Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 45 | Grading Practices (with Dr. Shawnta Barnes)

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Ep 45 | Grading Practices (with Dr. Shawnta Barnes) · Color Commentary

• Charles Cole: Welcome to Color Commentary, a podcast where the stories shaping our world are told in black and white first, and then we dig into their deeper meaning in full color. Each week I'll be bringing you the news like this. First, we'll start with what I like to call the black and white section: a clear, straight shooting rundown of the facts and the tradition of grace like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section where I have my own personal opinions and insights. Sometimes it'll just be me. And sometimes we'll have guests, but we figure that out together on what this show is and can be. And you all know that I'm a nerd. I like academic stuff. I love movies. I love having different conversations. You just gonna get all the parts of me. So with that, let's get into it. But before we do, today is a very special episode. ⁓ I just finished having an incredible conversation ⁓ with Educator Barnes. ⁓ She has an open invitation and she kind of hosted today. It kind of, it worked out. It was a really interesting dynamic. And I love our chemistry and I love what she brings. And she's such an earnest educator. Like she's just such a like if you ever meet her family, like even from her husband to her twin sons, they're just sweet people. You know, like they don't really, they don't really make them like this no more. So it's just always a pleasure talking to her. And There are some topics that she wanted to discuss, and we got into them and we had a great talk. We got lost in the talk, which is you always want to be able to do that. ⁓ you might see my camera change in the midway. I don't know, man. My my my beautiful good camera, my Sony, it's the A series camera, it's just been overheating lately. I gotta I gotta work that out, but then I switched to this one. So, you know, you might notice it, you might not, but I'm just trying to let you know. Anyway, I'm babbling. Let me get out the way and you all enjoy Dr. Shantae Barnes, aka Educator Barnes, hosting this episode. All right? All right. Peace. And we are back with one of my favorite people. ⁓ I told her she has a revolving door and she can be here whenever she wants. And I'm glad that she takes us up on that. And there's a few people. Not a lot of people get that, that, that, that, that honor Educator Barnes. ⁓ Chris Stewart, my homie, can get that. You know, my producer. There's a few people, but ⁓ you are becoming my favorite collaborator. You know, we we're doing it a lot, and I think it's been great. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to the show. Miss Educator Barnes, and how have you been since the last time we spoke? And then I'm gonna ask you what we're talking about today. I can't remember if my boys had started school, but tired. They hadn't at the time. We haven't talked in a minute. So yeah, so it is honors classes, AP classes, and honors and AP is not the same. is banned, is Cross country. So I just feel like all I'm doing is what do you need? ⁓ you need new shoes? You I need to get this. ⁓ how much does the event cost? Where I'm trying to like find a spot to stand and watch them run and run across to get to see them one more time flash by me. So I just feel tired, but not in a negative way. Just like, man, my kids are just doing so many things, and I'm trying to be able to see it. But as I'm Asian, I'm like, I have. Tired. Hey man. And how old are the boys now? They are 15. We'll be 16 at the beginning of next year, but don't don't tell them that. Well, I don't know. If y'all doing a sweet 16, I I I expect an invitation. That's all I'm saying. I I I I want to be able to make that drive out there. ⁓ for me, so we had that Derecho and hurrican and and ⁓ tornadoes through this area. So ⁓ I'm out in the south suburbs of Chicago and that runs into northwestern Indiana. So Gary is about twenty, twenty minutes, twenty-five with no traffic about twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes away. ⁓ my aunt lives maybe ten, fifteen minutes from me. She was without power for about a week. ⁓ lot many places in Gary, Indiana still don't have power. I got lucky. ⁓ I complained about it last year, but I paid to, you know, get all my trees cut back and all that stuff. And I'm glad that I did. I came home. I was on vacation when the storm happened. And ⁓ you know, my neighbors, you know, checked on my house and sent me a message. The the light pole and the and the street sign in front of my house, it just got uprooted. It just was just pulled straight up and ⁓ my neighbor's car I think got crushed and the windows got busted out, but it could have been a lot worse. So ⁓ But other than that, ⁓ been blessed. ⁓ I have to to go to a positive thing, ⁓ in our nerd land, which is this might tie to what we talked to today, I have a peer reviewed manuscript that got accepted. I've I've I've sent you, yeah, I sent you the ⁓ advanced copy. I don't know when it'll be public. I'm sure I'll cover it here when it's public and do a breakdown for people. But ⁓ if if if you don't know what going through that process is like, it's a It's an intense, long, ⁓ at times very frustrating process. So ⁓ so I'm very I'm proud of that and ⁓ I'm glad I could send it to you. But you tell me, what are we discussing today, Miss Educator Barnes? Well, the last time I was on and we were talking, there was one part where we started to talk about a bit about Grady. And I thought to myself, I gotta put a pen there because I can't, we can't even get into it while dealing with our other topic. And and with school coming back in session, I think a conversation needs to be had about grading because there are so many different grading practices, and some of them are helping students and some of them are hindering students. And I I know in your work, I know ⁓ just like me, you're probably experiencing that as well, trying to navigate and support students. And their families, ⁓ with all of these ⁓ practices. ⁓ so so yeah, so what have you seen? ⁓ what have you seen out there for grading practices? And what you seen about what you've seen? I've seen a lot and a lot of our research has been around it. And there was a ⁓ and some of our student fellows, they there was just an article in the New York Times. There was a ⁓ there was a ⁓ a commentary in there and we were able to talk to the ⁓ the the the writer. She's actually in Chicago at at the university out here. And she got to talk to one of our students about it. But it was talking about grade inflation ⁓ and just, you know, the issues that come up with that. And sh she had not seen it from like the students' perspective side. And our young people did a whole thing on it. And I, you know, you added, you know, I work with students and parents around I work with educators too. And one of the things I just went to Oakland a few weeks ago. before I went to the Bahamas and ⁓ and I talked to about four hundred educators ⁓ between Oakland and Rich and and Vallejo and Richmond. And I talked about that. And and one of the things that our young people said, it wasn't the big fact that of all these high achievement students in Oakland, about just under eight out of ten of them thought that they were proficient because they are j honor road students. It's not that it wasn't even crazy as That, you know, it was really more like three out of 10 of them were proficient in reading on grade level, but even though their grades said otherwise. It was the fact that 75% of them said no adult ever had a real discussion with them about their proficiency. Never had a real discussion with them about their, their, their reading level. And they were a little pissed off about that. And I told that to all those educators. And when I talk to educators, I treat them like professionals because they are. And I start those conversations by saying, hey, is this a job for you or a vocation? And and I need to know because I'm I'ma approach the conversation differently, if you see this as just a job or if you see it as a vocation. And most of them say a vocation. So then we went deeper into grading practices and what that means and standing in front of data and not, you know, and being an educator with integrity in that way, you know. So that's I've seen a lot though. I've seen kids that are multiple grade levels behind ⁓ that might get an A or B and it's because they did everything that the teacher asked them to do or maybe they had good, you know, good behavior, ⁓ or they just liked them. And and again, listen, I'm never hating on a kid getting a good grade because we know what grades do as far as helping you get into a good college and GPA and stuff like that. ⁓ but the rubber gotta meet the road. And ⁓ we got young people thinking that they're proficient, ⁓ and they're not. And they get that awakening in college, like I did as somebody who had both honors and AP. So I know that they're different things too, but they both get you it's a five point scale as opposed to a four point GPA scale. And I had all these honors and AP classes and then got to college and had to be remedial everything. And I will just tell you, the other black and brown kids in those remediation classes with me, one in three of us finished because it's just the air gets knocked out of your cells. So By the grace of God, I was able to do that. But those are some of the things that I've heard in my very long-winded answer. But you know, but the floor is yours. You're my co- you're not a guest today. You're my co-host today. Might I even say you're gonna be the A mic, I'll be the B mic. Go ahead. Well, I don't think your answer was long-winded, but as I was listening to your answer, I now remember why the grading came up because I was talking about, we were talking about literacy on the last episode that I was on, and I was talking about how. An eighth grade, eighth or seventh grade student who didn't ⁓ who couldn't read very well. And I was trying to explain it to the mom, and the mom was just essentially like you're lying. And so I asked the child to read, but and she's like, ⁓ pick a different book, pick a different book. And finally, she's like, ⁓ my kid can't read. Nobody has said this to me. You know, you got the kid there that's kind of embarrassed. But we set kids up to be in those situations. ⁓ And the very first year I was a literacy coach, I went from middle school down to elementary school. And that's that's a transition. But I remember, you know, I'm going in, I'm like, okay, this is what we're going to do. The school I was at was ⁓ was a failing school. And we we had this plan that said, Hey, we're going to do these little charts and so kids know what they are. And ⁓ a first grade student she said to me, Why would we do that? They're too small to know their information. If they can't read, they know. And I and it was just like it was like beneath her to even have the conversation with the child to be like, hey, this is the goal for everybody at the end of first grade. This is where you here's your little bubble. Here's where we want you to go. ⁓ and some teachers just they don't have, I don't know, the integrity, they don't have the humanity, they just see children as these. little people that we don't have to treat as human beings and inform them of their data and have goals for them. So that's how we ⁓ that's how that gritty thing ⁓ originally came up. But I like how you asked why like what how do you see your role? Because that really changes how you approach your role. ⁓ because there's too many people ⁓ that are giving participation grades. If you came to class, didn't bother me Was quiet, came on time, I'm not gonna grade you as harshly as someone who is interrupting me every two seconds, asking me questions, coming to class late. And even the how we grade stuff that is subjective. There's so many layers to how you can have a grade, ⁓ and that grade is not your actual grade. And I think another area, you know how you were saying the students ⁓ Were upset because no one had a conversation with them. Students find out if they transfer between schools. The students I found to be the most upset were the students who were in more than one school. Now, granted, some people are listening, well, of course they're behind because they switched schools. But every kid that's a transfer student is not behind academically. not so far. And so they can see, like, hey. At this school, we we writing ⁓ five page essays. At my last school, we were writing a paragraph. So there's something going on about maybe I am an A student here. In eighth grade, but I'm not an A student here, eighth grade. And that's where that bigger problem comes with not just the grading practices, but the rigor and relevance that's in the classroom. So when you're working with those teachers and you're breaking down their practices, ⁓ what type of pushback are you getting from teachers about like grading ⁓ that makes them kind of want to keep doing what they're already doing? I think too. I don't know if I don't get a lot of pushback, but I think it's also because of my approach. Like again, before I got into education, my my my baseline is as a social worker, which I did for five or six years. And so, in being a social worker, it's the inverse of being a teacher. I call them cousin careers. And what I mean by that is, as a teacher, the way I see it, you have Elements that you control. You control how you deliver your message, you control certain things, and you're trying to educate. You gotta, you you, you have your grading block. I mean, you know, you have your semesters or your learning blocks and things like that, but you have some control. ⁓ and whereas social work, I I have such little control, but I'm working with at this family's education goals, their legal goals, their health care, whatever it is. I dealt with a lot in that, and because of that place. I didn't have control over those entities. So what I could do, my job was to coordinate with families and students around those things. So there I learned how to talk to a family's doctor, to a family's teacher, to a family's lawyer, COSA workers, and things like that. And so I brought that with me into education. So when I talk to them, I put the power back on them. So we can talk about, you know, maybe they make you lesson plan a certain way, or maybe. There are some things that are non-negotiable or whatever. But let's focus on the things you actually do control. And one of those is your data. One of those is how you discuss that data with the young person and their parents. What one of those is you have a choice on when you see some data come back on a kid or your class as a whole, you can choose to sugarcoat that or explain it away or whatever, or you can see it as a tool for you. To get to the ultimate goal and job that you have, which is educating these young people and making sure their parents know where they are so you all can, you know, ⁓ have a plan. So that's why I always start with the is this a vocation or a job for you? Because if it's a job, I probably don't need to talk to you that much about it. I need to talk to your boss. But if it's a vocation and and and your goal is to educate and make sure that they're mastering or making sure they go from here to here, even if you got kids. That are like multiple grade levels behind, which is the reality for a lot of teachers. And I don't, I I empathize with that. But you still have some agency over your work. And so we would get into that and we would I would ask them questions. So they can say, Yeah, man, the schools they had before, or the poverty, or this, or that. And I would say, But you chose to be in a teacher in an urban school, right? Like, my cousin's a firefighter, he passed away, ⁓ but he helped me. Upgrade and fix my house when I bought it and he passed away during COVID. But that's like him trying to put out a fire and coming back out and saying to his captain, man, it was it was hot in that kitchen, man. I, you know, and he'd be like, you chose to run into burning buildings for a living. Like this is what this is what we do. The general public can complain about that. But if this is your vocation, you you gotta accept. ⁓ where you're getting these young people at and know what your mission is and move on from there. So I didn't get a lot of pushback, but I did go deeper into how do you have this conversation? What is making you uneasy about being honest with a student? That's age appropriate, right? But being honest with a student ⁓ and their parents about where they are. ⁓ and I learned a few different things. I I'll take a breath there because I can go on and on, and I tell you to take a breath, so let me take one. But I I loved how you talked about it's the approach because if you're working with anybody, even kids, and you come at the wrong angle, they're gonna clam up or they're gonna they feel like they have to defend themselves. Right. And if we're in the defense mode, we're not getting to that change thinking and which is what we want to do. So I'm gonna shift a little bit to talk about my own kids and their school because they have shifted their grading policy as of this school year. ⁓ so last school year, ⁓ What they could do is they could if you didn't do work, and I worked in the school where this was also the policy, if you didn't do work, ⁓ you don't get a zero. You get a 50%. Now when I was a teacher in a school and that was the philosophy, ⁓ they said, Well, it's so the kid won't get so low in the hole and they can dig themselves up. But then that became a bigger problem because now let's say Johnny did the work. But earned a 40%. But Jimmy decided not to do the work and he gets a 50%. So then it was a thing like if you actually earn below that amount, then we were inflating your grade to a different grade to make it fair to the kid who didn't do the work. And so, and then you have it was it was like now we have to make all of these codes in the grade book. And what I Needed as a teacher was if Johnny worked his butt off and only earned 40%, what are the gaps? If so-and-so is not turning in their work, what are their gaps? Is it organizational gaps? Is it that the homework was too hard? It was like, forget it. Or they were like, you know what? So these are my kids. Right. About homework. Mom, so homework just now I'm I I already know I don't have to do this homework assignment to pass the class. These are my children. They will say that. They're like, I've chosen not to do this assignment. So, but I need information. I need to figure out why this is happening. And when we're not putting in true grades, then the whole grade system is inflated. So I as a teacher, I really, really hated it because on my end, I felt like I was doing so much more work. But I don't know with the teachers you're working with. Are you working with any have you worked with any teachers where they had to by district mandate, ⁓ had to put in 50% and what how do y'all work through that? Because that's a variable they cannot control. So how do you work with them where they can't control that variable? Well some have protested. Some have just said I'm not doing it. ⁓ I if if if they do this then and fire me if that's what you wanna do. And but because there's such a in the schools that I tend to support and work at, like if there's somebody that feels that way or that's the policy, there's such a teacher shortage in the places where I'm at that the teacher standoff usually wins. ⁓ we were talking off camera about the lady in Tennessee, ⁓ who ⁓ was given that ultimatum and decided to resign, either resigned or got let go. I think you said she was she said she was I'm not fully sure so I'll just I'll just leave it open but the the the point is she ain't there no more and I and it sounds like she was a pretty good teacher ⁓ and I and I'm proud of her for holding you know ⁓ holding ground on that ⁓ but yeah I I think it's a silly policy I I mean I could see somebody making an argument you know there's always been some kind of grading curve since the beginning of time but I don't think this is a curve I think this is very different a curve is a meta-analysis on where the class is and a critique of the teacher of like, well maybe this was too difficult, or maybe the whole class is here. So let me let me balance this out. And then what you're supposed to do with a curve is you're supposed to like make sure you're filling those gaps on the back end of like why everybody, why a 85 is now the new, you know, A as opposed to a 90. ⁓ so but yeah, but again, vocation versus job. ⁓ And and and again, I'm not and I wanna be clear in my answering in this, because I'm not judging the people that say it's a job. ⁓ to some people it's a job, you know. ⁓ teaching is not what they wanna do. And with the teaching shortage in this country, i we got a lot of people falling into teaching that's falling into education. ⁓ it's hard to fall into being a brain surgeon. Don't really happen. You can't fall into being an astronaut, you know what I mean? ⁓ so ⁓ there there's some nuance to that position that's happening there. And we aren't bringing in like the the role of unions in that. We're not bringing in ⁓ the role of literacy dropping as a whole across the country, across all races. But that's that's how I've kinda been approached with it. ⁓ but normally I have a pretty good relationship with the admins and the schools to where that isn't necessarily the case. so yeah, but this year in my son's school, what they've done is now, if you don't turn it in, it's a zero. So that's the thing that has shifted, but they still allow kids to make of work. So that's another component for teachers. ⁓ and I it's har this is hard for me. Because I was an English teacher. And I had like at one school I had over like a hundred and twenty students, right? And we're writing five-page essays. And if you're doing the true writing workshop model, you're you're brainstorming, you're outlining, you're making multiple drafts, you're making the final draft, and you're getting some feedback, not just from your peers, from the teachers throughout that process for 120 students. So when I hear, when you're hearing things like, ⁓ the students can just make up their work as much time as they want to get to mastery, which is important, at some point. Because this is still a job. There's not enough time in the day for people to just constantly take more assignments and constantly redo them. And what what is the point where we're like, at this point, mastery should have occurred? And if you have not mastered it, maybe there's something else going on. So in those schools or or families you're working with, how does it come up with schools who may have policy to say, hey, a child can redo? Any assignment. Some schools have limits, and some schools are like, you and me do it as many times as you want to until the semester closes. Yeah, I think with and and so this is the the work that we do. ⁓ and I'll talk about a little bit of this in my in my article that's coming out soon. And there's another manuscript I'm working on that that touches on this a little bit. I work to build agency in the students and their families, also with the educators too, but I'm talking about the students and families right now, that's what you asked. That They have to that the school's bar or society's bar can't be their bar. And like what does that mean? What is your personal bar for you? And I was a student that understood the economy of grading as a student, meaning that I was trying to mine A's in AP and honors classes to get the higher five points or on the four point GPA scale, so I can use that to get into the best type of college. That I wanted to get into. That was where my mind was, and that was where my head was. It took some teachers that teaching was not their job, but it was their vocation that said, I don't care a damn about this A or this B. I need you to understand this for yourself. I like so when Mr. Brown is teaching me algebra, and he's this black man that grew up in West Oakland and played basketball, but was also like in a Black Panther party, and he's teaching us. algebra, but then he's like teaching us the Pythagoreas theor the the Pythagoras theorem, but then going into the story of who Pythagoras is and who that is to me as a young black man. He made sure we not only mastered the Pythagorean theorem and how you use it and why it's important, but also who I am in relation to that and the greatness that that came from a black man. Again, I'm not thinking about that as a child, right? Like I'm just thinking about the grade. So I work with students and parents because I think that agency students and parents can lift the play, can lift the playing field for teachers. I think that good teachers get excited when the kid asks where they are. I think that a a a good teacher gets excited when not educator Barnes, but Mama Barnes says, What should my kid know at the end of the semester? And what can I do to be a partner with you? I you know what I'm saying? Like I think I'm changing the conversation of the end user where it's it shouldn't be their responsibility. But they're the ones that gotta live with it. And when I'm talking to teachers and principals, I'm talking to them about their role. So when I'm talking to students and parents, I'm talking about their role. That's that's why we have checks and balances. That's what our government is supposed to be. It's three branches because this branch is supposed to look over this branch, and this branch looks over this branch. And if everybody's doing what they're supposed to do, this thing is great. But we have a system if somebody isn't. That that so that's how I approach it. If I was talking to your boys, Who are already brilliant and gonna be great, but I love those boys from when we had the show and they would show up and you made them take notes. I said, I love this family. I love this whole family. But if I was talking to them, I would be having more of a conversation with them about them and their expectation and what they want to do, as opposed to what their teacher did or did not do. Very different conversation I would have with their grown ass teacher who gets paid and has a degree already. But when I'm talking to them, I'm telling them. And I'm trying to give them a building block for life that's regarded outside of this classroom. I want them to remember this when they're 60. What is your expectation of yourself? What do you expect to get out of this class? You should be asking the teacher, what should I know at the end? How will I know I mastered this? Like, what should I be able to do when this is all said and done? ⁓ and it changes the tenor of the conversation in a lot of cases. Not all, but in a lot of. And I think so much in education, students are left out. We keep worrying about this is what the teachers need to do, this is what the principal should have done. This is what the parents should have done. But school is for the students. And we never, I won't say never, we're not, in my opinion, putting enough time behind kids taking that agency and saying, Hey, this is what I want out. Like my one son, he knows he wants to be an entomologist. He's known this since about middle of elementary school. And what interesting about this same child, before that he wanted to be a geologist. So for like four up until second grade, he wanted to be a geologist. Even at four, he had a rock encyclopedia that he would carry with him and look through. And one day he was like, Mom, I changed my mind. That was like and also this was the same time when he told us he wanted to go by a nickname. So it was a lot of changes happening. And he didn't want to have the same haircut as his identical twin brother. I was gonna say you got twins. You got you got things when you got twins, you know? So yes. So this particular grade, the second grade, I'm like, okay, we we wanna be this name, nickname now. Okay. All right, you don't want to have to look dress like your brother, look like your brother, and they weren't really dressing together the same, but we will buy some. With the same outfits and he will come out his room, why you in that same outfit I got on? So I'm like, okay. And then he was like, Mom, ⁓ Be geologist. I'm like, kid, you are in second grade. You don't have to know right now. And he just says to me, He's like, Yeah, I was doing a lot of research about the different jobs and we're there. And I was First of all, what are you doing? Like, I have so many quick moments I'm trying listen. And he was like, I really think entomology is the way I want to go. And I was like, Okay, because I want to be supportive, but since that moment up until now, he has been adamant. ⁓ has not changed his mind. ⁓ he knows what college he wants to go to, he's taking classes, so I really Remember, he took biology in middle school. And then for high school, he's like, Mom, I have to take zoology. Because in zoology, there's a ⁓ part of that where we're gonna learn about insects and all these other things. So then next, I gotta take this class. So he already was thinking about it. My other son, he has like he would probably be happy doing any job. There's so many things he actually likes, and so for him, he's like, Mom, I don't I can't pick one thing right now. But what he's doing is like, hey, I'm gonna take this class and see if this is a thing I wanna do for work full time. But I also said to him, I said, your mom's been an English teacher. She's worked with multilingual learners, she's been a literacy coach, she's been a school administrator, she's been a school librarian. I'm now I have my own business. You don't have to be one thing for your whole life. So you don't have to figure it all out. But I think there's some power in adults helping kids. Like being their guide on the side, helping them figure out things, but letting them kind of steer and lead the way and ⁓ take charge in those ⁓ situations. But what happens when you're with kids who you're trying to do this with and they're just like, nah, I I I don't wanna take charge. How do you work with ⁓ youth like that who are just they don't want to have a voice or maybe they I don't know, I don't know. They just they don't want to do that, they don't want to take the agency. Again, and this is where being a social worker first helps me immensely because I was working one, my own life, my own struggles. Like, you know, I grew up homeless. I went to like 11 elementary schools, so there was just no stability there. And you kind of to survive that stuff, you can go numb to certain things or whatever. So I can empathize with that or plan it safe because you want to minimize the things in your life that can disappoint you. So you stop having expectations and then anything positive is like a it's a coping mechanism. And and and to be honest, I still carry some of that stuff. ⁓ I like it. I I've I've learned how to use that ⁓ in ways for me, meaning like I'll I'll tell you the way that I use that positively and I'll get back to the answer. I'm I'm podding today because ⁓ I'm not hosting. You're hosting, so I get to kind of be a little freer. But like today, like when we when I saw that you were coming on. I was like, ⁓ I don't have an expectation of it. That way I can just appreciate and enjoy wherever we go, right? Like I've I've but as a child, it's it's it manifested in me in not having high expectations for myself or for other people because I didn't want to be let down or let myself down. So what you're dealing with in a lot of those ways, and all those kids, I'm not saying they all got trauma or whatever the case is. I'm not doing that. I think people overuse that. But I know how to get on their level and have a conversation. about what actually just makes you happy. Like what it what do you want to be doing? What do you want to be doing as an adult? Like what do you want to be doing this summer? What what just let's get there and I can usually chip away and get them to set some expectations or or or see what they might like, right? Again, you you just got you hit the kid lottery. I, you know, I don't want to take credit away from you and your husband either. Y'all that's a that's a byproduct of the way in which you guys engage your kids. the level of safety that you provide for them to explore, to be willing to explore and to do that stuff. So kudos to you and your husband. I think when you meet kids though that are kind of in that space, you gotta just have more conversation with them. You gotta kinda see what makes them tick. You got to talk to their parents and like, hey man, what is little what what just makes Lil Johnny light up at the house? You know, what are those things? And and and and no answer is a throwaway answer. Well he loves it when I let him play the game. And he can play Roblox or NBA 2K. There are things in there That you can distill and pull out to where it's like, we can relate this here. We can we can find those things. You have to connect it though to something that feels like it's a part of them. And this is why, you know, math teachers, you know, I will say the English teachers, language arts teachers, you know, literacy coaches, there's a moment that y'all are having, right? Because literacy is back in the in the national conversation. We're becoming less literate. So there's this urgency around literacy, and we know how. important it is and where numeracy has kind of you know it kind of goes in waves and and I have math teacher friends that are saying it breaks their heart when they hear students say I'm just not a math guy. I'm not a math I'm just not a math person. I'm not a numbers person. And they're like, no you just haven't been engaged around this. And so I I I think that when you're working with those yo those young people you gotta set you got to have them work with you that set goals for themselves. Like, well, let's let's figure out this thing. Let's get to it. If they're a competitive kid, usually with boys, if you can tap into that competitive nature, you can do some low-stakes competitive things of like, you know what, you get here, I got this incentive, but we can do this, or it gets you this, right? And, you know, and there are girls that are competitive too. I'm not trying to genderize all this stuff, but there is some science behind this. And with girls, and even in our program, you know, when I said goals. Through our models, I said two types of goals. I said ones that speak to the competitive nature in young people, but I also speak ⁓ to the altruistic nature of some of those. Like some of our girls are just very altruistic. They want the best for everybody. They want to have an experience. Like they they can say that. So, you know, I try to tailor it to that person. I try to have different options that can fall into where their phenotype kind of lands, you know, but you gotta have the conversation and you gotta have the conversation. Over and over. And you gotta meet them where they are in that conversation. That that's that's kind of been my secret sauce there. And when you find it, and and it can be frustrating to find it, it could take time. ⁓ it could take time. But when you do find it, it's a blessing. I mean, education, I mean, it's an exchange. It's not, isn't we're past the one-room schoolhouse where I'm the source of knowledge and I'm just imparting. Knowledge and at that time morality into ⁓ your body. It has to be this exchange back and forth. And it's the same thing when I would get kids my whole thing was I want to make sure every kid finds a book that they like to read. And some kids, I'm like, okay, it is January. I've been trying to like chip away, chip away, chip away. I I've got now This, Ms. I'm like, okay, it's February. But I mean 'cause some kids they make your work for it. ⁓ but also some kids, to your point, they're so used to people quitting on them. They're used to something going bad, and so You just have to have that endurance. ⁓ and we don't talk about that a lot, how much endurance you need in this ⁓ this profession 'cause people, ⁓ I'm just so tired. It's so much work and these kids and some of their parents they don't speak English, but this is what you signed up for. You signed up for all of these things. But but and and I think this is about to be the theme. ⁓ job versus, you know, ⁓ calling versus, you know, like It what is this to you, right? And again, like if you want to be the best basketball player in the world, you gotta you gotta go out and run. You gotta you gotta lift weight. Listen, I was I was heavier, you know. You've seen me at like various weights. Like I was like 225. ⁓ and I carry it decently, but I'm like, yo, I gotta get back into shape. Like, I don't enjoy. You know, doing two a days and a bunch of cardio and a bunch of, you know, lifting and things like that. But I'm at 195 right now, right? And then I'm gonna probably try to get down another 10. But I don't enjoy, and I know you gotta love the process. I'm gonna just tell these people, I if it weren't you, I would curse right here, but I don't curse with you. But like, but I I tell these people, I'm like, okay, ⁓ or my trainer at the gym, whatever, like, they be like, gotta enjoy it. No, I just gotta get it done. I just need to do it. Like, but Because I'm so motivated by that end result that I'm able to do that and and get there. Everybody can't do that. So you got to figure out, you know, with with these people where you can go with that. And that's that's that's that's just where I am with it, right? Like with these kids, you gotta try different stuff. The first thing ain't gonna work. Like it's it's multiple kids with multiple personalities and and different likes and different experiences. And you you should find it. You should be excited to like learn this thing. You know? You should be excited to learn. Like, damn, I just can't crack I cracked one of the Barnes kids. I can't get to the other one. Like, you should turn into Sherlock Holmes and be like, I'm gonna figure this out. ⁓ and and and it's just a different process. It looks so much different, Educator Barnes, when like you see people that love their vocation and dive into it like that versus Everything that doesn't go my way in this job is a nuisance. Yeah, I mean and that joy you can you can feel it ⁓ because people people will ask me this feels like a weird question to me. ⁓ they're like, how are you so happy talking about books? Like what do you do to get happy? I'm like, that's really how I feel. It brings me genuine joy. Now, it doesn't mean it's not frustrating when I'm trying to get somebody to read. And I it's not just younger kids. There are adults in my life that I'm trying to get to pick up a book and read something. So ⁓ even one of my hairstylists, she was like, I don't read. That's the majority that's the majority of the country. That's officially the majority of the country now. And I was just like, so I'm on I'm on the chair. I'm like, why don't you read? Well, it just takes too long. What are you into? So by the end of that conversation, I had two things for her that were short read, had an option. Audiobook based on the topic that she liked. ⁓ and then I followed up, and then I had another hairstylist I was talking to you about, and I was like, I don't really care for romance, but her and the other stylists, they're reading all of this. Yeah. ⁓ they call it romanticy. So it's like romance and fantasies, or people falling in love with werewolves and vampires, and a my genre. But there's an audience out there. So it's just so interesting, but it's like taking the time to get to know the people, every part of Might not be joys, but there has to be something that you can latch on to with the joy, whether it's the end result or whether it's the highs when you get somebody and you match them or you help them. But you mentioned that literacy is having a moment, and because literacy is having a moment, I think that also impacts grading practices as well, because In many schools, we're focusing on how do we do on the the math section of the standardized test? How do we do on the ELA portion? So you're teaching social study, you're teaching science. ⁓ don't be a special area teacher. We don't even know. Are you keeping the kids alive back there? That's all we care about. We don't even evaluate ⁓ the grading practices of people in special areas. They just get to do whatever ⁓ they want. But I think when we do get hyper focused on one aspect. For leaving out other subject areas and there's never a conversation about how they're teaching, how they are assessing. Because when I talk to many special area teachers, they say, ⁓ everything's just participation. And I'm like, Well, what does that mean? Well, they come to the class and try. I'm like, but there's no rubric. There's no rubric to say, I'm learning this particular artistic skill in your artwork. I should see X, Y, and Z. And if you don't have it, you shouldn't get all the points. There's so even that conversation, but it's like we don't have time to talk to special teachers because science of reading, cuz, cuz literacy. ⁓ the kids need to write more ⁓ and don't even talk about math. ⁓ we we say math is important, but we are in Indiana, we made elementary teachers get a literacy endorsement. Did we make elementary teachers get a math endorsement? We did not. So it tells you where our focus is at. And where you put your focus many times is where you're seeing the policies, practices, ⁓ and procedures. So do you ever come across teachers who are like, What about these other subject areas? How should I grade them? What should I do with them? How do I get students engaged in these subject areas? Yeah, I mean, I've talked about that and I before I get to there, I wanted to tag one of what you said and Because we might have there's gonna be some educators that watch this, especially with you on here and us having this conversation. You're doing a great job hosting, by the way. I think you're better at hosting my show than I am. So thank you for that. ⁓ I should have you tape the intro, actually. But ⁓ there are two practices, one for when I was in elementary school and one for when I was in high school, that worked really well. And a teacher listening can adapt and take these. So another subject area that's not math. Or language or or or learn, you know, or or ELA. Language arts. Yeah, or ELA, right? English language arts, right? ⁓ sorry for I know. Most people don't know what that means. English classes, writing, whatever, all those things. ⁓ it was history and it was it was local history. And in Kentucky, I remember living with my grandmother and going to school in Kentucky. And Kentucky got its own histories and all this stuff, right? Fine. But one thing that Kentucky is very proud of, and they love to tell little black kids about. Is the role they played in the Civil War because Kentucky was the last state to come in and they helped let them tell it they helped tilt the Union to the wind, right? That were they gonna be the Union or were they gonna be the Confederate, the Confederacy. And a lot of people, a lot of historians thought they were leaning Confederacy and then at the and then they became ⁓ the Union. So what they would do when I was a kid in elementary school, third grade, we would go visit battle sites. We would go visit like specific places that played a role in shaping the way that the country is now and they would take pride. Kentucky takes pride in interesting things like we're the state with the most counties in this in the in the union, right? Like so we would go on these field trips and they would get parents involved and parents would make these lunches and we go on these field trips and sit on these battlegrounds and then the the teacher wouldn't lecture to us. She would just tell these stories. And then she would make us Partake in the stories and tell these stories back and practice telling them so we can. But she was doing some very high-level teaching and doing it. And, you know, she sh she mastered the the content so well on her own that she could play with these things and bring parents in to the point where sometimes parents would come or wanna come and they would be like, We I just learned a lot here, right? So that's that's one thing around how you can. set a different standard and make sure learning is actually happening and and and and she would grade kids on you know if the kid can retell the story or use the facts in it you you was gonna get a decent grade in high school because I was one of those kids where I don't like I don't like fiction books. ⁓ the only fiction books I did like goosebumps. I like the choose your adventure goosebumps that was just ⁓ R.L. Stein was in his bag with that. But in high school This was really interesting. We had our psychology teacher. We were gonna read, we read Lord of the Flies, and it's still one of my favorite books today. And I'm about to tell you why. Let me tell you why. He bought the books on his dime, or maybe the school bought it for him, but I don't know. He told us he bought them. I don't know. And he told he not only did he tell us we could, but he demanded that we actually write in the books and highlight in the books and talk and have a conversation with the book. For my entire life, I have been taught how you respect books, don't fold pages down, don't don't highlight, don't do these things. And he actively bridged us from being children in in in grade school and high school to what would be expected of us in college. And he would collect the books and grade off of the notes and conversations we're having inside of the books. And he would show us the way he takes notes and books and And there was no real wrong answer. He just really wanted to see you engage with it. So there were these two different teachers on, and that was in California, on two different sides of the country that saw their work as vocation and found ways to usurp. They didn't argue with me about why I didn't like when learn Kentucky history or why I don't like fiction books. They just shared their joy and showed these new tools around, well, you know, you can do it like this. You can actually. And and I still use this term today. I use it in my book club. I say, you know, part of literacy is making books talk to each other. But I stole it from this teacher who was like, you can have a conversation with this book. This this book will live the person who wrote this, Sir William Golding, will forever live on and be in conversation with people that read his books. And every time you read a book, you're in conversation with it. So argue with it. Agree with it. Like, if you don't like it, tell the book why you don't like it. And it opened up. A new world for me and reading. So just to go back to some of those practices and and ways that we can unlock things for teachers ⁓ that might feel stuck, those are two very different examples with two very different age groups. ⁓ that if it's your vocation, you can land on. If it's your job, you just waiting for your boss to yell at you and tell you what you gotta do. So tell me your question again. I just I just didn't want to lose that part. No, it's fine because what I love that you did there is you showed two different ways to assess learning. ⁓ a lot of time I say with kids, I need you to show what you know. ⁓ I need to know what's in your brain. And many times we think, ⁓ I gotta give the kids a worksheet. ⁓ 'cause I do as different places I do with my work, new staff academies where I'm working with with people who are new. And one the things I have to work with people on is why why are you at school from eight AM to eight PM? Well, I'm grading all this stuff. What are you grading? Well, I graded to Bellworth and ⁓ and I gave like 10 worksheets during class. And I'm like, well, you can do a whipper round and look at that and have some anecdotal notes. ⁓ there's different ways you can assess and like, why is this always a worksheet? It so I like how you talked about you went on this field trip in Kentucky and learned all about Kentucky and their perceived role in things, and how you could retell what you learned. That is something you can assess as a teacher and take a grade on. And then you move to the ⁓ I very much remember the talking back to the text. ⁓ I took British literature, so you know, reading all these different texts and writing in there and turning in your so it must have been a time period where we're all like writing in the books and giving it to the teacher because that was a whole thing, and so I was sitting there like, ⁓ crap, I gotta get something written in this book and hand it to the teacher. But it's a different way to assess. And when you're thinking about how much time it teaches to take. takes to teach and grade for a subject, that's a lower lift for you as a teacher, but it's still meaningful and valuable. So sometimes when it comes to grading, it's not just thinking about what we should grade, is what assignment should we have assigned it to to begin with that changes the amount of time that it takes to grade. And also it's not boring. Sometimes it is boring ⁓ and it's not fun to grade those things. But I will say if I would add on Another example in my college courses, I do things where students can ⁓ respond by audio or video. And people are just like, you're like one of the first professors that let me do this. Now, great. If it's a writing class, we're gonna write the essays. If it's something that we're gonna do that. But you and then what I do, which they always are surprised by, I give them three options. You can write, you can do a ⁓ audio, or you can do a video. And however you turn in your assignment, that's how I respond back to you. So if you sent a video, my response is a video. If you wrote, I write my comments. If you do a voice and what happens over the course of the class, first of all, they get caught. Adults think it really funny. People got their dog on there. They one person started playing like soft music in the background. Like, hey, Dr. Barnes, I just got in today. And I was just thinking about having a little pet, thinking about the question. But what was so cool to me? It takes me way ⁓ less time to gray that. What is was so meaningful to them. And they really had to sit there and think out. What am I gonna say to Dr. Barnes in the video to make sure I thoroughly have answered the question? And so they're sitting there. So in my opinion, they actually think it's easier, but I know it took a lot more work to produce what they had to produce to turn in, but it's easier to grade and more meaningful. Because I would prefer to talk to somebody than to type out my answers personally as a teacher if I can just do a voice memo and say, hey, ⁓ I don't have to worry about my grammar being perfect. ⁓ so it's not just ⁓ just that, but ⁓ back to the question I asked you. Yes, yes, yes. You have to remember, but I was wondering ⁓ if in your work have you had any ⁓ conversation with people about the other subject areas, ⁓ about grading privacy. But I felt like you I think you addressed it well enough when you talked about the different ⁓ answers. I don't I don't think you had a bad answer. Well thank you. I appreciate that. I just want to respect the question and and I have and I think that there are people that are very ⁓ I've met some people that are very inventive in other places. So like foreign languages or or ASL or whatnot, right? Like, you know, one exercise I've seen happen which is really cool. Like let's say it's a Spanish class and some of the kids are struggling to get the Spanish and it's like, okay, we'll see how you are on a test. Okay, we're gonna do an exercise. And the exercise is, you know, we're gonna pretend you're stranded in Mexico. And I just need you to be able to speak well enough to get to safety. And or you got or or or or you're in Mexico and your mom's sick. So like we're gonna have this talk, and and in that, she's telling you, the teacher's telling you, the language can be broken, it can be it doesn't have to be super stellar, but can you safely communicate what you need and understand enough to do whatever, right? So that I've seen that work. ⁓ really well and and put a a spark in people in foreign language classes, right? Like you stuck in Paris and you got it and your grandmother is sick and and and you how you know, okay, okay, so I don't so maybe I don't know all the subject, I don't know how to do these things or the verb agreement or whatever, but I okay, okay, hospital. What's the term for hospital? What's this? Okay, what's grandma, what's you know what I mean? And then once they got comfortable there and they kept doing it, these kids actually ended the year speaking Pretty really well in in in these in these places to the point where the teacher would bring in her friends ⁓ that only spoke that language or or or gave them an assignment, right? Like, you know, hey, you're you you can't speak English. Like that they and don't let them off the hook. Help them, but don't don't let them off the hook. So that's one. I think in science, you know, science can be super dry. And and I remember hating science. And then I saw Bill not a science guy. And it was just so fun. It was such a and I'm like, wait, this is what it means to be a scientist? Like, and then you see, and these kids today have Neil deGrasse Tyson that's taking this stuff that's super up here. And people like to hate on him or whatever, say what he's not. But what he does is he unlocks one, he's authentically him, but two, he's unlocking these things that's making kids and people in general just curious to like, wait. Yeah. And the other person I like is Dr. Dakota Tyler. He's also an astrophysicist. ⁓ nice. I have I haven't seen him. I haven't seen him or her. I don't Dakota's ⁓ it's a guy. Okay. Yeah, I haven't seen him. He's a younger, he's a younger guy, probably about your age. And he, I don't know. I don't want to say he's for the Gen Z, but I and I don't know how old he is. ⁓ but he has a dope story. He has a podcast. ⁓ But you need to check him out. But I just want to say my two people say his name again. These people can go find it. What's his name again? Dr. Dakota Tyler. They can go find it. Y'all find Dr. Dakota Tyler and send it to us. Let us know that you looked for it. But but that's what but again, but again, again, Barnes, Dr. Barnes, who are we talking to? Are we talking to somebody that's working a job or somebody that's living in vocation? Because if you work in jobs, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to your boss. I'm talking to your board. I'm talking to your coach. I'm talking to the head of your, you know, department of what if you're in the math department or whatever. Because they gotta figure you out. But if it's vocation, you are finding ways to open this up. Like maybe, look, I don't really care too much about, I didn't care too much about botany, but Somebody that loves that and believes in that and believes in his healing practices. And you, you know, they don't just teach you how to plant a seed and grow a potato. They're telling you the story of the Irish and what potatoes meant. They're telling you about watermelons and black people, or they're telling you like about these community gardens and letting you and this feeling about putting your hands in the dirt. It just has a different thing. And what's happening is we have such a teacher shortage. And the and the bar is so low, and we're we're we're short stabbed. So Coach Johnson, who really just came here to coach basketball, but got their teaching credential and we got them in gym. Now we're making them teach social studies, and they're like they haven't mastered this thing, and we gotta solve for that, right? And that's where I think that agency with students and parents and and and and those administrations comes into play. But what I'm saying is when you believe in it that way. It becomes, it becomes a part of you. It could be, we can meet the most Baptist Baptist person, and they let's say they're at a private school teaching theology, but it's their vocation. Like even they are like digging into like the history of these religions and how it shaped these things and telling these stories. So again, now we're talking about this educator and this adult. You gotta find your joy in this. You gotta figure out a way to love the struggle. You gotta figure out the way that you wanna unlock, you know, something inside of this young person ⁓ and work at it. And and we're not, this is not dismissing behavioral problems. It ain't dismissing racism, sexism, it ain't dismissing none of the isms, it ain't dismissing none of the social conditions. But you signed up for this. So, like, we have to do this in concert with that. We have to do this despite that. And if you do it well enough, you might do it in a way that inspires these young people to learn this stuff in ways that breaks that down later on in their life and for others. So you know, I know I've had a fantastical kind of way of answering these questions, but I'm talking to the vocational people, you know. So But so but here's my question though. If I'm watching and I'm a school administrator, I still gotta deal with the people who see this as a job, right? Absolutely. So So what are you doing? Cause you could you're like, I'm gonna talk to your boss or whatever. Structure. Yep. What are you doing with these people? ⁓ I gotta lie, it that answers easier. That's why I just skipped over it. That for those people they they need to know. ⁓ Structure. And and then if you can't, if you don't have the wherewithal to set the expectation for your classroom, then I'm raising the bar of what my expectation is for a classroom. See, teachers that are only doing this as a job. What they have to understand is that the principal or your academ or your or your CAO, your chief academic officer or whatever, or whoever your instructional guide is, whether it's the principal, the AP, or whatever, we know those politics that can be different people. The bar they set for your class is just the minimum. It's the minimum. So when you're dealing with somebody that that's just their thing, you got to enforce and raise the bar. Well, this is what I am expecting. Well, now I'm gonna lean on these statistics. Now I'm gonna lean on what these grades and I need these grades to match up. And when you talked about this stuff earlier, see, citizenship grades are starting to creep into the actual grade. D are schools still given citizenship grades? Because everything we talked about in these grading practices are citizenship things. They're not they're I always got two grades my entire life. Huh? Yeah. Some place when my kids in elementary school, they were getting ⁓ those grades, ⁓ those little citizenship grades, and they they still they still exist in some places. Yeah, that's a whole other sub ⁓ subcategory. Right. And and I think so. I think when this when you got people that's just teachers, not just teachers, I'm not saying like that, but when they're j is they're just there for a job and it's clear, then you have to be even clearer and treated like a job and a boss. So now you need to be the boss. And if you are at Ford. If you were at Wells Fargo, your boss says, This is what I need to happen. This is how I need to, and we're gonna put you on a plan to help you get there. I'm gonna support you. And then if they're not doing it, then we put you on a pip. Like we work through these things that I know that we're you know, there's intricacies and unions and things like that. And I'm not trying to make it just seem punitive or whatever. Huh? Like you're gonna kick ⁓ out the door or something. No, but but again, but but but now but now See, you can be a teacher or an aide, and this is your job. I don't have as much slack if you're the principal or the AP. This gotta be your vocation. And if this is your vocation as the school leader, then now you gotta be passionate about all those classes in different ways. You gotta be passionate about what you wanna see, and you gotta motivate these educators. Cause again, a lot of these problems that we're talking about, Dr. Barnes, is that. Some of these people and these educators can get your kids to mastery because they don't have mastery in what they're teaching. ⁓ this is true. ⁓ I well, the last two school years I've been teaching adults who are English is not their first language. But all the years before, I've been teaching teacher education courses for people who were either undergrad so got to become a teacher, or graduate who are already teachers. And when I'm teaching literacy classes where you're learning how to teach literacy, but you can't comprehend the comp the content because you barely passed out of high school, like that's a problem. Like one of the universities I worked at, the acceptance rate to the college was 95%. That's that's so if it's not a junior college, that's not okay. Right. And so these are the people who want to be teachers. And I remember some of the students because I remember one girl, she was crying. And people at that particular school, I was at that school for about seven years. That seventh year, I was like, ⁓ I gotta go. ⁓ yeah, I never, I never got an A minus, Dr. Barnes. This is the first time ever. And I'm like, well, this is what you earned. Well, what can I do to change my grade? There's no change in your grade. This is literally what you earned. You earned an A minus. Based on some of the grading practices that I didn't necessarily agree with, I'm like, this is really not your grade. And my opinion is lower. But according to the rubrics that were set by people before me, this is where you fell at. You're not this grade. But there are people in education programs who lack comprehension skills, who barely finished high school, who felt there because this is their thing. They're like, I don't think I can do anything else. Because that's real. Some of them feel like I can't do anything else. So I'm just gonna go and be a kindergarten teacher. Education is one of the careers you can fall into. Yeah. And so we get those people, but I think this could be a whole other episode because those people land in schools, and sometimes those people just do whatever because it comes down to that leader not really having any expectations for that person. It's like, ⁓ you come every day, the kids are staying alive. I know you're not bringing rigor. I know you're not understanding stuff. Right. But at least I got a body in all the classrooms. And I think that's a a bigger problem when Principles don't have expectations and don't know how to hold expectations. But I also can go to maybe you ⁓ taught for one or two years and then became a principal and you don't know how to you can't teach yourself. So I think there's just there's layers to it. Yeah, and again, and again, and I'm not even saying that those people are not worthy and can't like because again, we're in a crisis. We're in a we're in a teacher crisis and they might bring other things, but again, that then falls to their administration. And if I was talking to them, it falls to them about well, how well do you want to actually be able to do? This. There are some things you can learn. Like, like let's block this stuff out. Like, what is the goal for the semester? What's the goal for this quarter? Where are you lacking? And what do you need to go learn? And what do you need to go do? And like set that up. ⁓ and and I mean, like you said, this could be a whole nother show. We can we can definitely do it. You know, I want you to keep coming back. Before we do leave, there was another topic that you wanted to broach. ⁓ I don't know if we could fully get into I mean, I I'm here as I got as much time as you got. So, ⁓ But I know it was it was meaningful to both of us ⁓ it probably for obvious reasons when it when when you start saying it. We're both we both have doctorates, we both write things and do things. So ⁓ do you want to go into it or you you wanna it's up to you. You your host. I think we could probably hit on it just briefly. But let's hit it little bit, 'cause I I think you said something profound, even if you just give color to what's happened. ⁓ so to make people aware, I'm good with that. Yeah, we were talking about Professor Arday, ⁓ who has passed away. and before all of that, he was just plagued in the media about these plagiarism ⁓ accusations. Well, yeah, ⁓ and look, we we we we ⁓ we we co-leading this. I love it. So step back a little bit. ⁓ who like ⁓ who is this guy and like what happened, right? Like we jump out. I believe it's Cambridge University. He was ⁓ put out there as the youngest black ⁓ Person, and in my opinion, that is when the target got on his back. I mean, he had one of those stories where it was kind of like the whole pull yourself up from your own like bootstrap. Bootstrap. Because he ⁓ he it was a long time. I think they said he was like in elementary school before he became verbal, and then you know he now is teaching at this prestigious university. But the thing that I was pointing out before we got on here was the fact that. It was like hundreds of media articles about this man ⁓ hounding him, but also the after he ⁓ died, all of these black I I know, I don't mean to keep I we just we just gotta show it's all good. So so what happened? So he's getting lauded, he is this boy he's this boy genius or whatever, he's there, he's being lauded as his youngest professor there. So then what happened? So see, I'm looking at the clock, so that's why I'll Like speaking, I'm fine. ⁓ yeah. Go ahead. I got you. ⁓ so he gets hounded, and so he he eventually resigns. ⁓ he resigns so he got he got accused of plagiarism, is what happened. They were questioning him getting his credentials. ⁓ the university he got his credentials from, they did some type of process to look into it. They were like, We are satisfied, his credentials are his credentials, but then ⁓ A academic was like questioning his work, and then it was like all of these eyes on the work, and I somewhere it put out was like I think there was at least like 200 stories about these accusations. He eventually resigns, and then shortly after that, there are new stories that he has passed, ⁓ passed away and he has died. And so the thing that that happened next where the black academics started coming out, and they made all these lists of white academics. Who had, you know, essentially plagiarized or didn't have attribution, whether intentional or unintentional, and how they kind of maybe fell from grace, or maybe not fell for grace, but really got to go on with their careers. And it wasn't hundreds of articles about them. And the reason I thought about this was in this whole conversation was grading. How do we get to a place? Where so many people who are we're supposed to be the the crim of the crop because we got this doctorate, don't know how to cite a text, are unintentionally plagiarizing. Because to me, that is the bigger story. And not that this is not a big story, but there's a bigger conversation about how there are there supposed to be so many checks and balances and they are. Failing. ⁓ but then when I think about my own doctorate ⁓ situation, I can see how it's failing. ⁓ my if you know anything about the doctoral ⁓ doctorate process, you have ⁓ dissertation chair and you have a committee, but your committee can turn over, and so for me, there wasn't one person on my committee that in their same role from the very beginning till the end, and in some of it was unintentional. One of my people went on a sabbatical. Can't control that she was gone for a bit of time. And so I'm like, are those the gaps that allow something to fall through and and things not be attributed? ⁓ but I just think there's a bigger question. Cause for me, I taught middle school English. That's one of the things we hounded. Of how do you cite sources? But going back, it could go down to the teacher training because one of the things I do in my work. And I know I'm giving a long-winded introduction, but I'm trying to. No, you're fine. No, no, no. You gotta you this isn't everybody don't know about this, so you're doing fine. Yeah. ⁓ because I don't want to shame teachers who don't know things because they need to be taught. But one of the things I did when I shifted into my consulting work, I was sit down and teach teachers how to teach citation because the teachers didn't know. They didn't know how to like I had a teacher saying, ⁓ they they they paraphrased it. They don't need to put any attribution. I was like, ⁓ I've heard that. Yes, they do. That's plagiarism. And so I'm having a conversation with another adult who this person was, I would say, have been teaching about 10 years. So the first thing I'm thinking, you went 10 years of teaching kids, they don't have to cite paraphrasing. And so somehow to me that has now trickled into the doctoral space as well. And so I it goes back to teaching and learning and Evaluation of practices, but I don't know how you perceive this. Also being a black male, also being someone with a doctorate. I don't know how this situation landed on you when you saw what was because that makes you might make you feel afraid that man is someone gonna pull up my dissertation and try to tear it apart. ⁓ you know, or the things I have published. Like how how did you feel when you s you were following this story? Yeah, I I saw it, it made me sad because even if all that was true, even if he ⁓ even if he did it maliciously, even if he purposely did it, I don't think you brother don't need to die. ⁓ you just don't need to die. And ⁓ and it's crazy, right? Like the biggest movie after Spider Man this year is gonna be ⁓ You know, ⁓ the Odyssey, right? Like like, you know, directors get to take work and reinterpret it and do their things and all that stuff. And so, you know, I think just the way he was piled on, ⁓ I think it was a lot. And ⁓ he obviously wasn't well. And ⁓ for him to not be here is just kind of heartbreaking. I think I think the people around me, let's say that that did happen and people were like, ⁓ you ain't a doctor no more, or you did this, you told us, like, yeah, okay, but I got enough people around me like I I I think Barnes is still gonna be my friend. I think that my friends are still gonna be my people and and have my back and you just you know, you just try again. You you you know, you because again, I think as a black man in it though, I mean I know that I'm gonna be a target. I know that as soon as if I let's say I get more popular and become one of these prominent people or whatever, you know, people probably they they they're gonna dig into your stuff, they're gonna critique it. And here's the other thing that I'll just tell you about dissertations and most people with doctorates about their dissertation. We all cringe at our dissertations. It's not always the greatest. I mean, it you're learning. You're going through a process ⁓ to learn these things. So there are parts of even in this article that I'm publishing, it has pieces of ⁓ parts of my dissertation in there. ⁓ but I was able to improve upon it because I'm like, ⁓ I don't even like reading that anymore. You know what I'm saying? So ⁓ I just thought, but I thought it was sad and I thought it was tragic. And like you said, there are other people. That these things can happen and ⁓ and they could just go on with their life. You know, and and I didn't have a huge reaction to those things. Like those claims come out all the time, but just that this brother wasn't really, you know, protected and didn't feel like he had people he could go to and talk to to the point where he took his own life. I don't know if he did intentionally or unintentionally, like, you know, but it was ⁓ it's just sad. It's it's just really sad and And I feel like it's my duty to step up and say something, the way I think you feel that same way. And the same way with the sister that we covered a few like months ago, ⁓ who is did not earn her stuff, but was trying to, you know, he he didn't have her confidence. He didn't have her support system. And but this is why all that stuff matters. This is why you kind of do it. And if we inside of our own community have to We have to both hold accountable and lift up at the same time. And even in the way we talked about that sister, I think we were still pretty protective of her. We didn't go personal on her. We just was like, look, you know, but you can't get away with this because we we've earned this thing and did it. But I'm not throwing you to the wolves per se to these other people. And I think that that's how we have to be about our communities. There's one way It's the calling. It's the calling because because so many external factors got involved, they piled on, but Would say within black spaces, it's more of like a call in to say, hey, you can't you can't do this, you know. This this is not you, you gotta do it this way. ⁓ and so it is a sense of accountability and it's not done to harm you. It's like, hey, let me get you over to the side, let's talk about this. And also it's not the thing like, ⁓ I'm washing my hands of you. It's like, okay, let me help you. get back on track. Well, I think for that situation Because there's levels to plagiarism. There's levels to plagiarism. There's levels, there's levels to it. There are people who are just intentionally doing their Yeah, they are intentionally ⁓ stealing work. ⁓ I've had my own work. ⁓ someone steal my work when I was a a literacy coach and that's whole whole yeah they stole something several things I wrote, passed it off for district materials and here's the kicker. Guess who was at To ⁓ ask to edit the district materials. Me. So that's how I found out that someone turned in my stuff at their own stuff. And I did report them ⁓ because I'm like, this is my stuff. And let me tell you how deep it was. All of my cause this was like when I was like, I was doing consulting work but still working in schools. So I would start labeling my stuff. All of my stuff had like a thing at the bottom. So the person cut off. Where I had copyrighted. So it was and when I went to go report it, I said this was intentional. It wasn't like right. ⁓ someone I got. Right. No, this is literally my my document I created. You have used it. You have cut the bottom off. Put it in and turn it in as your material, but you didn't know they're gonna ask me to edit it. Now did you? So now you got caught. And I also did confront the person in person at work, but I'm very immature. There was no yelling, no cursing, nothing like that. I would cause I'm I'm very much like, I wanna come to you. You you big and bad enough to do it, I'm big and bad enough to come bring it to your face. And up there trying to cry and carry on. ⁓ I This is what I said. I said, once you get yourself together, we can continue this conversation. Cause I need you to know that you sitting up in my face crying right now is not gonna absorb you of me saying what I need to say. So I'm gonna sit here and let you cry, get yourself together. ⁓ but yeah, there's levels to plagiarism. There is the a paraphrase, or the other thing I think that happens in academia, you and I Read a lot of stuff. So sometimes we're just saying stuff, right? And we have internalized someone else's thoughts that we have learned. Which is cool when you're kind of talking in the open space. But now if I'm gonna write this down and submit it for a peer review, I have to think about okay, where did I get this knowledge from? I might need a Cite something. Right. And so there's just levels. Well and there's other ways too, right? Like if if something if this maybe you're writing something and it's supposed to be an APA and then you gotta use it for something else and it's Chicago and it's something else you MLA. Like there's very different conventions for how you do it and and translating that stuff over, you know, sometimes it c it it can happen, right? Like I I I my my rule of thumb is oversight. ⁓ let I'd rather somebody tell me you don't have to cite that and like if I'm not sure, just cite it. Like just You know, and and I think that's like cause I even in mind I had to go and correct certain things. Like I was, you know, I had actually cited multiple times inside of the same thing. And, you know, some places do that and some places, you know, you don't, right? So again, it's yeah, like I said, there's levels, but back to that ultimate piece, ⁓ you know, I wish I wish he had people he could go to that would have been like, Hey man, this just sucks. But honestly, and also and this is the other thing, academia is such a small niche. Like, like, I mean, sh it sucks that your peers and the people that you care about, man, but it's it's like less than point ⁓ one percent of like, you know what I'm saying? I I mean not I'm not trying to he needed people there to remind like like look even if you did you made you made a mistake, you effed up, but like apologize and move forward and let's figure out how you move forward or or if it's not true, fight it and and and move on and and you gotta be able to live with it. But it is ⁓ It i it's tough. It's tough. And and and sometimes you might think that there you have an independent thought and it's just not. And you can do all the searching and you probably wasn't able to find it. I do think that now with technology, it should be a little easier to catch those things. You can run your paper through aggregators to see if you are like, you know, some of the stuff that I use gives you a plagiarism score. Like like like Google kinda does that now. ⁓ You know, as far as citing, like it's built in word, is built in all of these word processors now. Like if you're trying to cite something, you can just use that on there to help you with your sites and do those things and and and and dissertation chairs and and committees. And I think I don't know if this will change or happen, but maybe there needs to also be somebody on your committee where maybe they're not like the top three or maybe they're fourth. And they're just their job is just to check those things. Just like, let me go in and kind of look at this. I don't know, right? Like, you know, and but things are gonna evolve because people that are on dissertation committees are t ⁓ they're you know they're looking for different things for multiple people dissertation committee, they're also trying to write grants and do their own research, plus teach classes, plus advise people, and then you want me to read 200 pages. multiple times. So I do think the system, the system of higher ed ⁓ is free because it is hard for people to kind of decide we're granting this other person into our little group of doctorates while also doing my job, while also conducting research, while also submitting to multiple peer-reviewed journals and doing all this stuff and grading and building. Or you had me join for a very specific niche thing. Like maybe I could like I could see people reaching out to me because they're writing something on agency. So I'm not looking for all of those things. I'm only really going deep into where they're talking about agency and and and I'm us you know what I'm saying? I'm not I, you know, the chair and and and that's you when you have a good chair, their job is usually to they're like assigning or like taking some stuff and being like, okay, I'm covering this. I need you to cover this and you cover this. Cause again, especially if it's like a 400 Page thing and and and and listen and doctoral students be, they want their feedback back quickly, okay? Like it's like so you know, it's that's a lot. So anyway, I I'm glad you brought it up. ⁓ I will just say this, if I ever got in the hot water or you ever got in the high water, or any of those things, I don't give a damn what you did. I don't care what they said. It ain't nothing they can tell me about Dr. Barnes to where I wouldn't have her back. ⁓ the the the academy be damned. ⁓ those colleagues be damned. And I think that if you a black person or whatever, I think any person, hell, forget it. You can be you can be the quintessential ⁓ you know, white person or whatever. Get you some people that got that that love you and got you and that can hold you down. So when things do get rough, and hopefully, you know, they won't get rough in this way, but they'll get rough. That's just life. That that people can bring you back to earth. Because academia is not the creme de la creme of life. I'm sorry. It's a very niche thing that most people don't care about. Yeah. Like your life has to be more than your vocation. Yeah. ⁓ you have to have people that surround it and loving you. That's not just from your vocation. And I think when people lose that status from work, some of that that destroys them because that's all they had. That's where their success and validation came from. Man, listen, I will just say, Dr. Barnes, I think we did it. I think we had an incredible stellar ⁓ episode. Thank you for hosting. I think you were great. Now I just need you to take us out. I'll do the official takeout, but send us off from color commentary today, hosted by Dr. Barnes with her special guest, Dr. Cole. Go ahead. You did great. Well, thanks for tuning in for another episode of Color Commentary with me, Educator Bars, and with Dr. Charles Cole the third, where we talked a little bit about grading practices and hopefully we gave you some nuggets to think about to reconsider on when you're thinking about grading practices, whether you're the one grading the work, assisting a child with the work. A student doing the work or administrator supervising the work. And of course, I'll keep following Dr. Cole because he's gonna have some more dope episodes. And of course, I'll be back again soon. Ladies and gentlemen. That was probably my favorite episode to do. And the next time I go on vacation, I will say this I'm going to pay Dr. Barnes to just host an episode or whatever she wants because it is clear she is better at hosting my show than me. ⁓ with that being said, you all, please ⁓ if you have, ⁓ if you want to talk back, if you ⁓ we answer emails, so email us at colorcommentarypod at gmail.com. ⁓ if you want any of the merch ⁓ that you guys see around agency is my You know, some of y'all like the agency shirts and things like that. You can go to charlesco3rd.com and ⁓ we will see you all next time ⁓ because Dr. Barnes closed it out perfectly. Peace and God bless. Have a good one.