Dr. Asia Lyons is the host of 'The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators' where she practices archival justice by sharing the stories of Black educators who have left the classroom. Her own journey to education and then out of the classroom led her work both on the podcast, and in creating intentional spaces of healing for Black educators. Dr. Lyons's work focuses on the less sexy, but often more important work of retaining Black educators. Recruitment is a crucial starting point, but if we can't create spaces of wellness for Black educators, retention will always be a challenge. Dr. Lyons encourages all of us to speak up on behalf of Black educators, to create spaces of healing, and to advocate for justice at least as loudly as the voices who aren't.

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Finding a school where your children can thrive, while avoiding contributing to the ongoing segregation we see today, can feel like a tough issue for socially conscious parents.

Check out our FREE guide on how you can start engaging with the education system to achieve just that: Click here to download the guide now!

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• The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators
• William A Smith - who coined the term Racial Battle Fatigue
• Taking Care and Moving Forward with Dr. LaShaune Stitt
• Boundaries, Burnout and Black educator Wellness with Josephine Ampaw-Greene
• S11E14 – What Was Lost: Noliwe Rooks on the Failures of Integration
• S10E15 – Rebuilding The Black Educator Pipeline with Sharif El-Mekki
• S10E14 – Jim Crow’s Pink Slip with Dr. Leslie Fenwick
• S11E8 – Gratitude and Validation: One Family’s Journey Through Integrated Schools
• S11E15 – Unearthing Joy: Gholdy Muhammad on Teaching with Love

Visit our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us – IntegratedSchools on Facebook, or email us podcast@integratedschools.org.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Val Brown. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

Identity, skills, intellectualism, criticality, and joy. These are the five pursuits that Dr. Gholdy Muhammad argues are key to education. Our educational system focuses most of its attention on skills while often overlooking the other pursuits to the detriment of all kids. All people need to know who they are and whose they are, need to put the knowledge they gain into action, need to learn to distinguish between truth and lies, and to critically examine the stories we are told, and everyone needs joy. An education system, not to mention a society, that focuses on all five pursuits has the possibility of bringing out the genius in all of us. Underlying all of these pursuits is love. With love

Dr. Muhammad joins us to discuss what teaching, parenting, and being part of community can look like with a focus on these pursuits.

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Finding a school where your children can thrive, while avoiding contributing to the ongoing segregation we see today, can feel like a tough issue for socially conscious parents.

Check out our FREE guide on how you can start engaging with the education system to achieve just that: Click here to download the guide now!

________________

LINKS:

• Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy
• Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Curriculum and Instruction
• The Secret Life of Plants

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us – IntegratedSchools on Facebook, or email us podcast@integratedschools.org.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Val Brown. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.

“At its inception, in the courts, and as a project, integration was deeply contested and Black people were deeply divided about it. ” – Dr. Noliwe Rooks

The common narrative about integration often frames it as a clear victory—a moment when American education finally confronted injustice. But Dr. Noliwe Rooks argues the reality is far more complicated. In her new book, Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children, she traces the history of Black education, showing how the pursuit of desegregation sometimes led to profound losses for Black communities.

In this conversation, Dr. Rooks discusses the overlooked sacrifices Black communities made as schools integrated, from the closure of vibrant Black-led schools to the erasure of Black educators' roles and perspectives. Through the story of 4 generations of her own family, she reveals how integration initiatives frequently dismissed Black voices and visions for education, leaving systemic inequities intact.

This episode challenges us to rethink what integration truly means, and what’s required if education is to fulfill its promise of justice and liberation for all students.

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Finding a school where your children can thrive, while avoiding contributing to the ongoing segregation we see today, can feel like a tough issue for socially conscious parents.

Check out our FREE guide on how you can start engaging with the education system to achieve just that: Click here to download the guide now!

________________

LINKS:

• Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children
• A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune
• Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education
• S6E9 - BvB@67 - Noliwe Rooks Revisited - Dr. Rooks from our Brown v Board anniversary series
• S11E9: The Containment: Michelle Adams on Northern Jim Crow
• No Choice Is the “Right” Choice: Black Parents’ Educational Decision-Making in Their Search for a “Good” School - Dr. Linn Posey-Maddox
• S10E14 – Jim Crow’s Pink Slip with Dr. Leslie Fenwick
• Ep 11 – White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy

Use these links or start at our Bookshop.org storefront to support local bookstores, and send a portion of the proceeds back to us.

Join our Patreon to support this work, and connect with us and other listeners to discuss these issues even further.

Let us know what you think of this episode, suggest future topics, or share your story with us – IntegratedSchools on Facebook, or email us podcast@integratedschools.org.

The Integrated Schools Podcast was created by Courtney Mykytyn and Andrew Lefkowits.

This episode was produced by Andrew Lefkowits and Val Brown. It was edited, and mixed by Andrew Lefkowits.

Music by Kevin Casey.