- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

The North Ward Center.

RWJBarnabas Health.

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The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(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.

- We're here at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City.

We are welcoming Melissa Ziobro who is curator of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at...?

- Monmouth University in beautiful West Long Branch, New Jersey.

- Now you've been connected to Monmouth for a while.

- I have.

I'm actually a Monmouth alum.

Then I went to work for the Army as a historian for several years before returning to teach.

So I've been teaching at Monmouth since 2007.

- What's gonna happen at this center and why is that so important?

It's not gonna open until officially till 2026, but right now there are things happening.

- There are so many things happening.

So the Bruce Springsteen collection originally starts as a fan-based collection.

Fans who were collecting tour merch and bootleg recordings.

And it comes to Monmouth University in 2011.

By 2017, Bruce makes us his official repository.

So we do have an archive on campus currently that's open to researchers by appointment.

But we just broke ground on this brand new 30,000 square foot museum facility that will open in the spring of 2026.

- But it's not all about Bruce.

What else is it about?

- It is not, and I'm so glad you brought that up, 'cause we love Bruce, right?

So we are his official repository, but we are also the Center for American Music.

And so through our programming, through our exhibits, we get to teach the entirety of American music through that very accessible prism, right?

That kind of lets people in, gets their defenses down.

We all love music, right?

And so it's such a unique way for us to explore our shared past.

- Talk about our shared past, the connection between our history, American history, and the 250 years of American music.

How the heck do we learn?

It's so interesting, the irony is not lost on me.

My wife and I are rewatching Boardwalk Empire, right?

Boardwalk Empire, a lot of it's about Atlantic City.

It was shot from 2010 to 2014, but it takes place in the early 1900s and a lot of it has music in it.

There's a question here, I promise.

Music and the history of our country and the connection, talk about that.

- They are absolutely intertwined, right?

Music both shapes and reflects our American history and culture.

- How?

- So any time period you're going to go look at, you can look at the music and understand what is happening.

I'll give you an example.

You know, we were just talking about World War I.

If you look at the music that is produced from 1914 to 1917, for example, when the United States is neutral, music supports neutrality.

When we get- - Neutral in the war?

- [Melissa] Correct.

- We're not in.

- Correct, and music supports neutrality.

Once we get into the war in 1917, music starts supporting sending your son, your husband, you know, your loved one off to war.

So we could look at other examples too.

The Great Depression, right?

Go look at the work that is produced during the Great Depression and see how it reflects the trials and tribulations of Americans who are suffering during that time.

And it goes on and on and on.

- And what about the Vietnam War, the music around that, the song War, "What is it good for?"

Absolutely nothing.

It's not just some song out of the blue.

It is connected to what's happening in the late sixties, 1970, early seventies.

- Absolutely.

As a primary source.

You know, we're here with teachers today.

They want your footnotes, they want your bibliography.

Music is a primary source that we can look at to understand what was happening.

So you mentioned the Vietnam War.

That's an interesting case because this is the first time in the Vietnam War where music almost unanimously protests a conflict.

And what a change that is from our earlier analysis of music during times of war.

So it's just enormously exciting to think about the many ways we are going to be able to use music to teach students.

I think you get a lot of students, and sometimes I'll teach a required history class and students might come in and they think, oh, this is gonna be boring.

And I'm like, are you kidding me?

Music is, history rather, is full of the craziest stories you couldn't even make up.

But it's all about the way it's presented to the students.

If they think that history is just about memorizing names and dates, well sure, I might think that was boring too.

But when we can grab their attention with music and artifacts and stories, that's when they wanna learn.

And we need students to do well on history, not just for test scores.

We need them to be well-informed global citizens who can be active participants in our great democracy.

- Well, so when and how did you become and why did you become so interested in this?

- In history in general?

I just always- - History and its connection to music.

- I've always loved history, you know, and I've been fortunate to have these opportunities to be doing history out in the public because I think there's an enormous appetite for it, if, as I said, it's done well.

So I'm just so grateful to Monmouth University and the great state of New Jersey for the opportunities I've had to pursue this field.

- And the message here at the convention is...?

- Is teachers, we see you, we celebrate you.

We are building this new, very exciting building.

And all the Bruce fans wanna come.

Yes, we want them to come, but we want you to come.

If people stop by our booth, they'll get a taste of some of- - Do you have a booth here at the convention on the floor?

- [Melissa] We do, yes.

They wanna come by the booth.

They wanna see the popup exhibit we have.

We've got some educators material- - What's in the the popup exhibit?

- My goodness.

The popup exhibit is called Music America.

And it looks at 250 years of American history through music.

It's based on this enormous traveling exhibit we have.

This traveling exhibit has 150 artifacts that document American life from, you know, a hymnal from the 1700s to an opera gown to Ray Charles sunglasses and on and on and on all the way through Taylor Swift.

We don't have all of those artifacts here today, unfortunately, but we've got a popup version of that exhibit to give people an idea of what we're going to be doing when the building opens, right?

So teachers come see us, get to know us, and one of the most important things we've got in our booth is an educator survey, because I don't want us to take a "build it and they will come" approach.

I want to hear from the teachers now, how can we best serve you?

- So it's evolving as it's happening.

- Absolutely.

- Melissa Ziobro, who is the curator of the Bruce Springsteen archives and the Center for American Music at Monmouth University, Melissa, well done, thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- We appreciate it.

Stay will us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

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

I am so pleased to be joined by Cierra Kaler-Jones, who's the executive director of Rethinking Schools.

So great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So we were talking about this before, you grew up in Galloway, New Jersey, which is right outside Atlantic City here, and Absegami High School graduate like me, we have that in common.

Describe your high school experience though, because I know that's kind of where things started for you in terms of wanting to become an activist and make change where you saw that it was really needed.

- Absolutely, so, believe it or not, growing up, I was very shy.

I was so shy that I hated raising my hand in class, but I loved to dance.

I've been dancing since I was five years old.

And at the time that I was a junior in high school, the school board ended up cutting the arts programs because of statewide budget cuts.

And that was the first time in my life that I felt overwhelmingly passionate about something, so passionate that I knew that I could no longer be silent.

And so we started organizing, students were coming together with teachers, community members, and we started writing to the local paper, we started a social media campaign, and we started showing up at school board meetings.

And we told our personal stories about what the arts programs meant to us, and we were actually successful in that campaign, and they reinstated all of the arts programs.

But from there, that was the impetus for me to get into activism, to get into organizing, but also I learned the importance of storytelling, is that we could actually build narrative power in coming together to be able to change policy, to change decisions made by these decision making bodies within our school district.

And that's what led me to arts education work, and ultimately to becoming a dance teacher.

- And so a lot of things that you're describing are things that you're doing at Rethinking Schools.

Describe what the organization is for us.

What are some of the things that you're doing right now?

- Yes, so Rethinking Schools is the nation's leading grassroots publisher for racial and social justice and education.

So we have a quarterly magazine as well as book publications.

And one of the things that's really unique about our work is that all that you see that we put out is, first, person-centered.

It's story-rich, it's narrative-driven of teachers, parents, students, organizers, activists, telling their own stories about sparks of possibility in the classroom, in the community, strategies for organizing.

And we have several campaigns including our "Teaching for Black Lives" campaign that's all around our book, and what does it actually mean to teach for Black lives, to organize for Black lives?

And in this current moment where we're seeing over 44 states and counting have either introduced or passed legislation that is trying to ban critical conversations about racism and oppression in schools, we are doubling down on that work.

One of our newest books is "Transgender Justice in Schools," in light of all of the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans legislation that's been circulating the country, to be able to provide resources for teachers to demand transgender justice in their schools, both for trans teachers and also for trans students, and also to give trans students a space to be able to share their stories so that we can learn directly from them.

- So you mentioned a little bit, but we're actually just a few days after the presidential election, and we're going to be having another Trump administration take office in January, 2025.

What does another Trump administration look like for the work that you are doing?

How is it impacting what you and your team are trying to accomplish, especially when he is talking about dismantling the Department of Education and content restrictions when it comes to a lot of things that you're speaking about?

- Yes, well, even in this in-between time of Trump administration, we have seen educators who have been terminated and educators that have been doxxed for teaching the truth about history, for talking about racism and sexism, for talking about genocide happening all around the world.

And so we are fearful, but not defeated, and recognizing that our work is going to continue, we're gonna double down in that work, but we also recognize that we are probably going to have to lean into more support for educators who oftentimes don't have the legal resources that they need to be able to fight this legislation.

I think that it also creates a chilling effect where even teachers who may not be in states that have passed this legislation are fearful of teaching about the truth.

And so we want to make it so that there are resources, that there is support, and there's also community, because many of these teachers have expressed feeling siloed, feeling alone in the work that they're doing.

And we have helped to create this national community of social justice educators, and we know that that's going to be even more prevalent, particularly because a lot of the legislation.

And I think about "Project 2025" and all that is outlined in that document and what it means for our work ahead, and part of it is also making sure that trans students feel safe in school to be themselves and to create a space that is inclusive for the schools that we are trying to build.

I think part of it too is that we're also seeing attacks on public education.

The Trump administration, of course, is going to bring more privatization of schools.

And so that's something that we are actively battling and trying to make sure that we are preserving and protecting the integrity of public schools, but also making public schools the best that they possibly can be.

- And tax on education, and that's not just a Trump or a GOP thing, that's across the board.

- Yes, yes!

- Where do you anticipate drawing support from in terms of what you're trying to do when it comes to mandates and some of these things that you wanna see implemented in schools, especially if we are going to see Congress run by the GOP?

- Yes, so all of our...

The main aspect of our support really is grassroots.

It's people in community, it's teachers, retired teachers, it's students, it's organizers, it's activists, because we believe in people power, and we know that we have the power to change things if we band together, and that we're really strategic in our demands and in enacting these policy changes.

And so that's something that gives me hope.

I think about the work of "Zen Education Project," which we co-ordinate with Teaching for Change.

And "Zen Education Project" has free, downloadable people's history lessons online for teachers, but it's also like Rethinking Schools and advocacy organization where we are really supporting folks.

We have our annual "Teach Truth" campaign and our rally where people go to historic sites all across the country to publicly pledge to teach the truth regardless of the law, and then allies who say, "I am going to support the teachers."

And so building this space and finding people in local areas that can show up at school board meetings to advocate for change in legislation, or to show up at school board meetings to advocate for the reinstatement of some of these well-decorated, highly-celebrated, and beloved teachers, that's what we're building and that's what we'll continue to build.

And we have a couple of really strong examples of showing up, signing petitions, moving petitions, and then being able to present them to different districts to be able to preserve, and protect, and save some of these social justice educators who are doing incredible work in their communities, but are just facing blatant attacks.

- So we're talking about inclusion a lot, but inclusion can mean different things for different people.

What does it mean to you when we're talking about having all kids represented in school through the materials that the teachers are teaching them?

- Yeah, so I think one aspect that we really try to lift up Rethinking Schools is creating space for dialogue and discussion in classrooms, right?

There's this Freireian concept of the banking model where the teacher has all of the information and you're just filling the student with that information.

And so we try to refute that in trying to promote inclusivity, because when you're in dialogue with students, when you ask them about their lived experiences, right, it's bringing that into the classroom.

Because as educators, we're not going to have an in-depth expertise about every student's background, and every student is different, right?

Even if they come from a particular group, they're not a monolith.

And so being able to have them exchange and share their own experiences, I think helps with inclusivity.

But I think inclusivity is a little bit more all encompassing, right?

I think about disability justice, and even have inclusive services for students, and access to school buildings that are inclusive and have the necessary materials and the necessary structure for them to be able to participate fully and to be able to engage the materials.

I also think too about my particular experience as both a student, as a teacher, one of the things that my students are always frustrated about is the lack of Black history and how it only lifts up singular figures, or it only talks about enslavement, right?

So thinking also about how do we bring stories of joy and creativity and innovation into the classroom for students to see nuanced representations of different cultures in schools.

And I think inclusivity is not just within the classroom space and within curriculum and pedagogy, but it's also within the policies, right?

Do you have school dress code policies that are racist and sexist?

Do you have policies that are punitive discipline, right?

Or instead, do you have restorative justice where you are creating circle spaces for students to get to know one another better and come to a common understanding of how and why you're showing up in a particular way?

So for me, inclusivity is very expansive, and it's all centered in having deep relationships with students and being in conversation with them, and really listening to what they have to say, and then enacting that rather than just listening, taking it in.

We have to actually move, and move to a place of action.

- Thank you for shedding some light on some of the big issues that you and your colleagues are tackling at Rethinking Schools.

It was great to hear from you, thanks for the time.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- We'll be right back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- I'm so pleased to be joined now by Katie and her dad, Mark Cartier.

We're talking now about No Limits Cafe and the No Limits Food Truck, which is right over there, right behind us, where you're serving food to New Jersey educators right here at the convention this year.

Mark, I wanna start with you.

Tell us what No Limits Cafe is and why you and your wife, Stephanie, wanted to start it.

- Yes, so No Limits Cafe is a lunch cafe that employs and trains adults with intellectual developmental disabilities.

We want to raise awareness of their potential, increase employment opportunities and make a big difference in the world.

We started the cafe in March of 2020.

That was our opening, two weeks before COVID.

- [Jacqui] Wow.

- Which was a little tough, but prior to that, when Katie was about 16 or 17, we started seeing some of her older friends finish school at the age of 21, and at the age of 21, that is called Falling off a cliff.

Men and women have been, these young adults, have been in school since they were three.

Worlds are turned upside down.

There are periods of anxiety, depression, and we knew that at some point we would be able to find a job for Katie, but then we realized, what about everybody else?

And so in 2017 we made the decision to go into a business.

Neither one of us had ever worked in a restaurant business.

- A lot of learning curves along the way.

(chuckles) - Quite a few, quite a few.

Stephanie's line to me is she says, "You're just good at eating," which is true, but we decided to go into this, into the cafe, and we felt that a restaurant would give us great visibility for the men and women who work there.

It would also give us, as a business, the largest amount of employees that we could have.

So right now we have 35 adults, women and men, ages 23 to 55 working in the cafe with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and they do an amazing job, and we're very grateful to see this come to fruition, the plan that we started seven years ago.

- Katie, what does it mean to you every day, getting up and going to work at No Limits?

- Actually, I'm a beast at waking up.

(group laughing) - Listen, I'm not a good morning person either.

I understand.

(laughs) - I'm really like.

I'm a relaxing person.

- Do you bring that into the cafe every day, relaxing energy?

- Yeah, relaxing energy.

I bring pure joyness into the cafe.

So I'm like outgoing.

- How much does it mean to you to be able to have a job that you get to go to and make a paycheck and interact with people and be able to have something that you look forward to every day?

- I do something every day with the cafe actually.

I used to work at the cafe, but like not anymore because of the other job at Chick-fil-A.

So two job is enough for the cafe.

So I was the first one out of the cafe 'cause we do a program.

It's a Susan Hatfield program, and we actually started with that, right, dad?

- Yes we did.

- And we decided that I got an out.

I was only the first one.

- When we're talking about the amount of folks with the developmental disabilities that are unemployed, what's that number, right now, in the nation?

- [Mark] That was 80%.

- 80%.

So people hear about the work that you and Stephanie and Katie are doing, and you're getting a lot of phone calls, but there's only so many slots that you can fill.

So you decided to do something else to make sure that you were helping those other folks who wanted a job.

- Yes, we learned early on that like with any other job, if you love your job, you don't wanna leave, and so we have very low turnover, and what we decided was, was that we would, as one of our steps in the business, along with the food truck that's here today, was to start a training program.

We run a 10-week paid training program where we take individuals, we teach them all of the jobs to work in a restaurant, so they can go and work elsewhere in the food service industry or somewhere else if they so desire.

We also work on the life skills, collaboration, teamwork, timeliness, responsibility, self-advocacy.

All of these are skills that are required in the workforce, and we stress them in this training program.

I'm pleased to say that of the people that we placed outside the cafe, 100% are still employed.

- That's wonderful.

Katie, talk about that food truck.

Where does it go?

- Oh, we go local places, but this is our second (indistinct) here.

- It's nice.

I remember seeing a set up here last year, too.

- Yeah, we were here last year and I was like, "Wow, I can't believe we were doing AC."

- The line was so long.

Every time I walked by there, the line's so long.

How are you keeping up with the demands of the educators that want to have the delicious food that you offer?

- Oh, my God, they actually love our food.

- One of the greatest things is so much of what we have and what we sell is scratch-made by the employees.

So the soup we make that scratch-made every day, all the dressings and toppings, anything that we can make from scratch, the employees are trained to do that, and they do an amazing job at it.

- Katie, what's your favorite thing to make?

- Well, I like to make everything with my dad, but like, I wanna be the next family chef, like Gordon Ramsey.

- Oh, he is pretty good, that Gordon Ramsey, (laughs) - We actually tried his new restaurant that we went to last night.

It's called Hell's Kitchen.

- Yes, did you like it?

- That was fantastic.

- That's awesome.

That's awesome.

- All the above.

- Yeah, yeah, that's great.

I'm glad you got to Hell's Kitchen here in Atlantic City while you're here.

- It's like the cafe.

It's like the next level, here.

- And so, for you, what has this meant to you as a dad to be able to do this with your daughter, with your wife, with your family?

I know you have two sons as well.

What has this meant for you personally?

- Personally, I retired from my prior job three years ago, and I was very fortunate in that job.

I had some good success.

The big difference is, for this job, this is fulfillment, and I've learned the difference, for myself personally, I've learned the difference between success and fulfillment, and seeing the women and men come in and work so hard, and achieve so much is a sense of fulfillment that's really indescribable.

- Katie, what is the future for you, still working at the cafe, at your other restaurant job?

What else is important for you for your future?

- I'm actually working as a special Olympics coach as well as a volunteering job, and that's one of my majors in college, and the college I went to was George Mason University for like a four-year program, and that kind of helped with my degree.

- That's great.

Well, we're so glad that you took some time to speak with us about the great work that you're doing and the really delicious food (laughs) that you're pumping out at No Limits, and you can check that out in Red Bank, right?

- Yes, you can.

- Located in Red Bank.

Thank you so much both for speaking with us.

- Thank you.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- Thanks Katie.

- So for Jacqui Tricarico, 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 North Ward Center.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Wells Fargo.

PSE&G.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

And by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by ROI-NJ.

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