Office Hours Dr. Asia Reflects

Office Hours Dr. Asia Reflects

[00:00:00] Alright

Kevin: Alright and welcome back Exit Interview fam. We are here for a very special episode. I think this episode is a long time overdue because our guest story is really the root of all, of the Exit Interview Podcasts And so I would like to welcome first before I introduce our guest, I'd like to introduce our guest host for the evening. Those of you who listen to Too Dope Teachers and a Mic might recognize this man's voice, none other than the notorious Gerardo Munoz welcome. Gerardo.

Gerardo (Producer): What's good! Hello! How is everybody?

Kevin: Good. Good. We're glad to have you at The go Interview

Gerardo (Producer): I'm glad to be here. I'm not familiar with, so I'm gonna stop playing. No. So

Kevin: You've been here, you're just not a voice that people might recognize if they only listen to The Exit Interview.

Gerardo (Producer): That's [00:01:00] right. And I'm here. Because, I really think that in times of transition and turmoil, which everyone in this world right now is experiencing either some kind of transition or some turmoil, maybe it's just me.

It's important to come back to that place of origin, right? You have to like, ground yourself and remind yourself of why you do things. So when I was invited to a guest host on the Exit interview, I was hyped, I was excited, I was pumped, I was amped. It was all those things.

Kevin: Yes. Yes. And we're glad to have you here. Because I think considering who our guest is, I think. There is no one better suited for sitting in. And yeah, I agree. I think we should get to introducing our guests. And I will just say this, hang on folks. This Exit Interview is going to be a doozy.

And you might think you know some of the story, but you don't know all of it. Yeah. I said doozy. Nope. It's a doozy.

Gerardo (Producer): It's a doozy. What's a doozy? It's a doozy. Who's gonna introduce our guest? [00:02:00] Are you? We didn't plan this very well.

Kevin: I will introduce our guest. I'm just building the suspense.

Gerardo (Producer): Building the anticipation. Who is it? Who could it be?

Kevin: So today on The Exit Interview you have none other than. The wonderful, talented, illustrious Dr. Asia Lyons.

Gerardo (Producer): Dr. Asia Lyons.

Dr. Asia: Hey everybody.

Gerardo (Producer): Hey Dr. Asia. How's it going?

Also, you didn't mention that Dr. Asia Lyons is also a recently minted PhD and the founder of Lyons Educational Consulting, which is doing some great work not only around the city of Denver, not only around the state of Colorado, but across the country. And so you should hit her up because there's really great work there.

So we've talked a little bit about the origin story, Asia, going all the way back a few years to when our paths first crossed, through the Colorado Education Association. And we're we'll get to that story in just a little bit. But we [00:03:00] are going to, Essentially adopt. Oh, also Aja Lyons, creator of the Exit interview, this very podcast.

Oh, that's right. Yes, I am. People are like, why is this meta, this doesn't seem meta. It's meta. Because we're taking that. And, Kev, one, one thing I wanna say, and just framing this before we get into this, I was talking to Asia before you arrive a little bit late.

 Taking a qualitative research class right now. And there's this emphasis on critical reflexivity, which is asking the question of what the researcher themselves bring to the research. And so I think this is a really amazing opportunity for the audience but also for Asia to, consider what it is that she's bringing into this work on the Exit Interview Podcast. Our paths crossed a couple of different times. We finally were able to get something together a couple years ago when we created this this podcast, The Exit Interview together. We'll start with the same format that you all use when you bring on your guest. What is it that brought you into education as a [00:04:00] teacher?

Did you always wanna be a teacher? What was that initial path into education like for you?

Dr. Asia: Yeah. Thanks for asking the question I ask other people.

Gerardo (Producer): Thanks for asking my question. to me. It's your question.

Dr. Asia: Always good to be on my own show. Yeah. Okay. Basically in high school, I was leaving high school, graduating and my dad really wanted me to go into engineering.

He talked about you're gonna be an engineer. There aren't a lot of Black women in engineering. And just for reference folks, this was 2000. So I graduated from high school in 2000. And so he's saying you're gonna go to engineering school. And I applied to go to Xavier University in New Orleans to go into psychology.

And he's like no, people don't respect HBCUs. You won't be able to get a job. And so I applied for Michigan Tech University to go into chemical engineering, and I was accepted to both and [00:05:00] to please my father, which at the age of 40, now we know that's never a good idea to try to please someone else instead of taking care of yourself.

I went to engineering school. Did not do well and for lots of reasons, thinking back on it, the step between my Detroit Public School education and what I needed to be successful in college in general, the step was just too large. I didn't have enough education to be college ready and so I flunked out of college.

In my second year at a 1.95 GPA flunked out. And I came home and I remember I was sitting in my bathroom, at my house, and I opened a letter and I knew what it was gonna say. You can come back when you get your shit together. I was just panicked, but I knew that I had to go to college.

The factory had dried up. All these things in Detroit were gone. There was nothing there for me except for going to school. So I was like, okay what can I do? And the bus route, cause I didn't have a car. The bus route went past a community college.[00:06:00] And so I was like, okay, I'll just enroll at the community college.

So I went to Henry Ford Community College and for my audience, I just showed them my associate's degree. Yeah. Before we got on today, cuz I dug it outta the attic cause I'm gonna frame it and it literally is a half the size of a sheet of paper. I don't even know why they bothered, but I was in community college and I had signed up and I was doing work study at a daycare center. I was working there a little bit, and this is zero to three year olds or one to three-ish, four-ish year olds.

A woman that worked there, her name was Jennifer. She said, I think that you should be a teacher . And at that time when I was in the work study, I didn't know what I wanted to be. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had convinced myself, maybe business that felt really interesting. But I just knew I had to be in school.

And so I went home and I remember crying and praying like, God, if this is real, this is what I'm supposed to do, just tell me something. And then the next day I dropped outta my [00:07:00] business classes and I enrolled in pre-education courses. I went there. The next stop on the bus route was the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus.

So I was like, okay, after

Gerardo (Producer): I'm finished, you're like, this is convenient. I'll stay on the bus a couple minutes longer, and

Dr. Asia: here we are. And that's it. Yeah. So I went there. Went into edu took the bus, finished school, went to the next bus, right over finished at University of Michigan. Dearborn, my husband, at the time he was my boyfriend.

There were schools closing left and right in Detroit Public Schools when I was finishing my bachelor's. He's was like let's try Denver. He had been out here working for Northwest Airlines before it became Delta. He's was like let's go. Let's just try it. And so I applied for every school district that I, you don't know from a different state, but St. Vrain, Denver Public, Auora Public, Cherry Creek, whatever. I didn't really care. So that was it. Kind of first school district that called me. The only school district that called me. Only school district [00:08:00] that interviewed me was Cherry Creek Schools. And that was it. I started teaching at Sunrise Elementary.

Shout out for Sunrise. I have Sunrise Pride. Shout out to Sunrise 2006 and that was it. 12 years of teaching.

Gerardo (Producer): Wow. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. It's just it, I just get interested in people's origin stories in teaching because I feel and Kevin and I have talked about this a lot with with our guests on Too Dope Teachers that oftentimes our white counterparts are like, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and school is a safe place for me.

And we hear this from some people of color as well, but by and large that's how it is. And so many of us, it, there, there's like this defining moment that that leads us in this direction.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. And I, for me it was obviously not that, and. I don't know if it wasn't like, I can save children or I can do this thing, it just felt like it made sense.

I've only had two times in my [00:09:00] life, and we'll probably get into the second time later, but two times where it was like lightning. Yeah. Like I kind of , I just knew this is where I'm supposed to be. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And I loved teaching. I loved working with kids. I loved it. Yeah.

Everything about it was just like it was a vibe. Yeah. I love being the favorite teacher. That's a for my ego, to be the favorite teacher of so many kids. So Yeah. Yep.

Kevin: Yeah. And I never knew that Asia, I learned something new about you. I was one of those people who got that letter after their first year of college.

So I can definitely relate too.

Dr. Asia: yeah. And I think, you know what's, it's wild. And I just told my dad, I am 40 years old folks. I just told my dad in the last three years I flunked outta college. This is a man who literally, I'm gonna send this to him when it, when we drop it.

Hey daddy.

He literally asked me in my second year of my doctoral program, how are those grades?

Kevin: That's so funny. That's the standard, funny. That's the standard. Yeah. There we go. That doesn't surprise me. Asia, tell [00:10:00] us like, so you, you've given us your educational journey.

Tell us about your experiences. So you came in as an elementary teacher. How long did you do that for?

Dr. Asia: I taught at Sunrise for six years.

Kevin: Six years? All right. And then, so after Sunrise, where'd you go next?

Dr. Asia: So after Sunrise, I went to Sky Vista Middle School, which is also in C C S D, Cherry Creek School District.

And I taught sixth grade for six years. In the sixth grade I taught math and I also taught a social justice course, and it wasn't social justice when I first started. When I first started, the principal asked me to just teach anything I wanted to teach to students because they had a group of students who'd be going to like GT classes.

There were a gifted group of students who'd be going to get some supports, and there was a group in the middle, I guess you could say. Yeah. That didn't have any place to go. So he is figure something out. So it was like I started off with, okay, let's do math and arts. So math and origami and math and [00:11:00] sports and financial literacy.

And it moved towards teaching social justice in my last two years at the school that made that decision.

Kevin: And tell us why, how'd you shift? Tell us about that. Because, social justice, Asia and Gerardo CRT has become a very controversial term as we, and, it's ironic as we approach Dr. King's holiday, that's an idea such as social justice, societal justice is controversial, but Asia, tell us about why you started moving into social justice away from math and that engineering stuff that your dad was really keen on.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. So let's see. If I remember correctly, the year before I had gone to a training that the district used to put on, if they still do. It was called Beyond Diversity. In Beyond Diversity, they taught and it's put on, like the trainers go to [00:12:00] Couragous Conversations About Race. Glenn Singleton's organization, they get trained, they come back and they train folks throughout the school district who come in for a two day professional development.

So I went and it just the scales fell off my eye, right? And before that I'm like, this is so great. This is so wonderful. And really, I understood racism. I'm not stupid, right? But there was like a lot of things that I did not understand and that professional development. Really helped me to start reading more, open my eyes more, and then I just, I feel like I had just this idea like I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna try out teaching my students social justice and specifically, I guess ,Dr. Mackey shout out to her , talk about YPAR.

Like I said, I'd have the students decide which topics in social justice they wanted to learn because yeah, a lot of folks may be thinking, oh, it's specifically race, or specifically like some particular topic that I had in mind. But the students just because of the [00:13:00] time we were living in, and mind you, this is 2016 at the time or 15, 16 ish they understood and saw a lot of things that were happening from like the news and their families having conversation and conversations classmates.

That went really well the first year at least. And the administration liked it. The students liked it. They learned a lot. Yeah, it was really probably the training from the school district itself that got my fire going.

Gerardo (Producer): Yeah, that's so interesting for me to hear this because so first they knew what you were teaching.

Right? They knew that the curriculum was social justice and the practice was student voice, right? So they knew this, and as I've done a little bit of research around, around these issues that are forcing Black and Brown teachers out of education, oftentimes it's like the, someone figured out what they were doing and it was just unacceptable, right?

And so I just wanna put a pin in that they knew you, they knew what you were [00:14:00] about, and they knew what you were doing. So at some point things go south. Yeah. And I wanna zoom back as the producer of this show, And say that this is typically, this is the pattern that The Exit interview has documented over the last two, two plus seasons is that a black teacher, often a black woman teacher, comes into teaching and everybody's excited for what she brings.

Everybody's excited cuz she's a great teacher. And then at some point the relationship sours and then it just gets real ugly. So would you share with us how things soured between you and not just that school but your career as a classroom teacher?

Dr. Asia: Yeah. So first year, like I said, went really well and it to give the audience some context about how the work was like student led is that, [00:15:00] As a part of the curriculum, I had the students vote across by three or four classrooms about the topics they wanted to learn, and they would come up with a list.

I asked them like, think about what's happening in your community, what you're hearing in the news, and let's list all the issues. So the board would be full of making this number up at this point, but 15 different topics, animal cruelty , homelessness, racism, sexism, like the everything.

And of course, sixth graders love animals . Yeah. And so they would, across the classes, vote 150 of them or so, and then we would pick the top four, or five or whatever. And then I'd go about teaching them. The second year that I was teaching that class was the year that Trump was elected.

Yes. And it changed so much about the ballsiness of My White students' parents. Yeah. I remember before we even really got started with the curriculum in the [00:16:00] class going and being at Back to School Night and I had all my protest posters up and I could see them looking around and I was thinking, it's gonna be a long semester. Like, uh-oh.

Kevin: You're like uh-oh.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. And so I told them what we're up to, what we're learning, what the kids had voted on. So they were well aware. By this time we were down the road a little bit because back to school nights is not the first night of school. And we had some different folks coming into the school.

I had a guest speaker come in and speak to the students about indigenous experiences and his experience here in the Denver Public School system. And that went totally fine. Had a second guest speaker. I'm not telling all the story cuz there's just so many pieces. Yeah. And it's just been a while. Then there's still these like low rumblings that, some folks are not happy.

And I had a second guest speaker come in and she talked about the ways that she experienced [00:17:00] discrimination in the justice system, the ways that she talked about loving our Muslim community members and things like that.

And I had a student go home and tell his mom like how excited he was. And I guess he had a selfie with the person and the mom looked her up. And at the time that she was a guest speaker in my class, she was accused of not convicted of accused of using THC to make soaps. Yeah. Uhhuh, she had enough to be a seller, and so there it was, she was under investigation and her investigation must have meant that she was guilty.

And so that's when it got going for me.

Gerardo (Producer): It's so ironic today too. It's so ironic. In 2023 in Denver. Yeah. Go ahead though. Sorry.

Dr. Asia: Yeah, no. And so I, the first like a wave of emails. Hey, you had this convicted person, not true, in the class talking about [00:18:00] drugs, talking about Muslims, and just, and it just kept going.

And at first, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is not good. But I emailed them, no, this is not true. This is what happened. It just kept going right to a point where I was experiencing mobbing. Yeah. So a group of parents got together on, at the time, I think it was, GroupMe was fairly new, I think it was GroupMe.

And they had a group against me. And I found out, because one of my students moms was in the group and she was screenshotting all their conversations and sending them to me.

Kevin: All right, receipts here. Here's where we pause and Asia's gonna read some of the screenshots.

Dr. Asia: Listen, go on go pull my record. I put every screenshot in my record before I left to let people know this is real, this is what happened. Yeah. And so I was telling the student, I was telling my principal at first it was going well. The principal's saying I got you. I got you. But what was happening was that students parents were pulling their kids outta my classroom and [00:19:00] they would just sit in the counselor's office for my class.

And I had 17 students across my classes who were just sitting and not coming to class. And so eventually a couple things happened. One. The school decided, or the principal or her boss or , whoever, decided to create a class. Yep. Specifically for this group of boys and girls, all White so that they can have someone else teach besides me.

A seventh grade teacher was teaching like 17, less than 17 kids instead of me teaching. So we found the money to pay a teacher to teach. We found extra funds to appease the parents. Cool. Then she says to me I need you to stop teaching the social justice topic all together. Yeah. Like we're done.

Gerardo (Producer): Because we don't stand for social justice at this school. Yeah.

Dr. Asia: When we meant excellence in equity, we just mean of other people. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I'm like, [00:20:00] what? She's yeah, just change to something else. It doesn't matter. We're just not gonna do this. And it was interesting because I was thinking, oh my god, my kids who were left, they had already seen their classmates leave. They knew the rumblings. Cuz there were students who were in the hallways with them and they're like, why didn't you come to class? And they would tell 'em, like my mom said the Mrs. Lyons blah, blah, blah. So they knew.

We were down the line a couple weeks and it was coming to the semester and one of my students was like, Mrs. Lyons, I can't wait until we learn about the L G B T Q experience. I'm so excited for our next unit. And I was thinking to myself, I gotta tell these kids.

Gerardo (Producer): And so this was happening over the course of how many weeks? Cuz you said it had been a couple weeks. How, when, from the first time that, one of these Karens complained to this point where you realize you have to tell the students how long had this been going on? And I'll come back to why this is an important question in a little while.

Dr. Asia: I wanna say it [00:21:00] was September to October, let me see, September to October-ish. Like mid-October, maybe late October.

Gerardo (Producer): So this, so is a month or more oh, it's almost like two.

Yes. Month or more months.

Dr. Asia: So the principal is telling me you have to change the topic.

Gerardo (Producer): I got you.

Dr. Asia: I'm like, okay. And so I told my students, I said, you know what, everybody, I decided like the next day to start letting them know we're going to need to change the topic to something.

I'll figure out what it was gonna be and whatever. So first period comes, hey everyone, we have some, we're gonna have to change the curriculum and I'm trying my best to be as tactful as possible. Yeah. But no, we're gonna have to change the subject. I don't know what we're gonna learn yet.

Which I did cuz they asked me to teach about like maps. And weather and some shit. And I was like, okay. But we're gonna do something different. And they kept saying why do [00:22:00] we have to change? Why do we have to change? And I'm like, it's cool. Don't worry about it. And they started saying it's because of those kids who left the classroom.

It's because of those parents. So I'm like, yeah, it doesn't matter. We're just going, it's fine. It's gonna be fine. And as I'm talking, they're pulling notebook paper and they're making petitions.

I'm like, oh, here we go. And they're writing and saying we know what to do. They already knew because this is what we had been studying.

Kevin: Protest.

Dr. Asia: They've been studying it, right? They've been studying it. Trump is in an office. So we're in the year of the protest. I think the protestor was the person that year.

Gerardo (Producer): Oh wow. Yeah, that's true.

Dr. Asia: They were like pulling the paper out, taping rulers to pieces of paper, bring back social justice class. I'm like, okay, you all, they go to the next class, second period. Hey, everybody, listen, same speech and same situation.

They're making protest posters. They're pissed off, right? We aren't standing for this.

Kevin: This is bullshit.

Dr. Asia: And third period comes and they're already like, we know what's going on.

Kevin: They're like, all right, we already heard the four 11. We' re organizing. We're organizing. Sit [00:23:00] down, miss, sit down.

We got this. Step back. You're like, y'all pass. You passed.

Dr. Asia: Congratulations. This is the real world experience. That's right. This is what it is. And so I third period comes and I email the principal, the vice principal, the counseling department that everybody on the first floor and say this is what I did.

I believe they're gonna protest during lunch.

Gerardo (Producer): Yeah. Transparency. You're being transparent. This is going down.

Dr. Asia: Yes. So fourth period, lunch was fourth period and I'm in my classroom and the way my classroom was, it was in a hallway. And so you could hear and see the lunchroom from where I was, and you could hear kids screaming, bring back social justice class like at the top of their lungs.

They're chanting and there's kids protesting in the office, in front of the principal's office. It's a whole thing. And I'm thinking, oh my God. Again, I'm trying to be tactful, so I'm like, that's good for them. That's what they chose to do. [00:24:00] I'm sure it'll be fine.

We have a standup meeting, which is never good. After lunch. I tell the staff, the sixth grade teachers, and the principal was there, said, look, I did not tell them to protest. I want you all to know that I'm not trying to cause any harm or anything to the school. So just to let you know.

And as a side note, while this was happening and all these students were leaving my classroom and all this, I had a teacher that I was teaching with he was a science teacher and he was teaching the same curriculum. The parents did not come against him.

Gerardo (Producer): I'm gonna ask you the eternal question, was he White ?

Dr. Asia: He was a White man. Yeah. And you know what's interesting about that situation is I found out in the group text that he told them he didn't know we were having a guest speaker. That I surprised him I never confronted him about that.

But the fact that you lied to these folks to save your own face. It was really disappointing. But anyway, [00:25:00] so I'm in, basically I'm just in this by myself. I'm sitting in this library area and I'm journaling after the standup meeting. My kids are now in they're electives and I'm fit writing.

I cannot believe this just happened. This is wild. And my principal comes in with a piece of paper and she says, you can have representation if you want it. And I said, I didn't do anything wrong. She kept saying you can have representation if you would like it.

And she just leaves. Thank the Lord that I had enough wherewithal to be in the union at that point. Because I was hysterical and I came to the meeting and I'm bawling my eyes out and they're like, we're gonna put you on leave. We need to do an investigation.

And I just cannot believe this is happening to me. And the people who had come from district, my principal's boss had come these folks had come, and it was just like, they were just staring I don't know. And this is a long story, so if I need to cut this short, just let me know.

Because it does lead up to the [00:26:00] point I was on leave for several weeks. While I was on leave the same parents were still going, they were still doing their thing. Yeah. At this point, the screenshots started to come in and said that they wanted me fired. Before I got put on leave, I told my principal, they want to have me fired.

 She's saying you're being extreme. No way. I was put on leave on a Friday. School district board meeting was like on a Monday. They went to the board meeting and then the news came, who knows why. The parents said on the news that they wanted me fired at the board meeting. And so my students saw it on the news, and then they saw that I wasn't in school the next day, so they assumed I had been fired.

Then they protest and do a walkout and a silent protest in front of my classroom. The kids walk outta school. I'm not even in school.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Asia: So I'm getting like these grainy photos from my colleagues of my students laying down in [00:27:00] front of my classroom and I'm like, this is bananas .

I'm like, this is so dope. Good for them. Yeah. I get back off of leave after two weeks. They're so excited to see me. And that's when the racial battle fatigue started. My principal did everything she could from October to May to get me to quit. She would be in my file looking at my curriculum.

She'd just come to my classroom and stand there. I did all the decorations for every Black History month. And she would take my stuff down. She told me that when I put the Kaepernick poster up for Black History Month. That she didn't know what Kaepernick had to do with Black History. I got to a place where I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. I was hysterical. I didn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I was crying all the time. I was experiencing, now what I know is racial battle fatigue.

Yes. So at the end of the, at the end of the year, I started doing, I think I've told you all this so many times. I went Shawshank Redemption. I just started taking stuff home. My desk would be empty. There was nothing in it. It was just a shell of a [00:28:00] classroom on the last day.

I just took my ID and threw it in the garbage. Turned all my stuff in. And I never went back.

Gerardo (Producer): Thank you for sharing. One of the, one of the things that is really clear to me is even all these years later, and, after the break we'll get into, where you're headed now and where you are right now.

I, the emotions are still. There, they're still profound that, you reli relive these things. O one of the elements of, and you're the one that introduced me to the concept of racial battle fatigue. And it's been really fascinating to have that as a lens, as I evaluate what's going on with our black teachers in this state and in this country.

One of the elements is you don't go through racial battle fatigue yourself. It's not like you have covid and you just have to isolate so you don't get it on anybody. Racial battle fatigue impacts your family and it impacts your loved ones and the people around you. Before we go to break, can you talk a little bit about [00:29:00] how your family was impacted by what you were going through all these months?

Dr. Asia: Yeah, so my daughter was fairly young. She's nine right now, and so I don't know if she was really aware, but I would say that my marriage was on threads. I didn't wanna hang out, I didn't wanna do anything. I would just come home and I'd just cry. And I'd just be so exhausted. And it wasn't like I was healing because every day I had to go back.

Or I felt like I did, let me say that. Yeah. And so it was just like a new wound every time she came into my classroom, every time my coworkers were silent in my oppression. Every time that I saw those parents, because they were in the school trying all through that time to get rid of me.

And then it was just like nobody wanted to know to address it. It was just hard on my family. It was hard on my family and my [00:30:00] husband and I, we look at that now. And at the time he, he admitted he was just like just go to work. Just don't even worry about it.

And now he understands. Yeah. But at the time it was just like he couldn't have, he really couldn't have gotten it. That's not true. Let me back up a little bit. Let me back up. I think that's some of the ways that he got to see what I was experiencing is when I was on leave and I could not step foot on school property, he went to the board meeting and he got to hear them talk about me. And he said it was, that's the changes. He was so enraged. He was so enraged. And he came home and told me about it, and I think that changed his mind. But it's still, it's, even though the person understands from here, it's not the same. He got to see it in like in full color.

Gerardo (Producer): And I think that perspective is so profound. Like it put it in perspective for him. I [00:31:00] also I'm also sure that a big part of how it impacted him was just seeing his partner suffering and not feeling and just feeling powerless to do anything about it. And trying to help and trying to be supportive.

But what you're fighting is so much bigger than what one person's encouraging words can give.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Kevin: Folks, we're gonna take a break and let you marinate on this first fire story. And we'll be back.

We are back folks for our Exit interview with Dr. Lyons , our co-host of the Exit interview, and we are here with my co-host for the Exit interview. And we are here with our special guest co-host for this episode, Gerardo Munoz.[00:32:00] Let's go Asia. Yay. Tell us a little bit like your story's powerful because it's the movie, this is the movie.

Your ending. We could all picture you throwing that badge in, like zooming in.

Gerardo (Producer): That's solid.

Kevin: As it falls in slow motion, as we get into award season let's, put it into the ether.

 We've talked about this a lot and I think this is our favorite question on the Exit interview, but what would you like educators, admins, unions to know if they wanna retain Black educators?

Dr. Asia: It's funny that I ask folks this question all the time on a podcast and they have an answer typically, and I don't have an answer.

There's no, because I understand how systemic racism works, there's nothing that they can do. Because the answer will be stop being racist. And that's not realistic.[00:33:00] There's nothing that they can do. There's nothing that they want to do. So that's my answer.

Kevin: I think short and sweet.

I think it's powerful and I think people need to understand it from that aspect, and I often think about it, as we have our conversations about the work. Is there a point like where there's no black educators in the public school system, and if that's the case is, is that finally you know, where things will change or does it even matter?

Because it is the ultimate question. It's like, how can you go into an institution that's been intended to oppress and intended to produce the outcomes? Produces on a day-to-day basis, over and over again, year after year. Pre pandemic, post pandemic.

Dr. Asia: I think, I know that some folks are listening might say that's not a problem in , Philadelphia.

That doesn't happen in Buffalo or in Detroit like this, right? Yeah. And that could be totally true. I don't teach or have [00:34:00] not taught in those school districts. But what I will say is that for folks who are the one only in their school and have been the one and only in their school for a long time across this country, this is real.

 And the response of just move to Atlanta, all you gotta do is move to so on and so forth. It's not remedying the problem that we have.

Kevin: And plus in our school district, we're trying to get people, Black folks to move from Atlanta, from Philadelphia, from Detroit, from Birmingham, from New Orleans to Denver to teach kids here because you don't have enough educators of color here.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. And good luck with that.

Gerardo (Producer): A couple of things come to mind, with this and I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit in the tension of these two ideas, cuz these are two ideas that I have that are in direct conflict with each other. So on the one hand, [00:35:00] systems are upheld by people, right?

And so I think there are a lot of folks in education and beyond who look at these issues and say these are systemic issues. There's nothing I can do. And it lulls them into this state of inaction. It's a system. It's a system. I can't do anything about it. And I think that I think that the way I think about it is so what are individuals doing every day to uphold these oppressive systems?

But then the other thing I have is since when is the education system in its current form, like so invaluable that we can't conceive of an alternative, right? It's like Louis Armstrong said back in, during the Civil rights movement, and Louis Armstrong had this reputation of being this joyful, fun entertainer.

But when it when the [00:36:00] bombing happened in Birmingham that killed those four little black girls, he said, if this is what happens in the United States of America, then to hell with the United States of America, right? And so I've got this one thing that's if we have enough individuals within a system who refuse to continue upholding oppression, but on the other hand, why is this system something that, that we categorically and uncritically defend?

Those are and I don't have a resolution to those things. I think those are two things that are really in indirect conflict for me. I'll let you know.

Dr. Asia: You know what's, yeah. And you know what's interesting about talking about school districts or schools systems changing and is when we speak in that way, it's as if school systems are not tied to other systems.

Gerardo (Producer): Yep. Oh, that's the that's a great point. That is such a great point.

Dr. Asia: Yes. [00:37:00] So it's so there's no fixing the school to prison pipeline without fixing healthcare, without fixing housing without. Because they're all tied together. Food insecurity,

Gerardo (Producer): homelessness, all of these things.

Dr. Asia: All those things. So me having 50 black teachers join a school district that didn't have but 13 before is not solving any problem. No, because, no, these systems are tied together in a giant knot. And if you pull on one side of it, it just gets tighter somewhere else. That's right.

Gerardo (Producer): That's a great metaphor.

That's right.

Kevin: I love that. Dead Prez says the same people who control the school system, control the prison system and the whole social system ever since slavery period. You know that's there. All right. Asia so you've moved on, you've found liberation, you got yourself free.[00:38:00]

Tell the people, what are you doing?

Gerardo (Producer): Dr. Lyon still lives in capitalism, my friend.

Kevin: Okay. Free from the education system . There you go.

Gerardo (Producer): You do your own thing. You're doing it on your own.

That's a big set of chains to break, right? That's the thing.

Kevin: Yes. Yes. So what are you doing? Now that you've left.

Dr. Asia: So the, what I'm doing now, different things. There's a couple things and the first one is obviously The Exit Interview, the podcast.

The podcast came from the idea where, when I left CCSD Cherry Creek School District I felt like Black teachers needed their stories to be shared. And I remember emailing the superintendent at the time and asking him for an exit interview, I wanted him to understand why I was leaving.

Whether he cared or not. He needed to hear it from my mouth, this is what's happening. And I emailed him and of course I didn't get a response. And I waited. I emailed him again.

Gerardo (Producer): Really surprising. Shocking. Even [00:39:00] shocking.

Dr. Asia: I kept emailing him until we, he responded. And I wrote down all the things I wanted to say about the ways that my administrator was extremely racist.

And used her black son or biracial son and her being a lesbian.

Gerardo (Producer): That's in the playbook. That's in the playbook.

Dr. Asia: Let's talk about that. That's in the playbook.

Gerardo (Producer): On Too Dope Teachers, we have an interview dropping with Cairo where she talks exactly about that thing. About the playbook, the musical, yeah.

Dr. Asia: I went and I said what I had to say, and I, he gave the, we are here in Cherry Creek, we work on excellence and equity it's a recording or whatever . And I didn't expect for him to be moved by what I was saying or make any promise. And I said what I had to say.

And walking out, I was like, this has to be more than just this. And this is how the Exit interview came to be. I emailed or messaged you two and I said can we have conversation? Actually, it was like, can I be in your show? And then when we were in like[00:40:00] the break section, I was like, Hey, I have an idea.

And then here it is. Right? And this is, like I said, our third season, we've had folks from all over the country to share their story. And so that's one of the things. The second is my consulting firm, Lyons Educational Consulting. And I built that because I realized a couple things. One, I don't like to be told what to do.

The second is that I really wanted to see Black educators leave education and have some place to go if they chose entrepreneurship. Our services include helping to build programs through equity center, design thinking, curriculum development and coaching.

And we've been an operation and we being me and my team since 2019. And that's been going fantastically. And then my newest, like heart work, which also stemmed out of my work, was [00:41:00] the Black Educator Wellness cohort. And that basically started in, we started our first sessions in October and it was from the idea that if you wanna stay in education, how do we support that work?

And so working with Eleonora Cahill from Resilient Futures, Dr. Cahill and I co-facilitate monthly cohort meetings and sessions with black educators in the city. And we just have a good time and we talk and we laugh and we share, and we cry and we heal together. And then at the end we'll have a retreat and then we'll start our new cohort and next school year.

But, so there's lots of ways that I hope I'm giving back in some way to Black educators.

Gerardo (Producer): I think also you left one thing out, you got a PhD.

Dr. Asia: I have an educational doctor. I have an EdD

Gerardo (Producer): You're still a doctor. Yes. And so I think that's the other piece that is really fascinating to me because[00:42:00] you and I were laugh you were laughing, I was crying off mic on about, going through this doctoral program.

But I think that's something that you also gave to yourself. And you'll be giving your learning and your knowledge, like you're gonna get into spaces that no one else gets into because you have that credential. And so I think that, and you at AERA with everybody who's, everyone right in educational research.

And so those are incredible things. And so Kevin, I think we can definitively say that maybe the best is yet to come for Dr. Asia Lyons. But she's living her best life right now.

Dr. Asia: I can't lie. Life is good.

Kevin: I don't know if you were gonna ask this question but just before we leave this, the Exit Interview talk about so like you've, we've been doing this the third season, but I would love for you to just share your thoughts.

We were talking before about kind of your feelings on sharing your [00:43:00] story and what the Exit Interview it coming to fruition, what it means to you and the importance of it.

Gerardo (Producer): Oh, so we have different questions. I have one after that. Okay. So you go and then I go and then you go.

Dr. Asia: Yeah. So I think it's awesome, right?

And it's awesome because I get to be in support of Black teachers who left. Teaching and just said, I'm just, I'm, I don't care. I'm just gonna leave. It doesn't matter. A lot of them never got a chance to share their story. And so we get to, on this platform, share like those hardships and successes with an audience.

And it's not to say that folks are going to change their ways, but it is to say, you don't get to say you didn't. That's right. You don't get to say oh she just left and she must have just not liked [00:44:00] teaching anymore.

Gerardo (Producer): You don't get to say you didn't have a way to understand this.

Yes. If you choose to understand it this way, you, and you all, Kevin and Asia, as you engage this work, you can plant seeds, but you're not responsible for whether they get an appropriate amount of sunlight. You're not responsible for whether they get watered regularly. And whether anyone takes their blossoming seriously, you can't control that.

Dr. Asia: That's right. And my work is not dedicated to the audience anyway. It is dedicated to the teacher. The educator, the para, the family liaison, the administrator. That's who's dedicated to, yeah. Just like from my story wasn't about the superintendent, it was about me.

That's right. And what I needed for my own healing. So that, that's a big piece of it. So many folks who come on the show, they'll say at the end, and Kevin and I have witnessed this so many times, we just saw this in our podcast episode with Nedra.

Shout out to you, Nedra Hall. Just like these tears of thank you so much. And I'm [00:45:00] telling her, no, thank you. Thank you for leaving a place that treated you like crap and going to thrive somewhere else. And then sharing that you did not dissolve and die. You thrive.

And you continue to thrive. So that's pretty much it for that.

Gerardo (Producer): That's beautiful. One, one thing that is different from the first time that we crossed paths and the first time we started exploring not just your story, but the stories of other black educators forced out of the classroom.

 So we're going through this thing that people like to call the great resignation, right? Teachers are leaving in droves. We know that over the last 35 years black and brown teachers have left teaching at a rate of triple of those of white teachers. And so we know that this is actually a long-term trend that, that the data doesn't lie about.

And so now there's interest in something outside of K through 12? So what are some of the questions that people ask you? Because I feel like the natural thing [00:46:00] when they come into contact with you and they learn your story is.

Could I do that? What are some of the questions you get and how do you address them?

Dr. Asia: Yeah. One of the questions I get is, or they, people say, my resume just says third grade teacher. And who wants who wants to just, hire a third grade teacher? I don't have experience outside the classrooms, it's all I've ever done.

What can I do? And I always tell them the same thing. Go where the kids are. Boys and Girls Clubs, Girls Inc., YMCA, Big Brother, Big Sister. YAASPA, shout out to YAASPA. All these organizations,

Gerardo (Producer): project voice, all

Dr. Asia: Project Voice. Exactly. All these organizations who understand educators bring value.

 I call those like bridge. It's a bridge outta the classroom. Yeah. And I don't wanna say use it as a step stepping stone and then move on. That's not fair to them. That's not fair to you. Yeah. But I will say go where the kids are, go where your impact is valued. That's important. That's really [00:47:00] important. It's, that's one of the big things. People also ask me on the entrepreneurial side, how did you do it? How do you make it out here? How all these things, and the main thing that I tell people, if you choose entrepreneurship, and I never convince people like that's what they should do because it's not for everyone.

 I'll tell 'em, it's mindset. Leaving teachings mindset too. And entrepreneurship is mindset. If it is, if it's the 20th of the month and that's when we got paid in CCSD and you're just, oh, I wish, oh man, it was so good. When I, if you're there or if you say something to yourself like if this doesn't work out, I can just always go back.

Then don't start. Because you've left yourself a boat to get off the island. If you're telling yourself I'm just gonna give this a couple more months and if it don't work out, I can always.. Then just don't even bother.

Gerardo (Producer): You have to be all in and you have to not give yourself a way to just walk away from it easily or quickly.

Dr. Asia: Exactly. And I think it's also like talking to people, and this is work, [00:48:00] looking for work other places or working for yourself. You have to get out and talk to folks and follow up when people say, yeah, let's have lunch. Stand right there. Okay. What day? Tuesday? Yeah, one o'clock. LinkedIn's been my best friend because of my business. Instagram and Facebook doesn't necessarily work in the ways that it could for other people. Yeah. That for sure. Yep. But I love, follow up with people, checking in on folks, like it's connecting with people n this way that you probably didn't have to connect with adults when you taught.

For some people, it's very quick. Like they get their projects going right away. They have enough connections as people find them and they're doing work right away. And some people have to figure it out as they go. And all that's totally fine. So that's pretty much it.

It's just the same things. Make sure you have a positive mindset. Definitely read, I don't wanna say books about business, but more books about mindset than anything. And just feel good about if you have an idea for organization or a service that you want to provide and you change your mind then is [00:49:00] totally fine.

Just feel your way through and don't expect perfection in the beginning.

Kevin: Thank you for that. There we go. There we go. Seeds of wisdom from the doctor. Asia Lyons, the good doctor. All right I think this is one of my favorite questions I get to ask anybody on any of the podcasts.

Maybe other than the last question on Too Dope Teachers and a Mic that one infamous question this is our, this is our notorious question here, Asia. What's bringing you joy right now?

Dr. Asia: So many things. First things first. I don't hate Mondays.

 Also it, my family of course. Always. The Black Educator Wellness Cohort. I get to just something. When you have something that you think of, come to life in front of you, it's so dope.

This was a seed, this was just an idea. And then you see people, right? And then of course, [00:50:00] The Exit Interview same thing. So many ideas have come and gone from my brain. If anyone's ever read Big Magic, it talks about that. But these particular ideas, I said, no, I'm going to show up and do these things, and it's just been so good.

So I'm just in gratitude for all those things. And that's what's bringing me joy these days, my family, my work, my people, everything

Kevin: I love that. I love that. There we go. That, that, that is our interview with Dr. Asia Lyons. I am Kevin Adams. For my co-host, Gerardo Munoz my special co-host.

Gerardo (Producer): Thanks for bringing me on for this conversation. It was so great to be a part of this conversation, and I never get tired of hearing your story, Asia. Never get tired of hearing it. It always lands really deeply. And I hope it lands deeply with everybody listening right now.

So [00:51:00] catch this episode on the Too Dope Teacher and a Mic feed and follow us all everywhere on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Twitter, the Hellscape and Facebook.

And you can reach out to lion's Educational Consulting if you are looking for someone to do some powerful, beautiful work.

Dr. Asia: Thank you. Talk to y'all later. Peace.