Meet our Advisors and our Staff. And, a word about our current and upcoming podcast episodes.
Our Advisory Board
Two years ago, we launched Courageous Conversations about our Schools. We have now produced over 20 podcast episodes, published a regular newsletter and BLOG, and provided on-the-ground support to a number of educators, parents, and school leaders seeking better ways to collaborate. I decided it was time to create a formal Advisory Board – people I could lean on for advice about the stories we should be covering, the people we should be interviewing, and the bridging strategies we should be promoting.
It’s my great honor to introduce you to the amazing people who agreed to serve in this capacity - a team that includes some of the nation’s best minds on conflict and polarization. Several of them have been guests on our podcast, and all of them are deeply committed to our mission: to create spaces where educators, parents, students, and policymakers can speak from the heart, listen to one another, and engage in fruitful conversations that strengthen America’s public schools.
Amanda Ripley is a New York Times bestselling author, Washington Post contributor, and the co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict.
Mónica Guzmán is a Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit organization working to depolarize America.
Peter T. Coleman is a Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, where he directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.
Joan Blades co-founded Living Room Conversations, an open-source resource designed to rebuild respectful discourse across ideological, cultural, and party lines while embracing shared values.
Kenann McKenzie is the founder of Aspiring Spirit, and host of a podcast by the same name. Her background and expertise include civic engagement research and practice, organizational consulting, PreK-12 schools, and higher education professional development.
Yordanos Lemma is a high school senior dedicated to advocating for educational equity and civic engagement in the Greater Philadelphia area. As a first-generation Ethiopian American, Yordanos is passionate about helping traditionally overlooked students succeed.
Erika Sanzi is a former teacher and dean of students. An education advocate. A blogger. A local newspaper columnist and the Director of Outreach at Parents Defending Education.
Carl Cohn is a professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University. His 50-year career in education has included service as a Teacher, School Counselor, Central Office Administrator, Superintendent at both Long Beach and San Diego, and Federal Court Monitor in Los Angeles.
Christopher Kulesza is a scholar for the Child Health Policy Program at Baker Institute, where he conducts research in child and community health policy. He is also the National Committeeman for the Texas Young Republicans Federation.
Chris Hasegawa is a professor of education at California State University, Monterey Bay, and serves as the President of the Board of Trustees for the Spreckels Union School District near Salinas, California.
Jason Morgan is a Math/AVID Teacher at Dominguez High School in Compton, California, and the founder of SEND (Student Empathy Network for Diversity), which is designed to strengthen relationships among students and parents in various regions of Los Angeles.
Read more about these individuals and view their pictures on our Advisory Board webpage.
Our Staff
I am also eager to have you meet our support staff, two highly talented and dedicated individuals who have been with me from the start of this project.
Natalie Millanes serves as our Communication and Marketing Manager, where she applies her strategic vision and creative expertise to support our branding and outreach efforts. Motivated by a strong passion for education and backed by rich marketing experience, Natalie seamlessly integrates innovative communication strategies with meaningful marketing campaigns to further our mission and programs.
Nathan Dalton, our podcast engineer, is a multimedia journalist based in Berkeley. With longtime visionary storytellers The Kitchen Sisters, he produced the James Beard- and DuPont-Columbia Award-winning series Hidden Kitchens for NPR’s Morning Edition and the Webby Award-winning podcast The Kitchen Sisters Present.
Read more about Natalie, Nathan, and me on our website.
Current and Upcoming Episodes
I want to call your attention to a timely and fascinating podcast episode we posted recently about free speech in schools. My guests and I focused on this question: Do Discomfort, Anguish, and Divisive Concepts Belong in the Classroom? It’s an important question because nearly 20 states have passed legislation prohibiting public school educators from teaching “divisive concepts” or any content that might cause students to feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.
As a host I am always looking for opportunities to find the nuance and complexity in the issues I discuss with my guests. That always makes for more interesting conversation because it’s less easy to fall back our familiar principles and values. If we’re honest and humble, we’re forced to pause and say, “I have to think about that.”
My guests and I generally agreed in our response to the question about what belongs in the classroom, but an interesting discussion emerged when I described a strategy a friend of mine used when teaching high school English. From time to time, a student of his would express doubt and want to take a contrary position, something that was already settled, like whether the holocaust actually happened or whether claims about global warming were actually a hoax. Rather than tell these students that such endeavors were off-limits, he would allow them to conduct their own research and to submit essays opposing settled issues – provided they would do their best to provide credible evidence in support of their position and explain the weaknesses of the evidence for the other side.
At about the 16:02 mark in this episode, the question I posed to my guests was whether this was a sound pedagogical strategy. I urge you to listen in to the discussion that followed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, just published: A Conversation with Daniel Buck- Defender of the Education Culture Wars (Ep. 23) When Buck’s article, “In Defense of the Education Culture Wars,” appeared in my news feed, I thought, Is this guy kidding? Is he seriously arguing that the culture wars are a good thing for schools? After reading it and realizing that he was making a serious case, I thought, I have to get this guy on my show. He agreed and we had an interesting exchange.
Upcoming episodes:
A conversation with the authors of Morning Classroom Conversations, a book for educators who want to build students’ social-emotional, character, and communication skills.
A conversation about school choice – charter schools, vouchers, and homeschooling. Two of the four guests generally advocate for more choice, while the other two oppose many of the school choice options being promoted across the country.
A multi-part series about a culture war that almost erupted in Middletown, Ohio but was averted by some unexpected, counterintuitive moves made by the district superintendent and his board.