Abbott Elementary S1E6 "Gifted Program" w/ Asha Sudra (Restorative Justice Reflections)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Heyo, david here. Restored of Justice Reflections was created as a video first medium because we're including video clips from the shows we're talking about. You can still hear our full conversation here with the audio from the clip, but for the full experience and to see our beautiful faces, head over to our YouTube page link below. If you're only going podcasts or your thing, please bear with the mentions of video and clips and use your imagination. Enjoy. Welcome back to Restored of Justice Reflections.

Speaker 1: 1:05

I'm David Ryan by Sega Castra Harris All five names for all the ancestors and today I'm here with Asha Sudra to dive deep into the restorative themes, or lack thereof, found in season one, episode six of ABC's Abba Elementary Gifted Program. As always, our conversation here is not a critique of the story choices or production choices of the creators, but we'll highlight how Restored of Justice could apply to situations where you're allocating resources, honoring multiple intelligences of students and so much more. Hopefully, this will give you some insight about how to apply restorative ways of being into your life, in and out of the classroom. If you want to take a deeper look at applying restorative justice to your life, join our Inner Circle community to connect with RJ-minded individuals and get bonus content. Deepen your practice by checking out our courses and, if you want to see this work in your school or organization, invite us for coaching or training on implementing this work. Of course, links to everything down below. Now let's get to it. Really excited to have this conversation with Asha. Tell the people about yourself.

Speaker 3: 2:04

What's up y'all? David, thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it. Love getting an opportunity to chop it up and talk with you. What's good people? My name is Asha Sudra. I go by she her Ben Bruh Pham. Whatever you want to call me is Clever. I am an educator out here in the Bay Area, disabled, queer, poet, multidisciplinary artist, and I'm also the mother of two incredibly cute pit bulls. I'm a big fan of avid elementary, I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 1: 2:35

We were having a conversation on this restorative justice life and if you want to tap into that conversation, we'll link that below as well. But as we were coming to the conclusion of our conversation, I was sharing you the idea for this podcast and you were like, ooh, I want to talk about this episode episode, the gifted program episode, and we're gonna get into that in a second. But tell me about your avid fandom. What about the show resonates so deeply for you?

Speaker 3: 3:00

Yeah, I mean first of all, just shout out to Quinta Brunson and the team of creating such a truly authentic show that airs on prime time like regular television. It's truly incredible. I remember Donald Glover spoke about just the way in which he was able to create such nuanced and intricate characters and storylines all within, kind, of the framework of primetime TV. So I mean, as a public school educator for 10 years actually more than 10 years I really just saw a lot of the experiences that were being portrayed in Abbott actually in my real life, in my own career experience, and I know that you know there's a satire to things and it's comedic and it was almost to a point where I was laughing because I had had those same experiences.

Speaker 3: 3:54

Not because it was necessarily funny, although I think the show is really funny. And yeah, I mean to the point where, you know, I am currently a teacher in pre-service education and so I work with two universities out here in the Bay Area with folks that are getting their masters and they're teaching credential and I teach a variety of classes with classes within the program and I often show Abbott Elementary in class and I think when we were recording our episode of this Restorative Life I had just. I was teaching a class on multiple modalities, working with kids of all different learning styles and types, and so this episode just really fit perfectly into that.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Absolutely yeah. And on this restorative justice life we were talking about, you know your experiences in schools, both as a classroom teacher, both as somebody who supports doing restorative justice work, and now, like in your teacher education role. Right, there's so much to unpack here through all of those lenses, so I'm really excited to dive into this with you. Right, we have this episode we're going to focus on like the like the A storyline. Right After seeing a smart boy transferring to Abba Elementary, Janina's inspired to start a gifted program at their school, with Jacob being the lead teacher of that. However, a lot of the students not in the gifted program start to feel left out, and this causes Jeanine to try to replicate the gifted programs that she experienced growing up in her school, only to accidentally release snakes into the school, which leads to all kinds of hijinks. But with the advice from Gregory, janine dismantles the gifted program in favor of creating a rotational enrichment program for all the students. When you saw this episode, what stuck out to you?

Speaker 3: 5:45

Oh man, I mean so much. I think, though, that it's really put together so clearly and so really eloquently, and and I mean talk about eloquence the man is just a brilliant display of what it means to be a man in today's age. But so the character right. Gregory Eddie is talking to Janine.

Speaker 2: 6:09

When you give some kids chickens, other kids are going to get snakes.

Speaker 3: 6:15

If you get snakes for long enough, that's what you think you deserve and no one deserves snakes and I thought that was just a perfect way of kind of wrapping the big theme of that, that narrative that's woven throughout the storyline and it speaks to such a larger conversation around deficit thinking and equitable practices right that we see in real life education today.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, I mean there are lots of people who are in education and in other social service spaces, even like customer service spaces, who, like, are so well intentioned, wanting to provide the best service they can, the most resources they can, to the people that they're serving. Right and Janine, well intentioned as she is, jacob, well intentioned as he is, like I have all of this energy to try to provide an experience for students like that was reflective of what they had. Like Jacob was like you know, I want to like till the soil, to like help these fertile my captain, my captain right like all of these things like. We love the enthusiasm and the impact of those actions, you know, aren't always what was intended right.

Speaker 1: 7:30

When we think about restorative justice, when we're thinking about conflict and harm and other other situations, we're often saying, like you know what happened, like who was involved, who was impacted and how right and what needs to be done in order to be in right relationship, who's responsible for making those changes?

Speaker 1: 7:49

We have this idea, we have this little bit of resource to go create this program and Jacob and Janine decide to run with it right, privileging a small group of students who, like, are getting a lot of benefit. I think that's why we're doing it in. You know, the couple of minutes we see of the program happening in there, in this 21 minutes of TV, right, the majority of other students being excluded, right, and that's why Gregory's bringing up the point of, like you know, we feel like snakes, like that's what we deserve, because we are not deemed good enough, quote unquote by these standards that have been set by well in some ways, that have been arbitrarily set by Janine and and Jacob, right and you know the impact of that is huge and so, like they do take some kind of corrective action, but like this is something that we see happening in schools every day, all the time.

Speaker 1: 8:51

What are some of the ways that you thought about? You know the way that Jacob and Janine initially acted and what are the some? What are some of the ways that you've seen this play out in schools that you've been a part of?

Speaker 3: 9:04

Yeah, I mean I think that you know, in education we often hear this term and it happens a lot in education and I have to admit like I'm biased, I've spent a lot of my adult life in educational spaces but we hear this phrase assume positive intentions and it happens. Right is a cloaking, is a kind of disregard for those who are impacted, and you sort of see this in the beginning of the episode. Gregory is not really talking a lot about his opinion or his experience.

Speaker 2: 9:37

I think we should get rid of the gift of program. Gregory, I can't believe you're saying this. Don't you like the gift of program? Like earlier, when you I guess you never said you liked it, I didn't get into the gift of program like not even close, Made me feel like school was only for kids who were good at taking tests which I was not, so I checked out.

Speaker 3: 10:02

I don't know what to say, and so I think that you know one a lot of the times we don't get to that listening stage, that that Janine and Jacob to, but I think Janine and Eddie really showcase this kind of dialogue a little bit, but I don't think we often have that part in our real world in the community.

Speaker 3: 10:24

I don't see that place taking that, don't see that taking place in education currently, where folks are really asking that question of who or how is this being harmed or at what cost rather, and so that that's sort of kind of one aspect of it. And so I did appreciate that. You know, abbot Elementary brought the kind of ideal, the fantasy, the sunshine and rainbows, so to speak, kind of outlook on that. But I do think that we get lost a lot of the time in our intentions and so that course correction doesn't always necessarily happen. And I'm not saying whether or not, like their decision to do a couple of weeks at a time at the end of the episode is the best decision, but that they at least had some time to reflect and then reiterate is something that I appreciated. The same, because I don't necessarily see that in education today.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah, is there a specific example that you can think of of the good intention and negative impact?

Speaker 3: 11:35

Of course, like not asking you to name names, so I think that currently, when I think about how this kind of plays out in education today, I think of like two major programs that I've seen right, and that's one is like how we're supporting multilingual students. That can look like and be sort of titled as ELD. It can be designated, it can be integrated. There's a variety of different jargonized words that we use about how we support these students.

Speaker 3: 12:06

Even calling them multilingual students is not technically what you might hear in the greater majority of education, right, a lot of the times we'll call these folks English learners, and I think that the way in which those resources are allocated is drastically different.

Speaker 3: 12:23

There's not a lot of systems in place for it and it's really punitive for the individual, especially if you're in those programs for a really long time. And then the other thing that I'm thinking about as far as kind of allocation of resources and this kind of we're trying to do the best thing that we can is certainly just, I mean, what I'm doing right now is a lot of facilitation around quote, unquote restorative justice or restorative practices. I see a lot of box checking. I see a lot of sort of we're trying to do our best and then not a lot of follow through, and so again, how they come up with a different solution to try to be more equitable for their students is something I kind of appreciated, because oftentimes when folks get to that point of a mirror in front of them, they tend to kind of back away.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yeah, I think about what came up in episode four, like the new tech episode, where like hey, there's this new initiative, and like, just learn how to use this software right, instead of hey, these are the core principles that we're trying to instill in everybody and this is the way that the software is going to help us. And like, these are the ways that you're gonna accompany, you're gonna be accompanied to be supported in the integration of this, right, there's often not like the time to integrate or like to even like critically thinking, like, is this something that is going to serve us well? Right, and this happens all the time within the context of schools. Go back and listen to episode four of this to hear our conversation with Brittany Jefferson on that little piece. But when we think about that, the way that programs or resources are played out in schools, right, they're almost always somebody's good intentions, almost always somebody's good intentions and you know, I think it's important that, like you were saying, we are taking the time to evaluate the impact and then make corrective action.

Speaker 1: 14:21

Right, in this case, we do see Jeanine and Jacob like stopping reflective of both Gregory's experience as he's articulating what some of the students might be experiencing, and listening to the students who are really just feeling left out and undeserving, and you know, as funny as it is to have snakes loose in the classroom, right, we do see like other harm and the exclusion that comes at the cost of exclusion. And so, you know, definitely want to invite people who are doing this work to make sure that, as you're bringing these programs together, you are taking those times to evaluate, like, the impact, right, not just say like, hey, we're just going to execute full steam ahead and hey, it worked for these kids, beautiful, let's celebrate like really great job, beautiful that these students got to experience that. At what cost to your community? Right. And so, as we see them decide like, hey, we're going to do this on a rotating basis where lots of other students are going to get to participate in this, not with the same frequency, right, because we do have finite resources, just like many schools do. Like, that is a way that could have been addressed.

Speaker 1: 15:34

If you're appreciating this video, like to help us in the YouTube algorithm, subscribe so you won't miss the video and share it with someone to help us further amplify this work. Now back to the show. As you watch this, like what were some of the other things that came to mind, as you know, potential solutions or outcomes for this situation.

Speaker 3: 15:51

Yeah, well, you know, as I mentioned before, I used this particular episode when I was teaching a class specifically on working with students of different abilities. And, yes, the GATE program comes up in our discussions as it's something that we want, you know, folks to be aware of as they're entering the field of education. But really, the takeaway that I try to encourage my students to process and reflect through is how can our lessons, our units, encompass, as Gregory puts it, the multiple intelligences right as I would expand upon it the multiple learning modalities that we can use as teachers, the different types of activities and strategies that we can use, so that different types of learners are having an access point throughout the learning right? We know that learning doesn't happen in a silo or doesn't happen in an individual instance, and that is cyclical, and we revisit ideas and process through and kind of move through, whether it's the DOK or the blooms, you know whatever you want to describe it, but that throughout that depth and throughout that journey that there are multiple access points.

Speaker 3: 17:03

So where is art in your learning right? Where is movement and the opportunity to build with one another in collaboration and in community? Where is the opportunity to share that learning to the greater community, whether it's outside the classroom or the larger community outside the gates, right, and this is where that applicable knowledge comes in. And I think you know just to. We're talking about the episode right, the very, I think, last seconds of the episode.

Speaker 2: 17:32

So if the store has 10 potatoes right and you take away two of them, how many potatoes would the store have left? I don't like potatoes. Let's not focus on that part of it. You have eight potatoes.

Speaker 3: 17:45

And I think that that, though, is Honestly how we learn is through these engaging and experiential activities, and so we don't only need yes, resources limitations, curriculum, all of these different things, and every classroom teacher can create units and lessons that have multiple modalities, that have conversations with students around multiple intelligences and multiple ways of viewing or breaking down, decolonizing right, really, the word intelligence and smart, and how we kind of define and redefine that. So I've done that with every single age group that I work with, because, actually, it's what we do in our first couple of weeks of learning and growing together. It's actually what I'm creating an entire curriculum to use with a middle school in August, actually, of this year, where students and teachers will sit together in community of practice groups with each other and talk about their different ways of learning and different approaches to working together in groups, and things like that. So, really, I mean, what it looks like in a second grade or first grade level is, honestly, quite similar to how it would be with adults, but it really starts with and there's a lot of resources out there but different types of surveys, different types of conversations around how to kind of evaluate are you a more tactile, are you more kinesthetic? Are you more auditory or visual? What types of intelligences right you're into and we can, you know we can talk about? Einstein was one who kind of I think, like delved into that a little bit.

Speaker 3: 19:30

I think that there's a lot of different ways that we can, also with adults.

Speaker 3: 19:37

Goldie Mohammed is a wonderful educator and practitioner who is exploring the multitude of an individual right and that those things are all valid in a variety of different ways, and she sort of got that knowledge and that framework from black literacy schools, and so the reality is is that I think the global majority in spaces that are intergenerational, have been having this conversation for a long time. I think that we've been building each other up right. I think that we've been dreaming and creating a future that is that just embraces us as a whole. I think that we know that a Western education or institutionalized education system tends to box us into different categories and we lose that interdisciplinary, and so the irony is that when we lose the interdisciplinary, we also lose the intersectional, and I think that those two are inherently tied, and I think it's actually quite targeted and deliberate. I don't know if they realized it as they were doing it, but it's certainly helping keep us separated when we separate our disciplines to whether or not it's deliberate is, you know, upper debate.

Speaker 1: 21:06

I tend to try to give people the benefit of the doubt but, like for us right now, people who are trying to have these conversations, trying to build these containers where learning can take place in a generative way, where people can be valued for what they bring, right, some of those things just take time on the front end, like you're saying, to really evaluate who your community is and what your specific community needs, and not just teach curriculum that was created for a certain group of people in a certain time and be adaptable, right, adapt to the needs of your community. And I know, within the context of your school day, where you have less than a prep period to try to do all of the things and are expected to do everything else, to make customized lessons for, like, all these people, like that can seem overwhelming, right, and that's a structural issue within the context of schools, right, if teachers aren't given the time to prepare, well, right, they're going to come to this place of burnout Over the course of the show. We see Barbara and Melissa in so many ways, be like you young people who have energy. Go and try to do that, like I'm not going to do this right.

Speaker 1: 22:16

I think Barbara says in this episode, if it's upsetting more people than not, like I just don't think it's worth it, right? And there are two ways to think about that. One is just being like defeat us and like, hey, I can't do anything about this, so you know, y'all go deal with it. Or like, hey, I understand what's in my capacity, within my role, and that's just not something that I'm going to take on right now. And we've got to be honest with ourselves about you know what capacity we do have in order to do that. I'm not saying that like, everyone should like over extend themselves in order to like build these systems and build this curriculum. But for school leaders and for people who are thinking about the ways that people's time, adults time is allocated within the context of schools, right, what is the time that we're giving people to both prepare to do this within their, within their respective contexts, and be supported in learning to do this, if that wasn't something that was a part of their teacher education?

Speaker 3: 23:11

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 23:12

I mean, I think that you know there is a sort of call and a need for some radical acceptance around what is within our realm of control as a public school teacher, particularly in, you know, in California, we call like a Title I school right, A place where maybe perhaps resources, personnel, skill sets are potentially limited, and I think that, yeah, even though you know, barbara does kind of and I think that's kind of her character in a lot of ways right Is to kind of realize the constraints of what you're able to have.

Speaker 3: 23:49

I think that there's a merit to all of it, right, and I think that, even if we look like, historically, through movements or through change, oftentimes it has come at the heels of youth, right, and so, yes, there are elders leading the way, yes, there are elders guiding, and, you know, shout out to some of these young teachers really trying to do something and shake something up, and so I appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 24:17

I do think, though, that there has to be this knowledge of sort of that whole experience and having that dialogue and the conversation, and so I think that you know they do a good job of like 21 minutes or whatever kind of showcasing the most idyllic way in which that can happen, but I'm not mad at the young folks coming into education and being wanting to shake things up, because that was me. I do, though, appreciate all the mentors that I had in those beginning years, who helped me calibrate, who helped me explore and understand that realm of control and sort of help me with my expectations as well, and I think Jeanine and Barbara have that kind of relationship with each other.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Yeah, or it's growing. You know six episodes in at this point. Right Was there. Is there a time or an experience that's that stood out to you like one of those times that your expectations need to be calibrated and how that person you know helped you through that?

Speaker 3: 25:23

Yes, 1000%. I mean definitely as somebody that came into education who had experience and desires and a pedagogical sort of foundation around social change, social justice, dismantling, anti-blackness right, all of these different things. You know when you come into education, certainly as that young, spry, eager first year teacher, I thought folks would be more willing to try different things and I think that's something that is really antithetical to the sort of growth mindset that we ask our students to have, is a lot of teachers struggle to have a growth mindset and that was something that, thankfully, a mentor of mine named April Motan shout out to her, I love her really helped me kind of understand and sort of recalibrate what that meant and what that could really look like in a short time. She reminded me that this journey is a long wall.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Yeah, we have these like lots of eager, well intentioned people coming into this field like who want to make all this change. And you know, I think we highlighted, we touched on it a little bit. But like to like just reiterate right, doing this work is not about behaviorism and paternalism and like I know what's best. So, like I'm going to make these sweeping changes. Right, especially when you're new to an environment.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Right, it's so important to spend all of your time listening, ears open. Right, like it's not that your perspectives aren't valuable and that you don't have anything to contribute, but you don't know the needs of your community. And if you just come in Like this is the way that things need to be, and like why can't you all be like this? Right, like that's not a really good way to like make sustainable change. Speaking to the like the long haul of it all. Right, doing this work through relationships and getting to know folks and allowing people to tell you what they need, to tell you how you can be supportive, and then like offering the ways that, like you've thought a little bit differently about how things could be is often so much easier and more effective slower maybe initially, but long and much more effective in making lasting change.

Speaker 3: 27:57

Yeah, and really like that's how you build folks that that stay with you in it, right I don't really like the term ally ship but, for a lack of better word, right for a co conspirator like that's how you keep folks in in the movement with you, and so it can't be this kind of one off thing. It does have to and, ironically, right, just like our students and they're learning. It's the cyclical thing that we continuously come back to and that we come back to in a multitude of ways.

Speaker 1: 28:24

Right. We need to be reminded so much more than we're taught, and those reminders come in lots of forms.

Speaker 3: 28:30

Yeah, we just got to be open to hearing them and listening to it.

Speaker 1: 28:35

Yeah, again, those are. There are lots of other things going on in this episode of the B story that we're not quite going to touch on, but was there anything else from this gifted program storyline that you wanted to highlight before we start to wind down our time?

Speaker 3: 28:49

No, I mean, I think really that the biggest thing that we as educators, as folks that are working with youth, that are working with the global majority as they are finding themselves, is we really have to be mindful of the language that we use, of the ways in which we categorize, label. You see Janine in the episode trying to figure out how to label or call the students that are not non. Yeah, yeah, they're not in the gate program.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Look, there's nothing wrong with the gifted program itself. We just need to organize it better so that the regular kids, the un gifted kids, the re gifted kids, let's lift up the other kids.

Speaker 3: 29:34

Yes, that Right, and I think, though, that, while comical, we see this and, and it's in policy and it's in student handbooks, and so, really, we have to ask ourselves, as educators, what is the messaging that we're sending right, at what cost? And, while the intention might be good, it's really important to consider the perception and to care really heavily about that, and when faced with perhaps a different perception than one that was intended, to slow down and to listen and ask questions, if it's okay, but to really, you know, sit with it and think a bit about what, what the implications of that are and what, potentially, are some ways to move around it.

Speaker 1: 30:23

You've heard from us. Now we want to hear from you. Drop your restorative justice reflections in the comments and if you want to join a live community conversation about our restorative justice lessons from Abba elementary, join us for a live event on Monday 31. Link with more info in the description. And now it's time to answer the question that everyone answers when they come here. So you have the ear of Quinta and the writers. Hit yourself as a character on Abba elementary and what is your story arc?

Speaker 3: 30:51

Yes, I love it. I love it because listen, quinta girl, like we need to tag her because this could be a potential for me. Number one, look at me, I already work for it, right? So you get this new teacher of color that's all tattooed up and is all like Ava, you know, with the kids and everything, and is also just super annoying about all of the problematic things that are happening in everything, right? So I've been this person on campus. I hope that one of my former coworkers sees this and just giggles, because this is how self-aware I am.

Speaker 3: 31:31

Y'all. That person that always just kind of raises their hand in the back of the meeting and is like, well, actually, historically, you know, and really just listen, I think that in the times that we're in this could be a really funny character. Honey, I got the history, I already know it. I know all the jargon. Let me sys hetero, patriarchal, like you know, hegemony, let me throw all the words out so that I annoy the rest of the staff and they all just roll their eyes and tune me out everything.

Speaker 1: 32:01

I'm gonna out Jacob Jacob.

Speaker 3: 32:03

I'm gonna out Jacob, jacob, but, like, do it in a less like shit. I'm still corny, though. So you know, I was an elementary school teacher. I know what it is, yes, but just you know what. But Jacob's sneaker game is hard Fuck. Why am I Jacob?

Speaker 3: 32:21

I'm just saying it's so funny, right, but I mean, listen, like I think that that is just so, so funny, that I think all of the archetypes that she's created, that the crew has created for this show, we can see ourselves as educators in all of them just a bit.

Speaker 3: 32:42

And I think that that's the magic in it is that she's calling a lot of dialogue and a lot of conversation into something that is so fucking relatable, Like it just is. You know, you can see yourself in all of these different situations and scenarios and just shouts to her and the beautifulness of what she's created.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Beautiful, beautiful. Well, thank you so much for your time. Wisdom, stories, experiences. How could people support you and your work in the way that you wanna be supported?

Speaker 3: 33:15

Yeah, well, you know, I'm out here in the South Bay Bay area of California currently working to roll out some art-based trauma-informed workshops with high school students and eighth grade students. So if you like the way that I talk and analyze and you wanna know more about that, holler, hit me up. You can find me at ashapoetcom and you can also find me on Instagram at asha underscore poet. I also got a couple of books published out here and I'm performing a lot out in the Bay area, so come find me.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Beautiful. Of course, all of those things will be linked below, but again, thank you so much and we'll be back with a restorative justice. Reflection on episode seven Art Teacher very soon. Until then, take care.