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In this powerful episode of Conscious Pathways, I sit down with Dr. Tr’Vel T. Lyons, a researcher, educator, and passionate advocate for equity in education. Together, we explore how to continue fighting for inclusive, supportive, and culturally responsive classrooms in a time where educational policy is moving in a regressive direction.
Whether you’re a teacher, parent, school leader, or advocate, this episode offers strategies, stories, and solidarity for navigating today’s challenging educational climate—with hope and intention.
About Dr. Tr’Vel T. Lyons
Dr. Lyons is an adjunct assistant professor and associate researcher at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, contributing to the Center for Education, Identity, and Social Justice. With a Ph.D. in Urban Schooling from UCLA, his research centers on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in academic programs and access to higher education for underrepresented groups. His dissertation, Cacti in the Classroom, examines how to cultivate supportive learning environments for Black boys in ninth grade.
Topics We Cover in This Episode
- How a college access program changed Dr. Lyons’ life
- What it means to advocate for DEI during politically regressive times
- Strategies for supporting Black boys in the classroom
- Designing interventions that promote educational equity
- Intersectionality in education: race, class, gender, and opportunity
- Self-care and community care for educators and advocates
- The role of families and caregivers in creating inclusive schools
Key Takeaways
- Inclusive education is still possible, even when systems resist change
- Student and community engagement are key to lasting transformation
- DEI work must center both structure and soul—policy and people
- Hope is not naive; it’s necessary
Resources + Mentions
- Learn more about the Center for Education, Identity, and Social Justice at USC Rossier
- Follow me on Instagram for daily reflections: @conscious.pathways
- Subscribe to my newsletter Pathways of Promise for early access to episodes, resources, and upcoming events
- Check out my curated list of anti-bias and equity-centered books on Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
- Related podcast: Voices of Neurodiversity with Dr. JPB Gerald
Stay Connected
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. What resonated with you? How are you staying committed to inclusion during regressive times? Leave a comment below or tag me in your reflections on social media!
Transcript
Brittney Carey (she/her): [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome back to Conscious Pathways, the podcast where we explore the intersection of education and social justice through transformative conversations. I’m your host, Brittany. As always, I’m happy to have you on this journey with me today, and today we are. Diving into a conversation that seems more urgent than ever.
How do we continue fighting for education and inclusion in education, even in progressively regressive times? Joining me today is Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons is an educator, researcher, and fierce advocate for diversity, equity inclusion in academic spaces. Dr. Lyon’s work focuses on dismantling barriers to equitable access, creating learning environments where all students, especially those from historically marginalized communities can thrive.
In this episode, we talk about his journey in education. Uh, we also explore what it takes to create truly inclusive spaces, the power of student and community engagement, and why. Despite the challenges, we still have reasons to be hopeful about the future of education. This conversation is for educators and parents who are navigating these increasingly complex times and wondering how do we push back?
How do we hold onto our values and education? And if that sounds like you, then let’s hop into it. Hi, and welcome to Conscious Pathways. Today I am joined by Tr’Vel Lyons. Thank you so much for joining me.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Oh, it’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Yes, I am so excited to have you here. And joining me, we were chatting a little bit before we went live, and it’s been.
Our schedules have been going back and forth, so I was so excited that we, we caught each other at the right space in time.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Right. Yes. It’s been a journey getting us here.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Yes, it has been a journey, but we made it. We have arrived. [00:02:00] I’m so excited. To start, can you tell me a little bit about how you got your start in education or who or what inspired you to wanna advocate for education?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Yeah. Although it’s a big question, it’s a really easy question for me. I. I was born and raised in New Orleans. Left New Orleans just before high school and new community, new curriculum, all of the things. But in my 10th grade year, I got connected to a college access program that had a social justice orientation.
And so they were taking some competitively eligible 10th graders to the campus of UCLA for a residential program, three weeks. Really started to give them education readings, right? So imagine 15, 16 year olds reading Bell hooks, Kimberly Crenshaw, Gloria Lassen, billings, right? Daniel Solono. And if you were quiet enough, you could hear the minds expanding, right?
And in that classroom, [00:03:00] UCLA professor doing this, right? Taking their summer to educate these rising juniors, and that professor was Dr. Tyrone Howard. And at the time I did not know that there were any black professors. I knew about UCLA, I knew about universities, but I didn’t know any other black professors.
I didn’t know what went into being a professor, but I looked at that man, I’m like, I just wanna do what he does, right? I just wanna do whatever he does. And a lot of the mentors, it was also a mentorship based program. A lot of the mentors and the director of the program was getting their PhD in education.
And so the mentorship was almost happening by osmosis. They’re like, you think, oh, they’re great. What do y’all do? And then I’m in education. I’m in education. I’m getting my PhD. I just earned it and I thought, this is my tribe, this is my community. Right? So that program follows you throughout your matriculation from high school, but if you decide to go to UCLA, by the way, I haven’t set the program name yet, is UCLA’s Vice Provost initiative for [00:04:00] pre-college scholars.
They deserve all the shots out. This year is actually their 20th year. So if you decide to go to UCLA, you get a $20,000 scholarship. I’m like, wait a minute. If I go to UCLA, I get $20,000. I get to be connected with Dr. Howard. Y’all are all gonna help me through college. ’cause I’m on the campus, you know me, I know this campus.
I’ve been coming here for two years now. No brainer. Right? And as such, as soon as I got to the campus was a winner of my first year. As I mentioned, Dr. Howard was the professor of the program. He started UCLA’s Blackmail Institute. His graduate student researcher at the time was my TA for that course that I took with him and they said, Hey, do you wanna learn education research?
I don’t know what that is, but if I’m working with y’all, then I know y’all got me. So I started doing education research, the winner of my first year at UCLA and just never, never left the tutelage of Dr. Howard. I went away to, uh, Harvard to go get a master’s and I met some phenomenal people. I tell [00:05:00] folks.
College and higher education is a lot about who you get to meet and learn with. But being at Harvard, I said, there’s nothing like that experience at UCLA with folks doing that work. I wanna go back. So I went back to UCLA to get my PhD under our advisory of Dr. Au.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I wanna highlight something that U said.
It kept coming back and it kept coming back and it kept coming back. And he said, you know, as long as I’m up with you guys, I know you got me. Like whatever you guys are doing, I want to do that. That is such an incredible feeling for a young person because you know, starting college, it’s a big deal, especially when you’re going to a big school like UCLA, right.
I’ve always been to small, tiny little colleges. Like my classes had eight to 20 students. Very, very tiny. So when you’re going to a school like UCLA, like that’s big. That’s a big camp. There’s a lot going on. Yeah. LA in itself, if you’re not from la, there’s a lot going on. Yeah, a hundred percent. And so knowing that you can make a big step, [00:06:00] like not only going to a big university, but going to a big city practically almost on your own.
And know that whatever I’m doing over there, I know that I’m supported. I know that my people are here. I know that I have a vision, like people, I have community already here to support me. That is an incredible experience to have. As a young person. Incredible
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): man. It’s so encouraging, right? Like yes. That is the essence of looking at students’, sense of belonging in matter.
So I decided to major in philosophy. So I’m at UCLA, not an athlete. So the percentage is is where it is there, right? But I’m also in philosophy classes. I am one of three five max black males. In any of my courses for the duration of my entire time at UCLA. But Brittany, I gotta tell you, after first year, that didn’t really weigh on me because I knew my pockets of folks.
I knew where to [00:07:00] go to see my people. So yes, if you don’t have those pockets, you can go a week, or at least you could go. Hopefully it’s a little better now. Maybe a percentage or two. You could go a week without interacting with. Just running into another black student at UCLA. You look up, it’s Thursday, you don’t have classes on Friday.
Done. Right? But if I know my pockets, then I’m always about my people and I know y’all are great role models and we are building and we’re going vertical. So it was a great experience.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I adore everything about that experience and I love that there’s programs like that that do connect. Young people with colleges and getting to visit that and actually getting to see mentors and seeing professors that look like them and are studying things that they might not have even considered because Were you thinking about going into education before this program at all?
Not at all.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Not at all. I just wasn’t, [00:08:00] just to give you a sense of who I was in high school, first generation for sure. Right. So I still remember. My parents sitting me down. My dad still lived in New Orleans, but he was visiting here in LA or Inglewood, and I shared with them that I was gonna major in philosophy and they just couldn’t make the connection between philosophy to dollars.
They’re just like, how are you going to get rich? I don’t see it. And so I think from that conversation, like I want to go to school to understand the world. Like I’m not trying to make money so. I did not have an idea of what the profession was going to be, and for a while I thought I would go to law school.
But seeing how education research helped them understand the world, understand privilege and disadvantage, and also helped them champion equity and also like that was the way that they were going to help make the world better. So I’m like, yes, and a lot of my mentors always say, research is research. So [00:09:00] engaging in this education research.
Is going to help me understand my experiences, is going to help me empathize with those who are not unlike me and who are coming from communities, not unlike mine. This is how we do our part.
Brittney Carey (she/her): This is how we do our part. Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes we think about education and we think about the being in the classroom part, which is a big, big part of education.
You know, we need people on the ground being face to face with students and doing this work. There is that big portion of that research component of it really researching what are the best practices? How do students learn? How do students find belonging? How do students find their identity? Right? That research leads us to those kind of more developmental ideas on how we can do our best practices in the classroom, right?
So that idea of praxis, right? So there’s that research and then there’s the actually doing the thing. And those things don’t need to be two separate ideas. They can actually work in tandem and work together. ’cause as you said, that’s how we advance education. We advance ed [00:10:00] equity. We advance inclusion. And speaking of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s a hot topic these days.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): The
Brittney Carey (she/her): hottest, it is the hottest topic.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): It’s the hottest it’s ever been in our lives, and that’s, it’s the hottest
Brittney Carey (she/her): it’s ever been. And not for the ways that I thought that it would be.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Right.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I’m still wrapping my head around it. I know that. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging has always been something that has never really truly been understood.
Kind of similar with like critical race theory. It’s never truly been understood by a mass majority of people, and so sometimes when we don’t understand something, we kind of start to villainize it and turn it into evil. Bad thing. There’s nothing evil or bad about diversity, equity, inclusion. I would like to argue like which one of those things are you most angry about?
Let’s really get to the, the gist of it. Like what are we actually mad at? Is it the inclusion? Is it diversity? What’s the problem? What are we angry about? That’s like being angry at bunnies. Like what do they do to you? [00:11:00]
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): I love the way you put that because for folks like you and I, when you put out a premise like, Hey, let’s lift up diversity.
When you put out that premise and people are like, no. I think since we are fighting for a better country world, what do you mean? And then we just kind of get caught up in the combat. But I think this may be a time where we ask like, okay, you are fighting against civil rights. You are fighting against students feeling like they belong.
What do you want? And don’t just say no to me because I think a lot of folks live in the opposition. What do you want? So that reminds me of the conundrum that has always been, we say Black Lives Matter, and the opposition say All lives matter. Well, duh, wouldn’t black be considered in the all? So what are you really getting at if you do [00:12:00] not want diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Do you want homogeny? And if it’s homogeny, who is the one? What are we looking at? Are we going to say that everyone has been getting all that they need? Can’t say that you can’t possibly come to that conclusion. Are you going to say that there are no folks who are disadvantaged in this society? You can’t say that.
So who are those who are disproportionately disadvantaged? Why is that We can get to the Socra Socratic method? Like I don’t even want to get caught up in opposing one another. Let’s just make it make sense that battle is, it’s at the forefront of my mind, is an article coming from this department and that department every day, and I’m reading them because I need to stay informed.
But as the things go on, it’s a head scratcher.
Brittney Carey (she/her): It’s a head scratcher for sure. And getting to the bottom of it is. Integral for us to really [00:13:00] understand. I think as you said, people love to live in the opposition of things and saying, well, all lives matter. It’s like we agree with that. We want all lives that still matter.
The argument we’re making here is that that is not actively the case. So how do we get to the point where all lives are mattering? That’s
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): it. And you know, my gosh, what I’m trying to figure out, I’m only gonna get this answered by way of genuine questions. Those who are. Speaking out against DEI and race conscious decisions and admissions.
’cause that’s really what has been, the gavel has slammed on that. If you look at the outcomes, student outcomes, right? You have some students who are not faring as well as their counterparts, those who are in opposition to DEI and who are in opposition to all of the things, right? Like, do you want all students to achieve?
Now you have to ask yourself that. Do you want. All students to do well. Because what I’m feeling is [00:14:00] that there is a great percentage of folks who just believe that some students must fail. That doesn’t gel well with my spirit. That’s not why I’m in education. That’s not my belief. And I think that we may have to get those folks to kind of say that out loud so we can understand like, oh, we’re not having a dialogue where you’re looking to land isn’t like a non-starter for me.
I don’t think that. Students should be failing. I think that that’s always going to be an issue that we should look to solve. But if you’re like, well, you know, some students are just going to achieve and others won’t and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, then I kind of need you to move out of the way.
I need you to move out of the way.
Brittney Carey (she/her): That’s a big thing we see and it it, like I said, it’s a head scratch and it really does make me think about this. ’cause even in my classes with my adult students, I am constantly harping home that. We can’t solve problems if we don’t know what the origin of that problem is, otherwise we’re just slapping a bandaid on it.
There’s that kind of great saying within medicine that if your patients are constantly drinking from a [00:15:00] well and they’re getting sick and you’re just treating the symptoms of them getting sick, but you’re not investigating the well that’s making them sick, then you haven’t solved the problem. Yeah, right.
The problem is in the, well, we need to go look at that and brings me back to this idea of the four eyes of oppression. And thinking about institutional, individual, all these different eyes of oppression and how sometimes our thoughts are not our own.
Yeah.
Brittney Carey (she/her): If that makes any sense. And how these thoughts and ideas, they can come from institutions like, you know, government, institutions, the medical, the media, educational system itself.
Like these are institutions and so ideas start to rain down about. Well, of course these students aren’t succeeding because look at their home background, look at where they’re coming from. Going way back to, you know, the civil rights era, you know, looking at that Moynihan report and how that really set the stage.
And the Moynihan report came out and basically said that black children weren’t succeeding because they come from broken homes and [00:16:00] because they come from single parent homes, and because black people inherently just aren’t built for thriving and succeeding, and that’s why this is happening. I. People took that as fact.
They said, oh, well of course this makes sense. That trickled down into our education practices where then our teachers aren’t thinking of there are their students as these autonomous already whole beings. They don’t need to be fixed. They don’t need to be altered as their essence of being. We’re looking at them from a completely deficit mindset, from the inception of their educational career we say.
You know, these types of people come from these places and that’s why they don’t succeed. And again, going back to that analogy, we’re not looking at the, well, you’re trying to slap a bandaid on the problem. And you’re saying like, well, yeah, of course I can save these little black children. Of course I can do that when the well itself is racism, discrimination, segregation, oppression, that’s the, well, that is what our educational system essentially was built off of.
Is this [00:17:00] well of already deficit mindset. And here we are today trying to point this out. And we looked at as conspiracy theories, like, oh, that’s not actually happening. I don’t have biases. You know, I don’t have a bias bone in my body. Of course I see my students as as good people, but do you really?
Because if we’re advocating against, because DEI and we’re banning books and. We’re defunding programs that help and support children and help and support families. We’re defunding that. Is that really your thoughts? ’cause I’m not getting that vibe right now
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): at all. Not getting that vibe. The vibes are off.
The vibes are off. And you know, I’m a huge fan of analogies, so I’m gonna try not to run away with this analogy of the well, but I think it’s a good one. And if I could just take the premise of just like a water source, if I’m responsible for this water source, I. And you’re telling me you’ve identified like this is poison.
There’s a great percentage of folks who are like, well, I think the water’s [00:18:00] fine. Meanwhile, they just haven’t gone to the doctor. They don’t know that their insides are turning like the water’s fine. I have to keep you all calm. Like that’s the thing. Racism, anti-blackness doesn’t just hurt black folks.
Bella told a patriarchy doesn’t just affect women. It is harming those of whom who are wielding it as well. Same goes for racism. You believe yourself to be white and thus you do yourself a great disservice. I think it might behoove those who are setting up policies and attacking the things that may make this country a better place that you have of a demographic of folks.
Stay calm and out of the fight, like just stay right there. It is fair, and you’re doing great. It’s fair. You’re doing great. And they’re complaining. They’re complaining. They can’t deal with being less than you. This is all this fuss. But if you were [00:19:00] to wake up that demographic to like the true essence of unfairness and equity, then you might have a real problem on your hands.
So yeah, I understand why they may say like, oh, the water’s fine, or just sell the medicine. You know, like, oh, because it really is a pendulum. We progress and then we come back, we give you two steps forward, one step back. We celebrate holidays the same year, around the same time, and you just kind of keep folks in this sense of, oh, this is just what it is.
I guess we’re just keeping the status quo in place. But yeah, don’t let me go too far down the rabbit hole with analogies and things.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I love a good analogy. I think it really does help to visualize, I. Really complex ideas. I’ll do that all day. So I agree. We both need to be like, okay, this whole podcast is just speaking an analogy, right?
It could be. It
could be, I
Brittney Carey (she/her): promise you it could be. [00:20:00] But thinking of really what we were just talking about, right? Because right now it feels like we’ve taken two big steps forward, and right now in this very moment, it feels like we have taken 87 steps backwards in the opposite direction and. There’s something I was, I’ve just been really reflecting on, I’ve been watching a lot of Jasmine Crockett’s materials and she is, you know, a democratic, I think she’s our congressman or representative, I’m so sorry, democratic from Texas, which is a big deal.
And the other day someone was asking her why is she continuing to do this work and continuing to be outspoken and continuing to speak her truth? And she says, you know, in the civil rights era, people died for her right to be here. They didn’t know who she was. They didn’t know who she was gonna be. They didn’t know who the future that they were fighting for, but they were fighting for that future because that future deserved it.
And I think that’s where all of us are, especially educators are right now, is that we’re fighting for a future that we can’t even imagine. We can’t even see. We don’t know who’s gonna be in that future, but we know that they [00:21:00] deserve to have a future of where they are. Their culture is seen and affirmed that.
They are in every spaces that they deserve to be in, and that our identity and our belonging and our joy is sacred. I’m thinking about that now. I’m thinking about educators who are in the classroom right now, especially during these very regressive times. And what do you think educators and parents and advocates can continue to do right now to resist these regressive and recessive policies and continue to advocate for change in education?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): I think that’s such a beautiful question, and I think about this maybe every day I hold two concepts, and they might seem a little counterintuitive, but not really. I believe in Derek Bell’s racial permanence where racism isn’t going anywhere, anti-blackness isn’t going anywhere, even a horizon. There isn’t a future date that we can look to.[00:22:00]
In which we were like, got it. We beat it. We set out to overcome in the early 18th century, right? Like we set out, or the early 19th century, and we said we shall overcome someday. And that day’s here, I do not think that day comes. And the other idea that I hold near and dear is, you gotta fight anyway. You have to fight Anyway, that’s just it.
There’s so many things that our body teaches us, like the actual, the physical body. I mean, if you do not move or use muscles, they atrophy. When those muscles atrophy, a lot of issues start coming for you. You can be as healthy as you wanna be. You can move every day, have eight servings of vegetables and fruit, and you still might also get sick.
The best thing is that work that you did helped that immune system to fight off whatever that is. You’re not going to ever [00:23:00] stop getting sick. Like there will always be this sickness in our relationship, and that sickness is racism, anti-blackness, sexism, ableism, homophobia, like those ills will always exist.
But it is on us to strengthen our muscles, strengthen each other, strengthen our programs, strengthen our interventions, strengthen our literature, strengthen our research to fight it, and we have to live for the fight. Like that’s just it. Because what we have seen time and time again is that the opposition is not only relentless, but it’s creative.
And if we were to bow our head in acqui. Then we can forget about other generations. The idea is to remind yourself to push back, and I think that parents and teachers are immensely powerful. I think they’re immensely [00:24:00] powerful, and the only downside that could possibly come is if they decide that they aren’t like, oh, this, this is just how it’s gonna be.
We know what’s about to happen. Oh. This is, this is a different time with different resources. I think pushing for certain curriculum, I mean, this has happened over time, so I’m not even being specific here, but there’s a fantastic program that sought to remind black students, in this case in particular, of their authors, to remind black folks of their leaders and their orders and their poets, right, and like put that in the curriculum.
You know, folks push back on that. I love that the parents were like, no, this was helping. You can’t do this. It always has to be that. It always has to be pushing, raising your voice, centering student voice to march towards the school and the education that we want for our students.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Yes, [00:25:00] and the fact that we have to be strong and we have to do that together is such a big deal.
We have seen time and time again as anti DEI practices, and these things have kind of infiltrated their ways into schools and school districts. So we’ve seen how powerful it is when parents, educators, community members show up to those school board meetings and say, no, we don’t want that. We don’t support that.
They’ve said it before, but organizations like Moms for Liberty. They don’t really represent a large majority of what people actually want to see in their schools. They’re just the most loud and the most wrong, right? Mm-hmm. Right. They make their point heard the loudest. It’s very similar with abortion.
When you look at the data, a vast majority of people in the United States support a person’s right and ability to obtain an abortion if they need or want one. It gets over like 70% of the population is like, yeah, people should be able to do what they want with their bodies yet proportion. A [00:26:00] small proportion who are loud and wrong, who say that, no, this isn’t what we want, and it’s only because they are the loudest about it, but they don’t represent what a majority of people feel and want.
That goes back to those, those four eyes of oppression and that it’s by design. If you keep people exhausted and you keep people overworked, and you keep people inundated with bad news, constantly, constantly, constantly over and over again, you exhaust their ability to want to do this and to have the time and energy to do that.
If you are working multiple jobs just to make your ends meet. If you are taking care of your family, if you are fighting off illness, if you are living in an environment that is not conducive to your learning growth and development, when are you gonna have time to do that? And again, that’s not by accident, that is by design.
It is done so that we don’t have the energy to continue to advocate for those things. But knowing that, and knowing that, as you said. Fighting is our way, and that that’s, you know, we need to continue [00:27:00] to fight and we need to continue to have that drive to know that, like you were saying before, injustice to anyone.
It affects everyone.
Yeah.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Just because right now our current administration is attacking trans people and immigrants, people might think, well, I’m not one of those, so I’m fine. I’m okay. You’re not fine. You’re not okay. One, it’s not right. It’s not okay that it’s happening, right? These people are suffering every single day and gross injustices are happening to them and their families every single day.
But if you don’t think that, that’s not going to bleed into your community, it’s not gonna bleed into your everyday life. If you don’t think that’s gonna happen, you’re sad mistaken because it is, and it will,
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): and it has time and time again, and it
Brittney Carey (she/her): has time and time and time again, it will happen. No one out there is really safe when injustice is happening, right?
It’s happening to our fellow community and we need to be up there fighting because it’s only a matter of time until it gets to you and yours. That’s not the only thing you’re thinking about then. Well, it’s coming for you. So [00:28:00]
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): whether you’re ready or not,
Brittney Carey (she/her): yeah, whether you’re ready or not, it will continue to happen.
So you do a lot of research in your own work on inclusivity and diversity equity inclusion. In your research, have you seen practices. That tend to be the most useful or the most helpful within classrooms and communities?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Yeah, just a few. I think that making sure that students feel heard, I mean, that’s the reason that we do research, like these interventions should be data driven and they should be inclusive of multiple stakeholders.
So making sure that there’s buy-in from the principal right to the parent. Everyone in the school, throughout the school, the staff, the counselors. Do you all want to see this student group win? Do you want them to have a better experience on campus? What are they learning? Do they see themselves in the text?
I just don’t understand how one demographics [00:29:00] story, right? Like the cannon of old white men. I don’t understand how that became the classics and everything else is like ethnic studies. I don’t get it. Tony Morrison is one of the greatest writers to ever write. Jay Baldwin is one of the greatest writers to ever write.
I don’t understand why that’s not Canon. So can you incorporate them into the curriculum and really teach that effectively? Do parents feel like they can come up to the school that they’re also welcome and not just when there’s an issue, there is a miscommunication, there’s a misunderstanding. There’s.
Cultural and linguistic practices that are welcoming. I’m also looking at, uh, projects that include multiple languages in the classroom for the Latina students. Are we also reading texts that lift them up? Are we also lifting up holidays on, I know some schools have Holy or a Holly Festival on the campus.
Like the idea is that for too many folks, when we say DEI, [00:30:00] I think they’re like. Black kids get everything. It’s not just focusing on black folks, but it’s making sure that those who are not white of any kind of racial ethnicity, it’s not just about this dominant narrative. Are there counter narratives in your school?
Are there counter narratives around teaching around the pedagogy? That’s the main thing. Where are you taking them? Can they be excited about going on a field trip with you? I mean, it’s so many things, but I think making sure that the different stakeholders are on board with enhancing student outcomes and achievement.
Making sure that the students can identify at least one person who they know will be happy when they win, and sad when they fail and can encourage them to try again. Is it safe for them? Not just emotionally safe, but physically [00:31:00] safe. Is the school climate safe for students? That’s a huge way to increase student’s sense of belonging and achievement.
Yeah. Do they know that you care and students do not care what you know until they know that you care. Those are big factors for me in terms of making sure that students feel interventions are for them. ’cause we gotta get the students to buy into if the students are not feeling it. It’s a wrap. It’s a wrap.
And they know who’s faking.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Yes. Yes, they do. They’ll clock it real fast,
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): real fast, real fast.
Brittney Carey (she/her): The first thing I always say to educators when they’re just getting started in education is a lot of times they’ll have these Pinterest ideas, what their classroom is gonna look like, and I’m gonna make it look like this.
I’m gonna make it feel like this. Or they’re like, they have educators that they look up to and they’re like, well, I want it to be just like so and so’s. And it’s like, well. You’re not so and so, you gotta put your own spin on it too, because if you [00:32:00] don’t, the kids will clock it immediately. Mm-hmm. They will know that you are not who you’re pretending to be.
And depending on the age range, if you’re working with middle schoolers, they’ll say it. Oh yeah, oh yeah. They will roast you until the end of times. Times even sometimes elementary school students, they will too, but I don’t know, middle schoolers, they’re vicious sometimes.
It’s so true. Like the kids will know if you’re not being authentic, if you’re not being true. Sometimes schools will try out a different kind of box curriculum or a different, like, oh, well the district wants us to try this. Mm-hmm. And you do it. You do it one time. You’re like, the kids don’t like it, or they’re not utilizing the thing, or they don’t care about it.
I think there’s some reflective questions in that moment that we can ask ourselves as leaders and educators, is it relevant to the students’ needs? Is it relevant to what they want? And have we included them in this process at all?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): That’s it. That’s the main
Brittney Carey (she/her): thing. Yeah. Have they been included in this process?
I recently [00:33:00] showed a social justice film for my students, and it’s all about anti-bias in early childhood education, and at the end of it. Students, you know, it’s around the Black Lives Matter movements, and they’re preschoolers, right? So they brought this conversation up on their own. Some, a kid had heard about it at home.
It was like, did you know about this? The kids all started talking about it. So the school and the family said, all right, let’s run with it. And started asking them really intentional questions and the students decided that they wanted to go to all the other students, other classrooms in the school and teach them about Black Lives Matters.
You said preschool. Wait, you said this preschool. Wow. These are preschoolers. These, these are like four and 5-year-old. Three, four and five year olds. And they said, no, we wanna go tell them about this ’cause it’s not right. And obviously there’s a lot of work to get to the students to be to this point where they had the language to advocate for that.
Wow. Yeah.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): That’s wildly, it’s a testament
Brittney Carey (she/her): to the work that they were doing in this classroom. One of the teachers said, okay, well if you wanna do that, I’ll go talk to the director and see if we can do that. And the kid said, no, we should be [00:34:00] talking to the director. What? It’s great. It’s an amazing film.
I’ll link it in my show notes if you haven’t seen it. It is a really great documentary that just goes into the anti-bias and education, but it’s a true testament to when we actually give students the tools, the resources. The abilities when we pour into them and show them like, no, you can advocate for yourself and this is how you can do that.
You can advocate for others and this is how you can do that. When you actually do that for them, they take it and they run with it. If you hadn’t set these kids up for success, they wouldn’t have ever thought, oh, I can’t talk to the director. Like, that’s a grownup. That’s a grownup thing. Like, that’s not my job.
I’m just a kid. What am I supposed to do? No. When you actually give them the tools, they want to be active. They want to be active participants in. Advocacy and in their journey. That’s our role as educators to give them the tools and the resources to truly advocate for themselves and advocate for others.
That’s what I truly believe at the end of goal is that’s what [00:35:00] we’re doing. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing within education and within schools. Yeah. If you see it time after time that students want to be a part of this, they want to be a part of solutions. Sometimes trying something once doesn’t work because you haven’t set them up to be successful in that.
Again, reflect on our practices. Have I actually set my students up to be successful in this? Have I given them opportunities to engage in this meaningfully to give their input on this? We’re just getting info from the district. We’re just getting curriculum from our district and we’re not actually incorporating our students in this, and the kids aren’t buying in.
That’s a reflective moment. That’s when we ask some questions. Why do you think they’re not buying in? It’s the easy way out is to just say, oh, kids these days, you know, they don’t wanna learn. They don’t wanna be at school, they just wanna play games on their phone. They just wanna do blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, okay, well there’s some reflective questions we can start asking.
Are we making this a space where they want to be? Yes, they’re legally mandated to be here. Right? It doesn’t mean we have to make it prison life.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Come on, come on, [00:36:00]
Brittney Carey (she/her): come on, come on now. Like, well, there’s ways that we can make it that education is fun and engaging that they want to be a part of. That’s when we start having to stop and reflect as educators and say, okay, am I asking the right questions?
Am I asking myself the right question? Am I asking my students the right questions? Am I asking my families the right questions? One thing that always grinds my gears in education is when people say, oh, parents don’t wanna be involved. I ask them questions and they don’t wanna talk to me, and it’s like, okay, well what kind of questions are you asking them?
When are you asking them? How are you asking them? I. Get reflective on your practice. When you reflect on your practice, you’ll learn so many things, so much when you start reflecting on that. But it’s so easy to just take the easy way out and say, oh, they don’t care. These families don’t care. Or These types of people don’t care.
They don’t care about their kids’ education. That’s the easy way out. Yeah. Who wants to take the easy way out? I’m not here to take the easy way out. I’m here to learn.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): First of all, shout out to you. Shout out to you. You’re doing amazing work [00:37:00] with these students. I mean, amazing work, but you hit it right on that and twice.
The first thing is that you have to give the students the tools. You’re working with preschools, four and five year olds, but it happens in fourth or fifth grade, and it also happens when they’re in high school. Like the idea is that, oh, you all aren’t mature enough to have these conversations. And here’s the thing.
Perhaps one of the downsides, there are a few, one of the downsides of education is that it’s cyclical. Students come in and you know, you got a new batch of ninth graders this year and a new batch of 10th grad, like everyone’s moving in, right? And a lot of the material is staying the same. Some things should stay the same, but I think a lot of things should be growing, right?
Like you can’t talk to 13, 14, 15 year olds. And they’re like, oh, I don’t think you all are mature enough to have this conversation. They have social media, so you are afraid to say this little girl’s name who was killed by the police. They saw it happen on their phones before they got here. You cannot tell them that they’re not mature enough because [00:38:00] they’re going to see it.
And so what happens is when you infantalize them and say, oh, we can’t have this conversation, even if it’s just to express. Hey, we know this happened. Talk to us if you need it. Or we are gonna have a space here and where we can empathize for this happening. If you don’t wanna do any of that, then they’re just gonna go, oh, you’re unsafe.
You don’t trust me to have this conversation. You are creating a wedge in between you two. I got an opportunity to start an intervention with black boys. This is to increase their college access and increase their college readiness and really build their affinity to college. We started out with them the summer after their ninth grade.
That is when the uc, GPA, starts in that program. It’s not just to bring them on the campus. It’s not just to bring them amongst other black boys across the district. But it is also to increase their math identity. So many students are like, I can do that. [00:39:00] Yes you can. And then we can get past this idea that this is beyond you.
If it exists, we can do some work here. Same things with writer. How do we make this writing process more fluid for you? How do we get you to visualize yourself being here? But also one of the gems of this program was dialogue with the students. We’re gonna talk about how to be anti-sexist as a young black man.
We’re gonna talk about how to fight against transphobia as a young black man. We’re gonna tell you that you all are beautiful. What whatcha saying to me, Hey, why can’t you feel like you’re beautiful? We are knocking down those barriers that we know that they exist, and we know that they’ve been passed, that you’ve inherited these things.
It is going to be on you to either like, oh, that’s something that they were trying to give to me, or you actually internalize and ingest it. We want to have these conversations. And one of those students, I’ll never forget, he is like, I’m a little mature for my age. [00:40:00] So I came in here thinking that I was going to be sunning everybody.
But I love that we can have these real conversations. That’s something I can go back to school and learn math. I can go back to school and learn to write some more, but these kind of convers conversations are not happening outside of this space. And I think that’s just because we’d like to shelter our young folks.
They don’t know how quick TikTok is. I mean, maybe they do now, right? I mean, everything’s moving fast. But I’m a huge music lover. I love music. I’m an avid music lover and listener, and I always say, right now is the best time to be a music lover, because everything from music from 1933 to songs that came out last night, you can get it in seconds.
The same goes for knowledge. I think right now with the progression of ai, these are not things that we should be shun because they’re not going anywhere. So incorporate it. Encourage students to use it ethically, incorporate it and encourage it. Because the idea is that you just want them to have the knowledge and the tools and the [00:41:00] know-how and the fervor to say, I want to go look that up, because that’s the kicker.
It’s always been there. Knowledge has always been there. It’s been buried in encyclopedias in the library, and now it’s really accessible to many. Not all understand that there are some technological barriers and there is some inequity that doesn’t allow for some students to have those assets or those resources, but a lot more students have a lot more access to knowledge just by way of the internet, just by way of social media, just by way of ai.
And we have to encourage that fire for learning.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Yes, yes, yes. I snapped to all of that. I feel that in my soul, we could have a whole podcast conversation about media and AI and education. Oh my gosh. We don’t have time to open that can of worms today, but hopefully you would love to come back on and talk to us about that because
I’ve got thoughts.
Okay. I’ve got opinions. Whoa. Alright. Alright. [00:42:00] I’ve got ideas.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): That’s what I’m talking about. I love ideating with good people. Let’s do it. Yes, let’s do it. Let’s do it. Let’s
Brittney Carey (she/her): do it. As we wrap up our conversation, I wanna know, how do you reimagine the future of education?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Ooh. I think about this all the time.
It starts with noting that this may seem like a dark time for folks. In many ways it is. We’re seeing rollbacks. We’re seeing the undoing of progress that feels unprecedented, like a bending of the knee that is not only alarming, but woo. It’s a little terrifying. When I think of the future of education, I’m thinking of this is a far back pendulum swing.
That push to progress might really, I. Really do some work. I think that in all of this fire and this urgency around the current administration, Trump and around the Department of Education, I think that as we move beyond this, and we will, every time we [00:43:00] come up against the craziest opposition, I think that this next iteration, everyone has to be on the page.
If we are going to decide to stay together, like as a country, as society, then everyone has to be on board. On championing the progression of folks, and especially those who have been historically marginalized and oppressed, whoever that is, everyone has to get on board. I just think that we are moving forward towards too much information.
Too much understanding for us to be kind of stuck in the old days of thinking and being. And I think that as we move toward the future, and this is me being an optimist, I actually don’t see hate winning. So it’s my optimism for the day.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I love it. And I think I’m gonna add that to my list of mantras. I don’t see hate winning.[00:44:00]
Every day I wake up, then I see a new news story and I’m like, okay, the fight is still worth fighting for. We still got this, but I have my little list of mantras. I’m like, Nope, nope, nope. Pick yourself up. We got this. Do not crash out.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Yep. Please don’t. Oh my God. If you
Brittney Carey (she/her): not, do not crash out. Okay. It’s all right.
You know, maybe scream into the void for a minute, but come right back.
Yep.
Brittney Carey (she/her): The fight is worth fighting and hate’s not gonna win. This one. Well, I wanna thank you so much for joining me, engaging me in this conversation. Thank you. And it was such a beautiful conversation. You have an amazing soul.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): Thank you so much.
I say the same for you. Thank you for being persistent. Oh, thank you. Earlier in the talk we’re like, oh, you know our schedules. It was me. It was me, and you were always gracious and understanding and supportive, and I really appreciate you. This was awesome.
Brittney Carey (she/her): I’m glad I could get you here. Like I said. I am nothing if I’m not persistent.
There’s some people I keep flying in their [00:45:00] dms. I’m like, hello, please, please. So you got back to me. So I’m like, cool, let’s go. I wanna thank you so much. Where can my audience find you?
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): So I don’t have a personal Instagram, but one of the things that I do to help my folks sustain and just be here and get back into their bodies and live long as I encourage folks to do heel sprints in Los Angeles.
So I started a sprint club in April. We’ll make a year. We’ve been doing this. It’s the, we still Sprint Club. I think that’s the thing I’m most excited about outside of academia. And I want folks to join us. And if you’re champion of this podcast and you can connect with me personally on Twitter or x call me T, it’s at call me C-A-L-L-M-E-T.
Brittney Carey (she/her): All right. Beautiful. I’ll link all of that in the show notes below. If I remember in a la I’m gonna be hitting you up for [00:46:00] that for some sprints,
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): please. Saturdays at 8:30 AM Culver City Stairs. It is a fantastic time.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Whew. Okay. All right. I don’t think I’ve done those. I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think I’ve done them.
We the
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): stairs, we sprint the road right next to the stairs.
Brittney Carey (she/her): We got you. Okay. That’s, I’m like, dang, y’all are intense.
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): No, no, we got you.
Brittney Carey (she/her): That’s more than wellness. That is extreme.
Thank you Tril so much for joining me. Again, I’ll link everything in the show notes. Thank you for being a friend of the pod and appreciate you being here. All
Dr. Tr’Vel Lyons (he/him): right. Perfect. Thank you.
Brittney Carey (she/her): Wow. That was an incredibly powerful conversation with Dr. Lyons. Before I leave you off, if there’s anything I hope you gain from this episode, I hope that you know that the fight for inclusion in education doesn’t just stop at policy.
It’s continues into our classrooms, it continues in our [00:47:00] communities, and it’s in our everyday actions that we have as educators and parents with young children in our lives. If you found this episode helpful, I’d love for you to share it with a fellow educator, parent or colleague who needs to hear it and don’t forget.
To subscribe to Conscious Pathways wherever you get this episode, so you never miss a new episode. It also helps to share this podcast with anyone you know, so I can reach more listeners just like you. For more resources on today’s conversations, you can check out the show notes. If you’re looking for ways to continue to stay engaged, you can follow me on most social media platforms at Conscious Pathways, or you can sign up for my newsletter at Pathways of Promise.
I wanna thank you again for being here, for being in this fight, for believing in the power of education to create change. Until next time, stay conscious, stay courageous, and keep for reimagining what’s possible. Until then, I’ll see you there for more transformative conversations in education. Bye.