Sheldon Eakins:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity Podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Let me tell you something. I've got somebody on here today, man. I just told him, "Look, I don't know why this is the first time you're on. I don't know what took so long." I'm almost three years deep into this show, and it's on me. No excuses. It's on me. So I'm so happy, so proud and honored to bring on Ayodele Harrison is here with us today. So without further ado, thank you so much, Ayodele, for joining us.

Ayodele Harrison:

Thank you for having me.

Sheldon Eakins:

I know you. We've connected for a while for several years. We virtually have participated in various events, and for those who don't know who you are, could you share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Ayodele Harrison:

Sure. So thank you again for having me, Sheldon. I appreciate this, you opening your platform to me just to share what I do. So, again, I'm Ayodele Harrison, Senior Partner of Education with CommunityBuild Ventures. CommunityBuild Ventures is a pro-Black solutions-focused firm that's committed to eliminating racial disparities by developing powerful, impactful, and racial equity-driven leaders. So what we're about is moving from transaction to transformation, cultural transformation, collaborative transformation, and then power transformation. So what that looks like for us, we work across five different fields. Whether it's education, justice, housing, healthcare, and workforce development, we're really looking to eliminate racial disparity gaps, specifically in education, if I can focus on ... We're based here in Atlanta, Georgia. A 2019 report shared that Black children in the city of Atlanta, by the end of the third grade, only 20% are reading on grade level as opposed to 80% of their white counterparts in the same city. So we're about really just addressing the issues and the challenges through a collaborative, community-based approach to be able to close these disparity gaps to make sure that our people are thriving and communities are flourishing.

Sheldon Eakins:

It sounds like you're doing some great work. So I'm excited, because with everything that we have going on in education, we're going to be getting a new Secretary of Education soon, and all these things are going to take place. What are you most passionate about these days when it comes to education?

Ayodele Harrison:

Wow. That's a loaded question. So I'll say two things, and you might have to help me keep organized, because I get really, really excited about these two things. One is school equity, and the other is Black male educators. So we talked about this before, but what I'm most passionate about and I will actually say what I'm concerned about is that there is such an energy and such a move to anti-racist, anti-bias, diversity, equity, and inclusion work that we know has existed for a long time now. But so many organizations and institutions are moving on this very quickly. I'm really just concerned about where we're going to be six months from now, just because some people have rewritten their diversity and equity statements. They've started just doing work, implementing affinity groups, doing all these things.

Sheldon Eakins:

Book clubs.

Ayodele Harrison:

Book clubs.

Sheldon Eakins:

Book clubs.

Ayodele Harrison:

Reviewing their hiring practices and things like that. What concerns me is that we've gotten so quick to want to move and begin to address this because of the murder of George Floyd and other things. It's just, "We've got to do. We've got to do. We've got to do." So many groups, committees, collaboratives, task force, all these things have just kind of gotten to move, and we're doing things. I'm just not sure where that doing things is going to actually net us in the next six months, right? To a point where we might not see progress. I'm hopeful for progress. I sit here and hope, but we might not see progress, because we just started doing things and not really looking at specifically how do we better understand the root causes of what's affecting us right here, where I sit, the district that I'm in, the school that I'm in, the community that I'm in, and really think about what are our issues?

               Now, we know white dominant cultural norms, white supremacy, structural institutional racism is affecting us all. The way it manifests itself, there's similarities to national conversation, but there's also some uniqueness. I sit here in a suburb of Atlanta called the city of South Fulton. Well, my local high school, Westlake High School, has different challenges that are facing than, let's say, Farrell High School, which is just a few miles down the road, technically in the city of Atlanta. If we take many of these national things and really just this ... Each one of those schools has its own unique challenges based upon the community that it sits in, and we have to make sure that we're not just doing things based upon what we think is going on or we think is the issue, but really taking time to go deep.

               What I'm passionate about is helping schools and districts pause for a moment, and people don't like to hear that. People do not like to pause for a moment and let's actually hear from students. Let's actually hear from community members. How about colleagues in the building? How about we talk about our relationship between teacher to teacher, teacher to supervisor, teacher to parent to really understand what the root causes are? Because we might be accomplishing big tasks, shifting our hiring policy, and things like that, but we actually haven't had a conversation between HR and educators, students and educators.

               So I'm passionate about helping schools really quantify equity, but then more importantly develop a strategy, an implementation roadmap, because I think we've gotten so quick to the roadmap, we haven't actually figured out what the current state of being is, student experience, teacher experience in a single building. We've kind of used this aggregate to move forward very quickly. That's what I'm concerned. That's what I'm concerned about. That's what I'm passionate about in this space.

               The second space is Black male educators. Man, we are beautiful, brilliant, nurturing creatures, right? I mean, creatures, people might be offended, but just beautiful beings. What's concerning is that we're only talked about as being able to fix the system. We're here to fix what went wrong. Our Black boys and our Black girls or our children of color are ... We need Black males to fix this, and our presence, the research has shown that we help improve behavior, improve test scores, improve graduation from high school, enrollment in college. But we're just kind of here to fix and not invited as whole people into the space.

               So the second part of this is actually creating affinity spaces for Black male educators to really find their authentic voice and be able to sit down and say, "Look, we're going to prepare you to lead and be actively engaged. But I also want you to spend some time understanding your own identity and how it shows up, and maybe through that practice of you understanding your own identity, maybe you begin to understand how other people's identity, whether they've investigated themselves or not, is showing up."

               So that's the work. That's where we are, is with schools on that very macro and micro level, specifically on the school community, but then also looking at Black male educators and supporting them, because I think education is an awesome profession. I think there are so many different pathways that you can be, a classroom teacher. You can do curriculum development. You can be an edupreneur. There's a lot of different things that you can do within the space that I want Black male educators to see that fullness.

               Some of it is I would like Black male educators to go teach overseas, internationally. I did, and I was able to pay off some debt from college, do some other things, travel the world, get exceptional, world-class professional development that was not ... It was still based in white dominant culture, but I was able to do it in Spain, do it in Southern Africa, this training, and then bring it all back here to the States and apply it to my work with the many schools I work with here. So those are the things that I'm really passionate about. I said a lot, but I'll kick it back over to you now.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yo. Hey, you've got jokes. Okay. But the thing about it, but you know what? I like to ask questions that are so broad, because I love to see where guests are going to take things, because you ask someone, "What are you passionate about?," that could go in so many different directions. So yeah, I'm glad that you said those things. One of the things that really stuck out to me was ... I mean, because I'll be honest. When George Floyd was murdered, people were hitting me up a lot for training, and they wanted services. They wanted me to write statements or help them put together their statements and things like that. I think one of the things that you touched on was one of my concerns as well, is what's the end goal, and how do we know that we've met that goal?

               It's not just a matter of, "Well, we need to get some work done. Oh, we need to bring in a DEI person" or "We need to get some PD happening at our school." We need to say something, but what's the end goal? What is the purpose behind this? Because it's just like you said. It's not like equity just all of a sudden just showed up when the pandemic started and when George Floyd was murdered. It has always been around. People like you, people like myself have been doing this work for years, but we haven't been asking those questions, asking our teachers, our students, our community, our family members what's going on in their community specifically to the school that we're discussing, as opposed to these broad terms.

               I've been doing a lot more student work lately, where I've been doing a lot more student affinity groups. That has been very helpful, because a lot of the kids in the class, especially our students of color, our Black kids, who are maybe 5%, real small percentage of the student demographics, and they're like, "I know racism is happening" or "I know I'm being mistreated, but I don't know what it's called. I don't know what the terminology ... I don't know how to articulate what is happening to me. I just know it's wrong. I don't know how to respond to these situations."

               So we take the students through various scenarios, and we kind of teach them very basic equity type of language so that 11th grader or 12th grader or 10th grader or 9th grader can hold these conversations with their peers in a confident manner, which will help them. I'd love to see more schools develop these type of structures for their students, because often we tend to lean towards our teachers and say, "Well, we need to train our teachers and help them to understand and recognize their biases or help them," self-awareness and these types of things. Then we forget about our students, and they need support, too.

               So that all stood out to me in the beginning part of what you first started talking about. The other thing that you mentioned about was the Black male educators and your passion for them as well. One of the things that you said was we tend to be brought in to fix. Is there a stigma that you believe where Black male educators are not capable of leadership or curriculum and instruction? I mean, do we tend to end up being in those disciplinarian type of roles or turnaround type of roles? I mean, what are your thoughts on that sense?

Ayodele Harrison:

Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. I think there is just a very tunnel vision on what we can do, right? Sometimes when we see a tunnel vision, like we know that research has shown that Black men could potentially have a more stronger, impactful relationship with a Black boy or Black girl, because there is some cultural relationship, there is some lived experience that might be, there might be from the same community, all those other types of things, and so we want to maximize that opportunity for Black men to be able to engage with them. So in that maximization, we kind of get blinders on and this tunnel vision of "This is what they are to do and what they want to be," right?

               So I don't think it's not necessarily not seeing that. Well, it is a not seeing, but it's kind of like it's not that it's not within their frame of understanding. It's just, "This is where I see you excelling right now," and not seeing to a greater extent what you have to offer, right? So I was actually on the BMEsTalk Podcast called the rewind the other day, talking to James Varlack, who is one of our co-moderators on our weekly chat.

Sheldon Eakins:

I know James.

Ayodele Harrison:

He was saying that when he was alternately certified and he came in to apply for a history position in his first job when he left the county and came in there, and his school leader who was hiring him saw that he was an accountant and some other things and saw, he was like, "Hey, I understand that you have a passion for history, but mathematics, what do you think about mathematics?" Right? So it's pretty much seeing him slightly differently than what he had initially anticipated was going on. Then he got into his classroom and started doing some really cool things and bringing in technology, and then he started to be invited to share during a faculty meeting, like, "This is what's happening. This is what's going on." Then he's doing district PD, and it just kind of grows from there.

               Bu what it is is someone really stepping back and saying, "Okay, I know where I would like your help, but let me just observe and see you for who you are and who you're naturally gravitating to becoming. Let's begin to nurture that," right, "along the way." So he and I have both served in roles where we shared, where we were behavior managers and so on and so forth, but that was something we did in the hallways as part of our real connection with kids and building relationships with them. But we also really focused on getting good in our classroom and trying to bring in, be innovative in that space that we were, and we had support faculty to do that.

               So it's all about if a leader or as leaders, school leaders are open to seeing the fullness of their teachers and what they can offer, knowing that there are some key areas I need to check the box on and really get support, but also leave some space to be surprised and also leave some space for growth. I think that that's the key.

               Now, the other side of this is we are fixers, and I'm not going to say natural fixers. We've been socialized to fix. As men, as Black men, it's important that we have a solution. It's important that it's been bred to us that we have our wits about us, that we know what's going on at all times, we're able to develop a strategy and get to a conclusion very quickly, right? That is socializing. It's not just men do that or women do that. It's part of our socialization of, "You need to answer the question all the time and be ready to go with that."

               So we enter schools wanting to help everywhere, right? We see that, man, the energy level is high with some of our youth. I want to make sure that they're able to harness that for their best learning. So I want to get in there and get involved where I can. So this might mean me coaching. This might mean me running a mentoring program, and I do that in my first year. So I come in signing up for extra stuff. One thing I was talking to James is like we end up signing up for things that are beyond our normal contract. Therefore, it's taking all our time.

               I remember my first year, when I taught in Oakland, Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, before I took that job, I was coaching at the local high school. So what did that mean for me? Well, football practice started around 4:15, 4:30. My middle school ended about 3:45, and it was about a 20-minute drive away. So what I was doing is right at the end of the school day, before then in school, I'm packing up so I can be sprinting out with the kids. This is my first year teaching, right? So I'm trying to sprint to get to the football field, because I played football through high school and college. It's like that was where I felt ... I love having a whistle in my mouth. I've got a scar on my forehead because I actually went up against a young man without a helmet, right?

               I'm so motivated. I love that work, but what was happening was I wasn't getting that time to sit and reflect, build a relationship with colleagues, run my photocopies, look at student work. I was trying to manage it on the margins and not actually as a main part of my work, which often can hinder us and then put us in a position where when we speak at a meeting, if we do speak in a meeting, we're not speaking from a place of fully knowing, potentially, our students. I'm not going to say that that's everybody. That was my experience, right?

               So it's also a balance of we as Black male educators entering and saying, "Okay, I've been contracted to teach fifth grade science. I want to be the best fifth grade science teacher there is. What that means, I need to be the best fifth grade science teacher learner. So that means I need to be learning. I've got to spend some time with other fifth grade science teachers who may have been doing this for a while, maybe go down to fourth grade and see what support has been there. But if I'm so busy on committees and doing other things, I don't get that chance to really hone."

               So Sheldon, it's a chicken or the egg type of thing, right? It's very challenging. In some places, I might not be allowed to do any ... I might be like, "Okay, you already signed up for this committee." You don't even know what the committee is, but you don't want to say no, because you don't want to be the guy who's not a team player.

Sheldon Eakins:

Right.

Ayodele Harrison:

So those are the challenges that we face with Black male educators coming into their fullness within the profession without having leadership that is like, "You are going to grow beside me," right? "I want to see this fullness come through."

Sheldon Eakins:

I like how you said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we just said we wanted to be the best person in the role that we were hired in as, like the best fifth grade teacher or the best science teacher?" One of the things that you didn't mention, or maybe you mentioned it and I missed it was we often, as Black males, we take on these extra roles, especially when there's compensation involved, right? Because teachers don't make a lot of money, first of all, and then-

Ayodele Harrison:

Well, let's pause on that.

Sheldon Eakins:

Go for it.

Ayodele Harrison:

It depends, right? It really depends upon the school district, the type of school, and the position that you're in, because it varies around the country in that way. You can play the law of averages. Some people might push back and say, "We don't make enough." Yeah, that's true, but it's because we only see teaching in one place, right? Traditionally that is public education, when there are spaces in private education and international education where, as a teacher, second and third year, you can make a pretty good amount.

               But yeah, if we play the law of averages, it can be low. But if you do your research, there are some actual cities that have some great starting salaries. I think Atlanta here is like ... For the South, I think Atlanta Public Schools is 48,000, which in the South, if you're starting a teaching career, let's say you're fresh out of college and doing that, right, I mean, you can get a really strong start for that. So I think it's relative, but go ahead. I often want to push, because it is true, but then there's also-

Sheldon Eakins:

I'll give it to you. Okay. All right. I'll entertain the idea that-

Ayodele Harrison:

Thank you. We can agree to disagree.

Sheldon Eakins:

I'll entertain that, right? Because I live in Idaho, and the starting salary here is, I don't know, 28, 29. I think it's going to go up. But the cost of living is low. Cost of living is low. So it does kind of balance out. I think when we're talking, you don't have a master's, you don't have a bachelor's degree, those kinds of things obviously will make a difference as well. That's a whole 'nother podcast. The point that I was trying to make was we tend to have to or feel obligated to take on additional roles to help with supporting our families. But I like what you're saying as far as, "It would have been nice had I had the opportunity to develop those relationships and build up a sense of community within my school, but I had to run and go to football practice. Literally, I had to run."

               So from there, you have to figure out how to navigate. What kind of strategies would you give in those type of situations? Because I do believe that there's importance in developing rapport and camaraderie with your community that you're serving. But at the same time, we have bills to pay or we feel like, "You know what?" Like you said, "I want to be a team player" or "I want to be able to maybe set myself up for opportunities for advancement, so I want to take on these additional roles." How do we navigate? What kind of strategies would you have in that sense?

Ayodele Harrison:

Sure. Well, I would say two things, right? The first is to as best as possible sit down and have a conversation with your supervisor, right? Have a conversation where you're able to share what your short-term goals are, long-term goals are within the work. Let's just have a conversation about why did you come into education? What do you seek to do over this year? So this might be the educator themselves taking on this role of ... One of my friends, Dr. Folami Prescott-Adams, says, "You've got to manage up." So it's really going to a supervisor and saying, "How do you see me? Can you help me really understand what this year could look like for me?" Right? "What might be some goals that I begin to set?"

               That is what some people might say a very vulnerable and humbling place, but I like to think of it as just managing up. It's like you're going to sit down in front of your manager and say, "I want to be the best employee possible. How do you see that taking place? Where do you see my role?" So then we actually have a clear understanding of what our supervisor has for us or our management has for us in that particular space, and it helps us to begin to understand how we're going to navigate that community effectively, right?

               The second thing is that, one, I don't have all the answers. So I think joining the community, like we started with BMEsTalk, where you get around other brothers who have experienced this, where you can hear stories, lived experiences, and get advice from people in that particular way. So I think that being in affinity with Black male educators also helps you to figure out what your next step is, because you can see the different steps that people have taken, learn from them, and even vicariously develop your own or sit and ask.

               We just had the BMEsTalk Leadership Lab, which was a space of 44 brothers from across the country came together in affinity. In one of the groups, we were talking about identity and some of the other work around that. But in one of the groups, we actually on accident through random matching matched a principal and someone going for their assistant principal ... their certification. So in that affinity group, they were able to say, "Well, hey, well, let's connect offline, because I've got some things that you can study to help you get to the next level. Here's the things you need to be looking at," and they were able to engage in this in a very short period of time. So there's lived experience and learning that happens within affinity space, right?

               So I think those are ways to get yourself connected to those who are already leading in this way. So I think that that is something that can definitely happen with that. How do you begin to navigate that? Then often I say, "Think about why you came into the students that you're serving," right? Let's say you're a fifth grade classroom teacher. "What do I need to do my best to serve these children that I'm working with in this space? What is that going to require me of time during school and outside of school to be able to serve them?" Write that down and say, "This is my goal for them." Maybe it's, "I want to close the reading gap. I want to do all this."

               Then what you can do is write that down and put that on the wall so that you know that if something is taking your time away from meeting that bigger goal that you have for those 50, 150, 22 students that you have, then you're able to step back and be able to say, "Hey, my goal is for these guys to thrive in this particular level." When you're clear with that, you can hold space for yourself to not get pulled in every single direction. You can maximize your time there.

Sheldon Eakins:

Whew, you've been spinning some game today. One of the things I would say is just kind of the overarching theme towards the end of your response was the power of mentorship and being able to find a space where you can find mentors. Sometimes we'll tell people, "You need to get your mentor. You want to start a business or you want to do this or you want to do that. Find yourself a mentor." But then it's like, "Well, where do I find that mentor? Where do I go? How do I locate this individual that has those experiences that I'm wanting to get?", or I'm looking at ways to try to figure out things. "How do I find someone that's already done it?" I love that, like you said, you were able to match up on some randomness, but that space was available in order for a principal and a future assistant principal, a future administrator were able to link up. Then hopefully that's going to create some mentorship, and I'm sure there was other opportunities within that space as well.

Ayodele Harrison:

I'll share this. Because we represent less than 2% of the public school teaching population, we will find ourselves as maybe one of less than a handful, of two in a building. What the challenge of that is we're trying to be our authentic selves and show up, but am I okay with asking for help, right? Because it's like we talk about mentors and finding that, but that takes a very open person to be able to ... a reflective person to say that I'm seeking a mentor. But some people might not feel safe asking for that mentor in that building, because if you have to come in and say ... because I just remember I kind of faked it until I made it.

               I remember when I first started teaching, I haven't told this story to anybody. So after my first two years of teaching, I actually accepted a job in South Africa, at a school in Johannesburg. I was teaching my first two years in middle school, and I accepted a job as a high school math teacher. Never taught high school math. My background is engineering. So I knew math and things like that, but I hadn't taught it before. I remember they were saying, "Well, what do you want to teach?," because it was a very small ... It was a three-person math department for the high school. So we taught all the classes, and they sat down and were very open and said, "Well, what do you want to teach?" I said I wanted to teach the highest level of calculus. I thought that's what I should be saying I want to do. I had never taught it before.

               So for me asking for help or to say like, "I don't know. I don't know what I'm most comfortable with," I wasn't ready to do that. So it actually happened that I had selected one of the higher levels, and then my colleagues were so gracious. They saw me fumbling through it and were like, "Brother, you're not going to teach this. Let's be real. You're not," in a very gentle and nurturing way. They were like, "We think we're going to put you at this range here while you get your feet wet in high school and doing this." But, again, it took someone. It took my colleagues and supervisors saying, "I'm seeing you kind of struggle with" ... School hadn't started yet. It was just our planning and just kind of thinking about assignments and things like that. It was just like, "Yeah, he doesn't really have it." But they had to share with me, "We think this is best."

               I was still like, "No, no, no, no, no." But in my heart, I was like, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, because I don't know. I don't what a triple integral does. I did this years ago. I really don't know what's going on." So there's also the side that there's this asking for support can be challenging, right? It can be challenging if there isn't a formal structure for mentoring.

               The other thing that I'll say is that, man, you've got to get like six different mentors. That's what I'm a big fan of, because not everybody can mentor you in every category, right? Someone who's there to help you start a business isn't someone who can help you improve practices of self-care, right? Just because you are in finance in this area does not mean that you understand community engagement in that area. So I think mentorship can be one-on-one through a person to have you guidance. But I think we're putting too much on a mentor if we want them to do everything for us, right? So it's really more thinking ... I think of it as, "Okay. Let's kind of break down the areas that I want to grow in and say, 'Okay.'"

               So let's say, again, go back to fifth grade science. "Who is the best science teacher in this building?" Right? "Let me go and be a pest, go follow them. They might not even really want to sit down and talk with me, but I'm going to kind of peek them in faculty meetings. I'm going to ask to go visit their classroom," all of these different things where it's like, "I'm going to kind of force you to be my mentor, even though you didn't officially sign up to be my mentor." Right? That's just so I learn science.

               But we can do this in a lot of different areas without having a formal relationship, but it's always an effective practice if the school has thought through, "What does mentoring or collaborative teaching look like in that space to help grow folks?," because I think both mentor and mentee, when the relationship is right, when the preparation is right, they're both learning and growing, because I've seen mentees push the thinking of mentors in ways where they're reinvigorated, like, "Man, I didn't even realize I could do this as a 20-year veteran. I'm sitting there, working with a third year educator, and they're teaching me new strategies," and things like that. So it's also looking for that two-way relationship.

Sheldon Eakins:

The other thing about mentorship, the one that I really like, to touch on having multiple mentors, is sometimes you need that cheerleader. You need that person that, "Every time I call this person, they're going to pump me up, and they're going to tell me I'm the greatest thing ever." But then sometimes you need that other mentor that is going to tell it to you straight and is like, "Nah, bro. You don't need to be doing that" or "This is some things you didn't think about" or "I tried that." So you need to have multiple people, and you've got to know who to call on in those situations.

               That has been helpful for me, because, yeah, I do have ... Sometimes I'm in a mood and I'm like, "You know what? I like this idea, but I want to kind of pitch it to someone else and see what their thoughts are on this." I have my go-to person to talk to about it versus, "You know what? I just need to be pumped up right now. Let me call up this person." They'll go hard for the next 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and I'm like, "Okay, I'm good. I'm good." So I think having a variety of mentorship also and knowing when and who you should call in various situations I think is very important.

Ayodele Harrison:

I'm sure the listeners can share the difference between a mentor and a coach. I kind of think the terms aren't synonymous. They're not interchangeable, but I think that some hold both categories. What I've been working on when I have been asked to mentor either young students or colleagues or anybody else is working on asking more questions. "So what do you think about that? What do you think might be your first steps? What's holding you back?" Right? Less about me. I will share my story or my answer when it's appropriate, but it's more of holding space for them for reflective thought, I think is also really key here.

               This is why not everybody can be a mentor in the way that you might desire them to be, but we can kind of pool ... This is why like multiple ones, right? I like having multiple, "Oh, well, you know what? I go to Orpheus for this, and I go to William for that. I go to my wife for this," to really be able to get a well-rounded view of my thinking so that I can make a clear decision and set forth the best path I know how in that particular moment.

Sheldon Eakins:

Yep. There we go. Well, Ayodele, this has definitely been a true pleasure and, again, a long time coming. I consider you providing a voice in equity. What is one final word of advice that you can provide to our listeners?

Ayodele Harrison:

One piece of advice that I would give is that right now, there is this rebirth of affinity spaces, right? Is gathering an affinity, like Black male affinity, which is very, very important. But the thing that I think is the most important about if you have a racial affinity group like Black men getting together, it's a group that's focusing on understanding and deepening their sense of themselves and their affinity and less about trying to fix other people outside of the affinity.

               So when you gather, let's say it's a white educator space or Latinx educator space or a transgender educator space, whatever that might be, my advice is to spend time getting to know the affinity and the depth and the range of this affinity and building that strength and confidence in there, as opposed to focusing on trying to fix everything else that happens, because it's key for us to be strong and firm in who we are to be able to navigate the ills, the challenges, the experience that we have outside more effectively. When we focus inward, then we can be more effective at engaging the world outwardly. So that's the piece of advice that I would give.

Sheldon Eakins:

All right. That's some good advice there. If we've got some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Ayodele Harrison:

Sure. So, I mean, always on Twitter @ayodele_har78. You can find me there at Twitter, Instagram. I'm also with ... I mentioned, BMEsTalk. You can learn more about our work, creating affinity spaces for Black male educators at bmestalk.com.

Sheldon Eakins:

All right. So, again, I'm with Ayodele Harrison. It has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

Ayodele Harrison:

Thank you so much, Sheldon.

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