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David Castro-Harris:

Welcome back to another episode of Restorative Justice Reflections, the show where we take time to reflect on the things that happen in media, news, and pop culture and ask restorative questions to help us make sense of it all. I'm David Ryan Barsega Castro-Harris, all five names for all the ancestors, and today I'm here with Jose Wilson to dive deep into the restorative themes found in season one, episode eight of ABC's Abbott Elementary Work Family. As always, the thoughts reflected here are not a critique of the story or production choices of the creators, but we hope to make connections between the restorative themes present here in the story and how we can co-create a world where people and communities have what they need to survive and thrive. If you want to learn more about how to do this in your community and learn more and get resources, take that again. If you want to learn more about how to. If you want to learn more about how we do this, we have a community and courses that will help you build your capacity. Blah blah blah. If you want to learn more about how to do this, we have a community and courses that will help you build your capacity to practice restorative justice in your everyday life. Get connected and learn more at the link in the show notes or description, but let's get into it. Jose, it is so good to be with you. Really excited to be having this conversation about this episode specifically with you. But before we do that, tell the folks who you are and yeah.

Jose Vilson:

Thanks for having me, David. My name is Jose Wilson. I'm the executive director of Educolor, an organization dedicated to race and social justice issues. I'm also a full-time doctoral student at Teachers College Columbia University studying sociology and education. And of course, I was a veteran math teacher in Washington Heights, New York City for the better part of 15 years, as well as a math instructional coach. So I come at this with multiple hats, not to mention the father, husband, and all activists and all these other... I guess nomenclatures, but just happy to be here today

David Castro-Harris:

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I reached out and when I asked you what episode you wanted to talk about, it was this one. You were like very clear, like this is exactly what I wanna talk about. And you know, I'm gonna read our episode summary, courtesy of Wikipedia, but before I do that, tell us about your relationship with the show Abbott Elementary.

Jose Vilson:

Abbott Elementary is probably the best show that I've seen on a network around public education since Boston Public, which if you were alive and conscious around that time, then you would have known that was a really good show. And I think it only lasted unfortunately four seasons. I know that a lot of people highlight The Wire too, as I think it was season four where they had the education

David Castro-Harris:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jose Vilson:

portion. But generally speaking, this show actually it's like. more thoroughly does the best job I've seen about talking about the actual profession of and to pour in our best hopes and aspirations for what we want the profession to be in a way that I hadn't seen in a real long time. So I was grateful for the show. And of course, I've been waiting for the season two finale to just so I can actually watch it in full. So I haven't actually watched any episodes from season two until like, I actually got to see that season one in full. And now that it's all done, I get to see season two as well.

David Castro-Harris:

Yeah, I mean, and, you know, over the course of the next little bit, we'll be tackling all the way through the show and hopefully we're going to end up in season three, right when we get going so we get to respond along the way. But this episode, Work Family was so full of moments to talk about. Again, summary courtesy of Wikipedia. On large part, we have Janine being upset that Jacob only thinks of her as a work friend and she tries to build better relationships with her coworkers through some community building coerced by some food, some chicken. At the same time, Barbara and Melissa are trying to help Gregory with his teaching methods after his class is found to be underperforming in math. On the side, Janine has also enlisted Tariq, her boyfriend, to perform an anti- at the anti drug program at her school. Gregory also receives a phone call from his dad who is advising Gregory that he should move on from substitute teaching at Abbott. We're gonna talk about work family dynamics. We're gonna talk about the profession of teaching. We're gonna talk about teaching to tests. Where do you wanna start?

Jose Vilson:

We could start anywhere. I mean, the reason why I wanted this episode so badly was because I felt like Gregory was so reflective of my experience as a black male educator in our schools. And so we could potentially start from there. That'd be great.

David Castro-Harris:

Yeah, let's go. You know, Gregory, we see in this episode and over the course of this season so far has been coming to grips with his role as a teacher, right? We've seen him like by and like, you know what, I'm going to stick it out here for the year, right? But he's still struggling in some ways to be the teacher that he wants to be, be the teacher that his students deserve, right? We've seen efforts at relationship building in the past. But what about His journey in this episode resonated with you.

Jose Vilson:

There's something about how teachers have been trained over the course of the last, I would just say century, like after my research, but really, like thinking from a personal perspective, we often get taught, don't smile until December, right? Like that's

David Castro-Harris:

Mm.

Jose Vilson:

been a common phrase they got thrown at us, or that we have to find a way to depersonalize the work in order for us to truly tap into what students do. But what this episode does is it flips that notion on its head and says, Here is somebody who is constantly professional, but yet is not connected to students in the ways that he desires or that his colleagues are pointing out for him. And so this episode says, no, actually, you should try to inject as much of your personal self as you can, or as you're slowly melting that ice around you that you're able to actually build those connections with students in order for them to learn, right? Like that goes hand in hand.

David Castro-Harris:

Right, yeah, we see him repeatedly drilling his students on their math problems in efforts to teach to the test, because they are quote unquote underperforming. But we all know the old adage, people don't care how much you know or what you can do for them until they know how much you care. And Gregory is solely focused on your math skills aren't up to par. you're being a distraction by asking about like, if the, I think Turkey is pregnant, right?

Jose Vilson:

That's

David Castro-Harris:

So

Jose Vilson:

what it

David Castro-Harris:

like,

Jose Vilson:

was. Yeah.

David Castro-Harris:

let's focus in on just the math of this and is not really connecting with the students. Fortunately for Gregory, right? There are veteran teachers in the space who are like, here, let me put you on game a little bit. And so in the conversations that he had with Melissa and Barbara, what was it that stood out to you? What was it that you appreciated?

Jose Vilson:

There was, I mean, obviously there's the culminating part where he finally starts like singing and dancing in accordance to the math itself. But Melissa's portion where she also mentioned how, when we think about students getting distracted, if you don't address those distractions, then you are taking away from their learning.

David Castro-Harris:

Mm-hmm.

Jose Vilson:

And that was one element of it. But then also recognizing that, like those sorts of dynamics where students ask divergent questions. are actually what we want students to do in math class more generally, right? Because isn't that where the part, like that's the part where we actually start seeing the real life connections and them making sense of the problem and them being able to like have any number of divergent thoughts that might get them into a space that allows them to see themselves within the math itself. And so when my mother says like, no, actually you want those questions because that means that they're critically thinking like both of the veteran teachers were able to need that. fairly readily. And so that for me connected so well, because I was like, Oh, so, you know, instead of this very rigid way of thinking about how we teach math and how students is supposed to memorize X, Y, and Z, we want them to make those connections more, more often, even in things as simple as 13 minus seven.

David Castro-Harris:

Yeah, you know, I think about the the dynamic that you mentioned earlier, like don't smile till December, right? Or like teach the test. Like these are things that are like very much a part of a lot of teacher education, especially over the last especially like over the last century. Things are changing a little bit now where there is a little bit more focus on relationship and building connection in some teacher education programs. But I know that there are teachers out there and new teachers as well who are like, no, like. This is the way this not to make a Mandalorian reference, but this is the way that things have been historically done. And these are the things that I need to do. If I give them any leeway, right? They're gonna take advantage of that and hijack the learning of all the students. And we're just gonna go down these rabbit holes like, okay, but what if it was a chicken? What if it was a donkey? And like, then we've just turned this into a biology lesson and they're still not getting their testing. And how do you draw the line? How do you set those parameters?

Jose Vilson:

The best part of what I've seen in my own math teaching was recognizing that we have a responsibility to take those divergent thoughts and kind of reframe them towards the ultimate goal. Like we can always do a thing where we say, okay, let's get distracted, let's get silly, that's all well and good. And then once I've, you know, I guess quench that thirst for lack of a better metaphor, I can then say, oh, so now that we have all that in mind. Like, what does this look like in this context? And then being able to build that into the lesson. So people too often, for example, want their lessons to go minute by minute. And instead of thinking about what is the ultimate goal that I'm trying to achieve with this, and then being able to work backwards from there and then say to ourselves, you know what? Maybe this student got distracted with all sorts of animals within the farm that they were trying to count. But like, If I was able to then say, all right, now that you have all this in mind and reframe them and redirect them towards what we're trying to do, then they're actually all the better for it as opposed to, you know, constructing the road straight up and down and saying, you cannot diverge from this road. Then all of a sudden you found that you find that they ultimately push themselves out of the road altogether and don't even want to get to the goal with you because they can't trust you because they think that you're not going to allow them to do the X, Y, and Z. So. If you know how to reframe permission, then you'll be in real good shape as far as any number of academic goals.

David Castro-Harris:

Yeah, I mean, I think that does take a quote unquote mastery or at least like solid foundation in your content, right? So you can take the things that are happening and make those connections, right? Like this podcast, right? I'm about to come in with like, you know, you just talked about like this in terms of math. But like, if we think about restorative justice, right? And white supremacy culture says like, there's only one right way to do things. But that's not necessarily allowing us to address the needs of people. as they show up in our spaces, right? You're talking about math instruction, but when we're talking about one right way, one way of being, there are lots of students who are divergent from that. And in the quote unquote law and order, strictly hierarchical ways that a lot of classroom instruction has historically been taught, right, it doesn't leave space for those divergent pathways, not just neurodivergent, but like people show up in different spaces, people show up. people show up with all kinds of things going on in their lives into your learning space, right? Whether those are your students, your colleagues, whoever it is, right? And if you're just saying like, hey, this is our minute by minute agenda of like what's supposed to happen, and you're not addressing the underlying needs that some of the people in your space have, like you're not gonna be very productive, right? And so I know people are often thinking about restorative justice in this way that, or like, you know, these adaptive frameworks of teaching math in this way, Yes, but then they'll just take advantage of us when we're catering to their needs, right? But how do you respond to that?

Jose Vilson:

I have never known a great teacher that does this from a critical perspective that doesn't also think about, I guess, higher notions of knowledge, being able to approach things from a higher perspective, that doesn't try to meet s