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EP 55 – Liberatory Education: Voices of Change with Dr. Erika McDowell
Featuring: Dr. Erika L. McDowell – Equity Steward, Educator, Advocate
Hosted by: Brittney Carey | Conscious Pathways Podcast
In this transformative episode of Conscious Pathways, host Brittney Carey is joined by the dynamic Dr. Erika McDowell—an award-winning educator, clinical professor, and fierce advocate for equity in schools. Together, they unpack what it means to pursue liberatory education—where teaching and learning are rooted in justice, community, and possibility.
Dr. McDowell shares her personal journey as a Black educator shaped by a legacy of leadership and service, and she doesn’t shy away from the difficult truths about systemic oppression in schools. From inequitable funding models to the need for culturally responsive leadership, this conversation offers both insight and action.
A focal point of the discussion is the Black Wildflowers Fund, which provides financial capital and community infrastructure to support Black educators and leaders—breaking barriers and planting seeds for sustainable change.
Key Topics We Cover:
✔️ The role of legacy and community in educational leadership
✔️ Addressing systemic oppression in schools
✔️ Equity in funding and leadership development
✔️ Building support systems for Black educators
✔️ The vision and impact of the Black Wildflowers Fund
✔️ What liberatory education looks like in practice
Resources Mentioned:
- Black Wildflowers Fund
- Connect with Dr. Erika McDowell on LinkedIn or Instagram
- Shop our recommended books on DEI and education through our Bookshop page – support local bookstores and social justice learning!
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Brittney Carey: Hi, and welcome to Conscious Pathways, the podcast where we explore the intersection of education and social justice through transformative conversations. I’m your host, Brittany, and today’s episode I sit down with the truly inspiring, deeply brilliant, Dr. Erica McDowell. She’s an educator. An advocate, an equity steward whose work is grounded in legacy and liberation.
Dr. McDowell takes us on a journey through her experience as a teacher, a leader, and a community builder. She speaks very candidly on the systemic oppression that black educators and communities continue to face, and how initiatives like the Black Wildflowers Fund are working to change that by providing critical resources and collective support.
And together we reimagine what education can look like when it’s rooted in freedom, equity, and empowerment. And not just for the students, but for the educators who serve them. So whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or you’re simply just social justice, curious, this is the episode for you. You’re gonna walk away from this conversation feeling renowned and ready to take on the world.
I’m so excited to share this episode with you. So let’s dive into it. Hello and welcome to Conscious Pathways. Today I am joined by the fabulous Dr. Erica McDowell. Thank you so much for joining me. Oh,
[00:01:28] Dr. Erika McDowell: thank you for having me. It’s always a great opportunity to come and share space, and I wish the listeners could hear all the conversations that we’ve been having, and I’m just excited, like this is, that’s part of my day today.
[00:01:40] Brittney Carey: Yes. I feel like sometimes I pop in and usually I don’t know the guests. I don’t know if people know that, but usually I’m just talking to a random person. I don’t know. I just like, I like your vibes, let’s go. But the second we popped on, you’re like, what’s up? And I was like, Ooh, this is gonna be fun. Yes, yes.
We’re about to vibe. Yes. Because that’s what we all need right now. Yes. Right now, especially, I am here for vibes. I am here for fun. I’m here for good times. So, and that’s what we’re about to have right now. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started in education and what inspired you to wanna be an advocate for education?
[00:02:15] Dr. Erika McDowell: Well, I am a legacy educator. I’m so happy to say that. My dad is a retired teacher of Patterson Public Schools. He was an art teacher. We look just alike. So I’m used to being stalked in grocery sourcing. You are a girl. My grandpas also, I have legacy community leaders. My grandpa was one of the first black businesses in Patterson, New Jersey.
You can see him on like the movie barbershop, like the first running credit. He’s in the library of Congress, rest his soul. And so I’ve been taught early on. My mom started out as a ECE teacher, actually, that’s where my parents met. My dad was running the summer camp and my mom was waiting for children to get picked up.
And a year later they were married and nine months after that I was born. And so I tell people like my work started before birth with my parents really giving into the city that we were in in any way possible. And so growing up, I’m gonna tell you, I did not wanna be a teacher. I. Not that it wasn’t a great thing.
I went to Rosa Park School of finding performing arts. Shout out, right? Yes. That’s some strong strength to have your high school named after that, I was a drama major, vocal minor. I wanted to have pursuits for Hollywood, and my first summer job was teaching drama in almost, I think it was three rooms, and it was a drama teacher, a vocal teacher, and a music teacher.
And that summer changed my life. And so I started looking around to say like, how can I do this thing called theater education, something that I didn’t see except for my dear drama director, George Raey. And so I got into the field, went to Howard hq, you know, to all my folks on the line. And because they were an HBCU who had a degree major at the time, which is not there anymore of theater education.
So I split my time between Chadwick Bozeman School of the Arts. The School of Education, right. Did my student teaching at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in DC and I just kept going. So I went back home, start teaching, and that’s where I fell in love. And I never left. You can’t let me go now. I’m gonna be 40 in July.
And so when people are like, usually people are looking for this epiphany, I’m like. I’ve been around educators and community folks my whole life. This is just the natural usance of what I have to do and my ancestral giving and like what we want schools to look in. I’ll show you something. I just turned my eye.
This is what I look at every day, the power of education, and I’ll read it. Even in the midst of our worst struggles, our forefathers knew that part of our advancement and growth began with a sound education. So that’s how I got into, because my parents instilled that in me, and I’m trying to keep that moving for everybody that I touch or in my atmosphere.
[00:04:55] Brittney Carey: That is the most beautiful thing. I love and adore every aspect of that, especially calling yourself a legacy educator. ’cause that is so powerful.
[00:05:04] Dr. Erika McDowell: And we have to say that more and be proud because if we know between 81 and 85% of the teaching population is white and female. And I think sometimes, I remember now, even though I didn’t wanna be an educator, everybody wanted to be a teacher.
I remember people running in the supermarket in the grocery store. My dad’s actually still a full-time pastor. Right. And people are just like, Hey, and we’re not showing those narratives. We’re not telling people that we’ve been doing this work. This is not new. It’s just that we’ve been on the margins and I’m here to dismantle that system of oppression.
We’ve been here, we are doing the work, and I’m gonna continue on that legacy, period,
[00:05:42] Brittney Carey: period, period. I was reading this book and one of those really powerful things that I heard and read because a lot of my education, most of my teachers were white and female. They had a small handful of teachers who had one black woman teacher and one black male teacher.
And that was the only thing I had all throughout K through 12. And that is unfortunately a pretty normal experience for most of us. Right. And. To hear that, you know, after, you know, brown versus Board of Education, we had black educators, we had black principals, we had black educators, we had purely black schools, right?
Like we had to, we didn’t have a choice, right? But we gotta educate the babies. And then after Brown versus Board of Education, great. And now we’re getting integrated schools. Now we’re doing the thing. But all of those black educators, those black principals as black teachers, as black administrators, right?
Suddenly they couldn’t keep their jobs. They got pushed out of the thing that they’ve been doing for years. Teaching this population of students that they’ve been teaching for years. Right. And when I heard that my heart sank because I was like, no, we were out here. We literally got pushed out of this field.
[00:06:42] Dr. Erika McDowell: What do you mean? What do you mean? And I think it’s funny, you’re dancing all in my dissertation, shout out to Drexel University where I earned my doctorate of education. Yes. And I talk about that landmark decision and how in theory, yes, we should be. But I think at the end of the day, we still have less than 2% of men that are educators.
My dad is like a dying breed. And I think also we have to change the narratives for our young folks that we have. We will and we will continue. And so like even these conversations that we’re having, like when I first talk about that legislation, again, I taught educational leadership and policy, right?
And so some of these things that we’re going through today are not new to us. So how do we come together in community as educators and say, this is what we’re going to do. I think that’s part of the reason why I’m a fundraiser, philanthropist and teacher, and have a million jobs because it’s like we can do this, but do we have the capital and do we have the community in which to resist?
What has been told to us that might be false.
[00:07:44] Brittney Carey: Hmm. Yes. Yes, yes. And that’s actually a beautiful segue into the work that that Black Wildflowers Fund is doing. That’s really what initially caught my eye is that, like you said, we are out here. Right. And especially in early education, has probably the highest representation of women of color in this field, and especially when we go into like business ownership.
Right. Again, we out here, we’re doing things, but do we have the funds? Do we have the capital? Do we have the backing? This work is more important than ever, especially when we think about family run and home childcare providers, right? They’re providing an incredible service for the community, and they often offer hours that are a little bit different than the traditional hours because that’s what the community needs.
And it’s disheartening to see that these educators and these entrepreneurs, right, especially here in California, they’re closing down their businesses, especially with the implementation of tk. They don’t have the kids. Right? Exactly. And so they’re closing their doors and the community is losing these institutions that are so incredibly important.
For community. And so the work that you’re doing with black wild art funds, can you tell me a little bit more about that? And you know the origins of that’s work.
[00:08:51] Dr. Erika McDowell: You basically answered the origins, so I’m gonna just go there. Fair enough. I have seen, we have built a co CEO model, so I do not stand alone.
My co-CEO, Maya Blankenship, shout out, thriving in DC with her little one. We were working and we still are working at wildflower schools, so it’s a beautiful ecosystem of small liberatory Montessori schools. I’m energizing New Jersey. She’s energizing DC and I remember joining Wildflower and we used to meet as black people, like we had.
Let’s all meet all of these things. And what we started to realize was the path for people who identify as black, I. It’s not the same for people who identify as white, and that is not just racially, mostly it’s socioeconomically. So the startup cost and the funds to not only open your school is different because your community tax dollars are higher.
There’s a lot of things that people don’t understand. So let’s talk about redlining, right? Like some of us have just inherited redlining policies that haven’t been healed and restored. So we’re in these meetings, we’re talking, and I never forget, Maya looked at me, and I’m gonna be very transparent. I am on a beautiful health soft journey.
I want a soft life. I work part-time and have a million part-time jobs, but I know what my body needs. And we said we have to do something. And she said, but I’m not doing it alone. And I was like. I’m there, and at the time I was a professor at Buffalo working part-time and doing that. So March, 2023, we found inaugural funders who were like, we doing it, we’re on.
So we had a launch adjacent this American Montessori Society conference that year. And from that we have main programming. So you see, I’m talking about capital. First thing we wanted to do was give grants to schools who were starting out, and one of our missions is to dismantle systems of oppression, but also live in abundance, right?
And so we’ve been able to get out over hundreds of thousands of dollars, and y’all can go on our website. I and one school got $80,000 above and beyond what they needed to start, because one thing I’ve noticed when I’m helping folks open schools. What is the path to sustainability? So I think we all got great ideas, but like how are we making sure we’re adequately paid?
You talked about ECE and most black people, you know, most folks are in there. They’re also the lowest paid and under the poverty line. How do we dismantle that? So we also talk about our Ignite grants. I’ve been a school teacher and principal. I’m very proud to help somebody buy a washer and dryer. I’m very happy to help somebody rebuild a playground to make it accessible.
And so we do that. And the beautiful part is, is that we curated something called the Black Teacher Council, and it is a council of seasoned leaders, three to four people who get on a line and we take a step back and say, look at what your community’s asking you. How can we fulfill it? And so we’re also dismantling that system that educators can’t fundraise.
So all of our folks have an inside track. And so we also have a community of a practice. We call it the exchange. So this is our second year. We did it in Philly, we started in DC and can I tell you, someone said it’s an unconference that I love so much and I always wanna get invited to. So we invite, invite all of our grantees and we charge you nothing.
I pay for your flight, your hotel. Your food. We have fried fish, chicken devil digs. We have a family dinner. We come and have workshops. We worked with Klan Dis Fletcher at the National Center. Tiffany Quivers, great person filled our cups and so we also have exchange moments. So we had our Black men United exchanging.
And then last, but certainly not least, Dr. E carries six figure debt to the point where I can’t access capital to buy a house because my debt to income ratio sucks. Anybody else on the line going through that? And so what we do, and I’m so proud of this, our credential grant program, I think we’re over 700,000 at this point, but I gotta check the number.
But allowing people who identify as black to choose where you wanna go. I’m not gonna tell you where to go. Is it accredited? Just so I could pay that bill. Go to a training center where you feel centered in hold, and we write that check in full. You don’t get a bill for your tuition. And I love folks who are doing the work.
Like, I’ll give you a hundred, I’ll give you this. No, I’m gonna pay whatever they charged you for tuition. That’s what we’re gonna pay. So in the next couple days, we will be announcing our 2025 credential grantee winners, and all of those people come together yearly. We have Fireside Chats, Montessori on Wills, CEO, to tender, blessing Hur.
So we bring people together to have these conversations because Bell Hook says, and I’m gonna end here because I could talk about black wildflowers all day. Bell Hooks talks about one of the most vital ways we sustain community is building communities of resistance, places we know we’re not alone. And one of the things that Maia have and I have in our lived experience is that we are trying to orchestrate places where we don’t feel alone.
So how do we replicate that for educators so we can dismantle what I went through, what she’s gone through, and her as a single mother in DC that she can send her child somewhere where teachers look like her, right? And so that’s black wildflowers fund, and we’re trying to do everything and anything, but honestly, the heart of our work is to dismantle those systems of oppression and live in abundance.
For our callings is educators who identify as black, and that does not mean as somebody and people says, well, the Black wildflowers fund isn’t that marginalization and their shock when we’ve given out tons of awards to my sisters in Puerto Rico. We have to stop liming ourselves in our own community to say, that’s not my job to police your identification.
You come, you tell me you identify as black. And so I’m excited about the schools, the grantees we’ve given in Puerto Rico, and so how can we really be a whole community and give folks what they need? That’s black wildflowers. Yeah,
[00:14:45] Brittney Carey: that’s the ad right there.
Because at so much of what you just said at the heart of that is community, right? And it’s evident in the practices as it’s evident in the work that you’re doing, that you have listened to what the community has consistently said. What are the problems? What is going on, right? Because sometimes in advocacy.
People think like, I’m gonna use my voice to speak for others, that I’m gonna do this and blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, actually advocacy has nothing to do with you. Nothing. You are desist, baby. Yeah. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with us. Everything to do with, we. Listening to communities and listening to what communities need and want.
There’s a beautiful quote, and I’m forgetting this, Liliana, I’m forgetting her last name, but she’s a, an aboriginal activist and she says, you know, if you have come to help me,
[00:15:37] Dr. Erika McDowell: you’ve wasted your time, you’ve wasted your time. If you’ve come, because your liberation is bound up with mine, let’s work together.
Lila Watson. And it wasn’t, and she attributed to the aboriginal community. And I thought I was in my daddy church. Woo. Lemme now sis the congregation is coming out. Come on. Look. Sometimes people like, oh, I said, look, I try to warn y’all. I got a little churchy in me, but I still got something to say. And so yes, yes.
We are bound to each other. And can I tell you, and when I teach, right, so I’m also mm-hmm. You know, a professor. I do professional developments. I just got off a plane from Maine. And I had a ball shout out to my folks in Maine that when I get up, I actually say, can someone grab my hand? Who’s comfortable?
And I said, if our liberation is really entwined, you gonna move where I move? And so when you talk about advocacy, one of the things that people, they didn’t knock us for it. We were like, let’s pause before we build. We went on a world tour, Puerto Rico, California, Ohio. Look, what is it? Arkansas? Don’t. Look, we have granted somebody in Arkansas, there’s a black sister, Hey Ariana, who is doing that work out there, right?
And we said, what do you need? We don’t know everything. What I know is my lived experience working with you and our elders who serve on the teacher counselor was like, I wish there was a black wildflowers fund when I opened my school. And do you know how that breaks my heart? Because Yes. But these sisters could have been a little, and I wanna shout out my brothers too.
We got some brothers in the line, right? And so how do we do that and how do we continue this conversation where it’s liberatory for all of us? Like we just don’t keep talking about it. Yeah. Because guess what? My elementary schools closed down. Wow. In Patterson, New Jersey. Reverend Fred h Laggard opened up.
Patterson come Unity Christian Schools. One of the first black owned schools in Passade County, New Jersey, and it is not open. And he schooled pre-K all the way to eighth grade. And I was there every year of my life during that time. And I wouldn’t be the Rosa Parks grad, the Howard grad, the NYU grad, the Drexel grad.
Without the community schools and this black man saying he was the first man to bring Martin Luther King to Patterson, New Jersey. And so I wanna tell these songs of, moreover, when I say I’m a legacy educator, I got a lot of stuff in me that I can’t see another school closed. Brittany, I can’t, like, it’s not gonna work.
It’s not gonna. It ain’t a lack of children, so what is it?
[00:18:08] Brittney Carey: Yeah, and I can only speak for California, but I know that we consistently have that childcare crisis. Really, it’s a crisis and it’s about access. What can families access? And we’re trying to do all kinds of things within California in terms of like rate reform and vouchers and all these different things, but.
Still schools are closing their doors because they just can’t afford to operate. Schools are closing their doors because there’s just all these, you know, rules, regulations, finances, things that come up. Parents can’t afford it, afford parents can’t afford it, the schools can’t afford it. You know, in California, we had this bill come out from the fire agency, right?
Which is great, right? We want schools to be safe, right? But what they wanted schools to do was to implement these fire alarms in their schools that would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement into their schools. And the schools are like, with what? Money? Like, we want to do this, but like make it make sense.
The math is not math.
[00:19:00] Dr. Erika McDowell: And I think a lot of times when people talk to me about Black Wildflowers Fund, and I just wanna shout out, we’re a part of my ENRA, part of Headlock Educational Leaders of Color, and people keep telling me like, well, why would you do that? I. I said, because what world are we preparing for?
The one we lived in or the one that the children are gonna live in? And I think when we think about, and people know this, and I’ll tell people on the line, I’m not a birther, I’ll be 40 in July. I’ve been working with kids my whole life. So if I am saying. I could imagine, and I think when people talk about sacrifice, I think about my mom and dad could have opened up a beautiful community school.
I’m telling you, my mom’s a retired postal worker too, baby. Okay. Everybody know my mama and Patterson, right? But we didn’t have access to capital. But it seems like in our country, and I’m just talking about the system of education, we give least to the most vulnerable. And so when people say, why black wildflowers?
That’s why. I think every child should be able to go to a school where they are safe and not just from programs or we did this right. Can I be honest with you? Let’s use your example. If someone said, we’re having a safety issue, it takes this amount of money, can we look at those funds and look at the whole child and the whole school and see not just via alarms?
I remember that beer. Smoking the bear and you better not in fire. Where’s the teaching going on? Like I’m a behaviorist. What is the root cause? Why do you need to spend that much money on fire? That’s right. And so I think we have to keep having these conversation of what are we investing? And I contend that we should invest in people, communities, and dismantle systems of oppression that don’t benefit
[00:20:46] Brittney Carey: them.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s like that idea, right? You work in community health and you keep getting, you know, your patients and they keep coming to you sick. They keep coming to you sick. They keep coming to you sick, and they’re all drinking from that same, well, you could prescribe them all the same thing.
You could be like, oh, here’s some medication and help you get better, but they keep getting sick. At what point do we stop to look at like what’s in the, well, what’s making them sick? What does beyond what we can see? Because it’s al, it always goes back to a system. It always goes back to a pattern. It always goes back like we have to look at our history.
We have to know where we came from, to know where we are, to know where we’re going, and all of these things are so important. They’re so, so, so important.
[00:21:25] Dr. Erika McDowell: Well, can I give you a lesson? There’s a little tidbit because it’s you. I’m like, can I tell y’all I’m having the best time of my life? I said that three times.
Okay. Dr. Ron Whitaker, he has something called the help framework, and I’ll give that to everybody and you just hit on it. I think sometimes we talk about what do we do? He gives us a great framework on history, equity versus equality. Love. He contends that love is always there. And pedagogy and practices, right?
And so when I’m talking to people and they’re like, where do I start? Start with the help framework. Like what is our history here? And so I think sometimes when I’m helping people think about opening schools in their community, you also don’t wanna recreate wheels of oppression. Again, I’m still trying to open up a Montessori school in Patterson, New Jersey.
Can I tell you what I. We got a history of schools opening and closing, right? Mm-hmm. We have a history of students in Patterson, New Jersey, not giving what they need. Why did my dad as a public school teacher take a lot of his salary to pay for two little girls to go to private school? My daddy was a teacher.
We weren’t rich. And so I think when we talk about history, we talk about equality. I remember the school I went to, I started stuttering in third grade. And again, my dad and my parents are community folks. Literally a trailer was built and I had a speech pathologist. I didn’t stutter after that year. And so when we get to know communities and know people and meet people where they are, I think we have an opportunity.
But what I’m noticing is that we’re all isolated and not having these conversations together. So when I’m going into rooms with folks and saying, I don’t come alone, I think like I don’t come alone. So the decision of. You supporting black wildflowers is not just connected to me, it’s connected to everybody I serve.
And I think we have to really think about community and history and how we leverage those things as moments of opportunity. ’cause that our ancestors gave us
[00:23:18] Brittney Carey: Yes, yes, yes, yes. They are Moments of opportunity. Moments of opportunity, yes. So empowering, and I’m always saying these things, right? Like over, like if you look at.
The history, right? You looked at the systems of oppression and how oppression can become internalized and all these different things. And you know, the idea is like, oh, well, like people, they don’t wanna start their own business. They don’t want to be in education. You know? Like I try to shift things in the classroom and they don’t wanna learn.
It’s like, well yeah, because over time, over the history of it, they have been told time after time, after time after time that they’re not good enough. They’re not gonna amount to anything, they’re not smart enough. They’ve been told this. So you can’t just walk in there one day and just say like, okay, you can do this now.
And they immediately believe you, right? Because that’s how systems of oppression work, right? That’s,
[00:24:01] Dr. Erika McDowell: and that’s what trauma looks like, works in real time. Keep on talk about trauma informed practices. Here’s the thing, stop saying you wanna a teacher, but don’t wanna pay them adequately. Let’s dance. I’m confused.
You left me, me, right? And here’s the thing, right? And people are like, oh, well. Paulo Freire and I think Pedagogy of the Oppressed. If you ain’t read that book, you need to read that book. Come on doing that, that red book, ain’t it? Read. Okay. Yeah. Education is not only an act of love, but it’s also an act of courage.
And I think you just hit upon something that people talk about. Disproportionate education, kids not getting what they need, but guess where those kids go to get the surplus, their community. I was reading a book in a party in Alabama, because I remember my grandpa said, you said you gonna finish that book.
And those little things. And he had a sixth grade education and he opened a business. And so I think also, and I’m gonna dance here too, I am a proud black woman, but I think we also have to teach folks how the structures and systems have not always benefited us. And I talk to people a lot about, do you know the origins of education just in America?
They’re like, oh yeah, everybody, no. It’s built on an industrial complex with Rockefeller and a whole bunch of other people to get more workers. Clearly we’re not an industrial complex anymore, but has our ethos of education shifted? And so you mean to tell me why aren’t teachers thriving? We’re in the 21st century and you still got seats lined up, and so I think we have to start really unearthing things and unearthing them in love because I think also people say all this time, Dr.
E got a real diverse set of friends. Oh, you just trying to say they’re culturally and linguistically diverse and reflect. The communities in which I live and serve. That’s what you trying to tell me. And so what is wrong with that? I remember this story being a professor at Buffalo ushering our masters and doctor level students, and I was one of the first black professors some of my folks had, and.
When you look at the results, ’cause you know they always observe you and they were like, my life has changed just by being in. And so I tell people all of that, bringing more diversity into not only our work or our schools benefits us all because then we’re all co-creating a history that is accurate.
But I’m gonna stop right there ’cause I’m dancing on some stuff currently. But if we get together. I don’t think you can rewrite a history if I’m here writing it with you. Get at the table. Y’all get at the table. I don’t know what to run the school board. I dunno what you need to do. Yes,
[00:26:39] Brittney Carey: get out there.
That reminds me of a story. So I went to study abroad in South Africa and yes, it was the best experience I. 10 outta 10. I wanna go back, take me back, take me back to the motherland. Um, and that experience changed my life. And I remember we were touring one of the political prisons, Robin Island and our tour guide who was, you know, taking us around.
He was telling us how he was a political prisoner there and he was telling us all of these stories and he was. Showing. He is like, yeah, this was my cell, this is, you know, I saw, you know, some of my friends, you know, die here. I saw this and he was telling us these stories. And I remember thinking the whole time like, why would you want to come back?
You know, you got out. Why would you wanna come back? Why would you wanna, I kept thinking, kept thinking that, and he was like, yeah, people ask me this all the time. And he says that if I let outsiders tell our stories. I need to be there to tell, like, we need to tell our stories. We need to make sure that we are telling our stories and getting that out there.
Like, that is my job, that is my role, that is my purpose here. And I was like, oh, mm, I’m thinking about this all wrong. And that shifted my thinking, right? Like, we need to be there to tell our stories. We need to elevate our stories. Like if we’re not talking about ’em, they’re gonna fizzle out. They’re gonna die if we don’t want that.
Our stories are important. Our stories are powerful. Our stories are how we learn how we grow, right? Again, we can’t know where we’re going if we don’t know where we’ve been. It’s so important that our stories are told that they’re heard. That they’re elevated
[00:28:03] Dr. Erika McDowell: thing too. You dancing? No, no, no. ’cause I’m gonna take it down.
I’m gonna catch the mantle. Okay. Okay. Okay. If we don’t, where’s the next? EriKa and Brittney, let’s just dance with it. Like, okay. If we don’t, who is coming? I think about my goddaughter. I’m looking at my pictures. Kaiya Riley. Right. And a lot of my work is in, she’s my goddaughter. She’s four. She was just over here eating spaghetti.
She told me she loved me this week and people were like, oh, she full, she, and she thrives on the autism spectrum and I see a world where she can do whatever she wants and be whoever she wants, but you’re cutting whole departments that give her services. And so when we talk about that, we gotta go back to what did we do?
And I wanna push us into what was pre-board. Round versus Lord. And without community, there’s no liberation. That ain’t me. That’s Audrey Lord. And so I’m kind of, somebody’s like, are you a community? No, I’m just a little sis that grew up in a community where everybody jumped in to help. And I think what I wanna do is say, Hey, you already watching about five kids in your house?
Let me give you the capital in which to pay yourself. Let me get you access to people who already have grants. You talk about California. What I love about Pennsylvania, because I’m from Jersey hol, but I do most of my work in Philadelphia thinking about all the things. When I’m talking to educators, they’re like, I didn’t even know that happened.
So we give out credential grants, but part of my job is to see where are the money at, where the money reside. And so many of my grantees and the people in our ecosystem was like, I never heard that. And when you talk about access, that’s what I’m saying, because on the other side it’s. But if, I don’t know, there’s an ice cream machine back there and it works.
I’m never gonna eat no ice cream and get sick ’cause lactose faced with my stomach. And you know what, Renee? I try to bring it down for people because a lot of my colleagues and I love and you’ve had conversations with folks. I think once we get to a certain level, particularly. I say educational wise, we start bringing divides in our own community.
That’s why I’m always saying that my grandpa had a sixth grade education. That’s why I’m always, I’m actively taught, I don’t care what you do, what degrees you earn, because it’s by the grace of everything that’s going on with me that I got a doctorate. I broke a generational curse in my family that on my maternal side I’m the first.
And so how do we break that? But we gotta have these conversations and we also have to have them with people who have money. I love us who got money.
[00:30:44] Brittney Carey: Yeah. That is so important. ’cause we do, we do like, have more of these conversations. And a lot of people have asked me, you know, why did you start the podcast?
Why do you do this work? And it’s like, well the podcast, I started that because I wanted it to be for people who are social justice curious. You might not know all the pedagogy, all the words, you might not know all of those things, but you know what’s right and wrong. You know what feels right and what feels wrong.
You know when something is unjust and just ’cause you can’t say, oh, that’s systematic oppression. That’s institutional oppression. Right? That’s internalized oppression. Just ’cause you don’t have the vocabulary for that, like, you know, something that’s off. And to elevate our voices in our community and to elevate.
We are out here. We have black female researchers, we have teachers, we have principals like we are out here and we are advocating and our voices deserve to be heard. And it’s like that is at the heart of what conscience. That’s why I started this. I’m like, well, who’s out there? When we share our stories, when we talk about this, when we keep that conversation going, ’cause I hear that all the time too, I’ll share like a statistic where I talk about social justice and I talk about, uh, restorative justice and exclusionary discipline practices.
This RJ out here, expelling babies. We’re expelling two year olds from school. Do we know
[00:31:53] Dr. Erika McDowell: this? And can I push you? Look, they’re, they’re doing it. They’re doing it. And it’s by eye tracking. I got the data. Boom. You wanna make it worse? Let’s go. This is natural, right? So whatever you follow, if I’m looking at you, I’m probably gonna find something.
So, ECE There’s a data point a couple years ago that basically was like black boys, black girls, and then white boys and white girls, right? And it was like 41% of them got exclusionary practices and they tracked it to, because their eye was on it. I was on this and can I push you? That’s why I’m really big on, people laugh at me when I’m like, yep, I was a human ddo.
They’re like, what? I’m like, you know, DDO Jewish culture? And they’re like, what? Because I have that lived experience. There’s things that I know how to be and thrive, and I think we’re missing that. Like there is nothing wrong with us being inherently different. And I talk to my white brothers and sisters, my indigenous brothers and sisters, my Latinx, Latino brothers and sisters, right?
Some of the things that we argue about are included for us to not be together. Mm-hmm. And that is the goal of the oppressor. And I’ll tell people, all these people like, well, Dr. E, sometimes I’m like, oh, she’s so smile saying oppressor. Right? I’m impressed by my debt so I could name a couple of oppressors right now in my life.
And so when we start doing that, we start talking to people who are like, oh, I just thought oppression was race. There are moments in our lives where if people can’t get clean water in a certain area in the United States, that should be all of our problem. And so I’m pushing people to say, we are not building a generation where what I just read is centered, a sound education.
I. And so how do we do that? And I think it’s pretty easy US community. And I wanna say, I want to thank you for this podcast because I think I talk a lot and I go on a lot of things, but like places where people are held, I just wanna thank you for that. We need to be held. And I just appreciate you creating the forum to do that because I can do it and you’re doing it.
[00:33:59] Brittney Carey: I can’t do half the things you do. So I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing. You know, we got each other in that capacity. We do. We got each other. We got each other. You know, I wanna ask this question ’cause I’m so curious and I wanna know what your reaction will be, but how do you reimagine education?
What does the future of education look like?
[00:34:18] Dr. Erika McDowell: The reimagination of education centers freedom. The reimagining of that might be a keynote title. I’m gonna write that down somewhere. Reimagination of education is Freedom and I’m gonna go here. There’s a lot of talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, but we not really talking about getting free and getting liberated.
’cause really we’re using DEI to get free. I like that I have a rheumatoid arthritis and that the other day when my leg fell out, a wheelchair came in the airport to help me. That’s freedom. And I’m able to go to college if I did not have wheelchair assistance, I would not be able to do after things that I do.
And so when we talk about re-imagining education, I think that we have to go back to how our country was built, how other countries were built, but also think about just birth like. You are naturally teaching people, and I believe a good parent wants their child to be free to figure out things. That’s why I love the Montessori method.
Shout out to Dr. Maria Montessori. She was Italian, a white lady, and they literally was like, these kids can’t learn. And you know what she gave them? Freedom. Here’s the materials. Here’s everything you need, aunt, me as an adult, I’m gonna just follow you around to see what piques your interest. And so when people wanna talk about reimagining education, I want you to reimagine it in freedom that is steeped in data.
And so where are people? Brene Brown. I love Brene Brown. Love her. She wrote a book with Tarana Bart, uh, Burke. You are your best thing. Yes, right? I have it. It’s great. It’s a good book. Dr. Says. The absence of G Love and Belonging will always lead to suffering. And I think what we don’t wanna say in education is that the reason we need to reimagine it.
’cause people are suffering. And so I contend right, that if we’re suffering, the antidote to that is freedom. And so what does that mean? I think freedom to have the capital and access to give communities what they need. I think my dad and my mom are the best people because they lived in the community.
They served for over 40, 50 years. Next thing. We also have to give folks the power and the freedom of knowledge, and I think people don’t understand the attacks that are going on in the world. It’s the attack of knowledge of like, how do we keep letting people know, I love the fact that I was just on the internet and so that New York pushed their curriculum through for African American studies.
Well, how are we resisting in times where that’s just not the cool thing to do? And so how do we free and let people and tell their stories from Jewish ancestry? Do you know how many times that I did not use the word indigenous growing up and I used another word that is highly offensive that tells me that I didn’t have, my teachers didn’t have freedom to teach me the truth.
And so here’s my last point. I didn’t get in debt for no reason, and I don’t think other people did in education. Let me teach the way I’ve been good trained, taught, and then give me the professional development to make sure my skills are ever sharpened. That’s what I mean about freedom. I don’t understand how you could tell me how to teach, because again, let’s go back to Lila in that Aboriginal community.
What I need to do, and this is what I do constantly with teachers, you gotta juma open a school. Come on, come with me. I know a couple people with some dollars, like I know a couple parents who want a kid that wanna go to their school, right? And that’s the freedom to dream. And I wanna acknowledge that particularly black and brown folks have not been given the opportunity to dream.
And that is not our fault. That is systemic. That is oppression. And so when you talk about re-imagining education, you gotta center freedom, you gotta center liberation, you gotta center all those things. And it’s not a fluff where I wanna be free. No. What does free look like that? Yeah. And not just economically free should have looked like for me, I graduated from a four star school.
Freedom should have been like, I could go to any school and not have a bill. Freedom should have been for me. And now I’m dancing on old politics. You know, GI bills didn’t go to everybody. Yeah, I do. So if GI Bill in my lineage and I got a whole bunch veterans in. That ain’t free because I can’t go buy nothing.
And so I want us to re reimagine. And sometimes I talk about it in my work. I did a book chapter in decolonizing classroom management, and people talk about decolonization. Anything can be colonized like, and I think people have colonized education. So how do we decolonize it? Center freedom. And so let’s reimagine together what it looks like to be free.
And some of us gotta heal from the traumatic instances, love us to death. Just because your education kind of sucked. Use that as an opportunity. I don’t give my students, you know what, when I was, people are always shocked when I say I was the only at the time enrolled African American student in my graduate program at NYU.
That ain’t free. Like that ain’t free. Why is that not free? I don’t see myself. I just left this real HBCU u. I’m smart and don’t nobody look like me. The things I was reading and I wanna shout out Dr. Christina Marin. Ah, she saw me and she was a professor of color. And just loved on me and she showed me how to get free.
She showed me how to get free. So when you talk about going to South Africa, I went to Ireland in London in 12 weeks. And so I wanna create possibilities for people who are in these ecosystem, students, community, families, and teachers on what does free look like for you in education, not just in money.
And like how do we curate that for everybody? It’s gonna take a while, but I think we could do it. Let’s get free. Let’s get free. Lets
[00:39:56] Brittney Carey: get, I know we can do that. I know we can do it. And that’s, that’s the beautiful thing about reimagining education is that we get to imagine what it looks like, what it feels like, because that’s how we get to where we’re going.
That’s how we set our goals, our intentions. That’s how you manifest. You manifest by imagine manifestation. Yeah. Like we go get free and people, and I, I’m also like, I’m gonna live that soft life.
[00:40:20] Dr. Erika McDowell: It’s gonna, I’m gonna that I want it, I deserve it. It’s in whoever’s listening to me on the line. ’cause I feel this in my spirit wholeheartedly.
You know, you’re not free if you can’t live the life that you feel softest in. Like people tell me all the time, and it’s just a struggle for me to work part-time, manage businesses, be a co, CEO, but at the end of the day, I’m creating this soft life, not only for myself, but for others where you’re compensated well.
And again, I have tons of medical issues, right? But I can stand here today and tell you that I’m free. I still gotta pay and all of them, but I’m free. And so how do we get that spark back for folks? I grew up on big. I have a dream, right? How many people have a dream? How, what’s the spaces that we’ve allowed people?
You can’t reimagine. The master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house. Okay? You know Audrey all up in mocks, right? And so I wanna push us right now to be like, what do you need? I tell people all the time, when you go on a plane, what do you put the who to put the mask on first? When I go into schools across this continental United States, people putting the air on everybody else except themselves.
You wonder why we can’t keep no teacher. I get up all the time and people hate me for it. You got PTO, take it. ’cause the time I took PTO, it saved my life. ’cause I got a early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. That’s what I talk about with free. I wanna have a baby. Maybe. I know I’m 40. I know I’m divorced because people ask me, what do you want?
I would like to have a baby. I’d like to be in a healthy non-toxic relationship. I’d like to be owning a school operator owner and have real estate where people are like, I got a idea to open a school. Look, I got a space. I only charge you market value because also people out there trying to scam a scheme.
So that’s all my heart is. I promise you, Brittany, that’s all my heart is for
[00:42:09] Brittney Carey: us to be free. That is something I know I’m gonna keep reflecting on even after this conversation. I feel like I just wanna like talk to you for hours. I just wanna You Damn we Kami. I ain’t letting you go. I just wanna tell me, I just wanna be like Dr.
E, tell me more. I know we gotta wrap this conversation up for now, but Okay. You know where can my audience find you if they’re curious on connecting more with you.
[00:42:29] Dr. Erika McDowell: Thanks for asking. ‘
[00:42:29] Brittney Carey: cause
[00:42:29] Dr. Erika McDowell: everybody’s like, Dr. EI don’t know how you do all this work. So. I do run my own LLC inspired minds collide.com. So when you say like, I am an executive coach, right?
So I do. So if you’re here, like I just kind of need to talk to somebody, right? I do provide that. I also do professional development. I’m heading out to Colorado to facilitate a board retreat, right? And I also am a consultant for a music camp that wants to like be free, right? And so just call me and let me know.
I also black wildflowers fund.org. If something has touched you right now and you’re like, I wanna be a part of our ecosystem, earn up for our newsletter. Get to know if you wanna go see a school, call me. I will take you to any of these schools that’s led by these black educators. So you can see before you believe.
And I think the last thing you can connect me to is I’m a regular human being that go to the bathroom. So I got Facebook, I’m Erica the Queen on Instagram, and I’m telling you my opinions are my own. And so I also want people to see that I am living a very soft life. A life that fills me and therefore I can fill others.
And so reach out to me. I’m trying. Again, if you don’t hear from me, I gimme two days and I’ll get back to you. But that’s what I’m out here doing. Working, giving folks what they need. And again, this is the same person who’s probably gonna have her cane facilitating a board retreat, but guess what? I have the freedom to do it.
And the client who said, what do you need to be able to do this work? So y’all reach out to me, be my friend. I hope y’all get me lit up. Right?
[00:44:02] Brittney Carey: Absolutely. I’ll link all of that in the show notes below. So if you wanna connect with Dr. Miguel, it’ll be all right there. Doctor, I really wanna thank you so, so much, so, so, so much for joining me, for sharing your knowledge, for sharing your time.
I am so excited to just have this episode out there and I’m so excited that I have connected with you and we will keep connecting
[00:44:21] Dr. Erika McDowell: me too, blessings and abundance to you in the podcast overflow to your life. And I just want you to receive and a thank you all. Thank you all. What a moment in time. Thank
[00:44:30] Brittney Carey: you.
What a moment in time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Y’all, if I can be real with you, I did not want that conversation. To end that episode could have been about 10 years long. Dr. Erica McDowell, she reminds us that we are the center of freedom and community and education. We open doors not just for students to thrive, for educators to lead with purpose and without constraint.
Her vision challenges us to do more than just reform education, but calls for us to reimagine it. If this conversation sparked something in you, I encourage you to reflect on the systems that you’re a part of, the small yet powerful ways that you can be a part of creating a more just and equitable path forward.
Be sure to follow Dr. E. Work and to learn more about the Black Wildflowers Fund. And I’ll drop all the links in the show notes. And if you found some value in this episode, which I know you did, please share with a friend, leave a rating and a review. And don’t forget to subscribe to Conscious Pathways wherever you get your podcast.
And until next time, keep imagining, keep questioning, and keep walking a path towards justice, and I will see you there with more transformative conversations.
Bye.