Humans Who Teach: A guide for centering love, justice, and liberation in schools

This is the last article + podcast episode until 2025. And what better topic to end the year than love, justice, and liberation?

I’m talking today with Dr. Shamari Reid, an assistant professor of justice and belonging in education at New York University. He has taught Spanish, English as a new language, and ELA at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels in Oklahoma, New York, Uruguay, and Spain.

You’ll hear Shamari tell a bit more of his story in our conversation, but before I play the interview for you, I want to read a quote from his book, Humans Who Teach: A guide for centering love, justice, and liberation in schools. If you’re listening to this on 1.5 speed (as I often do with podcasts!) I invite you to slow it down, take a deep breath, and really savor the power of Shamari’s words.

“The source of my self-regard, self-worth, and self-respect must flow from within and not be attached to expectations from society or other individuals. How I see myself matters. How I feel about myself matters. And how I care for myself matters. I am not a teacher. I am a human who teaches and a human who has self-regard. I have self-respect. I have self-care. And I have self-love.

I am precious, and I am my best thing. I must take care of my best thing. There is only one of me. One thing I know for sure is that in a world of about 8 billion people, I am the only me. You are the only you. We’re the only us we have. Without us, this isn’t this. Now isn’t now. And life isn’t life. If even just one of us weren’t here, the whole world would shift. So, we must take care of ourselves, as we cannot be replaced. It’s about self-regard.”

As this quote affirms, Shamari is truly a gift to educators. Enjoy this conversation. I hope it will be a place for your soul to rest over the holidays and winter break before I return with more episodes in 2025.

Listen to episode 314 below,
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ANGELA: So, Shamari, I relate to your story quite a bit feeling that I needed to save my students and wrapping up my identity and being a teacher. And, eventually, you arrived at the realization that you are not a teacher. You are a human who teaches. Tell us about that and how your identity has evolved over time?

SHAMARI: Sure. I remember when I was learning to become a teacher, and I may have been the only black man in the program. And that was a time in which there was this narrative and this effort to recruit more diverse teachers. And we were told, those who were recruited, we were going to solve all of the world’s problems.

I remember being told over and over again, Oh my goodness. We are so happy you are here. We need more black teachers, more black male teachers. You are going to save us all. And I internalized that because I had heard it from so many people in my community. I had heard it from faculty. I heard it from teachers in the field who knew I wanted to be a teacher, and they would say, “We’ve been waiting for you”. And so I went into teaching thinking that I was this superhero teacher that everyone told me I was and thinking that my chief purpose in life was to save and rescue students from all of the social ills they were experiencing. I had no idea of how big those were. Like now when I look back, I’m thinking, I said I could do what?

Like, I can say I can help students outrun and outperform racism. I used to say I could help students in poverty outperform classism. I used to say that if I spent enough time on my lesson plan alone with me, students who had disabilities could overcome ableism. We could do that. We just had to work hard.

And so my first identity, I guess, the marker that mattered in my life was teacher. I talk about in the book going to buy this t-shirt that I was so excited to get after I had found out that I had passed my certification exams. I went to the mall, and it was the I Teach. What is your superpower? t-shirt. And  I couldn’t wait to wear one because I really thought of us as these super people and myself as Superman, and the world and schools have been waiting on me, and all I had to do was work very hard.

And so when people asked, Who are you and how do you define yourself? I’m a teacher. I teach, and I was so proud of that. Unfortunately, I ran too fast for too long and too hard. And so after a few years of 70-hour work weeks, I was offering, by the way, to cover everyone’s periods. Oh, a teacher needs to step out. Shamari has it. Oh, someone needs to run before school tutoring. Shamari has it. Oh, someone needs to go to the soccer game, and Shamari has it.

I thought that if I just kept running, eventually, I would do what I was put here to do, which is solve all of the world’s problems. At the same time, I was trying to prove my own worth, and I was trying to earn my place on Earth because I didn’t think that I had value going into the teaching force. I thought I had to earn it. I thought that by being an exceptional teacher, I would earn a right to be human and earn a right to be here. Neither of those worked out well for me because after a few years of that, I burnt out.

And I didn’t include this in the book because I can sometimes talk about it, and sometimes I cannot because it’s too difficult. But I passed out. I was driving home from school on the highway, and I blacked out. And I woke up on the side of the road, and I was grateful to be alive. And I said, what just happened? That had never happened to me before. I was too young. I was too committed. I was too ready. I wasn’t supposed to get tired. I was not supposed to black out, but I did.

The doctors ordered me to rest for a week because I had no other symptoms, by the way. I’m like, Oh, I’m sick. They’re like, We think you’re just exhausted, and your systems are failing because you’ve neglected your body for years. My cousin used to joke that I would replan my lessons. I would have lesson plans that I knew worked that were incredible, and I’d say, is that the right word? Is that enough wait time? And I would overplan and eplan and scrap it, the date of, and do it all over again, and it turned into 70 hours working. And I don’t know why I did it, but I blacked out, and I got the diagnosis.

And so I’m at home resting for a week. The principal said, “Please stop calling the school. I just need you to do that”. And my mother got involved, and all I could do was come to the couch and be bored. In my boredom, I found this video featuring Toni Morrison, and she said something that confounded me, which is it’s about self-regard. And I had no idea what she was talking about as a language teacher, and I’m like, What is self-regard? I’ve heard of self-compassion and self-care. I’ve heard of regard. Self-regard? What? And, eventually, I understood it as it’s the way we see ourselves.

And I began to think about how I got to where I was in the exhausted state, and I was like, Oh, I have neglected my humanity.I am not a teacher. I am not a superhero. I break down. I get tired, which is a reminder that I am human before anything else. And I’m a human who happens to teach, but I’m a human who needs a lot of things and who also can do a lot of other things. And I’m a human who is always enough even if I don’t work a 70-hour work week.

So that’s a summary of my journey from teacher to human who teaches total across 4 or 5 years, but that’s what happened. My body reminded me that I was human because I don’t know that I ever would have come to that realization on my own because everyone around me was just saying this is what great teachers do. The teachers of my community who were praised and who were lifted up, they were the ones who worked really hard and worked more than the 40 hours a week, and they the consequence of that was praise and success.

And so I was like, If everyone is doing it, then this is just normal. It’s okay that I’m tired. I’m gonna go get some coffee. I’m gonna add an extra shot of espresso, and I’m gonna be okay. And I’m gonna just keep doing that because that’s what good teachers do.

And I didn’t stop until I realized that I was human and there’s a difference between being a good human to myself and being a good teacher. And good teachers burn out, and I don’t think it’s healthy. And good humans are actually what I think we need more of to teach.

Yes. And just because something is normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy. That was a big understanding for me that just because I see everyone around me as exhausted all the time doesn’t mean that’s the way things have to be, being willing to question that. It’s so interesting that your body was the one keeping the score.

I really thought that I’ve seen teachers do what I was doing for decades and not get to the place I was and not burn out. So it’s really a gift. I didn’t like it at first. I was like, Oh my gosh. What’s wrong with me? You’re too young. And then I realized I’m grateful that I burned out now than in year twenty [years], and that means I would have had twenty years of unhealthy living, unhealthy teaching. And so you’re exactly right that we do normalize it. And I’m grateful to my body, for reminding me, we are not going to be able to normalize this.

Yes. That’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot because I’m a person who’s very much in my head. And, being in my body is something that I’m having to learn at a later age. It was certainly not something that was presented to me as a child. Also I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian background where you’re supposed to deny the flesh, and anything that your body wants is sinful. So I just learned to just ignore it.

And then plus being a woman as well, I was socialized to believe that, like, my needs don’t matter. What I want doesn’t matter, that I’m here to serve other people and take care of other people. Exactly right. And I just never learned to listen to my body and learning that my body was telling me this whole time. And I thought that the brain was more important, that they that I could think my way out of it, that I could just maybe work a little bit more efficiently or do something a little different.

And learning to really listen to the body, before it breaks down, that to me, I feel like is one of the big, lessons that I’m working through right now. So I really relate to what you’re saying here. Thank you.

Thank you. And I appreciate the connection you’re making too between the arduous work of social work and teaching and gender. This is an idea I also thought about but didn’t include in the book because I didn’t have enough time to address it in a way that I thought would be fair for me as someone who’s been socialized as a man. But I definitely think there is a link between the things we feminize, like teaching, and women and gender. And this expectation that to be a good woman, or a good teacher is to give all of yourself. And if you try to keep a little bit of your joy for yourself or pour into yourself, we hear a lot of words, not only like bad teacher, but bad mother, bad partner, bad wife, bad sister, all because you have chosen to pour into yourself. And so I know there is a connection between feminized professions or things we think of as feminine and women and gender in general around what we require, of people who’ve been feminized, but also women. It’s too much.

It is. I appreciate you affirming that and I want to affirm what you were saying earlier about how as the black male teacher, you were there to save. I mean, time and again, when I talk with black male educators in particular, I hear, you know, they get sent the discipline issues, that they are seen there to be relatable to all of these boys who whatever.

And, again, you are you are expected to save from that perspective. So it’s just interesting to see that as a white woman, I feel like I’m supposed to erase myself for the kids. Everything is for the kids. And for you, it’s like, Oh, well, because you are a minority in this field, you have to go in and do all the things that we can’t do as white women, and you have to fix it for us. And you have to somehow be relatable to all of these children who are very different from you and have different backgrounds even if they share your ethnicity. And that pressure is on you to pick up that load because there are not enough people who look like you in the profession.

That’s right. And so the responsibility is not evenly distributed across the teaching profession because there are things that you’re not supposed to be able to do. It is unfairly then put on the smallest group of people in the profession and on many of us who are new. And I think it is an art. And I think that artists, we get better and we improve, but you’re putting all this on me on Day 1. I’m supposed to come in here and be able to connect with the young boy that you all could not have for the last three years. And because we share race and gender, I’m supposed to just get it. No preparation, by the way. No one’s prepared me to do this thing. They just told me I could and I should, and that’s supposed to be enough. To your point about being able to think our way through challenges, not only not listening to our body, but I was told, just think hard about it, and you’ll have the answers. Oh, okay. Thanks. Not helpful because it leads to the very few of us who are in the field, leading the field. And so their problem persists.

Yes. And it’s so interesting how the saviorism manifests differently for different groups of people, and there are so many different flavors of it, and they’re all so toxic.

They’re so toxic. And I think if we don’t analyze that, it feels righteous a little bit. It feels like Is it not a bad thing to want to show up and do a great job for my students? Is it not a great idea that I want to show up and help these students navigate systemic issues and challenges? And I think if we don’t analyze it, we’ll stay there thinking, I’m doing a wonderful thing. And I always say yes. But if you are locating the problem in the people and not the systems, you’re actually helping to perpetuate the cycle, which I talk about in the book when we talk about socialization.

The problem is not these young folks at all. It’s the fact that these obstacles in many ways were erected to be in their way, and they’re not going to be able to outperform them and outjump them when we also should not punish them when they do not.  And all of that requires just a step back and a look at who we are as humans, who we’ve been socialized to be, and the ideas we have about ourselves and our abilities to save and where we locate problems. And often in saviorism, I include myself, the problem for me was in the young people. I never once thought Let me address the system. It was always, I’m gonna make them work as hard as I am. So if I’m working 70 hours a week, you better believe you’re reading 5 hours a night even though that’s not sustainable, and they complained about it.

They told me it was too much. I would just say, “If you wanna overcome racism, this is what you do”. And they believed me because we shared identity. And so if Jabari has done this, and he seems to be successful, he seems to be happy, he has a job that he loves, we’re going to follow in his lead. But as I say in the book, I dehumanized us all. I neglected my humanity and taught them to do the same. And it didn’t work out well for any of us, by the way, the 70-hour work week and pushing them to read 5 hours a night didn’t even get me better test scores.

Yes. Teaching they could outwork racism, poverty, systemic structures that are designed to hold them back. And, of course, we’re thinking that if we work harder, then we can outperform them too and knowing that is not the path. And I think the path that you are identifying here in the book — you’re talking about centering love and justice and liberation. And that first piece about love really stands out to me because I can’t recall any other book for teachers that focuses on love. I mean, we’ve got Bell Hooks’ work, but this is different.

This is specifically written for K-12 educators and how to center that in the classroom. And I feel like I’ve heard a lot about centering joy, which is important. I’ve heard a lot about liberatory practices. But what does it look like to center love, and why is that an essential part of your message to educators? 

I, for lack of a better word, love this question because it speaks to what I think I’m here to do at this time in my life, specifically for a group of people I love, which are teachers. I approached this book and thought about this book because of how much I love the art of teaching, but I also love those of us who teach. I think we are very special and very important people, and it’s not just around my own ego and how I overinflate and think I’m that important. I just see the impact we have on the world. And so when I think about us, I think about how infrequently we talked about love.

And to your point, we get thrown a lot of buzzwords as teachers. Whether it’s love, humanizing, or joy, it depends on the decade and maybe even the year. There’ll always be a new buzzword that they’ll throw, but no one will define. And so I wanted to write a book where I worked at trying to define what love was, one, for us. And then because I love us so much, what does it look like to invite us to practice that same love for ourselves?

And so love for me in teaching starts with defining what it is for yourself. And across the book, I invite the reader to do a series of things, think about their loved ones, think about their lives, go to these deep places inside, not to trigger anyone, not to just bring about tears unnecessarily, but to remind us that a part of being human is love. We can do that. We are capable of love, and we are worthy of receiving it. And so I wanted to define it using bell hooks, who I know you mentioned earlier, but also Toni Morrison and and James Baldwin and other folks, my mother, for example, Oprah, and to say, well, what is love?

Let’s move it away from just a buzzword to something that’s actionable because a lot of teachers right now understand that we are in need of more love, but we don’t know what to do with that. And so I defined it then fine. It is an action that involves nurturing our own growth as humans and the growth of all of those we say we love. And so if you center that in teaching, it really invites us to ask questions around how does my teaching or my pedagogy or my lesson plan or my activity nurture the growth of myself, of course, but the growth of young people? And it invites us to think about success more holistically beyond just can they pass a test, beyond just can they get into x, y, and z school, beyond can they just acquire the certain skills.

Sure. They’re they are going to need certain skills to be able to function and enjoy some of the some of the fruits of life. I agree. And it’s more holistic than that. And so when we think about love as a nurturing of growth beyond academic growth, but emotional growth and spiritual growth and physical growth, what I talk about in the book, it invites us to think about how we teach.

And so it’s not an additional checklist of things. I think a lot of folks are like, here is this guy saying teachers are overwhelmed and overworked, and then here he comes with, more curricula and more lesson plans. And it’s no. It’s not that. It’s how we do what we do and to what end.

And for me, I teach and show up to teach because of the love I have for people, which means I am there to nurture all of our growth. And so I’m making sure that everything I do contributes to that, and that for me, generally speaking, is how you would center love in teaching. It’s making sure that the things you do lead back to the way you have defined and outlined love for yourself, and you’re and you move beyond just I love my kids. Sure. But if you’re not thinking through how to operationalize that love, well, then you’re actually using love as as as a disguise or as a guise, but what you’re actually doing isn’t aligned.

You’re teaching in a way that you maybe were told to do and feels good to you, but actually doesn’t take up how you define love. And so that is why it’s important to define what love is for ourselves, pour it into ourselves, and then think about how we can pour it into the classroom. Because I also believe, as Toni Morrison reminds us, that love is not any better than the lover. And so if I am unhealthy, tired, etcetera, then that’s the way that’s the kind of love I can give. Tired people love tiredly, etcetera.

Exhausted people love exhaustedly. Frustrated people love frustratedly. And so it’s really important that we take care of ourselves because we are the wells from which the love pours, and I want to pour into young people healthy love. And so that I have to be healthy and I have to be well.

This is such a departure from the status quo of how we approach teaching. And in your book, you talk about that. You talk about the need to interrupt or disrupt the status quo and how that often involves risking something. And, you know, we were talking before we hit record here about some of the overlaps in our work. I’ve written a book, it’s called Fewer Things Better, and the subtitle is the courage to focus on what matters most.

And focusing on what matters most rather than upholding the status quo takes courage. It is a risk, and yet it’s one of the most important things we can do. And so in your book, Humans Who Teach, that really prompted me to think about this through the lens of fear versus love. Because you also talk about fears quite a bit, and we’re going to get into that. I had mentioned my Christian upbringing, and I had learned the scripture that perfect love casts out fear.

And I think there is a powerful truth in that, and the juxtaposition of love and fear in your book just really prompted me to think more deeply. So can you talk more about this risk-taking aspect of the work and practical ways to address the fears that come up by countering fear with love?

Sure. Absolutely. The first thing I’ll say is that fear for me is a powerful human emotion.

And so it was really important to me in a book that’s talking about humanizing our field, in a book that’s talking about humanizing teachers to not only focus on the romantic parts of it, love and the fluffy stuff. Right. What else does it mean to be human? And right now, what we know to be human and to teach in ways that go against the status quo, there are a lot of fears that are going to arise justifiably so because we have seen our colleagues yes. Be punished across decades and across centuries.

We’ve seen teachers try new things. We’ve seen teachers stand up for themselves. We’ve seen teachers advocate for students and it doesn’t always go well. So I think it’s quite human to see that and say, and if I do those things, if I go against the status quo, if I go against what I’m being told to do from folks who haven’t taught ever or haven’t taught in decades, then I might get in trouble. And so this fear arises, and I think it’s valid, and I think it makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s human.

So it was important for me across the book to talk about fear because I think it’s a very powerful human emotion. Now to your point, what do we do and how do they coexist? This idea of fear and love. I think one of the most important things too about being human is accepting a world of contradiction and a world of nuance and, move away from black and white. And a move away from black and white, a move away from, oh, I can you know, if there’s love, then there’s no fear.

If there’s fear, then there’s no love. That doesn’t speak to the nuances and complexities of the human experience. What we know is we can look across time, and there’ll be many people who have said they have done things, and fear was still present. And so as we think about your work and the work of other sort of pedagogues, yesterday was Paulo Fenerbahce’s birthday, so I’m thinking about him a lot, and I’m thinking about Bell Hooks and Toni Morrison and Gloria Ladson Billings and Goldie Mohammed. All of these folks have said, if you take up this work in a serious way, you’re going to find yourself in direct opposition to the system that employs you.

That is a part of it. And so therein lies the risk. There’s a risk here. If you teach in the loving ways that I’m talking about to your point, it’s not the status quo. Interrupting dehumanizing practices, interrupting threats to our lives and students’ lives isn’t a part of the status quo.

And I think if we understand that, then we have a choice to make. We either stay in the cycle that we’ve been socialized to stay in, and we remain silent and active, and we let fear lead because we’re just afraid of all the things that will happen and they might, or we choose to take a risk anyway. And what I’m offering in the book and what I say to folks is I am not a magician. I have not figured out how to eliminate fear. I’ll be honest about that, Angela.

I’m afraid of a lot of things all the time. I have figured out how to center love so that I can make healthy and wise decisions even in the presence of fear. And so, yes, I take risk, and yes, they are scary. And we can I know we’re going to talk about some of those specific fears? And, yes, things can happen to me, but I’m going to continue to do it because I love myself, and I love other humans.

And I know that the world we deserve is on the other side of interruption. I know that the world we have right now is not the one that we have to have. The world that is is not the one that ought to be. I know that deeply. I feel that.

And so I will continue to choose love, and I will continue to do my part in interrupting so that we all get to a world of peace, love, and joy because there is enough of that for all of us. Enough peace, enough love, enough joy for all of us, but it’s going take some risk-taking. And isn’t that what love is, but a series of sacrifices and risk-taking behavior? Think about the ones we love all the time. I take a lot of risk for my loved ones.

I make a lot of sacrifices for my loved ones, for my child, for my mother, for my sister. My mother could call me right now, and I would pause this conversation. I would say, Angela, I am so sorry. I have to make a sacrifice here and join my mother in helping her overcome whatever the obstacle is because I love her, And that is what it is. And so I think if we remind ourselves that that’s a part of our ability to as humans, it makes the risk-taking not easier, and nor does it make it feel not as intense or fearful, but it reminds that it’s already possible.

Yes. Take risks. You know, I want to challenge listeners here because as we’re as folks are listening to this, I’m guessing that they are thinking about an unhelpful pattern that they need to interrupt in their work in schools, a risk that they know they need to take. And maybe it’s something that they are required to do that they know isn’t best for kids. It could be repairing harm in a relationship.

It could be no longer protecting a colleague who’s not doing right by kids. It could be advocating to change a policy. And I want everyone who’s listening to this to think about an area in which it feels like you are out of integrity with yourself. You are not being true to what you know is right, where you are not operating from this place of love and nurturing, the well-being of yourself and of others. And in your book, Shamari, there are 5 different fears that you address that can keep educators from centering this love, justice, and liberation in their work.

And I want to talk about each of them one by one so that as folks are listening and considering the risk-taking opportunity that they are holding right now, the thing that they selected as something they want to do and need that courage to follow through on.

Let’s talk about these different fears. So I’ll list them first, and then we’ll talk about each one. So, you mentioned the fear of letting go of what we know and embracing the unknown, the fear of getting it wrong, the fear of not being perfect, the fear of dropping the ball on academics, and the fear of not knowing how to get started. So let’s talk about that first one, letting go of what we know and embracing the unknown. What’s that path been like for you?

Sure. And at first, I want to affirm that if folks are feeling that right now, it’s quite common among educators to fear letting go of what we’ve worked so hard to get good at and embracing the unknown. Because many of us go to the professional development workshops. We were really attentive in our programs when learning to become teachers.

We practiced a lot. We rehearsed a lot. We asked a lot of mentor teachers questions, and so we have worked, some of us, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years on our teaching practice. It’s what we know, and we’re good at it. I mean, we arrive at this juncture where something or someone says, let that go and try something new.

That can be quite terrifying because in a way, it feels like you’re starting over. It feels like you’re becoming a novice again. And as I say in the book, you are. And what I offer as a path to continue thinking through is if we go back to love and we go back to, for me, the reason why we are in schools and the reason I am there is to continually nurture the growth of everyone in the school. If I find out that something I worked hard for 15 years, 20 years is not nurturing my students’ growth, then I have to ask myself, why would I hold on to it?

And I know I’m saying that now is a simple question, but that’s a really big question. If it’s not serving you or your students well, you have to ask yourself, why do you want to hold on to it? If your goal is a loving practice, if your goal is a practice that nurtures the growth in students, if your goal is to get us all closer to a world of more peace, love, and joy, well, then it’s gonna require that we let go of some things and embrace unknown. And that goes back to risk-taking. Embracing love often, not always, is about risk-taking and embracing the unknown.

I think about when I’m meeting someone for the first time, when I’m choosing to be vulnerable, I’m choosing to open up, I’m choosing love. There is always the risk Mhmm. That I can get my heart broken Mhmm. That I can get hurt, that I can make a mistake, that I can fall down and it doesn’t work out. There’s always the risk that I adopt a new teaching practice and it doesn’t work.

There’s always the risk, but I will do so again and again and again because I truly and genuinely love my students and myself and the way I talk about in the book, and they are worth me taking risk. Their growth and our world being a kinder, more peaceful, more loving place is worth me experiencing some discomfort as I forge a new teaching philosophy, as I move forward and embrace, and I talk about in the book multimodality, as I throw away all of the exams, and I spent 10 years getting perfect. I learned that they actually weren’t inviting students to express their knowledges in ways that made sense to them. And so the love for me reminded me that I have to let go of things sometimes. And so the fear is always there.

The unknown is always scary, but love is always my light. And it’s because of that that I am able to move forward with bravery and courage through the dark unknown because I believe in what’s on the other side of that, which is the more loving classroom, which is the more loving approach to teaching, which are the more joyful, and peaceful schools, and which is ultimately the better world. That is worth it for me. And so I know it’s on the other side and I cannot see it right now, but I know it exists. And I know young people and I know we as humans who teach, that is exactly the world we deserve.

How about the fear of getting it wrong and the fear of not being perfect? I feel like we can kinda put those 2 together. They often go hand in hand.

That’s right. And so when I talked earlier about being positioned as this superhero teacher, and that also was being positioned as a teacher who is an expert.

I think often in the world, teachers are looked at as experts in all-knowing. And many of us take pride in that, and we work really hard. And we are brilliant, by the way. We’re brilliant people, and we can do a lot of things incredibly well and at very high levels. And there is a danger in being positioned as someone who is perfect because it’s dehumanizing.

Because what I now understand is to be human is to embrace imperfection and to reserve the right to make a mistake and to fall down as all humans will. We will make a mistake. And so a quote I share in the book, and I’ll share now, that helped my thinking, and I hope it helps other teachers, think through these fears of getting it wrong or fears of not being perfect as I was listening to a podcast and Alok was there. Alok is a nonbinary author, intellectual, and the podcast host asked Alok, hey. We’ll be honest with you.

Before we started our interview, we were afraid of getting your pronouns wrong. We were afraid of misgendering you. Do you have any thoughts on that for people who are afraid of making mistakes, big mistakes? And Alok said, welcome to the awkward choreography of being a human. You’ll make a mistake, and you will fall down.

And Alok shared that they, as a nonbinary person, had to learn gender literacy. There was a time they didn’t know, and they extended grace to themselves as they figured it out, which allows them to extend grace to others as they figure it out. And so they shared what we do when we make a mistake is apologize, take accountability and responsibility, and commit to trying hard not to do it again. And if we mess up again, because many of us will, we apologize again. We reaffirm our commitment, and that is a part of being human.

And I think that if we embrace our humanity, we can really restore the humanity in the classroom. Because as I shared before, me thinking I was perfect and I was not able to make mistakes also didn’t allow me to accept those from my students. I was not forgiving. I was not graceful. I was not kind.

And so my seeking perfection dehumanized us all, and it got in the way of progress because I’m afraid to fall, which means I’m afraid to take risks. I’m afraid to try new things. I’m afraid to change and evolve, and my classroom was the same it was when I started even though it wasn’t serving anybody well. And so it goes back to what are the goals here. Are the goals to be seen as an expert in front of these students?

Sure. That feels good. Or is really my goal is that all of us are well and that all of us are expanding our knowledge in a range of areas, not academic only, but in a range of areas. If that’s the goal, then I’ve got to embrace my human imperfections and my flaws. And I have to know that one, I’m not perfect, and that’s okay.

I’m always enough. And that I’ll make mistakes, and that is okay. I will apologize, and I will try harder and harder. And there will be those in life who do not forgive me, and they don’t have to. I will hurt people so deeply that my apology isn’t enough, and that is okay.

But I reserve the right to be human, which means I reserve the right to get it wrong and make mistakes. That is a part of being human. That is how we learn. And in fact, many of us preach that to students but don’t practice it for ourselves. That’s right.

Right? We say to students, it’s okay. Yeah. You erase it. You fix it.

But yet we don’t allow ourselves that same grace. And it goes back to how often we aren’t invited to be human, and that’s not just on us. That is because we belong to a profession in a world in which we’ve been socialized to be seen as robots and machines and, being able to do the same thing that AI is doing. And I think humans are much better than AI because of all the stuff that I mentioned before around love, etcetera. AI cannot do that.

Only humans can do that. And also, a part of that is we’re going to get it wrong and make mistakes, and it’s okay. We’re going love on ourselves and love on young people through it all toward the world we deserve. What about that fear of dropping the ball on academics? This one really intrigues me because it’s a huge barrier.

The fear that we’re focusing on these things that we know are incredibly important, but they’re not in the standards. And if we focus on this, then there won’t be enough time to focus on the curriculum that we are mandated to cover. That’s right. And I think this is probably, Angela, the most common fear that I get when I’m sharing about this is a lot of teachers just will say to me, well, Shamari, I only have this many hours of instruction time. At the end of the year, the students need to be able to do x, y, and z.

And, unfortunately, that doesn’t leave me much time to take up all of the ideas you’re sharing across the book. And so I respond to that in, a few ways. The first thing I’ll say is I’m not asking you to add to your list of what you do. I’m asking you to reframe why you do it, and I know that once you reimagine their why, the how will change. So what I share with folks who were like, what about academics?

I say, to what end? You want to teach these skills to what end? And so you want this student to be able to solve, algebraic matrices, for example. Great. I also I struggle with matrices, but you want the students to be able to work on these matrices.

To what end? And I think we have to answer that for ourselves, which is going to go back to your teaching philosophy, back to your why, back to why you’re in schools. But if you are only there because you want this student to be able to solve a quadratic equation, then I would ask yourself, is that where you should be right now in a world of power and violence, in a world of oppression, in a world of violence, in a world of war? I don’t know how important it’s going to be for this child to be able to solve this quadratic equation if he doesn’t have access to clean drinking water. And I think that is a powerful sort of reframing of the work that we do.

And so I’m not saying drop the ball on academics just because I’m saying add and think about success more holistically. I am not just there for skill development. I am not only there for academic success. I am there for a human approach, holistic success, holistic growth that includes the child’s physical body, the child’s emotional needs, and spiritual needs, which I talk about in the book because that is the answer to what end for me. Why is Shamari in schools?

He’s there to love. What does love look like? Nurturing holistic growth. And if I’m not doing that, then I am not honoring my own commitments to why I came into the field of teaching and education. And many of us will say we came because we love students.

Okay. That love is going to require you sometimes to to make some really hard decisions and to not only focus on academics, but think about academics in conversation with all the other things that we need as humans. And I’ll go back to my point earlier. It’s a lot harder to see those human needs in young people if you do not see them in yourself. And that was my story for the first 3 or 4 years of my teaching career.

I didn’t think I was a human who needed to rest. I didn’t think I was a human who needed breathing time. I didn’t need to stretch, and so I also didn’t think that young people needed it. I thought what we were supposed to do is I was supposed to impart knowledge and bank knowledge into them. They were supposed to memorize my knowledge and take tests.

And if we all did that, the world would shift. But now what we know about the systemic problems is it’s going to take a lot more than a great test score. It’s it’s kind, healthy humans. Mhmm. That is our work.

Or at least that’s the work that I take up. So for those folks at home who are listening or have read the book and they’re worried about dropping the ball on academics, I say to what end?

Are there any daily practices or habits or routines that can help teachers stay focused on that piece of to what end? Because I’m imagining that it’s like, Okay. This sounds great, and I’m fired up, and I’m inspired right now. And then I go to work tomorrow, and I’m only being evaluated on the academics. And no one in my school is talking about this. Yep. And everybody else is just teaching the curriculum. What are some things that I can do in my daily life that will help me stay connected to this vision and stay connected to love?

That’s right. And so the first part in your question, I believe you’re hinting at least my answer is to have a vision. So the first thing I would invite anyone to do is sit down right now and ask yourself, what is your vision? Not only for your teaching but for the world. You have to start there.

And I know it seems like rudimentary and really simple, and you’ve been teaching for 23 years, and you have your think, sure. But why are you there? Why do you want to do this thing? And this goes into which we may we may talk about in a little bit, but my sort of four-point process where I start with articulate the vision. Start with what are you there for?

And a lot of people have thought of this as vision-driven pedagogy or vision-driven justice. I would credit most of this work to Jamila Lyiscott who has a book. I think it’s called, black food, white appetite, in which she says, don’t get caught up on what you’re fighting against. You’ll tire yourself out. That’s where all the fear is going to come in.

All of your anxiety when you say, oh, but this, and then I have to cover this, and I have to that’s what you’re fighting against, and it’s valid. I don’t mean to minimize it. However, in dark times, it’s rare that anxiety pulls us through. In dark times, where that fear can pull us through, it often adds flames to the fire. What pulls us through is hope and where do we get hope from is thinking about what we’re fighting for.

And so when you think about at the end of your school year, what you want students not only to be able to do, but how you want them to show up in the world. That gives you vision. Then you work backwards, and many of us as teachers can do this because we’re familiar with understanding, by design. We’re, we’re we’re familiar with backwards planning. We’re familiar with here is the goal, and I know that evidence of the goal is this, and I know that here are the things that I should teach students to be able to do so that they can produce the thing that’s evidence of learning.

It’s the same here. Start with the vision that comes in the end. How do you want your classroom to look, and how do you want it to feel? The administration’s going to give you the curricular goals, the standards. Great.

You have those there too, but you’re adding the human piece to it. In addition to them being able to understand the basic tenets of, I don’t know, biology, I want them to be kind to themselves, etcetera. Those are Shamari’s goals, so I’m envisioning those goals. That’s step 1. What kind of classroom do you want?

Step 2 is then envision yourself doing it and write how you feel. So you have to journal, and I have pages in the book for you to journal. So I share in the book my journey toward multimodality, which was really hard for me. I’ll be honest. I thought there’s only one way to share knowledge.

I thought you wrote your answers down. I thought that was the only way. And then someone came along and was like, what about art and music? And I was like, what? That’s not college expression.

And it is. So I had to articulate my goal which was I want a multimodal classroom. I want a classroom in which young people see all of the different ways they can express themselves and what they know, and that they can choose from the different projects and examples I’ve given to share their knowledge. Step 2 was, how do I feel when I’m doing it? And I wrote, this feels incredible.

My classroom feels free. My classroom feels liberated. Students feel able to share more things that they know in different ways. And so that was me envisioning. Step 3 was to work backwards.

Well, to get to that, where they can produce that, well, what are all the things we have to do, and what are the day-to-day steps to your question about the day-to-day? Well, there was the okay. Step 1, I should probably talk about what knowledge is. Day 2, I should probably talk about all the ways that people have shared knowledge. And then Day 3, we talk about content, and so I was teaching Spanish at the time to talk about the content, but I had to chunk it.

I had to put it across. And he said, you know, teachers do this. I have to put it across a sequence so that we could get there. And when I finished Angela and I looked at my plan, when Step 4 is breathe, I said, oh, that’s what I’m fighting for. Oh, that’s my vision.

And when it got hard because it did and I was stressed out, I had hoped to say, you can do this, Shamari, because you have a plan, and you’re going to hold yourself accountable. So you said by Day 2, you will have done. Have you done it? No. Cool.

Tomorrow, try harder. And that was really helpful because it helped me not give power to the fears that were there, and it gave power to the hope, power to the vision, power to the dream, which allowed me to be surrounded in hope, not anxiety. Not anxiety, not fear, not a trigger. And that’s what I think I’m offering in the book is to refocus on what we’re fighting for, not what we’re fighting against. We can be aware of those things, and we don’t want to give too much power because that’s overwhelming, and that brings a lot of anxiety.

So if you’re afraid right now of having a classroom where peep the students cannot do x, y, and z skills, okay, But that’s also what you’re fighting against, and that’s a fear that’s going to produce for you a lot of anxiety. Dream a little bit. What is positive that we can see on the other side? What’s going to happen?

How is it going to feel? How are you going to feel? Let’s stay there. And I don’t know if we talk enough about the power of hope and the power of having vision outside of maybe your 1st year teaching or your last year in teacher education program where someone says, why are you teaching philosophy? But no one ever says updated.

No one has ever asked in year five, Shamari, what’s your philosophy of teaching? How has it changed? In year six, Shamari, what’s your vision for teaching? How has it changed? In year 10, what And we should because the world is changing, and I would like to believe that our teaching should always respond to the world that we are in and always be thinking about the world we want to go to next.

That’s right. We have updated until these questions around vision, we answer them in year one and then never return. In my book, I’m saying it is time to return and figure out why we are doing this so that we can stay focused and hold ourselves accountable to that. And that’s how you overcome the fear of not knowing how to get started. You’re you’re articulating what it is that you’re afraid to start doing.

You’re reflecting on the task and imagining yourself on the other side Yep. Of the moment and paying close attention to what you feel. And then you’re taking that vision, and you’re breaking it down into those bite-sized pieces so you know what you’re doing every day. And that 4th piece is to breathe, to not show up tired, to have something to give and to pour into it. And I’m taking this directly from your book, so anyone who’s listening to this, there is a there’s a whole activity there where you can, you know, reflect right there right in the book on these different questions and think about what this looks like for you.

Sure. Sure. Sure. And I’m there. I’m there with you.

Just know that I am there. I’m doing my own unlearning, relearning all the time. Other humans who teach are there, which is why in Step 4, I say breathe. Just breathe. Once you’ve laid out a plan and it feels big, breathe and know that you’re not alone.

You’re not alone in this, and you can do this. We can do hard things. Teachers can do hard things. We do hard things all the time. I am saying let’s do hard things with the pursuit of love, pursuit of justice, pursuit of liberation, and pursuit of the world that ought to be.

We know it. We just have to do what we have to do to get there, but it’s coming. It is. I can feel it. I feel the shift.

I feel the shift, Shamari. Don’t you?

Absolutely. I mean, it’s it’s the reason I wake up. If I only focused on the things that brought me anxiety or what I was fighting against, Angela, I wouldn’t get out of my bed.

Right. Now along the list is of things against me, along the list is of all the stuff that can go wrong, I’m an overthinker, and I have lots of anxiety. And so my mind is, this could happen. This could happen. This and I’m like, oh my goodness.

I’m overwhelmed. And then I say to myself, what do I hope happens? Why am I doing this? What am I fighting for? And I get up out of bed, and I’m like, that’s right.

That’s the goal. That’s more loving world. That’s why we’re doing this. And that’s a worth for me. That’s a, that’s a worthwhile cause.

And the only reason I need to get up. I want to close out the show with what I call takeaway truth. It’s something for folks to remember, in the week ahead, and this episode is going to be airing right before I take a sabbatical in December. So it’s the last episode of the season, so teachers are going to have their whole winter break to really think about this to reflect. I thought this was the perfect message to send them off with is really marinating deeply in your words, maybe even relistening to this episode and really thinking about what does this mean for me this risk-taking for love?

What is my purpose? Really moving forward, what is something that you want everyone listening to this to understand about centering love and overcoming fear and all these other topics that we’ve talked about today?

Sure. The most important thing I would invite us to think about, ruminate, sit with is the idea that we are all human, and that has always been enough. You are human.

If you are listening to this and you feel overwhelmed in all the things, yes, because you are human. The fears you have, yes, you have them because you are human, and that’s okay, and that’s always enough. And because you are human, you have the human ability to love. We all have it. And that is the place we have to go to, I think, to get us through hard times, dark times, anxiety-inducing times is to go back to love.

And so I would just remind you that it’s already possible for you to love yourself and other people and that you are human and that you are enough. You don’t have to earn your value or your place here, in the world. You don’t have to work 70 hours a week. You don’t have to not have any boundaries and allow people, schools, students, and families to contact you on weekends if you don’t have space for that or contact you in the late evening if you have you don’t have space for that. You could have boundaries, and we will all be fine, and that will be enough.

So that is what I would leave folks with. And I think those are it seems so simple, but those are really big ideas for those of us who have been told for so long to leave our humanity at the door. Don’t smile till Christmas. All of these human things, don’t be nice. Don’t be kind.

It’s like, don’t be human is what I’m hearing. Don’t be human. And I’m saying, but you are. I think that it’s more powerful if we embrace that because then it invites us to tap into love. And with love, we can get over so many things, and collectively with love, we can get over everything.