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In the final episode of 2024, host Brittney Carey takes listeners on a reflective journey through the achievements, challenges, and pivotal moments in education and social justice over the past year. From celebrating California’s implementation of the ethnic studies requirement and the growth of transitional kindergarten to highlighting national victories against school voucher programs and book bans, this episode strikes a balance of hope and honesty.
Brittney also addresses pressing challenges such as the rise of anti-DEI legislation, educator burnout, and low morale, encouraging listeners to see advocacy, community, and voting as critical pathways for change.
On a personal note, Brittney shares her experience navigating different “seasons” of life—reflecting, planning, and taking action—and why pausing to regroup is essential for sustainable progress. Subscribe to the Pathways of Promise Newsletter to be notified of upcoming exciting adventures with Conscious Pathways!
Key Timestamps:
- 00:00 Introduction and Welcome
- 00:44 Reflecting on 2024
- 04:53 Wins in Education and Social Justice
- 15:42 Challenges and Lessons Learned
- 23:00 Advocacy and Moving Forward
- 25:44 Building Community and Looking Ahead
- 28:21 Conclusion and Gratitude
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Key victories in education and social justice in 2024
- Challenges educators and advocates are facing nationally
- The importance of reflection, planning, and seasonal life phases
- How advocacy, community, and voting can effect meaningful change
- What’s next for Conscious Pathways in 2025
Don’t miss this episode full of insights to help you rethink the role of education in fostering equity and justice from the very start. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow educators and parents committed to creating a better world for our children!
Resources Mentioned:
Gwendolyn Wallace on Representation in Children’s Literature
School Vouchers rejected by voters – Propublica
Book bans decrease in 2024 – The American Library Association (ALA)
Key Insights Into America’s Teachers – Education Week
The State of ECE wih Dr. Denise Kennedy
Follow Brittney and Conscious Pathways:
- Subscribe to the Conscious Pathways Newsletter
Enjoyed this episode? Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Conscious Pathways podcast. Share this conversation with a friend or colleague passionate about equity in education. Listen to more episodes of the Conscious Pathways podcast for more insights on education, social justice, and advocacy.
Let’s continue to reimagine education—together.
Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
[00:00:01] Brittney: What is one thing you’re proud of? And what’s something you might want to do different in 2025
[00:00:16] Brittney: Hello, and welcome to conscious pathways. The podcast, we explore the intersection of education and social justice. Through transformative conversations. I am your host, Brittney. And as always, I am so happy to have you on this journey with me today and welcome to the final episode of 2024. I wanted to do a little bit of a different episode today, so it’s just going to be me come along for me on this journey.
Reflecting on 2024
[00:00:44] Brittney: As we just yap a little bit about 2024. I kind of final reflections on this year
and just how I am planning to show up in 2025.I like to view life. I
Seasons of Life and Planning
[00:00:57] Brittney: n terms of seasons.
You have all the different seasons of life spring, summer, winter, and fall.
The trees don’t have to ask permission to lose their leaves or to change. they don’t grief this. They don’t try to stop it. it’s as a part of nature as a part of what happens as a part of that cycle. And I’m saying this because I do see essence of that in my day-to-day life.
There are seasons of my life where I am so energized and I am ready to go. And I have that inner fire within me, just burning. When I feel that I feel so productive. I’m on top of everything. And there are seasons of life where I’m. Not in the doing mood. Where. I’m more in a planning phase of life.
And that’s exactly where I am right now. I am in a very deep planning phase. I could feel it just in the way that my body feels and the way my mind feels and the thoughts that are coming up. I might not be in that fiery, let’s go type of season right now. I need to plan. And this season is just as important as those doing seasons as I like to call them.
Sometimes you have seasons of being in seasons of doing right now. I’m in a season of being, For a long time as someone who is a high performer and prides themselves on being productive and reaching goals and always trying To do the next thing
It was really hard. I would fight this season of life every time I’m just like, no, I need fire. I need energy. I need to go. But this phase of life is also really important. Because it gives me perspective. It gives me reflection
So what’s working for me this year. What’s not working for me. What’s not serving me anymore. What kind of practices can I, leave? And what kind of practices can I pick up so that I can help reach my goals? this season of life is just as important as those fiery. productive seasons.
sometimes we just need seasons of being That’s what I’ve been doing these last couple of weeks Reflecting on myself, my personal goals and things I’m trying to reach in my career. I’ve been reflecting on my business as an entrepreneur. I’ve been reflecting on the podcast. And because I’ve given myself a little bit of time to do this. I have so many incredible ideas, That I can’t wait to share.
there’s so many things on my mind. So many creative ideas that are coming up now When I’m in a season of go-go go, I don’t really have time to think of these creative ideas. I’m just implementing what I’ve got. that’s why this season is important because now I’m seeing all these creative ideas starting to come up and partnerships that I want to work on and ideas that are popping up for me. I’m so excited and I feel like I’m in a space now that I’m in a planning season of life. I can really put that on the calendar and make space for it and grow those ideas and really make it happen. when I have that fire back in me and I’m like, let’s hit the ground running. I already have a plan. It’s amazing. I bring all this up to again, yap, about our reflections for 2024 and. there’s a lot of things that I’m incredibly proud of in my own life.
And there’s things I’m really proud of for this podcast. and I can’t wait to share those things with you. the big point of this episode, just as we close out 2024, I want to invite all of us to take some time to reflect.
I know that. The result of the 2024 election was not. What most of us wanted to see. coming into January, that is the reality that we are going to be faced with. And so I’m also been thinking about that and reflecting on what. Advocacy is going to look like for me. In 2025 and moving forward.
I think this is a great space for us to take time, to think and reflect and see. What’s working for us and what’s not working for us. how are we going to band together so that we can keep education, a safe space for students?
Wins in Education and Social Justice
[00:04:53] Brittney: for this episode,
I’m going to highlight some key wins of 2024 and the education and social justice space.
I’m going to discuss some areas where we still have some work to do. And in the end, I will leave you with some actionable steps
that you can take to help carry this momentum in the 2025. Let’s get into it.
[00:05:15] Brittney: The first thing we’ll talk about is our education winds of 2024. I know that this was a bit of a rough year, so it’s hard to see where the wins were, but I promise you, they were there. the first thing I want to highlight is. in California specifically. A 2022 bill finally went into effect this year for the 20 24, 2025 school year, which was AB 1 0 1. Which states that as a part of public high school areas, graduation requirements. they need to take an ethnic studies class. And that is a win for a multitude of reasons because
the research really does show us that the more we are actually exposed to diverse patterns of thought and diverse ideas and concepts and literature that actually really does expand our mind and it expands our opportunities. it’s a great opportunity, for students to understand their culture, to understand their space in society and understand the history of that, but also for. students who might be from outside of that culture to take a class that specifies either in African-American history, Mexican American history, Asian American history. That really dives into that. you might take a class that might talk about these ideas.
But briefly, if you take a history class, they’ll talk about it a little bit, To have an entire class dedicated to these very specific topics and experiences of culturally diverse individuals. especially in an American context, is a really big. Deal.
that went into effect this year. we’re not going to have data on that just yet. But I am so excited to see. bills like this inaction actually moving forward. So that is a beautiful thing. That is definitely a win.
Another kind of quasi win I’ll say,for California, is that we did move forward with. Transitional kindergarten TK universal pre-K, that is something that is moving forward. And has been really implemented. It’s been implemented since about 2023. but in 2024 2025 school year. We really seeing the implementation of this and there’s been a lot of changes.
I say it’s a quasi good thing, because. it’s great to have universal. Childcare universal pre-K. That is, something that as an early childhood educator is something I have been advocating for for a long time. It increases access to students from multitude, associate economic backgrounds in culture.
As in diversity, it really increases their access to early childhood. And we know that when you have high quality access to early childhood education,
the better your outcomes are
that leads to better outcomes in the long-term, better rates of. graduating high school, better rates staying within the school system.
There are so many benefits to having access to high quality early childhood education programs. not only academically, right? students who go through preschool tend to fare better in terms of academics, but also in terms of social, emotional learning, and development, it gets access to families to have screening opportunities. opportunities that they can contribute to their child’s early learning and development.
So there is so many great benefits to it and having an expanded, comprehensive multi-tiered system. That students can engage with is an incredible idea. I say it’s a quasi good thing, because I’ve done a couple of episodes talking about transitional kindergarten in California.
The way we’ve gone about rolling out this program. There were a lot of hiccups and as a legislature had to go back and change a few things. to make it more intuitiveWe’ve really had to take a couple of steps back,
So we did a couple of steps forward and implementing a universal pre-K program. But there were a lot of steps being taken back in terms of who can teach these programs. the access that families have
The rollout of this universal, TK program, traditional kindergarten was a bit of a hot mess but ultimately. I’ll take it as a win.
It is increasing access. It is elevating childcare and early education to the bigger consciousness of education. So that’s something that I love to see. And I can only keep hoping that we will keep implementing positive change within the system. seeing how this rollout has really impacted early childhood educators and family childcare providers.
it’s had a bit of a detriment in terms of. That. I am excited to see how, with more advocacy and with early childhood educators being at the forefront of this, I can see it being a really beautiful program. That could benefit. all of Californians and, even nationwide, we can look at how other states are implementing this and the benefits of that as well. More, so nationally, some wins that we’ve had.
Nationally in terms of state and local elections. Voters. Really came in numbers in defeat of school voucher programs. And that is incredible. So school voucher programs.
give public dollars to families. With the idea that it gives them choice that then use this voucher to go to a private or religious. Or a charter school and kind of helps. The funding of getting the access to that. The downside of school vouchers is that it actually just creates a larger divide in, in deep deepens, the inequities that we already see in terms of school segregation.
In fact, it doesn’t help support the students. It doesn’t help support the families and the research isn’t showing that the school voucher programs actually benefit students in benefits families in any ways. In the effort to de legitimize the department of education and de-legitimized public education. school voucher programs have been rising in popularity, being pushed forward by more Republican leaning politicians. But it really isn’t benefiting the students and it’s more of a cash grab than anything.
So to see that.
to see. How voters are showing up. Against school voucher programs is promising we’ll see How education shifts and changes in 2025. But. To see so many people coming up and defeating the school doctor programs. It is really promising. It is very, very promising.
And it’s showing that the consciousness of. American educators and parents collectively. Don’t want to see these programs. instead of using our funding to fund these school voucher programs, that takes so much money, actually.
So much of that budget to full fund these school voucher programs. We could actually be pouring that money back into public school programs and making the programs better and improving the programs instead of diverting money away from public education and more into private education. there’s some great books that I have been reading to better understand. School voucher programs and the privatization of education.
And I will link those in the show notes. so if you want to also go on this reading journey with me, maybe we could start a conscious pathways book club in 2025, and we can read some of these books together and talk about it because there’s a lot that goes into it. I know I’m actively learning about. The privatization of education and how it’s pulling money from public education and where this kind of has started.
look out for that. That’s one of the ideas I have a contract pathways book club, and we can talk about education and social justice, I’m very proud to see school voucher programs being defeated in this last November election So that is a promising. Movement to see in terms of advocating for our public education educators teachers and families. Another national win is that there’s actually been a decrease nationally in. Efforts to ban books. Between 2023 and 2024, there has been a big push by states, local schools, publishers, even students and teachers. against book banning, and that’s very promising to see. Of course, there are books that have been banned. But. According to the American library association in 2024, there was reported 414
Attempts to sensor, library, materials and
There were 1,128 challenges to unique titles. That’s still more than 2020 numbers, but it is significantly less than 2023 numbers. that is really showing us that. All of the parents and the teachers and the students and the libraries and the publishers.
It’s showing that when we’re standing up against these movements to ban books, into band voices, We’re doing something that it’s actually working, you’re seeing that progress. So. That is a win. That is absolutely a win to see that we’re making progress in terms of making sure that representation can still exist and that people can still have accessMass majority of. Titles and resources that are going to be so beneficial for our students.
I have another. podcast episode that I did this year with Gwendolyn Wallace, where we talk about representation and the effect of banning books. I’ll link that in the show notes, as well as put a card here on YouTube. if you want to listen to that one, you can.
so that is what I have for our education and social justice winds of 20 and 24.
And I think all of these wins deserve to be celebrated.
In order for us to see how far that we’ve come, we need to take time to reflect on all the work and seeing the benefits of all of that work throughout the process. That’s going to keep us going.
Right. So when we’re in a season of reflection and planning, We can See what’s working and what energy we want to keep taking with us into 2025? And what energy are we trying to leave behind? being able to reflect and celebrate our wins is such an integral part of that process.
as we go into our doing season of life, our advocacy season of life, and really continuing to make change. We can’t always be in a doing aspect We have to sometimes take time to pause and reflect. And so I think it’s really important,
So while we reflect in, while we see those wins, we also know that progress is not linear. so let’s talk about some lessons that we’ve learned this year and some areas that we can really continue to grow in.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
[00:15:42] Brittney: this year, we definitely faced some challenges, and saw some areas of improvement in terms of social justice and education.
The end woke higher education act that was passed earlier this year. And that is aimed at higher education,this is really an attack on diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. critical race theory. It is a. A big step back in terms of making progress for higher education and education at large. It’s a pretty big step back from. All the progress we’ve been making over the years to make education. More equitable
and denying access and belonging within schools the idea of school safety. Is also at play here. There’s a lot that goes into it, the ongoing pushback of DEI in schools, puts a lot of strain on. Educators who are just trying to do their very best to educate students and do their jobs. it makes it really impossible. When. we’re not able to talk about. The Realities of everyday life and the world and the impact of that.
And we can’t talk about racism. We can’t talk about LGBTQ. these are aspects of students’ lives that they are dealing with, that they are seeing. and so when we’re not actually able to provide context to their experiences, to what they’re already seeing and experiencing. It creates this very big disconnect.
Right. And so we’re seeing that. In one way, educators are increasingly dissatisfied with their jobs. A recent poll just came out And about 21% of K through 12 educators would recommend. Becoming a teacher to their children, their students, their family members, their friends. That is so disastrously low. And it’s understandable, right. We continue to have a rise in school shootings, then that’s contributing to the lack Physical and psychological safety that both educators and students are feeling within the school walls. On top of that educator salaries, haven’t really increased with the cost of inflation and cost of living.
And with all of that included. It’s understandable. Why would people want to become educators and become teachers when. the state of education is feeling so abysmal. And that’s just something that we have to reflect on. teachers who are in the profession. So especially in early childhood and K through 12 as well, you’re seeing. That the enrollment into education teacher preparation programs has been decreasing steadily over time.
So we’re having less people wanting to join the profession of education. We’re also losing a lot of educators who are in the field. we’re not getting as many new educators into the system. the educators who are still here. Morale is low. burnout is incredibly high within the education field. it’s not looking great for teachers right now.
And so there’s these challenges of retaining educators through burnout. and you have just high rates of educators being burnt out and leaving the field and droves. So it’s yeah, it’s not looking great in terms of. Being an educator and feeling good about the work that we’re doing. there’s a lot more advocacy that we can keep doing in terms of keeping our educators and focusing on educator wellness, especially our educators of color,
There’s less educators of color joining the field in education and even less that are being retained reflecting back on my conversation with Dr. Asia Lyons. That racial battle fatigue. The educators go through. especially educators of color are going through. That just leaves them burned out and leaving the field.
we have a small amount entering the field and retaining these black educators is. abysmal. so I’ll also link that episode in my show notes, or if on YouTube up in the card aboveIf you want to hear a little bit more about racial battle fatigue and the impact this is having on black educators specifically.
So, what are these challenges actually teaching us? And what are we learning from? These challenges. I think it connects really closely back to our wins. there’s such a small group. Of individuals who. Fight against progress in these specific ways. So, you know, moms for Liberty or Libs of Tiktok. There’s a small amount of people who are just really, really loud and have the time to show up and express. Their displeasure with certain aspects within education. But when you look at our wins, people are voting against school voucher programs.
People are using their time to advocate against book banning.
I don’t think these thoughts and mentalities really represent the families, educators, and students values within the United States system. So many of us. Want to see progress. So many of us
want to see education thrive and be a space for all children and be a space for all students. And it’s so disheartening. To see. The bills, like the no woke in , higher education act going through it’s it’s hard to see the potential dismantling of the department education. It’s hard to see those things because it doesn’t reflect what a majority of teachers, parents, and students want. I think our lessons that we’re learning from this is that.
You know, when we get to the bottom of it. We’re looking at, who’s actually pushing for these things who stands to gain from. School voucher programs and that’s privatized education programs. They’re making millions upon millions, billions of dollars. Off of privatizing education and at no point, is it for the benefit of students? It’s for making money.
So when we get to the. bottom of it, like who’s actually pushing these ideas forward and Usually it’s down to making money it’s corporations that are pushing for. These types of things Again, it doesn’t reflect what parents and students and teachers are actually needing in their everyday lives.
And then what this really teaches us is that. We can organize be louder and shout from the top of our lungs. Exactly what we need and want. change is possible. We’ve seen that in those wins, change is possible. We’ve been very loud about universal pre-kindergarten. And we’re getting there.
We’ve been really loud about DEI work and progressive education. And we are getting there. I feel like every year we get closer to having more progressive education for students. it’s not linear, so we take one step forward and sometimes we take five steps backwards, and it’s just a lesson for us to reflect on that.
But change is possible. We’re going in that direction. And so what can we learn and what can we do about these roadblocks?
Advocacy and Moving Forward
[00:23:00] Brittney: Well, There’s a lot of things that we can do. And I’ve talked about this on multiple episodes before, In terms of advocacy, it’s important to find. Your version of advocacy that. Resonates with you and the time energy and money that you have available to you.
One of the most powerful ways that we can advocate for schools even early education is by showing up to our elected officials and showing up to those school board meetings and speaking our truth and really advocating for what’s needed.
When we’re showing up in those spaces, we are telling the decision-makers. exactly what we need. That is a valuable thing to do, but obviously not everyone has the time, the energy, the money to show up to school board meetings.
That’s only one way that you can advocate. As we saw with the winds that I discussed. You can use one of the easiest way. The easiest thing that you can do in your advocacy journey. Is to use your voice. By voting. Not just in major elections, but smaller local elections vote for your school board members. Vote for your elect, your local elected officials. Really use your vote.
It’s a powerful experience when you use your ability to vote, to affect change. we have seen that time and time again while we didn’t get our preferred outcome for the presidential election. We did see that the smaller local elections. have, fought against anti-abortion bills.
Multiple states have fought against to this and are trying to codify reproductive rights within their states. we’ve seen massive steps of progress in those directions, just by using your vote, just by using your voice.It’s the easiest thing you can do. Vote in your local elections. It has power and the ability to affect change, especially at our local levels.
other avenues of advocacy are finding your community. So one thing that I have been doing is I’ve been finding committees. I’ve been finding groups to join. I’ve been finding my community and not only does finding a community of people who share the same motivation. Is that you get to learn from them and you get to grow with them.
And it provides a community of support as we’re going through this. They don’t have to be groups that meet in person. I have plenty of groups that just meet. virtually and, you know, we might meet in the afternoons or we might meet on the weekends.
Find a group that you can be with that will help expand your thoughts and ideas Show you different avenues for advocacy and connection and help you grow deeply as an advocate.
Building Community and Looking Ahead
[00:25:44] Brittney: you can even join the conscious pathways community.
that’s something I’m really wanting to build and grow and have a part that we as conscious educators and parents and students can come together and. Look for avenues for change.
I want to focus on cultivating more self care practices Building a community and preventing burnout. Advocacy is never linear. There’s going to be times when it’s really difficult and hard. But connecting with our intention and why we’re doing this work. Keeps me motivated to keep showing up and to keep doing my best. I want to make sure that I am prioritizing connecting with community. And that is the conscious pathways community that I am building here.
I want to focus on cultivating community wellness practices and spaces where we can be together and grieve.
We can vent, we can share our wins. We can reflect together. That is the type of community that I really want to build. And that is what the conscious pathways community is. so if you want to get updates on that conscious pathways community, you can subscribe to my newsletter, pathways of promise.
I’ll leave that link in the show notes as well. subscribe to that newsletter and you’ll have all the details. whenever that conscious community is launched, it is on its way. It’ll be a 2025 experience.
I’ll also be listing in my newsletter. Some really big. Big big, big things that are going to be happening at 2025. Like I said, I am in a planning. I am in a prepping season of life and I. And Ooh, you just wait for 20, 25.
There’s going to be so many great things coming out of conscious pathways. this year. I cannot wait to share with you. subscribe to my newsletter, pathways of promise. That will be well, you’ll see any launches. you’ll see, what’s coming up next.
there’s lots to look forward to. I just want to acknowledge that I know I have a lot of anxiety going into 2025. I’m nervous, especially about education and the direction we’re going to be going in with a Donald Trump presidency.
there’s a lot of uncertainty. I’m nervous. I’m scared. But I know that together we can do anything We’ve got this. we can keep advocating for change. We’re going to make sure that we have each other and we’re going to make sure that we have all those great things.
So. Look beyond the lookout for some good, awesome changes, conscious pathways book club that we’ll be launching and the community that’s coming out soon. either subscribe to the newsletter, pathways of promise, or keep listening on the podcast.
Conclusion and Gratitude
[00:28:21] Brittney: And on that note, I want to thank you so much for listening to the podcast all this year. Season two is just beginning. This will be the last episode of 2024, but I have some amazing guests lined up for 2025. And I have some more amazing a solo episode. So if you liked this, let me know. I, I have been enjoying just yapping along here.
it’s a little bit different than what I’ve been doing, but I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, let me know in the comments. Let me know on social media, what you thought. And until next time, don’t forget to navigate your conscious journey with courage in kindness. And I’ll see you there for more transformative conversations.