take my place when I'm gone.

[1:17:20] I love you.

[1:17:21] Thank you so much for this opportunity.

[1:17:36] Thank you.

[1:17:37] That's

[1:17:44] all right.

Untitled meeting

Transcript