Dr. Sheldon L 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. Today I have a repeat guest. Good friend of mine Dr. Emily Affolter is here today. So without further ado, Emily, thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Oh, Thank you so much, Dr. Eakins. I'm so glad to be back.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

You know, it's always good to connect. I mean, you and I have been chatting for about a half hour before we even hit record. It's a while since we've talked, so it's good that we can put this on record and share what we talk about with the rest of the audience. So again, thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Thank you.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

So, I know who you are, but I want our audience to know who you are as well. So could you share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

You bet. Hi. So yeah, my name is Dr. Emily Affolter. I use she or they pronouns or aya. I live in Prescott, Arizona Yavapai lands. And I work for Prescott College as the director of the PhD in sustainability education program. And we look at sustainability education as sort of the nexus between environmental and social justice enacted in teaching and learning. But my background, my PhD was in curriculum and instruction, and I worked as the advisee of the beloved matriarch and knower of all things Dr. Geneva Gay. So she founded Culturally Responsive Teaching and she has informed much of my work.

               And the last thing I'll say is that a lot of my professional experience was at a research center at the University of Washington called the University of Washington Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity, in which we'd look at STEM workplaces and STEM higher ed. and we'd start to understand and do assessments of the equity alignment or misalignment in different departments and workplaces, and then offer sort of pedagogical and policy development opportunities for equity so that these departments could start to grow and align in those directions.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Got it.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

I also have been a teacher [crosstalk 00:02:16]-

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Oh, by the way, you've been a teacher as well. Don't forget about that. So, okay. Tell us about your classroom time.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Oh my gosh. Okay. So I used to teach first through eighth grade Spanish for many years and I loved it and I've taught in a head start classroom. And I've also worked with... I've taught teachers for a long time, also.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

I did not know you are bilingual. So how did you learn Spanish?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

I lived in Nicaragua and I lived and worked there and have also got to do a Fulbright in Mexico and Columbia and have I just fell in love with it. Majored in Spanish, wrote a thesis in Spanish, just, yeah. Anyway, feel lucky.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Did you write it in Spanish or you wrote it about Spanish?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Well, it's a bilingual thesis, but it was a long time ago about post revolutionary in Nicaragua.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Nice. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we got all that out the way. I can't believe you forgot that you were a teacher by the way. That's funny to me, but it's all good[crosstalk 00:03:27]. Okay. Speaking of teaching, so you teach a course at your university and I'd love to have you share a little bit about your course.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Yeah. So I teach a foundational course and it's called Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogy. And it's a foundational core course for the PhD in sustainability education, but really it's just deep, deep situation and situating ourselves in the notion that teaching and learning is a moral endeavor, it is not a neutral endeavor and really grounding our work with an equity frame around pedagogy and practice or practices, so that we can truly transform and make changes for justice and whatever our learning sphere of influences.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

So the folks that are entering into the program, are they teachers, are they administrators? Is there a mix? What does that look like?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Yeah. We have a number of teachers, so I would say we have about... Maybe a third of them are in the classroom right now. And then so, we have high school teachers, middle school teachers and then we also have folks that are interested in informal learning, who might be working in the corporate sector, who want to do work around teaching for environmental sustainability, teaching for justice and we even have scientists who want to learn to educate or learn to translate these concepts into something that a more lay audience could really understand and make sense of, so they can make change too.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

One of the things that I like about the course is that it's a foundational course, meaning that everybody has to take this course. Now, is this like the first course that you take as a PhD candidate or is this kind of like you have... Like tell me, how does that work as far as a candidate.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Totally. So it's the first semester of your PhD and maybe not the first course, because we do the block system but it's intended to be right out the gate. Like we have people who come in and maybe have never even heard the word culturally responsive or the term cultural responsive teaching before who come in and then we jump right in, we don't play. So yeah, it's one of the first things that they do and I'm like-

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Don't play.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

... welcome, welcome. But like day one in our orientation, we're already talking about dimensions of power and privilege and positionality and sort of the criticality of being in our field, wanting to do work that's really going to look at the status quo that really favors dominant identities and try to sort of unveil those politics of power and then dismantle them so that we can have a truly equitable society. So this course is really sort of getting into the weeds around what are some of the founding theories of culture responsive and sustaining pedagogies, and then how can students operationalize them in their own sectors and spheres of influence, many of which are right there in the classroom, in high school or in the middle school classroom.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

The sad thing about it, when you mentioned that some of the students that come in have never heard of cultural responsive or sustaining. They might have been in a classroom for 10, 15, 20 years, and they're just now learning about it and so I think that's important that at least they're taking the time to learn it now. Whether if it's a mandatory course or not, because maybe they wouldn't have chosen that course, but I'm just really glad to hear that.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

A hundred percent. And it's really interesting to really differentiate because like, for example, I have 30 students in this course and I would say a number of them have been operationalizing this work for years and years and really explicitly in their work. And other people come in and are like reckoning with color blindness for the first time, like there's a huge range. So it's a really interesting group. But what I see is that I see that people really are there for each other, there's sort of relational humanizing pedagogy is at the fore of what we try to do in the program and so I really feel like people are there for each other and there's not... I haven't seen any shaming. Like I've really seen people show up and say, I'm going to be authentic about what I don't understand or what never reckoned with before.

               And I see that... Yeah, like students are willing to say, okay, let me share a dozen resources with you on understanding in dismantling white supremacy and you're just reckoning with your whiteness for the first time. It's a very cool dynamic environment because I do feel like we are such a community and that even if this is the first time people are working through these issues, there's definitely like if you're committed, if you're here and you believe in justice, which is fundamental to what we do in the program, then we're all going to get there. We're just going to keep reading, keep talking, keep thinking, keep trying and owning our challenges, our complicity, our collusion, and keep going. So it's an exciting place to be because I really think that we have to work in heterogeneous spaces. That's the only way.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

So you said that there were... You said about 30 students, but there are a mixture between, as far as their background and understanding and knowledge regarding cultural responsiveness, how do you create a space or what are you doing in your course to have folks like really interact and engage and be open and vulnerable to these kind of conversations?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think some of it is the theory itself is... I mean, it's fierce, right? The theory is like unrelenting. You're talking about, especially looking at the systemically minoritized populations in education and how systems are set up. Either our systems are set up and often will disadvantage folks systemically. So first of all, we start with a structural frame and we're like, okay, let's look at the system. The system is the problem. We're all part of it, so how do we understand that? And all of a sudden, if a student's like, I'm just reckoning with this for the first time, it can come right back to the same systems theory. You're like that doesn't make you the problem, in fact, the problem is still the system. So we can look at, I think a lot of the theory is actually like helping guide students in sort of their reflexive processes of understanding how important it is to recognize how our positionality play into how we show up, play into our access to power and privilege in the classroom.

               And then also how important it is, and so much of the reading and the conversation we have is around how important it is for us to be accountable to the control that we do have in our own process of starting to mitigate that collusion or starting to push back against something that's bigger than us. But I think that whole idea of the system is the problem, the system is toxic or it favors the patriarchy, it favors whiteness, it favors able bodies, it favors all these things, settler colonialism. We talk a lot about that. Then all of a sudden we can sort of remove some of the fear and really bring in that authenticity to say, we want a pluralistic classroom. We want a space where everyone can be honest and authentic and then hopefully since we're all here driven by this purpose around justice, then no matter where we are, we can all come together to support each other in advancing that systemic change piece.[crosstalk 00:00:12:00]Does that make sense?

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

I'm with you. It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me and I'm sure it makes sense to our audience as well. So let's go a little deeper into systems because we hear that a lot. We hear systemic change. We hear systems this, systems that, what does that mean? Like what are some examples of systems that we have today that's probably always been around that we should probably look into when it comes to our practices?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, a school system is one way of thinking about it, like we're working in classrooms. Just thinking about your school itself, what are the policies in place in the school that you're you're at and who do those policies possibly advantage or disadvantage, whether it's explicit or implicit? And that could be as simple as like what... Oh, hiring policies or parenting leave policies or how we choose to be identified. So there's a whole policy domain of systems, right. So how do we communicate at the school? Who gets communications? Are those communications targeted at people that tend to just have express power and privilege in the school? Or are they sort of speaking to a whole swath of your population, including parents, guardians, community members? Who gets information and feedback mechanisms? Like that's another policy.

               Are there mechanisms for feedback in your school so that if something's not going well for someone they can safely ask for something to be changed and oftentimes anonymously so that there would be no adverse implications for real talk about how something's going? Systems are like the curriculum. That can be a whole system, who's being taught, who's represented in your curriculum. What are their identities or are they predominantly the DWGs, as one of my students calls them the dead white [inaudible 00:14:14]just keeps[crosstalk 00:14:15].

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

DWG?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Yes. I was like, the DWGs? Is that predominantly who we're focusing on or are we inventorying our curriculum to really highlight bi-folks, trans-folks, queer-folks, like how is that represented in our curriculum? And not only that, but then how are people being represented? So not just, do you have a diverse swath of experiences and identities, folks with different relationships to power and privilege represented, but then how are they being represented?

               Are we telling stories that are actually really authentic, prismatic and holistic about folks or are these stories... And who's generating those stories about populations? Is it someone making assumptions about a person or population, or is someone telling their own stories? So, oh, I'm in the weeds, but the point is that it's kind of unveiling all of the infrastructure of our lives if we really critically question any system that we're a part of, we can take a lens, like the patriarchy lens, the racism lens, and really look at it and think about how many of the things that we're teaching. How many of the things that are school norms like, well, just the notion of a norm is like, whoa. I tell my students whenever we see like norm or even norming as a classroom, I'm really anti-norming because it would presume that you would have to assimilate into a set of norms that may or may not actually be something that a prismatic and pluralistic audience could comfortably or safely ascribe to.

               So it's like, how do we interrogate these systems? These structures, these policies, our curriculum in ways that help us to sort of see with the nuanced lens, what might actually be disenfranchising people and what might be privileging a dominant norm. And the whole idea behind culturally sustaining and responsive pedagogies is to be able to dismantle the fact that norms or assimilation exist or that as a value so that everyone get to fully be themselves and grow into themselves and their own agency and their own just wholeness without having to try to ascribe to what someone else wishes them to be based on how we're acculturated around power.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Yeah. Well, a lot of the policies and systems that we're talking about like you said, who created those policies and like you said, norms, I would agree is often an assimilative statement. And we hear traditional, we hear mainstream, we hear these words, but it doesn't have a lot of representation usually within those words. One of the things that I have... I would say COVID, like when COVID first hit and all our schools shut down, and we were talking about grading. Grading was a big deal because like, well, you got kids at home, you got kids that have internet, we have some that are at school. Like there's all kind uncertainties right now and you have a group of people who can afford tutors, who can afford learning pods and all these type of things in order to support their children and that's not necessarily the case for everyone. So I'm curious, as far as when you look at systems, are conversations around grading subject matter?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad you asked about assessment. I'm so interested in this right now, because I think that I just the notion of summative assessment can be highly problematic in terms of really continuing to disenfranchise or marginalize folks, because someone made a rubric, especially if it's just a teacher or just a corporation with a set of thinkers who might represent some dominant ideologies who made a rubric and all of a sudden they determine the worth of this student's work based on this one set of metrics. There's inherent bias in that. So I think that for me, what I try to do with respect to grading is we do a ton of formative assessment. I bet people know what I'm talking about, but if you haven't heard the term formative assessment, it means assessing the labor and the process of learning rather than any discreet outcome of learning.

               And so what we try to do, or what I try to infuse pedagogically in this course is the notion that I just want to see engagement and continued participation and growth in every student and that kind of engagement we call formative. And if I'm seeing growth and continued engagement, then the outcome itself is going to be much less important to me than the process or the journey along the way, especially for various reasons but one, that I can actually like step in, in sort of a high touch environment and offer feedback throughout the process.

               Because, what if you just had this assignment, as some person that doesn't share any of your life experiences or identities is like, do this thing. And so you're working, working, working as a student, you turn it in and they're just like you missed the mark. What were you thinking?

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Well, devastating happens to a lot of people. But in formative assessment, I mean, there's this like constant two way conversation or hopefully even more, hopefully you're getting feedback from a lot of different people, but in which there's no disappointment, there's no falling because the metric or the expectation coming in with a draft is super low.

               I'm just like, Hey, I want to see your draft week one and I ask that that draft has been seen by two other peers before I see it. So I want to see demonstration of other people's feedback on a draft and then a draft. And it can be really inceptive like at its inception. And then I get to like engage with that draft and ask critical questions and play with it and then it goes back to the student and they, over time it's scaffolded so that we keep conversing as these things grow. It's an emergent process and I think it's very humanizing and it validates them and it also validates the effort that they're putting in over time. And I even try to say like, even the final, quote, "pseudo summative assignment" hopefully we're sort of building a new habit of practice that no longer do you feel like this is the end point.

               Hopefully you have this... Now this thought that what you've been working on continues to be a living document, that you continue to solicit ideas from a heterogeneous group of folks as you continue to adapt it for different audiences. So I think it's responsive to get as many ideas and viewpoints on a topic as possible as you're iterating on it. And with respect to grading that we're really doing a labor based assessment rather than what can be more punitive or summative assessment of our students so that they really recognize that it's more of a process than a product.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Based off of what I heard, I would argue that technically that is a little form of summative because you're kind of checking throughout the course. I mean, you know that they know everything from the beginning all the way until whenever you kind of finish and so, one could argue that it is some sort of a quasi summative approach, but at the end of the day, I'm a big fan of... Yeah. I like formative over summative any day, because like you said, you can kind of do the checks throughout the course, as opposed to waiting to the end and doing that one big test, final exam type of thing.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And[inaudible 00:00:22:45] you know it's cool. We don't do this, but you're making me think. It is cool, I think, if you're going to do something summative, I love the idea of the students themselves really being strong co-construct of the metric or building their own metric for their assignment and then you can overlay that with your course goals and objectives, and it can be a collaborative process, but that's one way I think, to make a summative assignment feel pretty customized.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Having the students do the work and being a part of it, creates that buy-in and so I think that's important as well. One of the things you mentioned regarding the project, like the culminating, this is the end. It's not the end, it's more of a living document is what I heard you say. So if I finish the PhD program, if I finish this semester and this course I'm able to utilize this information, this work that I've done going forward?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Totally. I mean, that's the other part of this course is that we don't want anyone to show up... And I would feel pedagogically like this about any course that I taught at any grade level, but we don't want folks to show up and then just do the work for me. This isn't for me, but I have to be thoughtful about the design and that the design has to speak to their lives. So, this course is designed to be something that they could use as a future consulting. It could be something that they could use in a teaching package. And if they were applying to a position and higher ed., it could be something that they pitched to a district. If they were doing culturally responsive equity work for a district. I mean, it could be part of their conceptual framework of their dissertation.

               So anyway, I'm about that. I think that they build a culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical framework that applies to their professional and scholarly sphere of influence. And then they write out a curriculum that pertains to that, really speaks to their pedagogical values around justice. And then they talk about exactly how they're going to operationalize that. And so, yes, the more that those operationalizing plans can actually be anchored in like what they're doing next month in their jobs or what they aspire to do next year in the workforce, the better.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Okay. That makes sense. I wish I could take the course, but I am done with school and I don't... I'm done, but I would say if you have some folks that are looking for various programs, PhD programs, for example, what would be some of the things that you would just share if they're interested in looking on your program, why would they want to come to your area?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

I mean, if they were very applied, like I was just saying, so we believe in theory to practice or practices. Practices is really practice then with a reflective component that's iterative. We use that term a lot. But if they are interested in sort of deepening their understanding and their platform and refining their ideas around social and environmental justice, as they pertain to education in both formal and non-formal learning environments, and I want to get involved in a community, we're really a learning community with a shared purpose and shared values. And they want to get deep into work of decolonizing, curriculum and pedagogy, and really delving into issues of climate justice and it's super flexible. So people often are doing it with a robust professional life. We have a lot of classroom teachers that are engaged in it and people with dimensional lives like caregiving responsibilities at all levels.

               And we find that it's quite, it works with an adaptive life and yeah, we're really proud of what we do. And we're, because the students come and bring so much richness to it, so I would just say, if you already have work, you're really excited about doing the social or environmental justice realm with respect to education, and you want to just continue to deepen and refine it and add that scholarly layer to it. We would love to continue the conversation.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Nice. Well, Emily, you know I definitely consider you as providing a voice in leading equity. What is one final word of advice that you'd like to provide to our listeners?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

I guess that the one thing that I've been thinking about more and more, and getting student testimonials on this too, is that the more that we get engaged in equity pedagogy work, the more it gives us permission to fully live it to who we are in our authentic selves. So I think that's really liberating and exciting to start to peel away layers of ourselves that are like, oh, that's calcified, oh, that's dumb culture, I don't... That's not me. Oh, I'm queer, so let's own that. Bringing your authentic self in all of its complexity to the fore and also engaging in modeling that in your relationships, in your professional sector, it really aligns with justice ideals. I hope and wish for all of you that you are just getting in touch with that. You can enjoy that even when you find that it comes into question. I just encourage you to sit with it and remind yourself of who you are at core and then find spaces and platforms to really let that part of you fully express yourself.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

I like that. That was a good answer. Good job. So if we have some folks that want to connect with you and reach out. What's the best way to connect online?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Yeah. You can just find me, you can email me. My email is E-A-F-F-O-L-T-E-R, [email protected] or you can just look me up on Prescott College's website, Emily Affolter, PhD. We're the sole PhD at the college. But yeah, I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to hear your thoughts and if you want to expand and explore a PhD, we're all about that.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

We're all about that life. So as I always say, go get your education, keep going, keep going. So, that's good. Thank you so much for your time. I will link your email just in case some folks want to connect with you. Is there any social media or any other things that you want to add?

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Oh, Prescott College has a great social media presence. So yeah, please jump into it. And that we often have wonderful events. Like we have a symposium every year. We always do something with sort of a decolonizing climate justice bent. It's free and open to the public. We have all these incredible student presentations that are really interrogating toxic masculinity, looking at decolonizing curricula and pedagogy for pre-service teachers. Like we have so much that might speak to you as a justice oriented teaching audience. So check it out. The symposium is free and open to the public every May. May 2022 Virtual, so we'd love to include you if you're interested.

Dr. Sheldon L Eakins:

Okay. Sounds good. So once again, Emily, it's always a pleasure to connect. Thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Emily Affolter:

Thank you so much, Dr. Eakins. I heart you.

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