- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Keep getting better.

Valley Bank.

PSEG Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Fidelco Group.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by Meadowlands Chamber.

Building connections, driving business growth.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, I'm Steve Adubato.

Recently my colleague Jacqui Tricarico and I traveled with our team to do a series of interviews down at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention Annual convention.

We talked to educators, educational administrators, authors, poets, people engaged in a whole range of activities, impacting our kids, impacting our schools in the world of education.

Here now are those conversations.

Jacqui, myself and some really interesting people in AC.

One of the many fascinating people who have come here to speak, to engage with educators from across the state is Robert Shetterly, who is an artist, activist, and he is an artist who is featured in the portrait series, it's a documentary, "Americans Who Tell The Truth."

Robert, great to have you with us.

- Thank you very much.

Wonderful to be here.

- Help us understand this, "Americans Who Tell The Truth," it's a portrait series of your work.

- Right.

- Who were these Americans and what truth are they telling?

- 'm a self-taught artist, and I live on the coast of Maine.

I was a surrealist years ago.

But in the run up to the Iraq War, I was so distressed, enraged, full of grief about the country was doing this thing based on lies.

- Weapons of mass destruction.

- Weapons of mass destruction, the connections with al-Qaeda.

None of that stuff was true.

And I was thinking, what can I do at this moment to feel less angry, less enraged, and less alienated from this country?

And I thought, why don't I surround myself with people who make me feel good, you know, and about who we are and what we believe in?

And I started painting people who, originally, they were sort of 19th century icons.

You know, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Jane Adams, Mother Jones, Susan B. Anthony.

- Disproportionately, other than Susan B. Anthony, disproportionately African Americans?

- No, but there's an interesting thing there is because, I mean, the way that we have reconnected with our values, it's usually by the people who've been marginalized, who've been left out, you know, who have to fight for it.

So often you see that, you know, the alienated groups are the ones who are represented in the people who've actually worked the hardest to make us live in more direct honesty with our own values about equality, justice, freedom, you know, for everybody, not just for rich white folks, you know?

- And you're here at the convention, because?

- Well, we were invited here to, you know, try to talk to teachers about using what we do.

Taking the images and the stories into their classrooms to get kids more engaged.

I mean, I don't think kids today are taught what their responsibility is.

You know, we have rights, but we don't know if they'll teach the responsibilities.

- Yeah, they don't find it on TikTok.

- And we can't have those rights unless we assume the responsibilities.

- So, you started out with 50 portraits, excuse me, 260, if I'm not mistaken right now.

- Right.

- You're an artist, self-taught, you said?

But, you're clearly an activist.

You care deeply.

I would be remiss if I did not ask you as we tape this just a few days after a historic, significant presidential election, Congress, both Houses, as well, for the people you feature in "Americans Who Tell The Truth," what truth was told in that election to you?

- Well, that truth was the opposite of what I believe in, and I think that probably every person I've ever painted would believe in.

I mean, this is a truth about, I mean, what's happening in our country right now is about exclusion.

It's about inequality.

It's about separation between people.

It's about undermining what might be the common cause and the common good.

I mean, it's everything that's antithetical to how we solve problems by coming together as people, seeing each other as equals, and then figuring out a way to solve the problems.

And we can't solve the problems unless we name what the truth of the problem is.

I mean, we can fiddle around with symptoms, which is mostly what we do anyway.

But until we go to the, you know, the heart of the problem, you know, like climate change, the most urgent problem we're facing, we're gonna have a new administration that calls it a hoax.

So, I mean.

- So, here's what I'm curious about, your film coming out now, or this film, right, you're smiling, at this time, significant, isn't it?

- It is significant.

- [Steve] Because?

- I mean, it's significant because it's trying to say, if you really want to know what the heart of the matter is here, and how we have to stand in relationship to any kind of injustice, the lengths we have to go to organize, to commit civil disobedience, to stand up as people.

You know, William Sloane Coffin, who was one of the people I painted, he used to be the pastor.

- Tell everyone who that is.

- William Sloane Coffin, he was the pastor at Yale.

He was indicted by our government for encouraging young men to resist the Vietnam draft.

You know, he said, 'Without courage, there are no other virtues."

And so what we're talking about here that this is a moment, right now, and maybe the biggest thing about this election that calls for the courage of people to stand up.

Because if we don't, there may be a very short future for this country and all the other species that live on this planet.

- Okay, let me ask you this, from in the last 15, 20 years, who are some of the people telling the truth, these heroes in this portrait series?

- Oh, there are so many, but I mean.

- Who jumps out at you?

- Well, I painted a portrait of Howard Zinn.

I don't think I could have done this without Howard Zinn.

He was still alive when I started this.

- Tell everyone who Howard Zinn.

- Howard Zinn is the professor from BU, and Harvard, and, you know, in Cambridge and Boston, who wrote the "People's History of the United States."

I mean, historians usually focus on, you know, the winners.

You know, the military winners, the corporate winners, the people who seem to make those, you know, the big decisions that seem to guide our policies.

Howard Zinn told the story of the people who were left out, the people who have been struggling, the people who were being marginalized and exploited.

And it's just a history that he tells of incredible determination and courage.

And so I had read Howard Zinn.

And before doing this project, I started looking, you know, mining Howard Zinn to look for people I should paint.

And then I went to meet Howard Zinn and paint his portrait, because, you know, nobody else had told that history the way he tells it.

And when I was with him, I said, "You know, Howard, if you were doing what I'm doing, who would you paint?"

And the first name he mentioned was Fannie Lou Hamer.

- Tell everyone why Fannie Lou Hamer still matters.

- Fannie Lou Hamer is, you know, she was the 20th child of sharecroppers in Mississippi who dropped out of school in the sixth grade, so she could pick cotton with her family.

Desperately poor.

And in the early '60s when the first, you know, voter registration people came to Mississippi, she had no idea that black people had any right to vote at all.

And she started listening to them and going to their freedom schools.

Then realized, this is what she should be doing.

And she became, you know, one of the greatest of the Civil Rights organizers in the South.

And then she and Bob Moses started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 to get a integrated delegation seated at the convention.

- And she sat at that convention.

- She sat at the convention.

- And stood out.

- Well, she sure did.

- She sure did.

Was she the only African American?

- At the convention?

- [Steve] Yes, being seated in that Mississippi delegation?

- Well, they never got seated.

- They never actually got seated.

- They got denied.

And they were told they could have a couple of people.

And they said, no, no.

You either take the whole delegation or we're not going to do it at all.

And they denied, and so they didn't get seated.

She got a chance to do a press conference, which was so famous, you know?

She said, you know, is this my country, you know, that is not seating an integrated delegation?

- Are you a positive person right now?

- Mostly.

- [Steve] Optimistic?

- I am, when I get depressed, which I do.

- Join the club.

- I often find another person to paint.

And the reason for that is I paint people who are determined to do something with their courage to try to make this a better country for all of us.

- Is that inspiring to you?

- It's incredibly inspiring for me.

I mean, it always challenges me.

I said, if this person is still doing the thing they're doing, what am I, you know, not to do that too?

You know, what should I, you know, how can I drop out or let my despair get ahead of me, you know?

It's so important that we do not give up at any time.

I mean, many of the people I've painted, like Fannie Lou Hamer, were so badly treated, with such violence, you know, and you look at what they went through, and they did not give up.

And you think, well, okay, well, you know, how cynical or despairing should I be?

- You know, let me ask you something.

I shouldn't throw a name at you and assume, because I don't know who's in it and who's not, but we're actually doing a special on the Civil Rights leader, John Lewis.

- I painted John Lewis.

- You did?

- I sure did.

- I just threw that out there.

- Yeah.

I went to meet him, you know, before he died.

- You met Lewis.

- Spent a day with him and then painted him.

Of course, he is one of the most inspiring of Civil Rights workers of the contemporary era.

- He was there on the Pettus Bridge.

He was beaten to within an inch of his life on the Pettus Bridge.

- In our film, the "Truth Tellers," that footage of him being beaten is in there.

- Bloodied.

Beaten by the- - Well, his skull was cracked.

- Cracked, wide open.

- Yeah.

- A hero.

A truth teller.

- Absolutely.

- Final question for me.

Why should everyone see this film.

Regardless of their politics, their ideology, who they voted for, why should everyone see this film?

- Well, I think that a lot of people think that the rights they have, the freedoms they have, the time they have to be in a sort of, you know, just at peace in this country, if they can be, they think it comes because we have a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution and maybe a local government or who knows what they think.

- Like, nobody died for it.

Nobody suffered for it.

- They don't realize the effort that's had to gone into, you know, fighting for those things.

That they were not, you know, the words were there, which is the incredible thing, that language, you know, that talks about equality and justice and freedom and dignity of people.

The language was there.

The truth of it was not there for people.

And so the fact that these things exist to the extent that they do exist is because they were fought for.

And people need to know about that struggle.

Not just because it's an important history, but because of what it requires of them.

Because every one of us faces moments where we have to stand up for something.

And if we have no models, it's very hard to do.

- Robert Shetterly, is an artist and activist.

He's the artist best known for his portrait series "Americans Who Tell The Truth."

Check out this film, this documentary.

Thank you, Robert.

- Thank you.

It was wonderful meet you.

- It's a pleasure to meet you.

- [Robert] Thanks for doing this.

- We're in Atlantic City at the NJEA Convention.

Be back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One", on location at the NJEA Convention here in Atlantic City.

So pleased to be joined now by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, an educator, poet, activist, award-winning author, you have two beautiful books, "Cultivating Genius" and "Unearthing Joy", thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us here.

- Thank you for having me.

- It's great to have you.

So, I know a lot of the work that you do focuses on three concepts, right?

It's genius, joy and justice- - Yes.

- And these three things really directly impact education in many ways, describe that for us.

- Well, I see...

I start with "genius", and my work really takes the...

The excellence of the history in the past, and brings it to like what we can do for children today.

But, "genius" I found, was a word that our ancestors used to describe themselves, so we don't talk about children as much as geniuses today, or "genius" is like a word that's just reserved for a couple of children in the whole district.

So, my work sees every child as genius, I see genius as their unique brilliance, special qualities, talents, light, epistemologies, and knowledge that they hold, and I see every child, and not coming to our classrooms empty, but full of genius that they carry about the world.

And the second major pillar of my work is "justice", you know?

How can we move toward a better humanity for all?

Justice is understanding hurt and harm in the world, and working toward disrupting that, anti-oppression, and "joy".

Joy is something that we don't talk a whole lot about when it comes to schools, there is not a lot of curriculum instruction, assessments, evaluations on joy, and I see joy as more than just having fun, or celebration, but joy is wellness, it's healing, it's a sense of peace, it's wonder, laughter, aesthetics, it's all the things beautiful, and helping our children to recognize the beauty within themselves, and the world around them.

And, when those three-pillars come together, we can then begin to talk about you know, education, and what we need to do moving forward.

- Well, in your opinion, what do we need to do moving forward?

What can our educators pull from those three-pillars into their classrooms today, to really cultivate that... That feeling in their classrooms of those three concepts?

- Sure.

I think before we move forward with action, we have to first educate ourselves on the history of schools and education, on theory, on practice, on education, how did we get here?

What's good about what we have?

And what needs to be advanced or improved?

We also... That intellectual work is important.

And then, we need to also understand ourselves, our hearts.

What my dear friend, Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz calls "Archeology of Self", who are we?

Why are we so uncomfortable with genius, justice and joy?

If we are, or why does it feel so good to our spirits?

So, we have to do the work around anti-racism, anti-oppression, and things within ourselves, and then we move to practice.

So, practice, and what I think we need to do moving forward in terms of action and practice, is just changing what we teach and how we teach it.

In my own work, I look at five major goals for education, which the ancestors named as "pursuits", which I love that language, they were pursuits of learning, and they look at teaching and learning around identity, as number-one, helping children to know who they are, helping us to learn about each other.

The second, our skills, the proficiencies we need across different grade levels, and content areas.

The third is intellectualism, teaching new knowledge set into action.

And the fourth is criticality, which is social justice, and equity, and teaching about how to make the world a better place.

And the fifth one is the joy piece, right?

Teaching our children about the joyful things.

Right now, across assessments, learning standards, evaluation, curriculum, instruction, we typically teach, measure and assess just one of those skills, 20% out the 100%.

- Yeah.

- And, what I think we need to do, is move our standards, our curriculum, our teacher education, everything that we do within the field, toward all five, because then we'll teach and have a more complete holistic child, who's ready for the world, and not just ready for a test, we want them also ready for the world, and I think it'll also just invigorate our educators.

- You've talked about in the past, learning loss was something that we focused so much on, during and after the pandemic, but you say something that we should've been really focusing on, was "joy loss", you're talking about measuring that, right?

As opposed to the standardized testing, how do we measure that?

How do we measure in the classroom, the joy that these students are having, or what the educators are bringing to bring them joy in the classroom?

- Well, first thing, we have to understand, "What does it mean to assess?"

To assess means to gather information, collect data and information about a child, you can assess anything you hold of value.

So, there are assessments for confidence.

(Dr. Muhammad laughing) There's assessments for things that people, aren't as cut and dry.

So, of course you can set learning objectives in the classroom about joy, you can say, "Students, we'll learn about the aesthetics in this art piece."

And you can have discussion, questions, projects, a quiz, to assess if they've understood aesthetics, and the beauty of an art.

You can assess anything that you find value to.

We ask children questions like, "How can we make learning more joyful?"

As an assessment question, a three-year-old said, "If I can bring my Hot-Wheels to school."

This child brought his Hot-Wheels to school, and conceptualized, and built a garage using play block materials, and then intellectualized the garage, and said, "When the car goes in and out the garage due to different weather conditions."

It became an act of genius, just from one Joy Assessment question.

So, we have to shift from how we've been doing things in school since the 1600's, and say, "You know what?

Does joy matter enough?

Do we need joy?"

And then, how do we collect it, and assess it, and see how our instruction is joy, is increasing joy, or enabling joy.

It's possible, I've been doing it the whole time, along with so many teachers, so we have so many great examples of it.

- You talk about the history that you're pulling into what you're doing today, and part of that is Black Literacy Societies, talk about what those were and are even today, and how you're pulling from that to teach these concepts.

And also, I know you compare them to libraries, and our libraries really not receiving the respect and the resources that they need today, but they're still such a critical, important part of our child's education.

- Yeah.

So, these literary societies were started by Black people in the United States, in the urban areas of the North East.

So, places like- - Back in the 1800's?

- Mm-hmm, in the early 1800's, around 1828, they were called lyceum, salons, book clubs, reading rooms, library companies, but essentially, they were literary societies, they were organized spaces around education and literacy development, they studied art, mathematics, science, language- - All of it.

- History!

I found an article where literary society members were reading about fashion in China at the time, and so, think about all that was going on in the United States in 1828.

So, they didn't just retain their readings to what was local, but international intellectualism.

And they had membership dues, and their money, after they paid all their expenses, their money went to books for their libraries, their first goal was to cultivate their libraries, because they knew that books held such a special power of knowledge, of joy, it allowed them to transport themselves to other worlds, it allowed them to become educated and prepare to how to navigate you know, the society, which had turmoil and racism, and oppression, but they didn't neglect their joy.

Can you imagine, like at the time, there's a lot of pain happening in the country, and they were still saying that, "Our joy matters."

"Our identity matters."

So, libraries were cultivated, were encouraged to come to, they were special hubs and places, just like they were across Africa, so they were continuing that lineage of their people.

And, when I...

When I studied these spaces, these book rooms, these literary societies, I found that they carried those five pursuits up as goals, and they named their learning goals as these pursuits.

And they had young people, as well as young adults, and they had teenagers, young adults, and older people, and it was like a "each one teach one" philosophy.

And, one of the developers said that, "We wish to see the flame of improvement spreading amongst each other."

That's what learning was, it was like a flame that would spread, and to keep something to yourself, education or knowledge was a selfish act for them.

And, what they taught me, they laid out the roadmap of what education can be today, and how we need to go back to the second-part of your question, how we need to value our librarians, they are those sources of knowledge who can direct us to the books that would take us to different places.

And so, that's why I always value librarians, in these spaces, because they're special places that our children deeply need and deserve.

- Here at the NJEA, you came here to New Jersey to Atlantic City to talk to our educators, what do you hope is the most important thing that they took away from your discussion with them today?

- Well, I just...

I always...

I start every session out with one question, "How's your heart?"

(Dr. Muhammad laughing) It doesn't matter when...

I've been doing this for so many years, I always want teachers to know that they are loved, that they are cared for, and you know, I appreciate you, and value you, and I thank you for all your service.

And, it's my hope that we all wake up everyday and just check in on our hearts, our wellbeings, our wellness, because we can't do the work for children, we can't do genius, justice and joy, without that self-work first, and I just...

I want them to take away this notion of possibility, we don't have to have a "either or" dilemma, "Either I have to teach a child to read, or teach them joy."

Guess what?

We can have it all.

If they did it in 1828?

- Why can't we do it?

- The genius we have, the resources we have, the knowledge we have today, we can do it today.

So, I want them to know that all five of those pursuits, identity, skills, intellect, criticality and joy, they work beautifully together, to teach the whole child, and when you teach 'em all together, the teachers feel a sense of renewal, like that's why they became a teacher, I don't think any teacher I've met said that they became a teacher to test prep.

(Dr. Muhammad & Jacqui laughing) - Right.

- They became teachers to give children joyful, real life experiences that will connect them to the world around them, and that's what I hope the model does for them.

- Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your joy with us, so we can learn more about what you're doing, and the important work that you're doing.

It was great to have you with us, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- So, for Jacqui Tricarico and myself, and our entire team down in Atlantic City at the 2024 New Jersey Education Association Convention, we thank you so much for watching, we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Valley Bank.

PSEG Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Fidelco Group.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by Meadowlands Chamber.

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