Breaking Through - A Compton High School Teacher Discovers a Way to Bridge Toxic Divides - Part 1 (Ep. 18)

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Episode Notes

In Part 1 of this story, Jason Morgan, a high school math teacher from Compton, California, describes the innovative program he created called SEND (Student Empathy Network for Diversity) that was designed to strengthen relationships among students and parents in different parts of Los Angeles.

“I was talking with my neighbor during the height of like the George Floyd, murder,” Mr. Morgan recalls. “And we were talking about how it's gonna be really hard for communities to come together because we don't live with each other…but I thought about how can we bring our youth together in different settings, so that our youth could actually develop this empathy with communities that they normally would not engage with.”

What’s fascinating about this story is how many of the bridging strategies that previous guests on this podcast have described have played a role in Mr. Morgan’s SEND program. Like contact theory that journalist Amanda Ripley talks about where strangers (and even adversaries) spend time with each other on their own turf, often solving problems together. Or, what my guest Peter Coleman talks about in his book about toxic polarization - the critical role that physical movement plays in strengthening relationships and building empathy.

In Part 2 of this story, students (and a parent) talk about their experiences participating in SEND. One student, Max, said this about the program: “I think whenever you get the chance to just be with people who think differently, who live differently, do it…I've learned so much just being around people who are different than me…seeing how they live life rather than maybe how I think their life is like…The more you can just be with different people, the better you're gonna understand this world.”

Featured Guest:

Jason Lee Morgan

Math/AVID Teacher, Dominguez High School, Compton California

This bio is from Above & Beyond, an organization that annually recognizes outstanding teachers in California. Mr. Morgan was honored as Teacher of the Year in 2017.

Jason was born and spent the first part of his life in south central Los Angeles. His first grade teacher recognized how interested he was in learning because his mother worked with him before he got to school. He entered the first grade ready and eager to learn. The teacher told his mother he would get a better education if she agreed for him to be bussed into the Northridge area, which was an hour from his house. Jason remembers the long bus rides each morning and afternoon; but, more importantly, he recognized he was lucky to receive an excellent education.

Jason’s family eventually moved from south central LA to the Riverside area, where he attended high school. During that transition, he wondered what happened to all his neighborhood friends who did not get bussed and who did not have an opportunity to get a “good education.” When he realized how unfair it was, he began to develop a desire to become a teacher to do what he could for kids like him who did not had an equal opportunity for a quality education.

Jason attended Stanford University, where he majored in Economics and earned his BA in Economics. Shortly after graduating, he was hired as a long term substitute teacher at Dominguez High School where he taught Algebra to ninth grade students and used a new curriculum called “Story Math,” which required students to apply each math unit to real world translations utilizing Math based scenarios and the new foreign language “Mathenese.” Jason found this to be a very effective approach to teaching Algebra. His students were actively engaged in the process and routinely outscored course-alike peers across the district on benchmark and state exams; his honors students consistently outperformed and/or met the state averages, which was unheard of in his district. Consequently, Jason was asked to serve as the Algebra I Professional Learning Community Chair, supporting a cohort of teachers with meeting oversight, sharing of best practices, data analysis, common assessment development and college support.

​Eventually, Jason was hired full time at Dominguez where he has continued to teach basic math, Algebra I and Honors Algebra. His second year as a full-time teacher, he was assigned to teach the AVID elective, which he has been teaching for the past five years. In 2015, he took over as the AVID Coordinator.

Related Resources:

Watch Jason Morgan talk about the SEND program in this YouTube video.

About the Show:

Courageous Conversations About Our Schools is a podcast that brings people together for respectful conversations about today’s most contentious issues affecting our schools.

Host, Ken Futernick

Courageous Conversations About Our Schools is hosted by Ken Futernick. Ken also hosts Teacher Stories, a podcast about the profound impact so many teachers have on their students and communities. Teacher Stories produced a special series of episodes on the question, What can schools do to help save our democracy?

Ken is an experienced moderator, a teacher educator, and a long-time advocate for collaboration and civil dialogue.

He is the author of the book, The Courage to Collaborate - the Case for Labor-Management Collaboration in Education.

Please feel free to send comments and questions to ken@schoolconversations.org.