Theory Meets Practice: A Podcast for Teachers
35 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 17 ratingsWelcome! We are Jenny and Aimee, two teachers in the greater Seattle area. Our mission is to create a space for scholars and teachers to collaborate on pedagogical practices. We are currently studying under scholar and all-around-great person Kimberly B. George, and we would like to share what we are learning with the teaching community. With Kimberly, we are studying the field of intersectionality, scholarly feminist texts, ethnic studies, and a lot more.
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Episodes
Discipline and Supporting Students: Interview with Soonja
March 04, 2020 08:00 - 31 minutes - 22 MBSince Aimee is on maternity leave, Jenny is going to interview a series of amazing educators. In this episode, Jenny interviews a high school dean: Soonja. The conversation discusses challenges in transitioning from a faculty to an administrative role in a school, being women of color in a predominately white space, supporting students, and discipline philosophies. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Indigenous Feminism Workshop
December 19, 2019 08:00 - 34 minutes - 23.6 MBThis workshop introduced the idea of Indigenous Feminism to our faculty. This topic is expansive; we did not try to cover it all in one workshop. We decided to narrow our focus to Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's definitions of Indigenous theory and knowledge production. In this workshop, we focused on excerpts from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and A New Emergence. In reading these excerpts, we asked our faculty to ...
The Borderlands Workshop
November 20, 2019 08:00 - 33 minutes - 23.2 MBIn this workshop, we focused excerpts from Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Specifically, we defined and discussed her theories of the borderland and mestiza consciousness. We also engaged in dialogue to determine why it is important to address these theories in our classrooms and how we could possibly do so. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Culturally Responsive Teaching
October 02, 2019 07:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBThis podcast focuses on one of our recent in-school workshops. In our last workshop, teachers had many questions about some of the terms we were using. We decided to create this workshop in order to answer those questions and to provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon how we can bring those ideas to our classrooms. The topic of this workshop was Culturally Responsive Teaching. In this workshop, we focused on two texts: Dr. AnaLouise Keating's "Beyond Intersectionality" f...
Fostering Relationships at the Beginning of the Year Workshop
September 11, 2019 13:00 - 36 minutes - 25.1 MBWelcome to season 2! We are excited to be back after a nice relaxing summer. Today we discuss our most recent workshop for faculty about fostering relationships at the beginning of the school year using culturally responsive teaching methods. We look at two common beginning-of-year activities through the lens of culturally responsive teaching and think about how we can make them better and more inclusive to students. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Resistance Workshop
June 03, 2019 07:00 - 36 minutes - 16.8 MBThis workshop focused on resistance as shown through feminist art. We watched clips from Beyonce's Netflix documentary Homecoming and viewed some of Mikael Owunna's incredible photos from is "Infinite Essence" series. Points to consider: Recognize the social construct of positionality & look beyond the binaries Notice & analyze whose labor is recognized and honor. Consider why it is/was treated as such, by whom, and how you as a consumer can recognize and honor that labor Make connection...
Labor Workshop 2
May 13, 2019 07:00 - 31 minutes - 14.4 MBWe hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas. These workshops provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. This episode is about our most recent workshop. This workshop continued on the subject of labor. We reviewed definitions, read and discussed Virginia Woolf, and reflected on our own labor in the classroom. For our Social Media Moment we suggest two articles: "What 'Good' Dads Get Away With" from the New York T...
Dancing on Our Turtle's Back
May 06, 2019 23:00 - 31 minutes - 14.4 MBThis episode is focused on Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's book: Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence. In this text, Simpson advocates for reconciliation between Indigenous People and Canada. She "asserts reconciliation must be grounded in political resurgence and must support the regeneration of Indigenous languages, oral cultures, and traditions of governance." Questions to Consider: 1. What kind of knowledge production can happ...
Get to Know Your Hosts
April 29, 2019 23:00 - 31 minutes - 14.2 MBWelcome to the twenty-sixth episode of the podcast! Today, we're sharing a little bit about ourselves in an effort to build community with you, our listeners! We will ask each other ten questions and respond as openly and honestly as possible. Hopefully you learn something new about us! Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Labor Workshop
April 22, 2019 07:00 - 42 minutes - 19.5 MBWe hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas. These workshops provide time and space to discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. This episode is about our most recent workshop. We defined different types of labor and discussed their significance. We then invited teachers and staff to think about the different types of labor they do for others as well as the types of labor they willingly accept and expect from others. We spent time readin...
Thunder in my Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks
April 16, 2019 23:00 - 34 minutes - 15.6 MBThis episode is focused on Patricia Monture-Angus' book: Thunder in My Soul, A Mohawk Woman Speaks. In Thunder in My Soul, A Mohawk Woman Speaks, Monture-Angus shares deeply personal experiences as a woman, law student and professor living in colonial Canada. She states: "This is a prayer for my people, and for all First Nations. It is shared with you in the spirit of gift giving. It is in part, a reflection on my own struggle to shed the colonized shackles which bind my mind, my spirit, a...
This Bridge Called My Back
March 25, 2019 07:00 - 29 minutes - 13.6 MBThis episode is focused on an amazing anthology of creative work by women of color, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherrie Moraga. Anzaldúa and Moraga created a space for women of color to share their experiences and stories. Each author labored to bring her story to the page and to make her lived experience visible to a wide audience. This work took emotional, intellectual, psychic, and physical strength. Anzaldúa and Moraga labored to ensure that these women's stories could reach a wide a...
Intersectionality
March 18, 2019 07:00 - 40 minutes - 18.6 MBIntersectionality is a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. It has since been used and appropriated in many different circles, notably by white women. Now, 30 years later, a new wave of woman of color feminists seek to push back on the term, redefine the term, defend the term, and look beyond the term. Crenshaw herself is part of the conversation and currently seeks to reclaim and explain what the term meant in 1989 and what it means today. While reading these new texts, we thought abou...
Sing, Unburied, Sing
March 11, 2019 07:00 - 34 minutes - 15.7 MBLike we mentioned last week, our teacher, Kimberly, created a multi-media module for us where we read a book and watched two connecting movies. Today we discuss the book we read. (Check out last week's episode for our discussion of Daughters of the Dust and Lemonade). This book was paired with the two movies because they are all created by black feminists, have similar themes, and aesthetics. We chose to read Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. Written in 2017, this story follows a family ...
Daughters of the Dust & Lemonade
March 04, 2019 08:00 - 39 minutes - 18 MBToday we discuss two wonderful black feminist movies! The first one we talk about is Daughters of the Dust directed by Julie Dash. Daughters of the Dust is set in 1902 and follows a family as they prepare to leave the Sea Islands, on the coast of Georgia, to move to the mainland. The second movie is Lemonade by Beyoncé. Marketed as a "visual album", Lemonade is a series of music videos, like mini-movies, that tell a story of betrayal, pain, self-love, and redemption. Questions to Consider:...
Podcast Update: We're Busy!
February 25, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutes - 1.4 MBHello podcast listeners! We wanted to send a quick update since there will not be a new episode out today. Because of our many snow days, we are finding ourselves busy with curriculum changes, grading, etc. So instead of a full podcast, we are giving you another text recommendation. Our recommended text is an article from The New York Times called "When the Suffrage Movement Sold Out to White Supremacy" by Brent Staples. Staples names the black women who labored to ensure that all women, no...
Kinship Workshop
February 18, 2019 08:00 - 30 minutes - 14.1 MBWe are sharing workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. Last week, we held a workshop where we explored the nuances of kinship. We discussed how kinship is traditionally defined and how feminists seek to define it in non-heteronormative terms. We talked about how many people, including many of our students, do not have acc...
Podcast Update: Snowed In!
February 11, 2019 08:00 - 2 minutes - 1.34 MBHello podcast listeners! We wanted to send a quick update since there will not be a new episode out today. A rare occurrence has happened in the greater Seattle area: we are snowed in! We thought that since we are snowed in at our respective houses, we'd give you a text recommendation for you to read to prepare for our next podcast episode. Our recommended text is an article called "Relying on Friendship in a World Built for Couples" by Briallen Hopper. You can access this article by Googl...
Smith and Christian & Theory
February 04, 2019 08:00 - 26 minutes - 12.2 MBToday we will discuss two wonderful and foundational black feminist texts by Barbara Smith and by Barbara Christian. Both of these women have put a tremendous amount of labor into creating theory from black lived experiences. In these two texts we see them struggle with big questions like: "whose writing is seen as authority?" and "where do you go if you're not reflected in text?". Smith wants to see theory built from black female experiences. Christian wants to see theory built from creativ...
A Journey Through Difficult Knowledge
January 28, 2019 08:00 - 35 minutes - 16.3 MBWe are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker James who is going to walk us through his experience taking classes from Kimberly and his journey with this material as a white male. We reference bell hooks' wonderful text All About Love. Questions to consider after listening: What happens when our beliefs are challenged? How do we hold difficult knowledge in our bodies and minds? Why is addressing difficult knowledge important? Support the show (https://theorymeet...
Spillers & Language
January 21, 2019 08:00 - 26 minutes - 12 MBToday we will discuss the introduction to Hortense Spillers' article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book". Spillers created this 1987 text to critique current day academic discourse. She proposes that we need new language to describe the experiences of black females, like herself, because words like "womanhood" and "mother" historically do not apply. She argues that since black women do not have access to the privilege of heteronormative notions of womanhood and motherhood, ...
Hartman & Scenes of Subjection
January 14, 2019 08:00 - 29 minutes - 13.4 MBToday we will discuss the introduction to Saidiya Hartman's book Scenes of Subjection. Hartman creates this text to dive into her embodied generational trauma as a black woman. She examines the perpetual display of violence towards black bodies and the impact those images have on white people's empathy and black people's identity formation. Her method is to seek answers in untold stories that show moments of resistance and liveliness in black American culture. Questions to consider: What is...
Intersectionality Workshop
January 07, 2019 08:00 - 33 minutes - 15.5 MBWe are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. Three weeks ago, we held a workshop where we explored the term "intersectionality" as coined by the amazing black feminist thinker, Kimberlé Crenshaw. We used the introduction to her text Mapping the Margins and discussed how Crenshaw created this word to help...
Tuck and Yang & Decolonization
December 31, 2018 08:00 - 22 minutes - 10.5 MBToday we will discuss Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang's amazing article Decolonization is not a metaphor. In this episode we will think about indigenous studies and the term "decolonization". We will discuss how decolonization is layered, complex, and unsettling for people to talk about. In the article, Tuck and Yang say, "Our goal for this essay is to remind readers what is unsettling about decolonization--what is unsettling and what should be unsettling" (3). Questions to consider: What does "...
Trauma Informed Pedagogy Workshop
December 24, 2018 08:00 - 31 minutes - 14.6 MBWe are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. Two weeks ago, we held a workshop where we explored trauma, how to create a classroom that can support trauma informed pedagogy, and how to hone our students' creative power in the face of structural inequities. We used the text Scenes of Subjection by Saidiy...
Lowe & Education
December 17, 2018 08:00 - 23 minutes - 10.6 MBToday we will continue discussing Lisa Lowe's amazing text Intimacies of Four Continents. This episode is part two in a two-part series on Lowe. In this episode we will think about the role education plays in the British imperialist strategy. Questions to consider: What is the role of education in imperialism? When colonizers set up their system of education, what are they educating people in? Is it still practiced this way today in school we when educate our students? In this episode we ...
Reading Through Lenses Workshop
December 10, 2018 08:00 - 31 minutes - 14.4 MBWe are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker Ashley who is going to walk us through a lesson she did with some other faculty members for our 8th grade humanities class. In her workshop, Ashley uses To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Norman Rockwell paintings, and contemplative discussion to address the lenses of race, gender, and class within a classroom. Questions to consider after listening: How do we react when a student or parent pushes back on our curricul...
Lowe & The Intimacies of Four Continents
December 04, 2018 00:00 - 22 minutes - 10.4 MBWe are coming back after a brief hiatus due to crazy schedules, Thanksgiving break, and illness. Thank you for being patient with us! Today we will be discussing Lisa Lowe's amazing text Intimacies of Four Continents. This episode is part one in a two-part series on Lowe. In this episode we will think about how Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas are all connected through imperialism, "free" trade, and material objects. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
White Fragility Workshop
November 01, 2018 07:00 - 30 minutes - 14.1 MBWe are so excited to be joined on the podcast by our friend and coworker AJ who is going to walk us through his workshop on white fragility. AJ uses Dr. Robin DiAngelo's text White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism and So You Want to Talk About Race? by Ijeoma Oluo during his workshop. Questions to consider after listening: How did you feel as you listened to his description of white fragility? How did you feel as you listened to his story about enacting whi...
Embodied Epistemology & Lived Experience Workshop
October 29, 2018 07:00 - 39 minutes - 18.2 MBWe held a faculty workshop where we explored the text "Venus in Two Acts" by Saidiya Hartman and paired it with Kindred by Octavia Butler in order to understand embodied epistemology and lived experience. We also discuss Cartesian Dualism and how to create a trauma informed classroom. Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: How can we value our students’ embodied epistemologies/knowledges from lived experiences? Whose lived experiences are we not valuing or ignoring? How can we b...
Identity & Identification Workshop
October 10, 2018 07:00 - 28 minutes - 13.1 MBThis episode is a little different. Instead of discussing theory and bringing ideas into the classroom, we are going to share a workshop that we did at our school for our faculty and staff. We hold monthly workshops on important intersectionality ideas where we discuss, share, and reflect upon our teaching practices with our colleagues. In August and September, our workshops were about identity and identification. Questions to consider as you listen to the podcast: What identifiers are we ...
McClintock & Unstable Categories
October 05, 2018 07:00 - 33 minutes - 15.4 MBWe discuss ideas from chapter one, "Empire of the Home", from Anne McClintock's text Imperial Leather. We focus on the unstable categories of time, race, and gender. Visit our blog, www.theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com for the link to the video we refer to in the podcast. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Federici & Witch Hunts
September 29, 2018 07:00 - 28 minutes - 13.2 MBWe discuss Sylvia Federici's definitions of "witch", "magic", and "witch hunts" in the context of the 16th and 17th century European witch hunts. We focus on the concept of power and voices. Questions to consider: who has power and why? How do they use that power? Whose voices are missing? How can we listen into history to hear those voices and recognize the untold labor? Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Federici & Enclosures
September 25, 2018 07:00 - 43 minutes - 20.1 MBWelcome to the third episode of the podcast! This episode is called Federici & Enclosures. First we will discuss how Federici analyzes how social, financial, and political enclosures and how the elimination of "the commons" damages the creative power of women. Then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. We also spend time contemplating how we see this outside of our classrooms. A question to consider: how does one group of people...
Federici & Cartesian Dualism
September 14, 2018 07:00 - 39 minutes - 18.3 MBFirst we will discuss how Federici analyzes Cartesian dualism and embodied epistemology in the context of her book, and then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. We will ask you 3 questions to consider as you think about these concepts translating to the classroom. Support the show (https://theorymeetspracticepod.blogspot.com/)
Federici & Resistance
September 13, 2018 07:00 - 32 minutes - 15 MBWe will be discussing a text called Caliban and the Witch by Sylvia Federici. This is a very complicated text that took Federici over 30 years to complete! We are going to split the text up into 4 themes, and we will cover one theme per episode. For this first episode, we will discuss how Federici analyzes resistance in the context of her book, and then we will share ideas for how to bring these ideas of resistance into our classroom through pedagogical strategies. Support the show (https://...