(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, I'm Steve Adubato.

Recently my colleague Jacqui Tricarico and I traveled with our team to do a series of interviews down at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention Annual convention.

We talked to educators, educational administrators, authors, poets, people engaged in a whole range of activities, impacting our kids, impacting our schools in the world of education.

Here now are those conversations.

Jacqui, myself and some really interesting people in AC.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One", on location at the NJEA Convention here in Atlantic City.

So pleased to be joined now by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, an educator, poet, activist, award-winning author, you have two beautiful books, "Cultivating Genius" and "Unearthing Joy", thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us here.

- Thank you for having me.

- It's great to have you.

So, I know a lot of the work that you do focuses on three concepts, right?

It's genius, joy and justice- - Yes.

- And these three things really directly impact education in many ways, describe that for us.

- Well, I see...

I start with "genius", and my work really takes the...

The excellence of the history in the past, and brings it to like what we can do for children today.

But, "genius" I found, was a word that our ancestors used to describe themselves, so we don't talk about children as much as geniuses today, or "genius" is like a word that's just reserved for a couple of children in the whole district.

So, my work sees every child as genius, I see genius as their unique brilliance, special qualities, talents, light, epistemologies, and knowledge that they hold, and I see every child, and not coming to our classrooms empty, but full of genius that they carry about the world.

And the second major pillar of my work is "justice", you know?

How can we move toward a better humanity for all?

Justice is understanding hurt and harm in the world, and working toward disrupting that, anti-oppression, and "joy".

Joy is something that we don't talk a whole lot about when it comes to schools, there is not a lot of curriculum instruction, assessments, evaluations on joy, and I see joy as more than just having fun, or celebration, but joy is wellness, it's healing, it's a sense of peace, it's wonder, laughter, aesthetics, it's all the things beautiful, and helping our children to recognize the beauty within themselves, and the world around them.

And, when those three-pillars come together, we can then begin to talk about you know, education, and what we need to do moving forward.

- Well, in your opinion, what do we need to do moving forward?

What can our educators pull from those three-pillars into their classrooms today, to really cultivate that... That feeling in their classrooms of those three concepts?

- Sure.

I think before we move forward with action, we have to first educate ourselves on the history of schools and education, on theory, on practice, on education, how did we get here?

What's good about what we have?

And what needs to be advanced or improved?

We also... That intellectual work is important.

And then, we need to also understand ourselves, our hearts.

What my dear friend, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz calls "Archeology of Self", who are we?

Why are we so uncomfortable with genius, justice and joy?

If we are, or why does it feel so good to our spirits?

So, we have to do the work around anti-racism, anti-oppression, and things within ourselves, and then we move to practice.

So, practice, and what I think we need to do moving forward in terms of action and practice, is just changing what we teach and how we teach it.

In my own work, I look at five major goals for education, which the ancestors named as "pursuits", which I love that language, they were pursuits of learning, and they look at teaching and learning around identity, as number-one, helping children to know who they are, helping us to learn about each other.

The second, our skills, the proficiencies we need across different grade levels, and content areas.

The third is intellectualism, teaching new knowledge set into action.

And the fourth is criticality, which is social justice, and equity, and teaching about how to make the world a better place.

And the fifth one is the joy piece, right?

Teaching our children about the joyful things.

Right now, across assessments, learning standards, evaluation, curriculum, instruction, we typically teach, measure and assess just one of those skills, 20% out the 100%.

- Yeah.

- And, what I think we need to do, is move our standards, our curriculum, our teacher education, everything that we do within the field, toward all five, because then we'll teach and have a more complete holistic child, who's ready for the world, and not just ready for a test, we want them also ready for the world, and I think it'll also just invigorate our educators.

- You've talked about in the past, learning loss was something that we focused so much on, during and after the pandemic, but you say something that we should've been really focusing on, was "joy loss", you're talking about measuring that, right?

As opposed to the standardized testing, how do we measure that?

How do we measure in the classroom, the joy that these students are having, or what the educators are bringing to bring them joy in the classroom?

- Well, first thing, we have to understand, "What does it mean to assess?"

To assess means to gather information, collect data and information about a child, you can assess anything you hold of value.

So, there are assessments for confidence.

(Dr. Muhammad laughing) There's assessments for things that people, aren't as cut and dry.

So, of course you can set learning objectives in the classroom about joy, you can say, "Students, we'll learn about the aesthetics in this art piece."

And you can have discussion, questions, projects, a quiz, to assess if they've understood aesthetics, and the beauty of an art.

You can assess anything that you find value to.

We ask children questions like, "How can we make learning more joyful?"

As an assessment question, a three-year-old said, "If I can bring my Hot-Wheels to school."

This child brought his Hot-Wheels to school, and conceptualized, and built a garage using play block materials, and then intellectualized the garage, and said, "When the car goes in and out the garage due to different weather conditions."

It became an act of genius, just from one Joy Assessment question.

So, we have to shift from how we've been doing things in school since the 1600's, and say, "You know what?

Does joy matter enough?

Do we need joy?"

And then, how do we collect it, and assess it, and see how our instruction is joy, is increasing joy, or enabling joy.

It's possible, I've been doing it the whole time, along with so many teachers, so we have so many great examples of it.

- You talk about the history that you're pulling into what you're doing today, and part of that is Black Literacy Societies, talk about what those were and are even today, and how you're pulling from that to teach these concepts.

And also, I know you compare them to libraries, and our libraries really not receiving the respect and the resources that they need today, but they're still such a critical, important part of our child's education.

- Yeah.

So, these literary societies were started by Black people in the United States, in the urban areas of the North East.

So, places like- - Back in the 1800's?

- Mm-hmm, in the early 1800's, around 1828, they were called lyceum, salons, book clubs, reading rooms, library companies, but essentially, they were literary societies, they were organized spaces around education and literacy development, they studied art, mathematics, science, language- - All of it.

- History!

I found an article where literary society members were reading about fashion in China at the time, and so, think about all that was going on in the United States in 1828.

So, they didn't just retain their readings to what was local, but international intellectualism.

And they had membership dues, and their money, after they paid all their expenses, their money went to books for their libraries, their first goal was to cultivate their libraries, because they knew that books held such a special power of knowledge, of joy, it allowed them to transport themselves to other worlds, it allowed them to become educated and prepare to how to navigate you know, the society, which had turmoil and racism, and oppression, but they didn't neglect their joy.

Can you imagine, like at the time, there's a lot of pain happening in the country, and they were still saying that, "Our joy matters."

"Our identity matters."

So, libraries were cultivated, were encouraged to come to, they were special hubs and places, just like they were across Africa, so they were continuing that lineage of their people.

And, when I...

When I studied these spaces, these book rooms, these literary societies, I found that they carried those five pursuits up as goals, and they named their learning goals as these pursuits.

And they had young people, as well as young adults, and they had teenagers, young adults, and older people, and it was like a "each one teach one" philosophy.

And, one of the developers said that, "We wish to see the flame of improvement spreading amongst each other."

That's what learning was, it was like a flame that would spread, and to keep something to yourself, education or knowledge was a selfish act for them.

And, what they taught me, they laid out the roadmap of what education can be today, and how we need to go back to the second-part of your question, how we need to value our librarians, they are those sources of knowledge who can direct us to the books that would take us to different places.

And so, that's why I always value librarians, in these spaces, because they're special places that our children deeply need and deserve.

- Here at the NJEA, you came here to New Jersey to Atlantic City to talk to our educators, what do you hope is the most important thing that they took away from your discussion with them today?

- Well, I just...

I always...

I start every session out with one question, "How's your heart?"

(Dr. Muhammad laughing) It doesn't matter when...

I've been doing this for so many years, I always want teachers to know that they are loved, that they are cared for, and you know, I appreciate you, and value you, and I thank you for all your service.

And, it's my hope that we all wake up everyday and just check in on our hearts, our wellbeings, our wellness, because we can't do the work for children, we can't do genius, justice and joy, without that self-work first, and I just...

I want them to take away this notion of possibility, we don't have to have a "either or" dilemma, "Either I have to teach a child to read, or teach them joy."

Guess what?

We can have it all.

If they did it in 1828?

- Why can't we do it?

- The genius we have, the resources we have, the knowledge we have today, we can do it today.

So, I want them to know that all five of those pursuits, identity, skills, intellect, criticality and joy, they work beautifully together, to teach the whole child, and when you teach 'em all together, the teachers feel a sense of renewal, like that's why they became a teacher, I don't think any teacher I've met said that they became a teacher to test prep.

(Dr. Muhammad & Jacqui laughing) - Right.

- They became teachers to give children joyful, real life experiences that will connect them to the world around them, and that's what I hope the model does for them.

- Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your joy with us, so we can learn more about what you're doing, and the important work that you're doing.

It was great to have you with us, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- So, for Jacqui Tricarico and myself, and our entire team down in Atlantic City at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention, we thank you so much for watching, we'll see you next time.

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

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Valley Bank.

PSEG Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Fidelco Group.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by Meadowlands Chamber.

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