The Art of Teaching

Summary: Welcome to our first Worth Work podcast! This episode we focus on seeing the vocation of teaching as an art form. Using this podcast as a canvas we paint with quotes, clips from empathy interviews of colleagues, a guided meditation, storytelling, insights, and end with a freestyle rap using the key words and phrases of this episode. Our hope is to bring infectious energy to help you energize your approach to teaching. Enjoy! 

0:00- Intro song and summary

01:35: "To practice any art no matter how well or how badly is a way to make your soul grow; for heavens sake- so do it." Kurt Vonnegut

02:40- Darshanpreet quote- about changing the way we do things- ""instead of changing the way we do things, telling the kids again and again- why can't you meet these standards? Then of course it goes into who did set the standards in the first place? How do we scaffold them appropriately if we do think they are important so that there is multiple points of entry? I see how things that are already inequitable from the start, where people are starting at different level, then we put them in a school system that was never built for everybody and then the school system does very successfully what it was meant to do: educate white boys."

04:08- Des exploring the tension of meeting standards

05:29- Jesse explores that tension by sharing his journey through school as white man.

06:23 Jesse “I could check the boxes, I could get the As and Bs. Bu there was this whole other part missing. That’s me sharing my story, that’s me expressing myself, that’s me finding my unique genius in the world.”

07:33- Slide of genius awakening pedagogy vs traditional school

09:40- Des sharing his unique journey through school as a black man. Seeking to over achieve…

12:25 Des “we turn away from the work of equity, because of not wanting to be shamed by it. Not understanding that we are all dealing with some degree of ‘not good enough’ and having some type of reaction to that because of an intentionally created hierarchy based on skin color.

13:35 Jesse asking Des- “how much of your school experiences do you carry with you as a teacher?”

14:38- Des as a junior was invited by his mom to read The Four agreements. The four agreements are: -always do your best -don’t take things personal -be impeccable with your word -don’t make assumptions

17:38- 2 BARS pause

20:12 Lila Watson wiki page.

Check Brother Ali’s episode of Rhymes and Reasons podcast where he breaks down how our liberations are bound up with each other.

24:30- Des quote along the lines of project based learning- “who says you have to wait till your out of high school to make a contribution?”

25:55- Desmond’s acronym- G.O.D- genius over doubt. Which is about liberating folks from shame.

27:13 Jon Acuff- book called Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking

27:55 Desmond- “a good chunk of what this podcast is about is the art of healing from a collective shame that we’ve all been conditioned to because it served those in power at the time.”

28:28 Link the assignment of empty your cup. Shame keeps us from being vulnerable and mutual liberation. This is an assignment designed to share story. Teacher demonstrating- students having space to write and empty their cup by processing their life experience.

29:40 Des “Being human is inherently vulnerable.” Jesse - “facts. And we can pretend it’s not for a whole 90 min block period…and we get caught on n just going through the motions.

30:13- Jesse “as educators, as adults in the space, we set that tone…

31:10 - @mosiaceye Instagram page clip about compassionate self care.

32:15- our artform starts with- ‘we teach who we are.’ To be with the depths of ourselves- our breath, aware of our humanity, our own suffering, our own inherent vulnerability as humans. We start there and then we can see the humanity of the young people we share space with.

33:15- Des- ‘when your sitting with the pain of the moment, let’s not get it twisted it is pain…. It’s not as soft as the word compassion tends to imply…. Pain is an inherent part of being alive. We can’t escape it, but the conditioning of society would have you believe that you can.

34:49- Victor Frankls work- the tragic triad- we can’t escape pain, guilt and death.

36:39- Des references Resmaa Menakem’s work- My Grandmothers Hands. And the idea of clean pain vs dirty pain. Clean pain moves through our body without us projecting it on someone else.

37:22 Desmond- there are ways to communicate what we actually feel. This piece is hard for people in authority to do if they are not in the practice of doing this work.

38:12 Desmond- thats admitting as teachers we don’t have the answers… Jesse - “but my liberation is bound up with yours so let’s do this together."

39:20- Jesse - “ part of our human experience is to take our pain and use the energy to architect our life- make something beautiful."

39:38- Freestyling with key words and phrases: artform, multiple points of entry, genius, school journey, liberation, 4 agreements, perfectionism, joy and self care.