(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One" here at the NJEA convention in Atlantic City, and I am so pleased to be joined now by Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, who is an educator, poet, activist, award-winning author, and here to talk to our educators in New Jersey here at the convention.

So great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- I wanna start by going back first, let's go back first to your life, your childhood, and when and where you knew that education was something that was going to drive you through your career, through your life.

- Absolutely.

It started early, the age of 13, but I didn't continue on that path.

I remember saying to people, "I wanna be a teacher."

And the first thing they would say is, "Well, teachers don't make money.

Why would you wanna do that?"

And, you know, I think it kind of influenced me a little bit.

I grew up in the South Bronx, the birthplace of hip hop, at a time when it was such a amazing cultural force for young people.

And I knew that education was important to me.

So I knew very early on that that was going to be my career.

But I ended up going into corporate America.

I went on to college, although I majored in English, but I ended up working for places like "The New York Times" and "Businesweek" and NYU.

And I got to a certain point, I said, "You know, I have to teach."

So I remember being at "The New York Times" and beginning to teach high school at night.

And so I've always had like this corporate persona in the daytime, but the draw and the passion for the classroom led me to teach at night.

And so I've had these kind of two trains running, you know, until I just decided, when I would go back for my PhD, I just decided, no more corporate.

I'm doing this all the way.

- And you've been an educator since.

But also, do you feel that being an educator also means that you need to be an activist, that you need to be a cheerleader for everyone that you see, all the different types of kids that you see in your classroom?

- Oh, absolutely.

I actually consider myself a scholar-activist.

That scholar identity has come with being in the academy.

And I am concerned about all young people flourishing.

And I am also concerned, of course, about the way Black and brown children have not had fair access to great education.

I'm talking about en mass, so I'm not talking about special programs that pull them into certain schools.

And I'm talking about public school systems that are working as wonderful as private school systems.

So that's been my focus really for these past, I guess I've been a teacher for almost 30 years, - So how are you doing just that, because I've watched some things that you've done and something that you talk about that I found really interesting is this archeology of self and getting educators to really look inside to see who they are because I mean, let's be honest, racial honesty isn't uncomfortable for us- - Absolutely.

- as people, it's uncomfortable to talk about or to even look inside and admit if we have racial biases, even if they're there.

So how are you helping educators do just that when it's so uncomfortable?

- Well, I'll tell you, actually, the approach that is best, and it is across all cultures, is beginning with storytelling, really thinking about our lives and telling those important stories that we've come to know ourselves as ourselves.

But I find that easing people in to having them think about stories or prompts, I'm about to do a workshop today talking about the excavation of the self, and we have to know who we are if we're going to really be open to who the children in front of us are.

So it's a practice.

So I'm trying to, if you will, if let's say going to the gym that you have to exercise that muscle.

I'm trying to get folks to exercise the muscle of self-reflection, of telling their own stories, so that when they're in their classroom, they can practice it and they can create a space for the children to do the same.

And there's a beautiful part of humanity that comes out in that when we put all the things aside that we're told how we're different and we see each other as humans through our own stories, it works.

- Give some examples of what teachers can do today, look, watching this program, the message that you're bringing here to the convention, what are some things that they can do today to just better the way that they're communicating with their students and what they're doing in the classroom?

- I would say, and I would say this to all teachers, listen to your students.

Your students will tell you when, and not necessarily verbally, but you'll know when they feel comfortable in a classroom, when they feel like they can take risks, and to be humble enough, right, to really pay attention to that.

In terms of doing the self-reflection, I say this to my teacher education students, anyone who is going to serve a child or be in front of a classroom, you must know yourself.

So I ask them, are you in some form of therapy?

Now, therapy doesn't have to be just talk therapy.

It could be group therapy, music therapy, some people are part of fitness clubs as therapy.

But there has to be a way that you're doing some level of self-reflection on who you are, where you are, and what you want to achieve.

And that becomes an opportunity for you to bring that into the classroom.

What I'm trying to say is we have to be humble enough to tell the truth, to do self investigation.

And if we do not practice it personally, there's no way we're going to do it professionally.

- How does that all stem to what you call critical love in the classroom?

- Ah, critical love.

Love is the answer.

- The base.

- It is the base of everything.

And the critical love, I'm influenced by bell hooks, who talks about every child in the classroom should experience love.

I'm influenced by Reverend Martin Luther King who says that love without justice is anemic.

And so when I think about what does it mean to love a child or a person who's not related to you, or a child who's not your own, it's really being dedicated to their human flourishing.

And so I define critical love as a profound and ethical commitment to the communities, to the people that you're serving.

So even if I have massive differences, as your teacher, I need to be committed to your success.

I need to be committed to, when you're in my classroom, it is a space that you will discover more about yourself.

And so that's what I mean by human flourishing.

And love, for me, has to be at the base of that because where there's love, there's forgiveness, there's grace, there's a level of kindness and empathy that we don't often exercise if we don't start with love.

- We're in a country that I think we can all describe as quite divided right now.

How can we take all these concepts, and especially archeology itself, to reflect and then still give love, expel love to other people around us, no matter, you know, some of those things that should be unsaid, but now people are talking too much about in terms of who you voted for, who you didn't vote for, and how can we use all that to just be more compassionate people all around?

- Well, everyone, I hope, has experienced love at some point, felt loved, has given love.

So first and foremost, we have to connect to that feeling.

And then we have to be honest about, why can't we have those feelings?

Because we're talking about children.

What prevents you from having that type of feeling towards another child?

And then we can begin to, "Well, they don't practice the same religion."

"Okay, and?"

"Well, they don't quite look like my own children."

"Okay, and?"

So what I'm saying is we have to begin with that radical honesty before we can get to the invitation of critical love.

So there's really no way around it but to go through it.

And that's why it's important that my method is to go through storytelling, because no one wants to, I don't want to be in a soapbox and no one wants to hear anyone speaking from a soapbox and doing the wagging of the finger.

So how do we, as humans who have made a decision to teach, so at some point in our lives we've said, "I'm going to do this.

And that means I'm gonna be teaching children.

I'm going to be committed to children who are not my own."

I try to get them to tap back into that.

When you first decided you were gonna become a teacher, what motivated you?

What were you feeling?

Because we know that it's eroded over time.

Systems erode it, things that we see in the world erode it.

So I try to get people back to that original thought, that original story about why they chose to teach in the first place.

So some of my excavation activities is telling a school story, telling a teacher who was important to you.

And we also, I also ask about race stories, name stories, because names are so important.

And names are also a window into culture and also into how children and adults feel about themselves.

So when we spend this time together telling each other's stories, that's how empathy actually fills a space.

- Storytelling can be done in so many different ways, and I know it can be done through a lot of ways when it comes to arts education too, really ingrained.

And I know you use storytelling in a lot of different ways, especially with your poetry.

Talk about how you see arts education playing a huge role in what you're discussing right now.

- My goodness.

Art saves lives.

And artist?

And everyone is an artist.

I mean, Picasso said that "Every child is an artist."

- I had that written on my wall, on the wall in my daughter's playroom.

"Every child is an artist."

- It's really important for children to see that.

And sometimes they have experiences where they're told that they're not or they feel that they can't.

Art, as I said, saves lives in the sense that art gives us permission to take risk, whether it's visually, whether it's musically.

An artist have a very special role in this society to tell the truth.

And so oftentimes people will paint something, or a child, if you think about psychology, when a child is going through something difficult, depending on the age, the psychologist will ask them, "Well, can you draw me a picture about how you're feeling?"

Because what they may not be able to say, they're able to show in their art.

And so this is why it's important for us to ask questions.

When budgets are cut, why is art and music, those very, very important topics and content areas that actually connect to the human soul, why are they cut first?

So we really need to think about advocating for arts, but more importantly, figuring out every teacher, whether you're teaching math or science, how do I infuse arts into what I'm doing?

Because arts is a portal that opens up the opportunity for children to express themselves in powerful ways.

- Yolanda, it was so great to hear your perspective on all these really important things.

I think we all need to take a look inside ourselves.

And at the end of the day, like you said, love.

That's the base of it all.

Thank you so much- - Thank you.

- for taking the time to speak with us.

Really appreciate it.

- Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- We'll be right back after this.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Holy Name.

The New Jersey Education Association.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

The North Ward Center.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

And by PSEG Foundation.

CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

- (Narration) Healing is never just about medicine and technology.

It has to go further than that.

It has to combine science with humanity.

It has to be our best medicine, combined with large doses of empathy, kindness, dignity and respect.

It has to be delivered by people who love what they do and who they do it for.

Holy Name.

Great medicine, soul purpose.