Navigating Spaces of Belonging: A Conversation with Mel King
In this discourse, we engage in a profound exploration of the imperative need for educators to create environments where students, particularly those belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, can genuinely breathe and flourish. Our esteemed guest, Mel King, a luminary in LGBTQIA+ advocacy, elucidates the essence of fostering unconditional belonging within educational spaces, emphasizing that such inclusion is not merely a privilege, but a birthright. Throughout our dialogue, we confront the stark reality that the experiences of marginalization can render educational settings hostile, thereby necessitating a concerted effort from educators to cultivate hope rather than extinguish dreams. Mel poignantly articulates the vital role of allyship, asserting that true allies must be active participants in dismantling barriers and amplifying voices that have traditionally been silenced. This conversation serves as a clarion call for all educators to reflect on their practices and commit to nurturing a culture of acceptance, understanding, and dignity for every student who enters their classroom.
The conversation with Mel King, a prominent advocate for the LGBTQ community, delves into the pressing need for educators to foster an environment where all students, particularly those identifying as LGBTQIA+, can experience a sense of safety and belonging. Mel articulates the concept of needing 'to be in a place where I could breathe,' encapsulating the critical importance of creating spaces devoid of hostility and filled with acceptance. The dialogue explores the multifaceted nature of identity within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and emphasizes the role of educators in recognizing and honoring these identities. Through their discussion, the panel reflects on how educational settings can serve as sanctuaries where students can truly express themselves without fear of retribution or misunderstanding. This episode serves as a clarion call for educators to commit to cultivating hope and ensuring that every student feels seen, heard, and valued, not as a privilege, but as an inherent right that should be afforded to all.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we engage in a profound dialogue regarding the essential need for educators to create spaces where LGBTQIA+ students feel a sense of belonging and dignity.
- Mel King articulates the necessity for educational environments to foster unconditional acceptance for all students, emphasizing the urgency of this mission in today's society.
- The conversation underscores the critical role of allyship in education, highlighting that true allyship is not self-proclaimed but must be earned through actions and support.
- We explore the pressing reality that many students, particularly those from marginalized communities, are in urgent need of spaces where they can authentically express themselves without fear of judgment.
- The episode emphasizes that the fight for dignity and belonging within educational institutions is paramount, as these factors significantly impact students' mental health and overall well-being.
- Finally, we reflect on the transformative power of community in educational settings, recognizing that fostering genuine connections among students can lead to profound positive change.
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Transcript
What did Mel mean when he said, I just needed to be in a space where I could breathe?
Speaker A:Find out.
Speaker A:A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to give us a listen.
Speaker A:Season nine features a panel of four like minded friends and colleagues.
Speaker A:Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr.
Speaker A:Alicia Monroe, yours truly.
Speaker A:You know, we've opened the conversation this season to think about empowering educators to cultivate hope.
Speaker A:In this tenth episode, we welcome writer and leader of a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, Mel King, to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:You know, this episode is simply one of those must listen to episodes that I think you're going to want to listen to over and over and over again.
Speaker A:At the end of the day, what we do for some children is even bigger than cultivating hope or killing dreams.
Speaker A:It's a matter of life and death.
Speaker A:You know, this was an incredible conversation and there were so many intriguing ideas and amazing images that Mel brought to the space.
Speaker A:You know, we started the conversation with the following questions.
Speaker A:Simple, easy questions from your experience as a student and from the work you're currently doing.
Speaker A:What does it look like to honor the continuum of identities represented within the LGBTQIA community and what is important for educators to understand in order to cultivate hope for those students, ensuring that they experience unconditional belonging, are seen and heard, and are treated in ways that honor their dignity as a birthright and not something to be earned.
Speaker A: And then finally, while: Speaker A:Listen to the entire episode to hear incredible details.
Speaker A:Together, let's cultivate hope for each and every student.
Speaker A:And now, episode 10.
Speaker A:And a great conversation with our panel and with Mel King.
Speaker A:You are not going to want to miss this.
Speaker B:Take a listen.
Speaker A:Good morning.
Speaker B:I'm Grant Chandler and this is another episode of the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:And not to sound like a broken.
Speaker B:Record, but I've really been looking forward to this conversation and bringing this amazing person to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:So I'm super excited, as I say every week, but I.
Speaker B:And I mean it every week.
Speaker B:But I'm really excited today to bring our guest to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:Before I do that, as always, let me say good morning to my amazing panel, Kathy Mone, who's not here today because of, hey, state testing around the world.
Speaker B:And so she is busy diligently supporting students, but Michael Pipa and Alicia Monroe are here in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:Good Morning.
Speaker C:Good morning.
Speaker D:Good morning.
Speaker B:How are you both?
Speaker C:All is well.
Speaker C:Michael, are you well conversation today?
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:Me too.
Speaker B:Me too.
Speaker B:Michael, how are you doing?
Speaker D:Yes, I'm very, very well and very, very happy to be here with my friends.
Speaker D:So good morning, everyone.
Speaker B:Michael is joining us from a little vacay, so talk about dedication, right?
Speaker B:He has found a place to join this conversation when he's not even at home.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker E:Wow.
Speaker B:Thank you, Michael.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:The magic of the interweb.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:So I am really excited about this conversation, and I want to say thank you to Michael for making the connection to this amazing individual.
Speaker B:This person that you're going to meet here in the wheelhouse used to be a student of Michael's, So we've been joking about how young Michael must have been as a teacher.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:A few years ago, maybe one or two, when our guest was a high school student.
Speaker B:So super excited to bring Mel King to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:He is a writer, and he works for a national LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Speaker B:Mel, I had the pleasure of talking to you a couple weeks ago, and I'm so super excited that you were here in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:So welcome.
Speaker E:Thank you so much.
Speaker E:It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm excited for our conversation.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I've been looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker B:You know, the season is all about cultivating hope or killing dreams.
Speaker B:We've been talking a lot about.
Speaker C:Who.
Speaker B:Gets the dreams and who gets.
Speaker B:Where do we forget.
Speaker B:Where do we or intentionally not choose to cultivate hope for some of our students?
Speaker B:And so super excited to bring someone to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:And we're going to specifically talk.
Speaker B:We'll talk about all marginalized populations, I'm sure, but specifically address the continuum of needs for our LGBTQIA population.
Speaker B:And to highlight that today in the Wheelhouse, I'm super excited about.
Speaker B:So I'm just going to open it up.
Speaker B:And in true fashion, we see where this conversation takes us.
Speaker B: important than it is today in: Speaker B:What does it look like to honor the continuum of identities represented within the LGBTQIA community?
Speaker E:Such a beautiful question, Grant.
Speaker E:I think about this in a couple of different ways.
Speaker E:I think as a student, when I was a student of Michaels, I think for me, it meant that I could find an ally in a teacher, someone who would see me and all the journey that I was on and make space for that in all kinds of ways, in the ways that Michael did and the way that our GSA did, I think that there exists in education at all levels, possibility and pathways for exploration in a safe and enclosed environment, right.
Speaker E:Where you can create community and create space for students to build their own community.
Speaker E:So I think that feels so fundamental to me now in the life that I have lived since high school and for who I was as a high school student.
Speaker E:And I think that this moment that we're in requires more.
Speaker E:Right?
Speaker E:Because education is under attack at all levels.
Speaker E:Curriculum, books, what we literally like, the resources that students have access to, the conversations that students have access to.
Speaker E:I think that piece feels really critical in this moment to address that education as a concept is under threat and education for people who need it most.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:The kinds of things that are probably not taught in a classroom, that I was never taught in a classroom in high school, that.
Speaker E:That access feels like it's.
Speaker E:It's a moment that we are.
Speaker E:Are in.
Speaker E:That feels very scary in part because, you know, statistically, right, like, LGBTQ plus people are 10% of the population.
Speaker E:That pretty.
Speaker E:Pretty recent Gallup poll, right?
Speaker E: From: Speaker E:But for Young.
Speaker E:For the generation that is in school now, 25%, about 25% of them identify as LGBTQ, and they have access to information, the Internet, in a way that, I mean, I feel very, very grateful to have been a millennial who grew up alongside the Internet.
Speaker E:And like, a lot of the resources that I found, I found on my own and in, like, through conversations with other people.
Speaker E:I know that there are a lot of resources that are out there, but do students know how to access them?
Speaker E:Who can be sort of the support piece inside the school system that allows for more and deeper access to the resources that folks might need?
Speaker E:That's where my mind goes immediately.
Speaker B:When you use the word ally.
Speaker B:I think that was a word that, as soon as you said it, I needed to write it down because I think that's an important concept for people to understand.
Speaker B:When you use that word ally, what do you mean by that?
Speaker E:Oof.
Speaker E:I love you diving into that one in particular, because I feel like it is one of those words that gets used in all kinds of ways.
Speaker E:And I think at other moments in time, it meant something like putting a rainbow sticker in your window and maybe not having the language.
Speaker E:But even now, that is a political act.
Speaker E:That was always a political act, right?
Speaker E:And in this climate, what that political act means is, can you.
Speaker E:Are you willing to actually do that and put yourself on the line as a teacher, as a person in a School building for a student, for a student to feel like if I walk through that door, they might have met somebody else like me.
Speaker E:They might know some of the words that I might use to describe myself.
Speaker E:They might refer to me with the pronouns that I want them to refer to me with.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:Like they might be here for me in this moment in time in a way that another teacher might not, or another counselor.
Speaker E:I think school counselor is also having ways of acknowledging or identifying themselves like that feel really important to me, felt really important to me in high school.
Speaker E:So I think about that moment.
Speaker E:I also think about what it actually means to have language.
Speaker E:I think that there's an education piece that a lot of teachers, educators, people in school buildings do not get around, what language to use, how to talk about these issues, how to talk about these identities.
Speaker E:And I think that that's okay.
Speaker E:You don't have to always use the right words.
Speaker E:I think most queer and trans folks will tell you that if you are trying that means so much more than any than not, then you are like, willing to at least put yourself out there to engage in the conversation.
Speaker E:And so I think about all of those pieces.
Speaker E:I mean, obviously I can.
Speaker E:You know, there's organizations that are out there that will train you as an educator.
Speaker E:There are organizations out there that you could plug into locally, nationally, that you could know about to be able to provide as a resource to students.
Speaker E:And I think trying counts for a lot.
Speaker C:So we discuss allyship as a construct.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So it's interesting that Grant wrote that down because I wrote that down as well.
Speaker C:And allyship, and I loved Mel, how you lifted that up right.
Speaker C:From experience for feeling safe.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Activated belonging, not a buzzword.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I also, when we talked for the last time, as a collective, I also focused on allyship as a construct, not being self proclaimed, but earned.
Speaker C:That means that we are not weaponizing allyship to cover our own fragilities.
Speaker C:We're ready to come into relationship, human relationships with each other's, to lift their dignity.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:If we're talking about powerful student care, I always think about the word that resonates through that great work.
Speaker C:Dignity.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:As humble servants.
Speaker C:So I wanted you to really unpack some of those thoughts and really make that your own.
Speaker C:Because I just love the fact that we're here right now in this conversation.
Speaker E:You know, I think for me, when I was a young person coming out and finding my own way, I was the only person that I knew until I came out.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:Like, until I took that step, I did not know Anybody of my own age.
Speaker E:My brother, thankfully, is six years older, you know, and had had some queer friends.
Speaker E:Cause he was a theater kid.
Speaker E:And so very grateful for those beacons.
Speaker E:But I didn't have anybody in my immediate to mirror back my experience to me.
Speaker E:And that was even more true when I came out as trans in high school.
Speaker E:And when I came out as trans, it was in a moment when every time I came, every time I said the word transgender to somebody, I had to define what it meant because they had never heard it before.
Speaker E:We're in a different moment now where I think people have heard these terms enough, maybe.
Speaker E:Maybe in scary ways, maybe in lovely ways, but I think it means that we can have a different kind of conversation.
Speaker E:So I think for me, what it meant to me then is different, I think, than what it means to me now to be an ally.
Speaker E:Because I think then it meant something as simple as, oh, I can be in this classroom and feel like I can stand on my own two feet, or I can be in this GSA classroom with Mike Pipa and feel like I can start to embody what it might mean for me to live as my truest self, both as an activist.
Speaker E:I think a school environment is an incredible, you know, petri dish for testing some ideas out, right?
Speaker E: Like, I came out as trans in: Speaker E:I had.
Speaker E:I was 16.
Speaker E:And the first thing that came up when I googled transgender or Ask Jeeves, maybe it was a different moment in the Internet.
Speaker E:It was Transgender day of remembrance, right?
Speaker E:So the first message that I got about what it meant to be a trans person in this world was that trans people are killed in crazy numbers every year around the world.
Speaker E:Right?
Speaker E:And so that.
Speaker E:And.
Speaker E:And what.
Speaker E:What it meant to feel safe in school was that I could bring that knowledge, I could bring that list that I'd printed out and start to have a conversation about, what do we want to do about this?
Speaker E:This day is coming up.
Speaker E:How do we want to navigate this in our school environment?
Speaker E:We wound up having a vigil walk around our school and having to navigate what it meant to, like, talk to the principal, talk to the school building about how we would do that and what it meant to have an ally in our advisor at that moment was, okay, let's have this conversation.
Speaker E:I am here to help you figure this out and to be the adult validator in this room if you need me, when you need me.
Speaker E:And that meant so much to me at that moment in time, because it was.
Speaker E:It meant that I had a place where I Could be having these conversations that I was burning to have all day long.
Speaker E:And Thursdays after school, you know, became my safe haven.
Speaker D:Oh, that's so such a beautiful memory, Mel.
Speaker D:And to shine a bit of a light on how I understood my role.
Speaker D:I first met Mel when.
Speaker D:Mel, you were a seventh grader, I think.
Speaker D:And Maureen, one of our lovely school counselors, had said, I'm stealing you pipa because there is a new friend you need to make.
Speaker D:And it was such a beautiful introduction to you as a young person.
Speaker D:And then we began working much more closely in high school.
Speaker D:And your example.
Speaker D:And whenever I talk about you with colleagues, the one thing that we feel the warmth of to this day is your yes.
Speaker D:And kind of approach to everyone and every situation.
Speaker D:And when we talk about the word ally, honestly, I am an ally for every one of my students, however they may identify.
Speaker D:I am seeking to earn that position for them and that level of trust.
Speaker D:I think what linked us so quickly together is that I recognized a common spirit.
Speaker D:And that was how you were seen in our middle school and then in our high school, as somebody that was open and interested and genuinely curious about every person whose path you crossed.
Speaker D:And it's why you were almost unanimously selected to speak at the commencement of your class, because you were that kind of powerful representation of who we wanted and how we wanted our lives to be.
Speaker D:And, you know, I think in your work going forward, that is really the spirit and strength of it, is that you work to earn that ally, ship that ally place, and to help kind of remove all of the layers that may have been accumulated for an individual so that they can breathe, they can step forward.
Speaker D:When you think about your trajectory from.
Speaker D:From high school and all of the leadership work you began doing in high school, has that path felt straight?
Speaker D:Has it had surprising curves?
Speaker D:Because when I caught up with you, to me, it just felt like a flowering that I could see, but that's, you know, from a great remove.
Speaker D:How does it feel as we think back to Thursdays and now where you are?
Speaker D:Does it feel like an inevitability, or have there been some surprises?
Speaker E:I love that.
Speaker E:Such a beautiful question.
Speaker E:And I also love, love getting to hear that moment in time reflected and refracted back through your experience.
Speaker E:In some ways, it feels like a straight line.
Speaker E:Like, in some ways, I feel like the work that I do for my day job is the work that I have been doing my entire life.
Speaker E:And in other ways, I think there's been some twists and turns.
Speaker E:I mean, so when I was in high School.
Speaker E:I got involved with glsen.
Speaker E:The.
Speaker E:Their acronym, I'm sure, has changed, but at the time was the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, and they have local chapters all over the country.
Speaker E:And so I got involved on the local level in the New York Capital Region chapter as a student representative on that board.
Speaker E:And what that meant was that we.
Speaker E:My best friend still to this day.
Speaker E:And I told our coming out stories at wherever.
Speaker E:Who.
Speaker E:Whoever would have us.
Speaker E:We would go and talk about our experiences.
Speaker E:Sometimes that was for teachers.
Speaker E:Sometime that was for different community groups.
Speaker E:It's how I met my wife way back when, when I was 16 and she was 15.
Speaker E:But we.
Speaker E:So we would do that and we would have the Day of Silence every year and the Breaking of the Silence event.
Speaker E:And it was a way to feel connected to something bigger.
Speaker E:And then I got involved in GLSEN as a youth leader to the national organization.
Speaker E:They had a new.
Speaker E:At the time, they were working to pass the Dignity for All Students act.
Speaker E:What a brilliant kind of moment to be reflecting back on in this environment.
Speaker E:But we were so.
Speaker E:We would go to different places and kind of talk about our experiences as students and what passing something like that would mean for us.
Speaker E:And then after.
Speaker E:After high school, I had a sort of a nonlinear college path.
Speaker E:I knew that I wanted to be in New York, and so I applied to one school.
Speaker E:I applied to Brooklyn College in part because I just wanted to be in New York.
Speaker E:And I was like, I think maybe I could get in here.
Speaker E:And I did, but it was a commuter school.
Speaker E:And so I wound up living in an apartment with some Craigslist strangers and having a very interesting freshman year of commuting on the subway train to a school where we had an LGBTQ alliance.
Speaker E:But our room was about a third of the room that I'm in now.
Speaker E:Teeny, tiny little closet where we would sit on couches and bump knees.
Speaker E:And at that school, I would get regularly policed when I would go to the bathroom, presenting as a very ambiguous human in the world.
Speaker E:Buzzed head, not on hormones, really kind of figuring out my gender journey in a lot of ways still.
Speaker E:And so I knew that I liked the school.
Speaker E:I really.
Speaker E:I made some good, good human connections there, but I needed to be somewhere where I could breathe.
Speaker E:So I applied to transfer schools and I wound up at NYU in part because my dear friend with whom I would tell our coming out stories had started there.
Speaker E:And they had a group called Tea Party, which was for trans and gender non conforming students and friends and allies.
Speaker E:And she asked if they could bring in non NYU students.
Speaker E:So I wound up going.
Speaker E:It felt in many ways like our GSA all over again, but specifically for trans students.
Speaker E:And so that opened up a pathway to me into community at nyu, into new information and new pathways about how my life might turn out.
Speaker E:And so I wound up transferring to NYU and in many ways studying what it meant to transition.
Speaker E:In undergrad, I was at Gallatin, which is a school of individualized study, and I studied basically transitioning, an undergrad, writing, but also LGBTQ nonprofits.
Speaker E:I was very interested in gender and queer theory and grassroots organizing.
Speaker E:And so that's what I designed my concentration around.
Speaker E:Interned at basically any queer nonprofit that would have me in the city.
Speaker E:Sylvia Rivera Law Project Queers for Economic justice and really studied kind of how those organizations were functioning and what it meant to be doing the kind of work that I was interested in doing, the kind of work that I felt like I'd been doing in more formalized structures, what advocacy actually meant at the city and state level.
Speaker E:And so when I graduated, finding a way into a space like that felt like the pathway.
Speaker E:And for me, my North Star in high school in many ways had been Empire State Pride Agenda, because it was the most visible local organization doing work, and it was New York's statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Speaker E:And so I got very lucky that the executive director at the time remembered me from a lobby day talking about dignity for all students when I was 16.
Speaker E:And he said, okay, let's see what we can do together.
Speaker E:And so I became his executive assistant.
Speaker E:And that was my first job out of college.
Speaker E:And that directly led me to the organization that I work for now, because Empire State Pride Agenda was New York's member of Equality Federation.
Speaker E:And so anyway, all of that, and I went to grad school for creative writing.
Speaker E:I think writing and advocacy have always been kind of the two halves of my heart in the work, but it's in some ways a very.
Speaker E:A non linear path, and in other ways it feels like a direct route to where I've always been.
Speaker B:So I'm struck by.
Speaker B:Well, by everything that you say, actually.
Speaker B:But there were several things that, as I was listening to you and thinking about dignity as a birthright and belonging and knowing that the national statistics on belonging in schools is incredibly low for everybody, right.
Speaker B:That, you know, every student who walks into.
Speaker B:Into the.
Speaker B:The school environment struggles to.
Speaker B:To belong and to be unconditionally welcomed.
Speaker B:And then you said, you know, I needed to be in a place where I could breathe.
Speaker B:And then I'm Thinking, okay, so let's.
Speaker B:Let's unpack that a little bit.
Speaker B:Because if all of our students, regardless of who they are and where they come from, are struggling to experience belonging and dignity as a birthright, and then you have other populations that, in addition to that, are struggling to find a place that they can breathe, that's so much further than just belonging.
Speaker B:So what do we need to understand about that?
Speaker B:That's a huge statement.
Speaker B:I needed to be in a place where I could breathe.
Speaker B:What do educators need to understand about that sentence?
Speaker B:Or actually, not just educators, but the entire world.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But we focus on educators here at the wheelhouse.
Speaker B:But there's always a link to the outside world as well.
Speaker B:But that's just.
Speaker B:That is such a powerful statement.
Speaker B:If you would just talk a bit for a moment about what that means.
Speaker E:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker E:You know, I'm struck by how Michael framed the way that I made space for other people, because it never felt like I was trying to make space for other people.
Speaker E:It always felt like I was trying to make room for myself where I was, whether that was talking about Transgender Day of Remembrance or coming to the gsa.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:Like, I, the first.
Speaker E:My first week of high school, I went and became a member of the alliance because that was a place that I, I knew already existed.
Speaker E:And I knew that, thankfully, from my brother, who isn't.
Speaker E:Who is six years older, you know, and had been through the school before, before me.
Speaker E:And.
Speaker E:And so having that be that place where I could know that I belonged, because I felt like I already belonged there.
Speaker E:I felt like I had wanted a GSA in middle school.
Speaker E:I was trying to do that there to make some space.
Speaker E:And I think what happens when there aren't those spaces that are already created is that for me, my experience was that I either had to do it myself or find some other like minded people who are trying to do it and do it with them.
Speaker E:But it's a lot harder when those spaces don't exist already because it doesn't feel like there's room for them to exist.
Speaker E:And it doesn't feel.
Speaker E:Didn't feel like there was room for me to exist at Brooklyn College.
Speaker E:And I, I was so.
Speaker B:For.
Speaker E:I, you know, I spent four years kind of working and chipping at.
Speaker E:In our high school, and I was so ready to not do that.
Speaker E:I.
Speaker E:To just have a little bit of a rest and to feel like I could walk into a room where that work had already been done.
Speaker E:And I think it's true for so many people in so many ways.
Speaker E:I feel it so acutely for queer and trans folks, especially students, but having teachers who are willing to make some space, having other kinds of folks who are interested in those conversations.
Speaker E:And for me, that meant that I plugged into every conversation where that might even kind of talk about LGBTQ issues.
Speaker E:Like, I got involved with ncbi, the National Coalition Building Institute, in part because they were talking about diversity, they were talking about inclusion in ways that felt like the conversations that I wanted to be involved in.
Speaker E:But I.
Speaker E:What it means to be able to breathe in a space, I think is so different for everybody.
Speaker E:But for me, it meant that someone else like me might have passed through those doors before me.
Speaker E:And I think that that is still what I look for in a space.
Speaker E:And when I am trying to find my home, right?
Speaker E:This is true.
Speaker E:When I found a synagogue, right, Like I found a synagogue after college here in Brooklyn that is, like, still my spiritual home that I had been.
Speaker E:I tried on a bunch, and there were so many places where I walked in the door and I felt like I was the first trans person who had ever walked through that door.
Speaker E:And the place that I found, I didn't feel like that because.
Speaker E:And it's true, I was not.
Speaker E:They had had those conversations.
Speaker E:They had gender neutral bathrooms.
Speaker E:And sometimes it's as simple as something like that where it's like, they're, okay, you've at least had a conversation about bathrooms.
Speaker E:That means that we don't have to start there.
Speaker E:We can have a different level of conversation when I come through this door.
Speaker C:So I'm reeling in a good way.
Speaker C:When you talk about breathing, that resonates strongly for me.
Speaker C:I can't breathe.
Speaker C:Emotes a lot for me.
Speaker C:Emotes a lot for all of us.
Speaker C:So I kind of want to sit there and thank you for leaning into that and lifting that up.
Speaker C:I want to talk about environmental shifts.
Speaker C:As somebody who was raised in New York City, understanding community and neighborhoods, I understand the need for you to move from Brooklyn College to Gallatin.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So what is community and acceptance and mattering?
Speaker C:I kind of wanted to focus on that because it's hard to create spaces.
Speaker C:And what the listeners don't see is everyone nodding their head in this space when you're talking about certain things, like the burden of creating a space instead of being accepted.
Speaker C:Thank you, Michael.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:For being the teacher that accepted and created a space so that Mel didn't have to not only be burdened with the.
Speaker C:The beauty of uplifting his intersectionality and the richness of that.
Speaker C:And now you have to create a space because I'm not the square peg that fits in the round hole.
Speaker C:Okay, that's major.
Speaker C:And I really wanted to sit.
Speaker C:And I don't know if this connects, Michael, with what you were going to uplift in your thoughts around space and an extension of grant and dignity and human dignity.
Speaker C:I really want us to continue because we've been building up with each and every one of our episodes to hear.
Speaker C:And one of my norms is we got to go slow in order to gain momentum, to go fast.
Speaker C:Hopefully we can marinate in this space a bit and unpack it a little bit more for the listeners, because this requires a lot of a paradigm seeking, self reflection, the who I am.
Speaker C:So it's looking at me instead of pointing at everyone else.
Speaker C:It talks a lot around what I first started with, with the introduction of fragility into the conversation.
Speaker C:So I.
Speaker C:I like us to sit with this a little bit more.
Speaker C:And Michael, I definitely welcome your thoughts around this.
Speaker D:I'm just so glad that you paused and just had us stay in the moment of I can't breathe and to hear that voice again, speaking for so many of us, you know, for those of us who were educated in leadership tradition, you know, there.
Speaker D:There was a very influential author and book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey.
Speaker D:And his first habit was seek first to understand before expecting to be understood.
Speaker D:And it was just a really concise way of speaking the truth that helped me understand that that's what I was aspiring to all the time.
Speaker D:I was trying to be that kind of presence where I was working harder to gain understanding before I was trying to make my point.
Speaker D:And, Mel, when you were talking about the experience of always carrying the burden of trying to make room for your own being and how exhausting that is for everybody who does not see themselves in the center of the dominant culture, but is crushed beneath its blindness and its blind, ponderous weight.
Speaker D:And I just feel like when we're reminded of that simple tenet that, hey, if we just try to understand first before we expect to be understood, as people who have the privilege of being centered in that dominant culture, we can easily and gracefully make room for everything.
Speaker D:What was clear to me when I first began working with you, Mel, was your brilliance.
Speaker D:You were brilliantly kind, you were brilliantly intelligent, you were brilliantly resourceful, and you were brilliantly committed to yourself.
Speaker D:I felt it in each of our conversations, and it helped me understand the role I could play as a co conspirator, as a collaborator, as somebody who was going to be learning right with you, that I could use my position to clear the way so that everything good that was so evident could grow.
Speaker D:And that's essentially the work of educators.
Speaker D:That's our job with each child, and we talk about it in terms of being an ally.
Speaker D:But to me, we are cultivators of hope.
Speaker D:To once again take Dr.
Speaker D:Monroe's phrase, we're cultivators of hope.
Speaker D:And however that child comes into our midst, to first learn that person as well as we can, to understand and understand and never feel that we are done with that particular part of the work.
Speaker D:And then to clear the way, to raise up and to make evident what it is we see in you that cannot be stopped.
Speaker D:And so that's what I'm reminded of.
Speaker D:And I'm also feeling that burden that as a privileged individual, there are so many burdens I don't have to carry.
Speaker D:But I can see the weariness on my friends.
Speaker D:And, you know, just when you walk into temple and you see that they already have, you know, gender neutral bathrooms, I mean, you know, we can.
Speaker D:We can be reductive inappropriately and say, hey, these rights are just about people wanting to go into any bathroom they want, or we can be reductive positively and understand that when you choose to say, we get it, we understand, and I'm doing for you what I hope somebody would do for my own child and me.
Speaker D:The power of that simple statement is infinite.
Speaker D:It signals so many things.
Speaker D:So I'm just grateful that, you know, as part of that story, you were able to talk about some of the simple moves that often, often get mischaracterized, but they're really the expression of humanity.
Speaker D:And so thank you for that.
Speaker B:But there's the flip side to that, Michael, and that is that, yes, our job is to cultivate hope, but in many cases, the negative, the flip side is that we're killing dreams.
Speaker D:That's right.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're killing dreams.
Speaker B:And we have to, you know, we have to keep reminding ourselves that there are children, students, young adults, adults in the world, right?
Speaker B:Whether they are LGBTQIA or they come from some other marginalized group of people that are looking for a place where they can breathe.
Speaker B:And I think we have to remember, right?
Speaker B:And I'm going to ask.
Speaker B:I'm going to ask Mel to talk about that for just a minute.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:Cultivate hope or kill a dream.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:Our actions, our Actions contribute to one of those two possibilities.
Speaker B:It would be criminal.
Speaker B:It would be criminal to think that we would do anything that would put Mel King or anybody else in a place where they are unable to breathe.
Speaker E:Just sitting in it for a moment.
Speaker E:But I think some of the most impactful actions that anybody took that gave me hope was to just make a little space for possibility.
Speaker E: ct than it might have been in: Speaker E: ugh it was a big, bold act in: Speaker E:We moved through a moment as.
Speaker E:As.
Speaker E:As Americans, as a society where we saw a steady accumulation of legal rights and protections for LGBTQ people and broader understanding or, you know, at least the sloganeering of compassion in the Love is love.
Speaker E:But I think that what it means now is that any act to say, I am an ally to LGBTQ people, to say that I am an.
Speaker E:I am a person who is going to make space for diversity and equity and inclusion in my classroom, what that means right now is that it might put a target on your back.
Speaker E:It might mean that you lose your job.
Speaker E:Like, there are, like, real and true ramifications for putting yourself out there in this moment and making what it.
Speaker E:The.
Speaker E:The flip side of not doing that is that suicide rates are already on the rise.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:And that we will lose students when teachers choose not to, or choose not to say the thing that may be controversial or to put that book away or to allow for these school boards to come for the materials that are going to make a little bit of possibility for students of all kinds.
Speaker E:And so I worry so much about students now who have, in many ways, more access to information than anyone has ever had before, and in other ways are being told that there is not space for you.
Speaker E:And, in fact, we do not want you here in our classroom, in the school, in this state, in this world.
Speaker E:In this world.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker D:Not as you are.
Speaker D:Not as you are.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:You have to change.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:And I.
Speaker E:So I think that it is not a small thing to do this work right now.
Speaker E:It has never been a small thing.
Speaker E:And the humanity that it requires and the compassion and the care is a little bit.
Speaker E:It's asking more.
Speaker E:It's asking more of educators, I think, in this moment.
Speaker E:And I will say that sometimes that's as simple as opening your classroom after school.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:And letting the students do what they will do.
Speaker E:And what that meant for me in high school was that whoever came, came into that room and we made community with who showed up.
Speaker E:And I loved Alicia.
Speaker E:You bring the community piece into it because work in community is not easy work.
Speaker E:I think that especially right now, I think community organizing gets lifted up as a.
Speaker E:That's where we go.
Speaker E:And I agree.
Speaker E:And I think that is where we go.
Speaker E:And I think that is how we move hearts and minds and turn back what.
Speaker E:What is happening.
Speaker E:And that work is not small.
Speaker E:The work of relationship and conflict and repair and struggle and trying to build and move together is hard work and it is deeply necessary.
Speaker E:And students get a taste of that in an after school club where they can start to imagine what is possible together and make some space for conversations that show up.
Speaker E:Weird conversations, good conversations, rowdy conversations.
Speaker D:Human conversations, beautiful ones.
Speaker B:Yeah, I want to, I just want to say thank you, Mel, for joining us today in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:My only regret is that I didn't know you sooner.
Speaker B:It's such an honor to get to listen to you, to get to talk to you.
Speaker B:I hope that this relationship continues.
Speaker B:You are always welcome in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker B:We would love to have you come back and to share more of your insights.
Speaker B:So it has been an absolute pleasure and thank you very much.
Speaker B:And for those of you who are listening, we'll see you next time in the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:And that's a wrap of episode 10 in this season of the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:A special thank you to our good friend Mel King for joining us in this episode today.
Speaker A:Are you a like minded educator who's committed to promoting hope?
Speaker A:Subscribe to our all new wheelhouse newsletter@thewheelhouse.substack.com how does Mel's definition of what it means to be in a space where he can breathe resonate with you?
Speaker A:How are we creating spaces like these for each of our students?
Speaker A:And how can we here at the Wheelhouse help you reach these aspirational leaps and jumps?
Speaker A:You know, we really do want to hear from you and we hope you'll respond to those questions and subscribe to our all new Wheelhouse newsletter.
Speaker A:The Wheelhouse is a production of Students Matter, LLC.
Speaker A:New episodes of season nine will drop every Tuesday beginning February 25th and will continue now through May 20th.
Speaker A:Our show's theme music, Off We Go was written and performed by Cody Martin and obtained through soundstripe.com youm can find me on LinkedIn, BlueSky and of course, stop by our website and check out what we offer@our studentsmatter.org you can subscribe to this podcast on either itunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts together.
Speaker A:Our goal is to prove to each student and to each educator that they are both distinctive and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:Until next time.
Speaker A:Remember, we got this.
