- [Chuck] Welcome to "Ear To The Common Ground."

Here we celebrate the power of music and food to bring Americans together.

- [Claude] Filmed from a historic barn on Cash Lane in Music City, each episode of "Ear To The Common Ground" features one musical artist, and a diverse gathering of eight of their fans.

- [Chuck] Everyone brings a dish to the table and they talk about one of the issues of the day, face-to face with compassion.

- [Claude] Replacing contempt as they keep their hearts, ears, and minds attuned to the common ground.

We are Louis York, and these are eight of our fans.

- [Chuck] Elizabeth.

- [Claude] Phil.

- [Chuck] Kelly.

- [Claude] Hal.

- [Chuck] Marla.

- [Claude] Mariah.

- [Chuck] Clay.

- [Claude] And Cleveland.

- [Chuck] Tonight, we are focusing on education.

- [Claude] Let's celebrate America's greatest diversity, diversity of thought.

- [Chuck] And shine a light on some common ground.

♪ Forget about the rest ♪ ♪ It is what it is ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Hey, it is what it is ♪ ♪ Now you say ♪ ♪ It is what it is ♪ - I think the spirited conversation is definitely gonna be appropriate tonight.

It seems like we're coming from a lot of different places, but have some similarities, so that's gonna be great.

- I think that with the introduction and practice of Common Core, which, what was this, 2005?

- Five.

- So yeah, I was outta school about to go to law school.

But I think we've pushed a lot of that exploration about where your strengths are later and later because we are having to tackle so much of the core.

So, when I finished law school, I taught some adjunct classes.

That was in 2010.

And I found that those students, they had far less academic interests, specifically because they had spent their entire secondary, primary education doing those core things.

And I said, "Well, didn't you explore things?

Didn't you get to learn what you were good at?"

And they're like, "No.

I was just trying to get to college."

- Right.

- [Hal] Yeah.

- Where I'll owe money.

- [Elizabeth] And get the grade.

- [Hal] Yeah.

- Yeah.

And, I mean, that is not a solution.

That's just something I recognize that it's just later and later.

And then we're not giving anybody that gap time to figure it out.

We're just saying, go for it.

The answer has gotta be more education, right?

- Well, so yeah, I think that's really interesting that you said that.

I think that what I thought you meant at first was that people should specialize really early.

But I think what I hear you saying, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that people should be allowed to explore more so that they tap into different interests.

Well, maybe it's a good music class., or maybe it's.

- I was meaning the smarter of the two things.

(all laughing) - That's always the best answer.

- Whichever one that works.

- Yeah, yours is great.

Let's go!

Yeah, no, that is true.

I like it.

- [Marla] Yeah.

Where I actually live, each high school, public high school, has a specified STEM academy.

So there is one that is Applied Health Sciences.

Of course it does the regular, you know, they have students that are the general student population with the general education.

But, they select so many students a year, who apply and who meet the criteria, to be in that program at that school, or the pre-law, that program at one of the other schools, and so forth.

So they've done sort of these vocational interests.

- I think there's probably an opportunity for there to be a happy medium in the sense that we need some level of standards to understand that there's consistency across the curriculum at a national level, and at a local level, - [Kellee] A local level.

- [Hal] across schools.

And at the same time, I appreciate in the idea of trying to teach more about problem solving and critical thinking, and maybe not getting bogged down always in just teaching sort of rote memorization of facts and testing on that kind of thing.

So I think what we need is a combination of those things.

I think we need commonality, and sort of base standards.

But we need more creativity in how we judge success, what metrics we're measuring.

I totally agree that we need more opportunity for local school boards and for the teachers to be creative in their lesson planning.

- [Phil] Completely agree, yeah.

- And we need to be cautious about letting too many things being kind of dictated from the top, because then it's about whose voice is being heard or not heard.

And if we move towards some of the discussion that I think we might with things like critical race theory, and some of the things that are happening in my state where at the university level, we're even being told things that we can or can't say in our classes.

I think that's really problematic.

- I think it's difficult to have a common standard when you don't have common ingredients, and you don't have common budgets.

- [Marla] That's, oh wow.

I think the idea that a school in South Mississippi, where I went to public school, could achieve some of the things that an affluent neighborhood public school can.

We're putting that on the teachers?

That's their responsibility to make up that gap?

- I need to actually say something about Common Core.

As a teacher, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what Common Core actually is.

Because common core is actually about critical thinking.

It's not about the rote memorization.

And the problem came with, how do you quantify critical thinking.

- [Kellee] Right.

- [Cleveland] Yeah.

- [Mariah] Well, you have to give them a test, right?

And that's where the testing came in.

But, you know, Common Core was never intended, you see these horrible videos of the dad doing the math homework with his kid, and he's circling all of the single digits until they can get to a hundred or something.

It's ridiculous.

- It's not good.

- But, that's not what Common Core was intended to be.

But that's how it was executed.

And the problem is when you have this bureaucracy at the top, and I will agree with you a hundred percent, that a lot of the people in Washington don't know.

A lot of people in our state don't know.

- [Kellee] Agree.

- A lot of people on our school boards, that don't know either, what we're actually doing in the classroom.

Although, they do have a better connection to it.

But the intention with Common Core is really to get those common standards so you can assess whether somebody in Massachusetts or Mississippi have the same ability to think critically about a subject.

But the execution and the demand to test that work, which accountability is important, but it's giving so much anxiety to these kids, and to these teachers, that it's almost counterproductive.

- Every year in high school for Algebra one, two, geometry, I didn't have that teacher that was able to break it down in a different way.

So I found myself in summer school every year.

But what I did love in high school was DECA, 'cause I knew I loved marketing.

So that was where I really channeled a lot of my energy.

And I was like, "Oh, that math thing, I'm not gonna use geometry anyway."

You know?

But I wish I had that teacher that would've creatively shown me the way.

'Cause actually, my summer school teachers at another high school were that, and I was like, "Oh, it's this?"

"Ah, this is easy."

But I didn't have that at my core school.

- Yeah, I feel really fortunate.

In higher education, we have a lot more creative license, I think, just the way that it works.

Critical race theory side, if we're not allowed to talk about the history of the country in specific ways that suggest that there might be structural racism, which I believe that there is, then I'm gonna let the students come to that conclusion through their own research.

And so we use devices like online story maps where they can embed maps that show histories of redlining and segregation.

And we're talking about the built environment, and structures of how society plays out.

And the students come to these conclusions, and you can see it in the data that there is dramatic inequities in access to opportunities for healthcare for - Pretty much everything.

- For everything, yeah.

And the students come to realize this, if they didn't already believe it, they're gonna see it in the data.

And then we kind of unpack it, from the inside out.

Rather than me telling 'em what to think, I'm showing them how to find the data, how to logically problem solve and come to these conclusions, and then showing 'em the history and the legacy, and real estate and land use planning that show where redlining existed, and how they're still existing in inequity in real estate transactions, and all sorts of things.

And they see it.

CRT is a buzzword I teach in sustainability that's now a no-no partisan buzzword.

Social emotional learning, which I deeply believe in.

We see tons of students in college that have anxiety.

- Trauma-informed education.

They don't like to hear those terms.

- Yeah.

It's become, unfortunately, the words become a politicized buzzword that's like this sound bite that doesn't actually represent what it's talking about.

- [Clay] Rename it.

- Yeah, because I mean, true critical.

- [Hal] But then it will become the new buzzword.

- [Clay] Let's rename it.

- [Elizabeth] What would you rename it?

- I mean, you don't have to do this, but people with a good understanding of it.

- What do you all think about it?

- So, I think critical race theory is actually a good name for it.

I think the problem is that it's been politicized.

There's another term that I often use, I use it when it comes to religion often too.

And it's a word that starts with the B. I said Bastardize, - [Marla] I think I may have heard of it.

- And they swap it, and they change.

And what happens is you change it and you weaponize it, and use it to do the opposite of what it's intended to do.

Critical race theory is, as you explained it, it is there for you to understand.

It's a way of assessing and analyzing structural racism throughout a system, throughout a country, a nation.

That's what it's there for.

So, when you go through the process of, sort of, it has come down to talking about just judging someone by the color of their skin.

No, that's not what that is.

- But I don't think that critical race theory, what it was established as, was to look at, oppressor versus oppressed.

- It's a theoretical understanding through an academic discipline that's fundamentally about African American studies, to try to understand the historical arc of why these inequities exist.

- And rooted in the African American experience.

- Absolutely.

And so to be able to frame it outside of that would not make sense.

It's just illogical.

I think it's been bastardized.

It's been weaponized and distorted in ways that it was never intended.

It's been around for decades.

It's not a new theoretical construct.

- Did anyone have an understanding of it, or knowledge of it, five years ago?

- [Kellee] Yes, just nobody knew it was being called that.

- [Clay] I think the problem is that people who understood it, weren't using it.

- At HBCU, it's the way - [Clay] Now, people who don't are taught.

- [Kellee] we're taught.

- [Phil] Totally.

Morgan State University, hello.

- Howard!

- [Cleveland] Okay, ain't you!

(all laughing) - As a society, frame this challenge that would be more constructive.

So let me give an example of the idea that we're worried about white individuals.

I come from a place of privilege, right?

I'm a middle class, cisgender, heterosexual, white male.

Whatever label you want to put on it, I'm more than the labels.

We all are, right?

But I'm definitely increasingly aware of my privilege, in society.

And, I grew up in the state of Florida, and I learned about the Rosewood Massacre prominent.

It was very much like Florida's version of the Tulsa Massacre.

- They made a movie about it.

- And I learned about the Tulsa massacre watching the show, 'Watchman', on HBO.

I had to learn about it through entertainment.

And I learned about Rosewood in Florida in the 1920's through entertainment, because my dad happened to be an extra on the set of the movie, 'Rosewood', that was being filmed by John Singleton.

And I was home for spring break, and he said, "You know, you wanna be on a movie?"

And I said, "Sure."

And I got to be on the movie in a scene where we're defending the Alachua County line from the individuals that were coming from Rosewood to then bring that into Alachua County, to basically lynch the African American citizens in Alachua County in the 1920s.

I mean, if this happened today, this would be terrorism of the highest order in this country.

And it would be traumatic beyond anything we could imagine.

And yet, nobody taught it in my schools.

And I had to learn about it through entertainment, individuals who realized that these voices needed to be heard, these stories needed to be told, and they didn't have a pathway to do it with the power structures of the school system as it was.

And so I think that's what critical race theory is about, it's helping us to bring voice to the stories.

And so I tell my students all the time, "Let's stop worrying about words."

If you're worried about defund the police as a concept, then maybe we talk about reallocating the funding.

If you're worried about decolonizing aspects of education, history, planning, then let's talk about recontextualizing it.

It's not taking away the things that those of us that are white in society can be proud of.

It's adding more, it's enriching it, it's more.

The well of love is bottomless.

You don't lose love by giving it to somebody.

You don't have less to give to somebody else.

I feel like we, by having these voices that haven't been heard, I think we have more love, and a richer story, than we ever had without them.

- If I say to you that part of the reason why a Black History Month exists is because CRT was cultivated before it was identified and named.

So, when we start with the founder of Negro History Week, that happened to be the first week in February, that's where we can actually sort of trace the roots back to CRT.

And that exists because we weren't being given a time to know our heritage, our history, the nature of our relationship of beyond just, we started as slaves.

Because, grew up in the eighties.

So basically, black history, even from the eighties, was taught, you got here through the slave trade, - [Cleveland] Slave trade.

- and that's pretty much it.

Slave trade, Martin Luther King, and then we were all free.

- [Cleveland] All free.

- And everybody was combined, and suddenly there shouldn't be a conversation at all anymore about how race has implicated, about the racial implications on why, there is still struggle.

On why, even in 2022, you still have black families.

And I'm gonna say black, 'cause I'm black.

Why you still have black families who have students where your students going to school, and this is your first person ever in college.

Still, in 2022.

- I was raised in a faith based family household.

And it seems with everything that goes on in the world, by now trying to take prayer outta school, and with things going on, people try to add it back into school.

And I know we are all fighting our own demons.

What are some of your thoughts on that as far as bringing prayer back into school?

- I wanna know your thoughts.

- [Cleveland] Like I was saying, I think it should be brought.

- [Mariah] You think it should be brought in?

- [Clay] But I want to know what just mean by prayer, and I wanna know what you mean by school.

- Could it be like a - [Mariah] That's a good question.

- quiet moment for mindfulness where a student has an opportunity to engage in a relationship to the ineffable on their own terms, rather than being told how to find that path.

- [Mariah] Recite This Prayer.

- 'Cause I feel pretty passionate about our path to God is totally unique.

It is ours.

And for each of us, we find a particular wisdom, or, tradition that may offer some guide rails that tell us, "Hey, this is a path that might make sense."

And usually it takes time for us to sort of find that.

And I think if we just do what our parents do, that's kind of another form of conditioning, sometimes.

- [Cleveland] Yeah.

- [Kellee] Agreed.

- So I definitely think I would be supportive of an opportunity for students to be mindful and reflect.

As long as they're not being told how to do that.

- I really do think that there needs to be room for people to express their faith, or atheism.

Or to have their connection time in their own meaningful way.

So I would love to see there be an opportunity, to whatever that, - [Hal] I agree.

- however that shakes out.

As long as it's not a pressure.

- [Clay] I feel like we're trying to get along.

- To be something.

- [Clay] Which is good.

- [Kellee] So I remember the moment of silence.

- [Cleveland] I do too.

- Grew up, you know, I was born in 1980.

I remember the moment of silence.

I also remember hearing, every Sunday morning, they took prayer outta school.

I was like, "Uh, no they didn't."

"You can pray."

"Nobody's telling the kids that they can't."

- [Cleveland] That's right, yeah.

- But, you know how I was always kind of.

Nobody's telling us that we can't.

I certainly went to school with that knowledge.

So, if I wanted to say grace over my lunch, I would.

I wasn't forcing anybody else to do it.

- [Hal] That's where the challenge comes.

If students gather on the football field, at the University of Florida after a football game, and they pray in a way that makes it sound like it needs to be focused on the Christian path, to the ineffable, then students that don't share that path are gonna feel ostracized, or outed, or othered.

- [Cleveland] What point do you look at it, when you have a child that's going through certain things, and, of course, you were saying that you take the extra step with the math problems with the students.

But, when you see that the child is dealing with something, whether it's something in their household, something at school, and your only way you know is to pray, or to try to assist the way that you know.

Whether it's through faith, that's a challenge.

- It was really important for my students to not know where I stood politically, so that I could teach them how to think critically about the things that were being said, and the things that were being told to them.

Now, I will say, what I was gonna say earlier about praying, I have been in a situation where an individual student came up to me and told me about something that was going on with her, because teachers can have good connections with their students.

And in this one particular case, she asked me to pray for her.

- [Kellee] That's very different.

- And I didn't, you know, it's not like I went around talking about my faith.

But, some of the kids knew where I went to church, or knew my kids, or whatever.

And so, you do kind of get to know things about each other when you're in community, right?

Which is the purpose of a public school.

And so, I did have an opportunity, or I guess, took an opportunity, because I was approached specifically to pray with a kid.

But I would not have ever offered that on my own, or led the class in a prayer.

And so, I think that that's really, it's important to not bias your students when you're a teacher.

We're facing, and will continue to face, a mental health issue in our education system just because of what we've gone through.

There's been so much trauma for these kids and for us, frankly, as you know, for adults.

- [Clay] It's such formative years.

My middle schooler never having a real middle school experience.

- [Cleveland] Yeah.

- [Elizabeth] That could be good or bad.

- [Clay] Well, I mean, - He could be lucky.

- he's probably less miserable, but I don't know that he'll be a better human being because of it.

- [Phil] It's a lot.

I can't imagine.

That's why I just applaud all of the parents, 'cause it's so much.

And I was talking to a friend of mine who's a single mom, and she's got a nine year old who just told her that he's bisexual.

And she's trying to understand how to cope and navigate as a single mom, and like, what do I do?

And now he's also said he has a crush on another boy in the class.

And so she's like, "What do I do?"

But it's just like, so she's trying to understand how to navigate, just this is a whole new world.

Just so much - [Clay] When we started, you said you wanted kids.

- I did.

But now, hearing all of this, I'm like, "Okay."

- [Kellee] He was so sure, but now he's like, hmm, maybe not.

- [Phil] I'm like, okay.

- [Kellee] Maybe not so much.

- [Phil] I'm homeschooling.

- [Clay] You're trying to take our kids.

- Yeah, I'm like, hold up!

- [Elizabeth] You were looking for random ones.

- No, I'm homeschooling if I do have kids, - [Hal] And it's a lot goes into it.

- [Marla] So, when we decided to do this, I started asking people that I know, especially people that worked in education, "What do you think is the biggest problem with education?"

"What do you think you would do?"

And I kind of thought, I wish every kid could have, and this might chuck me up a little bit, could have a safe learning environment where they're appreciated for who they are, and someone is spending time guiding them.

- [All] Hello.

Hello, hello!

- [Clay] And they come bearing sweets.

- [All] All right!

- [Clay] Sweets!

- [Cleveland] Sweets!

- All right!

- What's up, man?

- Thank you.

- Nice to see you.

- We're so sorry we're late.

(all laughing) - [Marla] Right on time!

- Right on time.

- We brought our favorite cupcakes.

- [Kellee] You did?

- Yeah.

- [Marla] Did you make two?

We gotta group.

- I see.

I was watching on the cameras.

- [Kellee] Over veg and chili - Sure, everyone, take one.

- Thank you, bud.

- Take one down, pass it around.

- [Cleveland] Happily.

- Enjoy.

Take one down, pass it around.

- Yeah.

- Excellent.

- [Cleveland] That's awesome.

- What did we miss?

- [Mariah] Oh, man.

We had a really good - Good food.

- conversation on education.

- Good conversation.

- Some good food.

- [Claude] I bet.

- [Hal] Oh yeah.

- One of the things we were talking about was the personalities of teachers, like in the educational environment.

And how much they have a chance to kind of be themselves.

- [Claude] I mean, it's all teaching, and therapy, and lessons, and growth, right?

So, I mean, the word griot, we call the album 'American Griots', because we weren't just doing music.

It was a mission for us.

And it was about not just loving to be on stage, although we do, although we do, but reminding ourselves, and our peers as well, we know lots of people that do music, that there's a deeper meaning behind why you do this.

Why you have a microphone, why you play an instrument.

It's literally to tell stories and to educate people, and to have a conversation, honest conversation.

And if you're traveling and touring, then you're a griot, because you're telling the stories of where you grew up, or what you experienced in life.

And that gives a lot more depth to what a musician is.

♪ Teach me a song ♪ ♪ A song about love ♪ ♪ Something that matters ♪ ♪ Teach me a song ♪ ♪ Don't fill me up ♪ ♪ With your idle chatter ♪ ♪ Don't get me wrong ♪ ♪ It don't have to be long ♪ ♪ But, the words must be strong on the page ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm sick and tired ♪ ♪ Of these colorful lies ♪ ♪ In the end ♪ ♪ They've got nothing to say ♪ ♪ Okay ♪ ♪ Would you teach me a song ♪ ♪ And I'll sing along ♪ ♪ Well, show me a heart ♪ ♪ That's not looking for ♪ ♪ Some kind of answer ♪ ♪ Give me light in the dark ♪ ♪ Over the glitz ♪ ♪ And over the glamour ♪ ♪ Don't get me wrong ♪ ♪ It don't have to be long ♪ ♪ But, the words must be strong on the page ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm just like you ♪ ♪ So in search of a tune ♪ ♪ That will take some of this pain away ♪ ♪ Okay ♪ ♪ Would you teach me a song ♪ ♪ And I'll sing along ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, ah ♪ ♪ Don't get me wrong ♪ ♪ It don't have to be long ♪ ♪ But, the words must be strong on the page ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm sick and tired ♪ ♪ Of these colorful lies ♪ ♪ In the end ♪ ♪ They've have nothing to say ♪ ♪ Okay ♪ ♪ Okay ♪ ♪ Would you teach me a song ♪ ♪ And I'll sing along ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ - Yeah.

- There we go.

(group cheering) ♪ Strawberry skies ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Never in a million years did I ♪ ♪ Imagine you'd show me ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Strawberry skies ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ (group cheering) (gentle music)