(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Ryan Silver, principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

Good to see you, Ryan.

- Good to see you as well, Steve.

Thanks for having me here today.

- You got it.

Tell everyone what the school is and why it's so significant that it's named after the great iconic hero, Nelson Mandela.

- So, Nelson Mandela is Newark's newest heartbeat as I call it.

It's a school located in Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey.

And this school is so special because not only is it really taking the opportunity to educate scholars starting at age three and aging up through age eight right now but it's also truly empowering our scholars to live a life of civic-minded social justice, truly with an eye to service and keen citizenship, living in the spirit of Nelson Mandela.

- Ryan, you refer to your students as scholars, not students.

Why is that?

- Well, I believe truly that any student that is sitting in a school, a school of excellence, should be embraced as a scholar.

So at Nelson Mandela Elementary School, being a student is simply not an option because scholarship is the option, the only option for our kids.

Every day we push our students, our scholars, to make sure that they're precise in pushing their studies in literacy, mathematics, and in science, truly hoping to accomplish that goal of reading one million words in a school year.

- This is the first year of the school?

- Yes, we are currently in our first year, actually in our eighth month of operation.

We opened our doors September of 2023.

And we are pre-K three through third grade.

- Did you come up with the name, Nelson Mandela Elementary School?

- Yes, so I partner with Roger Leon, our district superintendent, who had this phenomenal idea to name the school after a revolutionary leader.

And what better leader than Nelson Mandela, right, being a pioneer not only in education but also in social justice and civil rights, pushing the true journey of what it means to be a scholar and living in the mission of not only thinking about how you liberate yourself but also liberating a group of people.

So when we were toiling with the ideas of naming the school, Nelson Mandela was the only option.

- Ryan, let ask me you this.

Nelson Mandela's legacy speaks volumes, impactful, well over 20 years in prison simply because he worked to fight against Apartheid in South Africa.

Why does Mandela's work speak to you on a professional as well as a very personal level, please?

- Well, quite honestly, Steve, it's hard to truly separate the two.

On a very, very personal level, I believe that each of us has encountered in some way an adversity.

And Nelson Mandela's story is just that, a story of adversity and him working to overcome these adversities and work through a struggle.

So as I think about the work that I've done as an educator for nearly 20 years and I think about the work that is to be done, I think about how the pandemic has caused us to see so many deficiencies in literacy, so many deficiencies in mathematics.

And so it pushes us to all think about how we can be better.

Over the past three or so years, I would say roughly between 2021 and now, I've read a series of Mandela's diaries, I've read a series of his anthologies, and one message resonates.

And it is true that truly in that moment of adversity, we start to see that we have options, right?

One option to give up, one option to push through, and one option to look at this as a lifelong learning lesson for us to think about how we can now empower people to do something different in the future.

- So every obstacle, every barrier, every challenge, and Mandela faced more than a lifetime for millions of others.

- Absolutely.

- Is an opportunity, has to be an opportunity.

Correct?

- To be an opportunity and it depends on outlook but it has to be an opportunity, absolutely.

- So I wonder how, Ryan, and you've spent 20 years in education, right?

- Yes.

- I wonder how the heck with the children of Newark and the challenges that they face, disproportionately Black and brown and your students by the way, 100% of the students at Nelson Mandela Elementary School are children of color.

77% are Ecuadorian.

- Yes.

- 20% African American or Black.

Question, how the heck do you communicate and get the message across that every challenge, barrier, and obstacle is really an opportunity to kids that are really young?

- Yeah, we do it through love.

And so many of my peers have laughed at me at times when I've said, "There's only one way to lead a school "and it's with love."

Right because oftentimes when I speak, I get very impassioned.

You can probably see that here today.

I speak with my.

- I can.

- I smile, I jump, I get excited.

And kids feel that.

When they see and feel the way in which our adults interact with them in class, they know that they're cared for and that they're loved and they want to be a part of doing something right, doing something well.

Our parents feel that every single day that we open our doors, the hugs that push and say to people, "We're here and we're in this together."

However, we don't make any excuse for a child.

We truly believe, and I'm not saying this because I'm here with you today, we truly believe that if we push scholarship and truly believe that if we push every single child to read every word on a page, to compute every single number that they see, we are living in that legacy because it is difficult.

When we have so many scholars that are Spanish-speaking, many scholars that have come as a newcomer to this country, it's easy to give up.

It's easy to have a defeatist attitude.

But we push that there's no option to give up.

We only push through and then we celebrate success every single day with either shout-outs in class or shout-outs whole school, that gets celebrated.

And that also encourages scholars to want to do better.

- Ryan, where'd you grow up?

- I grew up here in Newark, New Jersey.

- What part of the city?

I was in the North Ward of Newark.

Where'd you grow up?

- So I grew up in the South Ward.

I attended Maple Avenue School.

I also attended Arts High School.

So I am a Newarker.

I'm a brick city baby.

- A brick city baby.

How did you find yourself 20 years in education in Newark, all 20 years?

- Not all 20 years.

I started my career in Newark.

I spent some time working in New York City and now I'm back.

- How did you wind up being the principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School?

- Yeah, so Nelson Mandela has been a project and a project that has been in the works for many, many years, right?

I believe that our superintendent had the idea of re-envisioning schools and opening schools that would do something differently, do something innovative.

And I've always stood behind that.

So as I was doing work in New York City as a principal, really breaking barriers there, we stayed in touch and I told Roger Leon that I wanna be part of the new regime of schools that he is building in our city.

I wanna be part of the excellence that's being built here.

So when we conversed about this opportunity, I could not say no.

And I said to him, verbatim, "I'm ready to come home."

- Ready to come home.

Newark's your home, right?

- That's right.

- I often say this to people and I know it sounds corny to some but being born and raised in the city of Newark, my family still there, my dad, you know the work that my dad and you know, who passed, and now my sister Michele at the North Court Center, the Robert Treat Academy, a whole range of other educational and community-based initiatives.

You can move out of Newark but Newark is still it just is a part of those of us who grew up in Newark.

I mean, it's a part.

Isn't that sound, is that?

Is Newark just always a part of us?

- It absolutely is.

I cannot think about any conversation I've had, either about my personal journey or my professional journey, that doesn't always take me right back to growing up in Newark and having a series of dedicated educators that worked alongside my single mom to really make sure that I had everything that I needed because I didn't grow up incredibly wealthy.

I didn't grow up, you know, with a silver spoon.

You like that?

Silver.

But I did not have a silver spoon, right?

However, there was a push.

There was always a push to be excellent by teachers and educators who were also Newarkers, right?

They pushed us to be great scholars.

And that in turn is the same level of push that I'm bringing in here today.

- Ryan Silver, principal of Nelson Mandela Elementary School doing important work.

Well done, Ryan.

We'll look forward to having you back to tell us more about the progress at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

All the best, Ryan.

- Thank you so much.

I look forward to it as well.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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