The Minimalist Educator Podcast
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 052: Unlocking Equity in Education with Dr. Sheldon Eakins
Get ready to unlock the secrets of creating equitable educational environments in our latest episode featuring Dr. Sheldon Eakins, the visionary behind the Leading Equity Center. Gain firsthand insight into Dr. Eakins' experiences as a Black educator navigating predominantly white spaces in Idaho. His compelling journey underscores the critical need for conducting thorough audits in schools to pinpoint areas requiring improvement, ultimately fostering more inclusive practices. You'll learn not just the 'why' but also the 'how' of implementing these audits to create a supportive learning atmosphere for all students.
But that’s not all—join us as we dive into the powerful strategies for empowering student voices, a fundamental component in building a sense of belonging and inclusivity. Learn how to effectively address microaggressions, implicit biases, and tokenism within your school environment. Discover the transformative potential of advocacy rooms and affinity groups, and how they can serve as vital platforms for students to share their experiences and influence school policies. This segment is packed with actionable advice to help educators engage students and staff in meaningful conversations about equity.
Finally, we tackle the nuanced challenge of addressing bias through a real-world classroom example that unintentionally marginalized students from diverse backgrounds. Hear the thought-provoking discussion on the importance of being mindful of students' varied histories and the need to adapt traditions and language to prevent harm. Wrapping up, we explore the concept of minimalism in education and its benefits for creating equitable schools. Join Tammy, Christine, and our expert guests as we uncover practical steps for educators dedicated to fostering an inclusive, supportive, and equitable learning environment.
Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D., is the Founder of the Leading Equity Center. Dr. Eakins is also the host of The Art of Advocacy Livestream and the Leading Equity Podcast. Furthermore, Dr. Eakins is the author of Leading Equity: Becoming an Advocate for All Students. With over 15 years in education, he has served as a teacher, school principal, adjunct professor, and Director of Special Education.
Sheldon Eakins is passionate about helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a B.S. degree in Social Science Education, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in K-12 Education.
This episode is sponsored by Leading Equity Center - Leading Equity delivers an eye-opening and actionable discussion of how to transform a classroom or school into a more equitable place.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musialski-Borneman and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:In this episode we speak to Dr Sheldon Eakins about his work in equity in education. We discuss what commonly comes to the fore in his work with schools and some strategies for us to all move forward in our journey towards equity. Sheldon Eakins, phd, is the founder of the Leading Equity Centre. Dr Eakins is also the host of the Art of Advocacy live stream and the Leading Equity podcast. Furthermore, dr Eakins is the author of Leading Equity Becoming an Advocate for All Students. With over 15 years in education, he has served as a teacher, school principal, adjunct professor and director of special education. Sheldon Eakins is passionate about helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a BS degree in social science education and an MS degree in educational leadership and a PhD in K-12 education. Bs degree in social science education and an MS degree in educational leadership and a PhD in K-12 education.
Speaker 3:Welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, Christine and I are looking forward to talking to Dr Sheldon Eakins. Welcome to the show, Sheldon.
Speaker 4:Hey, thank you so much for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 3:Sheldon does work with his company called the Leading Equity Center, and so we're excited to talk to you today about all things equity, because we know how important that is to our schools, our organizations, and working with people, because that's the industry that we're in. So can you tell us a little bit about how equity work became important to you?
Speaker 4:You know it's. One could argue it's been a lifelong journey. But I guess maybe when I became more intentional with the work is, you know, I, I was living in idaho, so I recently relocated to phoenix, arizona, like recently, like april, yeah, yeah, definitely hot. Uh, it's crazy because I started off wearing suits every day and all the locals was like, okay, you play around with them suits every day. And, sure enough, I'm kind of like reducing it down to just shirt and tie and as it's getting hotter, I might be down to just polo shirts because it's it's hot, it's definitely hot. Um, so, but, but I like, I like it here.
Speaker 4:Um, but before moving to phoenix, I was in idaho and I lived in Idaho for seven, eight years, and I mean, being a black man living in Idaho, I mean I could, I could tell you some stories, and so I think that's when I kind of got a little bit more intentional. I started my podcast about five years ago. It's just because I I was trying to figure out how to navigate life as an educator in this space, and not only me, but just like my teachers and staff and students, my own children were Texas, like I knew exactly who didn't like me and and where not to go versus moving here. It was like a lot of undercover stuff, and so it was just like it wouldn't be until later on. I was like wait a second.
Speaker 4:What did they just say to me? And it was like, oh man, it's too late, like I didn't know how to, like I should have said something then, but I didn't know what to say or how to respond, because I always assume that people have the best intentions and so, but I didn't know how to address it without, like, being able to be able to have those kind of conversations.
Speaker 2:So that's, I would say, about five years ago, when I started the show, is when I became more intentional, but arguably it's a lifelong journey arguably it's a lifelong journey, and so, through this work that you've been doing with organizations and schools, are there some common themes, some common topics, some common areas that keep coming up over and over again, that seem to be at the forefront of what the work needs to be.
Speaker 4:So I would say this yes, yes. So I would say that I tend to go into predominantly white schools, and when I say predominantly white schools, I'm talking about staffing, ethnic races and things like that type of representation within their school setting. But often I mean I mean, if we look nationally, at least in the United States, you know we're 80, I want to say it's like 83% white as far as educators go. And it's not necessarily like I'm here to discuss it in that perspective, it's just more. We have teachers that are like look, I don't look like the kids that I'm serving. I want to help them, I want to be as best as I can. What tips can you give me? And so that has been the, I guess, the overarching thing why people tend to bring me in. And then, on the other end, sometimes I'll have individuals that will bring me in because they think they don't have any challenges. Oh, you know that equity stuff. You know that's, that's national, new, that's not our school, that's not here. Uh, those are other schools, little stuff you see on the news, like we don't do those kinds of things. Our kids feel very valued and appreciated, you know they're thriving here.
Speaker 4:And so I like to do an audit, uh, which is an assessment and just a strategy. Okay, I hear what you're saying. Well, let's just take a look, let's look at what the data says, and we kind of go through different areas like the mission statement. What does your mission statement look like? What does your professional development look like, what does your leadership look like, what is your staff and what is your communication All these different areas that we touch on. And so there's another approach that I come with, I guess, strategies or support in that direction.
Speaker 4:So we do the assessment and then we look at it, we break it down and say what are some things that we could do tomorrow, what are some things we could do six months, and then what are some things that might be a one to three year type of strategy, but at least we're making some progress. So there's some folks that believe that we don't have challenges and there's some folks that know we have challenges and they're just looking for sometimes just talking points. Sometimes people just reach out and they just say we don't know what to say, what? I'm not a Black person, so I don't know. I don't feel right approaching it or addressing it, so maybe I just pretend like I didn't hear it, but I see. You know there's a lot of different layers there, but the first thing is you need to be willing to want to provide support or resources for your students because ultimately, we want them to thrive.
Speaker 3:I really wish that I had known you when I taught in New York City, because I taught in public school and I was teaching in a school in Harlem and you know, like young, younger white woman I'm still young, obviously, but working in a school where all the none of the kids looked like me, right, like. So it was my first experience working in a school where it was mostly black and brown kids and we did have some a very mixed staff, which was really great to be able to work with a mixed staff, because that was not where I was coming from, and so I learned a lot in that. But I think having an outside source to be able to help you identify the inequities in what you think is an equitable environment for your kids is so helpful. So, like your audit that you mentioned is such a great tool to be able to use because you know when you're in your bubble right, you think, yeah, we're doing this, like this is how we're supporting each other and our kids and whatever.
Speaker 3:Bubble right, you think, yeah, we're doing this, like this is how we're supporting each other and our kids and whatever. But then that outside perspective is so powerful because you don't see a lot of the things when you're living in your own house, and so, yes, I really wish I knew then, because it would have been so great to have someone come in and just help us with some of those things, those very things that you just mentioned. So you talked about using an audit as a tool to help people kind of see and go through what they have and what's not in place yet. Are there some other structures that you propose to schools to put in place right away where you're like, okay, this is a really glaring issue.
Speaker 4:Here's a thing to just think about, because this could be the thing that changes that well, I've been shifting a lot of my conversations, and even workshops and trainings, to just overarching, creating a sense of belonging. I found that, you know, with the you know, I would say, probably since george floyd um, you've, you've there was a big push for anti-racist work and anti-bias work. Then critical race theory started to come about on the other end, and just so much political stuff these days, and semantics is where a lot of things boil down to. And I said, okay, as a person who's known for doing diversity, equity, inclusion work, belonging work. What are some areas that we can find? Maybe some common ground? Because, at the end of the day, we want our kids to thrive right, I think we can all agree on that, whether you know whatever terminology I utilize.
Speaker 4:So, for me, I started looking at creating a sense of belonging. I think, if we can agree that, at the end of the day, in order for students to succeed in academic work, we also want to make sure that they feel as if they belong, feel as if they're included within the school community, as if they're accepted and supported, I think we can all agree on that, and so that is the approach that I often take is let's boil it down to what will it take for this student? Let's just take your average student. Let's take a student that's maybe not as popular. Let's take a student that tends to be pretty quiet or maybe a little off to themselves, type of thing. What would it take for them to feel accepted, supported, included? And so those are the strategies that I tend to use, and sometimes that's conversations on what tokenism is.
Speaker 4:What does exclusion look like? What are microaggressions? What are implicit biases that we might hold? What are some things that we're doing unintentionally Because, again, we're assuming best intentions from our staff or those who are in front of kids, where we're assuming they just oblivious, they've grown up in a world, they've grown up in a city or town where they just didn't have to consider a lot of things, and so it's just not at their forefront. However, how do I engage them in a way that they can recognize oh shoot, I didn't even think about it from this perspective. So that's the typical approach that I take. Sure, I have online courses and of course, I have my current book, which is Lean Equity Becoming an Advocate for All Students, and those are also extra areas for support. But I just think, if we're just looking at it from a sense of belonging standpoint. We start there. That can lead to so many more discussions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds really great. I love that thinking, but it's making me wonder about the role of student voice in this work. So you know we're talking a lot about what the teachers can do, what we can do at a systemic level. So what role and how can we engage and include the student voice in all of this?
Speaker 4:a good question because, at the end of the day, I can give all the PDs all the professional development support for my staff, our staff, whoever it is. It doesn't necessarily mean that the student's experience is going to change because, at the end of the day, kids are smart enough to know not to tease you in front of adults. They're smart enough to know not to say this, say that or do this or do that in front of adults. So, yeah, I did PD and, okay, I've been trained on how to respond. When I see a kid get bullied, okay, I saw it, so now I know how to deal with it. Right, but then what happens again? On the playground, lunchroom, in the hallways and bathrooms where stuff is taking place, and there's no, nobody around. How does a student feel empowered to respond and stand up for themselves without getting into a fight and getting expelled or suspended, whatever that repercussion looks like? Okay, depending on whatever school setting. And so that is another piece that I've discovered over the years. It's like you know what? Yes, you spend a lot of time with adults, but the kids are the ones that are impacted the most with a lot of the stuff that you're doing. You need to work with them too. So I've been doing a lot of support for my students.
Speaker 4:For that voice that you mentioned, I have a whole area of we call it the advocacy room, where we work with basically small affinity groups with students, maybe student leadership, maybe it's individuals within your high school, middle school, that are looking for support for, okay, a student just called me a racial slur. How do I respond? So we take them through a lot of scenarios. Okay, kid said this to you. What do you do? How do you respond? How do you defend yourself? What is it called? You know, we give them terminology. This is what a microaggression is. This is what social justice support. This is like various terms that you should learn, know about at 15, 16 years old.
Speaker 4:And here's some strategies or scenarios, some ways that you can stand up for yourself in a respectful manner that's not going to get you in trouble. And then here's some ways that you can bring awareness to your administrator or your teachers. And so we asked them in the beginning of our session. We say, hey, if money wasn't an issue, resources wasn't an issue, what would make your school experience better? What would it take? And so they might list out of four or five things and we choose one or two of those things and say, ok, so now these are two areas that you said would be better for you for growth. How does, how do we present this to an administrator so that it's not just us complaining but we're also providing solutions to them as well? So we help them put a whole PowerPoint presentation. Here's the area of challenges that we're facing. Here's some possible strategies to support us to make it better. Here we go, and so they present that to their administrators. That's that voice that we're talking about.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I hear people say stuff like you know, we want to give kids voice. I don't believe in giving kids voice. They have a voice already. We want to make sure that we're listening to them and not listening to them on our own time. You know, come see me next week. We'll provide some space for you for this assembly, or we'll do this, we'll do it. No, they're coming to you right now. What can we do about it? At this moment, at least say you know what I hear you. Thank you for taking this time. I need a little time to debrief or think about this. Can I get back to you? But at least I heard them in that moment and not say well, come see me during my office hours between nine and five next week.
Speaker 3:I love that Christina and I are such big I'm going to say supporters, but that's not quite the right word but we've talked a lot and done a lot of work around like student agency and making sure kids have just any opportunity in the classroom, outside the classroom, to share their thinking, their voice, their ideas and obviously all of this work is about them.
Speaker 3:And we just sometimes forget that we overlook it, them, and we just sometimes forget that we overlook it. And so when, when we're in this kind of work because it is very it's a big thing to work on and bigger in some areas than others so what are some things that even in schools that are really strong in their equity practices that are overlooked, like and I kind of mentioned this before like when you're in your own little bubble you don't see things. But what are some things that people either overlook as oh, I didn't realize that was an equity thing or like are a challenge for them to address?
Speaker 4:I think, like what we okay, I would start with what are some quote unquote traditional practices, so like a lot of stuff will come down to heritage or this is what we've always done and so it's overlooked. In that sense, it's like now I'm asking you to change it or look at it from a different lens. So, while you might enjoy this activity, you might enjoy this event or this lesson that you do every year and it goes well every year, but you've never considered or thought about how this might impact certain groups of people in a negative standpoint. And I'll give you an example when my daughter was in the third grade, she had an amazing teacher, great teacher. He did an activity where it was basically kind of like your family tree type of thing you know, tell us where your family comes from and so it was presented in a tell us or celebrate how you became part of the United States. So trace your lineage, your ancestry, how you became a part of the US, and they had a whole project. Now he does this every year. What he didn't consider is people like me when it comes to how we became part of the United States. That's not necessarily a story that, first of all, that I know about, like I don't know, like I've done. My ancestry I've known from West Africa, but my people were forcibly brought over here. Not necessarily a celebration that I want to have, um, and so my daughter comes home. She's like daddy I, this is the project, and I don't really know how I feel about this. And she's in the third grade, which is like I don't really know how I feel about this, and I'm like, yeah, let's go to the school and let's talk to the teacher. What can we work out?
Speaker 4:I went to the school, went to the teacher and I said I feel like this is a great activity. I know that you're. You mean. Well, however, this is going to impact a lot of folks that aren't from European descent and I said, well, you might have students that are excited to share their. You know, my family came in from England and they're escaping religious freedom or it's taxation, representation, whatever right. Their background story was that's great for them and they probably have access to that information. They can ask somebody or they can trace it. However, my folks, we don't have that same experience, we don't share that same sentiment, and I said, in addition to me and any other Black student that you might have. There's other students, for example, that are undocumented in the United States, and so again celebrating how they became members or citizens of the United States, and so again celebrating how they became members or citizens of the United States. Blah, blah, blah. They might have had to do some illegal activities in order to get here, okay. Lastly, there's going to be individuals that were already here.
Speaker 4:Native Americans are in your classroom. So now we're doing this assignment that you love to do every single year, but you didn't think about how this might impact certain groups of people who have different experiences than what the over. So you might have 30 kids in your classroom. You might have two Native American kids, one black my daughter's the only black girl in her class and you might have some undocumented students and we're talking maybe, let's say, five kids that are going to feel as if they don't belong in this setting. I mean, just imagine being Native American and you got to watch all your peers celebrate how they took your land.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my, my family's fourth generation. Idahoan, my family. Yeah, that was my area, reservation Idahoan. Yeah, that was my area, that was my family's area. We live on a reservation now. So these are things that we don't think about. Like you said, always done it. We do it every year. This is our annual event, this is our celebration, this is our mascot. These are things that we do not thinking about it because it's always been done.
Speaker 4:And when I bring a lot of these kinds of things to people's attention, they're like oh my goodness, I never thought about it that way and it's fine, unintentional, because you didn't have to. You didn't have like you just lived in a world where it doesn't make you a bad person, and then you just never been privy to it. But now'm bringing it to your attention. What are you going to do? I think maya angelo says something like you know, when you know better, do better. Because I legit will do sessions.
Speaker 4:I talk about racial slurs and I'll talk about some of the stuff that we say all the time that has, uh, I guess, racist origins, such as terms such as, uh, bottom of the totem pole or or off the you know, this person's gone off the reservation, or this. You know, let's have a little powwow and let's get together and talk about it. These are things that we say all the time Very common language, but who are we talking about in a lot like who's's referenced. Where are these terms coming from? So I'll explain a lot of stuff where stuff comes from and the origins, and these are common language and I legitimately have had assistant principals or even principals that say stuff like well, other people probably don't know about these terms, so is it okay if I still use it? I'm like you're a principal, I just told you this is wrong. And here's where these statements come from.
Speaker 4:Why would you still want to use like, why would you still want to say it? Like, if you know better, do better. So it's these little things, and if I had time, I could tell you so many different things that we don't necessarily think about that. We just have the best intentions. However, once it's brought to your attention, what are you going to do with that information? Are you going to keep doing it all because no one else will know about it, or are you going to take this as an opportunity to say you know what? I just heard my peers say that. I just heard my partner say it. I just heard a colleague say this where, hey, you probably didn't know anything about it, but you know where that term really came from and the impact it might have on certain groups of people.
Speaker 3:Sheldon, we could talk to you for, like you know, a few hours, but that are. We try to keep our episodes about half an hour long and we're getting to that point. So at the end of each episode, we do ask our guests for we call it a pare down pointer. We do ask our guests for we call it a pare down pointer, and that's so we've been talking. You know, big things like equity is a big, a big thing that we're working on globally. So if you are going to give somebody a pare down pointer to just say like if you're going to take your first step into this work, here's the thing to do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I always say start with yourself in order to recognize that there needs to be changes made. Need to recognize that there needs to be changes made. Um, start with your inner work. Um, I, I, I. Anytime I do a series of workshops and trainings, I typically try to start with implicit bias work. Um, I do not believe that you can end bias. I'm a full-time consultant. I do this work all the time. Guess what? I have bias right.
Speaker 4:So it doesn't make us bad people, it's just, it's part of human nature. That's who we are. But we need to at least try to recognize those things. And that's the first place to start is recognizing what bias do I hold? And so what are some areas for growth? There's always room for growth. I don't care how long I mean.
Speaker 4:Again, as an example myself, I do this all the time. I can always learn more because, at the end of the day, there's things that I will never experience. I will not know what it's like to feel gender discrimination or or uh, I don't worry about walking down the street in dark or getting ready for the camera and I have to put makeup on in order to be camera ready. I don't have to think about those types of things. So what biases do I hold as a male, maybe as an educated male, english as my first language? What are some areas that I am already good, that I don't necessarily have to think about? But if I'm not open to these conversations, if I'm just being defensive and I'm not prepared to have these kind of conversations, then what good is that going to do, not just for myself and my own personal growth and professional growth, but also for the students that I'm serving?
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for that, sheldon, and thank you for your time. It was a pleasure talking to you today.
Speaker 4:My pleasure. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2:This episode was brought to you by the Leading Equity Center. Leading Equity delivers an eye-opening and actionable discussion of how to transform a classroom or school into a more equitable place school into a more equitable place.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at PlanZPLS on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti. Thank you.
