[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:01:05
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates its successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts, Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:07 – 00:01:19:11
Jess
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. I’m Jess Boyd and I’m a former head of music and currently writing my PhD in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an Open Access Community Music Project.

00:01:20:04 – 00:01:38:14
Mahlon
And my name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast. I’m currently the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a girl-focused school in Toronto, Canada. In this episode, we’re talking to Albert Adeyemi from the Race chapter. Hey, Albert, can you introduce yourself to the audience in a few sentences?

00:01:39:17 – 00:01:54:13
Albert
Hey, Jess and Marlon. I’m Albert Adeyemi. I’m a secondary school teacher. I teach PE and maths, and I’m also a head of year eight. And I’m also the founder of Black Men Teach, co-founder of Black Men Teach with my pal Johnoi Josephs.

00:01:54:16 – 00:02:07:03
Jess
Amazing. Welcome. Okay, so to kick us off, can you tell us a bit more about your identity and the intersections of your identity and how that inspired you to contribute towards this book?

00:02:07:28 – 00:03:26:03
Albert
So I’m a black male and that’s how I identify. There’s been, so I have grown through my identity and, you know, these these labels of BAME and person of colour and various challenges and I think that’s one of the reasons I was interested in how we’re labeled as black people and sort of grouped into these sections, but then also in schools how I see particularly black boys, I do a lot of mentoring of black boys and how sort of how they are labelled and the challenges they face in schools and then the connection with that in society and in the wider world. But also being a PE teacher, how that links in with sport as well, how black men are categorised and labelled in sport as well. And there’s just so many sort of levels and layers to this, this labelling thing. And so the chapter, I mean, my contribution within the race chapter was, it was quite difficult because labelling is such a massive topic. And I could only just try to scratch the surface and sort of bring to light some of the issues within schools.

00:03:27:08 – 00:05:10:03
Mahlon
That’s a great way to begin it because like when you think, when you talk about difference, when you talk about diversity, even when you talk about that the onramps, the two easy on ramps into talking about diversity and difference, it typically is that which is visible. Right? And the two most obvious well obvious ish markers of difference is skin colour and that’s a proxy for race. And then also, I guess, body shape or anatomy shape, if you like, which is a proxy for gender or typically sex more so than gender, I guess. And so like the idea of like how labels can be used to see me as I want to be seen. So I label myself as I, like yourself, I label myself as black. BAME does a political job that I’m not trying to do all the time. I’m black. And so that label of reclaiming what that label looks like and, you know, being super clear about how to label me as that. It’s an interesting chapter to write from everyone’s perspective, right? And so I wonder for yourself with the intersection of being male and black and knowing that, I’ll put it here, I guess, I often say that for black women being labeled as angry and aggressive, when black men demonstrate the same level of things that I guess white supremacy doesn’t like, the label for black men is ungrateful. So we gave you a chance and now you’re not playing the game, as it were. So I wonder for you, like, what was it that you wanted to highlight or spotlight specifically perhaps with your two intersections of being male and being black in whichever order you put it? What was it that you wanted to pull out with regards to how you contributed to that particular chapter?

00:05:11:10 – 00:08:00:16
Albert
I think when I reflect, I think it’s challenging for me because I think I could have gone maybe a little bit more deeper into my own personal experiences. I didn’t share any of that. I was, it’s funny because when writing even when applying to be a contributor to the section, to the chapter I was this massive imposter, like am I meant to be doing this. I mean am I ready to be, I don’t really involve myself in literature and writing, but it was something that I felt passionate about, especially because of the work I do, but with myself I’ve always tried to challenge the stereotype. So being, going through my own teacher training, growing up, there’s always been a stereotype with black boys from south east London that there’s a certain narrative, whether it’s gangs, drugs, violence, etc. There’s always been this negative narrative towards black men. Going into my teacher training, I was the only black male. So as much as it wasn’t the most negative experience, there was always a challenge with just my, who I am and who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do as a teacher. And then going into teaching, before I started actually teaching full time, I was doing supply work. Just going into schools and being quite, the reaction from students, from staff seeing a black male coming in as their cover teacher. It was like some black students were overjoyed that, okay, we’ve got a black male teacher. Others they would sort of recall their only memory of black men, which was from music and the media, and start singing certain songs and start rapping and using certain language that it just it just felt uncomfortable. But I was, from noticing that and realising that I was, I’ve always been sort of strategic, almost strategic with how I interact and challenge things with students in schools in terms of the narrative of a black male educator or just a black man. And I don’t blame anyone. I don’t blame them. It’s not their fault. That’s the narrative that’s sort of presented to them through the media and through the society. That’s what people want the black male image to be. But it’s not that. So it’s almost painting a new sort of image of what a black man could be and that can be an educator. And I suppose, I mean, years down the line now, that’s why we are working on Black Men Teach to propose this whole narrative that black men are educators and they can be so much more than your general stereotype.

00:08:01:24 – 00:08:23:12
Jess
I absolutely love that. And I’m very excited for your career. You’re very, like you said you’re very strategic in what you, how you operate in schools and what you say and being aware of how you’re perceived. So how, tell me a bit more about your intentions behind writing this chapter and what were the kind of frustrations you wanted to let the readers know about and challenges for this protected characteristic?

00:08:24:01 – 00:11:30:02
Albert
So I read a book by Christopher Emlen, and it is for white folks who teach, I can’t remember the exact title, but it is just about his teaching experiences and he’d done a similar sort of program, I think the American program of Teach First, I think essentially, where he would go, he would be placed in this school that’s potentially in the hood, and you’ve got these educators from various different backgrounds, and they automatically had an image of the students that attend the school just from how they enter the school building, what they wear, the friendship groups that they sort of gather in. And then he writes about automatically, even as a black educator, he found himself stereotyping and painting this image of the students who are teachable and unteachable and just automatically off the back without even meeting them, without even speaking to them. They already labeled certain students as teachable and unteachable. And he talks about that being due to the colour of their skin and how they interacted with their peers. And so reading that book was was very interesting, obviously, he goes through, he talks about a lot, and going into communities and seeing how, say, for example, the church pastor would interact with the congregation and get people on their feet engaged in the church service. And how he began to do similar things in schools to engage students in their learning. So meeting them where they were essentially. So I think that book was very powerful for me, just reading, and I think is important for us all to consider that regardless of race, we have our biases, we have our stereotypes, and we have things that pop into our mind when you first see someone. But I think it’s more about being intentional with how we act with regards to that. So you have your bias, but does that bias directly impact the way you teach or the way you engage with a certain student? And so for me it’s tackling that and not letting a student’s circumstances, their home life, dictate the way I engage with them and definitely not negatively. So just using their background, using their circumstance and trying to be as positive as and intentional to be a part of breaking the stereotype. It is not going to happen with a click of the fingers. It is not going to happen in one conversation. But it’s ongoing. And I think if more educators have that approach, then we’ll see a lot more positive changing and empowering of young people who are from disadvantaged backgrounds or have challenges with race or with various other aspects being successful within the education system.

00:11:31:15 – 00:15:27:17
Mahlon
There’s a lot there, like in terms of how you just put that, there’s parts like, so this is where we talk about, the whole thing about unconscious bias, a term that I hate, don’t like it, don’t use it. I’m not on board with that. I look at it as being implicit bias. Right. So what you just said, the idea that we are implicitly, we have inherent biases and they happen regardless of whether we want to be a good person or not. They just are there. And so the book that you just spoke to, I remember a study that I came across that was told to me about preloading in education in particular, and it was a study where they used eye tracking technology. They had four kids in the classroom, two white, two black, two boys, two girls. And the question that they asked is, which kid is in most need of help? That was the question and in preloading that question into the people who watched it, it was a whole big study, there’s a lot of teachers who watched it, everyone said that the black boy needed the most help. Maybe the word was help or attention, but it was basically who needs to have the most intervention, in essence. They said the black boy first, then the white boy, then the white girl, and then the black girl. So even if you’re looking at how the gender and the race piece hits together, you have like an overpolicing of the black boy in this circumstance. And the question just says who needs the most help. And so what you’re speaking to, help doesn’t look like how they are expressing or how they are, you know, asking questions or responding to questions like holistic data. What it just came back saying is help looks like, you look black, therefore, and you’re boy, therefore, we’re just primed to see negative behaviours in you. So we’re going to see what we are, what we’ve implicitly preloaded our bias to look for. So we’re going to have a confirmation bias of that. And then it’s also interesting for the experience of the black girl at the other end where it’s almost like through gender, no one’s looking at the black girl like there’s just an, yeah, an ignoring of what black girls are. So even when you think about some of the gender programs like Women in STEM or even just the whole idea of redressing the gender balance, you can also see how sometimes the gender comes before the race for some black women with regards to systemic policies being supported. And you can also see how for some black boys the race comes because the gender is not a part to talk about. So what’s left? The obvious thing is let’s talk about race. And so then the label becomes the thing that black boys experience one way that black girls don’t experience in the same way. So that’s an interesting comparison to the study that you just talked about in terms of how labelling comes up and how implicit biases are just that they’re implicit they’re not unconscious. You are doing something, you are consciously doing something. So it’s an implicit action. And I guess taken from that, that is kind of one of the takeaways that you’re speaking to in your essay, the whole idea of where the label should go. Like there’s another way to look at that. Being black is not the problem. Racism is the problem. So like me being a black person, that’s never a thing that I’m going to be upset about. But racism for how it presents itself because I’m black is the problem. So even labelling where the problem should sit is a really important thing to be clear about too. And I wonder what your takeaways are because you speak at the end about working ten times harder and that not being it, right? So it shouldn’t be on the black individuals to have to feel that they have to do twice as much, ten times as much as the white individuals or the non-black individuals, because racism can happen towards black people from nonwhite people, too. So the idea of that’s not where the label should be placed. So I’m wondering for yourself, like, what are the key takeaways that you want others to take? And perhaps you said go deeper here, right? So you said that you might want to go deeper.

00:15:29:22 – 00:18:17:16
Albert
Yeah, I think it’s interesting because in the writing, and I was reading it back and I noticed that there isn’t a focus on the black child or the black student doing anything to try and correct that. The focus is on the educators and the system, because that’s where the problem lies. It’s not you know, it’s not the job of the black child to work ten times harder to try and achieve as much as their counterparts, even though that’s what’s happening and that’s what black people not even in education, adults in the workplace, in life, that’s what they continue to do because that’s what society and the structure around them, the systems around them sort of require of them to get their foot in the door to be successful. So it’s a difficult one. I always put it on sort of myself to educate, us as educators and leaders within education to just, it’s just learning, it’s difficult, it’s like, where do you, if it was an easy fix and, you know, you could say something and boom we’re on the path to sort of fixing it then it would be the case already but it is not so that’s why I guess in the book it’s just about trying to bring it to the forefront of people’s minds and make it something that they’re considering on a day to day basis within their teaching. And as much as we can talk about the powers that be and DFE, government and systemic stuff, we also need to talk about in the classroom, on the ground, the people that are teaching these students on a day to day basis, because we see it in schools. Some schools are fantastic at doing DEI and empowering students and recognising the differences in their students and appropriately preparing them for life beyond education and other schools are not and that’s where I find it hard to think how can a student in, two students go to different schools but get completely different types of educational experiences and that’s where it is and it’s like I say it’s not just for black students. I think it’s across all schools because, you know, even if it’s in the suburbs or a place that’s not as diverse, these are still people that are coming into society and interacting and mixing and coming across black people so that’s just as important for them to be equipped with tools to allow them to challenge their own sort of thoughts and thinking and biases.

00:18:18:10 – 00:18:57:02
Jess
Yeah, it’s wild. It’s wild when you talk about the difference for the different kids going to the same schools, having completely different outcomes. And then in your chapter you really, I like how you hone in on the labelling right because you could like you said in the chapter and you said it here that you could have gone in several different directions, but you honed in on, on how we label and I love that. That plus the work you do now with Black Men Teach, tell us more about in both spaces in this chapter, but also in your work, what actions do you want people to take. What narrative, I know you’re being really intentional with your work and your writings and what are the intentional strategies behind what you want to happen next?

00:18:57:21 – 00:22:22:04
Albert
So in my work in schools, I just try to be a positive beacon of, I just try to be as positive and uplifting to staff and students as possible and that’s difficult because that’s a real task. It is draining sometimes, you have days where you’re tired. It is just trying to be as positive for all students, particularly black students, but also to their friends, their peers, their social groups and every student. So when I do mentoring it’s not focused just at black students. We work with boys from all backgrounds, whether they’re Polish, British, you know, we work with them because it’s just as important for them to see a positive black male. And we also, I like to say real model, because I’m not a role model because it’s just me and my life and me being who I am and what I can do. So it’s just me trying to bring that to work each and every day. So, I also, on the weekend we have a basketball academy. I just go and watch the basketball games just out of, casually. So they see me dressed down, chilled, relaxed, interacting, engaging with them, and just being there for them as much as possible. So if they have something going on, I will go and watch that and attend. Just be to supportive and show them that we are here for you sort of thing. And then in our work with Black Men Teach, it’s a similar thing, that does focus on particularly black boys. So we have a black boys mentoring program and the whole point of that is showing those black boys involved, look, it’s changing, on our mission statement we say creating positive school experiences for black boys and that’s what it’s about. So as much as we have the mentoring, we have monthly mentoring sessions with them to sort of uplift and empower them in their sort of journeys, we have three revisions sort of stuff. So one mentee that came onto a call, he said he was struggling with maths and that’s an area that I can help with. So I straight away offered him free maths tuition and it’s just adding value to our, to the boys where we can. We’ve done theatre trips and sort of social events for them and it’s just creating a life experience that is probably a little bit more than what they have access to on a day to day basis. So yeah, so that’s a little bit about how we try to be intentional with our work towards black boys and showing them that whatever is going on in the media, the stereotypes that portray to you, your own personal educational experience in your school, the differences that you have with your teachers, your peers. That doesn’t have to be your story. There is more to education. I think that’s a key thing, valuing education rather than the school system, right? So we’re trying to get them to value education as a whole rather than, because sometimes it’s very easy for students to say I don’t like school, that means I don’t like education. No, there’s a lot of us that don’t like school. Education is much more than school.

00:22:23:18 – 00:24:51:02
Mahlon
I like the idea of a real model versus a role model. I find that’s really profound. I am thinking about the school that I’m working in right now. It’s been around for 100 and something years. I’m the first black male teacher in this school that’s been around for that time, right? So even in terms of when you talk about role modelling, I’m not trying to role model anything, I’m just trying to exist in that space. But at the same time, similar to what you’re speaking to with regards to the makeup of that school, it is very unlikely that those kids are going to see or have experienced authority in this body before me arriving here. So it’s kind of important I also demonstrate to them the like, yeah, authority and rules and all those kind of stuff can come in my body shape, size, colour, all that kind of stuff, as much as it can come in anybody else’s, because some of them will never experience authority looking darker than them. And that can lead to massive real world implications for that. Right? So yeah, when you’re talking about role modelling, I’m not trying to role model authority, I’m just being real with regards to this is the consequence of the action you took, as should be the case for anybody else that interacts with you on this kind of situation. And I think that kind of is a nice way to think about what it is that you would say, in an ideal world, what would you like to see happen in the school system? And I guess I’ll clarify a bit more. So the school system on a level of societal, structural, institutional interpersonal and internal. Internal is up to people, interpersonal is situational. But when we think about institutional being, school to school to school like what are some of the things that you might like to see happen with regards to how race is used? You said about labelling is important. I do want you to know that I’m black. I do want you to label me as such, but I don’t want the added, so because you’re black, this is the destiny you are limited to for my understanding of black, I don’t need that. So there’s a bit of a separation of see me, but don’t forecast or predict what that the entirety of what that could mean because it might mean something and it might mean nothing. But I guess in that question, what is it that you might want the school system to be reckoning with in regards to how it sees race as a protected characteristic?

00:24:52:12 – 00:27:41:06
Albert
I think recent sort of things in the media that have come from the system, for example, the sort of refusal to record racial incidents in schools. It, like things like that. So it’s like that’s something that should definitely be accounted for in schools in the same way they account for bullying incidents. And it doesn’t fill you with much promise, you know, in the midst of the pandemic, The Black Curriculum put forward a proposal for a more diverse curriculum base that was also refused. So it’s when sort of proposals like that are brought forward. What would fill me with a little bit more promise is if those even if it’s not accepted as it is, it’s working with organisations to ensure that schools across the UK and nationally are talking about the same things and are on the same playing field. So it’s some sort of framework to do with race relations in the curriculum, pastoral because it’s so different as well. I’m stumped, I’m not sure. I’m not sure. So it is, I think that’s a difficult one to answer, but what I can say it, like I said, it doesn’t still fill me with a lot of promise when some of these things are being put forward, but they’re just being denied and rejected by the DFE and the government. And it’s like what would fill me with a lot more promise is if those initiatives were being supported and we were seeing some sort of structural change with regards to a lot of it begins with the curriculum, I’ll say. And then how pastoral incidents are dealt with, because it’s mentioned in book, we’re all aware of exclusion weights, sanction levels and things like that. So the only way things like that can be challenged without an individual school saying we’re going to work on this is if there was an overarching framework or overarching policy or model to be followed or some sort of critique on how those things are done in schools across the board. At the moment, like I say, it’s very school specific and certain schools are doing brilliant work or certain trusts are doing fantastic work. But across the board there’s schools all over the place. Some are doing really well, some are not. So it’s some sort of level playing field is what I would like to see.

00:27:42:02 – 00:29:37:22
Jess
Yeah, I love that. You’re not stumped at all. You know what you’re saying. And I think, what I love about your work and what you’ve shared is, you know, we know these kind of like I said, these frameworks need to exist and all of this, but also my lived experience is as much valid as anybody’s academic framework. Right. And so, you know what you are doing and we know what we’re doing, which adds to the frustration of this work, because they’re not invisible. The kids are not invisible. Open your eyes and do some work. And those that are listening to this podcast and are engaged in this space are probably trying to do the work everyday. And so to that then we talked about systemic stuff, but to bring it down to the teachers in the classroom that have the autonomy of their room or the school leaders that are trying to do better, you alluded earlier to that, the study, the book that you read and the teacher that kind of looked at the community and embedded some of the mannerisms. That’s exactly what my PhD is on. It’s called culturally relevant pedagogy people. And there are tons of research and work on it, and I’m doing my best to sing about it a bit more. But the principle there is that you take, no, you learn, you listen to the culture of the kids in your space and you take the mannerisms and the cultural ways and you embed that in the way you teach, right? Which we’re all nodding in here, even though we can only see each other because we’re brown people who do that naturally because of our own lived experience. Tell us a bit more about what you would say to a teacher friend who’s trying to see their students better. Even just commonsense, loving things like you going to a basketball match for someone or dressing down or the teacher describes going to visit the community in a different space to learn how they are. Let’s talk a bit more about some of the conscious things people can do to be more inclusive in their classroom when it comes to race.

00:29:39:02 – 00:35:47:17
Albert
I think as a teacher there’s a constant battle with the power dynamics and having, wanting to feel in complete control. I think personally I’ve, as much as I still like to be in control of my classroom, everyone wants to be in control. I’m not saying don’t be in control of your classroom, but how we do that is very important. So it’s like I, it’s just take a step back and it’s almost letting pride and ego go. And it’s like listening and seeing and being there with that child in that moment. So as a head of year dealing with a lot of pastoral sort of incidents and with the pastoral or pastoral teams, sometimes we have to take a step back and we have to consider this child, their background, their upbringing and what their circumstance is right now. And sometimes in the classroom we don’t have that luxury of time to necessarily process and consider all those things when a child may be being annoying or maybe being distracted or may not be doing any work and it’s not jumping the gun and saying, get out of my classroom, you’ve got this, because what does that achieve? It doesn’t really achieve anything. So I think for me it’s, and I do it myself sometimes, I just have to just take a step back. It’s like, okay, I’m not in control of this right now. I want to give you a moment whether it’s 2 minutes or 5 minutes or an hour, whatever it is, you go and process whatever you need to process and we’ll come back to that. Your actions will still have whatever consequences, maybe, that can happen in an hour’s time. I don’t need to get ahead of myself and this must happen now. I must talk to you even though you’re not in that space. That’s with any student, that’s with every student. And I think that’s how we begin to sort of level the playing field. And particularly with, so what I want to mention is actually is the labelling of, so black students with needs, black students whether it be ADHD, autism and how they’re potentially treated in respect to their white counterparts. Because that’s something I’ve noticed as well is I think the needs of students from white backgrounds are sometimes put, they’re always considered, it’s considered. Okay. This child has autism, this child has ADHD. That’s why they’re acting like that, that’s fine. With a black student, it’s not always the case. They’re black, okay, they’ve done this wrong, boom, and then sanction. All right. So I think , what I would do is I treat every scenario in a similar sort of manner in terms of taking a step back, observing and seeing what actions need to be done. So whether, regardless of their colour, race, gender, whatever it is, background, especially with behaviour incidents, to prevent them from escalating. I don’t need to challenge or butt heads with any student. I would just take a step back, let my pride and ego go because that doesn’t fix it and I don’t need to prove anything and sort of come back to it. Whether it be a day, and then also, if I get something wrong and I’ve done this a couple of times, if I get something wrong, I’m very reflective in terms of even if it’s the smallest incident, I’m very reflective so, okay, was that the right sort of course of action. So when I get something wrong or I may overreact because sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t give ourselves that time to think and process things. And sometimes I’ll say to the students, okay, I’m going to come back to you with how we’re going to deal with this, because I’m just going to have to think about it. And then we’ll talk about your sanction. So when I do get things wrong or I may have jumped the gun a little bit, I’ll go back to that student pull them aside whether it’s one day later, two days later, I’ll say my bad with that one. I did. I was annoyed. I was angry. I should have handled that a little bit better. So I’ve done that quite a few times with some students just because I feel that that’s important as well. I’m not this all knowing, all seeing sort of being. I make mistakes, I make errors and I think that’s one thing I’m quite vocal with my students in terms of trying to, because I’ve, I used to have a short, I do have a short fuse sometimes, and I’m quite particular with things. So I do like things to be done right. And I do have high standards, high expectations sometimes, and that’s why I say to drop my ego, my pride about certain things, in terms of how I would like things to be done. They’re clearly not ready to meet those. So let’s build it up sort of thing. And that, forgetting behaviour, that goes in a classroom as well with work and sort of engagement. So we speak about this in the book, as mentioned of the students that’s considered lazy because they’re not engaged and not focused. So in schools we have the sanctions for lack of work or not engaging or not completing so I still don’t find any benefit in that because it doesn’t, as much as we may have to give the sanction, it doesn’t do anything to fix the problem of them not engaging or doing work in that particular lesson. So it’s taking a step back. Okay, how can we get the students engaging? Is it sitting them next to someone else? Is it trying to engage with them outside? Is it an ability thing, they’re not accessing the work? Is it a boredom thing? So just trying to think of how you can resolve certain things within a classroom. So I really don’t like kicking students out my classroom. I rarely do it because I believe in trying to fix it within the space, even if that requires a little bit of extra hours outside of that classroom, that lesson.

00:35:48:06 – 00:37:34:08
Jess
Extra hours. I love it. And it’s quote unquote, extra work, isn’t it? To like build rapport with that kid, grapple with what they’re going through. Not like you said, not kicking them out. It’s a huge one. When you were sharing, it reminded me of a documentary that was out years ago. So good. It’s still on YouTube. Will Britain ever have a black prime minister. And they do this journey. Obviously no is the answer. But they do this journey through a black child’s development stages. And when they go, when they look at early years and nursery, they visit the black nursery lady Liz Pemberton, and then she shares a story around, it might not have been her, but it was in that segment, where they talk about little black boys in their nursery and, you know, all the energy, all the things. And then she talks about labels and how that could be seen as a tough group. A, to some people, naughty group, can’t control them, all of the things, all of the labels. And actually they are from Caribbean backgrounds and in most Caribbean families in the morning, they have a breakfast, they play music. And so, of course, they’re lively, they’re happy, they’re full of joy. Welcome to what black boy joy looks like. And I love that illustration as a classic misinterpretation of energy. You know, I live in Lewisham and you see black boys coming home from school. They’re talking, they’re having fun. They’re on their way home. But to someone else, that’s a gang about to do something. And like, it’s so quick, that misunderstanding is so quick. So I want to spell it out for anybody who is trying but still not getting it. What do you want people to stop doing in their classroom in front of black boys, to black boys? Because you’re being very diplomatic, you’re being very kind.

00:37:35:22 – 00:40:25:01
Albert
Like you said, a lot of labelling is based on perception, how we perceive things. So stop perceiving them as aggressive, angry, loud, lazy, whatever it is. Stop perceiving and stop and start getting to know and getting to understand. Once you get to know and get to understand certain students that label sort of goes out the window. And I think, I’ve seen it in practice whereby we see students in schools and then we may do a home visit or we may, or we’ve received some sort of information about them and thought, oh damn, now that’s why and you start to connect the dots and then it’s like, okay, that’s great that we start to connect the dots now, but we could have done that maybe ourselves if we wanted to, if we wanted to do that. So, yeah, stop, stop. It’s that idea of prejudice, prejudging and pre perceiving in certain students and people from various backgrounds because of where they’re from, the colour of their skin, what they look like. And I think the same goes with how students dress and you know and with everything essentially. Stop prejudging people and then labelling based on that prejudgment and then, we talk about how that sort of follows the child because then you speak about that child to someone in the staffroom and then someone without even seeing this kid and they’ve already got an idea that this kid is going to be angry. He’s not going to come to my class and do work when he may actually come in with no problems or if you try to engage him, and we’ve had, I’ve had parents email me back around these sort of topics based on the transition from primary school to secondary school and not wanting whatever message that primary school teachers share with the secondary school to be the last in or what you receive their child as because they want either a fresh start or because primary school wasn’t the best for them wherever it was. So and yes, there’s things like that, and I’ve had many scenarios where we’ve been given certain things or certain statements about certain students, and it’s like, I see the kid and it‘s like really, come on, this isn’t that child. And if we always base our actions on what we hear about certain students and not experience them and understand them for ourselves, then we’re in a difficult place.

00:40:25:01 – 00:41:11:12
Jess
Yes, slippery slope. I could imagine, I just had an idea for a head of year or school leaders. Imagine if they sat, they might give 30 seconds, look at your register and write down the first thing that comes to mind on every kid. Right? You do that activity as a staff body and then like, check yourself and then talk about it. Imagine like actually doing the work of actually what do I think when I, to describe that kid in one word, what would I say? And then catching yourself and being, okay, we all have biases. I’m not going to, you know, beat myself up but actually hear it. And the head of year or the school leader seeing that, what comes to mind doing some level of analysis and then we work on that, boom, that’s effort, CPD right there.

00:41:12:08 – 00:41:48:06
Mahlon
That would be a great activity. I would say what I’d add to what you just said and I’d add it from a case of I wouldn’t put my own bias on there because you know people are going to be like, I don’t have one. I would say, what is it other people have told you about this class, go through the other staff and have a think about what people told you about this class because I bet to your point, Jess, I wonder if there will be some blanks because I don’t have any data. I’ve not had anything necessarily great or bad about this kid and I wonder if those blanks might add up on a racial tip where we don’t see them. I just, I don’t see anything they’re just the kids that go through the system.

00:41:48:06 – 00:42:03:13
Jess
And we’ve all been there. Let’s be honest, I’ve looked at my register and known that I don’t know that kid’s name, and I’m like, oh snap and I have no, but and then it’s okay to say but the step is actually acknowledging your, how you see people and then going from there.

00:42:04:07 – 00:44:09:22
Mahlon
And this has been a great episode there’s a lot here and the kind of as you said in your in your own essay like this is scratching the surface and I do feel like conversations about race and, you know, let’s be super transparent about it. You’ve got three black people talking on the podcast episode about race. It might be that for some it is already awkward to listen in on it, but I feel like that’s the whole point, right? The whole point is to listen to the experiences of those that have gone through exactly what you’re speaking to, the impacts of labelling and the impacts of making it in spite of, despite of the labelling that people have done. Oftentimes our labels come out when we’re asked to do kind of what you’re speaking to, the pastoral side of stuff I love to hear that you are a maths teacher as well as head of year, right. Because it’s that thing of I can do academics and I can do one of the toughest subjects in school and I can teach as well as that subject as I can be in terms of pastorally making relationships with kids. Right? So math, teachers, maths, sorry, I’ve been in North America for too long. Maths teachers, science teachers, they are some of the, they teach some of the subjects that kids find hard, find it hardest to relate to. Right. So if you can find a good maths teacher or a science teacher that makes the information interesting and engaging then that already tells you something about their ability to build relationships. So if you add that to the fact that you’re also a head of year, you add that to the fact the fundamentals that you’re also black whilst doing all of that, it says a lot about how labels can upend what would otherwise be a good fit for a school or good for kids. But it shouldn’t just be quite narrowed and constricted to here’s a black guy that’s the head of year. It’s actually here is a black guy that is a maths teacher that also teaches very complicated trigonometry, quadratics, all of them kind of things that as well as being a head of year. So yeah, just wanted to add that in too. And whilst I am there thank you as well for your contributions both to the chapter and to this podcast as well. Been really, really good to speak to you. I hope a lot of people get a lot from this episode and yeah, thank you for your time.

00:44:10:18 – 00:44:12:01
Albert
Thank you both. It’s been a pleasure.

00:44:12:23 – 00:44:24:20
Mahlon
Fantastic. And so, well, we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd and Albert Adeyemi, the co-hosts and guests of this episode of season two of the Diverse Ed podcast. See you next time.

00:44:25:16 – 00:44:26:04
Jess
Bye.

00:44:29:15 – 00:44:44:04
Hannah
[Outro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.

[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:01:05
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts, Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they have had to navigate on their journey and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:05 – 00:01:17:07
Mahlon
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast and currently the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a girl-focused school in Toronto, Canada.

00:01:17:28 – 00:01:34:16
Jess
And I’m Jess Boyd. I’m a former head of music and currently writing my Ph.D. in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project. In this episode, we will be talking to Nadine Bernard from the Pregnancy and Maternity chapter.

00:01:35:10 – 00:02:03:00
Mahlon
So, I know that, I’ll put it this way, if you don’t know who Nadine by this point, you need to do some research because Nadine is out there doing a lot of stuff. But if you have happened to miss the bus in terms of how to know Nadine and how to come about knowing Nadine, I want to give Nadine opportunity to introduce herself to you all as listeners. So Nadine, please give us an indication of who you are, how you’ve come to be, and the stuff that you talk about.

00:02:04:19 – 00:02:58:20
Nadine
So my name is Nadine Bernard. I am firstly a mother and a wife and mother of three boys, and I am a headteacher of a primary school in south west London. I’m also the founder and CEO of Aspiring Heads, which is a community interest company, here to tackle racial inequalities in leadership. And we have a flagship program which is about supporting aspiring black leaders to step into those leadership positions. And I am also, I say, part of the 1% of black headteachers, hence why I’m passionate about the work that I do to kind of put that ladder down and help others to come up and give individuals a better toolkit than I ever had.

00:02:59:28 – 00:03:14:22
Jess
I felt like there’s already a million questions I have based on your introduction. But to kick us off then, can you tell us a bit more about the intersections of your identity and how that helped you to contribute your chapter in the book?

00:03:14:22 – 00:04:28:08
Nadine
Yep. So for me, I am black, female. And in terms of I would say, you know, I came from that working class, disadvantaged background. My mum worked really, really hard to ensure that I got the best, the best that she could access for me and that, you know, I owe a lot to my mum for that because I feel like she helped to open a lot of doors for me and helped me to develop the confidence I suppose, that I’ve got now. But that did take a while because I was also that child who was to support. I am dyslexic. And so I struggled a lot throughout my education. My faith, really, I’m a Christian and my faith has helped me to get through, overcome quite a lot in my life, just being able to lean on that when times have been really, really tough. And then knowing that, you know, I have something greater than who I am to support me along the way.

00:04:28:10 – 00:05:20:13
Mahlon
It’s really telling when a person describes how they’ve come to be. It’s kind of held in a sort of, generational understanding. I am because of who I’ve come from and I am because of what I want to give to the future generation going forward. So it really is a nice tie-in to think about the parenting that you had and the approach that you had from your mom. And then think about what you’re now doing as a mom, you started off by saying you are a mother and a wife. So leading on from what Jess just asked you in your response to it, I guess what I’m trying to figure out is from your identity, what was it that you wanted to bring or colour in in terms of the chapter of maternity and pregnancy, what was it that you felt that your contribution would add as a theme for the whole chapter?

00:05:21:06 – 00:06:58:29
Nadine
Yeah. So for me it was, I’m very passionate about mums being acknowledged and recognised that they are more than capable. I think in terms of for me growing up, it’s been a thing of, you know, always being able to get in contact, being able to, you know, hear stories from individuals who felt that they could not achieve or become or do something because they were a mum and for me, I really wanted to show that actually, yes, it is possible. Yeah. Look, I am a mum, I have three children and I have been able to progress my career. I haven’t put a pause on an element of myself and what I want to achieve because I have children. And yes, I think it’s also it’s okay to say I want to pause this or I want to do things this way because you know, at this very moment it is important to me as a mother and so forth. But for me, I just want people to know, you know, you can do either way. There’s no right way. There’s absolutely no right way. And I want people just to understand that it’s all up to what works for you. And this has worked for me and I’ve been able to achieve. And I do not feel that my children have suffered because I’ve held on to my dreams and continue to pursue them.

00:06:59:24 – 00:07:24:16
Jess
Oh, that’s erm. Yes. I mean so many questions I’ve got for you around that as a parent myself, but I’m going to stick to the questions I have first. Can you, you started to allude to it, but you started to get quite passionate there and can you tell us a bit more about the frustrations around pregnancy and maternity that you really wanted to convey to the readers? Because I think there’s something around the passion and frustration around that protected characteristic.

00:07:25:03 – 00:12:56:23
Nadine
Motherhood or say, parenthood, because I don’t think it’s just confined to being a mum, you know, there are fathers, you know, those who have their children and parent very, very well. And there is I feel a super power from being a parent. There are so many skills that I feel that potentially that the education sector kind of disregards. And I think that should really be highlighted. So, for example, my organisational skills, I definitely believe it is a it’s come about even much more because I am a parent and I have to make sure things are organised for me to fulfil my duties well enough and to fill the duties of parenthood, I need to make sure that I’m organised. One thing I always love to boast about is the fact that people see this thing of, oh, you’ve got go home to the kids, no actually what is so amazing about it is that when I go home I have to stop working. It’s not about you know, I no longer flow into that mode of carrying the work home. And I think for many people it’s like with teaching, we know it’s a never ending job. It’s not 9 to 3. You finish for the day. You’re always there’s always more to be done. You know, That list never stops. And so being a parent, I feel it helps to stop me when I go home. I have to pause because I have to support the children with their homework, see how they are, but also because I want to enjoy them as well. So I think there’s so much benefits with being a parent because it just allows you to pause, whereas for some they can just find themselves that constant treadmill when actually kids just force you to stop you in some ways that they kind of, you know, have the reins in terms of when you have to kind of get other things done apart from work related stuff. And I think it’s also helped me to manage my time effectively. So in terms of my career so far, I remember when I had my first child, I decided that I was going to leave work at 4:00 every day, spend time with my children, and then pick up work again at 7:00. And that worked for me at that time, just, you know, just stepping out of the school environment. And I guess what I’m trying to say is, I really want people to acknowledge the benefits of being a parent and how it can actually help you to be a better educator. And I think sometimes there’s a lot of policies and mentalities and ways of thinking where people see or think if someone’s going on maternity leave or someone’s pregnant, oh my gosh, they’re pregnant, what are we going to do? The education system can work it out. I found out I was pregnant with my third child after I secured my headship position. You know, what’s the end of the world? Yeah, I am. Does that mean I can’t then step into my role of headship? Yes, of course I can. No, they can’t sack me. They can’t say no you can’t have the job anymore because you’re pregnant, and they worked things out. I was able to start this job that I’m in, start the process of being head and then they had kind of like an executive person who was around at the time. So they kind of stayed on in the role. Then when I went for my maternity leave, they kind of carried on. And then when I came back, then they were able to kind of let go of the reins and then really hand it over to me. But I think sometimes we can really fall into that thing of what are they going to do. You know, I’ve spoilt everything and nothing can work out. When actually it’s doable, yes, would I have planned to get pregnant, was I planning to get pregnant? No, it was a nice, pleasant surprise but you know, things can work out it’s not, it’s a blessing and a blessing that I was grateful for it. It’s added even more substance to me as a human being because of my third boy. He just keeps me going. Different personality. I’m learning a new way of parenting because not every single child is the same. So every time is a learning curve to go through. And I think it’s actually quite exciting and, you know, as educators, we’re dealing with children all the time we’re interacting with them we’re seeing, we come across lots of different personalities and so forth. So, you know, the experience of parenthood, I think definitely adds to the experience of leading a school.

00:12:57:28 – 00:17:20:17
Mahlon
I think like you’ve just given a wealth of information. The first thing I want to say here, I don’t think well, obviously if you’re listening, you can’t see your facial expressions, but your smiling and the joy that you have when you’re talking about your family, your kids, like it’s palpable, hopefully in voice as well as seeing you. It’s really nice to see that as much as hear it. I guess there’s a reflection that I have to what you’re saying and then there’s a point to it as well. I remember I was leading a department at a school in London, and I remember my deputy came to tell me that she was pregnant. And the way that she told me that she was pregnant was like she was actually apologising her way through, telling me that’s she was pregnant. And the first thing that went through my head was I was kind of more annoyed. And I’ll be specific about the annoyance. The annoyance was someone before me made you feel like the natural thing that happens to you is unnatural. And so you’re apologising to me, a person who can’t get pregnant, won’t get pregnant, will never have to deal with the emotionality of what pregnancy feels like in the body. You’re apologising to me about something that could only happen to you out of the two of us, that would never happen to me. But, and it’s not because it’s a man, because internalised sexism happens within women, too. But somewhere someone has made you feel that this is a thing that you should tread carefully and cautiously about. And it stuck with me, ever since, the idea that you know, that so much decision making that is left to those that can get pregnant to figure out. Right. The idea of do I want to keep the child? Or do I not want to, do I want to tell this person at this point or not, do I want to take that promotion or not take the promotion. The level of stress and pressure that goes with just the thought process of, you know, the arc of pregnancy is wild, and especially for those who would never experience it or can’t ever experience it. I can only look on and imagine what all of those calculations might well be like. So even for what you’ve just described there the idea that you can minimise or it’s better when a place allows a person to minimise all of the choices or all of the decisions and the sort of range of extreme decisions that a persons mind is going to go through with regards to pregnancy in the workplace, that can only be a good thing because all of the other emotions, biological, chemical reactions are happening within the body are going to do what they do anyway. So what can a workplace do to reduce that range of emotion or that range of choice that they have. And I guess looping to what I wanted to ask you next is, your chapter, I like, your essay, sorry, every subheading is called leading, like it starts with leading, leading, leading. And what it made me think about was, it’s to the point that I’m making about how to reduce the workplace control over a person’s pregnancy, it read to me a bit like project management. And so what are some of the ways that project management can be run or can be done within an organisation? So if you think about like leading healthily, a healthy mind is good for everybody, including those who are pregnant. If we think about leading steadily, a steady approach, incremental approach is good for the organisation, as well as those within the organisation as well as those that are pregnant with the organisation. Leading immensely stable lifestyle. Same thing again. So what I like how it felt was that it was desexing the pregnancy to only women or only those who can get pregnant. It was desexing it to like, here’s an issue that only happens to some of you, so some of you need to deal with that issue and it really brought it to here is an organisational approach that we can take to those within our community who may get pregnant, may choose to have families. What does this look like for how we as the unit can hold together for those of us within the unit who are going through a particular experience at the time? So I wonder what was, with the wondering, if the idea that you chose to do every subchapter as leading, I wonder what was going through your mind with regards to why that word for every incremental stage that you wrote about.

00:17:21:20 – 00:22:17:02
Nadine
Right. So you’re getting me to refresh my mind on the chapter itself. You know there’s being led, how are we leading ourselves, you know, in the process. And I think, you know, sometimes we can take or push the ownership of that on others rather than actually being, I am leading me, and I have power, I have autonomy over who I am and what I can do. In terms of leading, and both of you said, it’s all about the culture of the school and where you’re working and what is believed within the system that you’re working in. So I know for me personally, I’ve been very passionate about ensuring staff know they don’t need to be nervous and anxious to come and ask me to go to their child’s assembly or their child’s nativity. You know, why not? We are so much of ourselves within education, of our families, say, you know, to the parents, you know, come and watch your child come and do that. But yet we can’t do that for our own children. And that, to me, doesn’t make any sense. And I found the beginning of stepping into headship, leadership. I refuse to be the most outstanding head teacher or excellent leader in my head teacher space to then be a poor parent for my own children. To me, that doesn’t make sense. And I refuse to be that person who in 20 years looks back and thinks, I wish I did this for my children. I wish I, so again, I have no, I can understand if someone looks at their circumstances and decides, you know what? I’m going to take some time out of education. I’m going to take time out of the day to day teaching because I want a lot more time with my children. Yeah, that’s okay. No one should feel guilty of that because that’s just what works for them and that’s what feels right for them, and for others it may look a bit more like how I’ve done it, where I’ve just continued on my journey. But because I have, you know, I have a supportive network in a sense that I have my mum there who was a childminder for many years, and so having my kids, that’s work, that’s been fine. You know, I’ve got a husband who again, we’ve been able to balance out duties and responsibilities and so forth, and that’s just worked for us. But that doesn’t mean that that has to be the way of working for everybody else. You just need to know, okay, what is, what does the best form of parenting look like for me and then being, having the confidence to lead yourself towards that goal and establishing what that looks like for me or for you, or for them within the context that they find themselves within. But I think, I definitely think it boils down to culture, policy, systems, just how parenthood is celebrated. And as I said, it’s not just about the mother, it can be about the father as well. I’m glad that fathers do have that, you know, paternity leave and so forth, and can also balance that out. And decide who has the level of or the certain amount of time. I think that is so important. And fathers shouldn’t be afraid to say, I want to go to my child’s assembly or I want to, you know, I remember when I got my first headship, I actually spoke to my chair of governors and I said I would like to pick up my child one day a week because that was important to me, picking up my child from school was important to me, and I just wanted one day. And so I asked my chair of governors, I said, yes, I’ll accept this position. Yes, I’m more than happy to step into headship, but my one request is that I’m able to leave early and pick up my child once a week. And it was like, yeah, so that’s what I did. My first headship, you know, yeah, three years I did that because that moment for me for picking up my child was an important moment for me. But I didn’t want to look back on in years time and think, I wish, I’m so sorry I missed that.

00:22:18:13 – 00:23:55:23
Jess
I love that. I love that so much. And I’m going to sit with that for a bit longer. And what I loved was how you took the, you broke down the different bits of pregnancy and being a parent and often the same things that people would be like, oh, I can’t go into, I can’t go for that job because I’m not healthy enough, or I can’t go into that job because I’m not stable enough, because I’m thinking about my kids at home. The same things that, you know, I’ve been in conversations and people have used those same topics to be a reason to not lead. I love how you’ve kind of bridged it with your stories, and I would love to hear just a download from you, you’ve hinted, but I’d love to hear your hacks so your leadership career and how you kind of used, and I don’t know what it is, whether it’s your, just your personality, your optimism, your confidence to just ask those questions where others wouldn’t. But tell us some more stories about how you just like just said, oh, actually, I want to pick up my child one day a week or in the book you said, actually, I moved the governors’ meetings to 7 a.m. in the morning. Like these are things that people don’t think about. There’s so many hurdles where you think, oh, snap, I can’t go into headship because I want to pick up my kids. So they don’t think that there’s a compromise. So tell me a bit more about your creativity. You’ve got a whole paragraph on that, leading creatively. Tell me more about some funny, some nice stories along your career where you’ve been creative in bridging and bringing yourself as a parent to the workplace.

00:23:56:20 – 00:27:10:18
Nadine
So I think over time I’ve been fortunate to have been led by people who appreciate parenthood. And I think because of that exposure that has helped me to shape the person and suppose have the confidence that I have today. So one person I always mention in any conversations, Liz Robinson, because for me she has been a champion in my life, someone who I have really been inspired by. And I remember a photo, she still may have it on her Twitter handle, where she holds her baby and she’s breastfeeding her child, but she’s a headteacher, she’s a leader. She’s, I think, even a CEO now and so forth. And for me, just that photo was just really, really powerful. And in terms of other examples, I remember working, I was a class teacher, middle leader at the time and that headteacher said that anyone who has a child, they could go on a trip with their child once every academic year. So every single person was able to find a trip that their child was going on and take the day off paid to go and have that time with their child. So I that’s another beautiful example of how a school kind of set up its policy to really promote and celebrate being a parent and recognising the importance of having your, being there for your child’s special moment. In terms of, you know, with me coming back into headship, I was still expressing, I still wanted to make sure, you know, for me, I’m very passionate about breastfeeding. I wanted to make sure I did that for at least six months. But then I returned to work and I was still just pumping that milk. Still needed that. So it was about, I had to have those conversations within those return to work meetings. What’s going to support your return? And so part of me expressing this is what I want to be. I want to continue expressing. My office was changed. I was able to move my office to a different room which had a different type of door, which meant that no one could see in. And so actually it’s remained my office ever since to be fair, where I am now. And now I’ve got another person who’s returning back from maternity leave and I’ve been able to source a place in the school where they feel comfortable to express their milk, knowing that they will be undisturbed and creating those opportunities throughout the day for her to do that. It’s really important that school leaders listen to the needs of that individual, what they need and how best to support them or how what they feel you can do so that they feel best supported.

00:27:11:12 – 00:29:45:04
Mahlon
That’s a fantastic answer from two ends right. I want to talk about something you said before about when you were accepting the job, you accepted it with conditions that, it’s not even a condition, it’s almost like this is the expectation I want to start out in this job with, and I feel like that is an area that when we think about personal power or personal leadership and being able to say, yeah, I’ll take the job and I will do everything that’s required of me through the job description. But as an organisation here are the requirements that you need to meet for me to be a happy employee in this place. And I think that that very nicely brings us to what you’re saying about the culture of the place dictates how much it is willing to accommodate. And I even hate some of these words because it’s not an accommodation. It’s just, it’s the idea of do you want me in this community or not. It’s just making space for the community to be recognised as such. And so I think that that’s really maybe one thing to really hone in on the idea of as you are accepting leadership positions or any position from the outset, kind of getting clear about what’s going to need to work for me in order for me to be the best that I can be at work, but then also not minimise what I can be at home. And I think the other thing that you said as well, that’s also helpful is the idea of leadership. Any time that leadership has a sort of inkling of like what can we do to make the workplace more inclusive or more expansive, that leadership is on their back to make that decision happen. So it’s a nice thing to say, once an academic year anyone can go, I don’t want to hear any questions, I don’t want to hear any like, you don’t have to tell me why you’re going, where you’re going and what you’re doing. Just know that it’s yours to take is a nice tone to set for the organisation too. You don’t have to give me a whole report after the fact of what we did and how we spent that time and all that stuff, I trust you. I want you to do it because I know that’s beneficial for me as an organisation, for you to do that. So I guess with those two pieces, I guess what I would like to ask you kind of closing off the conversation perhaps is what other rallying calls that you may have for those who are pregnant, those who are going through parental leave or maternity leave? What are some of the things that you want them as individuals perhaps to know? What’s the rallying call for them and or what might be the rallying call for the organisations that have folk within them who can get pregnant, will get pregnant and will continue to have children?

00:29:46:01 – 00:35:20:18
Nadine
First things first is that being a parent, having children is, and does not need to be a stop marker. It doesn’t need to be a moment where everything has to pause in terms of, you know, before aspiring heads I founded a community interest company called, it was a project called I Am Here We See You. Now that whole idea happened and I built on that during one of my maternity leaves. And again with aspiring heads, I wrote the whole program for aspiring heads while I was nursing my newborn baby during the pandemic. Maternity leave for me has been a very, very powerful space to clear my mind in certain aspects, to actually have a new ness of creativity. And I’ve really, really been thankful for that because without that time, maybe aspiring heads now wouldn’t exist. So there’s a you know, there can be a reason for everything. But then also there is so much power in a maternity leave that someone can have. And you know, there is so much you can access as well whilst on maternity leave. And Emma Sheppard runs it [MTPT Project]. But you know, all these different organisations that are there to support parents and it’s just about us knowing it’s there and leaning into it. Just for some people switching off completely from anything educational, where again, it’s totally fine. You know, just finding yourself without the teacher hat on or the assistant head hat on, whatever, I think that’s really good as well. And in terms of organisations, I think this needs to be not judgmental. Stop being judgmental about people. Stop saying or believing that there’s only one way of doing things. There’s so many different ways of doing things. As long as you know it should be measured by the impact. What’s the impact? You know, because, you know, there are still positive outcomes. The children are still thriving, school is still progressing, and duties and responsibilities are still being fulfilled. So why are you so worried about the how they’re getting there? You know, can we not just allow people just to bring who they are into the space and bring their whole self into the space no matter, race, class, gender or whatever, you know, protected characteristic, you know, that should not be, there cannot be a one way fits all. We have to be comfortable with celebrating different ways of doing things. And I remember even coming here and another colleague I work with and they really just struggled to accept that a parent should go home early or that they should have certain days off work or they should be able to take a child here because in their view that’s not fair, because those who are not parents don’t get those opportunities, then they’re well, they’re not requesting those opportunities because they don’t feel the need for that. Maybe there’s something else, that they have a need for and maybe we need to take time to listen, because there maybe something else that’s not related to childcare, but it’s related to something else that is important to them, take time and listen and maybe something that they would maybe appreciate leaving a little bit early from work, but they may really appreciate taking the afternoon off because they really want to attend something that is very important to them. Yes, it may not be their child, but it may be something else. And why, why not open to open dialog with staff to find out what those things are because ultimately, when people are happy, when people feel supported, when people are thriving not just at work but outside of the workplace, they are bringing their best self. That’s what I want as a headteacher. I want my staff to be bringing their best self in front of those children. Because I know, I know that when they bring their best self in front of the children, the children going to get the best deal. Are the children getting what they need? And it’s not about, you know, focusing so heavily on, well, they left at 4:00. oh, no, that one tapped out at 6:00. Oh, that means they are working so much harder.

00:35:22:06 – 00:37:32:16
Mahlon
You know, this is it. This is why I wanted to just tie this up because there’s like a, there’s a nice bow and hard line Mahlon would say eyes on your own test paper. Right. There’s a way that like, what’s going on for you is not what’s going on for somebody else. And so there’s not a need to be worrying about somebody else’s paper and who’s missed the question and who does what. Just keep your eyes on your own test paper. That’s the hard line me. The other me says that like and this is more the compassionate community side of it when in a community people have different jobs, different functions, different contributions, it’s not about everyone’s contribution being equal in outputs, it’s about everyone’s contribution being equal to the whole being maintained or uplifted or progressing or whatever the case might be. And so to kind of assume that it’s zero sum, that if they get that, it’s because I don’t get and if I don’t get then no one else should get is really reductive and regressive to the aim of what is this whole community trying to achieve and the input that I’m able to do today might not be the input that I can do tomorrow. And so if I’m looking at it from a perspective of everything needs to be calculated and pitched and, you know, it would be, it doesn’t help people’s goodwill, it doesn’t help people’s sense of community and willingness to be part of it. And in the end, you just end up having lost and more loss and more loss and more loss because it’s a race to the bottom, but I really wanted to book end there what you just said, it’s like it’s really important. But, you know, whichever end of the spectrum, you’re happy to look at, whether it’s eyes on your own paper or we contribute different things to the community for the benefit of the community. That’s what it should be about. And so to be really aggrieved by those that can get pregnant and the paternity, maternity, parental leave of it all isn’t supportive of the community and is really reductive in thinking. So, yeah, just wanted to book end that.

00:37:32:24 – 00:42:22:03
Nadine
Yeah, and I just wanted to just add in terms of I feel sometimes people look at me and think, oh, you know, you’ve got it all together, you know, wow you know, you look super human, like you’re a head, you’ve got three kids, you’ve been doing this and doing that and so forth. But actually it’s hard. It can be challenging. You know, it’s not all rosy. And I really want people to know I’m human. I’m human, too. And sometimes there are seasons when I have to review and think, is this working? Because in terms of teaching, depending on where your school, what stage of school is in, there can be very, very busy periods of time that actually your systems and your organisational plans may fall through or it may be that thing you wanted to attend or had your eye on to attend for your child you just couldn’t because that safeguarding thing came up and so forth. Those things can happen, but it’s always, I think, taking those moments to review and think, okay, what’s working. And so I remember I had a busy period and i thought I’m not where I would want to be or where I’m usually comfortable with being in terms of my parenting. So I had to take stock and I had to review and okay, what can I do differently? So now I’m actually much more intentional with my half terms and summer holidays. I don’t leave them just to come. I’m thinking about, okay, what am I going to be planning for me and my family? How am I going to ensure that I switch off from all work related things? So I give them 100% time because I understand, you know, I’m leaving the house at seven., getting home at seven, I’m cooking and then it’s kind of like to bed and so forth. And it feels, you know, I’m not giving them as much as I want to at this stage, but okay, how can I compensate for that? How can I make the most of the half terms and the summer holidays and so forth? So I’ve had to adjust, you know, whereas I was that teacher and for me at that time it was, I could leave at four, but I spend quality time with my children and then picking up work after. I am now in a season where my days are pretty long. But yes, you know, I’m making the best of my holidays and so forth with my children. And I’m still not being afraid to, when I do get home, so my phone, I’ve taken emails off my phone because what I found at home, something will pop up and I’m looking to see the first line. And I’m like, okay, I open it and then I you just go down, it’s downward spiral. So now actually this academic year, this is quite a new thing for me. I’ve taken emails off my phone, so when I leave this building, I’m not going to see anything unless I’ve intentionally taken my laptop because I want to work. And I just feel if it’s that urgent, someone’s going to get, they would get hold of me if it’s that urgent. So yes I’m leaving later in this season. I’m getting home later in this season, but when I get home, I’m switched off. And so that’s what’s working for me in this season. So I yeah, I just wanted to make it clear to listeners that don’t think that everyone’s always got it all together. There’s always different types of seasons and there’s different ways of doing things, you know, and ultimately it’s just about us knowing what is and what we feel is right for ourselves and our children. I even asked my children about my parenting and I asked them for feedback. How do you think mum’s doing? Is there anything you want mum to think about and so I’m allowing them to have a voice and to have a say and I’m listening. And then that’s helping me in my constant reviewing process of being the best leader I can be to my community, being the best CEO, fighting for social, for equality and so forth, and also being the best wife I can be and being the best mother I can be. And also I do a lot of serving and doing a lot of stuff within my church as well, you know, supporting married couples and so forth. So, you know, my passion lies in a lot of things. It’s about me. Yeah, just deciding what is the best fit for this season and time in order to drive the change that I, I am passionate, passionate about contributing to.

00:42:23:20 – 00:42:39:19
Jess
And love it and building on that thank you so much for your contribution to the book and to this conversation and just being a part of this community and being you. It’s really, it’s a light. It’s a massive light. And yeah, we appreciate you. Thank you for sharing with us today.

00:42:40:01 – 00:42:42:14
Nadine
Thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure meeting you both.

00:42:44:03 – 00:42:51:23
Mahlon
And again, thank you so much, Nadine. With that I would like to close by saying that we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd.

00:42:54:24 – 00:43:09:14
Hannah
[Outro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed Podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book, Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.