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Yo. What is going on 2 Dope Nation?
Hello,
everyone.
Welcome back
to 2 Dope Teachers and a mic, the
most dangerous podcast in the schoolhouse,
the podcast that seeks to remix the conversations
on race, power, and education here in these
education streets and beyond. My name is Gerardo
Munoz. I am your host. Kevin is out
on this one.
I'm your philosopher king. I'm your 2021 Colorado
teacher of the year, and I will forever
be that thing. So, if anyone is tired
of hearing me say that,
I'm just really sorry because that's just a
thing that I will be saying,
forever and ever and ever
and a day.
Gonna get into this interview
with the eminent
Elena Aguilar.
I've realized how many people just really know
her work,
in my work space, in my central office
work space.
In fact, I'm actually in a,
in a book group on the PD book.
Highly recommend. Also, highly recommend the people that
I'm doing the book group with, but that's
a subject for another
day.
If you are new to the podcast,
welcome.
Welcome to 2 Dope Nation. 2 Dope Nation
has consistently
open borders.
We welcome outsiders because
we were all outsiders at some point. Some
of us still live the lives of outsiders.
In 2DOPE nation, you are an insider. You
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and we welcome you to this
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yeah. I'm gonna keep saying it until he
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We're also on facebook.com/2dopeteachersandamikewithhyphensbetweeneveryoneofthoseletters.
You can find me,
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and,
and, gerardo munoz. Substack.com.
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Hello, dogs in the neighborhood.
Also, during Hispanic heritage month between the month
of September
the day of September 15th
October 15th,
we have a special promotion going on on
Patreon.
If you sign up at the $5 level,
I will mail you a packet of a
bunch of Latin
themed stickers
that I've made myself. Yeah. I made them
myself. I feel good about them.
And then you can have
some really cool swag from my experiences being
a Chicanito from the east side. So,
make sure that you sign up and follow
us.
So,
this conversation with Elena Aguilar
is was really amazing.
You know, it's like when you read the
work
of a prominent thinker, author,
worker
in
education. Sometimes the words can become alienated from
the human. And what I mean by that
is that we are more than our written
words. And even though,
Elena's
work, her books are phenomenal,
it's just really important to understand that behind
phenomenal ideas are often phenomenal people and Elena
has proven to be an incredible person.
She is back on the podcast, which is
incredible promoting her new book,
Arise,
which I have started listening to on Audible
because I
need to be able to hear books and
not just read them.
But really fantastic,
work.
I think,
this this is an interview I'm never gonna
forget.
It's the first interview I conducted after the
loss of my father,
and
that's a loss
that I will feel for the rest of
my life.
And at some point, I wanna give dad
a good tribute. I'm actually working on a
piece for my substack,
to unpack
the complicated nature of losing a parent just
generally.
And also, I think it's not a secret,
between me and some of you who know
me better,
who know me personally,
that my dad and I did not
have a good relationship during my adult life.
We had really cool moments.
I'll always remember him sitting next to me
on the couch during the 2002 World Cup
and and watching those games with him.
I'll never forget our trip, our family trip
to Spain and France when, we happened on
to the France 98 World Cup and really
being able to see him in an element
where he was just so happy. In fact,
he,
all the way to the end, he wanted
to get back to Spain.
And,
you know, one day we'll make that happen,
with his ashes.
But this was the first interview I did
after
my dad passed.
And
god bless
Elena Aguilar. I didn't tell her prior to
the interview. But there's a moment in the
interview
where
she's explaining something really beautiful,
and it sort of activates
it activated my desire to share
and I said, yes. And, you know, I
just lost my dad, a month ago, however
long it was. I don't remember at this
point.
And she stops
the interview
and she says, I just wanna hold
the space for you.
And it was just
incredibly
meaningful
that
that she did that.
Because
anyone who's lost a parent, especially,
you know what it feels to feel so
isolated. Like, we know that other people have
felt this,
but no one has felt it the way
we feel it. And so it can feel
very lonely,
and it can feel like something we have
to overcome daily.
Like, I don't always even know what to
say when people are when people check-in with
me, and I love the check ins. Thank
you so much to those who,
have access to me, who have taken the
opportunity to check-in with me. I never know
what to say when people ask me how
I'm doing. I'm, like,
I mean, I'm not thinking about him every
minute of every day anymore, but
I do go to bed with a sense
of heaviness. And there are times that I
just feel really really sad,
that
in the words of atmosphere,
you and I never got to reopen it.
And so to sit with Elena, someone whose
ideas and professional practice
I've always
admired and have her hold space for me,
was really beautiful. And I just one of
the things she talks about is slowing down,
looking beneath the surface, and sitting in the
space of grief, both professionally and personally.
And I just really think,
this is some new level stuff. I I
know Elena is a very deep person. I
know this has always been within her, but
this is one of the most
tangible
and profound ways
that I've heard her speak to these things
in relation to the work.
I
so some of the stuff that you're gonna
see in here in this episode,
this kind of her own process where
she has some really beautiful things about the
writing process,
and I just love that and how I'd
how our writing shifts with our identities.
She talks about 3 b's, behaviors, beliefs and
being.
And she talks a lot about moving
from the technical and transactional, which is so
much of what happens, especially in the space
that I work in, to really
delving into
a pathway
that will show us how to be a
human. And you know that humanization means a
lot to me in in theory and in
practice,
from Paulo Freire's work.
And I just think this is a really
great episode. The book is Arise,
and,
it's just so timely for so many reasons
in life.
You know,
it's this kind of
combination of getting into the personal and the
professional,
the emotional
and the technical
and,
you know, just all those kinds of things.
You're gonna learn a little bit about,
she talks she shares her Spotify for writing.
There's her organization, Bright Morning. There's actually Spotify
playlists that she puts out related to a
bunch of her work. We actually have one
for Onward, which was the book she talked
about the last time she was on the
show.
So this interview, I'm not I'm not sure
how I come across in this interview. I
think it was a little shaky from my
end, but what's so beautiful is that Elena
Aguilar continues to show up,
for us
and for indirectly for the kids and the
people that we serve. So welcome to episode
131,
Elena
Aguilar with her book, Arise.
Hey. What is good, my people? Welcome back
to 2 dope teachers
and a microphone.
It's as if we never left. Actually, it's
probably a lot like we did leave because
you have not heard from us in a
while.
But we are still out here still doing
everything we can to try to remix the
conversation on race, power, and education
out in these education
streets.
As usual, folks,
we are
just a little, I was gonna say mom
and pop or not, we're kind of pop
and pop, little operation that is just trying
to bring you the best stories,
in educational justice, but also
those that center on the identities and
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We hope that you find our podcast to
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And if you are so brave, it's to
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Head over to our Patreon page, tudope teachers
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Patreon.com/tudope
teachers. Wow. You just get into autopilot.
We are, as usual, brought to you
by Cetera Investors,
and so we're gonna bring you at the
break, I'll bring you a little bit of,
of a breakdown of what Cetera offers you
in terms of financial planning.
Yes. Even new teachers even new teachers with
so little money to kinda play with in
a lot of our states.
Alex and Tori do a really great job
of just helping you plan for the future,
and so you can focus on your teaching.
Well, folks,
I am extremely excited because a few weeks
ago,
we were contacted
and asked if we would like to have
the
Elena Aguilar
on our podcast. Again, now you may remember
in 2022,
Elena came on here and talked about some
of the work that she has been doing.
She was already blown up then, and now
if you can, like, blow up and then
blow up more, like, I feel like that's
kinda what's happening.
She's got a brand new book out, her
8th, called,
Arise, the Art of Transformational
Coaching.
And I'm just so excited
that you're back with us, Elena. How are
you?
I'm doing great. Thank you. It's good to
be back here, Alberto.
Yeah. This is awesome.
So I'm sitting right sorry. I just spilled
an entire bowl of pumpkin seeds all over
my,
desk.
It's really good. I was I was in
Washington visiting my sister, and I got these
pumpkin seeds that are Chilean lime.
And, oh my gosh, they're so good, and
now they're all over my table. Do you
have a snack of choice that you like
it's like you're always your go to that
when you're kinda like, I just want a
little something to munch on. Not gonna have
a meal, but just a little something I
can kinda gnaw at.
Corn tortilla chips.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you like them just plain, or do
you do you do the salsa, or is
that a lot if you're, like, working or
doing other things?
I, yeah, I like them here, there, anywhere.
Salsa,
avocado,
whatever is around yeah. But, yeah, just even
just plain. Any yeah. Corn, tortillas, whatever is,
available in that domain.
Love it. That's awesome. Alright. Well, I I
will take my attention away from the seeds,
and we'll kinda get right into it, right
now. So I was I was kinda sharing
with you before we started recording that,
since I moved into my central administration
role,
largest school district in my state,
your books are everywhere. And I have to
tell you, people, when I when I say,
oh, yeah, they'll ask me, oh, so are
you familiar with Elena Aguilara's work? And I'm
like, I mean, yeah. I'm I'm familiar with,
like, the writing that she's done. Also had
her on my podcast, and they're like, what?
Are you kidding me? I'm like, yeah. You
know? I know Elena Aguilar somewhat.
But I've seen your books in your name
literally everywhere.
The Art of Coaching Teams has been a
subject of countless book studies,
and district wide support frameworks
in my district, which is just really cool
to see.
Wondering how it feels for you
to have so many people who are studying
your work and just kinda swearing by it
and really kind of, you know, taking what
it is that you're offering and and bringing
it to educators everywhere.
The it's there's multiple responses I have to
that question. Part of it is just kinda
weird. It's just weird.
Sometimes when I'm just, like, in my own
mode,
sometimes I'm out with my family or I'm
just, like, hiking on a trail and someone
recognizes me and says, you know and it's
so jarring. It's like, who are you talking
about?
And on the other hand, it is
incredibly meaningful and satisfying. This is my 30th
year of working in education
this school year starting right now. It's awesome.
So when I came into
teaching, I wanted to have impact.
I wanted to
you know, I I I just imagine impacting
kids, and that was my commitment. That's why
I went in. And so now it just
feels so good to be at this stage
and feel like
I've had impact. I've had impact on kids
and grown ups, and it feels and I
feel like I've been so true to myself
and so aligned to
what I wanna say and who I wanna
be. And I started talking about emotions before
people were warm to the idea when it
was still a little bristly and uncomfortable to
talk about. I've always talked about equity and
race. And, and so I feel like there's
it's a you know, it's incredible, and I
feel honored. I feel like I just a
lot of my books, I just kinda shared
what I know, what I've experienced, what I've
learned.
I also think it's meaningful
because
I have been maybe indirectly
challenging the purveyors of knowledge and where knowledge
in our field comes from. And so for
many years,
the books that I read were written by,
academics
and Yeah.
Researchers,
and they wrote in a language that I
did not feel like I could relate to.
I felt like, were you ever in the
classroom? Do you even know what a school
is like?
And,
and yet I read them, and I wrote
my books for the me when I was
teaching, when I was coaching.
And so to be able to tell the
stories I tell and have my work be
received as credible and authoritative, which it is.
And I know what I'm talking about, but
it's
it's felt like a really good affirmation
of where we locate knowledge and credibility in
our world.
That's so amazing to hear you say because
I think,
you know, as as a woman in this
field in any field, like, I know that
education tends to have a higher percentage of
women compared to other fields. But,
you know, a Spanish surname woman coming in
and having your ideas, I just think that
there are so many different things
that can
limit you and and just that that desire
to to,
to share your voice. And I I think
that's what so many of us are really
looking for. We're looking for impact. How do
we know
that the time that we spent in this
field
is time that had a positive
result. And I imagine it's not always
easy to see or at least maybe I'm
projecting a little bit. Like, now that I'm
not working for student working with students
directly, it's sometimes hard to see, but to
understand that that impact out there
is pretty amazing.
I love the idea that peep that you're
on a hike and people stop you
and recognize you and
must be incredibly weird. Is there some is
what's the most random place that someone has
recognized you, like, that that you're comfortable sharing?
Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm just like, oh
my god. Who are they talking about? It's
not it's not me. Like, I feel like
when they stop me on a hike, I'm,
like, drenched in sweat and kind of like
Yes. I'm not gonna give you a hug
right now. I just would not be. I
was in a, theater performance, a concert in
Barcelona
maybe 5 or 6 years ago with my
family,
And, that was another place. There was no
air conditioning. It was summer. It was really
hot. It was Of course. Of course.
It's always, like it's always when I'm drenched
in sweat. Someone in the intermission came, like,
running across the you know, was like,
hey. How do you remember me? And he'd
been in a workshop that I had presented.
It's like, okay. Here I am in Barcelona.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, fortunately,
I yep. Nothing has happened yet that has
felt, like, deeply damaging to my reputation. But
who knows what will happen? I mean Yeah.
Well, I I I'm in Colorado. That's a
very,
that that's a high bar
of people interacting inappropriately.
So,
no. But that's that's really kind of awesome.
There's a couple of things that you said
that I just think are so important to
hear. Like, I think,
the first thing for me is, you know,
I think I mentioned to you off air
that I'm in the I'm in the 3rd
year of PhD
work. That kind of academic world that you
referenced
is it's such a weird world. Like, I
feel like
there are so many opportunities for me to
learn and for a lot of us to
learn, and we do need researchers. Right?
But I also think
that the gatekeeping is so strong in these
spaces.
And and I love that it's a challenge
to the purveyors of knowledge. I always wanna
call you doctor Aguilar because you just come
across that way. So it's funny. And your
writing is is accessible, and it's clear, but
it it is also extremely
smart. And so I it's funny that that
you
are actually challenging traditional ways of knowing,
in your own very
expert way. It looked like you wanted to
say something about that. I don't I we
do need researchers, and I'm I Yeah. Appreciate
what academics bring. And, but it's interesting because
when people do call me doctor, I interrupt
them and I say, I actually don't have
a PhD,
and I still want you you know, basically,
like, I I want you to call me
Elena because I like even my students, I
ask them to call me by my first
name. Wow.
Because I want to it's I'm we're always
navigating power, and I don't need to be
seen as an authority
because I had that kind
of education. Not because I don't appreciate it
or think it's valuable, but because I learned
a lot being in the Oakland Public Schools,
and that is valid. And that is authority,
and that's credibility. Just like
we see our students in Oakland as having
all kinds of knowledge and expertise and wisdom
and
yeah. But other people in our hierarchical
racist society don't. And so I'm talking it's
like, yeah. I want to and I and
I stand by what I know and what
I write. And, you know, in the beginning
when I started doing this work, I was
challenged by,
people, particularly central office people would say, like,
you know, well, what is research? Well, where
have you you know, what data do you
have to prove that? I was like, I
do have data that when you talk to
teachers with compassion and curiosity, they are receptive
and open,
but I've never had the kind of research
funding or skills or capacity to gather that
data. So take it or leave it, but
I know it works when you talk to
people with kindness and compassion.
Yep. It's it's funny because so, you know,
I've
the district I've worked in for my entire
professional life,
fancies itself a data driven district. But it's
just really interesting because as a researcher, I
I hear these requests, and I'm like, I
don't think you know what you're asking for.
And I think that's why your work has
really
caught fire in a lot of these spaces
because
it is something that when people become familiar
with it, they're like, I didn't know that's
what I needed, but now I know that's
what we need in in this place. And
I think that's really powerful. The other thing
I wanna I wanna grab is that you
said something that I thought was really cool.
You said that you just wrote for you,
at various phases. And so now I'm really
curious because I wanna go back and look
and look at the chronology of your books,
and maybe I can trace a little bit
of your evolution.
Who were you
at the time that you started writing books?
This kinda goes into the next question. But
but who is the Elena Aguilar
that you have been writing for?
Thanks for asking that.
So
when I wrote The Art of Coaching, that
was 2012, it came out in 2013,
I
imagined I'd heard this sort of axiom of
write for yourself or write for yourself at
a different phase of your life. So I
wrote the book that I wished I had
had as a beginning coach.
And then each book after that really was,
this is the book I wish I'd had
when I started facilitating teams or when I
started
delivering PD or onward I wrote for myself
at every phase because that was about resilience.
Yeah. I think this last book, Arise,
which is, my 8th book on transformational coaching,
it's really different
book than the first ones, and,
writing it was a different experience.
I also got to record the audiobook for
it, which was really fun. Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah. So I so I got to, like,
reread it. That was very recently. So I
read them. I was like, oh, my tone
of voice is so different in this book.
Like, there's so much more authority.
I'm owning what I know. I'm not outsourcing
knowledge by citing other people. I'm saying everything
I think and, like, believe and including
personal anecdotes that I hadn't really shared anywhere
publicly before
and coming out as a major advocate for
therapy and all kinds of therapy and, like,
just,
just feeling a lot more confident. So when
I wrote the first book, I was really
it I mean, it was appropriate for the
time because it was 12 or 15 years
ago, and
it was I was finding not necessarily my
voice as a writer, but as an authority,
as a as a someone with credibility in
the field of coaching.
Yeah. That this that's so great. Like, so
this is hitting me, like, on a couple
of different levels. 1st, I'm struggling to write
and just this idea of writing for yourself
at a different time and just kinda, like,
honing in on those things. It's, like, giving
me a lot of ways to, like, overcome
my writer's block. So thank you for that.
And then this piece about owning what you
know, I feel like if my adviser heard
me say that,
she'd lose her mind. But I think that
is so
important because that's another thing that I think
oftentimes.
And again, I I'm an appreciator of academia.
Otherwise, I wouldn't put my time into kinda
building that credential. But I do think that
you can go too far with,
what's research based and what kind of underlies
everything you did. What if you just have
ideas that others haven't really talked about at
length or haven't directly
dealt with? And I think that is
kind of this incredible thing. Like, we forget
about our own experiential knowledge and why important
and why that's so important.
So it kinda goes into you started talking
about, Arise the Art of Transformational
Coaching.
So this is your 8th book,
I have some really interesting content that,
we'll wanna touch on a little bit.
But first, I just kinda wanna ask you
kind of wannabe writer to actual writer.
How is it that you
do that? What's
what do you see as as your process
or maybe processes
from ideation to actually, like, putting the word
out there maybe in the form of a
submission, and then finding that energy needed,
to write and to do it as impactfully
as you do. Really loaded question, I know.
But kinda how do you what is your
process when it comes to doing this kind
of writing?
So
starting with
passion, energy, the fire, where is it? What
does it want? I don't know if,
so this maybe contradicts what I've said previously,
but sometimes I don't know if my books
are really my books or they are emerging
in a partnership
with some kind of
mystery
force. Like, sometimes they just come and they
just kinda flow through when things click. And,
I love writing, and I find myself
experiencing a lot of flow when I write
most of the time. Sometimes there is a
lot of pain and suffering and struggle,
but the generating of ideas often,
I I think
I mean, a lot of ways, it just
goes back to 30 years in this field,
and I know what educators
talk about. I know what they need. I
know what's hard for them. I know what
their pain points are. I know what the
problems are. And so and I know those
in myself, and I bring myself in all
the time.
I tell a lot of anecdotes about my
own struggles and how I move through those.
Yeah.
And so I for me, it's often
I have to find the passion, the joy,
the energy, the delight. It has to be
fun, and I do experience a lot of
fun in writing.
I
I the idea is just kind of it's
like they just kind of materialize in front
of me. They kinda show up or they
congeal.
I mean, they're just like, they're there, and
then they're, like,
you know, on a proposal document, and then
I've got an outline. And I just struggle
with creating the time and the,
awareness from all the other work. And so
once I have that
but, you know, it's it it's like I
just find all this energy, and then I
tap into it and lean into it and
let it just kinda move through me.
I do I need big chunks of
time when I can write and let myself
get submerged in it. I don't do well
when I have just, like, an hour here
and an hour there. Yep.
And so,
I do like to write early in the
morning before the noise of the world kinda
filters in. Yeah. I,
but I I I think for me, the
key is
what I've learned about being in a flow
state and ensuring that I can get into
there and just, like and just write.
Yeah.
Yeah. That really comes through. And I I
would even say that the artwork on the
cover of your books kind of suggest that
kind of flow state because there's there's a
certain piece that kinda comes with that and
then reading the words. I think that's incredibly
powerful because I think I think it does
feed that this is gonna get kind of
into that that mystery force,
space that you're kind of referring to. But
I think that it is one of those
things that
is it coming purely from you or is
there something else flowing through you? Like, you
use this term flow and what, like, Paulo
Freire always talked about, you know, writing being
a human right
because
those who can write and who have the
skill of writing
to the degree that they're confident writing,
they can process the same idea multiple times,
and it gets more
it it gains depth. It gains complexity. It
gains
personality the more you do. It's like, step
1 is you have the idea. Step 2
is you write the idea. Step 3 is
you reread the idea, then you reprocess and
write it again.
And so
in a very real way,
he argues that those who write,
are 4 or 5 times as capable of
of complex thought as as those who don't,
which is why we have to make it,
a human right for everyone.
Let's kinda get into
the book just a little bit. Like, so
definitely
don't wanna give too many spoilers, so I
will let you,
like, kind of kind of, have your hand
on the wheel with this one. But, you
know, I because I think there's a few
concepts that I think are gonna be really
interesting for people to think about. I think
the,
I think the first thing and I know
I gave you these 2 in a different
order. But I think the first thing I
I want I wanna hear you talk about
is
kind of the racialized
focus that is that is kind of at
the core of a lot of what you're
doing. You mentioned it, at the top about
how,
you know,
doing this work in a racist society
has to be kind of focused on intentionally.
Can you talk about why it is that
you are arguing that race needs to be
centered
in coaching, and it needs to feature,
feature prominently
in in the coaching of people.
Sure. I'll I'll start with
myself and my own experience because I think
that's important to make transparent.
And,
again, I am a part of this book,
and I'm a part of my work. And
I, as a Latina woman who was born
in London, England and lived there for 10
years and experienced all kinds of alienation and
racism
Yeah.
As a
woman who is married to a black man
from the South, we have a 20 year
old son.
My lens has always been
race, ethnicity,
racialized identity,
marginalization, dominant power through the lens of race
and class very much as well, and then
gender.
And so, it's just the way that I
see and experience the world since I was
born. Yeah. And so, therefore,
all information, all experience filters through there.
When I my own experiences in school,
for many years, I was in schools that
were where I was one of only
a tiny handful of people of color. Yeah.
And so,
you know, being the mother of a black
son going through the public schools and then
private schools, it it's just it's like the
lens is affixed to my consciousness, to my
to my experience, to what I say, write,
and do.
And, of course, once we put that lens
on, we see the way that so much
inequity
has its origins in colonialism
and in,
the the history of the last 500 years
in capitalism.
And so it's just impossible for me to
do any work or see anything without
acknowledging the presence of racism and racial inequities
and without talking about how to do it,
how to how to dismantle it. And I
think that,
my belief is that the overwhelming majority of
people want to address
racism
and don't know how.
And I mean people of color Yeah. I
agree with that.
And and just are like, tell me what
to say.
You know? Help me understand this. Help me
help me respond to the intense emotions that
come up Yeah. For me when we get
into this. So Yeah. It's kinda built into
me.
Yeah. It's it's interesting. I'm smiling because,
you know, my my adviser who despite what
I you know,
my the stress that I'm under in in
my relationship with her,
you know, said something really similar when somebody
posed to her the question, so why is
it that you identify as a critical race
theorist? And she's like, I have a choice.
Like, I didn't have a choice. This has
been my lived experience
that
I adopt this stance because it adopted me.
And
this has been the world that we're in.
And,
and how we center that is just extremely
important. I think I think a lot of
it's interesting. So I so I was flipping
through,
notes from our last interview,
and there was something that you just said.
Because I think at that time, that was
in the summer of 22.
I think at that time, you had started
work on Arise. I think you because I
have the word Arise,
written in this notebook right here.
And there was something that you said
about
balancing the inner critic
versus white supremacy.
I wanna know where you're at with that
with that sort of dichotomy that you laid
out, 2 summers ago when you were talking
to us.
Well, I think the inner critic
has been conditioned by white supremacy.
Right? I guess that that. Critic. Say that.
Yeah. Just it's like all of our parts
ourselves. We've we've been socialized into mindsets and
into dominant culture and into those beliefs. And
so That's right. The inner critic just reflects
what it hears elsewhere. So, yeah, it's an
additional
element that it needs to
purge or rid itself of.
Yeah. That was just great. I I was
really happy to have found,
to have found these notes.
Really cool.
So,
there's a couple of
points that you explore fairly deeply in the
book, and I just wanna
have you kind of touch on them really
briefly.
The first is the 3 b's. This was
something that is, you know, this is something
and I know that as I work with
the folks I work with in my
role, people love the it this makes it
just so much easier for them to kind
of figure out what these are. So what
are the 3 b's,
and, what purpose do they serve?
Mhmm. So the concept of the 3 b's
is a foundational
framework in my model, and
the 3 b's are behaviors,
beliefs, and ways of being.
And so the model
reports that we need to coach those 3
b's in order to see
transformative
sustained change in anyone, in educators.
So backing up a little bit, every action
that we take, every behavior we enact
comes from a belief.
Sometimes we're conscious of those beliefs and sometimes
a lot of times we're not. And so
unless
we
surface or excavate those underlying beliefs,
we don't have the
kind of
power agency that we need in order to
shift them. And so when we can say,
I'm doing this because I believe this or,
actually, I believe this, and therefore,
I need to take those actions,
that's when we see big shifts. And then
ways of being has a lot to do
with
our emotions
as well as with our
identities and the core construction of our identities,
which also
sort of
loops into our values, our sense of purpose
and meaning in life. And so
when, as a coach, we address those 3
b's,
we see real change. Most traditional instructional coaching
programs only address the level of behaviors.
They're just traditional instructional coaching. Let me come
in, do some coaching around
how you manage students or lesson design or
assessment analysis and Yep. That kind of thing.
That's, you know, that's behaviors. It's it's necessary,
but it's only one layer, and it doesn't
lead to sustained transformational change or to educators
who stay in the classroom for decades.
Yeah. The so the yeah. And when you
say behaviors, I also think about the overemphasis
of the technical,
the what are the tools we're using? What's
the format we put things into? And and
to your point, I've I've always been a
person who valued
technical expertise and technical
kind of skill.
But I I think what you're saying is
exactly right is that it's only gonna get
us so far.
Is you also came back to this word
transformational.
And so I want you to unpack that
word for folks who maybe
haven't thought as deeply
as you have or as other as scholars
like you have,
around what what it means to be
transformational
beyond just impactful and that kind of thing?
What is what does it mean to to
be transformational?
So you said technical, and I would also
add transactional. A lot of those transactional. Yes.
On on on the behaviors is transactional.
Yep. When,
I'm gonna
kind of go around and get back to
that. So when I started coaching teachers,
I I I was trained sort of I
mean, trained. I say, like, you know, with
2 afternoons of training as an instructional coach
as a for supporting new teachers.
So I go in. I was like, got
my little papers and checklists and things I
gotta talk about and, you know, suggestions for
how to ramp up their do nows or
whatever it was.
And the new teacher would sit in front
of me.
You know, this was after school, 1st, 2nd,
3rd week of school, 1st, 2nd, 3rd month
of school,
and she couldn't stop sobbing.
And she was like, I just can't do
this. How do you do this? The kids
are so rude. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so
exhausted.
Parents keep sending me emails. I can't do
this.
So many teachers
crying.
And,
and I felt empathy for them, and I
handed them the tissue box. But I didn't
know what to do. So I was just
like Yeah.
Where are you in the curriculum guide? Like,
I just You're like, well, so so if
you look at this indicator
Yeah. Yeah. I was like, here's another tissue
now. Let's,
you know I just I really didn't know
what to do, and I was like, I
thought my job was to do this. You
know, this is
so
those teachers, many of them didn't last 1
year, 2 years. You know, struggled through 2
years. Kids sure didn't a whole lot in
those classes because Yeah. There are a whole
lot of that was about their way of
being. That was about Yeah. The place within
them from which they were sourcing,
their beliefs
about themselves,
about teaching, about kids did not support
student learning. It did not support their own
well-being or their ability to thrive.
And so I realized that, like, okay. I've
got great skills at analyzing data, disaggregating data.
Like, I can talk about,
you know, all of this, but I need
to learn how to help a teacher
address and release
the emotions
that are showing up in some ways as
deserving of attention, but also as obstacles to
our conversations
about
curriculum and instruction.
And that's those are the skills I needed.
Or then when I encountered mindsets, you know,
the new teachers or the veteran teachers or
the any teachers who are who say, well,
I mean,
I love this project based learning stuff, but,
I mean, you know, these kids can't do
that. Right. Right? They'll just they'll be out
of control. They need structure. They need routine.
They need to catch up on the basics,
and they can't do this. It will be
It would be disrespectful
to give them Right. This kind of, like
We'd be doing them a disservice.
That was always my favorite.
Yeah. So then I was like, okay. Belief.
This is a mindset. This is a belief.
How do we deconstruct
beliefs? Because,
again, the resources I've been given are not
guiding me in that way. So the model
of coaching that I've developed
is very
specific and directive
in some ways about we need to coach
these 3 b's, and here's how you do
it.
Yeah.
That I'm just thinking about how many,
preservice
educators and brand new educators
that I either mentored or coached,
and you named something
that I think I
it took me a really long time. Because
I think I think that what I what
I hear you saying is
that transformational coaching
has to do
with
humanizing support.
Right? So it's not just do you understand
the framework by which you are gonna be
evaluated. It's not just
do you know how to
make a format of slides that students can
kind of respond to. Do you know how
to use Pear Deck? Are you engaging in
this transactional
piece? It's also about
you can't
you're only gonna go so far if you
don't talk about
your beliefs and and what that state of
being is for you. So that's really deep,
and,
I think it's something that's that's really needed.
Is that something because you talked about writing
for a person and maybe you were in
a previous, like, part of your life. So
it it's like this kind of idea is
also writing for the coach that you were,
and the and the resource that you wanted
as a coach. Mhmm. Yeah.
Yeah. See, people, you just gotta make the
stuff that you need. Like, don't wait for
other people to make stuff that you need
because maybe they will, maybe they won't. Or,
actually, Elena Aguilar may have already made it,
so go and find that. No. There's not
much more to make. There's a lot more
to make. We all need yeah. Write for
yourself. Create for yourself. You and what you
want now. So I would say Arise has
a lot of content that reflects
the learning and growth I've been doing in
the last years, and it's like, this what
I want now. I this is what I
wanna be able
to refer back to and figure out That's
what's up. Address this. You know? Yeah.
Yeah. That's great. Oh, I love that.
Lastly, when it comes to the book, because
we need all y'all to go and,
check out this book
and, and see if it works for you
and just see what kind of, buried treasures
there are in it.
You talk about the role of emotional
intelligence.
And I think this is so interesting because,
you know, as as you probably know, you
have interacted
with central administration
folks and kind of you know, you mentioned
the data driven focus in that kind of
thing. We have this tendency in these systems
to tighten the technical and transactional
screws
when students don't seem to be succeeding. Right?
Like, we're kinda like, well, there's just not
enough fidelity
to
whatever it is, the curriculum, the framework, the
all these kinds of things. We're rolling out
another instructional framework, and I'm starting to wonder
if maybe that's not the biggest issue.
And so I think about how
that
how that approach
can be so harmful
to new teachers
and to folks who are just kind of
hanging on.
And this this is, like, just an interesting
story. I I was once I was called
into a meeting with our growth and performance
team,
because I was new to my role. I'd
just come out of the classroom, and they're
like, we want a teacher a former teacher's
perspective
on
the evaluation framework.
And so after, you know, some kind of
introductory conversation, I was like, well
because there's a lot of assumption. Well, the
teachers don't understand the framework, and that's the
problem. Or the coaches don't understand the framework,
and that's the problem. Or principals don't really
spend enough time with the framework, and that's
the problem.
And then I just kinda posed the question
kind of innocently. I was like, I mean,
I don't know. Y'all spend more time with
the frame framework than I do at this
point.
Maybe the framework is the problem.
You know? Like, may has anyone thought of
that? And just the kind of backlash was
really intense
because I think humanizing
our support
of anyone that we're coaching is is kinda
scary. There's an emotional investment there. There's a
spiritual investment there. There's something deeper than
you know, you wanna do more than hand
tissues out,
and there's there are these fears around time.
So it's triggering a lot of things in
my head.
So the role of emotional intelligence,
in this, I think
way too little has been said about this.
Can you unpack a little bit about what
the role of emotional
emotional intelligence is when it comes to those
who would deign to be a transformational
coach?
Yes. So let me say a couple of
things first. This book is anyone who works
in education, and I would even say this
book is for anyone because it just contains
a lot. 90% of it is about how
to be a human
and how to have the kind of impact
you wanna have in your life.
So
if we go back to the anecdote that
you just shared about the evaluation
framework
and
before that, you said
I love the phrase you use. Like, when
kids aren't I'm gonna paraphrase. When kids aren't
thriving, we tighten the screws and
and bring in more tools. And, like, yeah.
And this is I said this 30 years
I've been in education. I've seen so many
initiatives and so much energy about, like, this
is what
and I would say
the questions that folks are asking then in
your case or were asking about the evaluation
tool,
those
if we listen to what's below those questions,
if we listen to the of everything going
on, including your response,
there's grief.
There's
pain.
There's
shame. There's fear.
And I would say, can we just
slow down
and hit pause and, like, sit down together
and feel that pain
and feel what it's like to have invested
30 years of your life in a commitment
to improving the lives of black and brown
children and not seeing it,
and perhaps even seeing some indicators which say,
like, things are worse than they were for
some groups of kids.
And can we just sit in that place
of grief?
And most people are gonna say, like, hell
no. We gotta take action. We gotta act.
We gotta you know?
There
is
a a a a a blog and article
that I recently
read
that I really want to accurately cite, if
you give me just a moment. Yeah. No
worries.
This is
let me see. Where can I find it?
Hear me?
Because
this was had such a powerful impact on
me. Okay. So the author is
Bayo Komolafe.
Have you heard of him?
I feel like somebody
told me about him, but I don't can
you spell that for me? He is incredible.
He's, like, my new I'm obsessed with his
first name is Bayo, b a y o,
and his last name is spelled
a k
omolafe.
And he wrote this
gorgeous piece
called,
the times are urgent,
let us slow down.
And that I read a few months ago,
and that has been like,
oh, those words.
The times are urgent. Let us slow down.
Because what the way that we have worked
again, I'm looking at 30 years now. The
way we have worked has not resulted in
the outcomes we want. Maybe there's been some
improvement here and there. There's tweaking, but we're
sitting with a lot of grief and pain,
and we keep going at this pace and
at this rate.
And so the need for emotional
intelligence or I would just start with, like,
let's just accept that we are humans, and
we have emotions.
And some of those emotions are uncomfortable, like
grief and anger and shame and fear.
And if we could just hit pause
for a moment
and acknowledge all of this,
I actually think that the the the problem
the thing that we know from the field
of psychology and the way emotions work in
our bodies is that when we're not processing
them and releasing them,
we are undermining our cognitive capacity to to
problem solve. Like, our prefrontal cortex is not
optimized
for
higher
executive functioning, for problem solving.
And literally, these these experience of uncomfortable emotions
is in the way. And so Yeah. The
it's not the experience. It's the suppressing of.
And so That's right. We could have
some ways to explore and address the,
and not just that, because we also need
to have more skills and practices
to connect with the moments that are joyful
and satisfying and meaningful,
and we need to also slow down and
take those in and learn from those because
the going and going and going and doing
and doing and doing,
we're not seeing what we wanna see. And
so, yeah, we have a new initiative next
year and a new platform and a new
technology, and now it's gonna be AI. It's
gonna be this. It's gonna be that. And
it's gonna be a turnover of leadership, and
now they're gonna come and sing this, and
they're gonna sing that. You know, we sometimes
we have a really hard time with veteran
teachers who seem so called resistant,
and some of that resistance is like, yeah.
Okay. This too shall pass. What now? We've
seen we've we know this script.
Yeah. But it's true. It's like It is.
It's absolutely true. Pain.
Let's
slow down and acknowledge,
like, this is hard.
Yeah. It's a hard time to be a
human.
It really is. I I think that's so
astute.
And I don't know if you saw my
reaction when you talked about grieving. The the
theme of grief is has been pretty prominent
in my life and work lately. One of
my favorite,
colleagues has often said that,
equity work needs to also be grieving work.
That when you are addressing inequities, you have
to grieve the fact that there are things
that our kids and the adults who serve
them are facing that they did not choose.
They were set into motion long before they
were born, and, you know, that's something to
grieve. I think about my teaching career and
how
I was I was big nerdy dude coming
out of college who thought I was just
gonna drop a whole bunch of knowledge on
kids and, like, fill their old brains, and
then they're gonna be smart and read books
and all that kind of stuff. And then
I came into the classroom of the alternative
school that I was working in,
and it was very clear that, yes, content,
gotta gotta do it. That's the job. But,
what they needed from me was support and
humanization and healing. And there's a part of
me that I had to let go of
the teacher I thought I was gonna be
so I could be the teacher that my
students needed me to be.
And then,
you know, probably more deeply than anything else,
I lost my dad a few weeks ago,
and it was a really
it was just
jarring in so many ways because
it was not
a great relationship
between us. And,
and so the grieving process is actually really
it's really profound, and it's really complex.
And I think one of the things that
you said that I just thought was really
important is that,
you know, these
sitting in that space of grief is so
important because
the body knows before the brain does.
Like, I came back to work and I
hit the ground running, and I I worked
really well from about 8 to 1. And
at 1 o'clock,
I hit this wall, and I realized it's
because I'm carrying
other things.
And normally, that energy would have taken me
through the end of the day, and it
just kinda paused. But but this idea that
we need to pause
and to slow down. My my last director
actually used to always say the phrase, we
need to slow down so we can go
fast. Right? Because if we slow down and
we are deliberate and we are in cons
in touch
with the work that we are trying to
do and the problems that we're trying to
solve,
then our capacity
to face these difficulties is just gonna be
so much more, and it's gonna feel like
we're doing it fast even though we aren't.
We we took our time.
I
love everything about
what you just said. And I think folks,
like, if you're going into it is a
time of year that everyone's going back into
professional development. By the way, if you experience
poor PD,
Elena has a PD book that you could
recommend to facilitators.
It's very good stuff.
But if you're going into these, like, spaces
and especially those of you
who are serving students, who are dealing with
or serving adults even, who are dealing with
really intense
trauma and things that just impact them whether
they're in your classroom or not.
I think that
understanding what's beneath the surface is really important.
And,
and I think one place
if I could
rewind
to that meeting, I think it'd be really
interesting to analyze what was really beneath the
surface,
and I think you helped me see that.
I think it's really powerful.
Okay. I just wanna,
pause
and acknowledge your loss
and that grief that's so complex.
There's all kinds of multilayers in what you
just shared.
And
and I
wish that
we could move into living in a world
where we can be with each other in
these sacred moments
and and and just acknowledge. And
I think it's powerful that you're making the
connections between
your own personal
lived experience right now and and the the
greater collective, and there's real potential there for
wisdom and insight and and
and your suffering and your pain all by
itself is deserving of acknowledgment. It doesn't have
to be tied. And so just wanted to
acknowledge that,
because you kind of shared that and then
moved real quickly into
back into being the educator professional. And Yeah.
My commitment in this work is to see
people as their full humans in all their
dimensions
and all their complexity because that's all we
can do, and it's the humane thing to
do. And every educator has all these elements,
and
and we get to be human as well,
and we get to have that complexity and
dimensionality.
And so,
you know, and I'm sure that folks listening
also had a moment when when their chest
may have constricted, or they may have felt
that pang
of relating and wanting to to wish you,
to wish you strength on your healing journey.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much. I think sometimes it's
like, I struggle because it's
it's hard to
share with people, but it's also hard not
to. Right?
And so I'm always concerned about the feeling
that I'm oversharing,
but
I, I appreciate the pause,
the humanizing
pause. It's,
it feels good. I just you know,
my chest feels light
right now, which makes me really happy. There
there's actually you had mentioned
a a a blog post that you said
that just hit you really hard.
Right on the first day, I came back
to work after, you know, supporting
my family and just kind of, like, doing
trying to do some things
to close off those affairs. There's a podcast
called the Becoming the People podcast. I don't
know if you're familiar with it, hosted by
Prentice Hemphill.
Really, really good stuff.
And, it's beautiful. And they put up an
episode,
an interview with Malkia Devich Cyril called grief
is the medicine.
And
that hit me so deep because it's kinda
like
and I think
in my situation most prominently, but also
when we think about
as as human beings, how hard we
try to push through grief and just kinda
say like, okay. Well, I'm grieving right now,
but I'm gonna move past it. And once
I move past it, we can do this.
We do this in our work too. It's
like, yeah. That framework didn't really work, so
we're just gonna push through it and just
get this other thing done, start this other
new initiative.
But that grieving is essential, and it doesn't
really it's not linear. It doesn't end.
And so I
I wish it was a lesson that
that our systems could learn.
Right? That
you because, you know, my my district is
over a 130 years old. There's so much
harm that has happened on the watch of
the school district, just like any school district.
And
to pretend that it doesn't
it that it just doesn't exist, that it's
not a thing,
that we can just move past it, blame
the previous administration, and move on, it's heartbreaking
because there's such an opportunity to build institutional
wisdom.
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot for us
to slow down and unpack and be with
Yeah. Including being with awesome. Yeah.
Well, we are just about at time.
Wondering if you have time for another top
five.
Is this the same top five as I
Well, so I think what we'll do,
is
we can just I mean, if you're game,
we can look at
the top five tracks that are on your
music player. So, like, I look at Spotify,
and what I think are my top five
tracks may not be what my top five
tracks are. I can I can also start
a little bit, and give an example of
the top five? So this is really funny.
This has been this has actually been part
of my grieving process was
the the musical taste that my dad gave
me. Like, he was a guy who came
here from Mexico in the seventies.
He says that the first
sentences
he learned in English were from listening to
The Beatles.
And so he was really into that. So
so just to make a short story long,
I get to college, and I meet other
Latinos for, like, the first time ever. Like,
everyone else had either been in family that
was really far away or, you know, my
dad and my sister.
And
and so they had this, like, catalog of
music
that,
that I felt like you were supposed to
know in order to have membership in the
Chicano Latino community. Right? I was like, wait.
I don't know any corridos. I don't know
any of this. Like, I don't, like, even
really speak Spanish that well because the music
that my dad gave me was something completely
different. So I'm gonna give you the top
five songs
that my
that my Mexican father gave me that probably
not a lot of Mexican fathers gave. The
first one is The Devil Went Down to
Georgia by the
Mexican fathers
gave. The first one is The Devil Went
Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band.
I love how many people act like they
don't know that song, and then you say
it and you see the reaction just like
I saw yours.
That was one.
The second is old time rock and roll,
by Bob Seger in the silver bullet band.
Yes. It was something else.
Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
There's,
Walking on the Moon by the police,
and,
weirdly,
do you think I'm sexy, Rod Stewart.
This is a time period. Okay. It's fascinating.
Yeah. It's definitely a time period, and it's
so funny because this was the music. Like,
there was Billy Joel playing. There was,
oh, there was another one that I was
gonna pick out. There's all this kind of
stuff that that I just saw. Oh, Bruce
Springsteen, really prominent in my dad's life. Mhmm.
And so I think about that about the
top five songs from my father that surprised
me,
when I look back at them and surprise
everybody else that I know.
So that's that's kind of a 5 that
I'm on.
We can,
yeah, we can talk about, like, tracks, artists
that are kind of resonating maybe with this
Arise work that you're doing and kind of
at this stage in your life.
Oh, well, I have a playlist for the
book.
Oh, sweet.
So
okay. Okay. Oh, that's a good prompt. I
was gonna tell you also about,
an of music I listened to for writing,
but I'll tell you about these. Oh, sweet.
I like that. Wait. I've all of it
is
great. Playlists. Okay. So some of it is
a little
okay.
My big conclusion in Arise
conclusion I came to is the title of
the, the conclusion
is All We Need is Love.
Yes.
Okay. So The Beatles, All You Need is
Love. That's on the playlist.
Let It Be,
also The Beatles,
Get Up, Stand Up, Bob Marley Oh, this
is so funny. Time. Yep. Tracy Chapman, miss
Lauryn Hill.
And then there's a whole bunch of, like,
eclectic
kind of
all over the place.
I had some of my teammates contribute. So
there is a playlist. If peep if someone
goes and looks for me on Spotify, it'll
come up.
Sweet. So that was fun. I like creating
playlists. There's also a playlist for my book,
Coaching for Equity, that I really like. That
is so great. I did not know that.
Yeah. And then I think what I was
gonna tell you, I was like, oh, they're
gonna ask me about music or something. What
was I listening to today? So I was
doing some work that I needed to focus
on. And often when I write, there's one
I don't know if we call them albums
now, and this is not, but that for
writing
gets me into flow. And so
the album is called Music for Mushrooms, and
it's by East Forest.
And, it definitely sends you into a little
bit of an expanded state of consciousness, but
it's and it's also, like, 8 hours long.
And so Wow. When I go into it
You get some real good writing done in
that. Yeah. I do. I get some And
I do say I think they are still
called albums. I'm not sure anyone knows what
an album was physically.
But I do. I do. Yes.
Yes. But this yeah. And I was like,
especially since it's 8 hours.
To make sense. Great sort of, like, anytime
I need to just tune things out, and
it just kinda goes on and on and
on in different weird forms. But it's great
for writing. I really recommend it. I would
have to check that out. Yeah. East Forest.
Yeah. So there you go.
This is awesome. I just found the Onward
playlist because I just looked you up. And
so, y'all, there's some bangers on this one.
First of all, speaking to my heart with
Ibrahim Ferrer. Right?
You know,
There's there's Jammin. I feel like Jammin is
always,
Like, Bob Marley features,
pretty prominently.
Jimmy Cliff.
Wow. There's we have very similar musical tastes
as I'm looking at this. Because there's even
the Cesaria Ybora song, which I think is
kind of a deep cut that not a
lot of people would reference, and I love
that song. I first heard it on, like,
a Starbucks CD. Remember when Starbucks used to
sell those CDs? And I was like, these
are like, this is good music.
Yeah.
Well,
we are a few minutes over time. Elena
Aguilar, how do people
connect with you, find your work,
benefit from just the dope stuff that you're
doing? How do they do that?
So I do have a podcast. It's the
Bright Morning podcast.
I Oh. Also have a website that's a
good place for people to start. That is
bright morning team dot com.
And I'm on some of the socials, but,
you can find links to those through the
website. That's probably a good place to start.
And as a regular listener of the Bright
Morning podcast, this is a place where you're
feeling like you're spending the most time with
and and
just really hearing, like, kind of the depth
of what's happening. So y'all gotta run over
there,
listen to, subscribe,
rate, 5 stars only. We know how this
goes. If you don't if you don't think
it's 5 stars, man, just keep on moving.
Keep on moving. We don't need to do
this to each other. Right?
Well, thank you so much for coming back
on 2 Dope Teachers and a mic. It's
it's as if we never left. Like like,
I, I feel like this was just a
continuation.
I feel like I just talked to you
yesterday. And so just thank you for this
amazing and humanizing
conversation,
and,
really looking forward to getting the book and
checking it out. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you
so much. It was great to reconnect. I
look forward to the next time maybe in
person. Oh my gosh. That would be so
great. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll do it. We'll
figure it out. Folks, that's gonna do it
for, 2 Dope Peaches and a Mic this
episode. Please stay dope. Please stay focused. And
hey, you know what? I know it's late
July.
Don't be sad. It's gonna be okay because
there are great resources out there and and
you're gonna have a great year.
Especially if you are listening to this podcast
and you're going into the resources
of amazing thinkers and thought leaders like.
Take care.