Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space, we talk about education, which is inclusive of, but not limited to, what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and Our Classroom is officially in session. Welcome back to our classroom. Listen, folks, I treat these podcast interviews the way I treated my basketball playing days. You know, there's just— there's some games that you get more up for. You know, there's some interviews that like, oh, oh no, no, no, this one, this one, I, you know, I, I really gotta come right.
Roberto Germán [00:00:53]:
I gotta get ready for this. I know what it's gonna be. I know it's gonna be rich. Today we have a special guest. All right, we have Yolanda— not, not Yolanda Adams. That would be good too. That would be good, you know, get some singing involved and whatnot, you know, move with the spirit. We have Yolanda, not Yo-Yo the rapper.
Roberto Germán [00:01:18]:
I, I know for some of our younger listeners, um, I'm dating myself a little bit, but y'all got to do your history, you know. You should know who, who the pioneers are and In this case, a critical female rapper who's also a community activist. But today we have Yolanda Sealy Ruiz, who is a mover and shaker in all types of spaces, educational spaces, literary spaces, poetic spaces. Listen, Yolanda is someone we truly, truly appreciate here at Multicultural Classroom, a professor of English. You know, our background is English. Yolanda's at Teachers College. Shout out to New York. We know the whole New York is on a high right now 'cause of the Knicks.
Roberto Germán [00:02:07]:
So we gonna acknowledge that, we gonna affirm that. Even though it's Celtics over here. Although after the way they treated Jaylen Brown, I might be a Knicks fan, but that's another podcast for another day. 'Cause today we have Yolanda and we gonna be talking about her work. And there's a lot we could talk about, right? She's the founder of the Racial Literacy Project at Teachers College. Been in documentaries with Spike Lee, who— one of my favorites, of course. There's a lot that we could talk about. We could talk her poetry.
Roberto Germán [00:02:41]:
They got a couple poetry books. But nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we're gonna be talking about this bad boy right here. All right, Archaeology of Self. And you're gonna need some time. And I'm not gonna lie to you, I haven't read the whole book because there's a lot of pages. But this is resource rich. Listen, you can just spend some time going through the QR codes that give you the playlist. And as somebody who loves music, loves analyzing music, loves lyrics, both writing and breaking them down and understanding what the writers are trying to communicate, just the playlist alone.
Roberto Germán [00:03:25]:
Mm-hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:03:25]:
Oh my goodness. I'm looking through all the artists and, you know, so many that I, I respect, uh, whether you're talking about the rappers or the R&B singers or whatever. Um, just to name a few off the top of my head that I saw on your list: Common, John Legend, Sam Cooke. There's a variety there. Um, you threw me for the loop, right? You know, I wasn't expecting to see Kelly Clarkson on the list.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:03:54]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:03:55]:
You know, you just really mixed it up there with, you know, I'm like, oh snap. And I love Kelly Clarkson. I just, I, I just didn't have it on my bingo card, you know. Yeah, I saw that coming. Chance the Rapper, uh, you, you threw me for a loop with a couple of them. But nonetheless, we have Yolanda today, and, and we're gonna spend some time with this here today, folks, because it's not every day you get to hear from Yolanda, all right? Unless you're, you're in certain conferences, or you got all her books, or you're in the spaces in which she's talking, and she She's everywhere. But listen, today I'm just— I'm coming in as a fan of the work.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:04:37]:
Hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:04:39]:
As someone who appreciates people that courageously not only put themselves out there, but challenge us as learners and as educators to look deep within, all right, to process the things that have impacted us as learners through our nurturing and through nature and tapping into certainly racial literacy, which is extremely important.
Roberto Germán [00:05:09]:
And Jolanda does and does well. So thank you for being here. It is a pleasure to have you.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:05:19]:
Roberto! Okay, brother. First of all, do you not know how hard it was for me to say— get the amen crowd going? Amen. Yes, I'm holding back. And if the viewers are looking at us, you can see in my body, brother, how grateful I am to be in this space with you. I respect— first of all, you got about 1,000 episodes. I ain't playing, y'all. I'm for real, for real. Like, brother, you were doing this when people were only dreaming of doing podcasting, when people were just getting on the wagon, you were already established.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:05:55]:
And the people that you've spoken to over time, from scholars to classroom teachers— brother, I am grateful to be among this roster. So I want to shout out to you. I also want to shout out to your beautiful wife. And I'm going to say this. Maybe about 2 years ago, she sent me a DM and she said, Yoli, Is there a book on archaeology of self? What do you have written? And that stayed in the back of my mind, not just because other people have asked me that, but when Lorena Hedman, who has been doing this work, asked you that question, it hit me in a different kind of way.
Roberto Germán [00:06:31]:
Wow.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:06:32]:
So for it to be full circle, for me to be with you here today while the book is written, which was in many ways agitated in my spirit by your wife, Wow. I only have gratitude. I only have—
Roberto Germán [00:06:46]:
That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I know Lorena will greatly appreciate hearing that and will likely be surprised.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:06:57]:
You never know how you can hit people, you know, that you do. You never know during that moment how it speaks to their spirit. And so I just want to be public with that. And I want to say thank you to her for that.
Roberto Germán [00:07:09]:
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, you know, when I received the book, Archaeology Itself, and started digging a little bit, I was thinking about like, all right, you know, how can we just start with something, with a question that might feel physical in a sense? So I was thinking about excavating. And for those who are listening today, if they had to spend 1 year excavating instead of fixing, improving, or performing, I'm wondering, what do you think they would discover about themselves? This, this book has so much to do with self-discovery. And I'm just leading with curiosity about how deeply they have been influenced and might I say, even programmed to believe ideas about their students that are not necessarily true.
Roberto Germán [00:08:12]:
And I'll be the first to admit that I fall into that. You know, I— now, I've done a lot of work to come out of the thinking I was programmed into.
Roberto Germán [00:08:23]:
Mm-hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:08:24]:
But it certainly took some time to even be able to see it clearly and then acknowledge that. and then take the steps to do the necessary work to dismantle it. So yeah, let's, let's start with this notion of excavating.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:08:42]:
Yes, brother. Thank you again for this, this moment and that question. And you hit the nail directly on the head. And I'm thinking specifically about educators, but this is for everyone, any human being, free-thinking citizen in this society. But particularly for educators, I think they will discover that they have been programmed to believe negative, deficit, inhumane things about their students. Now, what I would want them to do if they're gonna spend this year excavating is, yes, discover it and not turn away, right? Like, don't be too hard on yourself. Recognize that there's a whole system from the time you were born that's been programming you to think about this about yourself. And then when the self looks like the students, then of course you're going to think about them as well.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:09:36]:
But what I would hope and what I would want them to do is then ask a series of questions. Who taught me to believe this? Where did I believe this? Why do I believe this? And most importantly, what has this belief caused me to do? What kind of harm has it caused to my students, to myself? And then spend time healing and rectifying that harm. Because I think what you're inviting and what the book invites is for us to slow down, to pause, and to have those conversations deep, deep, deep within ourselves for the purpose of evolving into the best human that we can be, but certainly the best teacher that we can be to serve our students. So I think that they would be surprised how much they'd been programmed and how much they actually believed it without challenging it.
Roberto Germán [00:10:24]:
Yeah, that's, that's so good and so important. And I like what you said in terms of not being too hard on yourself, because sometimes folks go overboard after the discovery, right? It's like the guilt settles in so deeply that now it's preventing you from taking the steps forward that's going to not just help you, but also help those that you're in service of.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:10:55]:
You know, I want to give 2 shoutouts there. The first is to every Black psychologist or Latino psychologist that have spoken about this, and there are many. So shoutout to the Black psychologists from Naeem Akbar to George DeGraai, who talks about the complexity of, you know, kind of race and our relationship to, you know, this world and our bodies as being raced beings. And I want to give a shout out more contemporarily to Christian Neff, who is a psychologist that talks about the compassion that we have to have for ourselves when we're discovering these things about ourselves. So, you know, just look up Black and Latino psychologists who talk about the self, who talk about forgiveness. There are so many of us. And to talk— to look up Christian Neff. And what I want to say about that is that, you know, after we discover these things about ourselves, brother, that the hardest part is actually sitting with it and then moving forward from it.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:11:57]:
Because literally it can get us stuck. And there's fear of, well, what if I move past this belief? What do I do then? And once you make a decision, you know, to move past something you've believed for so long, there's so much uncertainty and ambiguity there about your friendship circle, about, you know, what you've come to believe about yourself. Because a lot of folks, you know, the negative things that they believe about others has given them strength about themselves. So if you're tearing that down, right, and recognizing that that's not necessarily true, then, like, in the words of Toni Morrison, who talked about, like, you know, whiteness and so forth, After you strip away your race, what else do you have? And then we're faced with ourselves. And so the most difficult thing is deciding what— how am I going to move forward to sustain this new way of being? Right. And that's where the hard work is. And most importantly, to love yourself as you are moving towards this new way of being and thinking. So that's where the work begins.
Roberto Germán [00:13:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. And it makes me think about the tension that exists between discovering a painful truth about yourself and then choosing to live differently.
Roberto Germán [00:13:12]:
Right.
Roberto Germán [00:13:12]:
You could just be paralyzed in thought about those 2 competing concepts and realities. And I think it takes not just the self-work and coaching, if you will.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:13:33]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:13:34]:
To work through it, but it also takes the willingness, the the humility and the courage to reach out to the individuals that can support you along the way. And you certainly named some that we should pay attention to and research their work. But there are others, right?
Roberto Germán [00:13:56]:
Mm-hmm. I don't know.
Roberto Germán [00:13:57]:
You know, each person will have to define who the others are for them, right? Whether it's close friends and associates that could help you through certain things, your elders. It might be your therapist. It might be a network of educators. If for those who are educators in the classroom and you're thinking about like, how does this translate into the learning spaces and what can I do differently? And as a classroom teacher, as a school leader, so on and so forth. But being able to recognize that there's self-work to do, right? It's the archaeology of self. So, you know, you have to start there. And part of the self-work is knowing who to invite in and when to invite them in.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:14:49]:
Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you for that. I didn't mean to interrupt you in that flow. But what you hit is what I discovered early on, is that as much as the archaeology of self is very intimate and very personal. And I do write about this in the book. It is also a collective action.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:15:08]:
It is a collective move because self-work can be difficult. Now, yes, only you can really start that process. But like you said, Roberto, who you invite in matters and the discernment that you need to invite folks in. I mean, the therapist is almost a no-brainer in the sense that this person is paid— hopefully, it goes beyond that transaction— but paid to really listen deeply and to offer you clinical advice. When we offer in or pull in other people, what we have to be careful— where a therapist is trained to not be triggered, right, because something might be similar to their own struggles— our friends aren't necessarily trained in that way too. So in opening up, we have to make sure that our friends can hold that. that they can hold the line for the things that we are discovering about ourselves that might impact our friendship. Right? So it takes, I think, a special group of people, a lot of discernment, and also a lot of vulnerability in that process.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:16:12]:
And it's all worth it. It's all worth it because the journey makes it that much sweeter when you know that you can do it with people that you trust and you love. And as a result, Roberto, it becomes kind of a collective evolution that we're all going through. Because what I'm— somebody seeing me struggle through something and trying to get through, maybe it can encourage them in their own journey towards healing to do the same.
Roberto Germán [00:16:36]:
Absolutely. And along that journey of healing, you talk about the notion of love, which we certainly talk about at Multicultural Classroom. And as we think about the approach that we utilize and where we're coming from, right?
Roberto Germán [00:16:55]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:16:56]:
And love doesn't mean it's always going to be soft and cushy. Love is also, hey, engaging and confronting the difficult things and courageous conversations. If I love you, we should be able to go there.
Roberto Germán [00:17:16]:
And so What's something that love has required you to do that comfort never would have?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:17:23]:
Mm-hmm. And you know what? When you said that, I just want to tell you, I'm thinking about Uncle Jimmy, James Baldwin, and his relationship with America, where he says, you know, I love America, which is precisely why I have to tell her the truth. And you are right. When we love someone or have a love of something, it does require that we tell the truth. And that is what love has done for me, that instead of choosing comfort— and this is in my workplace, this is in my relationship with my daughter, in my relationship with friends, which is not always easy because the reason that we have friends is that they make us feel good. These are our go-to people, what I call like an archaeology of self. This is our water. These are the people that are there to replenish us, and we hope that we're replenishing them too.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:18:16]:
But if we do— not but, and— if we do have respect and deep love, we have to tell the truth when it's required. And that is what love has done for me. It has pushed me because I'm also a Libra, Roberto, and what that means is I like balance. I want everybody to be happy. I want everything to feel good. That is part of my characteristic. And so the love is always pushing me to evolve more because it requires me to tell the truth when being silent or smiling it away is much more comfortable.
Roberto Germán [00:18:56]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:18:56]:
And you mentioned comfort earlier too. And when you mentioned it initially, the thought that came to my head is that Comfort can be a killer.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:19:09]:
Oh, okay. You need to say more about that one.
Roberto Germán [00:19:13]:
Yes. You know, sometimes we, we seek comfort to avoid the things that we're called to confront.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:19:25]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:19:26]:
And as a result of not confronting those things and wanting to experience comfort, Unfortunately, we just end up creating a bit more difficulty for us because it go— it's just a compounding matter.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:19:45]:
Yes. Making me think it kills off opportunity for understanding. When you said killing, you know, the first thing that came to mind was David Tiac's work, like in the '60s, where he talked about this concept of educational genocide.
Roberto Germán [00:20:00]:
Mm.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:20:00]:
And that there's a lot of the curriculum and actually teachers. And, you know, Bettina Love, Patricia Williams, they talk about like spirit murdering. But what he talks about is that schools actually kill off opportunities for our children to do well. And when you said that, Roberto, it really struck me because in choosing the comfort, like you said, it does do away with, kill off opportunities for us to go deeper in a particular understanding or relationship. So that's powerful language. I, you know, I'm hoping that you'll have either a special about that or you'll write about it. It really— it like, it jolted me. And I think sometimes we have to use that language for people to understand just how much we might be losing.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:20:44]:
Hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:20:45]:
Yeah, it's, you know, folks, a lot of people don't want to wrestle with discomfort, and I get it. You know, I'm not— I'm also a person who enjoys his comforts.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:21:00]:
Definitely.
Roberto Germán [00:21:02]:
But then I'm reminded about all the things that we are struggling with as a society and my role and responsibility within that, which removes the comfort. Like, in order for me to act on the things that are hindering our progress as a society, in order for me to help to dismantle the systems that are in place that negatively and disproportionately impact certain groups of people.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:21:39]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:21:39]:
Then I need to be active. I need to be an advocate. And doing so will challenge my comfort. And I have to embrace that. And I think that's part of what you do in your text, you know, and embrace the discomfort of doing all the introspective work that you had to do to write this 316-page book.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:22:10]:
Well, there's some lesson plans in there from beautiful educators all over the country. So there's a chunk of that. I want to give a shout out to them. My gosh, Roberto.
Roberto Germán [00:22:20]:
But that, that's, that's a lot of work too, you know, because then you gotta recruit those people, vet those people, make sure they follow up, make sure everything aligns.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:22:32]:
I'm—
Roberto Germán [00:22:33]:
We know, we know how— we know this is work. And, and there's a lot of discomfort in writing the next chapter and doing the editing and even doing these speaking engagements.
Roberto Germán [00:22:47]:
I know you don't necessarily see it this way, but you have other things to attend to, right? So I just want to shout you out for your leadership, and not just in regards to this book, but in all the spaces in which we have crossed paths. I've always appreciated your presence.
Roberto Germán [00:23:13]:
Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:23:13]:
You've always just You have an aura about you that is welcoming while still challenging. And, you know, I'm with both of that. You know, I want to feel welcome. But I also— I want to hear the things that I need to hear in order to be a better human being, a better educator, a better writer.
Roberto Germán [00:23:39]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:23:40]:
And so you have a special way of Doing that, you know, not, not everybody necessarily gives off, for lack of better terms, um, those vibes.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:23:50]:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if I can shout you out for a moment, as you were talking about comfort and discomfort, first of all, everything you said, I take it straight to the heart and I'm grateful. And I, I, when I said like 1,000 episodes, you know, I was kind of tongue in cheek, but there are many episodes, brother, hundreds. And there's some discomfort there too, because the topics that you take on, the time that it requires away from family or away from just chilling. And that is the scholar activism work that you're doing through the modality of podcasting.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:24:25]:
You know, we all have our modalities, you write as well, your wife writes. But this podcast has become to, you know, it's known as something that you have created and invited people into talking about difficult things. And so in some ways, you are putting yourself on a seat of discomfort to do the work that we need to have done. So I want to thank you for that. And I think we have to kind of not take each other for granted, like seeing all of these episodes, the speaking engagements, that's work of the heart. But we also know that it's work that we hope will push our field forward.
Roberto Germán [00:25:02]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for naming that. You know, when I, when I stepped aside from the principalship, in 2021 and we moved from Texas to Florida, I was thinking about what's, what's next, right? And I knew I was going to invest more of my time into Multicultural Classroom and professional development and speaking engagements, but I knew I needed another, another piece to keep me active as a learner. But also one of the, one of the main reasons created the podcast was to amplify the voices and stories of educators and others who are doing amazing work all over the place. Some that have big platforms, many that don't necessarily have big platforms, but are doing equally great work.
Roberto Germán [00:25:52]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:25:53]:
And I felt that like, hey, as, as we were growing, as the Multicultural Classroom platform was growing, I was like, hey, I think our Classroom podcast can offer an opportunity to continue to push forward the conversations, some of them that are certainly being suppressed in many spaces across our country.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:26:20]:
Okay.
Roberto Germán [00:26:20]:
But we still need to have them. There still needs to be a place where we can engage in these critical topics and conversation and themes and offer strategies, right? Offer solutions, offer ways to lean into all of, all of these different themes that we're wrestling with. So it's, it's been a, a labor and certainly it's been one of love.
Roberto Germán [00:26:49]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:26:49]:
Because I benefit greatly from hearing from all of my guests. But it also gives me the opportunity to share out some of my insight as I'm going from school to school and working with young folks or working with adults. And it's a platform where I could process a lot of my thoughts, sometimes alone, but sometimes with wonderful educators such as you. And that certainly fills my cup. And as I'm thinking about filling my cup, I want us to just think out 20 years from now, a young teacher tells you, right? Because part of what I'm hopeful this work that we do and the content that we create, whether through writing books or podcasts or other forms, one of my hopes is that we impact those who are coming behind us. those that are looking to grow and are going to make a great impact and hopefully a greater impact than we have already made.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:27:57]:
That's right.
Roberto Germán [00:27:58]:
And so—
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:27:59]:
That's right.
Roberto Germán [00:28:00]:
20 years from now, a younger teacher tells you, your book changed the way I teach.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:28:07]:
Wow.
Roberto Germán [00:28:08]:
What's the one change you hope they're describing, not in the classroom, but in who they became?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:28:18]:
If I may, if I can just connect the classroom, because I believe what they would do in the classroom is an indication of who they become as a person.
Roberto Germán [00:28:27]:
Yes.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:28:28]:
And to take what they do with the students in the classroom and apply it to people outside of the classroom. And the first is, Roberto, is that they have gone against the grain of stereotypes, that they've gone against the lies, They've gone against racist ideologies that are normalized in this society, and that they pulled as many people along in that kind of thinking that they can. So if they're in a school district or they're a superintendent, that that's actually their agenda, right?
Roberto Germán [00:28:57]:
Yes.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:28:58]:
To help people untether from those racist ideologies and stereotypes. And most importantly, what I hope to hear is that of the thousands of students they've taught over the years, that those students have not left their classroom without understanding their brilliance, without that teacher also helping them unpack and erase any of these deficit notions that have been hurled at them and their community. And that, you know, they would just be the type of person that would flat out refuse these racist ideologies, sexist, homophobic ideologies. and move toward a deeper humanity. Like, that would be such a dream for me and Roberto to think about all of the students that have been in their lives, in their space, under their influence, to share that kind of thinking with them and help to develop that heartset and that mindset, then I will feel that I've done something.
Roberto Germán [00:30:01]:
That's legacy right there. That's impact right there.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:30:06]:
Hendrick Legacy.
Roberto Germán [00:30:09]:
So important. So important. Thank you. Thank you for, for sharing that. I'm always inspired by the many people that we serve and the opportunity to, to see the fruit of the labor. And obviously we don't always see that, but also the opportunity to dream of what the fruit will become.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:30:36]:
Can I ask a question, brother? I know we're at the end. Yes. But I love that question so much. I'd like to actually turn it, you know, towards you and to ask you in the whole multicultural— like, I'm thinking about it as an ecosystem because you definitely have built an ecosystem. And you could talk about the podcast, we could talk about the ecosystem In general, what do you hope for someone who has listened to you over the years, over time, and they come to you, Roberto, and they say, this is what Multicultural Classroom has pushed me to do? What do you hope that they're saying?
Roberto Germán [00:31:16]:
Yeah, I hope that they are pushed to lead with curiosity. And lead with love. And so love people enough to want to connect with them, to see all individuals as human beings, to embrace the opportunity to learn across differences while identifying similarities.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:31:46]:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Roberto Germán [00:31:49]:
and to work towards proximity in order to radically change and dismantle the barriers that prevent us from being united.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:32:05]:
Mm.
Roberto Germán [00:32:06]:
I'm a person who values community. And, you know, I love deeply. So I want others to love deeply. I want us to love deeply enough that we, we trust each other.
Roberto Germán [00:32:28]:
But it takes a lot of work to develop trust.
Roberto Germán [00:32:32]:
And so if I could at least—
Roberto Germán [00:32:35]:
And if we can at least inspire people to work towards that, Then I look at it as, hey, there's these micro-communities in which people are deeply connected and loving each other and building trust and radically transforming their respective school communities, their neighborhoods.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:32:59]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:33:00]:
And beyond. So that's what—
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:33:06]:
We want the same thing. Roberto, so deeply.
Roberto Germán [00:33:11]:
Yeah.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:33:12]:
Wow.
Roberto Germán [00:33:13]:
And that's, that's worth working towards.
Roberto Germán [00:33:17]:
And it's— it keeps me motivated to continue the work, right? To continue to write, to continue to produce these podcast episodes, to continue To come in as a learner, open to what others have to say, even if I don't fully understand it.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:33:41]:
Right.
Roberto Germán [00:33:42]:
I might not even agree with it, but I need to at least entertain conversations to, to learn and grow and be challenged. Certainly motivates me to continue to partner with schools and organizations No matter what's going on.
Roberto Germán [00:34:01]:
I'll be honest with you.
Roberto Germán [00:34:03]:
We were in Alaska 2 weeks ago, facilitated professional development and also did a workshop at a conference there.
Roberto Germán [00:34:12]:
It went great. I got the— we received the feedback, read the feedback.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:34:18]:
Mm-hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:34:18]:
And most of the feedback was great. I'd say 98, 99% of it was great. I've read this one comment. There was one, there was one line on the spreadsheet and every comment felt negative. And I just left reading the spreadsheet. Again, 99% of it was excellent.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:34:41]:
Listen, I know.
Roberto Germán [00:34:43]:
And I just kept thinking about, yo, who was that person?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:34:47]:
And what?
Roberto Germán [00:34:48]:
And what? Exactly, exactly. That's— I'm like, yo, what? What was it? What was the disconnect? And what could we have done differently to win that person's heart and mind over, right?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:35:01]:
Mm-hmm.
Roberto Germán [00:35:02]:
'Cause they might not see it that way, and I get it. You know we get it because we, and I'm including you and the others who do this work, get all types of pushback. Folks could just go to YouTube and read the comments on the videos. As a matter of fact, there'd probably be comments on this video.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:35:18]:
Nonetheless, we welcome it all.
Roberto Germán [00:35:21]:
Nonetheless, we persist and, and we want to win hearts over, uh, not because we want to indoctrinate you or anything of the sort. No, we, we want to work towards creating a better society.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:35:38]:
And you know what, if, you know, if someone feels it's indoctrination, I want to indoctrinate people towards love. Towards humanity, towards seeing someone you've been told is so different from you, but to recognize that that difference is beauty and that that difference is human. But, but you are absolutely right with everything that you said, Roberto. And I talk about love as you do and still will get those comments. And my question, as I've learned more about healing-centered work, is what happened to you? And what are you getting holding on to that comment that is so clear that it's negative, that it's harmful, in some ways that it's hateful? What is it doing for you that you've got to hold on to that, that you've got to spew that out into the world?
Roberto Germán [00:36:26]:
That's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm grateful for that person's honesty. You know, it never feels good to read negative comments. I'm not gonna lie.
Roberto Germán [00:36:41]:
But I'm grateful that they were at least honest about it.
Roberto Germán [00:36:43]:
I wish we had the opportunity to, to dig deeper.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:36:47]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:36:48]:
And, you know, whatever feedback that person had to offer, I wish they would have shared it there so we can, you know, like, hey, man, I'm—
Roberto Germán [00:36:56]:
we're here to work together. You know what I'm saying? I'm not— I'm not your enemy. I'm not trying to get you fired or anything like that. I'm here to try to support you to the extent that you want to be supported.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:37:08]:
To the extent that you want to be supported. Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:37:14]:
But I might steal your phrase the way you— I love the way you framed that. You know, I'm gonna have to use that. We do want to indoctrinate you in love.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:37:23]:
Yeah, we learn from each other, brother. Listen, listen. You have covered so many topics across this podcast. It is its own series of classes. Like, indeed, it is a classroom. And folks can pull together some podcasts and themes and have unit study. And so thank you for that. And, you know, everything from love to fear, you know, you have taken on everything.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:37:51]:
And I just hope that this podcast here today, you feel honored that it adds to it because, um, I've gained so much in being in conversation with you.
Roberto Germán [00:38:02]:
Oh, it definitely adds to it. As soon as you jumped on the screen, it added to it. The orange on orange.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:38:08]:
Okay.
Roberto Germán [00:38:09]:
The orange on orange is working.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:38:11]:
Okay.
Roberto Germán [00:38:11]:
And it blends with the book.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:38:13]:
Okay. Can I just tell you— can we say for a moment, I have been thinking about the fits. as I go on the book tours and from nail polishes. Not this. I have the blue from another thing, but there's blue in the book. And I've been thinking along with my bestie Goldie, like, what kind of brightness can I bring in my clothing? So definitely this is the first— I'm debuting it here on Multicultural Classroom. This is one of my blouses, part of my fits.
Roberto Germán [00:38:42]:
I love it. And I knew I wasn't going to let this episode end without me mentioning that. You know, the earrings with the blouse on orange. And what came to mind for me is, you know, they had that show Orange Is the New Black, right?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:38:57]:
So yes, I binge-watched that. I binge-watched that, right?
Roberto Germán [00:39:00]:
And there's a lot we could discuss there.
Roberto Germán [00:39:03]:
Oh yeah, but you making Orange Is the New Black with a different spin, you know.
Roberto Germán [00:39:10]:
That's good.
Roberto Germán [00:39:11]:
You know, with a, with a positive Right? We're talking about—
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:39:17]:
Oh, that's good.
Roberto Germán [00:39:17]:
Countering that deficit-based approach and mindset. Well, nah, nah, nah, nah, we ain't gonna let you put that orange on us and lock us all up and keep us locked. Nah, nah, nah, nah, we've done the archaeology ourselves.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:39:33]:
That's good, brother.
Roberto Germán [00:39:34]:
This orange is the new black, right?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:39:38]:
Oh, that's good, Roberto. And I welcome it.
Roberto Germán [00:39:45]:
Well, I want to thank you again.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:39:48]:
I just exhaled, brother. I just exhaled. Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:39:54]:
If I wrote a 316-page book, I'd be exhaling too.
Roberto Germán [00:40:01]:
This—
Roberto Germán [00:40:01]:
wow.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:40:02]:
Tell the truth.
Roberto Germán [00:40:03]:
And, and I love that you included the lesson plans.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:40:08]:
It's a love letter to teachers, brother. I want teachers to be seen. I want them to feel supported.
Roberto Germán [00:40:13]:
Yeah.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:40:13]:
Yes, I want them to do the hard work and to see what other teachers are doing to take up this idea of love in the classroom, humility, historical literacy. And I know my limitations, you know, as an ELA person. And I want this to be used in science and in math and in disability studies. So it made sense, Roberto, to reach out to my fellow educators across the nation. And what came back was beautiful. And the last thing I want to say about the lessons, I got over 40, but I could only make space— look, even the 6 take up so much in the book. But there will be a digital archive. I got this idea from my bestie Goldie, because for Cultivating Genius, she has collected lessons from folks, and we give them away for free.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:41:00]:
So I'm working on a digital archive that will be set up on both the Routledge site, but also my own website for people to just come, hey, I teach kindergarten science. I want them to be able to find a racially literate lesson plan for that, to talk about love and humility and anything else that those babies need to know.
Roberto Germán [00:41:22]:
That's good. And I'm familiar with your website, but for those who might not be familiar, can you just share where they could access not just your website but also you across the social media platforms?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:41:34]:
It's really easy. It's yolandaceelieruiz.com. That's the website. Uh, Instagram at, of course, Yoli_CeeliRuiz. My nickname underscore my last name altogether. And then there's Facebook and LinkedIn, which have all these numbers and stuff. I don't know that by heart, but please look me up on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been really good to me.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:42:02]:
And just in terms of people posting and reposting, and Facebook has been faithful as well. You know, I'm old school, so some of us are still on Facebook, brother.
Roberto Germán [00:42:11]:
We there, we there, we there.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:42:14]:
We there. And I want to thank you too, Roberto. You know, just your way of being, your delivery with this podcast made me feel so at home. And by home, I'm talking about the Bronx. I'm talking about, you know, sitting on the bench with a homie and, you know, talking about the things that matter. And I got that from you, and I want to thank you for that because it's filled my heart in such a way that I don't even know if I can explain it. It just makes me feel at home.
Roberto Germán [00:42:45]:
That's, that's so encouraging to hear. Shout out to the BX.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:42:50]:
Always.
Roberto Germán [00:42:51]:
Used to spend some time at Fordham Road.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:42:54]:
There you go. There you go.
Roberto Germán [00:42:56]:
Um, although most of my—
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:42:57]:
Sears over there, the Sears over there, there was a JCPenney. Listen, everything's gone now.
Roberto Germán [00:43:03]:
Yeah, yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:43:04]:
You know, things have changed, but, um, you know, New York is New York at the end of the day, and Y'all carry that with you everywhere you go.
Roberto Germán [00:43:12]:
I get that as somebody who represents Lawrence, Massachusetts, and carries that banner.
Roberto Germán [00:43:17]:
Yes.
Roberto Germán [00:43:18]:
I understand that. Hey, the things might change. People might come, people might go. Communities of folks might get pushed out. But it's in the heart. You know, it's in the heart. And recently, Actually, when I was in Alaska, I— the writing workshop kind of centered around, uh, place-based identity, right?
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:43:47]:
Nice.
Roberto Germán [00:43:47]:
And then thinking about, for folks who are from Alaska and Indigenous folks and their identity in the land or whatnot. Um, so it made me think about me being from Lawrence and what Lawrence means to me, how it has shaped my identity. just like being from New York, being from the Bronx has shaped your identity.
Roberto Germán [00:44:06]:
And I certainly felt that even as I was reading the intro and all the shoutouts and, you know, you just got that vibe.
Roberto Germán [00:44:15]:
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I got that New York vibe.
Roberto Germán [00:44:17]:
And when I was looking at the playlist, I'm like, that's a very New York playlist.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:44:21]:
It's a very New York playlist. A very New York play— very New York rap playlist.
Roberto Germán [00:44:28]:
KRS-One, KRS-One, KRS-One, Grandmaster Flash.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:44:31]:
The teacher. You know, I got to give— I got to give it to the teacher.
Roberto Germán [00:44:34]:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, listen, you already know you are welcome here whenever you want to pull up and hang out in our classroom.
Roberto Germán [00:44:44]:
There's always space for you. You bring so much to this work, so much richness and so much joy. You know, this doesn't— this ain't work for me. This is, again, like you said, hanging with the homie.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:45:00]:
Hanging with the homies.
Roberto Germán [00:45:02]:
So thank you once again. Wishing you great success with this book and, and everything that this book will ultimately birth, which I'm sure is plenty.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:45:13]:
Wow.
Roberto Germán [00:45:13]:
Um, shout out to Routledge for putting together a great product. Uh, I love it, and I'm excited to share this with people in my network and encourage them to implement this.
Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz [00:45:29]:
Oh, I'm just smiling. Anyway, thank you. I can't say it enough.
Roberto Germán [00:45:34]:
Well, until we meet again, peace.
Roberto Germán [00:45:39]:
Be well. As always, your engagement in our classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the show, and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education, and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com. Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germano.
