Videos

Her closing words? Joy chaser. And she means it. Born in Anchorage, raised to become a lawyer, and fully resistant to the classroom, Jessica Reed-Thomas, Ed.D., fought off teaching for years. Then, a mentor, a university employee with good intuition and an air-conditioned education building at Temple University, changed everything. What followed was a 12+ year career spanning classroom teacher, technology integration specialist, service-learning coordinator, agriculture curriculum lead, and, eventually, assistant principal overseeing 2,700 students and nearly 500 IEPs in the School District of Philadelphia. But the real story is what it cost her. Dr. Thomas opens up about surviving on leftover event food, falling asleep in her guacamole, being physically injured on the job multiple times, and staying in toxic workplaces the same way you stay in a bad relationship until the people she was serving told her to leave. It was her students who said, " Go". It was her daughter who…

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Clips from "All Skinfolk Ain't Kinfolk" with Nye Trusty https://hellodrasia.substack.com/p/another-cog-in-the-system?utm_source=youtube

Nye Trusty brings a candid, layered, and deeply necessary conversation about identity, belonging, and why representation without inclusion is just window dressing. She's worn many names and even more hats: teacher, coach, doctoral student, and now nonprofit founder. In this episode, she gets raw about what it really means to show up fully in spaces that weren't built for you, including what happened when Black leadership asked her to strip her classroom of its Blackness. From growing up in Far Rockaway, Queens, to teaching seventh graders in Baltimore and Louisiana, Nye's journey through education is one of resilience, demoralization, and ultimately, radical reinvention. She opens up about the moment she knew it was time to leave the classroom, not because she stopped loving her students, but because the system had worn her down to the point where she had nothing left to fight with. And she's honest about something the education world doesn't like to say out loud: sharing a skin tone …

Nye Trusty (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyeshantrusty/) brings a candid, layered, and deeply necessary conversation about identity, belonging, and why representation without inclusion is just window dressing. She's worn many names and even more hats: teacher, coach, doctoral student, and now nonprofit founder. In this episode, she gets raw about what it really means to show up fully in spaces that weren't built for you, including what happened when Black leadership asked her to strip her classroom of its Blackness. From growing up in Far Rockaway, Queens, to teaching seventh graders in Baltimore and Louisiana, Nye's journey through education is one of resilience, demoralization, and ultimately, radical reinvention. She opens up about the moment she knew it was time to leave the classroom, not because she stopped loving her students, but because the system had worn her down to the point where she had nothing left to fight with. And she's honest about something the education world does…

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Her closing words? Joy chaser. And she means it. Born in Anchorage, raised to become a lawyer, and fully resistant to the classroom, Jessica Reed-Thomas, Ed.D., fought off teaching for years. Then, a mentor, a university employee with good intuition and an air-conditioned education building at Temple University, changed everything. What followed was a 12+ year career spanning classroom teacher, technology integration specialist, service-learning coordinator, agriculture curriculum lead, and, eventually, assistant principal overseeing 2,700 students and nearly 500 IEPs in the School District of Philadelphia. But the real story is what it cost her. Dr. Thomas opens up about surviving on leftover event food, falling asleep in her guacamole, being physically injured on the job multiple times, and staying in toxic workplaces the same way you stay in a bad relationship until the people she was serving told her to leave. It was her students who said, " Go". It was her daughter who said,…

Her closing words? Joy chaser. And she means it. Born in Anchorage, raised to become a lawyer, and fully resistant to the classroom, Jessica Reed-Thomas, Ed.D. (https://www.linkedin.com/preload/#) , fought off teaching for years. Then, a mentor, a university employee with good intuition and an air-conditioned education building at Temple University, changed everything. What followed was a 12+ year career spanning classroom teacher, technology integration specialist, service-learning coordinator, agriculture curriculum lead, and, eventually, assistant principal overseeing 2,700 students and nearly 500 IEPs in the School District of Philadelphia. But the real story is what it cost her. Dr. Thomas opens up about surviving on leftover event food, falling asleep in her guacamole, being physically injured on the job multiple times, and staying in toxic workplaces the same way you stay in a bad relationship until the people she was serving told her to leave. It was her students …

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Kelly Mitchell's journey through education is a crash course in recognizing when systems are working exactly as designed...not for us. From stumbling into teaching via Craigslist after the 2009 recession, to middle school math teacher, to high school dean managing 350 students, to state workforce development, Kelly kept asking, "Who can fix this?" only to realize the system kept saying, "Not us." Kelly's revelation: education's recruitment problem isn't about signing bonuses, it's asking Black people to return to systems that actively harmed them their entire childhood. The retention problem? Leaders who laugh off racism when test scores are good, colleagues who outsource racial incidents to the "Black representative," and the invisible tax of carrying everyone else's learning curve. Now running Inclusive Design Group and pursuing her PhD, Kelly's done the full bingo card: classroom, admin, state, nonprofit. Her conclusion? The answer was never in climbing higher within broken sys…

Kelly Mitchell's journey through education is a crash course in recognizing when systems are working exactly as designed...not for us. From stumbling into teaching via Craigslist after the 2009 recession, to middle school math teacher, to high school dean managing 350 students, to state workforce development, Kelly kept asking, "Who can fix this?" only to realize the system kept saying, "Not us." Kelly's revelation: education's recruitment problem isn't about signing bonuses, it's asking Black people to return to systems that actively harmed them their entire childhood. The retention problem? Leaders who laugh off racism when test scores are good, colleagues who outsource racial incidents to the "Black representative," and the invisible tax of carrying everyone else's learning curve. Now running Inclusive Design Group and pursuing her PhD, Kelly's done the full bingo card: classroom, admin, state, nonprofit. Her conclusion? The answer was never in climbing higher within broken systems…

Kai Hamer's journey from aspiring rapper to special education teacher to parent engagement director is a love letter to the Bronx. Starting in shelters and after-school programs, she spent 10+ years teaching in her own neighborhood, collecting kids from behind soda machines, visiting grandmothers who couldn't leave home, and fighting for students whose gifts didn't show up on standardized tests. But when colleagues went to the principal instead of coming to her about her social media post on police brutality, she realized some teachers couldn't truly love the Black children they taught. She left the classroom to train educators in what she never got: real support for building authentic relationships with families. Her mission now? Help teachers get free, because you can't pour into kids when your own cup is dry.

Kelly Mitchell's journey through education is a crash course in recognizing when systems are working exactly as designed...not for us. From stumbling into teaching via Craigslist after the 2009 recession, to middle school math teacher, to high school dean managing 350 students, to state workforce development, Kelly kept asking, "Who can fix this?" only to realize the system kept saying, "Not us." Kelly's revelation: education's recruitment problem isn't about signing bonuses, it's asking Black people to return to systems that actively harmed them their entire childhood. The retention problem? Leaders who laugh off racism when test scores are good, colleagues who outsource racial incidents to the "Black representative," and the invisible tax of carrying everyone else's learning curve. Now running Inclusive Design Group and pursuing her PhD, Kelly's done the full bingo card: classroom, admin, state, nonprofit. Her conclusion? The answer was never in climbing higher within broken systems…

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Kai Hamer's journey from aspiring rapper to special education teacher to parent engagement director is a love letter to the Bronx. Starting in shelters and after-school programs, she spent 10+ years teaching in her own neighborhood, collecting kids from behind soda machines, visiting grandmothers who couldn't leave home, and fighting for students whose gifts didn't show up on standardized tests. But when colleagues went to the principal instead of coming to her about her social media post on police brutality, she realized some teachers couldn't truly love the Black children they taught. She left the classroom to train educators in what she never got: real support for building authentic relationships with families. Her mission now? Help teachers get free, because you can't pour into kids when your own cup is dry.

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow

Check out the podcast's website: https://www.exitinterviewpodcast.com/ Instagram: @hellodrasia LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/asia-lyons/ Learn more about combatting racial battle fatigue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7KXbRlf6Dpnl4PffXHvuIlLE0CKUEa8/view?usp=sharing #teachers #educators #wellness #retention #education #healing #storytime #Podcast #BlackVoices #StorytellingPodcast #Shorts (for YouTube Shorts) #ViralPodcast #MustWatch #EducatorTalk #TalkThatTalk #RealTalk #PodcastLife #YouTubePodcasts #NewPodcastAlert #ListenNow #SubscribeNow