Dr. Freire's work is such a deep part of the very concept of this entire podcast series, but is most evident in:

1. "A New Way Foward" --Why Must We Leave our Profession to Lead it? (And the entire petition as well)

2. "This Mess is Killing Us" --Both the Screaming into the Abyss, and Dying Early Deaths episodes

3. "The Insidious War on Teacher Autonomy"--Sycophants and the Cult of Personality

(source: The Freire Institute) Paulo Freire’s work has influenced people working in education, community development, community health and many other fields. Freire developed an approach to education that links the identification of issues to positive action for change and development. While Freire’s original work was in adult literacy, his approach leads us to think about how we can ‘read’ the society around us.

For Freire, the educational process is never neutral. People can be passive recipients of knowledge — whatever the content — or they can engage in a ‘problem-posing’ approach in which they become active participants. As part of this approach, it is essential that people link knowledge to action so that they actively work to change their societies at a local level and beyond.

In the [linked] video, Freire talks about the importance of curiosity, of critical thinking and ultimately of hope. It is a profound reflection on learning.

A note from Trina:

I cannot express my gratitude enough to the work of Paulo Freire. I found his essential work entitled, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" when I was starving for a praxis which honored the irreplaceable and essential expertise of current teachers and was centered on love and hope for everyone in the K-12 educational complex. His work both informed and validated my feminist critical approach, which centers affinity spaces for oppressed people to distill their own precious narratives to create the true discourse needed for radical reforms. I don't pretend to understand everything espoused by this true intellectual giant, but his ability to merge his incredibly profound reflections on the oppression all around us through the lens of historical systems, and his deep and unabiding optimism will always be my "better angels" and my north star. He teaches me that it is not enough to know it, and call it out--we've got to get into the hard work of bringing us all together to fix it.

Possesses sage knowledge in the following topics in our series:

1. "The Teacher Pay Mess" -- The lack of a national association of teachers with the ability to shape and form our own standards of practice, and board of ethics.

2. "The Canned Curriculum Mess"--The lack of teacher autonomy/the false promise of charter schools and privitization of K-12 schooling in the US.

(source: Network for Public Education)Diane Ravitch was a Research Professor of Education at New York University from 1995-2020 and is a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE). NPE has 350,000 followers and is the single largest organization of parents and teachers and other citizens working to stop the privatization of public education and the misuse of standardized testing. Its goal is to preserve, protect and improve public schools.

Dr. Ravitch's Blog

A Note From Us: There are many reasons to admire Dr. Ravitch, but perhaps the most endearing quality that she possesses is the ability to openly change her mind, and challenge her own, formerly lauded ideas. What a rebel!!!

Possesses Sage Knowledge in the following topics in our series:

1." The Reading Instruction Mess"--the racial reading opportunity gap in the US, and adovacy work around the science of reading.

(source: FULCRUM)Kareem is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of FULCRUM. He is an award-winning educator and community advocate with extensive experience leading schools and systems in district, juvenile justice, and managed-care settings. His advocacy is featured in the 2023 documentary The Right to Read.

Kareem’s commitment to literacy is deep-rooted. He credits the quality of his education to a program through A Better Chance, a nonprofit that provides high-performing students of color access to the best schools, helping them become the nation’s next leaders... He is the current 2nd Vice President and Education Committee Chair for the Oakland NAACP.

In 2018, Kareem took a year-long hiatus to examine a critical question: Why weren’t children in Oakland reading? His research and exploration unearthed jarring realizations that eventually led to FULCRUM. Read the full story here...

A Note From Us: Dr. Weaver is a rebel warrior who we just ADORE! But he was also gracious enough to have a long and beautiful conversation with me (Trina) during my time of exploration about the reading opportunity gap. I was being was gaslit from all sides, and was told that there "was no problem" when I asked why so many kids could not read. Dr. Weaver validated me, listened to me, and dialogued with me openly about the solution framework: taking the wise sages--the high quality veteran first grade teachers in the US--and paying them extra for their knowledge, by turning them into expert coaches and reading instructional leaders who also are trusted alone make decisions about curriculum and instruction in a district!

The idea here starts with the acknolwedgement that we lack enough veteran reading teachers on the ground floor, and that teaching reading is HARD--and NO curriculum can stand in for the lack of a trained reading teacher.

Our idea allows our nation's veteran reading teachers the opportunity to push into first and second grade classrooms to deliver tier 1 reading instruction, and mentor new teachers until they are ready to take the reigns for themselves. No child should have to suffer through even a single year of a brand new teacher during their critical foundations of reading years!

Possesses sage knowledge in the following topics in our series:

1. "How Big Is the Mess/The Man Who Studied the Mess" (from the episodes on, "An Introduction to the Mess")

The lack of consistency in K-12 teacher vacancy reporting (and the convulted nature of K-12 governance), the need for greater nuance in the collecting and consideration of data, the need for more consistent and precise vocabulary when describing/characterizing teacher shortages

2. "The Teacher Pay Mess."

(source: paul-bruno.com) Dr. Bruno is an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He uses quantitative methods to study school finance, school choice, resource allocation in schools, and teacher quality. In addition to writing policy briefs and reports for policymakers and practitioners, his research has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Review of Public Personnel Administration, Educational Administration Quarterly,  Journal of Education Finance, American Educational Research Journal, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

A Note From Us: besides being the co-author of the ground breaking research on the extent of the teacher shortage crisis in the US, Dr. Bruno has a precious and rare quality in K-12 leadership and scholarship--he is humble and deeply curious about the root causes of our misconceptions and preconceived notions about K-12 schooling. He also advocates for a MUCH needed slow, and methodical approach toward data and research in our field, and argues for greater nuance in our investigations of the problems in K-12 educaiton. Things are rarely simple in our world, and quick approaches which involve ticking boxes, which preclude robust conversations are the heart of what is wrong in K-12 education! Thank you Dr. Bruno for pushing back against superficial and incomplete examinations of data in K-12 scholarship!

Possesses sage knowledge in the following topics in our series:

1. "The Special Mess of Special Education"

2. "The Educational Equity Mess"

(source: ssasv.org) Manuwella Allen is a 26 year teaching veteran who has been a tireless advocate for students with special needs, as well as a champion for racial and gender equity justice in K-12 education. She has facilitated ethnic girls studies courses, Black Student Unions, and has been a vocal critic of Title IX implementation issues. She has served for years in her top level teacher union leadership, as well as in the black women's caucus of the California Teachers Association. She is currently leading her district’s efforts to bring a social justice focus into the elementary education level.

Notes From Us: I (Trina) am incredibly blessed to call Mani a dear and close personal friend. Part of my chosen family, Mani played an integral part of the founding of School Staff Against Sexual Violence--an organization she helped form from its conception. She is the rarest of rare breeds of leaders in K-12 Schooling--she has stayed teaching while being at the forefront of some of the most groundbreaking work afoot in K-12 equity based reforms. I love you Ms. Mani.

The Father of US K-12 Schooling

Possessed sage Knowledge in the following topics in our series:

1."An Introduction to the Mess"

2. "The Teacher Pay Mess"

(source: Britannica.com) Horace Mann (born May 4, 1796, Franklin, Massachusetts, U.S.—died August 2, 1859, Yellow Springs, Ohio) was an American educator, the first great American advocate of public education who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method, and reliant on well-trained professional teachers.

Mann grew up in an environment ruled by poverty, hardship, and self-denial. He was taught briefly and erratically by comparatively poor teachers, but he managed to educate himself in the Franklin town library, and, with tutoring in Latin and Greek from Samuel Barrett (later a leading Unitarian minister), he gained admission at the age of 20 to the sophomore class at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island). He did brilliant work at Brown, manifesting great interest in problems of politics, education, and social reform; his valedictory address, on the gradual advancement of the human race in dignity and happiness, was a model of humanitarian optimism, offering a way in which education, philanthropy, and republicanism could combine to allay the wants and shortcomings that beset humankind.

Notes From Us: While I (Trina) am openly critical of the structural sexism that he and others in Congress in the 19th century baked into our profession from the start (they set up our profession to be explicitly for women who would be paid only a third of the salaries of similarly qualified men), I am deeply in love with this dude, and am incredibly proud of his work.