The Conscious Educator

🤎I'm stepping into a new season—and I'm so excited to share what’s ahead!!!

🩵At Conscious Education Consulting, LLC., our work has always been rooted in equity, justice, and creating meaningful outcomes for *all* learners. As we continue listening closely to schools, districts, and educators themselves, one truth has become impossible to ignore: first-year teachers need deeper, more intentional support. We are conscious of those needs.

💙Across the country, new educators are entering classrooms full of passion and purpose—yet far too many are navigating overwhelming expectations, limited mentoring, and systems that were never designed to sustain them. When we support *teachers*, we strengthen classrooms, schools, and student learning outcomes.

❤️This upcoming rebrand reflects our commitment to walking alongside first-year and novice teachers, offering coaching, community, and equity-centered professional learning that helps them thrive—not just survive. It’s a natural evolution of our mission: supporting educators so they can create affirming, inclusive, and empowering learning environments for every student they serve.

💚What’s changing?

A sharper focus on first-year teacher coaching and support

Expanded services to address burnout, retention, and professional confidence

Continued grounding in equity, culturally responsive practice, and liberatory education

💛What’s staying the same?

Our heart. Our values. Our unwavering belief that educators—and students—deserve systems built on care, justice, and possibility.

Stay tuned for our refreshed vision, and expanded offerings. Follow along, share our journey, and support this next chapter as we continue building a more sustainable and equitable future for education—together.

✨ The work continues. The vision grows. The impact deepens. ✨

Super excited to present at AERA again with my academic bestie Dr. Alexes Marquita-Denise Terry !!!! Join us during our paper session to hear more about: Enabling Transgressions: A Content Analysis of Racial Literacy Development Through Pres-Service Teachers' Reflective Journals.

Abstract: This study explores pre-service teachers’ racial literacy development within a critical multicultural education course. Grounded in Gay & Kirkland’s (2003) call for teachers to develop critical consciousness and Sealy-Ruiz’s (2021) racial literacy framework, this study analyzes reflective journal entries to examine how future educators grapple with their positionality, histories of racial oppression, and how whiteness manifests in schools. Using content analysis, researchers investigated how self-reflective journaling fosters critical consciousness and informs shifts in beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions toward racial literacy. Findings indicate growth in pre-service teachers’ understanding of their roles in acknowledging and disrupting racial inequities in schools, offering implications for the continuous pursuit of embedding racial literacy into educator preparation programs.

🗣️ New publication alert!!!!! So proud to have contributed to this edited volume with Eboni Bango!!! Looking forward to making more contributions to the continuing pursuit of liberation through education for Black children!!!!👇🏽

🤎About the Book: This book provides a comprehensive exploration of Black women academics’ legacy of knowledge production and intellectual thought, while balancing the intersecting pressures of social, familial, and academic responsibilities. Through the (her)stories of Black scholars, educators, activists, and mothers, it highlights how Black mothers in the academy navigate the interconnectedness of human rights, educational access, scholarship, pedagogy, and community service. Grounded in the intersectional experiences of Black womanhood—particularly mothering and othermothering—this book illustrates the profound impact of gender and race within higher education.

🤎About our chapter: Stories of Black women in education expose their gendered and racially diverse experiences. When possessing dual identities as academics and mothers, this intersection compliments their often emancipatory and activist approaches in academia and the education of Black children. In predominantly white institutions, Black motherscholars need support maintaining such activist stances. Utilizing duoethnography through the lens of Black Gaze, two Black motherscholars seek to use their experiences to encourage other Black motherscholars to continue taking up space and interjecting their liberatory approaches towards true educational equity for Black children.

👉🏽https://share.google/Ol4Ig7FO4L9Qiu6lV

Join me this fall for a new web series!!!! I'm tackling a much-needed discussion as we chat about the challenges educators face in today's highly-politicized climate and provide practical and classroom-tested strategies to help teachers overcome these obstacles and get back to teaching our learners!!!!! Hope to see you there!!!!!

Register Here: https://bit.ly/4nINQdo

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Many people are in a place of disbelief and shock as they turn on (or scroll through) the news cycle in our nation lately. For those wanting answers as who, what, when, where, why, and HOW the U.S. has come to be as it is today...I offer a few reading selections to help you understand.

Hopefully, after turning only a few pages in any of these books, WE can stop asking: How is this happening? And instead, start DOING something about it.

Happy reading!!!!

New publication is out!!!!! Just in time for Juneteenth!!!! What better way to celebrate Freedom Day with some proclamations to reclaiming Black Lives!!!!!!👇🏽🖤🤎✊🏽

Get it here: https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/teacher-education-for-black-lives/382402?camid=4v1

👉🏽This chapter will address the critical need for transformative professional development in teacher education, aimed at developing educators with the liberatory approaches necessary to effectively support Black students' identities and their lived experiences in school settings. Recognizing the unique challenges that Black students often face within educational spaces, this chapter advocates for a shift in teacher training that emphasizes cultural competency and responsive, identity-affirming, and liberatory pedagogy. By fostering an understanding of systemic inequities, their impact on Black students' educational experiences, and Black historical epistemologies, this chapter will outline practical approaches for embedding a liberatory professional development framework for school leaders and teacher educators to use within professional development initiatives.

New publication!!!! We are so excited to share our work in the Educational Justice Journal!!!! Check it out!!!!
https://edjusticeinstitute.com/home/ejj/

New publication!!!!!! Check out my contribution to give voice to the experiences of Black female teacher educators who prepare pre-service teachers for today's diverse classrooms! I'll give you a hint: resistance is REAL!!!! We got this tho!!!!😉

👉Read my article here: https://doi.org/10.70144/sg010107ii%C2%A0

👉Read the entire issue from the Texas Journal for Multicultural Education here: https://www.txname.org/published-issues/august-2024

What are conscious educators reading this month??? Check out my top book picks for April 2024!!! Tell me what you think!!!

From the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas:

We know these are very challenging times, and it is very difficult for us to call on your support once again. However, the American Indian/Native Studies course needs your help.

As of now, we do not have confirmation that the AI/NS course, which was slated to be heard for "First Reading" in late January of this year, will be added to the Texas State Board of Education agenda for April. The agenda will be finalized this week. If the course is not added by March 29th, it will become much more likely that the course review process will be put on hold for the rest of the year or for a much longer period of time.

While we work to add the course to the SBOE agenda via other channels, we also want to ensure that we send a strong message about the level of support that exists for the course in Texas.

For this reason, we call on you to not only sign the petition below but also to share it on your email listservs, e-newsletters, and social media posts.

Help us reach at least 600 signatures this week!

After more than three and a half years in the making, the Texas SBOE has the opportunity to consider a high school level American Indian/Native Studies elective course for full adoption. If adopted, the course would become much more readily available to Texas school districts and Texas 10th-12th grade students. Native communities throughout Texas and beyond support the course. However, the Texas SBOE has recently hit the breaks on the course review process. If this pattern of delay continues, the course review process could be put on hold indefinitely. It's time to stand up for American Indian/Native Studies in Texas! Sign and share the petition! https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/ainspetition/

Calling all educators and school leaders!!! Our 2024 Conscious Academy Cohort is now open for enrollment!!! Let's work together to create classrooms and schools where ALL students can thrive!!! Hope to see you soon!!!!
www.consciouseducatorsforequity.org