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WELCOME TO SEASON 2!! In this episode, I’m excited to catch up with you all after a summer break filled with some big changes. I’ll be sharing my personal journey, including my experience with COVID-19, updates to my website (which now has a blog and podcast section!), and the launch of my new newsletter. On a personal note, I’m thrilled to share that I’ve become a professor and have plans to apply to grad school soon!
The Conscious Pathways podcast is also getting a bit of a makeover—episodes will now be dropping every other week. I’ll be focusing on bringing in guests from various education settings and exploring partnerships with brands that align with our values. I’m so grateful for all the love and support from this amazing podcast community, and I hope you’ll continue to engage with the content and join me on this journey.
Key Takeaways
- Brittney shares updates on her summer break and the changes coming to the Conscious Pathways podcast.
- She discusses her experience with COVID-19 and the importance of taking time to rest and engage in hobbies.
- Brittney talks about the updates to her website, including the addition of a blog and podcast section.
- Brittney announces that the podcast will now be released every other week and shares her goals of featuring guests from different education settings and partnering with brands.
Transcript
Brittney Carey (00:11)
Hi and welcome back to Conscious Pathways, the podcast all about the intersection of education and social justice. I am your host, Brittany Carey, and welcome to season two. I am so excited to be back after taking a little break this summer. I’ll get into a little bit about what I did this summer.
But first, just want to thank you all for listening and for continuing to listen over the summer and being a part of this amazing community. I can’t thank you enough for just supporting me and all the amazing and beautiful feedback that I’ve been getting throughout the summer. It’s definitely been some amazing fuel for me to just keep going and keep doing this day after day and year after year. So I am so stoked to be back.
This summer was amazing. I did a lot of things. I didn’t do a lot of things It was just a little bit of both. So for today I just wanted to do a little chit chat a little updates on conscious pathways my business conscious pathways the podcast and a couple of personal updates that I have And what season two of this podcast is gonna look like
So the first order of business to start with, I’ll go over what I did this summer. This summer, I got COVID, so that was not the highlight of my summer. It was rough, it took me down for about a week. But honestly, that week of just being kind of stuck in the house and after I got over kind of the worst of it.
And we’re just kind of waiting to not be super contagious anymore. I actually got to rest. I didn’t do very much work during that time. I actually just rested. I took lots of naps when I needed to. And that was something that I didn’t know I needed, just like basically a full week of focusing on what I needed to focus on. And that was just me and feeling better and feeling right.
with the podcast and work and all my other things that I’m a part of, committees and things like that, my time is spread pretty thin. So it was actually kind of nice to be put on my butt and had to sit down and not do a whole lot. So I got to do some of my cozy hobbies, played some video games, did listening to music, and I read a book for fun. That was a lot of fun to actually sit down and read a physical book.
I actually read a couple of books and that felt so amazing. That was such a good feeling. So that was really a good reminder for me to just take some time to rest and to go into my cozy hobbies and what brings me joy. It was a really good reset. So the COVID itself was not amazing, but the time that I spent being cooped up in the house as an introvert was amazing. So once I was feeling a little bit better,
I started working on my website. So if you’ve been with me throughout my journey of Conscious Pathways, I’ve been learning a lot about website development. So at this current state of my business and my podcast, I am the sole person who does all of the things. So I am the web developer, I am the editor, I am the production person, I produce everything.
I am the everything behind the scenes, so I don’t really have any help behind the scenes. It is all just me for now. Eventually, I would love to get some support with that, but right now, it is all just me. And so I have been learning the beast that is WordPress all this year, and especially this summer, I took a lot of time to learn WordPress. So I’ve made some pretty big updates. There’s still a lot that I want to do with the website.
But the most important things that I’ve added, I’ve added a section for my blog. So on the blog, I plan to dive in a little bit more on the topics that I’ve discussed on the podcast and just do a deeper dive on certain aspects. So I have a couple of episodes or.
I really want to dive into, I really want to do a deeper dive on what I’ve discussed on the podcast, so some topics, some things that we didn’t get to get into as deeply as we would have wanted within a 30 to 45 one hour episode. So there’s some deeper dives on there, some things that I’ve been thinking about. I think I just published as of this week that I’m recording this. I did an episode, or I did a.
I did a blog post about gentle parenting and I’ve done things about social justice in education and literacy in education. So that’s a good spot if you’re wanting to get some more resources or dive a little bit deeper into some of these topics, the blog will be there. It’s a great way for me to just practice writing and I really love writing and so it’s been a really, really amazing opportunity to just put my brain onto the website, which is great.
Another thing that I’ve added is my podcast. So my podcast is now on my website. So when you go to my website, you can see pretty much everything is kind of a hub right now. Everything lives on the website. So the blog lives there, the podcast lives there, and it links out to all the spaces that you can listen to it. whether you like to watch it on YouTube or iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, so it links out there or you can listen to it directly on the website.
On the website, it’ll have the transcript as well. So if you’re looking to have the transcript as a part of your access to the podcast, it’ll all be there. So I was really excited. That was a big thing that I got to work on and develop. I also put a form on there. So if you would love to be a guest on the podcast or you know someone who would be an excellent guest for the podcast, there’s a form right there on the website itself that you can put in your information.
and I can reach out and set up some time to talk about it. So that’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Like I said, there’s still a lot of stuff with the podcast that I still want to do and work on. But for right now, I’m pretty proud of it. It’s still a work in progress. as you look at the website, you’ll probably see me adding a couple of things here and there. But I’m really proud of it because I do not have a web developer background and WordPress is its own.
specific beast. There’s a big learning curve with WordPress. Once you understand it, it’s pretty easy to navigate, but you gotta do a lot to understand it and you can break it pretty easily. So I have not broken the website yet, so very proud of myself. So please go look at the website and check it out and if you have any feedback or anything or something that makes more sense or something that you think should be added on there, let me know. Like I said, it’s still a work in progress. I wanna add way more things to it, so…
It’s still going to keep growing, but as of right now, this summer, I learned a lot about the website and added some really fun things. In addition to that, I started up my newsletter again. So I initially started up my newsletter at the same time that I launched the podcast. So it around this time last year that I launched the podcast. And I also launched my newsletter at the same time on LinkedIn. And it just kind of became impossible for me to do.
both of those things at the same time. So I kind of had to put one of them away so I could focus on making one thing really great and not do kind of two things just halfway. So I chose to focus on the podcast
And hopefully throughout this summer, you’ve seen me kind of reposting some of my really earlier episodes and in the process of doing that, I’ve seen the growth and development of the podcast in terms of quality and editing and everything. So it did take up a lot more time in the beginning when I launched up the podcast. Now I’ve gotten a couple of more things streamlined in a couple of ways that I do things that have made it a lot easier. So I kind of had a little bit more bandwidth. And of course, this summer, I really wanted to think about what
was the purpose of the newsletter and what did I want people to gain from it? And in my newsletter called Pathways of Promise, you can subscribe to that. It’s on the website or if you want to subscribe through LinkedIn. Or I’ve also put it in the show nights below so you can look at the newsletter there. But I really wanted to provide some actionable steps that people could take, whether you’re a parent, whether you’re an administrator, whether you’re a teacher in the classroom. I really wanted to do some actionable steps that you could.
have right directly into your inbox every week. So that’s been really fun to get back in there. Like I said, I love writing. It’s just not something I have had the opportunity to do very much of the last few years. so launching the blog and launching the newsletter has given me a really great opportunity to do that. So over the summer, I’ve done I think seven editions of the newsletter already.
So I’ve done things on gentle parenting. When I’m recording this one the week before, I just did one on intrinsic and external motivation. What I’m really proud of is my gentle parenting one and how do we focus on connection with children, especially in the face of challenging behaviors. And so that’s the newsletter is also something I want to continue to grow out as well. So I want there to be really actionable steps, really great resources.
And then I also want to look at education policy as well. So I’m debating if I want that to go on the website or if I want that to go on the newsletter. But things are changing and things are really going well. So if you’re curious about the Pathways of Promise newsletter, like I said, you can look in the show notes and link there and check it out and subscribe so you’ll get that directly into your mailbox as well.
And now on to some personal updates, some updates that are specific to just me. I know don’t really talk about myself all that much on the podcast. I tend to be more of a private person. And so there are spaces where you can interact with me while you’ll see a little bit more of my personality and my inner workings. I know on the podcast I sound very just calm and gentle, which that is me in real life. I am still a very calm and gentle person.
but I’m also very, very silly in my personal life. And so for my personal updates, I am now a professor. Yay, Professor Carey. I’m so excited. So I’ll be teaching child development at a local community college. And I am so excited to work with future educators and current educators. I’m just so incredibly excited. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years, and I’ve been working towards for a couple of years now. So.
I’ve got my first professor position and I am so excited to be doing this and especially teaching something that is so near and dear to my heart, which is child development. That is, again, it’s something I have really wanted to do for years and I’ve put in a lot of work to be able to get here and I am so excited. So I’m so stoked to become a professor and to share my knowledge and to work with, you know, young people and young adults who are wanting to be in education.
So in addition to all the things that I’m currently doing, I am on a couple of committees. I’m a part of certain groups. I run different activities outside of this. And those are more like kind of volunteer things that I do outside of my work. But in addition to all of that, so the volunteer things, the work, being a professor, conscious pathways, all that that goes into this, I’m also looking at applying to grad school. So.
I’m thinking about getting my education doctorate or a PhD in education. I’m looking at both programs. So I’m looking at applying. To some different colleges this fall. So that’s just something I’m looking into and something that I am looking forward to. I applied to one last year. I actually did get into the college that I wanted to go to, but I ended up not getting the funding. with getting a PhD or an education doctorate, so when you’re looking at
grad school in that way, you can either pay for it and get grants and things like that to pay for it or you can get it funded. And there are specific programs that are fully funded or have gotten funding for certain things and
so the program that I applied to had a full funding so that means that they would pay for all of your schooling and professional development and you would get a small stipend. It’s not very much, it’s usually like 20, 30.
you know, thousand a year for, you know, going there, but you get to get paid to go to school, which is pretty cool. So I had gotten into that program and it was a pretty hard program to get into. So I felt really good about getting into the program, but I ended up not getting the funding and this school was expensive. So I decided not to go forward with that program, but still wanted to pursue that. It kind of opened my eyes. I really wanted, after I graduated with my master’s, really
was like, well, the next step is to get a doctorate. But I was really burnt out after my master’s program. So I decided to hold off on it for a little bit, which I’m glad I did. It gave me some perspective on why do I want to do this? Is it worth doing this? How will this benefit me by doing this? Getting a doctorate degree is not something to take lightly. It’s very time consuming.
And it’s stressful and it’s hard. So you want to make sure if you’re doing it, you’re doing it for the right reasons and that it’s something that you feel like will benefit you and you want to do, not just something that you feel like you need to do or it’s the next step. So I’m really glad I took a break in between my master’s program to reflect on all of that. So I went from really wanting to do it to I don’t really know if this is something that I need to do. I don’t know if this is something that’s necessarily going to benefit me all that much if I do it.
until I saw this program that I had applied to. It was in early childhood, it was policy, it was special needs, it was kind of everything that I wanted and had a social justice component to it. And so that kind of ignited the desire in me again to want to look at, you know, going back to school. And I’m looking at it now and I think I’ve reflected a lot this past year on is this something that I want to take on? Is this something I have the capacity to take on? And I’m…
Very curious on it. feel like I’m like 93 % like, yeah, let’s do this. This makes sense. I have a little bit of hesitation there, but I feel like it’s something I want. So I’m narrowing it down to about two or three schools that make sense for what I’m looking for and have the programs that I’m looking for and have funding. And so that’s something that I’m going to be working on this fall. So again, if you have any tips, tricks, anything like that, or if you have any feedback you want to give me on that.
Feel free to reach out. All my contact is there. You can email me. You can reach out on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. I don’t know. All of those different ways. So feel free to give me some feedback if you’ve gone through it or you’re going through it. Anything like that is just amazing. I would love to hear that from you. But with all of that, so, you know, doing all the applications and still doing the newsletter and the blog and the podcast and then also, you know,
being a professor and committees and there’s just a lot on my plate. So that brings me to my next point on what’s going on with the podcast and what can you look forward to with the podcast. So as you know, if you’re listening to the podcast or if this is your first time listening to the podcast, welcome. Like I said, this podcast is about the intersection of education and social justice.
I often talk to people from all aspects of education, so both early childhood, K through 12, higher education. I’ve talked to people in research, in social work, all different aspects that kind of intersect with education and the social justice aspects of that. And that’s something that I want to continue to do with the podcast. It’s something that I think makes sense and it’s something that’s very interesting to me and it seems like it’s very interesting to you as the audience. And so that’s something I’m going to continue. That’s staying the same.
One thing I do want to add to it is I want to look at people who are not just in the classroom. I want to look at people outside of the classroom. we know that within children’s lives, there’s people who are going to influence them and touch their lives in so many different ways who may not be a classroom teacher, but they may interact with them within their community. And so I want to look more at community members and how they support education and how they support students as well.
outside of kind of our traditional education settings. So that’s another aspect that I’ll be looking into and kind of branching out. So you might see some podcasts, some episodes and some, you might see some guests from different areas of education. And so I’m really excited to work towards that. And I hope you’re, I hope you’ll like those as well. So again, always looking for feedback, let me know. And if you know a community member, someone who you think would be great on the podcast,
Feel free to direct them to the website so we can get their information. I would love to have more people to talk to and I would love it if you shared people with me. If there’s people you just think that would be great on this, please do that. I would love that. Or if you yourself wanna be on the podcast, come on the podcast, let me know, let’s talk. So there’s a ways that we can do that.
Another change that’s coming to the podcast, this is going to be a bit of a bigger change, is that I am going to go from posting every week to every other week. I’ve done a lot of reflecting on it this summer and just with everything that I am doing, especially this fall, I think it makes sense for me to have a little bit of more time in between recording and editing and then putting that out. Like I said, this is a solo operation. I do everything on my own solo dolo.
And while it brings me a lot of joy and I actually have gotten pretty good at the editing and I’m learning a lot about the editing and it’s something that I love learning about and I will continue to learn about. But I think if I want to continue to put out a high quality product for you, I need to have more time to do that. So especially for this fall season, you know, I’ll revisit this for spring and see if it’s still working or if I can kind of up.
the production and go back to posting every single week. But for right now, it’s going to switch to every other week. you know, this week you’ll get a podcast episode and next week you’ll get a newsletter edition. So if you want to keep getting content from me, subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll still get that. But that’s also going to go to every other week. I just realized that I cannot do all of these things every week and, you know, still have the bandwidth and still
Be able to produce really good high quality content and you know have a life So that’s what’s kind of shifting a little bit more with the podcast. That’s gonna be the biggest shift I Genuinely wish that I can continue to do this every single week, you know, if it were up to me, I’d have more content for you I’d have multiple episodes every week, but I just can’t I don’t have the bandwidth to do that if you want to continue to support the podcast if you want to support me in my
You know dreams of getting a podcast editor and being able to afford a podcast editor. You can actually subscribe on patreon on patreon, you’ll have so much more access. You’ll get early access to the podcast episodes You’ll get early access to the newsletter. You’ll get early access to all different kinds of fun things I feel like patreon is an area where I can really just let my you know Personality super shine just because that’s the community that we’re developing there so if you want to see a little bit more from there
You’ll also get access to ask an expert so you can ask questions for an upcoming podcast guest, and I will ask them live on the air here. I’m also going to work on getting little special tidbits and behind the scenes for my podcast guests as well. Another thing I want to do monthly live streams on Patreon as well. If you want to be a part of that, you can join me on Patreon. Again, that’s linked in my show notes below.
And any money that you want to support, can for as low as $5 a month, you can support Conscious Pathways. And my dreams of getting an editor,
As much as I love the podcast and I love editing the podcast, having one less thing on my plate will enable me to be able to do more. And I have so many dreams and so many ambitions for this podcast and the things that I just want to do and grow. I want to take the podcast on the road. I want to do so many different things. And so your support on Patreon would really help that out. But also you just listening to the podcast, sharing the podcast.
That helps me out a lot. The more listeners, the more people that you share this with, the more people who are engaging in this content. It really does help out the podcast a lot. I’m working towards something this summer. was wanting to work. Another thing that I wanted to work towards this summer was getting some more partnerships for the podcast. So as I continue to work with that, I want to be really mindful about you as my audience and who I.
And if I’m bringing in advertisers, I want to be really mindful that it makes sense and that it is in alignment with my values and it’s in alignment with the goals and the mission of this podcast and the goals and the mission that I have for that. And also it’s in alignment with my audience. So as I’m looking for brands that I want to partner with and bring in, you know, I’m being very, very intentional and very, very mindful on who I’m reaching out to and who I would love to work with. So you might see that throughout the season.
I’m really working hard on building these relationships with brands. But again, it’s something that I want to be very transparent with. I would love to have a podcast that didn’t have ads on it. If you do have ads, they’re usually not from me. They just might be from the service that you’re listening to it on. But I would love to be able to do this podcast ad free. But again, the podcast right now does not, you know,
bring me any funding. just brings me lots of joy to do it, which is amazing. But the amount of time that it does take me to edit and interview the guests and find guests and all the behind the scenes things that I need to do for the podcast, I’m not getting any revenue from that at this point. So I am looking to be very strategic and I want
to incorporate some sort of brands working with me, but I am trying to be very, very intentional about that. So that’s a change that you might see throughout the podcast throughout this season, but my promise to you is I will always be transparent and I will always be open with you on those things. And I don’t want to promote things on this podcast that don’t make sense.
That is all I have for today. This was a very, very short, just touching base welcome back to the podcast. Like I said, I will be doing the podcast every other week and I’ve been doing some pre -recording. So I think we’ll be able to get that out there. If you’re watching on YouTube, hopefully you’re kind of seeing the development of my editing skills or if you’re listening, you’re seeing the development of my editing skills. And…
I will post an episode next week and then we’ll start after that every other week. And so I’m excited. So our next podcast episode will be with Dr. Gerald and we’re gonna talk about, you know, supporting neurodivergent students of color in classrooms. So I’m so excited to put that out there. Again, don’t forget to check out the website and look for all of those changes.
of please give me any feedback, but also please, please be nice. I’m very sensitive. Don’t hurt my feelings. But I am very open to the feedback. And again, let me know if there’s guests that you want to hear, you want to see. I’m so excited for season two. I can’t believe I’m at season two of the podcast already. We already have 40 episodes of this season. 40. We already have 40 episodes of the podcast altogether, which is just an astounding number.
I am so grateful and thankful for everyone who’s listened to previous episodes, everyone who continues to listen. Thank you for your amazing feedback. Thank you for giving the podcast five stars or upvoting it. Thank you for leaving reviews. I love reading the reviews. I love hearing everything. I love hearing the feedback. It really does help to encourage me to just keep going and be a part of this. And it fills me with.
just the utmost joy that there’s such a beautiful community out there that wants to engage in this content and wants to reimagine education and really be a part of this process with me. I can’t tell you how much that means. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here. I can’t wait to get started on season two. So let’s go. Thank you so much for listening to Conscious Pathways. Don’t forget to like and share this podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
And wherever you are, don’t forget to navigate your conscious journey with courage and kindness. And I’ll see you next time for more transformative conversations in education. Bye.