When We Believe In Black Children with Whitney Redd

[00:00:00]

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: All right folks. Welcome back to the Exit Interviewer podcast for black educators with me, your host, Dr. Asia Lyons, and another fantastic guest, Whitney Red, welcome to the show.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Thank you. Oh, thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited. I

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: of course, of course. I'm excited too. So Whitney and I connected. I always like to tell people where I find folks, where I connect with people so that they can know that we know I'm out and about in the community, and Whitney says, oh, no, I, I'm pretty sure I, I saw you because Retta Hammond liked one of your posts.

And I was like, nah. I'm like, no, that ain't it, sis.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: she did.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I was like, that's not it. That's not the one sis. I'm sorry. She can, it can't. And then sure enough, like [00:01:00] three days ago she liked another one of my posts and I said, sure enough, Whitney was right. So, uh, So super excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the show, Whitney. How are you

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Thank you. I'm so happy. I'm just in a really good space. Thank you so much for having me. I've been excited for this interview. I was trying to get in, I was like, gimme the next day, like the first time I was like, put me on, put me on. I don't wanna be on it. Um, so thank you so much for having me on. Do you want me to call you Asia?

Dr. Lyons? Like how we moving

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: can, Dr. H is fine.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Dr. Asia, period? Because I'm Ms. Whitney. I go Ms. Whitney, but you can call me Whitney, but yeah. First name.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So tell me, tell us the audience a little bit about yourself.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. Hi everybody. I'm so excited. Okay. First of all, I have a ADHD and I'm the H is high. Okay. Hyper definition, like okay. Hyper energy. Um, I have a lot of energy. Um, so yeah, everybody. My name is Whitney Red. I am a third grade educator. I'm actually just an elementary school educator. Um, and I live here in Oakland, California.[00:02:00]

Um. I love teaching. It's like my passion. It's like my happiest place being around kids. Um, I'm actually not teaching this semester. And so we were at a dinner the other day and there was like a second grade. My brother's girlfriend has a a, has a daughter and she's in second grade. I was like, I wanna be next to the baby.

Come put her next to me. And she was just fire. Okay. She shout out. Aye, that's my girl. She had energy, she had personality. I was like, are you a good person? Do you know your math facts? Like, I'm just like in it. 'cause I love hanging around kids. They give me a lot of energy. My energy is matched with theirs.

Like I can, the more kids, the better. Um, I was born in San Francisco. I am a. My mom was a single parent. Um, she had my brother at 15, had me at 19, but she worked her butt off. She is successful. Shout out Sha Best. Swayze. That's my mama Sha.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: out.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay. She's the love of my life. We are locked in. Um, and, um, my stepdad, like, I just have a really loving family.

I'm very, like, very [00:03:00] loved. I have a really great community of friends and family. Um,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Tell us about

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: this, my beard, a j his name is, that's my baby. That's my son, that's my child. I'm single, so call me. Okay? But I'm single. So I, but I love reptiles. So as a teacher, I ended up becoming, um, you know, we got in third grade in Oakland.

We teach a lot about, um, amphibians and reptiles. So I was just like getting the urge. Getting the urge, getting the urge. And so I had some frogs. Um, I didn't take good care of them. They don't, you know, the water be murky or whatever, but this beard, a dragon, he is, he thriving. We, we can do.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: that.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yes. I love, like I watch like life on our planet all the time, so I love watching like the science stuff and just getting like the historical knowledge of stuff.

I'm a science nerd and so like that's my baby. I will show you his page, but he a mess right now. It's a little mess. Messy over there, but I love my chat. Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: love that. I know we had this conversation because, um, I don't, I've never had Mr. [00:04:00] Charming, my bird on the show because he's so loud. But yeah, I do have, he's the chatter. Uh, I have a, a cockatiel named, uh, sir Prince Charming. The first is what I call him.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: that's his name.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: yeah, but he's in my, I call my coworker since his cage is in my office, but during these times we have to put him in the bathroom and right as we're talking right now, I can hear him faintly telling me, he's telling me, girl, he will not leave us alone if we did.

He's like, he'll say, come here. Come here. Come. He's a mess. Yes. So we are not, we gonna leave him in the bathroom, hanging out on the shower, shower curtain until

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: the end of the

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: this.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: interview, you can maybe come in, maybe at the end because I wanna see, and I'll introduce my baby and we can have some, some friends, because I love it. I love it, I love it.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So we are off track and I got a feeling this whole interview gonna be like this, but, and it is.

You, you contagious. But let's go ahead and get started. Tell us about your journey into education. [00:05:00] Um, what did,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: decide that education was for you?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and let me just say this, 'cause I did call my mama to kind of get like my bearings for today, so I won't be like two, but I am tangential. But my mama says I will go off track, but I will always bring it back to the point. So apologies Dr. Asia, but that's just my neurodivergence and all that.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: bring people back in. I've

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay.

Yeah, I promise I paint a full picture. Um, yeah, so, you know, I loved school growing up. Like I went to, we actually lived in Georgia. Um, for my second and fifth grade year, and I actually just wrote a book, um, for educators called Empowering Educators. Um, it's like an ebook. It's like 16 pages, but it's just like all the tips and tools that I use and, you know, I'll try to share it with you guys, but, um.

I dedicated, like the first, like I put a whole dedication, um, at the beginning of the, the ebook because, uh, I loved my elementary school teachers. Like I had a, I thrived in elementary school. Like [00:06:00] I was, I got like a $50, uh, I don't know, some bond because I read the most books in the school, right? Like, I would spend all my time in the library.

Like I was best friends with the librarian. I love my second grade teacher. I love my third grade teacher, my fourth and fifth grade teacher. Shout out Brandy Landfall. I keep trying to find you. I can't find you. I don't know where you are. Um, but she was, she moved up from fifth, fourth grade to fifth grade with me.

And so, um, she was my, and then Ms. Gray was my teacher in third grade. And then Ms. Dykes was my teacher in second grade. Ms. Dykes was a little strong. She was like, um, a little bit me. Okay. But Ms. Gray was a little too soft and Ms. Lampo was the perfect balance of both of them. So it was, um, she, but she also cared about me, like as a whole student.

So she like, um. Like, I was into sports too, so like we would have, you know, like, uh, field days and stuff like that. And so she was like, and she would take me to like events. I was like, I want, um, there's a statewide competition for math. Um, challenge 24, you know, challenge 24. Okay. So [00:07:00] I love this game and it's like just the answer's always gonna be 24, but you have to figure out the best way to like get it.

So it's four. I don't even find the, the deck, but any who, she would get me invested math, reading, like social studies. So I was like, early on I was poured into very, very heavily. And then my mom and I moved from Georgia to California and I did not do well in middle school. I did not do well at all. Um, I got into fights.

I was fast. Like, I was like, I didn't respect my teachers and I've always respected my teachers. I didn't read anymore. I was cutting school like I was doing stuff. My mom was like, what in the world where, who was this child? I was a straight A student like. For y like the whole, my whole elementary. Um, and so it was a different, just, um, my relationship with the student, the teachers weren't, wasn't good in, in middle school.

Um, so I went to three different middle school schools. Um, in seventh grade I finally went to, uh, I did find one class that I really liked. It was a Spanish teacher. [00:08:00] Um, so I ended up, we, but we like did history, like we did like a lot of lessons on, um, like food and like the culture and all that stuff. So I ended up learning Spanish and starting to speak Spanish in seventh grade.

But that was like the one teacher, the other teacher was like a science teacher. He would be like, putting your name on the paper and that means you went to class. I'm like, this is.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, I wasn't invested. I wasn't, I'm like, I'm ac, like I'm smart. So what, what do you want me to do with this information? Um, PE teacher was a perv, like, it was just a lot.

It was going on. It was a lot going on. So I wasn't invested. I was like, you know, and middle school is a hard age, right, in general. But, um, finally my mama pulled me out of all the public schools in and sent me to an all girls private school, which was like an hour away. So we had to commute every morning.

I cried for the first like four months. I, again, became best friends with the librarian though, um, because I would just spend time. I was the only black girl in this school. Um, and there was other Latino girls and white girls, but I was the only black profess, like teach student there. [00:09:00] Um, I had a teacher from Lebanon.

I can't remember her name, but she was amazing. She really loved me and appreciated me and, and, you know, but um. I just felt left out. I, I was, I was sad. I was sad every day. Um, but eventually the Latino girls became friends with me. They were lovely. And they took me in and we went to Mexico. And again, my Spanish started to become more fluent.

Um, and, uh, yeah, so that was that. So eighth grade was like a big blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. And I finally got some friends, but I was a little bit behind academically because obviously in sixth grade, in seventh grade, I didn't care.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: were

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: And I was, yeah. Like no one gave me nothing. Right. So like, it was, yeah.

So, um, I was a little bit behind specifically in math. Anyway, high school comes and me and my mama are, we are searching because we, I went to three different middle schools and we were like, whatever high school you go to is going to be your high school. Like it's going to be yours. And it we're sticking with it.

Um, and there was a couple of,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: [00:10:00] I wanna pause for a second.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: just for a second to talk about that eighth grade year and that one hour commute.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and I think, um. There's something, and you know, there's folks who very much like double down on public school. It has to be public school. It ha not charter, nothing but public. And are giving us a beautiful example of, in your particular situation, wasn't the right choice, you know, that you try, your mom tried to do what she, and you said she's a single mom, right? So she, he has lots of fish to fry and you, you

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: in the streets and whatever, hanging out

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: to class. and so I always wanna kind of. Have folks think about when we, when we advocate for, you know, only charter, only private only, whatever, that we're leaving out so many lived experiences that need choices for that particular person. And

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Absolutely.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: unfortunate that, um, [00:11:00] all students cannot find a place of belonging and find education, a quality education in up their neighborhood public school.

That's the goal. But until then,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: are getting on buses, getting in cars, sending their kids with someone else to do carpool,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: uh, to a private or public school or private school further away,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: state.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: All girl, all boy, because they're, at the end of the day, our kids don't get that back.

They don't get the eighth grade year back. They don't get that time at 13 back in every year of our education as children and adults counts. So I just wanted to pause you on that. Just to say that's really important that people think about is like how we view education and how we think about, um, our stance on public versus private versus charter or whatever.

But go ahead.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Well, first of all, you're speaking to my soul. Stop. Get outta my, get outta my spirit. Okay. Okay. Whatever. It's, um, literally it [00:12:00] is the reason why I go so hard for public education is because I've been exposed to both, right? Like, I've been exposed to public schools with uninvested or dis, whatever the word is for teachers.

And I've been exposed to, and I'm like you in, in private schools, and you shouldn't have to get a quality education and still be ostracized from your community, right? Like, so like. And so like I bring private school knowledge to public education because my babies don't, I remember crying. I remember being feeling like I am not, I was unhappy.

Eighth grade year, I, I cried every day. I was on the Amtrak and my mom picked me up every day. I used to read these books. Um, they were like young adult novels or whatever about like, people who had like health issues. Like, and I was like, mom, I got a tumor. Mom. I got this mom. I got that because I was so miserable.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: not another black person in this school. And this was a new school. Um, they were only, this is actually their, like I was their, their inauguration class. Like, so their first graduating class was eighth [00:13:00] grade was my year, but I wasn't there for sixth or seventh grade.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Sure.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, all girls. It was an hour and a half away.

I had to commute every day. I wasn't academically set up for success, like already. Um, and I was the only black student there. So like, just a lot of like, shock, shock, shock, shock, shock. And so. Um, I was miserable. I was, I, I was depressed. I was absolutely depressed. And I was in eighth grade, who knew? I didn't know what depression was, but I was sad.

I was not happy.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and I spent all my time in the library. I didn't understand these white girls, like in a bad way. Like not in a bad way, but like, just different than me.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Sure.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: different. And mind you, I've been around a lot of different cultures. My mom, my grandmother is white. Um, I've been around a lot of diverse people.

Um, but it just was like socioeconomically, right? All that stuff. Like we didn't have no money, but like, I went to school and so these people have money. They were, they have bank, right? And um, like a lot like horses, like they own horses, right? Like they, whatever. So, um, this is why I go so hard [00:14:00] about public education.

Like I'm actually one of those people who've written papers about anti-charter, anti-public, private, because I know that public ed, all those resources should really just be poured into public education. We wouldn't even need those distinctions. Um, but. You gotta be a quality educator. 'cause a lot of times when you're smart, you go somewhere, you wanna go to a higher academic, whatever setting.

Right? And so, or when you have like this exposure, this experience, you wanna go somewhere else. I believe in giving black babies the same, what I know I wanted, what I, what I wanted. Um, and so that's really what it is. So I appreciate you touching on that because you do have to, my mom did have to make a put her foot down 'cause she was like, this is not working.

You're not doing well in public school out here in California. Even though you did really well in Georgia. You're not doing well out here in, we're not gonna let this be your path. Right. She, she refused. Um, and then I went to high school, the urban school of San Francisco. Shout out urban. Um, and it was only like five black kids in that school.

But we had tested, we had figured out a couple.[00:15:00]

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you doing well. Now you going from one to.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay. Okay, listen. Okay. It was like five of us. It was like three black boys and two, no, three black girls and two black boys. Like I remember it was, it was, it was crazy. But it was like, yay. I was excited. And then, um, but my group of friends were called G two Dub, girls to Women.

We were like, you know, boys to men, whatever, we like, whatever, but Asian, white, Latina, black. And it's just like, we're best friends to this day. Um, and that really helped me also with, um,

not, uh, stability. With stability. 'cause we, we, I, I, you know, I went there the whole, you know, four years. Yeah. Um, and we were still on scholarship. This was still a lot of people. This is a private school in San Francisco. Um, but, you know, I got like an 85% scholarship. So even when we went on things like skiing and stuff, they, we'd only have to pay a portion of that.

Right. Or like, whatever. Yeah. So like the portion. So I got to experience everything, hiking, you know, just getting to see the world. Um, and [00:16:00] so. The question, and I did say I was tangential. The question is, how did I get into education? Okay. So I've always wanted, I told you I'm tangential. Get there though.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Gee, my editor is gonna have a good time with this one.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay. Whatever you gotta do with it.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: will say this, I will say this. Um, the full episode is always gonna be on YouTube. So even if it's cut down because we love it, I also take side streets. So even if we take side streets and people don't get any of this

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Spotify, you'll get it on YouTube, but continue.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: I'm happy with whatever. Whatever's cool. Whatever's clever. Okay. Give, lemme tell you my background. Um, so anyway, I, and then I went into mental health, um, like right, so in high after high school. I've always worked in afterschool programs though, like always, I've always like volunteered. I've always done since I was young, like I've always done.

I love kids.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I, so, so you said, you said that in the, we are [00:17:00] beginning, um, of the show, but did you find, so you're talking about this and you love kids and you worked in afterschool programs. When did you, do you, thinking back now, was there like a moment where, you know, like, I love hanging out with kids, or it just felt like it was gradual that you always pulled towards children. How did

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Hmm,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: like how did that happen for you? Because knew when I was going to community college after I'd went to a four year and then got kicked outta school for my grades,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: sure.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: four in the, the community college working in the program, their daycare program

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: said you're really good with kids.

And it didn't, my brain kind of did a backtrack of all the times that I hung out with kids and worked with

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Sure. Sure.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: see that until she said something. But for you, was it that you always knew or did somebody shine a light on that for you?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Hmm. That's a good question. I think for me, um. Because I really was like a teacher's pet. So I think I was really more like adult centered. Like, I don't necessarily [00:18:00] know. And like I said, I spent a lot of time by myself. Like I read a lot of books. Like, I'm like a homebody I read for just like joy and pleasure.

But when I am, um, I think it was probably high school. I do think it was high school because I, or maybe I was 12. I remember my mom has a best friend, shout out to Auntie Denise. She's my auntie. Um, and I started, she had two kids and I would babysit them and I just had a blast. Like I was 12, like I was young and I remember reading like babysitters club and I wanted to be like a professional babysitter so much.

Like I just wanted to be a babysitter, um, and make a little bit money or whatever. But like, and then I just had, so I think maybe at 12, like 12. So like, normally it was like I was really into just like I wanted to be around the adults and hang out with, 'cause I really appreciate like, um. My great-grandmother would sit me in front of the tv me to watch like the presidential debates like Bush versus Clinton, like when I was nine.

Like I was young, but I was like really liked hanging out with older people. Um, so when I [00:19:00] started to get like, oh, reading the Babysitters club and reading a lot of those books when I was like 12, a little bit older, I was started being like, oh, I like kids. Like I hang out with kids. So I think it was about 12.

It wasn't like naturally always that. 'cause I don't necessarily always wanna be. Yeah, I, yeah. So that's, but that's a good question. I never thought about when, when, when it was an epiphany moment or it dawned on me that I wanted to be around these kids all the time.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. Tell, so tell us about your, um, like the paraprofessional part, or excuse me, afterschool program part of your career. I.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. So, um, when I was in. Was it my freshman year of college. So I went to University of San Francisco. Um, um, my stepdad worked there, actually I was in Hurricane Katrina, so I was supposed to be at Loyola New Orleans. Um, and so my parents had just moved me into the dorms. And then literally that first, this is oh five, my parents literally had just flown back home, and then Hurricane Katrina hit we're from California.

We don't know any of what this looks like. Um, so I was supposed to be at Loyola New Orleans, and so they had to [00:20:00] evacuate me. When I tell you people, God bless me, because people came through, family, friends, somebody. So we had, so I didn't have to go to the, um, Superdome. Right. And so people evacuated. Yeah.

Like it was terrifying, right. And so, um, I got evacuated to Baton Rouge. I don't remember who had, but it was like a family friend, somebody, they had a really nice home, but they were like, send Whitney here. And they took care of me, right? So I was supposed to be in Loyola, I mean, in New Orleans for my.

Undergrad. Um, and then I came back. I had a boyfriend, so, uh, in San Francisco. I was sad that I left, but I was like, happy. My parents had just got me a car or whatever. So I went and I went to University of San Francisco and I could have went back to Loyola at six months in. Um, but I, I had my man, so I was like, I was like with him.

And so I decided to stay, um, worst decision of my life by the way. Uh, I did not do well at University of San Francisco. Um, and this, and this is why tags back into being, being neurodivergent. So I'm 38 years old. I was diagnosed three years ago as actually being have A-D-H-D-I couldn't [00:21:00] figure out why wasn't completing my task.

Like, why couldn't, I'm a really excellent writer. I'm really smart. I'm well read. I have a large vocabulary and I still couldn't complete my task. I didn't understand it. Um. So I didn't graduate from University of San Francisco, like

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Mm-hmm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: the question is about afterschool program. But while I was at University of San Francisco, I was at this program called Opportunity Impact.

Um, there was a woman, it was co-created by this, a black woman named Selena Lane, and then, um, another a white woman. Um, but Selena is very much like kid centered, like it's about the kids. She did a lot, like a lot of these kids were foster care kids or stuff like that. So she gave a lot of like, um, like she would have like sleepovers or like, just activities, like doing things that were like very about the kid.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: the program got bigger. She, um. They, it just didn't mix or whatever. But at opportunity impact is when I first [00:22:00] learned positive reinforcement in the way that I know it now. So I am, from my academic understanding, it was always based in Southern, like respect, like, um, kind of like the iron fist. Like, you know what I mean?

Like,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: yes,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah. Like, yeah, like, you know, listen to what I say. Do what I say, da, da, da, da.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: That's it.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Do what you quiet. Yes. Don't respect, don't, you know, don't talk back to parent, whatever that is. So it's like a little southern. Um, what disciplinarian. So I was a disciplinarian and I was having a really hard time with these middle school girls because.

I thought my is my way, or no, you know what I mean? This is, I'm 19 though, right? Like, so whatever. And when I tell you this was a growth period, I cried, I cried, I cried, I cried. But I was given the tools to how to listen to kids, um, at 19. So I had already been working with kids for most of my like, you know, afterschool programming and stuff like that.

But this is the, like, the turning factor on how I deal with kids to this day is positive [00:23:00] reinforcement, getting to know your kids, um, actually listening to them, giving them a voice, giving them agency power to speak and then learning. And this is this, I learned I'm inherently automatically a person of put in power.

Being a teacher. I already have power. So I don't need to enforce my power, um, on kids. I need to give them the platform to have power and agency and communication. Um, because inherently my role as an educator is already a, it comes in. I'm the head of this classroom, so I don't have to enforce it. I don't have to enforce my, I'm strict, uh, you know, I'm, I have a lot of behavioral, like, you know, classroom management stuff, but I don't need to be overt in my power.

It's there, it's period. And so let me, how do I teach kids to have power and agency and communication and build up them as humans? And so, um, I learned that an opportunity impacts. So I, you know, I don't, uh, you know, I don't even know if they still exist, but at the time I really, really, really loved. Um, and it, it was a growing pain though.

It was really a [00:24:00] growing pain. I, I cried. I cried 'cause I didn't understand. No, I'm an adult. I, they supposed to listen to me, but I learned and I grew and that is literally how I move through the world now is just like getting to know kids, period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah, and I think that at, you said you started there at 19, I think there's 21 year olds, 22 year olds, 25 year olds who go into a classroom after school program. Any place where youth church, uh,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: just what you said. They people are, they, they children know that you're an adult and then

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: we're gonna go in there and scare 'em.

Or we're gonna just force and just use all this disciplinarian and strategies it's not necessarily effective. And we find that people, children will match your energy.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and I, I learned this when I was probably maybe in college that they talked about in an article about if you are challenging a, a, a boy, middle school boy for an example, was talking about front of his [00:25:00] friends. They could not back down. And then you're standing there

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Looking.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: they're like, you're not gonna embarrass me. And then they're, and you could just be looking

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: who is gonna win that battle at the end? And so there has to be other ways in which we think about, This idea of respect. And

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: say for Dr.

Nita, where she talks about being a warm demander and one of

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: books, we have to think about, um, our classrooms and our spaces differently than this. Like, you're gonna do what I say, don't smile for the first semester or for like,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Crazy.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: different rules. There has to be something different.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and so you were there for how long?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, I think maybe two years. Two years. Um, and, and, and again, I tried to like, move up in the role, like, you know, whatever people kept getting promoted over me. It was crazy. So, anyway, but, um, all of that is, and then to go back to USF, uh, I, so my final [00:26:00] semester, I didn't, um, I didn't graduate. I didn't like, I failed my papers because of, uh, A-A-D-H-D.

So I just ended up, because a lot of times when you're not. You don't have your degree, you can go work in like afterschool programs still or whatever like that. So I ended up running a couple afterschool programs. I did work out of a church, um, in San Francisco in the, um, hunters Point District. I ran an afterschool program and I was on like hiring a lot of people.

Um, but like I was gone one day anyway, it was crazy. I hired quality people, but they were quality to me. And in some of these communities they, the idea of me hiring like a white man was like weird.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Talk. Talk to us about that.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. So I hired this guy, I don't remember his name, and I hired another girl and I hired, I had an assistant, um, and he was fantastic.

He taught music and um, he did like the [00:27:00] enrichment services. And so because I was working out of a black church, the. They thought that a white man spending any time with a child or wanting to be around a child, even though his mother was a teacher, his, he has a history of teaching. It's in his, like he, and he was really good and qualified, but because they had not seen a white man, they just, you know, thought he was a perfect Yeah, they, and they, and I was like, this man is a quality person.

I also hired a Latino girl. She was quality. Y'all are hiring just black and then y'all are not exposed to everything else. So it was just like a lot of like di differentiation. Um, but that was when I really knew I had the chops to do a lot because, um, I. Basically created that like afterschool program from scratch and got a lot of rain and um, you know, we did a lot of donations.

I got a lot of parent involvement. I always was like very solution based. And so like, you know, in Hunter's Point it's like [00:28:00] you can go to one place and it's like one way into the, to the projects and one way out. Like it's just one, like you gotta be very careful. But I would pick up these twins, um, you know, like vans accessibility to like, um, like commute, commuting, like getting kids in the program solutions.

Um, I'm like, this is where I really understood how to be a well wrapped around like, to take care of the family as well as the student. So like, taking care of the child is taking care of their family as well. So if like they needed food or if they needed like, um, a ride to like a job interview or something like that, like I was always trying to find, um, resources for them because I really wanted like.

If the parent is not well, then the kid is not gonna do well. Right? Like, you know, and so I really want my babies to be successful, so I'm gonna take care of their whole, like if, if, if I have the power to do so. Um, we did a lot of drives, we did a lot of stuff. So it was just like, that's when I knew I really had the chops to like do a lot.

Um, and then, um, I went and moved and uh, I [00:29:00] lived on site at this place called, um, Fred Finch, and it's a mental health facility for 18 to 24 year olds. And, uh, so Tay and um, I was there for about seven years and I still didn't have my bachelor's, but then COVID hit and so I was like, okay, so we not outside anymore.

So I literally went and like did what I needed to do. Buckle down, got my degree in 2021. Thank God. Um, yes, go ahead.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So I, I love, I love that my guests will go past something that I think that's fascinating, and they're like, eh, I, I worked here for seven years, and then I got back like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: at this point you're talking about having worked with young children

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you're talking about adults. Um, so tell us about this mental health facility, or obviously not people's names, but

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: like for you? Because I always think about, how we have had folks on, in our, uh, on the show who have worked in facilities and [00:30:00] supported mental health of young people, either as teens or as, like you said, as like older kind of

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: And they get to see some ways the ways that our systems and education have not taken care of them and their family.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Absolutely.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: to on the back end say like, okay, I'm witnessing. What happens when parent can't afford to bust their kid a, uh, hour out? I'm seeing what it looks like when teachers keep leaving the school and, and the for they never had a steady fourth grade teacher or

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: no love in the community for families and communities who were, who were experiencing challenge, whether that's financial, mental, whatever. What was that experience like for you? Were you able to think about or reflect on the kids you had in your afterschool program and like where they are like, oh my gosh, this could have been one of my kids, or what was that like?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: honestly, my best friend I met [00:31:00] my best friend, you know, she's tatted on me, I love her, um, at this place. Um, at and because, and, and she was a foster kid, but she actually got the support that she was supposed to. Um, and she literally tells me all the time, she was like, I'm so, she'll come visit my classrooms or whatever, whenever I'm teaching.

And she was like, I'm so happy that you get to teach them here, because then they end up there later. Right? Like, let's get them, you're trying to get them early enough to like, you know,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Preventative. Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, girl preventative is my thing. I got like 10 Ps. Preventative is the one. Right. Um, and uh, and, and, and try to keep teach kids like critical thinking and stuff early enough.

Um, so when I was at that location, so actually I worked at a, um, nonprofit homeless shelter in San Francisco right after I left Opportunity Impact for like five or six years. Um, and those were a lot of homeless kids and they would come into this like place this home. Um, and I met my other, you know, all of my [00:32:00] friends are like lifelong friends, but I've met them in my careers.

Um, and uh, I really didn't enjoy it too much. Like, I remember there was a girl, 'cause you could be at the house or you can go be at like the big center because there was a lot of drug use and a lot of, um. Like IPV, like domestic violence and stuff. I'm a cry baby. I don't like violence. I'm a love, like, I love love, I love softness, kindness.

Um, I have a sharp mouth, like I'll talk to you, I'll talk to you under the bridge. But I like to be, I like people who are kind and considerate and mindful and sweet.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and so this girl one time she was like, I was just so an, I was just like not happy there or whatever, but it was a job and I needed it. I was living in the city and, um, she said, you don't like kids or something?

She said, you don't like us or something. And I was like, well, don't read me for Fulfill Girl, 'cause I'm gonna lose my job. But I didn't like, not that I didn't like the population, I just didn't want all, I didn't even like the, I wanted to help them with school. [00:33:00] Like, I just, like, I always wanted to help them with school.

So when I moved on and went to, got, and I lived on site at the other place, red Finch. Um, so they had an apartment and I lived on, I was overnight on call six nights a week, blah, blah, blah. Drama. Um. I kept trying to be preventative. I kept trying to be preventative and, but I'm like, I had office hours. Like come there.

I just ran into this like Latino kid who was like straight from Guatemala and he remembered me. His name was Kevin and I used to help, I helped him build his website. I helped him get his school. There's a couple kids that I've always helped him with, tutoring, school, whatever. So even in this mode of homelessness, IPV, life skills, all I really, I was like, please come talk to me about education.

Let's get your job. Let's come get this. I will tutor you, I will help you study. One of the girls was like, I never understood math until you explained it to me that way. She was like, wow, that was really, you know, I literally just want you to be successful. Um, 'cause education is so powerful and like, it just was my calling.

So when I finally was, and then I was, um. [00:34:00] I was working in the schools too, like, so I would volunteer at the middle school next door. I would take the, like newcomers to like on VA on vacation. Um, not vacation on like field trips I would take. Um, and then the school that I just left last year, um, or in May, I was like their academic mentor or their literacy expert.

Like I just always wanted to, 'cause my job was at night so I could go do stuff during the day. I just always wanted to be around education. Like it's just my college love ed. What is it, like, what's the phrase who says it like. If you don't know, if you're not educated, right? Like that's why they don't want us to learn.

That's why they want us to like not be as smart and as brilliant as we are because then they manipulate us and, and, and, and keep us as sheep. And so I'm just like, I wanna teach babies how to read and how to think and critically think so that they are successful for the rest of their lives. They may not get another educator like me, I'm not, hopefully they will.

I wanna teach other, other educators to be like that. [00:35:00] But you should be questioning things all the time. You should be asking questions. You should be,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: uh, not just given information and accepting it, you need to question it. Um, analyze where the sources get those things. So that is like always my big deal.

So like to get, you know, so it's just my power, it's just my passion.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah, I what I, what I'm, I'm so connecting to this because to me what you're describing is what, when I've been in spaces where I see kids and I'm like, oh my gosh, we gotta, like you said, get the, come on, let's get it together. Let's figure some things out. Let me help you, let me help you. There's like a, in my pit of my stomach, a sense of urgency.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: like, we don't have time to play around. We have to get this together. How can I support you?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: is going by and I always, I say this so much that. A lot of times the, the outside world doesn't have, and specifically I say this about black girls doesn't have love for black girls.

So like,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: show my love to black girls? You know, or how can I show my love [00:36:00] to kids in general? But I, I, I can't imagine the feeling of seeing, like you said, I don't wanna be talk thinking about drug usage and domestic violence and think I wanna help you with your education. It's urgent. and it must been so difficult to, to witness, um, so many stories of like tragedy and hopefully stories of triumph, but sometimes one way's out outweighs the other. Uh, so it sounds like you flip flopped or like moved back and forth between a traditional after school space and then supporting students when they're experiencing way more challenging times and then kinda back and forth. And you did that for 10 years you said.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, most of my career, I mean, until 2021, I was in afterschool programming or homeless work would like, yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: tell me, so tell us about, I cut you off, but you, it was the pandemic and you said, go ahead,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Well, I had a girl, she was at Cal State East Bay. I was at Cal [00:37:00] State East Bay, and we did homework. She was a peer mentor. I was a overnight counselor, and so we just, we, she helped me. I wasn't diagnosed until after I left that job. Right. And so.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you know it was time to go back to school? Like, that's the question you said

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: 'cause I wanted to go teach and I couldn't teach without my bachelor's. I needed to teach. My calling was so, um, Dr. Joy Dere, does any, you know, Dr. Joy Dere? Okay. So Dr. Joy Dere came to East Oakland. She was at a church and she said, and that actually wrote my letter to, um, I was supposed to go to holy names.

Um, holy name's closed, but she had a, I wrote my literal, like my personal statement on Dr. Joy de Groove, saying like one time she was in the church, she was like, if you don't do your calling, you going to hell. Like something like that. She said it basically in those term, in that term. And I was like, okay.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: she would say

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Period. Period. So I'm like, Dr. Jordan grew and I'm already invested in her, you know, uh, post-traumatic slave disorder, right? And so, like, I'm already loving her. I already [00:38:00] am like, well read about her. I love everything she's talking about. And she's telling me in this church, and I don't go to church, but I, she's telling me I'm there with my auntie and we're, and at this speech, and she's telling me that if I don't follow my calling, I'm gonna go to hell, girl.

I had to go get my degree. I had to, 'cause I was over here flip flopping, just being like, I'm gonna live in this career. I'm gonna do this. I had to, I know what my calling is. I know that I love to teach. I know that I'm good at it. I know that I'm well respected and I'm highly educated. So why? But I just didn't have this degree, so let me go do this.

And so, um, Dr. Dere is the one, so she, she told me that's why I had to go finish my degree in 2020.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: she said straight to hell if you don't get this. And you know what's so, is so interesting about that. And I mean, maybe she meant that literally. But if you think about it, if we don't follow our dreams, how many, how many of us experience hell on Earth? Like just like never being satisfied, never being happy,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: joy with our job, never being in joy with our community because we didn't follow [00:39:00] what we were meant to do.

And so maybe it's not that you go to a flaming place, but

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: day could be so much better if you had just paused step back and followed your purpose. So

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: that she said that. She said that

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Girl, I'm,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: makes sense.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. And, and I, and I, and I wrote it. I was like, in a, in a church of oscillating sound and sound like I was just whatever. But she literally inspired me to say, shut up, Whitney. Stop faking it. Go do what you have to do. Um, and my, my stepdad always tells me, he was like, you know, um. If you do what you love, you never work a day of your life.

And that's why I literally, I leave, when I leave a workday and everybody else looks stressed out, I'm like, I lu this, like I'm happy here. Like this is my calling, this is what I'm meant to do, is to work with these babies. Um, so yeah, Dr. Deru, she the one who she, she said it and I, and I listened and I heard, and I, and that's why I went back to school, um, to make sure, 'cause I was supposed to graduate in 2009 and I just waited [00:40:00] years and it just was like, didn't make any sense.

I was a political science major. Um, I'm heavily like involved in politics, you know, I watch democracy now every day and just all that stuff. I just wanna know about the world. Um, and so, but I wanted to teach, like I really wanted to teach. And so anyway, that's the, that's, that's the thing. So I went back to school.

I finally got my degree in 2021. My best friend was very helpful. Um, and then once I was able to get my degree, I, um. I, I left my, I left that job. I was miserable there. I was literally depressed. I was suicidal. Um, my relationship with my mom was bad. Like, I just didn't feel support. I was, I cried all the time.

Like I was just really unhappy. Um, and then there was this program that, yes, go ahead.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. So what is, you said, I wasn't like you didn't have a good relationship with your mom, but in this particular, we're interviewing right now, you said that's your, that's your ace. what about that job made it so that your, your relationship with [00:41:00] your mom was strained?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: So I was miserable and my mom, and so my mom got married when I was 13 to my stepdad. I love him boogie. Shout out. Um, but she was young and so she's like, you know, I told you she was a teen mom. So she, I felt very neglected by my mom. So her and I actually already had, like, always had like a little bit of contention.

Um, and then again, when I was in eighth grade, when she pulled me out and put me in that private school by myself, like I was miserable. Um, I didn't feel like I was heard. Um. And so actually I cut my mom off. Me and my mom didn't talk about three years, for about three years. Um, like the end of me working at the other job and then me moving to my new, my current apartment.

Um, because I just felt like there was this big incident where SWAT was called to our apartment, like to the apartment that I was living in. And they were banging on the apartment above me. And I had a, um, Breonna Taylor, like panic attack, like thinking that, like Breonna Taylor, um, like because there was tanks [00:42:00] outside, they were, you know, using the battery ram.

People had like, you know, they had like real, yeah, it was terrifying. So I was terrified. This was literally like May 4th, 'cause the next day was Cinco de Mayo. Okay. Um, I was on the floor crying. Um, it was like six in the morning, but I'm on call. I'm like the person on call. So ended up taking, uh, they left or whatever, but they ended up, um.

They had already got the guy in custody too, so that they were trying to get what my, but it was like right above, I lived in one 11. They were in two 11 trying to, and I was like terrified, scared. So I'm calling my my boss at the time. Um, and then we ended up doing like a, a restorative circle for the people or whatever else.

But then my adrenaline, I was on go mode all that day. Then on the single de mayo on the fifth of sink, they were like, can you come into work? I'm like, I'm crashing. Like I can't function right now. Nobody cares about my safety, my wellbeing, my sanity. They were like, oh, it wasn't a tank. It was like a blah, blah, blah.

Like the, the bosses, [00:43:00] everybody was like super dismissive of my trauma period. And I was like, except for my boss at the time, he's Latino. But he understood and he has a black wife, but he was like, understood. And I was like, I can't, you know what I'm saying? So, um. I was like, in that moment I needed to leave.

I was like, I have to leave. Nobody cares about me here. I'm seven years into this thing and they want me to come to work the next day after this big traumatic incident. I don't have time. I don't have time for this. I'm a, a good person. I don't deserve to be treated poorly. I don't deserve to be dismissed.

Um, and to not be taken care of like I deserve to be, you know? And I had tried to get a, like a therapist, but you know, you can only do it for like a couple sessions based on blah, blah blah. And then I had Kaiser and I was like, I need to go and get actual therapy 'cause Kaiser's bad at therapy. Um, so I ended up going to my, my principal.

She was like, I got a job. Now that I have my bachelor's, I can come teach. Right? I can come teach full time. And I, and I [00:44:00] was like, okay, but I can't afford to live by myself. 'cause I, it was free rent where I was living. That's really why I stayed so long. Um. But there's a program called like Teachers rooted in Oak Oakland.

So they like help you get into apartments and keep teachers like in like, so that you can success still expensive ass. One bedroom. Sorry. But it, it's quiet. It's beautiful. Like it's clean. Like it's not a lot of drama over here. And I remember the first time I moved in here, I, I had been on call for seven years, six nights a week and I only had one phone.

Now I was like, oh my God. Like I used to roll over in a panic, always being like, I, I gotta check my phone, I gotta check my other phone, I gotta check my other phone. So it's just like been peace. It's just been safe and peace. So yes, I worked there for seven years. It was because I needed housing and whatever else, but in the meantime I was always teaching.

Um, but it did help me understand mental health a lot better and have like a lot of conversations around mental health and, um, being able to see, this is why I talk to parents. This is why I have a really good relationship with most of my parents who are considered like [00:45:00] difficult. Um, because I just speak to them normally and realize that they have a lot.

Trauma. Um, and I respect them and I don't demean them. And I, I talk to them like, about what they want to see. And so a lot of those times when those parents have, um, like, you know, those, these young teen parents or whatever, um, of these kids, uh, a lot of times I'll be like, come into the classroom, come spend time.

Like, I have a open door policy, let's build a relationship. It's you, me, and the child. Like we're a triad. Um, but it's because I've also had a lot of relationships with like 18 to 24 year olds, so I can understand where they're coming from and what they might be exposed to.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. So you, you left, you graduated, you left workplace.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Um, tell us about your time in the classroom then.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Girl. It was the best. It was the best. Um, so I, like I said, had already been working at this school for most of my career as like a support staff, like an academic mentor, literacy ex expert. But, uh, [00:46:00] the current sixth grade class, they had a teacher and, um, I slept, so it was like 39 kids in this class. Okay.

So, uh, because they needed to still Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Now. I want the audience to make sure that they heard you had how many kids in the class?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: 39 my first

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: kids.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: three nine. Okay. Okay. So I had already been working with these kids in after school or supporting them as a, like a literacy, but so before they could split the class, I took OI was like their, like long-term sub for about 30 days, like the beginning of August. And so, um. I loved it. My voice was gone.

'cause it was like basically teaching two classes, but I was like, my voice is gone and da da da. But my classroom management is excellent, top tier. I have so many systems and so whatever. But they got a teacher, he was a white man, and I used to come, I used to always wanna help him. Like I would come in like again, I working at night still, so I was always coming to help him or like sit in the class or whatever.

This man was letting these kids hit [00:47:00] him.

I said, ain't no way.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: There's not a way. And then when I would come in, they'd be like, oh, miss Winnie's, miss Miss Winnie's here. I'm like, what's wrong? What's going on? Like, and I'm not even like, mean, I'm literally just strict with when it comes to classroom management, but I'm really fun. I have a lot of play.

Um, but y'all.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: no.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Ain't no way. Ain't no way. So August I had the class, then he took over and then I was like, I really want to teach full-time again. Um, and I was just subbing here and there at a lot of places. And then, um, my principal asked me to come back and take over the class 'cause he couldn't, and I would come in and try to help.

I'd be like, why would this practice is da da da. But he didn't have a relationship with the kids. He was zoned out. Like when I say like my relation, the reason why I'm, I can call any kid that I've ever worked with and they going be like, happy, but they know what the expectations are. Like, be quiet, raise your hand and [00:48:00] I love you.

I like you. Let's go play basketball later. Right. Or whatever. Um, but they were slapping his man in the back of his neck anyway, so he left and I took over the class in January. Um, and so that was my first like full time in the classroom. And then, um, and I just. It was the best. It was the best. It wasn't as many kids.

There was a kid who had a lot of trauma. Like a lot of trauma. He was being exposed to a lot of stuff from his older brother and he was fighting. I just don't, like, everybody knows like, what's my number one rule? We do not fight in this class. Like I don't do violence. 'cause I said there's too many opportunities for joy.

He was literally like terrorizing kids. Um, and, but he wouldn't terrorize him with me. He would do it like when he's on lunch or on recess when

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: no one's looking.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. Right. Or when other adults are there. But nobody cared. I'm like, why y'all not watching him? I'm watching him like when I like, the reason why he don't do that with me 'cause my eyes on the prize.

Like I'm constantly looking at him. Um, and, but I'm also positive narrating to him. I'm not just telling him, you know, like I'm saying. Okay. Thank you so much for handling your [00:49:00] business. Thank you for sitting down. Thank you for being quiet. Um, and I kept telling my principal like, he needs to get some care, um, like a cost referral.

And the mom would like kick the can down the road. Mental health, um, like, like the, like his healthcare or whatever to like get him enrolled in services. One day I just was like, I'm not gonna keep doing this by myself. I'm not gonna keep doing this by myself. And she, she, my principal wants to like cry about the black baby, blah, blah, blah.

I said, ma'am, I have been handling this baby this whole time. I care about him deeply. He's eating into my lunch period. I have a very, like, strict, nobody bothers me during my lunch so I can decompress and then get back into full mode. And, um, but I said, I can't care about this baby more than his mama does.

I cannot and I can't. And I can, I actually do, but I cannot care. She got him dressed nicely every single day, like new shoes, knew this, knew this, but can't get his men, his, his healthcare provider information. And I said, you can't cry to me about this when I need help and y'all keep walk because I have such classroom management skills.[00:50:00]

You keep walking past my class, you think everything's fine. And so I put the foot down and I said, I'm not gonna be able to take this kid anymore. Like, he can't be in my class. 'cause he's literally cutting people's hair. Like he's walking around cutting girls' hair, he's doing all this and y'all keep sending him back to class.

Like it's all fun. Like it's all good. It's not, he's a, he's terrorizing my kids and she wants to do this. Like, well, he's gonna come apologize. I said, and I told my kids before that, I said, he can come apologize, but you don't have to accept his apology. You don't have to. I'm teaching kids to have your actions come with consequences.

And, and if somebody's, a lot of people say, I sorry. And they keep doing the work, they keep doing the same thing. So if you keep repeating it, I'm not gonna da, da da. So he kept doing it. He kept doing it, and nobody, and I'm like, he cannot come back into my classroom until he's enrolled in services. And she's like crying and boo-hooing and all this stuff.

I said, I cannot, y'all keep giving me this kid who's fighting and terrorizing all these. Go ask the other kids how they feel. Go ask them too. This is the only, yeah, like, what are we doing [00:51:00] here?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: You know, think about, I, I know that for me, I've had several students. Who I've had that same experience with and the principal, you know, just kind of getting, trying to get the support, trying to get the support. And it really wasn't until administration were, was harmed in some kind of way by the student.

That action actually happened. Yeah. Um, where the movement happened or the child disrespected the, the administration, then the student, they try to figure out what to do next or get some tier two support or whatever. and this idea of like this other students, that's the hardest part is like, what about the other students? yeah, I had a conver, I don't remember, I think it was a, yeah, AKI Parker. He was on here talking about, he was a math teacher, a math high school teacher, he said that he was trying to make sure that all the students, every single student was in class focused. And he said, act. one thing to have a [00:52:00] middle school kid or elementary school kid, but when a kid is 18 or 19 in your math class, this is an adult. Like what do you, how do you support a, a student at that age who is not interested in learning, whatever the challenge is, is tired that day, work a whole shift, that Burger King or

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah, yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: then came to work. and we, the people can listen to that episode to hear his perspective, but there is something to be said, like constantly pushing on administration.

I also wanna talk about how many of us black educators are given students with this assumption because we're black and the kid's black or because in general we supposed to be

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Right,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: especially black women,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: we just have the magic and like you said, they walk past the classroom like, oh, she got it. Oh,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Literally, literally say, and I'm like, what?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah, there's a

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: of us who have that [00:53:00] experience of just keep putting the more cha especially they know the kids like been there third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or whatever. They know that child is coming up and they've already planned to concentrate students who need more support than you could possibly offer into the classroom. Um, and it burns us up, right? But then there's this conversation of, well, we don't owe, you know, black educators are leaving because it's not enough pay. No, it's a lot more complex than that. It is for some of the reasons that you're talking about. And that's not, not to say that that's your story.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Right?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: wanna foretell anything that's not true.

But I will say that there's lots of black teachers who year after year, that keeps happening and we burn, we're burning out so much quicker than our non-black counterparts. But go ahead.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: You know, and thank you, um, for you, you, okay. So it's, it's twofold. So I actually asked, so in my school, we can actually pick the kids before, like we actually pick the classes. So there was two third grade classes last year. I [00:54:00] asked for every black child that I could have, like I want every single behavioral issue.

I begged for them, actually. Um, so the year before, uh, there was, I had a two three split. So I had a second and third grade class, and there was this boy who I knew had been acting out since first grade, but this baby also had like, his uncle like murdered in front of him. Like he had trauma. His mom was a little bit difficult, but I like, but I asked for him.

I want all the behaviors. I, that is my specialty. If you have a kid with behaviors, I want that child every day. 'cause I know I'm gonna help them. I know I have the tools, the skills, the mental health work. I know, and I have a full picture. Um, so I want them, I beg for them, but. With the admin part. It's, so the last straw for me was in February.

Okay. This is, this is, so this is to touch on your point about, I used to call it triage. Right. And I think I talked about it when we had our, like preview. Um, my brother, my stepbrother, my, my, my dad's wife's son, [00:55:00] he got, he got married, it was February 5th. It was a Wednesday. So it was Wednesday, um, Thursday.

We were supposed to have the app after party in San Francisco. I already had paid for the hotel, supposed I love his wife's family. Like we're locked in. Like, we were just very close. They're very loving. And then Friday, I had a cohort day for my, uh, master's program, right? So I was supposed to be off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but that flu that was going around at the beginning of this year was crazy.

And so my favorite sub shout out Ms. Marie, that's my dog, she was like, I'm out. I'm in the, like, she wasn't available. So I took off a Wednesday. Okay. I went back Thursday and Friday. I skipped the after party. I skipped the cohort day. I said I need to be there with my babies because.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: The sub that you need is.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Is not there and I want them to be successful.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Out to

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Period. Especially the good ones. Honey, I was a good sub, so I know you if you a good sub I And, and if you need some support, um, I'm gonna plug my, show my channel real quick. The red method. Okay. It is on YouTube. The red method is literally to help educators become better ed educators. 'cause I love this work [00:56:00] and, um, I feel like a lot of educators are not supported, period.

And so I just wanna give you as many tools and, and support as, um, like my eventual goal is to become a coach and to really just help people become better educators. Um. So I didn't get any, my, my family was begging me, please Whitney come, come. And I was like, no, I gotta go back to my babies on Thursday. I don't wanna leave them with a sub for that many days.

Like, you know. So Wednesday I went to the wedding, it was fine. I didn't get no text messages about nothing, no drama. I come back in on Thursday, happy girl singing, driving to school like, ah, my babies must have did so well. 'cause I didn't get any text messages. Why did I come in? It was a two page note from the sub on bad behaviors from my student.

I had asked my principal, I had said, Hey, this baby had a really hard day on Tuesday. Can you please send him to my fourth grade counterpart so that he can be successful on this Wednesday? 'cause I don't wanna worry about anything while I'm at this wedding.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Her response, he came in late, I forgot. [00:57:00] I don't ask you for nothing, I don't ask you for anything.

But I knew my baby had a really hard day on Tuesday and I wasn't gonna be there on Wednesday too. Can you go send him to this teacher that he's built a relationship with? So the rest of my class and guess what? He was the domino that started the, and so now everybody else is acting a fool because he's dysregulated.

And I knew it and I asked you, and I didn't check in with you because I asked you early, I asked you on Tuesday to make sure this happened. I'm not gonna micromanage you as my boss to make sure, but they was calling this teacher out her name, they was fighting. They was, they was,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: third graders.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: these are my third graders.

Okay, this is Oakland honey, we like blah, blah blah. But they know better, right? Um, but I knew this one kid was the was Domino. And I had asked you to remove him 'cause I'm preventative and I knew it. And I asked you to send him to the fourth grade teacher. And I even checked in with the fourth grade teacher.

That's my dog, Richard Hayes. And you still didn't do it. [00:58:00] I forgot. And I said, you keep doing that though. I don't ask you for nothing. I don't ask you for anything. 99.9% of the time I don't even see your face. You literally have said, I walked past your class. I hear learning. And so I keep going. I, I literally have the best classroom.

Like I painted my classroom into a rainforest. I have a peace corner with all these toys, all this joy. Like there's so many. I I I give breaks and transition. There's music always going. But when it's time to learn, it's time to learn. But there is literally, it's kid friendly, it's student centered. It's for the babies.

I literally will take every kid from any class, send 'em to me, I'm the best buddy room come and they're not just gonna sit here and play. They might have a time to regulate, but then they're gonna come and do some work with us as well. Please. I want those babies give them to me every single time. After February 5th, I closed my door.

I closed my door. I stopped being the buddy room 'cause I said, y'all are not gonna take y'all not taking care of me. And this al already is. There was a kid who was supposed to have an emergency, um, [00:59:00] academic cost 'cause he can't read in third grade.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Mm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: I got his anger and his behavior under check. 'cause that's how I do, I built a relationship, really smart.

Didn't have word recognition, but really bright, oral comprehend. One of like the smartest ones.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Sure.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: When he acted a fool on February 5th, I said, he, what are his consequences? Because I'm not in charge anymore. What are you gonna do? Principle to make sure that he has some consequences for his behavior. She kept trying to bring him back to my class.

What were his consequences though, for acting a fool?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: You were in charge. Now mom's mad at me talking about, well he, that was yesterday and today's a new day. Yes, I start fresh every day, but he still needs consequences for this two page letter for his behavior. What were your consequences? Principle? None.

None, none, none, none. He's not allowed to back in my class until you tell me what his, what his consequences are. So she sent him to the other third grade class. How many fights do you think this boy got into when he left my classroom?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So many,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: 17.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Always outta class. Always. I almost begged. [01:00:00] I almost, I almost let him come back just because I never said he didn't, couldn't come back to my class.

I said, what were his consequences for his behavior on February the fifth? And then he can come back to my classroom once you tell me what the plan was for, what his behavior, how to, how we're gonna change the behavior. 'cause he knows better. But you never gave him consequences. And now you put him in this white man's class who don't care about kids.

This teacher does not like kids. He does not like kids. And now he's in a fight every day and he's outta class eloping every day. But I had got that under, so now we doing a disservice. Guess how soon he got, um, support services? Once he left my classroom

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Right away.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: immediately. But y'all couldn't do this since August.

And this is February.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. I think this is a really, this is what we're saying about you. Like you said, I signed up to, to support students who were challenging. I asked for that. But we also don't ask for, I'm assuming that you didn't ask to be left alone. you asked, right, like, I got this [01:01:00] 30% or 40% parents need to have the other x mile percent

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Right.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Let's do this together.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So your idea to me is a beautiful gesture of like how we can support children who are experiencing challenges. But there's an as, I think there's some assumption on the administration's part. Like, well, since you asked for this, you asked for this. And the no sup in their mind. And I'm not gonna try to try to figure out what they're thinking.

I'm wondering, in their mind it's like, well, that's what she wanted. So why are you always asking me for help? And I'm like, that, that's a really difficult thing to hear. And this whole, this idea too of once it's in, he's in someone else's classroom, we are gonna offer all the services.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: like I said before when we were talking, I've seen that. Over and over again. Um,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Well, one thing about me is I'm a communicator, right? So I always followed up, Hey, where's his mental stuff? Where's his support? He [01:02:00] needs it. He's acting out because he can't read. Like I'm always following up. So it's like, and this is a new kid to the school. So I didn't know his history, his background, like the other kids that I actually asked for when we were picking the class.

This is a whole new family in being injected into our school. So he got assigned to me, that's fine. I got his behaviors under, but he still needs reading comprehension help.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: And so why do I have to wait? And then once he got, now he getting the support from the paras. Now he's getting pulled out and getting support, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, I said that. I said that. I had said I had, I followed up in December. I said he's be misbehaving. He's, he is walking out of class. He's angry. And then I got the mo 'cause we built a relationship. So he was finally able to like, let you know, calm down. Right. Um, and not be angry, but, and then I would partner him with like another little black boy who could read.

And then, you know, normally they would be in a fight, but now they're buddies and they like each other and they're, and that other baby is helping him read. Right. Or my other like, really high level black girl is helping him and supporting him. And we don't make fun of [01:03:00] people in this class because, you know, we don't make fun of that.

You are, we're supporting everybody. Everybody's a community. And so, but why, once he leaves my class, does he get the academic support that I have been begging for since August and it's February and he gets it in March. What, what? Excuse me. And then my relationship with him is tarnished. Um. Even though lo, I love him, I love him, he's a black boy.

But because she couldn't give out consequences and I wasn't gonna give her the answer anymore because I keep giving you the answer and you won't listen. I keep telling you how to, I was preventative. I told you to remove this other black baby so that all of my babies could be successful. And instead I come into a two and I keep asking you and you keep saying, yeah, I walked past your classroom.

I hear learning, so I don't come. I said, you're triaging me this year. You know why you're triaging me? 'cause your kindergarten teacher doesn't know how to classroom management. Three outta 26 of her kids are paying attention during the lesson. This is kindergarten. [01:04:00] We went to a conference in DC and in Colorado on teaching, becoming better at teaching Unbound ed.

You know Unbound ed?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. So Unbound ed was in Colorado two years ago. I went to the ELA pathway and then last year was in DC And so we went to the DC pathway and I'm like, it was for math black girls in math, right? So it really made me wanna harness making sure that black girls, because you know, they, so whatever it is, they get veered away from.

The math, like still, they get like tarnished away from it. So I really, really appreciate it. Like being like, I'm about to make sure my babies are mathematicians and especially my black girls, like, we gonna do this. Right? And so we doing it and as we're in this conference, I'm like, Hey, can you make sure that your teachers are accountable this year?

Like holding up the standard because I know what I'm doing, but you guys are sending me kindergarten. If you look at my, um, my data last year I only had 17 students, right? 10 outta 17 came in reading at a kindergarten, reading level five, came in outta first grade, leaving reading level one outta yeah. [01:05:00] Uh, second grade and one outta the third grade.

All of them moved to second or third grade. I'm doing three years worth of work in one year. Why am I having to do it? And I don't mind. I should be pushing them forward. I should be ex if my, if my, if I'm so successful. Imagine if they came in reading that green re ray level and.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: level.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah, so I'm having to pull up kindergartners, little newcomers 'cause I speak Spanish.

So newcomers who actually can decode but doesn't necessarily, doesn't know the comprehension, but I'm giving them space to try. And we applaud every single time you give it a tran tin, you can read a literal third, you can read Peter Pan because you know how to decode from your Latin. Like, you know, sometimes there's a double L sound or whatever, but you can decode, but you were scared in other classrooms.

But in this classroom you're safe and you're, and, and you're special

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Mm-hmm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and um, and, and you get rewarded for trying and effort and input. Um, so all of this is going on and I'm moving, having to move kids from kindergarten reading level to first grade leave low. They get balloon parties, they [01:06:00] get ice cream party, fun, fire, they all this stuff.

Mamas and daddies, everybody getting, we all invested in this process and then you guys have the nerve to be like, um, so when I'm like, oh, can you be accountable for the rest of these teachers so that when I get the next class, 'cause they need to be learning, why don't they know their letter names in kindergarten?

Why don't they know their letter sounds? That's all she teaches. That's all you do. Why don't you do this? And then, or like they can't write, they're just copying straight from the board. We know that is not academically successful. You have not given them any prompt so that they can write on their own so they can start to build their own capacity.

So I'm having to move all these kids and it actually does affect me. And so when I'm saying, can you hold them accountable? Can you make an announcement every morning, Hey, did you guys do this? Did you do this? Can you make sure that there's, um, morning like structure and systems? And you said you were gonna do it in DC and then after the first week you didn't.

And I keep asking you, how can I help? Can I help you run this pd? Can I help you, um, get some reading for these kids? Can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Please, [01:07:00] please, please, please, because I really want you to be successful. Please, please,

I don't ask you for anything. I don't, I don't ask you for nothing. Not a word. And you're a nice person, but I don't ask you for anything. I love my, I I'm the master of my class. I'm, we are good, but when I ask you for something and you don't come through and I never ask you for anything, I'm actually more helpful than not when I close my door after February 5th and I stopped helping out these other classes.

Do you know the office went haywire? They were like, where's all this stuff coming from? What's, you didn't understand what I was doing down here. You didn't see me. 'cause I, I'm, I'm subtle about it. I don't need to be like, oh, did you see that I pulled this baby into my class? Or did I did this? I just do it.

I just do it.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: And but so now when, now that my door is closed and now that I'm not doing it, and no, I am not available for buddy rooms anymore. The whole school is acting a fool.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: [01:08:00] Mm-hmm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: But she didn't wanna recognize that. And when I said I'm leaving, I won't be coming back this year. Um, next year, she shrugged.

Like, I haven't been in this community for most, I actually was there before she was there and not like, I'm not trying to hold you accountable. So now my coworker, he's still there. I was, I hired him. I love him. Richard Hayes, he was on my last red method. Um, he goes, everything you doing, he's like, the way you look at data, the way you look at attendance, the way you look at, um, um, just whole kid getting to know the kids, restorative justice, positive reinforcement, all that.

He said, they're doing data now. He's like, it's so Whitney coded. It's so Whitney coded. He's like. About this because you taught me this last year. 'cause I poured into him and he was listening. He listened. I want him to be a good educator. So he is a black man. We're the same age and I wanted him to be a good educator.

I said, get to know your babies. Fun more fun. Spend time. We did a whole thing on first week of [01:09:00] school, social emotional learning period. The first week of school is book. Read these books, see themselves in it. Draw pictures, art, play joy, social emotional. Social emotional, social emotional. Get to know your babies.

And he did it. I had literally wrote, he let me do it for him. I made his line order. I created his table groupings. I looked at his data 'cause I, you know, I had a real genius table groupings based off of data, all of this stuff. So he's like, guess what we're doing? It's all Whitney coded. Whitney coded,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: let me ask you a question, Whitney.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yes.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: how many years were you teaching before you decided to take a break from I'm, I'm saying take a break. 'cause it, I feel like you'll be back in there one of these days, but

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: were you teaching in the classroom?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Three, three years, four years.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: 2021

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I ask that question because I think that there's a, couple things that people assume. I think, I think that people assume one, that the exit interview, um, people need to be on the, in a classroom or in a [01:10:00] school, traditional school space for 15, 30, whatever years. But the truth is that folks are experiencing harm year one,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: year three.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: when you came on the show or when we had our, like our pre-chat, I wanted you to talk about and spend a good amount of time talking about time with afterschool program and the mental health programs that you were in, because that tells the story of you as an educator.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: know how many people pause and think about the things that the, the careers before they started teaching or the

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: that before they started edu teaching, that shaped the way that they showed up in their classroom. Yeah. And I, so I felt like your, your particular story, I really wanted to

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: time talking about that. And it, then it comes back to why all of this makes sense,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Because from what I can hear, it's like I said before, you're teaching in a place of [01:11:00] urgency

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yes.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: care because you understand like, oh, I can see

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm. Period.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: 15 years if family, community administration, teachers continue to turn up an eye away from students.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: know what happens to these students. I know that they can become unhoused or they be, be, um, end up, experiencing drug usage

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: violence or

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and on and on, right? Sex work. So I think that that, that, that's important, like all of these parts are important and we really, in our education system, I don't know how many people. Give props to like second career and yours is not really, it was just like a long path to teaching, but like second, third career,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: educators, because a lot of us want expect or or are told that you should go right from go to high school, then to college and

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: teaching. [01:12:00] But we're not giving enough props to folks who've been out in community

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. Experience.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: experience matters.

And then they can come back into teaching and say like, I, oh, I already saw this,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: or I know this community, or I've worked in this area before, or I've this program, this busing program, like you said, to

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: field trips and

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: of that makes a difference. were there for three years. Your principals, you know, you tell your principal, I, I'm tired of begging she just gives a shrug. Do

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Her thing was tone. Her thing was tone. She said the way that I sp spoke, and I said, 99% of the time, I'm kind, I'm preventative. I wanna get blah, blah. So when you get me to this point, I Yeah, I'm fed up. Yeah, I'm done. Yeah. I'm gonna speak to you a little crazy because I've talked to you a lot of times and, and, and, and me and my mom had this conversation.

'cause my mom is like very professional and she's always like, your brand, your brand, you wanna make sure your name is your [01:13:00] brand that you're, you know, blah, blah. And I'm like, but I'm a, I'm passionate. And I'm um, and I am like, when I say preventative, like I really mean it. Like I try to give people as much space, um, and as much information, I'm very communicative.

Like, I like to like express my needs so that they can get met. So nobody's unclear. And so when you still don't hear it, then there's a problem here. Right. Um, and you know, one of the things, and I, I met, I did this in high school 'cause you said something about my pathway of knowing. Like mental health and all the stuff that I like, these, these older people that I'm experiencing.

What's third grade? Do you know what happens in third grade?

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Third grade is when we determine how many, according to research, that I haven't

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I've heard we

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: how many prison bands that we, uh,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Go to prison

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: to

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Pipeline, baby.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. And it's a place where we switch from learning to read, to reading, to, to learn.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Well, you said it, girl. 'cause listen. Okay. [01:14:00] My philosophy

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I was in the teaching streets for a long time. Yeah, yeah,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: outside, we know what's up. So I learned this in high school about tracking, right? Like I learned this in high school my freshman year about tracking. Um, and so I, um, yeah, so I'm on, that's why third grade is super important. Invaluable to me. Especially if when I'm talking about black boys, like I have a very, very, very, like, give me the black boys.

I want these black. Because I gotta get 'em. If I get 'em, I'm gonna, it's, it's, they're, it's, I'm changing pathways forever, like long term, long goals. And I mean, it, I have so many nephews and brothers, like, I'm the black mama to all these babies. I love black boys specifically because I want to save them.

Like, I literally need to save them. Um, my, that's my calling more than anything else. Um, and so. That's why I beg for them. That's why I beg for them. I need them. I actually need them, and I know I can change their life, the trajectory of their lives. I had a baby last year. Um, his [01:15:00] dad was like, you know, he was like, I went to, you know, alternative school and da dah, dah, dah, dah.

And the baby wasn't taking accountability. Like the child was not. And I was like, I need you. And he was, the dad was like, he would come in and sit and watch me. He's like, you're such a good teacher. He said, I wish he had more time with you. I wish he had more time with you. Because he's like, a lot of these other people are letting him get away with behaviors and babying him.

He said, I need him to learn to be accountable. He's like, I care about it and I want him. He would come help with math. That was his baby's hard time was like math. But he would come and come and help, and help. He was a really good reader. Um, but he was dad, mom, grandma. Everybody was invested. I'm like, this is an open door policy.

We are in this because his dad does not want him to have the same, he doesn't want it for himself. What he had to go through.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yes.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: He wants, and his baby is smart. So he's just like, what does we, what do we need? We need structure. We need systems and we need to be helpful. We need to help. We need to help. So he, he can't tell me.

Like he just, he knew, he knew that I was invested in his child

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and he knew I was holding him to account because I need that black baby to have. And I, you would tell him, I said, you [01:16:00] know, third graders where they start, um, sending our baby, that's when they gonna start tracking if you go into prison or not.

And I would have a real conversation with these kids. 'cause I'm like, I need you to get your behavior together. I need you to focus academically because you cannot be another statistic. And I'm stopping it right here. And, and, and, and dab believed in it. We, we all had the conversation. It was like we were, he like, it's.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of black babies going to jail, and if I can do anything to stop it, I'm going to stop it. And I'm thi I'm sick of girls. I have, you know, teach my black babies, my girls too. I'm like, yo, you don't have to be. Um, you can be cordial and nice, but you don't have to be friends with everybody.

Don't be disrespectful. Don't bully. But if somebody doesn't show up for you, if you are taking care of them all the time, and then when it's your turn to be taken care of, they treat you poorly. You don't have to remain friends with them. So I'm literally teaching these babies how to be humans. Healthy, well-rounded, whole people, accountability agency, um, speaking up for themselves, have emotional intelligence.

And so when I'm doing it for myself, I'm not doing it for pr. And like my mom was like, [01:17:00] do it for pr. This is the, the tangential part. But this is all to get back to being like, I'm not doing it. I'm not telling you something to harm you. I'm telling you that you've harmed me and I needed support and you didn't provide it and I needed support and you didn't provide it.

And I very rarely ask for support. And you still are dismissive.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: That's neglect. You are disrespectful. And now I'm disrespectful. So yeah, my tone is a little disrespectful because I tried to, I, I hugged you. I wrote you a letter. I gave you a card. I helped out with PDs. You asked anything of me last minute, a hundred days of school, and I made a whole event, books and bubbles outside on the yard for the whole school.

Whole school. Anything you asked of me, I showed up and I provided, and I asked you just one day to remove this baby, and you were forgot and you dismissive, and you said, it was my tone that bothered you. Okay, then let's go.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. So this, this is good. This is taking care of me. I love this. So this is, this is [01:18:00] the next question I think that's related to this because you, you just said, I'm doing all the things for everyone else. I'm showing up in all these ways, I'm gonna go a little bit outta order to my normal questions.

But are not in the classroom.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: And you said, I love, love and I, I wrote this quote down, there are so many opportunities for joy. I love that.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you have like

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Oh my. I said that. I did say that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love it. That was a joy girl.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. And so you have all of this still beautiful energy. is it going now? What are you doing now?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Well, thank you. Um, so actually, so lemme tell you,

I'm in like the most,

I'm blessed. Like, I'm just really, really blessed. So, um, I realized I was having a lot of anxiety working for Oakland Unified School District. Right? So I was having a lot of anxiety, [01:19:00] um, and I was gonna try to go back to subbing this year. So I was subbed before, you know, whatever. And, um. So I'm in a, I'm in a, a teaching credential slash master, so I still haven't gotten my credential fully, but a master's program.

And I just finished my first year. I have to do this thing called the csat, you know, the csat. Okay. So it's like subject matter competency because I was a politics major. And so those don't align with becoming like you needed to be like a liberal arts major or whatever. So I have to go back and take this like subject matter competency thing.

So, um, but you have to know everything up until like 12th grade, it's like all grade levels. Math, science, pe, uh, ela. So it was, it's, it was, I was trying to study, actually all of this stuff over here is like, in that corner is like binders of study, right. And I couldn't get it. 'cause statistics is hard. Like, not that I can't get it, but I just like whatever.

And I already, it just, it's a lot. It's a lot. So. My mom and I was like, ugh, having a really hard time and, and I can't be in [01:20:00] my program until I finish this subject matter. So I'm like, I need, I, I'm not even in school right now, like I did so well. I have 4.0, like, I'm like top tier. I'm always helping other educators in my class, but I have to finish this to finish my cohort.

Um, so my mom calls and she's like, listen, why don't you. Do a single subject instead of multiple subjects. 'cause as elementary school, you have to do all of the subjects, like six subjects all the way up to, from to 12th grade. And she goes, and I said, I can do English. I'm such a great writer, I always help my friends with blah, blah, blah.

And so now I am actually studying just for my English, so I can do single, single subject. And then I really wanna go work inside of a college or high school. 'cause I wanna get them, I still wanna just teach them critical thinking, how to decipher. Like I've always helped people with writing, reading, like people have cried about my, like my written work.

Um, and so I was like, and my best friend was like, yes, why don't you be an English teacher? So right now I'm in my mom just, she blessed me. Um, so I asked him, taking out my retirement, I'm gonna live off my retirement from [01:21:00] Oakland Unified. My mama's gonna help me out until I'm blah, blah, blah, blah. But everything is just like coming up in my favor.

And my auntie, I was just at her job and she had all these like, legal notebooks and so I went and got like all these legal pads. Um, and I got really excited about studying, about studying. And not feeling stressed or overwhelmed because yes, I know math, yes, I can teach math. Yes, I, especially third grade, but I'm, I don't having to study this whole thing is crazy.

Like studying.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: That's a lot to, to

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: one

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah, yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: And so in, but so right now I'm just like, it's like to have this interview I have, I have a schedule, um, that I've created. So I'm very consistent. Um, and I'm just gonna study really hard and I'm going to, you know, I like, again, I have my show, my YouTube, the red method again. I, I created this, um, 16 page ebook, um, about just empowering educators.

'cause I just, I do, I am gonna go back. So I'm gonna go back to teaching of like, yeah, you're right. The whole question was. Yeah, [01:22:00] it's, it's my calling. I cannot, I can't not, I can't not, but I really wanted to work at juvenile justice also. I've really been wanting to work at like, the juvenile justice hall.

Um, I really love black boys. Like, it is my, like, they are my favorite people in the world. I'm such a high energy person and black boys like match my, like, you know, my energy. Um, I play sports with them. Like I, I'm bad at basketball, but I'll get out on the court, I'll teach them tennis, I teach them pickleball, like I'll play soccer.

Like I'm a, I'm, I'm, I, I love to play. And, um, I just wanna go like, I wanna go like even like into the system. Like if I can do, like, help them in like from juvenile Jo, like that's my next one. So I'm just,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: hold on. ' cause you, you already ahead of us. I, I, I wanna stay at this question of like what you're doing now because you talked about the academics and folks, if you can't tell by now, Whitney is hype. So if you not watching this on YouTube, you gotta see. But I want, you said something really interesting before we start the show, which is you're learning to take care of yourself

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: not talking about that right now.

And I want you to talk [01:23:00] about what are you

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Oh, okay.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: taking care of yourself,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and just taking care of, you know, your family

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: been, you've had this opportunity to step back from, from

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah. Listen, honey, when I tell you I like, it was like the beginning of the school year and everybody was going back to school, and that was the week I woke my ebook and I was like, ah, like I poured into me. It's something on my mind. Even, um, creating the red method, it was something on my heart. Um, I've act on my vision board.

I've had the red method, um, for like 10 years, like on this vision board. So once I was able to, once I stopped caring when I closed that door in February, February 6th, when I closed that door and I started taking me like, I gotta do something for me, I, it, it, it's all been for me. It's all like, I'm healthier, I'm happier, I'm, I'm, uh, I like right after we get off this, I'm about to go play pickleball with my parents.

Like I, um, am. Good for my friends. I'm good for my family. My house is [01:24:00] clean. My, um, I'm reading again for pleasure, like, and I'm pouring into me like again, all of this stuff, like everything on my task list because I don't have to fight anymore. I am just being, I'm just happy and healthy and thriving and it's a wonderful feeling.

Like I just, I can't be like more blessed than in my mom. Like just people showing up for me, um, because I've shown up for them. They literally just, and, and not, but I didn't have to ask. I don't have to beg. I just want to do for me because they know I can't be more impressed sometimes I'd be like, I'm impressive, right?

Like, I'm a good person, I'm a crime person. I'm always giving people like other sides of the story so that they can have like opinions and healthy relationships and, and communication. Um, because that's what I want for me. I'm showing up for people. I want people to show up for me, and so. I show up that way.

I model the behavior. I model how I want to be [01:25:00] treated. I model how I think other people should be treated. I, I model effective communication and kind words and good energy, and I'm gonna get in your butt if you do something disrespectful though, right? So I'm not gonna just like, you know, positive, positive toxicity or whatever it is.

Like

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: toxic.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah, I'm not with that. Like, it, how do people grow from, from conversation, from struggle, from like, you know, put, put, brushing stuff under the rug is not gonna get us anywhere. Um, and so, you know, I just. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm well girl. I wake up, make my bed every morning. I brush my teeth, I do my makeup.

I look nice. I, I I, I, I, I, I clean up, like I hang out with my beard or dragon. Like, I go on a walk with my friends around the lake. I spend time, I read again for pleasure, like joy, just reading. That's why I was trying to get Sotta Hammonds. But Girl Sotta, um, if, you know, if you wanna send it to me, if you watch this, ever sign it.

Um, but like, just to, even if it's an [01:26:00] academic thing, I just wanna ple, but I'm like, for pleasure, like for joy, like just happiness. And when I had to close down my classroom, like I said, um, so last year I had a. Two years ago, I painted my classroom into a rainforest. And so we went on donors choose. I have a lot of rich friends.

Like I said, I went to private, private school, so everybody like, it was like a $2,500. Um, donors choose. People were only saying I was gonna get $200. I'm like, that's y'all poor mindset. My mindset don't think like that. Yes. And so everything got taken care of. Um, and it was a gorgeous classroom. I had some friends who like free handed the classroom.

It was gorgeous. I painted over that. I made it white.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Mm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: I'm not gonna get, you're not gonna shrug your shoulders and act like me. Leaving this school is not a problem because you won't listen. Um, and so you get, you don't get my, everybody's like, who's gonna get your classroom next year? Ms. Whitney, blah. And I gave them a healthy goodbye.

I wrote a letter, said, you know, with Broken heart and sadden spirit, I'm leaving this school. Um, I won't be back, you know, but I love [01:27:00] you guys. Y'all been in my community since before. She, like, I've been in this, this specific school, I've been there most of my whole career. Um, so it was really hard and, and, and, and I know everybody's parents.

I know they sisters, you know what I mean? Like, I know everybody. I'm locked in. I speak Spanish. So we've been having parent-teacher conferences, my, that like, all this stuff is going on. And then you act like I didn't because I put a boundary up about having consequences for bad behavior and I called you on your stuff, so now I'm the problem.

So it was a lot of anxiety. It was a lot of stress, a lot of like scared for like, what's happening next? Right? What's the new beginning? But my mom was like, you know what? Your communication style is different. And she said, sometimes it's like, 'cause I'm a leader. I'm, I'm a leader and I wanna help you as much as possible, but I can't lead you if you don't think that I can lead you.

Like, if you don't want or help you be a better leader. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: really hard because, you know, some people can see you [01:28:00] as a leader and wants to help and wanna support the, like a broader community and the, the success of all students

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: and simultaneously, p some other folks can feel like you are a threat to their job or you're trying to take over, or you, you know, you are, you think that you know X, Y, and Z and, and have this competitive spirit when that's not the direction you're going in. they could not believe that you're genuinely trying to support because they've never received support like that because they've never met anyone like you. Because they don't feel like they're as strong academically as you are. And so that we expose them. There's like all these different ways that people's ego shows up,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: they're in a, a classroom teacher, a dean, a school psych administrator, and it just causes more harm to community

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yep.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: don't step back out of our ego.

We say, oh, it's your tone if like, and, and the, we could go into tone policing black women,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: even with other black women. And that, [01:29:00] that idea of professionalism, we can get into that on a, on a whole different episode.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: sure.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: don't have time for that

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Sure.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: But that idea of tone and you, when the first time you said it, I didn't, I didn't have a chance to talk about it, but this idea of tone and the way you said things, it's always a cop out.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: excuse because that's what they can go for. That's what they can do. and they can use that and everybody's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Tone for sure. Um. But gonna have to wrap this episode up 'cause we've been chitchatting for a long time. I'll, yeah. You, you got pickleball to go to. Um, you've already talked about like what it means for you to be well and what wellness looks like for you. I, I'll ask you this last question and, um, you've, you've been really good this whole episode of like naming all these wonderful folks that have supported you,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I, these black education, I'm assuming some of them are black or, you know, most of, I don't know, but

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Mm-hmm.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: folks that like they [01:30:00] were in your corner or you supported them and

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: But I still wanna give the opportunity to ask you like, are there some black educators that you would like to shout out on the show?

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Absolutely. Yay. Okay. Um, shout out first and foremost to my best friend Shamar Mitchell. She's a special education ed, uh, teacher here in Oakland, and she is bomb. I met her at a conference at the Colorado Conference and we've been locked in ever since. Okay. So she is unbound ed. Like we are in it, like we care about these kids a lot.

So, Shamar Mitchell, um, my best friend is working in mental health, but she's a really good, I wanna call it Casey Jones. Love of my life. Um, just always pushing me. We do study hall and stuff together, so, you know, she's trying to go for her id, which is, um, for mental health. Right.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Hmm.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Richard Hayes is the one who taught me about me.

Um, neuro Divergent. Sorry. He okay. He okay. He okay. Um, but [01:31:00] he explains. My systems to me. 'cause I didn't, there's not a lot of people who are non divergent. And so he explains me to me, he reads me, helps me understand myself. I was like, oh, I'm, I'm blah, blah, blah. He's like, you're not, um, because, because people think like, because I bring up a, a subject that it makes, means I'm con like confrontation or whatever, and I'm not, he's like, you just want to get over it.

You wanna address it so you can go through. Right. Like,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Clarity.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: clearly work for it. He was like, you're not. So I was like kind of beating myself up when I was having all this drama with my principal last year and he was like, y'all just communicate differently. You know? She's neurotypical. You're neurodivergent, but you systems work.

I know they work because they worked in my class. I've seen you, you've taken over my class. You know, when his kids were acting a fool. I'll take you, take my easy babies. I'm gonna get your class right. So Richard Hayes. Is top tier goat because he understood that his neurodivergence works for my neuro, like he understood and is able to explain it to me because I don't have a lot of [01:32:00] people to talk to about it.

So just wanna do that. Um, and yeah, like that's, that's, that's, that's my, that's my people. And I do just really wanna tell people that please don't feel ashamed if you're neuro divergent. I have, it has literally changed my life. Be getting on meds. It was my birthday present to myself at the age of 35. I had moved outta my apartment.

I couldn't figure out why I was going, doing my old job. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't being successful in life. 'cause I know I'm smart. I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out. I got with a therapist, um, 'cause I switched, um, therapy, uh, from Kaiser to Suter Health and this woman is.

Again, I might get her tatted on me. Love of my life, she, she's a white lady or maybe Latina, but she heard me, validated me, understood my trauma, understood the impact of not having the systems in place. And I have been on a, I have a 4.0 when I was failing class because I have meds that support. If you're [01:33:00] neurodivergent, please go get tested.

If you think there's a, a reason why you're, you know, you put your head in the sand or you, um, are scared to, uh, address things or you're gonna put it off till later, go get tested, go get tested. As a black woman, nobody said, Whitney is neurodivergent. They did not diagnose me. I had to diagnose myself and or, or, or go figure it out by my own, on my own.

And ever since then, my life has literally been like this. So I just please. You know, black babies, black girls, girls in general are not probably getting tested 'cause it appears differently. They're masking or whatever else it is. But when I tell you, please don't ignore these babies. Give them the support that they need because I, my life has changed since the age of 35.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Thank you.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Thank you.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you for saying that. Thank you

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of my neurodivergence. I'm proud of it. I'm, I'm special in the effort. What, who is this lady? Lovette Jo Jallow Jallow [01:34:00] Lovette She on LinkedIn too. I, all this stuff is 'cause is I follow Zaretta Hammond, but she talked about how neurodivergence in the African diaspora when, when, back in the day we would be called, like we would be put to a specific task that our neurodivergence could recognize patterns in a different way or whatever else.

But we're putting it in this capitalistic white society and so now we have to like be fit into these molds that are not. For us, but really, I'm a witch. I'm special, I got talents, I'm, you know what I mean? And, and so, and having to, you know, just realize that it doesn't make me less than or different.

'cause I, y'all trying to put me in a box that I'm not gonna fit in. No, I'm outside the box. I have powers and I'm neurodivergent

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah. Last

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: I'm just doing a little thing.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: So our last, this

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: You've talked about your YouTube channel here and there throughout the.[01:35:00]

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Okay. So the red method, um, on YouTube, and I think you actually gotta like type it in fully 'cause it's a, um, but yeah, I started a, again, like I said, it was on my vision board for years. Um, but I started a, um. This YouTube channel, because I literally was seeing all these teachers be exhausted at the end of the day, and I'm walking out happy as heck, like I am in my, I'm like, ah, energy.

Where's they, like, I'm happy. I'm joyous again, so much joy to be had. And I always say I can go to any classroom in America. Like I, I, I said it in my videos, I say it now. I love working with kids. I love what I do. I love education. I have a passion for it, and I wanna help educators. So you should not be walking, feeling stressed or under support.

How do I teach you? They're always like, oh, it's the at, it's like the te it's the student. No. How, what can we take care of the kid? The, the, the teacher. Please take care of the teacher, please. Um, and so I have a sister. It's like four different, [01:36:00] um, videos so far. The first one is the classroom environment.

Um, and it shows my old classroom, which was painted, you know, into a rainforest, but open windows, sunlight, because these are the hoods and I don't want kids. I want kids, green flowers, bugs, plants, all that stuff. Um, second one was seven stat strategies for student success through systems and structure. I, again, I'm neurodivergent, but my systems work.

So I have seven strategies that are very simple on how to classroom line order, like, um, you know, quiet, you know, whatever, all these different things. Um, heterogeneous, table groupings based off of data. So like that. Um, and then third one is, um. You said something about the warm demander earlier. It's, I call it method mothering.

I've created it in, my title is like method mothering or method fathering, because like I said, I'm the mother in this classroom, right? Like I'm very like loving and da da da. Um, and a lot of that is getting to know your kids. Like, you know, Loretta Hammond is like getting to know your kids period. Like if you don't like, but how you going, like, spend time.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Yeah.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: yeah. And then the fourth [01:37:00] one was, um, first week of school. So I helped Richard Hayes. I walk him through how I set up my first week of school, which is social emotional learning each day, going over the five competencies for social emotional learning, um, reading a book, having them write sentences, drawing art.

Um, and this is just the systems that I've created on my own. Nobody's made me do this. Nobody's da da da. It's just things that I learned and then I implemented, um, so that, and they're super successful, right? And, um, so yeah, the red method and, um, let me just make sure that I have, let me switch to it. My phone.

Um, but yeah, if anybody, I swear I have time now, y'all, I'm studying, but if y'all need help, if y'all like, want me to like zoom call or something like that, I don't wanna be like cocky 'cause I'm still obviously still getting my credential. I know what I'm talking about though. Like I, I'm, I'm good at this and, and when I'm in my class with my other teachers, I literally am like a second professor for real because I, you know, I, I will, again, I put [01:38:00] myself to the side and then I help them come up with strategies on how to be successful and stuff like that.

'cause I'm like, I'm gonna get the work done anyway and I'm already gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, um, I've, I've helped literally like the, that whole cohort of teachers because they really, really are new. Whereas I'm not new, I'm just finished getting the credential. Um, and I just wanna plug real quick.

I have this thing called OCHO Obstacles that I made. Um, it's actually what I got my, uh. My Cal TPA, which is like the statewide, um, thing. So I made, uh, it was math focused last year. So, um, I made OCHO obstacles, which is like an obstacle course, including play that goes over the third grade standards. So like distributive property, multiplication times, facts, um, uh, fractions, all this other stuff.

So I created a whole like, playlist of games and stuff like that. Um, so if your babies are having a hard time struggling with math and multiplication and stuff like that, I'm gonna make it. I made it into a game. There's eight of them, eight competencies and send [01:39:00] them.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I love it.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Um, 'cause like I said, we went to this math, um, conference in dc I did the math pathway in, in DC and um, I just heard, I heard, I can't remember who the speaker was, but she was talking about how just black girls are just really getting pulled away and not getting poured into, for math specifically, or stem even if they were successful all throughout, like elementary school and da dah, dah, dah, dah.

So when my class, we'd be like, I'm a mathematician. Like we yell it at the top of our classes because I'm gonna, I need them to be, or I'll be like, math, math, like is my calling response for math, math, math. And they say mathematician, mathematician. Like, we are doing math work because. And now math is, you know, normally kids don't like math, right?

Sometimes they like veer away from it. They think it's hard. They like, they away from it, but now they're excited to do it. Like it's actually better. Like, they love it more than reading, right? And so when you make it fun, when you make math fun, you give it boys and girls the opportunity to make it into play and make it into a game, then they're going to thrive and they're gonna internalize it.

Like Loretta Hammond always [01:40:00] says, turn it into a game. Make it into a game. And so we, you know, again, I apply all of this stuff. Um, okay, so I just wanted to show my kind of dirty phone, but,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I will put it in the show notes too.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: and then it says the red methods. Yep. And it says Teacher. What's that say? Teacher read 2025. Um. Yeah, so these are just like some of my videos or whatever, just talking and I'm just talking.

But I'm, I would love to like talk to other educators and have them like, you know, join me on like a conversation or whatever because I just, I love this work. This is my call in what Dr. Dr. Deru said it. So this is my work.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you ain't going to hell.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: I'm girl, I'm gonna be stomping in heaven. Okay,

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: A

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: stop. Um, yeah, and because, uh, and because I have time, that's why I was able to reach out to you and, and because my mind wasn't, and, and I even reached out to Tta Hammond, she's, you know, was selling the book, so she said call back in September, [01:41:00] but she responded like my ti like, and seeing people and doing more research on neurodivergence and understanding it like, I have time now.

Um, because I'm not stressed in, in, in, in, in a tug of war about, you know, I'm just, I just can be and there's no limitations. And I think the world is my oyster.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: I love it. And I pray that you find yourself back into a, a space or you find yourself in a space when you go back into the classroom

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: loves and appreciates you and your energy and what you have for, for black kids. because it's a, it, it's a shame that you're even out of, out of a classroom even now at this

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yeah.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: Um. Alright folks. So that is the end of our interview. thank you for coming on. It was a blast. I love your energy.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Thank you.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: you know, keep up with Brittany. I said Brittany, sorry. Keep up with Whitney to make sure that we know how [01:42:00] everything is going. So we'll be circling back and, and hearing more of her story as she's going on in her career.

Um,

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Thank you so much.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: again, if you, uh, wanna contact Britney, I keep saying Britney now. I know I'm tired. If you wanna contact Whitney, uh, the red method is THEE.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yes, thank

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: red, REDD method on YouTube. She's definitely on LinkedIn 'cause that's how we connected.

whitney_2_09-14-2025_091401: Yes.

dr--asia-lyons--she-her-_2_09-14-2025_101402: get the resources that you need, get the support you need and we'll talk to you later.

All right, peace.