Theory Meets Practice: A Podcast for Teachers

Since Aimee is on maternity leave, Jenny is going to interview a series of amazing educators.In this episode, Jenny interviews a high school dean: Soonja. The conversation discusses challenges in transitioning from a faculty to an administrative role in a school, being women of color in a predominately white space, supporting students, and discipline philosophies.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This workshop introduced the idea of Indigenous Feminism to our faculty. This topic is expansive; we did not try to cover it all in one workshop. We decided to narrow our focus to Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's definitions of Indigenous theory and knowledge production. In this workshop, we focused on excerpts from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and A New Emergence. In reading these excerpts, we asked our faculty to address the following questions: How does Simpson define Indigenous theory?What do Creation Stories have to do with Indigenous theory?How does this theory produce knowledge? How dose theory lead to resistance and resurgence? After reading and discussing the text, we also engaged in dialogue to determine why it is important to address these theories in our classrooms and how we could possibly do so. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

In this workshop, we focused excerpts from Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Specifically, we defined and discussed her theories of the borderland and mestiza consciousness. We also engaged in dialogue to determine why it is important to address these theories in our classrooms and how we could possibly do so. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This podcast focuses on one of our recent in-school workshops. In our last workshop, teachers had many questions about some of the terms we were using. We decided to create this workshop in order to answer those questions and to provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon how we can bring those ideas to our classrooms. The topic of this workshop was Culturally Responsive Teaching. In this workshop, we focused on two texts: Dr. AnaLouise Keating's "Beyond Intersectionality" from her book Transformation Now!: Toward a Post-Oppositional Politics of Change and Rosario Morales's "We're All in the Same Boat" from the anthology This Bridge Called My Back. We analyzed how Keating uses three specific terms associated with culturally responsive teaching then applied our understanding of those terms to Morales's text. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Welcome to season 2! We are excited to be back after a nice relaxing summer. Today we discuss our most recent workshop for faculty about fostering relationships at the beginning of the school year using culturally responsive teaching methods. We look at two common beginning-of-year activities through the lens of culturally responsive teaching and think about how we can make them better and more inclusive to students.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This workshop focused on resistance as shown through feminist art. We watched clips from Beyonce's Netflix documentary Homecoming and viewed some of Mikael Owunna's incredible photos from is "Infinite Essence" series.Points to consider:Recognize the social construct of positionality & look beyond the binariesNotice & analyze whose labor is recognized and honor. Consider why it is/was treated as such, by whom, and how you as a consumer can recognize and honor that laborMake connections & build bridges; consider how your personal knowledge and experience is importantKnow when something is not for you & honor its purpose and audience anywayAddress who is legible in our country's legal structures and how that affects one's ability to resist Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas. These workshops provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. This episode is about our most recent workshop.This workshop continued on the subject of labor. We reviewed definitions, read and discussed Virginia Woolf, and reflected on our own labor in the classroom.For our Social Media Moment we suggest two articles: "What 'Good' Dads Get Away With" from the New York Times, and a chapter from Melinda Gates' new book Moment of Lift called "The Massive, Hidden Cost of Women's Unpaid Work". Look them up!!Questions to consider:1. Why is it important that teachers understand, recognize, and honor different kinds of labor?2. What types of labor do we expect from our students? What types of labor are expected of us as teachers?3. Why is it important that we teacher our students about different types of labor and to honor different types of labor?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This episode is focused on Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's book: Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence. In this text, Simpson advocates for reconciliation between Indigenous People and Canada. She "asserts reconciliation must be grounded in political resurgence and must support the regeneration of Indigenous languages, oral cultures, and traditions of governance." Questions to Consider:1. What kind of knowledge production can happen when we stop centering white/Western perspectives? How can teachers encourage students to create based on their own lived experiences? 2. What critical theories does the academy lack? How can teachers encourage students to create those theories?3. What are the roles of storytelling, embodied knowledge, and language in resistance and resurgence? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Welcome to the twenty-sixth episode of the podcast! Today, we're sharing a little bit about ourselves in an effort to build community with you, our listeners! We will ask each other ten questions and respond as openly and honestly as possible. Hopefully you learn something new about us!Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas. These workshops provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. This episode is about our most recent workshop.We defined different types of labor and discussed their significance. We then invited teachers and staff to think about the different types of labor they do for others as well as the types of labor they willingly accept and expect from others. We spent time reading about and discussing two significant topics: the labor women do for men and the labor women of color, specifically black women, do for white women. In doing this, we read from Virginia Woolf, Rachel Cargle, Kate Rushin, and Nellie Wong. We are grateful to these women for their labor and recognize that we can do this work because of the work they have done for us.Questions to consider:1. Why is it important that teachers understand, recognize, and honor different kinds of labor?2. What types of labor do we expect from our students? What types of labor are expected of us as teachers?3. Why is it important that we teacher our students about different types of labor and to honor different types of labor?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This episode is focused on Patricia Monture-Angus' book: Thunder in My Soul, A Mohawk Woman Speaks. In Thunder in My Soul, A Mohawk Woman Speaks, Monture-Angus shares deeply personal experiences as a woman, law student and professor living in colonial Canada. She states: "This is a prayer for my people, and for all First Nations. It is shared with you in the spirit of gift giving. It is in part, a reflection on my own struggle to shed the colonized shackles which bind my mind, my spirit, and my heart." Questions to Consider:1. What kind of knowledge production can happen when we stop centering white/Western perspectives? How can teachers encourage students to create based on their own lived experiences? 2. What critical theories does the academy lack? How can teachers encourage students to create those theories?3. Why is it important for white people to learn about the ways that people of color, specifically women of color, labor to make themselves legible to white people? What work can white people to do honor this labor? 4. How can we teach our students about race and racism without causing trauma? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This episode is focused on an amazing anthology of creative work by women of color, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga. Anzaldúa and Moraga created a space for women of color to share their experiences and stories. Each author labored to bring her story to the page and to make her lived experience visible to a wide audience. This work took emotional, intellectual, psychic, and physical strength. Anzaldúa and Moraga labored to ensure that these women's stories could reach a wide audience. This, too, took emotional, intellectual, psychic, and physical labor. We hold this anthology at the same high level of academic theory as other texts we have read and look forward for you to do so, too! Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. It has since been used and appropriated in many different circles, notably by white women. Now, 30 years later, a new wave of woman of color feminists seek to push back on the term, redefine the term, defend the term, and look beyond the term. Crenshaw herself is part of the conversation and currently seeks to reclaim and explain what the term meant in 1989 and what it means today. While reading these new texts, we thought about the ways the term Intersectionality has been changed and by whom. We read texts to expand our awareness of Intersectional theory as it has evolved since Crenshaw coined the term. In order to do that, she assigned us texts by AnaLouise Keating, Jennifer C. Nash, Jasbir K. Puar, and Brittney Cooper. Kimberly also assigned a video of Crenshaw's presentation at ASA 2018. Questions to Consider: How can we encourage students to examine their felt sense of identity? How can we encourage them to develop language and methods to share about themselves? How can we encourage our students to examine the structures that affect their felt sense of personal identity? What should teachers do ensure that students know and understand the different types of labor? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Like we mentioned last week, our teacher, Kimberly, created a multi-media module for us where we read a book and watched two connecting movies. Today we discuss the book we read. (Check out last week's episode for our discussion of Daughters of the Dust and Lemonade). This book was paired with the two movies because they are all created by black feminists, have similar themes, and aesthetics.We chose to read Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Written in 2017, this story follows a family through a hot summer of dysfunction, addiction, loss, and growth. The story opens on Jojo's 13th birthday in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. He lives with his younger sister, Kayla, and his grandparents, Pop and Mam. His mother, Leonie, lives with the family as well, but is unable to be the main provider for her children due to her addiction to meth. When Jojo and Kayla's father gets released from prison, they go on a road trip with Leonie to Parchman, an infamous penitentiary.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we discuss two wonderful black feminist movies! The first one we talk about is Daughters of the Dust directed by Julie Dash. Daughters of the Dust is set in 1902 and follows a family as they prepare to leave the Sea Islands, on the coast of Georgia, to move to the mainland. The second movie is Lemonade by Beyoncé. Marketed as a "visual album", Lemonade is a series of music videos, like mini-movies, that tell a story of betrayal, pain, self-love, and redemption. Questions to Consider: How can multi-media lessons add depth to our curriculum? When we teach black history, are we including more than just moments of pain and suffering? How can presenting a culture as monolithic be damaging to our students? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Hello podcast listeners! We wanted to send a quick update since there will not be a new episode out today. Because of our many snow days, we are finding ourselves busy with curriculum changes, grading, etc. So instead of a full podcast, we are giving you another text recommendation.Our recommended text is an article from The New York Times called "When the Suffrage Movement Sold Out to White Supremacy" by Brent Staples. Staples names the black women who labored to ensure that all women, not just white women, would have the right to vote. He names their names and shares the work they did. He offers an astute criticism of the suffrage movement itself, noting that the term "woman" was narrowed down to mean only white, educated, affluent women. You can access the article here. Here are some questions to think about as you're reading: how does this article connect to the other texts we have read and discussed?; how could you use these ideas in your classroom?; how do these ideas connect to our modern Women's March?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are sharing workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. Last week, we held a workshop where we explored the nuances of kinship. We discussed how kinship is traditionally defined and how feminists seek to define it in non-heteronormative terms. We talked about how many people, including many of our students, do not have access to the traditional definition of kinship due to a variety of reasons, like trauma. Many people must access alternative definitions of kinship in order to survive. We discussed Hortense Spillers' text "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe" and the article "Relying on Friendship in a World Made for Couples" by Briallen Hopper.Questions to consider: Why is kinship important in a school community? In the classroom? In the school? And specifically for teachers? What are some tools we can use to encourage empathy in order to build kinship in our classrooms?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Hello podcast listeners! We wanted to send a quick update since there will not be a new episode out today. A rare occurrence has happened in the greater Seattle area: we are snowed in! We thought that since we are snowed in at our respective houses, we'd give you a text recommendation for you to read to prepare for our next podcast episode. Our recommended text is an article called "Relying on Friendship in a World Built for Couples" by Briallen Hopper. You can access this article by Googling it or accessing the link at our website: www.theorymeetspracticepod.com. This is a wonderful and thoughtful piece about how female kinship structures need nurturing especially in a world of heteronormative (straight, nuclear family) dominance.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we will discuss two wonderful and foundational black feminist texts by Barbara Smith and by Barbara Christian. Both of these women have put a tremendous amount of labor into creating theory from black lived experiences. In these two texts we see them struggle with big questions like: "whose writing is seen as authority?" and "where do you go if you're not reflected in text?". Smith wants to see theory built from black female experiences. Christian wants to see theory built from creative writing and from the hands of non-white authors.Questions to Consider: What happens when there is nonrecognition that a person’s identity exists? Where do we go to honor our knowledges if they’re not reflected anywhere? Why aren’t creative writers seen as critical theorists? Whose kind of writing is considered authority?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker James who is going to walk us through his experience taking classes from Kimberly and his journey with this material as a white male. We reference bell hooks' wonderful text All About Love. Questions to consider after listening: What happens when our beliefs are challenged? How do we hold difficult knowledge in our bodies and minds? Why is addressing difficult knowledge important?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we will discuss the introduction to Hortense Spillers' article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book". Spillers created this 1987 text to critique current day academic discourse. She proposes that we need new language to describe the experiences of black females, like herself, because words like "womanhood" and "mother" historically do not apply. She argues that since black women do not have access to the privilege of heteronormative notions of womanhood and motherhood, there needs to be new discourse created.This is a difficult text that we are still ruminating on. But, it is an extremely important part of the black feminist Archive and worth the difficulty. Questions to consider: How do we subscribe to heteronormative structures in our school and classroom? How can we break this structure and offer up new ways of living? How does this layer with race and ethnicity?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we will discuss the introduction to Saidiya Hartman's book Scenes of Subjection. Hartman creates this text to dive into her embodied generational trauma as a black woman. She examines the perpetual display of violence towards black bodies and the impact those images have on white people's empathy and black people's identity formation. Her method is to seek answers in untold stories that show moments of resistance and liveliness in black American culture.Questions to consider: What is whiteness? How is it perpetrated by our curriculum? How do we read about black suffering? What is our role as educators?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues.Three weeks ago, we held a workshop where we explored the term "intersectionality" as coined by the amazing black feminist thinker, Kimberlé Crenshaw. We used the introduction to her text Mapping the Margins and discussed how Crenshaw created this word to help describe the black female experience, but the word has been gentrified over time. We have both taught this term and it's history to our students, so we showed our colleagues two ways to teach this concept to 6th graders and 12th graders.Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: Why do we need the term intersectionality? How does it feel to de-center yourself and your experiences to read and learn about others? How does this term help us understand identity formation and systems of power?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we will discuss Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang's amazing article Decolonization is not a metaphor. In this episode we will think about indigenous studies and the term "decolonization". We will discuss how decolonization is layered, complex, and unsettling for people to talk about. In the article, Tuck and Yang say, "Our goal for this essay is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization--what is unsettling and what should be unsettling" (3).Questions to consider: What does "unsettling" look like in the classroom? What does it look like for students?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. Two weeks ago, we held a workshop where we explored trauma, how to create a classroom that can support trauma informed pedagogy, and how to hone our students' creative power in the face of structural inequities. We used the text Scenes of Subjection by Saidiya Hartman to think about "white gaze" and the glorification of black violence by white audiences.Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: What does it mean to have community in a classroom? How might community look different from one classroom to the next? What does it mean to have community in a school? How do you create community in your classroom?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Today we will continue discussing Lisa Lowe's amazing text Intimacies of Four Continents. This episode is part two in a two-part series on Lowe. In this episode we will think about the role education plays in the British imperialist strategy.Questions to consider: What is the role of education in imperialism? When colonizers set up their system of education, what are they educating people in? Is it still practiced this way today in school we when educate our students? In this episode we reference Jamaica Kincaid's "Upon Seeing England for the First Time", Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker Ashley who is going to walk us through a lesson she did with some other faculty members for our 8th grade humanities class. In her workshop, Ashley uses To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Norman Rockwell paintings, and contemplative discussion to address the lenses of race, gender, and class within a classroom.Questions to consider after listening: How do we react when a student or parent pushes back on our curriculum? How do you teach "canon" literature, like To Kill a Mockingbird, with sensitivity and awareness for all students? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are coming back after a brief hiatus due to crazy schedules, Thanksgiving break, and illness. Thank you for being patient with us!Today we will be discussing Lisa Lowe's amazing text Intimacies of Four Continents. This episode is part one in a two-part series on Lowe. In this episode we will think about how Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas are all connected through imperialism, "free" trade, and material objects.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker AJ who is going to walk us through his workshop on white fragility. AJ uses Dr. Robin DiAngelo's text White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism and So You Want to Talk About Race? by Ijeoma Oluo during his workshop. Questions to consider after listening: How did you feel as you listened to his description of white fragility? How did you feel as you listened to his story about enacting white fragility in his classroom?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We held a faculty workshop where we explored the text "Venus in Two Acts" by Saidiya Hartman and paired it with Kindred by Octavia Butler in order to understand embodied epistemology and lived experience. We also discuss Cartesian Dualism and how to create a trauma informed classroom. Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: How can we value our students’ embodied epistemologies/knowledges from lived experiences? Whose lived experiences are we not valuing or ignoring? How can we bring together the mind and body in our school?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

This episode is a little different. Instead of discussing theory and bringing ideas into the classroom, we are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. In August and September, our workshops were about identity and identification. Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: What identifiers are we putting on students (whether consciously or unconsciously)? What happens when a student is not reflected or mirrored in the curriculum? How can we, as educators, see the "whole student"?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We discuss ideas from chapter one, "Empire of the Home", from Anne McClintock's text Imperial Leather. We focus on the unstable categories of time, race, and gender. Visit our blog, www.theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com for the link to the video we refer to in the podcast.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We discuss Sylvia Federici's definitions of "witch", "magic", and "witch hunts" in the context of the 16th and 17th century European witch hunts. We focus on the concept of power and voices. Questions to consider: who has power and why? How do they use that power? Whose voices are missing? How can we listen into history to hear those voices and recognize the untold labor?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

Welcome to the third episode of the podcast! This episode is called Federici & Enclosures. First we will discuss how Federici analyzes how social, financial, and political enclosures and how the elimination of "the commons" damages the creative power of women. Then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. We also spend time contemplating how we see this outside of our classrooms. A question to consider: how does one group of people manipulate space to gain control over another group of people?Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

First we will discuss how Federici analyzes Cartesian dualism and embodied epistemology in the context of her book, and then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. We will ask you 3 questions to consider as you think about these concepts translating to the classroom.Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)

We will be discussing a text called Caliban and the Witch by Sylvia Federici. This is a very complicated text that took Federici over 30 years to complete! We are going to split the text up into 4 themes, and we will cover one theme per episode. For this first episode, we will discuss how Federici analyzes resistance in the context of her book, and then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas of resistance into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)