On this episode of the podcast, we're doing things a little differently. I'm handing the mic over to high school students in Massachusetts. They recorded their own episodes within 60 minutes of a single conference session. The results are pretty powerful without further ado. Let me hand it over to your student hosts for the episode. I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nerdy out about co creating curriculum with students. I made this show for you. Here we go. Uh My name is Angel here with Nick Andrea Diana and Mr Harris and we're talking about gentrification and how it impacts people's lives and changes everything.

Yeah. So what you gotta ask Nick? So I was asking Nick, what his concerns about climate change. Are we're talking about climate change and gentrification in our area which is East Boston. And Nick's concern was climate change. And I was asking what his concerns specifically are about climate change. It's a great question. What do you say about that? So like climate change around our city is like different because some days could be like warm and then the other days can just like have a storm hitting us the next day and then everybody just be concerned about it. Mm. I like that. I like that. Do you have anything to say about that? And then when it is stormy after like a really warm day, we get flooded and they're building new buildings in areas that are prone to flooding, which makes no sense. So there's a lot of stuff going on in East Boston and Diana. Do you have anything to add to this? Um, I would say it's that it's, it's getting like a little bit tired with that stuff of the house and everything but it's like, it's getting to a point that it's getting uncomfortable. So, yeah. Ok. I agree with that also.

I have to say that because my mama told me that it's like kicking out the people that've been there forever because they don't have as much money as they offering to sell these apartments and all that. And it's just like kicking out all the lower class, middle class people and it's not fair. So y'all have anything to say about that. I agree. So the, the dynamics of our city have changed a lot because especially in the last year, because of COVID, when people weren't able to work and make money, they had to move because they had to go where they could afford things. And so in our area in East Boston, we lost a lot of students and their families because People couldn't afford the rents and things of that nature. A lot of people passed away or had situations in their families, which changed the dynamics of their earning ability. And so when you don't, when you're not able to make 2800 for rent, because you can't work, where do you go, you go further away where it's cheaper. And then our School population has changed a lot in the last 3-5 years because of these things.

So the gentrification, East Boston where new homes are being put up in condos and things like that, it makes it really hard on families that are working to just be able to live in the same neighborhood as all these people with quote unquote a lot of money or more money. Uh So it's just changed our whole neighborhood. And then also, as we were talking about climate change doesn't help either because we have area around the water that gets flooded a lot and people are going to be increasingly less able to live in those neighborhoods. And we are live with Paul with Jeffrey Herman today and my co-host Chris Isiah and the topic of the day is inclusion in sports, Chris. How do you feel inclusion in sports? I feel like people on teams and sports need to be more inclusive to others so that more people will join the team and more people would be happy in general and feel comfortable while being on a sports team. How do you feel? How can I have said it any better? My brother, um I would like to invite Toria Digger to the podcast right now.

I have a question for you to, can you introduce yourself to the podcast, please? Um Hi, my name is to Dicker. How do we get more people to join sports who may feel uncomfortable at first? Um I feel like having a captain who can like bring people in and like, make sure that everyone feels welcome on a team. I think that's a really important factor. So you talked about this captain, what are some captain qualities you would say? Um, being inclusive, making sure everyone feels welcome. Um Like bringing the team up when like someone's down. I think those are three really big. All right. Thank you for your time. Bye, next to the stage is a Gary. Hi. Hi. How do we get more people to join sports who may feel uncomfortable after, from our, your perspective. So I think to have more students join sports is to having an, like an open environment where they can feel safe even if they mess up and being able to try new things. All right, that's a good, that's a good topic.

Hi. My name is Ella. I'm a junior from Oxbridge. Um, I'm, uh, Alec, I'm a junior from Watertown. I'm Mauricio and I'm a junior from Watertown too. I'm Jeremy and I'm a, a school principal from in West. So today we're making a podcast about the mistreatment of our peers with disabilities and how we can just talk about our experiences and like, how we can fix that within our school. So at Watertown, I truly haven't experienced any bullying or seen anyone get mistreated. I've seen kids like, sit alone at tables because they're different in a way or too and they have a disability but nothing to the extent of someone like bullying or using like vulgar language to get at someone. Do you think? And other kids think about how those students who are sitting alone feel and just don't know how to approach them or do you think it's just something that doesn't even really cross their mind? Oh, yeah, of course. I think some kids do have like the fear of like opening up and like asking someone to, like, sit with them.

I think that's easy to everyone to just open up to someone you don't really know, they don't talk to on a daily basis. And just ask to sit with them. I know since I started the Unified Program this year, um I'm now obviously more like, I'm seeing more that like, some of these kids are like, sitting alone and like, now I can, like, go and like, I know them now and I can go talk to them. But sometimes, like when I'm sitting with my friends and like they are sitting with other groups, I realize that they'll be doing something that's not considered like normal or just being like, abnormally loud for the lunch room. And there would be like giggles and just other things like that. So that's kind of what I want to stop in my school is like no more like of these like little side comments that aren't necessary because obviously they're different. But that doesn't mean they don't need to be treated with the same respect as like you or I, so that's kind of my goal for when I get back how many people participate in the Unified program. So I was in unified gym and there was like eight helpers or buddies and we didn't really know what to call it us.

And then there is no, there's nine of us and then there was eight kids from a Stewart's room who is the unified teacher. There's more kids in that room, but there's only eight in that specific program. Most of them being on the younger side like eighth graders because eighth grade at our high school? Did you have to decide to enter that program or was it as designed or how does that? So, I went to guidance last day at school of my sophomore, my friend and this guidance counselor, she kind of knows me because she's not my guidance counselor. She's like, oh, I was meaning to talk to you. You'd be a good fit because of like my involvement in like student counsel and like other sports. I do. So I it was kind of a good fit for like the first year of this program running and I'm glad I did it because I just, do you think it was something that a lot of people were doing? It would make a big difference in this. Um I think since the Unified Sports Program like started, obviously, now we're doing like, I'm doing our side clicks club, I'm gonna be doing a unified tournament soon. So I think this program has really used a gateway to have more kids enter like and be more inclusive with this unified program, which I think is a great, I like a great thing because I would have never been as far as I KS or done Unified if I wasn't introduced to this program when I was.

So I think more programs like this, we try to start uni basketball team, but we just didn't get interest. So I think with more interest and more involvement, it could like really grow something. What she touched base on too was like, so we have that sort of thing to unify basketball. I think it's more of like a community now. Like, you see one friend joining in as a helper and then you, you want to do it all of a sudden and I think community service plays a big part of it. It, like, kids would just start off at first just to get community service and get their hours. And now I think kids just do it because they really enjoy it and they like, you know, like they have fun being with the UN five kids. And so, so I think it's just more of a community now and that's evolved to other activities too, like outside of it with the kids that you don't really think you'd see each other, like getting along now all of a sudden, it's just really evolving something that's evolved over the years. Like, even when I've been in the high school, like, I don't know, I just think it's getting better and better over the years.

Yeah. Since the Unified Program is like new into our school, this was our first year of the Unified Basketball program and like, we couldn't even get a team. So it became a club which we joined. So I think we just really need more student involvement in these activities. Like I know, I sadly couldn't participate because I had other sports going on the same with a bunch of my friends. So we really need to like emphasize like this is for everyone. You don't need to play basketball to do this. This is more about fun and inclusion, which needs to be more. Yeah, that too. Like how, how it's brought up, how it's like, like if someone comes up to how it's introduced to people, yeah. If you just come up to me and say hi, like, do you need community service? Most of the kids are gonna say, yeah, if people are just like, it's unified, then some kids might be like, all right, that's the line. Like, I don't think I could see myself doing that like that sort of thing. Like, I think this kids just, just like throw it off because it's unified and they don't think they build a bond with those kids. But then once they start nice. Yeah, I, I personally haven't joined any of at our school.

Like said we have unified basketball but I haven't joined yet. But now I think coming here and like actually talking about it, it's like, now I'm kind of interested in doing it and helping out. So, are you a hockey player? Yeah, me and him play hockey and there's now a Unified Hockey. It's Lindsey just jumping in here quick just to remind you that this episode has a free resource, which are the slides from the summit conference session. So the exact slides that I use to help students produce the podcast episode in 16 minutes or less. Go check it out. Lindsay Beth clients dot com slash blog slash one oh seven. Now, back to the episode. But, like, learn to play stuff. Yeah, I, I bet there is something with, with skating or something relevant or floor hockey or something unified. They do, like, recreational, like in the summer and stuff like floor hockey and I bet, I think the best way to do this is to find something you already like, you know, something related to hockey and, and find a way that you can get back and help other people too. And that makes a lot of sense. Unified is, is um affiliated with the Special Olympics, right?

Um I don't know if in my school it is because like Unified pe was like, run by a pe teacher, like she created the whole curriculum. But then like, at the same time, me, like the entire unified class basically goes to it. So I don't really know, like, I just don't have that information. So I don't know if it's like, because I know like my a pe teacher I've had in the past, like, created this curriculum over the summer for this semester. So, so I think I saw one of the other rooms here that was about Unified Sports mentioned an affiliation with the Special Olympics. We all just, we all, we all came from that. So because my, my son did skiing through the Special Olympics where he would go every Sunday and, you know, students who were, and even actually somewhere up to 18, some of them old than them. But, and he would basically do a learn to ski with them where he would teach them to ski. And he would actually many of them get to the point where they were doing, you know, races on the weekends as part of a, a special Olympics program I imagine is really similar to, to unify. And so he was able to take something he really enjoyed, which was the key and to help other people.

So kind of a win win there. Yeah, I agree with that. I, like you said, I think it's just like something that you have a passion and, and enjoy doing and then passing that down pes unified kids, like even younger kids. It's just like, it's a special, like, thing to you too, I guess at that point, like teaching someone something, like just putting a smile on someone else's face at the end of the day, like teaching them how to do something that you have passion. I guess it's something I enjoy. It's a great comment and the podcast. It was good. Uh Up, what's up? Um, it's, you go to high school? Hello, how y'all doing? My name is Jamal and I go to high school as well. I'm Zach and I go to East Bridge. Water. So today we're gonna be talking about true intentions. What does that mean to other people? And what does that mean for other people? And we're also gonna talk about how it affects everybody in general and we're gonna see today and hear other people's voices about true intentions.

We'll just interview a few people ask them questions about true intentions and how it's affected their life and what they think about people switching up on them. We come all right. Have you ever known anyone who said they want the best food? But they end up almost like switching up on you? Yeah. Um Yes, not really bad. But you have these people that will say they want the best for you, but if that gets in the way of them doing something, right? Uh Kind of conflicting with you, then they don't really want the best for you. They just say that because they really want the best for themselves. Sometimes you find that in life. Um, and do you think like having like true intentions and like, say this out loud affects you personally or just like, yes. Yes. Well, I, I think if I understand your question a little bit too is if you say it out loud, I believe you own it more like, right? If, if you just think it in your head and you don't do it, but if you say it loud and people hear you, you kind of have to own up to that because you said it right.

You own your word. Is that kind of where you're going with that? Yeah, I have another question. Do you think, like, people's sort groundings and like other people's voices affect their attention? I hope so. Um, I would like the same reason. I would say that. Right. I think the majority of the people, yes. If they say it, hopefully they mean it. Um, some people don't, sadly. All right. That wasn't so bad. Not so bad, please. I'm Zaza and I'm here with Max Charles. All right. Um So today's topic is true intentions. So what do you think true intentions means to you? What does it mean to have true intentions? True intentions to me that means um being confident and sure in whatever you're doing, um having a set goal and having a plan to achieve that goal is what I, I believe true intentions are. Do you think um not having true intentions for yourself, affects you mentally?

Yeah, I feel not having true intentions for yourself could create um a sense of or a lack of purpose and direction, um which could cause anxiety or a lack of confidence and disappointment in the ways that you should be going about your business. Do you think it's necessary to back up uh true intentions with words and actions? I have, I'm not one that cares too much for the words, but the actions for sure. Um And so I feel like true intentions have to come with some sort of action to show that your intentions are true. Yeah. Do you ever find like people switching up because they're not sure what their own intentions are? Yeah. I think that's a possibility. I think it also could be that person trying to figure out what their true intentions are and in that process of figuring out what those things are, it could, it could waiver at times. But I think staying the course and figuring out what the core issue is will help in that process. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate y'all here again.

I got it. Um But not like to me honestly like to intentions, honestly, like agree on a lot of, of our um is that his uh I think your attention kind of deals with like something that's mental. If you don't believe in yourself, then like, I don't think you're really gonna go anywhere for, you're not being true to yourself, not thinking or hurting yourself, like and like just like upgrading, you know, not improving or becoming a downfall to yourself. Personally. I like disagree with like now with, with what um the woman downstairs said about her word, that words matter. But I really agree with what Max said when he said. Um he said it's really about action. It's like you could say all this but not mean it like you have to show me like I'm not gonna believe it until I see it type thing.

So, yeah, I feel like, agree with you and like if, if they don't at least back it up, you know, not with words but with actions like their true intentions, like for you or with you, that's like almost when they become switching up or fake at that point. I, I honestly, I just honestly believe like, where is it just something? They're just a sound, you feel me? Like I just, I don't know, like you just gotta like, actually you're proving something, you know, like if you're telling me you're gonna go out and score 50 I'm gonna be like, well, let's be realistic. Like, are you really as good as score 50 or like you're gonna be like old Age of 19, I'm gonna have a playboy mansion or something like it's just like ok, um just like be realistic, you feel me? So it's just like if you're, if you're showing me like, oh yeah, like I don't really gotta say too much like, but you know how I am and I would just be like, well, I, you see your actions prove that would be like, oh that's understandable. But like if it's just like, so yeah, like I'm having more like just being cocky overall.

It's just like, no, that's when like why people say like actions speak louder than worse because like when once as you start to do like more act as you start to have more actions. I feel like that also leads to like trust and then you start like listening to what they say like, and then the words have a bigger impact. That's it. It's like if they start like proving to you that they're trustworthy or like worthy of your trust or like just worthy of like being around you just like you eventually build trust and just start listening to what they're saying instead of just waiting for them to prove it to you that that connects you between stuff. Yeah, I feel like words really not being backed by actions are just ideas and like illusions at one's head. You know, if they're not, they have definitions, but those definitions are more or less abstract and concrete if they're not backed with actions. Well, that's understandable. Like actually doesn't make sense.

Like it's just like, I don't know, like you're just telling me, like to me, it's just like if you're just telling me something, I'm just gonna be like, you're like, why are you just telling me this? I think two minutes pass on. All right. Um All right. But that should like close out the pro podcast today. You feel me? I'm gonna wrap it up hosted by uh Jamal Zaza and Zach. And um you'll have a blessed one, you know, easy. Do you think kids can have any sort of mental illness? Do you think Gen Z is too soft or too sensitive. What do you think are some misconceptions of teenagers? One of the misconceptions I think that teenagers face could be from the LGBT Q community and how um kids aren't accepted. So that's when they go into um depression and, and stress and get anxiety which my friend will be talking about.

Um Yeah, another misconception of teenagers could like um relates to mental illness. A lot of parents think that our generation, Gen Z is too young to have any sort of mental illness, to be stressed, to have anxiety. They think that we live a good life. We're living better than they were when they were younger. So it's kind of hard when you have a mental illness and you can't talk to your parents about it because they think that you have so much to live for and that you like aren't necessarily like in a bad place even when you might be in a bad place, which goes into another talk topic about therapy which my other friend will talk about. Um Yeah, so another misconception um we face as teenagers is that therapy isn't or shouldn't apply to us. Um Parents think that we don't need therapy because we're just so perfect and our lives are perfect.

Now, we're gonna go around and ask people some of their experiences of misconceptions that they've experienced. And um yeah, um so like an experience that I've had is like, my mom thinks that like because I'm a teenager, like some certain things, like, are too serious for me. Like, for relationships, for example, she thinks that, like, I shouldn't, like, have, like a serious relationship and everything should just be like, like, loose and fun. Even though, like, if, like, I wanted something to be more serious, she thinks that, like, it shouldn't be because I'm like, younger. Hi. And welcome back to our podcast talking about systemic issues that plague our society. We're your hosts Kaveri Krishnamurthy and, and we're so excited for you guys to be with us today. We have two very special guests coming up. Um And we're so excited to get to hear their thoughts on gender and racial issues that um are in our society.

All right. Next on our podcast, we're gonna welcome high school students from Massachusetts, Lily and Anna to come talk about their club, um which focuses on women empowerment. So welcome the girls empowerment club. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having us. Um So my name is Lily. I started the girls empowerment movement um when I was a junior and I asked a because she, I just knew she would be receptive to the idea and supportive. Um Awesome. Yeah. So with this club, what are your main focuses? Oh, our main focuses for the club are really to spread awareness about um obviously issues surrounding gender, gender inequality and inaccessibility regarding especially menstrual products. Awesome. And so what sort of drove you to start this club in the first place or was there, was there a specific instance or was it just a culmination of all the systemic issues that exist? Um, well, for me, um, I guess the main issue, um, my freshman year we had a greater discussion in my history class.

Um, it was a response to, um, like a news article we read about, um, the banning of hijabs in France. And, you know, we were debating back and forth, which I didn't really support because nobody in that class would like was Muslim or wore a hijab. But I just remember reading the girls, like, it was the girl's story and she was saying how it made her feel safer. And I said, if it makes her feel safer, then we can't be debating this because it's her choice. And I had read this study earlier that I quoted, that said, um, 98, out of 100 women surveyed had been tackled or followed home by the time they were 17 years old. And this boy in my class responded and said that doesn't mean that 98% of men do that. And I said, HM, I never said that and I just realized that, like, they just don't get it. Like, the, the kids in my school just didn't get what I was talking about. So we reached out, we started the gym club to make them get it. So that, that is really, that is really awesome. Um I know like at least at my school, we have only recently started to talk about getting access to more period products.

We have a senate that is trying to work on that in the period talk club. Um But there's such systemic issues, especially relating to the stigma against um periods and menstruation. And so it's really awesome that you guys are doing these things. Um Yeah, you said you, as you say, like, there was a lot of backlash with your history class, right? What other problems have you faced in like the creation of your club? Um Last year, we were trying to do a menstrual product drive and we were told that we can't actually put the word like menstruation or like period on the posters that we wanted to hang up about awareness and it had to be like a hygiene drive and obviously, it's important to get all of those hygiene products. But our club wanted to focus on specifically menstruation products and ensure that women in need were getting menstrate menstruation products. Um So it was really frustrating to not be able to say like period or menstruation and have like imagery of tampons and pads taken off our posters. Um So, yeah. Right. Yeah. And I'm sure like um as women, the period space is obviously something that we know how to navigate very well.

But um have there been any specific issues and I know you guys already touched on them, but in terms of your own advocacy since public speaking and advocacy, especially for women um and gender minorities, um it's very difficult in our modern day society. And so what sort of issues have you faced in backlash from higher authorities? And how have you been able to navigate that? Um I guess, like at some point, we just realized like, if they're not gonna let us say it, like we're still going to um and we just um collaborated with um this outside organization called Free Period, which that's their organization name. We can't change that and we're not going to. So at some point, we just decided, like, if you're not gonna let us, well, what can you do? We're hanging up the posters anyway. So how did you like came to like, like this like ending of like moving forward from not being able to like, do what you want to do? You have any advice for girls who want to start moving forward with these issues?

I think at the end of the day, you know, whether something appropriate or not and saying the words, period and menstruation aren't inappropriate words. And so we know that like hanging up these posters was like what our club wanted to do and what was important and so just doing what's, what actually matters. Yeah. And do you, if for women who want to start their own um clubs related to um feminine hygiene and period stuff as well as just women who want to start um doing things to empower the community. Do you have any advice and any things that schools or students can do going forward in order to make it easier for women to feel safe in the space to advocate and talk about their own issues. My biggest piece of advice is just do it. There people will join. There are people who need these clubs. There are people who need these spaces. Like if you're afraid, it's gonna be like you and like three of your friends, which I was afraid of it won't be because this is such like an integral need in our public schools right now who like public schools do not provide Freemon products.

Like that's why we're trying to pass the I M bill, which would ensure it not only in public schools but like prisons and like public spaces like we need this. It's bigger than your school. It's the entire state. It's like the country at this point. Like just do it and get it out there as best you can Instagram, Twitter, whatever you have and whoever you know, tell them, keep talking about it. It's sure maybe they'll think it's annoying. Keep doing it, shove it down their throats, make them remember it. So, right. Persistence is the oh, thank you guys so much for joining us on this podcast. Um And what you guys are doing is awesome. So, continue to keep doing what you guys are doing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Hello and welcome to our podcast. And today we're gonna be talking about the um some of these people's experiences on the respected sport teams and what clubs at their school that they're involved in and we have today. Hi, I'm Gauge Williams. My pronouns are he him? And I play football and basketball and I mean, someone is here, my pros are he him?

And I play basketball and I do try. Ok, so playing football, what is it like? Like, what's the community like? So, obviously, uh, East Bridge Water, it's a big football town. So we're well known throughout the school, but we try to be as inclusive to everyone as possible. I think this season we were pretty good with that. There are no altercations with any of the teammates and I felt that our new head coach this year did a great job of just including everyone. Have there been any pass altercations? Uh, so far I've been on the team for three years and all have been good. Yeah. Um, and I know, um, in sports, um, there are barriers, especially for racial minorities and there have been a lot of incidents of hate crime. So, um, has your school done a good job in trying to prevent these, um, systemic issues from getting exacerbated and how, what have you guys done in order to try to make your um sports teams and communities feel as safe and welcome as possible. I think clubs like unity club, they do a good job of incorporating, you know, keeping like a safe place to talk about our issues and we may not like announce it to the public.

But with unity club, we have like a safe place for people of like different races, genders, sexualities to talk about certain issues, whether it be sports at home problems or just life issues as a whole. And it's like sports in general, like I play basketball, I've had good experiences with, I mean, I haven't really had any alterations and I feel like the adults and teachers and staff in our school, they do a good job of trying to, trying to make it known to students, younger students in particular of certain issues that go on in the world to keep them educated. And yeah, that's pretty awesome. Um And I know that it's difficult for schools to be able to integrate everyone as a community and it's really awesome that your school is able to do that. Um Do you have any advice for students who are looking to join sports teams? But um have doubts who are very apprehensive because they're either gender minorities or they're afraid that they're not gonna feel accepted. Um Gender, racial minorities are just um there are systemic things preventing them from joining.

And do you have any advice on how they can navigate um, through the struggles that they're dealing with and how they can seem more integrated into their own communities at school. Right. Well, I know it can be different for, like, every, like every school, our school, I think, like, for me, for example, like I tried track last year and it wasn't great. I wasn't really worried about, like, racial issues or anything like that. But I thought there might be like a few differences because we go to a predominantly white school. I thought there might be a few differences for me and the rest of the team. But I joined and our school did a great job of keeping everybody like connected, keeping everyone like as one. And I know it might not be the same for every school, but like some schools they do may not have like a great track team that's like very inclusive, but that's just something that needs to be like said and spoken about and overcome because it's a problem in many different places of the world and it's something that we need to be talking about. Like, if you see something just say something because not like you're not gonna have a perfect experience in every sport that or anything you try to do in life. So I feel like as a student, like trying a different sport, trying something new that you may, that you might be afraid of doing something I feel like it, it might not hurt to try but like you could fall in love with something like that.

And even if you do have a bad experience, you, if you do have a bad experience with it, maybe just like, try doing something else because you never know what can or that was awesome. All right. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. Hi. So today we're talking about um being more accepting of others and like, if people in general just feel included in high school. And, uh, I want to share a story that, uh, Jeff just shared to me like a couple of minutes ago about, um, a kid at a high school who, um, was a football captain and he came out to his, uh, teammates and it was like a big step for him and he didn't know how people were going to, how his coaches were going. But I think it, like, it shocked me that everyone on the team I heard, um, accepted him and like, it didn't change their point of view or perspective about who he was as a person. Hey, all this is Joey C and Anthony A and today we are going to be talking about a couple of topics that have something to do with perspective.

Yep. So to begin our podcast, um, the first thing we would like to talk about is what is a perspective. And, um, in my opinion, a perspective is somebody's point of view on a certain topic. And, uh, Anthony a which, what is your definition of perspective? Um, I think a perspective is how a person thinks or acts in a response to a topic that's given to them. Yeah, pretty similar to my definition. But, um, we have some follow up questions on the meaning of perspectives. Our first question is, um, where does the perspective come from? Um, I think a perspective comes from someone's past and how they think and um going into a deeper term on how a person thinks that can come from like how they were raised. And um you know, just how they were brought up and a perspective is all based on a person's past and how they think.

What about you? I think a perspective comes from the person's personal point of view and it is shaped by their life experiences and um how their like current state of mind actually is. Yeah. To go to our, um next question, the question is how can you understand someone's perspective? And um my answer to this question is I said that life is all about perspectives and sometimes people are conditioned to look at things a certain way. But if we change our perspective, we can change our whole outlook on a certain topic on life and begin experiencing things differently and understanding people differently and truly getting an understanding of who this person is and how they view a certain topic and I think the only way to understand a certain topic fully is by understanding different perspectives on that topic. Um, yeah, to build on your question, which was, uh, how does the perspective affect and how you understand someone's perspective, you can understand someone's perspective on many different levels.

And I say the first level could be, um, just getting an understanding of where they come from and how they were brought up. Another way you can understand them is just how they are as a person and how they act. And I don't think a person is set to a certain perspective and as like a person gets older and experience is different um things, challenges um their perspective tends to change and um I don't think you can truly understand someone's perspective, but you can really dive deeper into how they think. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. I have a question for you, Joey C. What is your opinion on how people change their perspective to fit into a certain group or community? Um In my opinion, I believe that changing your perspective in order to fit in with a certain society is definitely not something that the person should be doing. Um If people do not value you for your perspective, then you should not try and fit in with those people.

Um And I feel like to go along with the, the final question of um do you care about how others perceive you, I would not be worried about how someone per perceives me because um in my perspective of things, get that and play on words in my perspective. You know, I, I never really cared about what people thought of me and that, that's what makes me who I am. You know, I'm not, I'm not afraid. I'm, I'm brave. And um, yeah, so that's, that's the final question to wrap up this podcast. I would like to thank everybody who made this happen. Thank you to the Holy Cross community to let us use this facility. Beautiful facility. It's a great facility. Um And we're signing off from Joey C and Anthony a good bye peace like stupid. Um I can't think it's like a for like the art work.

Yeah, like the whole thing where like people use the artwork to like, describe people with us and we have like an English language learners class and those E L kids just get like a like they're on the second floor and like, if you walk past the class, like some kids will like shout in and yell slurs. It's bad. I feel like there's just a really deep, really confession to try and get into this and see yourself as a certain status is really aggressively implemented and everyone at our school and it makes it really hard because like when I was a freshman, I was in two C pe classes and I was in three honors classes and even at that, like, I have friends who made me feel, like, embarrassed about that and, like, made me feel really stupid and now that I'm in, like, you can still see it, like, there are certain and it kind of like it, like, I didn't, like, freshman year, I took like, two C P classes and then I remember, like, my brother telling me, like, how are you taking two C P classes?

And like, I didn't even know when that would be like a different. So like, what has your school administration done about how this learn on their own? Yeah, but they don't have the school administration. I feel like doesn't even acknowledge a lot of things that happen in our school, especially like racism and things like that that are addressed and like the way that they go about um talking about certain things and like, yeah, is not good at addressing things. Like I feel like French trees very much push it under the rug. Pretend it didn't happen. You get on the news a lot. So if we, the school sees that as like a personal, oh my God, this is get out, this is gonna happen. So we just, instead of fixing it, they just try and make sure that nobody talks about it. That was a big thing is that the great difference which up after the end there was a walk up because of it. But I think the way people went about. It was like, oh, like this is an opportunity for me to skip the school back. Yeah, a lot of kids went to the mall like that and it took away from the actual aim of it was like the aim of hearing the voices of color.

It's really hard in our community because a very large majority is white. And a lot of the times when you hear like jokes and micro aggressions that are targeted towards you teachers tell you that it's a joke and there's a huge lack of accountability that needs to be there, especially for students, lack of awareness, lack of awareness. I mean, I don't think and, and it's true because like, I don't think any teacher wants to be like every they're adults. So I have to like, assume that they're not trying to like, push things away and push things under the rug. But I feel like she has such a sense of um ignore it and it'll go away even when time and time again, you can like, show the teachers that like this doesn't work, that's all they know. So they just, they default to it almost. It's, I feel like for students of color, it's been made aware a lot and like, students generally, like, they try really hard to make people aware of what's going on, but it's always a very big thing with teachers trying to push it under the rug by saying it was a joke and that caused a lot of issues with things like micro and like the lack of teaching students how to legitimately treat people like human being and not joke about things that you should have been because I mean, like a student told me that he doesn't trust me because I which is like, and then it's targeted but like, realistically why would you say that?

Like, in what sense is that considered? Like, yeah. And I think it also like the assumption that I'm Asian and like, you know, he knew I was and his assumption that because he was Asian, he can joke around with me like that like, oh, like if you're, if you're similar to me, then like, if I say offensive things, I think that makes sense. I think a lot like the me and saying things that you, it's not ok but I get what you're saying, it's like, you know, like, I think it's just so normal. Like I think it was instilled even when I was younger because like, like in eighth grade, like I had a student, tell me that his parents deported people like my parents because my father is an important and first generation and like hearing that is just like, really like you treat me any better than I would say a little better.

Like they'll like address the issues and they'll try to like, evaluate the situation, it's gonna get better. But sometimes that doesn't help. It just makes it worse. And I don't think I put my email in there. I just feel like they try to ignore the biases in the community. I think they ask, they try to do something but like, I feel like they say it once, like they'll never say it again. Like, what happened in schools? I think it was, no, they told students that they couldn't hang up the flags that were the American flag to. Sorry, I'm sorry. It was, let me correct myself. Um my co goes there and like, you know, she told me about it and they were trying to come back. I think that like hanging up LGBT Q flags, I believe. And it led to them saying that no one could hang up any flags other than like the American flag, which also stopped people from hanging out like Irish and Italian flags.

The big thing is like my family have like a Filipino flag and my cousin was like, I don't want to just like, take that away because that's like a, that's like taking a very large part of people's identity, whether it's an LGBT Q flag, it's your, your ethnic flag or your national flag or something like that. It's crazy that like all of the prejudice is like surrounding us. Yeah, all our schools are so close. You know what I feel like people try and sit there and be like, we're in the north so there's going to be less. But I feel like it's racism because people make assumptions but just because you're not going to sell, there's gonna be, yeah, like, there's racism everywhere sucks. Now, I can't obviously speak about racism but I'm uh I have a learning disability. So I'm in like, my school's I A P like, I have an IP, I'm in my school, like, programs for that kind of things and just the amount of teachers who have like come up to me and been like, hey, I read your IP like, are you sure you should be in my class?

Like I, I take honors and A P stuff and I had to like fight my teacher to like my guidance counselor to let me take the A P class because she thought that she's like, oh, don't you just understand that? Like, we can't modify homework where like in my I E P it says that I can, like, take a little bit of extra time on tests. She's like, we can give that to you but understand that the teacher might not be accommodating to it. It's just the assumption that I'm not an A P student because I have a learning system to give you the extra time. They, they are, they are. It is. But she was like, he can't deny that. That's not something he can, he can very well have a physics teacher. He's not like I do and my and my guidance counselor was like, assuring me that I would drop out. She's like, I'll have this. She's like, I'll make sure that I have an honors class ready for you to drop down. To. Exactly. I, she, she tried to, she got me to drop down my math class. I was in um uh advanced honors math class, sophomore year and uh she was pressuring me the entire year to drop.

So I finally did and now she's trying to get me into my C P class. It's just that assumption that like, I cannot do this because of this disability. When the learning disability doesn't affect math or science. It's just, I feel like I don't know about Canton or other schools. But Braintree I've had to like throughout middle school and high school. It's just like every step of the way has been trying to get less accommodation. The assumption that I take advantage of it. Generally, the representation is just not even like LGBT T students. Like it's the representation. I think they try in a sense but not enough. I don't even know if they try to be honest. I feel that they don't look as bad as they are, which is they say words and then they don't do action. It's not even, they don't do action. Sometimes they don't, you can tell that they don't even want to say the words like they're afraid to acknowledge exactly one thing about like assumptions and things. So I have two older brothers and my oldest brother wasn't like the best student.

But so our last name is Sanchez. So like a lot of people think that we're like Mexican. And so my brother, he was, he took Spanish, like it was like in middle school and the teacher, she like, like assumed that we were like Mexican and like New Spanish and everything. So they were like, she would like, like, call him and like, ask him like everything basically. And he was like, obviously he didn't know because like, it's like a foreign language to us. And so like, he would like have to go down to guidance and like, thank God, like we like know one of the guys who come and it's like our godmother. So like he had like someone to resort to but like that kept like me and my other brother from like taking Spanish from like, like everything about them was, yeah, like I had a student at my school who's in my Spanish class who consistently likes to like, like I'm Mexican and he likes to like, come up in my face and be like, imagine having someone who's not Mexican be better at Spanish than you. And like, that's like, not something like, like, I, I grew up around Spanish and that's fine, whatever I can speak and I can listen, I can't do grammar.

It's just not like I can't, I can't even do grammar in English. Why would I be able to do gram but like to have a student invalidate me and like my experience, my identity like that because he was like, really rough because like this same student is just like, not nice consistently. He is Mexican. No, he's not. He's like the whitest white boy. And I literally at one point said, I, you know, I grew up in a very white community but I still like, I very embraced of my culture and he was like, well, you don't know how to speak a language and you don't know about the culture and you're all whitewashed. So like, you're gonna like, it was basically, he was just like, you're gonna lose your culture when you're older. And I was like, that's not OK to say no. And like he's one of and not like, I don't know him that well, but he's in my, he's in my A P physics class and he's one of those kids that, that perpetuates the level system. And he's, he's like, he has this superiority complex. He's like, I'm in all these A P S, I've been in all these A P S. Like, if you talk to him, he will tell you all of his grades by the end of the conversation.

Like, I hate people. I think that's a big thing is like, I'm in more a piece than him. But his way to level me up, I take five piece. He takes three and that's fine. I've never sat there and been like, you know, like, I'm proud of my classes. I work my way up but I'm not in that. Like, he consistently, like, someone was, like, jokingly was like, oh, like she, she has more and then he was like, oh, pull up her grades and you'll see. And I was like, he will tell you by the end of like, perpetuate that, like, why? And nothing's done about it ever. Like, you can bring it up to a teacher and be like, hey, this guy is being like, really rude and they'll just be like, well, you know, he's a boy, you know how they are all like, popular, not, not really, not in like a, she has friends. Like I am one of his friends kind of, I, he has a group of people. They're not good people. One of a fun fact. The, like main person in this weird cult group of people is the person who said that his parents deported people. Like my parents, he has a bad group of people.

It's a very large congratulation. Like those are not nice. I don't feel like bridge is a very clicky school. Like I think it is. Yeah, you guys go to South, uh South Me two, I went to east, one has 22 Middle East is pretty big town, but it's not that big to where we need. We're technically a city, but we call ourselves towns because we're pretentious and we refuse to accept the fact that it's gotten big enough to be because they're scared of like the whole, like the stigma around being a city. It's so big. The whole stigma around like, oh, Boston is like a certain group of people and the stigma they put around kids that come in from Boston is a performative town. You walk into it, you will be, you will be shown what you want, what this town wants you to know and then everything. It's like, it's like there's a put up and everything behind the mirror is like there's like bodies in the closet, like there's skeletons and be like refuses to address any of it and just keeps pushing and pushing and pushing and being like with this wonderful time, like, I can understand why they would want to do it.

But every time somebody either in high school or in the community goes, hey, all of this is really bad. Like we had the um we were the for a very long time, it was like, like, and like it was very racist. A mascot wasn't even like the I just get the name wrong. They had like, you know, we had our mascot and it wasn't even correct representation. It wasn't the correct head piece. It wasn't the correct person. And like even generally like, why are you using this, like, discriminated against group as your mascot. And we would have people, like, dress up in like the head piece, the wrong head piece and like, parade around the school and like, make a mockery of an indigenous tribe and people continuously, like, hated that. And they like would say how stupid it is, but it's like, because they're not being taught, no one's trying to correct their actions, no one's trying to teach them. Like you shouldn't be saying these things to students. You shouldn't act like that because that's just not the way to treat other human beings.

But there's no correction. Like with the kids who said the N word, they had no reprimand. They were multiple audio recordings of them saying it on numerous occasions. If they got a slap on the wrist, I never heard about that. Like that's how bad it was. Like if they even got talked to no one knew because no, like that was how little was with them. I heard her boyfriend talking and it was just really stupid because it was like he was like, oh yeah, she's been crying all day like she feels really bad. I live like right next to them and I couldn't tell she just doesn't feel that she continued on with her life perfectly fine. Yeah. So that's a problem. So last year a girl in Canton, I said the N word and she like, well, she lips it on tiktok and the tiktok. Like what is? Yeah. And she got suspended for, I think, like a week. Which is a, yeah, like, at least they held her accountable but they should at least address the issue. Like school assemblies, things like that. You need to make it known to.

Like, these things are, yeah, our school, I feel, like, hates doing assemblies. Like they put it off as far as possible because benches are very, if you're not in class, you're, you're, you're bad student. Like they'll do anything to make sure that students stay in school, stay in class, which like again, it's fine but these genuine issues come up and they're like, that can't interfere with class time. The issue that I've heard directly from a teacher is, there's a Netflix 13. It is about how the 13th amendment made it so that they could legalize slavery in the United States and how we're still experience all of the racism and all of the discrimination today just in different forms. And my main teacher came up to our principal and she was like, we should show this to all the students because that's important and his response was he doesn't want to uh it's more of like he doesn't want to offend anyone in that sense. And I think the issue with that is that you can tolerate so much of this hatred that is going towards students who aren't white.

But the second that it comes to students who are white, it's all of a sudden it's like a huge deal. But like a white mother came into our school and screamed at our principal because there was a line in the book that said black boy was scared of and she came in, she screamed at our principal for an hour and it's issues like that. I don't remember, but it was a sophomore year book. I don't know if it was last year or a couple of years ago, but like, it's issues like that and like, you're so afraid to make this one specific group of people uncomfortable but you make everyone else uncomfortable and it's like they never address the nothing is gonna change. Yeah, I was saying, um you know, they don't, you, especially for students to speak at like, yeah, and I think that's the problem. Yeah. So like, how do they change? How do we let our voices? I think that's the hardest part is like there are so many students who are just afraid to speak out and I was one of those students for a very long time.

I still am but she's terrible to the people who speak out. Like, like if you say something, you're the one who's going to get the backlash for it. Not the person who did the thing you get told that you're too sensitive. But like, you know, it was just a joke and I think that once I really started to experience like that and it's kind of like, you know, like this needs to be brought up and I think there have been many attempts, but Braintree doesn't work hard enough to actually amplify these students voices. I Braintree has a um like council of the like town county that you can go and speak at and be like, hey, this is an issue but like the second kid speaks at some of these, like they're all online still. Like you can see how just like everyone's body language shifts. If you start your presentation with, I am a child or at brain trade high, like you're dismissed immediately. Anything that comes out of your mouth after that, unless it's referring to back when we still had the mascot.

If you were talking about the mascot, your voice would be hard. But if you were like, hey, there's racism in this school, like you would be questioned and you'd be like, you have to cite your specific answer your evidence like you have to, they make it so that like if you're like, hey, I heard this in the bathroom, they'd be like, did you record it? Like, why didn't you step in? Like, why didn't you do something about this? Like there was a fight and pe and the bystanders were blamed for not breaking it up instead of, hey, there's a student here having a physical altercation with another student in the middle of school. Like that is the problem here, not other students, not stepping in and stopping this administration. I'm not sure. I've been to one town council meeting and not the actual representatives or something other than white. I'm pretty sure they're all white. And the teacher at school we have one teacher that I know of. She is literally one of my best friends and she this like amazing. And I think there's only one Mrs Ja is Mr James.

Mr Jason is white. Mrs Jamison is from Lima which is, oh, that's true, Miss Gonzales. She's mentioned it before. I don't think she's white. I know. So we have is from but if you exclude like Spanish teachers, we have one but it's also like, you know, like I um I got a a piece and I'm surrounded by all of us white students and it's really weird and it's really jarring because like, you know, like I have Asian students. Yeah, but like there's not really any brown students. I Asian student. I am the only I am maybe I am the only brown student in my A plus class. And I just really, I would feel so uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable because then when you feel like you want to say something, you can't because I have this like, like it's this like fear that everyone's gonna like see you as a bad person, like you're sensitive or you can't take a joke and it makes you feel like a really the amount of the amount of um people of color in a piece is uh public knowledge.

You can look it up on Google. Um Our presentation of um people of color in the school to people who are in C P honors and A P like you can see it drop and it's drastic like it goes from C P has the is almost equal with the amount of white kids to A P S where white kids outnumber um people of color about 19 to 1. It's just really saying certain things like making comments. Like, if I'm in LA sometimes I feel really uncomfortable saying things like racism and things that like, it's like awkward speaking to classic white students who like, have experienced such a different perspective where I mean, that's interesting because in my A P class, like my teacher is such an ally and like we talk to teachers, a huge ally is more of just like I, I get nervous speaking because of like, you know, most of my, most of my classmates, like my class, my teacher are all very supportive.

It's more just like, I don't know what people know and what they don't and I don't know what their actual experience of learning um about racism growing up. And like, you know, like when we watch their teeth, I think a lot of people were much more shocked than I was because I have a black stepfather and like I witnessed him and like, the racism that happened rather than like, you know, like I was taught since I was very young. Like, I don't know what these other people were. I don't, like, I, I can't do it to be honest with the take away what, what's the takeaway from all of the school? Should it really about the representation and hearing the voices of students and actually sitting there and trying to amplify these voices instead of shoving things under the thinking that that's gonna fix anything. And are you doing? Um Yeah, I think it's up to us to use our voices like change because and the staff won't do it. Yeah, but it it's also up, I feel like putting too much pressure on students could also be a bad thing because it needs to come from inside the school with the administrators backing it because at the end of the day, like Green Town Council will not listen to the students.

We we had an entire walk out and nothing changed. I think at the end of the day, they have to figure out a way in which they can work together to actually create awareness. And it's really not. If you're leaving this episode wanting more, you're going to love my life, coaching intensive curriculum, boot camp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti-racism curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students. We weave current events into course content and amplify student voices which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days. Plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit, which saves time and money. If you can't wait to bring this to your staff, I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me. Grab a spot on my calendar at w w w dot Lindsay beth lions dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast network better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.