Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn is the executive director of Pilot Light, a nonprofit that helps educators incorporate food education into their lessons. She joined the organization in 2014, hired personally by its founders as its first staff member, and since then, she has proudly worked in partnership with many educators, chefs and community members to grow the reach of their food education programs from one school to 79 impacting over 20,000 students nationwide.

Alexandra and I get into her work history, starting with her days at a stroke center where she used hip hop to teach stroke prevention. We also dive deep into Pilot Light and the group’s involvement in developing food education’s seven standards. Alexandra’s story is a testament to the need for vision in the worlds of education and social work.

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode157.

Dr. Scott Pickle is superintendent of the Sequoia Union Elementary School District in Woodlake, California. He is also a public speaker and best-selling author who uses his platform to champion the belief that all students can achieve at high levels. Scott used his 30 years of experience to write two published books, Upright and Impact Mentoring: 200 Ways to Make an Impact, and his third book, Impact Artificial Intelligence, will be published soon.

Scott and I start off with his long history in public education and working his way up to superintendent. We then dive deep into his beliefs about mentoring, which we agree is lacking for teachers. We also discuss AI’s potential impact on teaching and why it needs to be regulated, as well as utilized.

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode156.

Holly Britton is a handwriting instruction specialist with teaching experience in grades K through eight. She educated her own four now-adult children, has taught in private and public school classrooms, served as a curriculum director and founded Squiggle Squad, a unique approach to handwriting instruction for children, pre K to second grade.

In this episode we go in depth into strategies for teaching writing, with emphasis on early transcription skills and letter formation. If you’re helping kids teach writing, you’ll want to take notes.

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode155.

For this episode, I speak to Maya Smart, an early literacy advocate, parent educator and author of Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child. She's affiliated faculty at Marquette University and holds degrees from Harvard and Northwestern. Her website MayaSmart.com features weekly book picks some playful learning ideas and free tools to help parents grow as their children's first teachers.

We get into how she became in reading and why she wanted to research early literacy. We dive into her research, which found disparity in reading achievement between black and white kids. We also spend time discussing her book and how she wrote it. Take notes, it’s a good one!

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode154.

In this episode, I talk to Donita Grissom, a senior lecturer at at the University of Central Florida and co-author of the book, High Five to Thrive. She is also the CEO of Best Questers, which provides teachers with practical, effective teaching strategies that they can immediately implement in their classrooms to help create resilient, thriving school communities.

In this episode, Donita and I talk about her start in education as a K–12 ESOL teacher and how that led to her training other ESOL teachers. She also explains her Hope Theory and her belief in the importance of goal-setting. This interview is full of great tips to reignite your passion for teaching!

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode153.

This week on the show we have Ben Somers, the founder of Recess.gg an education platform built for homeschoolers who learn differently. Recess is a kid centered product, and has helped kids publish books on Amazon, win awards at Oxford writing conferences and start amazing businesses.

In this episode, Ben and I get into how Ben’s own frustrating experiences with school lead him to pursue education alternatives. He then goes into his goals with his online schooling platform, Recess, which allows students to pick their own classes. He also provides some notable reasons for getting into the homeschooling market.

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode152.

This week we speak to Lori Woodley-Langendorff, the co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer of All It Takes, a nonprofit that equips youth and mentors with vital emotional intelligence skills. Lori has 30 years experience in education, having worked the majority of it as a middle school counselor before starting All It Takes in 2010 with her daughter, actress Shaylene Woodley.

Lori and I have a good time talking about working in education and how it becomes your identity. Then we get into the creation of All It Takes before diving deep into the importance of Social Emotional Learning. We also get into the process of writing her new book, “SEL Muscle Mastery: 6 Tools for Building Resiliency and Connection in Schools and Communities.” Tune in!

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode151.

This week’s guests are Dakota Irby and Anne Ishimaru, authors of "Doing the Work of Equity Leadership." Irby, a Professor at the University of Illinois, focuses on improving Black students' experiences through equity-focused leadership. Ishimaru, a Professor at the University of Washington, cultivates leadership among educators and racially minoritized youth.

In this episode, they tell Lily how they entered the world of education and what brought them to working to increase equity there. They also discuss writing the book, what they hope it achieves, and what it actually takes to increase equity in learning spaces.

For all links and resources mentioned in this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.educatorforever.com/episode150.