Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I am Rachael Maves, your host. This podcast is part of a series leading up to Park's measure what we value Summit scheduled for February 5th through 6 2025 in Fresno, California. The summit emphasizes honoring and amplifying student voices, fostering inclusive classrooms and equipping Educators with tools for impactful change. You can find more information at parseceducation.com/summit. Today we are talking to Dr.

Jamila Dugan. Dr. Jamila Dugan is an author, leadership coach and researcher, co-authoring Street data, one of our favorite books here at Parsec. A Next Generation model for Equity pedagogy and school transformation. She began as an early childhood teacher in Washington DC and later supported the first public Mandarin immersion school in Oakland, California. Dr Dugan founded JD learning partners and Joy Source, focusing on equity leadership and educator development.

Jamila Dugan: She holds a doctorate from UC Berkeley, a master's from George Mason and a bachelor's from Fresno State. She resides in Tampa, Florida, with her family, and we are so excited to have you here, jamaa, on the podcast today.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate.

Jamila Dugan: It's exciting to be in conversation with you, absolutely, and I loved hearing that you went to Fresno State.

Rachael Maves: Is that our small world? Yes, go Bulldogs Fresno State way back a long time ago, got my degree in Psychology from there and I have to say I had an amazing experience at Fresno State. Love it. Well. We're excited that you'll be joining us back here in Fresno for The Summit in 2025.

Jamila Dugan: I want to start just like how we always start the podcast. I'm and this is one of the questions I really appreciate, because we love just hearing about people's stories is at the heart of what we do wanting to elevate experiences and so we love if you could just share a little bit about your journey and what led you into your current role. Yeah, such a lovely and needy question to dig into. I think it's such an important place to start with why we do what we do and how we got here, and so I suppose I will start with something that is really near and dear to my heart, which is my experience as a young person. I did not imagine I would ever go into education. I believe I wanted to be an ice skater at some point, an architect at another point, an interior designer at another point, but I had done really well in school through Elementary and kind of okay in middle school.

But I had a lot of challenges happen in my household at this time and my to be quite honest with you, my self-esteem was very low. But I had great friends and a wonderful community and despite all of that, when I got to high school, I failed out. And when I filled out, there's a couple of things that stand out to me. Number one: how was I, a student doing very well in one year and the next year doing so bad that I failed out? In fact, you can see my doctor behind me, but really on the right side of me, I'll even turn it for you all. Up there on the right side for me is the letter my father received that said I had 72 absences and we weren't even through the year, and hence my GPA was 1.3 and hence we were gonna have to no longer have me at my school.

But it stands out to me just going from. What does it mean in a system where I'm doing well and all of a sudden I'm not and that's enough for me to not be in school anymore? The second thing that stands out to me, or stood out to me later on in my life, is: how come me, how come I was able to do so well for so long and how come, even though I failed in that moment, how was I able to thrive after that? It's a question that came up for me a little bit later and finally, which will get to the answer of where I am now, I really felt like man. I don't think. I don't think this is right, that there's just this narrow window or this narrow space for, at that time, black girls like me to be successful in this world.

So I think that's really what grounds me, because, you know, we're an adult here, we've learned, you know gone to schools and all of that. But I remember exactly what it was like to be growing up in East Oakland, California, and not to feel like I had the opportunities that I needed and, surprisingly, I actually did not get into Fresno State my first time. So I remember what that was like, having not, you know, academically thrived. So what is that me for my career and where I am now? I was in college at Fresno State, walked past a poster that said something about teaching and giving back to your community and I was like that sounds cool, that's what I like to do. So there was an application.

I turned it in really quickly and I went to this interview. I had no idea what I was really doing and they said: you seem great to be a teacher. And I said that sounds great and I will go ahead and do that job. And this is real talk and I was telling people I was like it's called like Teach for America or something like that turns out that was the year that the most people had applied to the program and I had no idea what it really was. I just truly wanted to give back to my community. And there's, you know, some pros and cons with having taken that route.

But truly, I walked past a poster and really thought this res with me giving back to my community and it ties directly to the things that I told you that I noticed about this narrow window of opportunity. So I became a teacher and I will tell you right now I sucked, especially those first six weeks, and I. Mean very lucky to have an assistant principal, anime Schuster at that time her name is Elm more at this point but who looked at me and said when I wanted to kick children out of my class: do you want to work here? Do you understand what your responsibility is in your class, in this classroom? And after I told her yes, and then I was mad at her for asking me that she took me under her wing and taught me how to teach so well, along with Miss Monroe and a whole bunch of teachers, and I felt in love with my children and still in love with them, and I'm very close to quite a few of them at this point.

Rachael Maves: And so, having had that experience of being such a bad teacher I wasn't that bad but having had that experience of coming in bright-eyed, bushy, tailed, digging in, not knowing what I'm doing, and having Educators who were excellent show me what it looks like to meet the needs of students, I think that reeled me in and just carried me on from teaching to becoming a coach, to becoming a school leader, to what I do now, which is operate as a leadership coach who really believes, from all the things that I said, that there is Brilliance and abundance in everyone. The window doesn't have to be narrow and if we truly use our imagination, along with strategy and Effectiveness, that we can really bring the best out of people and for me, the heart of the matter there is Educators and kids. I love that and I love too that you're really highlighting your very Life as a testimony when we put students in like this, very like you said, this narrow path, narrow window of you will not be successful if you don't hit these markers at this time, by this date, and then college is just a foregone. Conclusion, what that reinforces to them and the choices that they make later. And I love that you've kind of turned all of that on its head to drive your work, to say, actually that's not the case and you know, similar Jamila. My background was, you know, in this rural town of poverty.

I did not do well either in school and then to be able to come out of that and contribute. Education. I think that's the stirring that so many people have of wanting to be in that setting and role. When you have had a personal experience and connection to this work, I just think it makes it so much richer and so much B, so much more visceral, right. And I feel like sometimes, even when I think about measuring what we value, we tend to Value, you know, the academic ACC aades and the credentials and people who talk a certain way, look a certain way, and then we forget about the essence of what really matters in our connections as humans and what we're actually trying to do. And I feel like I got a glimpse of that in my childhood, of both what it looks like when we miss the real value in human beings and, on the flip side because my dad did send me to an Afrocentric school after that what it looks like when we really do take up the things that can be really valuable in our people and our human connection.

So resonates with me what you were saying.

Jamila Dugan: Yeah, I think it's a great transition to a little bit about your keynote and what you're going to be sharing at the summit. Can you tell us about the topic around this radical dreaming and the possibilities that emerge when we apply that concept to measuring what we value? Yeah. So forgive me for slowing down, because every time I hear radical dreaming, something happens in my spirit and my soul that always is like I love that idea and then I'm like, oh yeah, I'm talking about it, but I really. The gravity of radical dreaming is just something that touches my spirit and soul, even when I hear it. But you asked me, you know what this kind of keynote is going to be about and how it relates to measuring what we value, and I think I'd Whittle it down to this.

We are in a point right now in education I believe we've been here many times, not even I believe it's well researched but we are at a point right now where there is a lot of Despair, a lot of deficit thinking and narratives that have persisted. We are in a place where it seems like it's pretty much impossible to figure out how to address, solve issues of inequity in education. That's an overarching feeling. We have teachers leaving left and right, as in some cases they should be. We don't have the compensation that is needed, the resources that are needed. Teachers are not respected, admin are not respected, families aren't respected, students aren't respected.

Some of it is us not respecting each other. There's all of this Despair and heaviness and in Co during Co, I really felt that in a very heavy way, specifically when there started to be a conversation around learning loss and it was feeling really disconnected from what I was seeing in my household and what we were saying out loud, like all this disp stuff. It was challenging, hardest year of my life, 2020 in particular, but I was also seeing two people who live in my house starting to learn things like canva and starting to have these interests in YouTube in a different way and starting to use tools in a different way, and all these Notions of Despair and disrespect and all of those things were really at tension with each other. So my good friend recommended a book to me, a book about Freedom dreams or the black radical imagination by Robin DG Kelly, and in that text he talks about Liberation movements and how Liberation movements happen, and in his study of Liberation movements all across this world, he found that these people who were having the hardest time that needed a movement to happen started from a place of dreaming radical dreaming. When you hear me say radical dreaming, what I mean is looking at the uncomfortable truth and there are many uncomfortable truths we've had in history right, and then saying that is the uncomfortable. Truth and what else?

What does it look like when Injustice is eradicated? What does it look like if I am free? Can you imagine what it would be like to have your body constrained and in bondage to be able to create a pathway to Freedom? You have to be a radical dreamer to do this. And so, going back to my first thing that I said when I said I'd Whittle it down, we can sit in the place of Despair, which is real. We can sit in the place of what is challenging, which is also real.

We need more resources, but let us not forget that we are creating a pathway. We're a part of a legacy creating a pathway. It hasn't been created yet. We haven't even tried things long enough for them to stick. So, if we think about radical dreaming, what I am positing in general is: let us learn from the legacies of those who have come before us who have had so much power, and let's learn about the way that they used imagination to create. Transformation.

And now let's apply this to the concept of what is valuable. What if we were? And I think a lot of people are doing this. We've seen this with Street data, which has been really exciting and encouraging. We've seen people say big numbers aren't the only thing that matters. Standardized tests aren't the only thing that matters.

We've we're hearing that right.

Rachael Maves: We're hearing people have discussions about Eugenics and the IQ test and all of that and the bell curve and all of those things, but how much are we really thinking about the next? Frontier and so when I come and visit youa and be in community with everyone, I hope to provide some more context around this idea of radical dreaming and really where it comes from because it's it's really based on a rich Legacy and then to invite us into thinking about or illustrating for folks what it could look like if we apply radical dreaming to the schooling and classroom experience and then to give people some examples and invitations into what it can look like when we conceptualize data and again, what we value in terms of our human interactions and people and, ultimately, the purpose of Education. Yeah, that's right and I love, I mean to me what it is such a message of hope, you know, of this piece of we don't have to look at what currently exists and say that's it like, where do we go from here? It's the acknowledging the current reality and then what comes next, like we don't actually have to stay in this place. We can apply this idea of radical dreaming of what could be and move it forward, which I think and education just so deeply resonates, and I think it's I don't know your thoughts on this Jam, but I do think it's part of truly the heart and soul of every educator, if I like, just generously, of why we get into education.

Jamila Dugan: It is for that hope that we know that we can change things, that we want to be a part of the story of changing things, and we see it in spaces. We see these bright spots like your story and your testimony, others where we've seen entire schools or dists where that belief and the idea of radical dreaming and that kind of positive outlook and belief in students leads to massive changes in Inc, in outcomes for kids, right, I mean, oh, yeah, I mean through just immediately. Three things come to my mind when you say that. So first of all, I will I have to say to people, especially as they listen to this, and I'll repeat it again when we're in person this is not like a hokey. Fluffy, just empty hope kind of thing. That is not what I am talking about.

Yeah, this is a fundamental mindset ship for some people, affirmation for others, and it is something that is proven to have impact. That's right. I am so excited there's actually a group of a school that I work with that is working with Parsec Real actually and we're in a radical dreaming Community Practice and I was just with the teachers yesterday, but a couple weeks ago I was looking at a video of a teach teacher reflecting on radical dreaming and what it's done for one of her students and to see her talk about a student who did nothing last year, nothing to then get in touch with his radical dreams, which are really to be a fisherman and own his own Fishing Company. There was all this talk about you know he's coming from a single parent household and yada y. But she said: you know what? Let's acknowledge that he's going to have one parent as he's trying to figure this out.

Right, she gets with the student, works with him to figure out what kind of projects can we do that will incorporate the standards and your radical dreams. This student has videos, images of him being fishing with his father and now has, like understands budgets for how to make this fishing business. And that was from her believing first in radical dreaming and then her letting go to let the students radical dreams lead, and we can see tangibly the work. I'll probably bring it when we are together. So that's the first thing, and then there's just two other things I wanted to mention related to this hokey idea. This radical dreaming is not something that I think people can just like pick up and like making a new cool thing.

Radical dreaming. This is like rooted in Legacy, it's ancestral. It is something that people have used to cross over from things that seemed impossible to get out of. So it's not, you know, just like you know, acknowledging and just saying let's skip over to the better. It's really saying when. At least for me when my ancestors had the most difficulty, especially in this country, especially with education I think about reconstruction as an example what did they do to move forward?

Yeah, that's where radical dreaming comes from. And then the second thing I would just say that I want to invite people into is that it's extremely rigorous, so when I share it, I have not really seen folks not be inspired by it. Inspires me so much. And when I'm in my radical dreaming workshops with people say, man, I L this and this was really hard for me. So when I invite people in during the keynote, I hope that it creates a sense of affirmation and validation and restore some hope and also causes a little bit of Challenge and pushes us to think how can we go further, because I know the folks that are coming to the conference are doing amazing hard work. You know what I mean.

Rachael Maves: It's not like a here's everything we're not doing, but a real calling into our greatest aspirations. And how often do we get to do that? Yeah, I love that and I feel like that.

Jamila Dugan: I mean kind of takes us a little bit for the little bit I know about this new platform that you've created called Joy Source. I mean, tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, thanks for asking, because it's really exciting and it's a. It's a small baby right now that I am nurturing, but joy source is actually the result of me radically dreaming. So when I wrote the radical dreaming article Co it, people responded to it really well and I figured, if I'm saying that, I probably should do. It a r application.

Your M should do that. You know that's probably a good idea, and so I wrote on my board what is my radical dream and who am I dreaming with? And if you were to go to my now almost defunct Twitter, it'll be gone here soon you'll see. That's what's pinned: some questions to ask people, and so I decided to think about what my radical dream was, and my radical dream started to become that not only I would be able to spread these messages and do professional learning, but the people like Miss Monroe, who taught me, the people that I know, who are literally radically dreaming in their classrooms today, in their buildings today, that they would start to be the people that we honor and lift up when it comes to professional learning, yes, and that, as a result of elevating and compensating and centering the people who embody now y, that we would find a true sense of Joy from professional development. Yeah, so Joy source is really saying professional development shouldn't be a resource, it should be a joy source, and we get to that Joy Source by not just talking about cultural humility or talking about. Pedagogy, but by learning from it, from those who embody it right now, yes, and those who can create learning experiences for us, just like they do for their students or the people who are in their buildings or in their context.

And so Joy Source right now is beginning. It started as just reaching out to some folks I didn't know on Twitter, who were real teachers, who inspired me, who are culturally grounded, who do come from diverse backgrounds, and saying to them: I have this idea about this like Workshop called radical dreaming don't really know like it's, would you like do it with me? And them graciously saying, yes, this is affirming to me and what I need, and us coming together and brainstorming and saying if we were to do it, exactly how we want to do it, how would we run this Workshop? If it was, if it was about no one else but what we need and then providing people with what they need.

Rachael Maves: And Workshop is still carrying me through that day. And so once we had that radical dreaming Workshop, where we Illustrated the idea and we got people to do it and we're vibing together, we started to say maybe there's something to this, maybe there's more workshops we can do and maybe there's commun of practice we can lead in this vein and hence, together with those folks, Joy source is in the process of emerging. Well, it's such a way that you're taking the aspiration of this radical dreaming Jamila and giving people the tangible like, yes, the here is all the beauty of it and the excitement and the inspiration, yeah, but here the actual, lived stories now of people putting it in practice and the outcomes that it has, and that I mean I'm sure you see this with your work, the more that you can show that, and that's why we're so committed to the stories and experiences at per.

Jamila Dugan: I mean it. That is what lights the fire for people of: oh, if you can do that here, then maybe I can do that too, and makes a huge difference. Yeah, 100%. I think this is what you know, made the tie to radical dreaming, to Joy source. So natural is that when I sought out Educators I think of Hannah elme, who's a teacher right now amazing teacher. We talk about this idea of radical dreaming.

She's like bam, I'm going to do it in my class for the whole year as a result of us just having just giving ourselves the gift of radically dreaming. Right, but then her taking it up. Now we have examples of this happening in the classroom. We have actual examples of the question she asked her students, the work products that came as a result, the projects that they have done as a result, the confidence audio of students talking about how they feel about themselves just by being invited to radically dream, and we also have the students saying no one's ever asked them to do that before either. So I just think it's such a joy source, is such a. Beautiful illustration of what happens when we slow down, allow ourselves to radically dream that's what we did together and coming together and then saying, well, what would it look like to invite other people into that?

And that's how the platform kind of came together. So now we're doing like we have, attending the teachers Workshop that just came from. What do the teachers need? A placemaking lab like, and all of it's just designed around valuing people, and that's again how we get to measuring what we value, what do we truly value, and it's kind of a test of that.

Rachael Maves: So we'll see. So we'll see what happens. Well, I'm excited, and when you think about coming to the measure what we value Summit, what are you most looking forward to?

Jamila Dugan: Because this is going to be your first time joining us in the Parsec community. What are you looking forward to about that time? Yeah, so it's. First of all, it's an interesting story how we even got to this place. But what I will say about the journey is this: we were in a conversation and I believe the executive director barerun day said something to me about a thing called Parsec real and in my little antennas perked up and he was so gracious to show it to me and I was like, oh my gosh, this is a direct connection and could be a huge Aid in the journey around Street data, and so that got me really excited just about some of the work that you all are doing at Parsec. And then I found out that one of the schools that I work is using Parsec real and we've been able to relate that to the radical dream community of practice and Street data, which made me say, okay, maybe the work is even more amazing.

That just got me excited in general about collaborating with you all as a team. Then, when you think about coming to the conference, I think what always excites me is the energy of the people in the room and what they care about and what they're sitting with and what their questions are and what they're wanting and yearning for and what's going to make them smile and what's going to make them feel challenged. And what is it that we can do only Us in this unique space, at this unique time? What can we do together?

Rachael Maves: And so there's a part of me that's excited to offer the Notions around radical dreaming, but there's even more excitement for me around what I can learn for the people who will all be there. I'm going both as a presenter and an attendee, so I'm just really excited to be open to learning and also really getting more into Parsec Real. Yeah, so you up close, we listeners. A little context to Parsec Real, because we don't often talk about our products. And then I'm going to segue into our last question, Jamila. But for everybody who's listening, one of the platforms that we have at Parsec that really does hit at that core value of elevating voice is real, and what real does is allows people like jam or District leaders, principals, teachers, to send out open-ended questions to either students, staff, community members, and we design the questions in such a way that it really is meant to elicit The Experience that people have to help Drive understanding to some of the root causes of what we're we're seing.

And when it goes out, people can either respond via text, audio or video, and so the power of it is that, instead of when typically you're doing F focus groups or empathy interviews, it's very limiting in how many people can engage, but this allows you to collect qualitative data and stories at scale now so that you can actually see the responses of those who are sharing some. I mean pretty heartfelt things, like the example that you provide with the teacher and the experience like I mean seeing her face in that video had to have just been a world of difference compared to like reading her response on a transcript.

Jamila Dugan: It's just really exciting. So I'm glad that you're seeing the benefit of it in that context of your work in radical dreaming too, jamaa, oh yes, it wasn't a plug. I was not g, I was not planting in a plug in there. I truly did mean.

Rachael Maves: That really did spark my interest in terms of the conference and just learning about everything you all do. I'm really excited to both come to present and also learn more so that I can be greater in my work as well. I love it.

Jamila Dugan: So, as we wrap up, I just want to give you the final word to our listeners. Any Sage advice, thoughts to ponder what you would like to leave people with. Wow, that. I think that question is the hardest of them all sage advice. I don't know. I don't know if I would consider myself a sage.

But here's what I'll say. Right now we are in a very challenging time. I know we have heard this many times before, but we are in an incredibly challenging time before and we have a lot of options when we are in an incredibly challenging time, and we're in a challenging time for a lot of different. Reasons. I believe that we also are in a time of great opportunity and there's someone in your life, in your building, in your classroom, in your organization, right now who is reminding you of that and you better get close to them, hold them close, protect them, Elevate them, comp, compensate them, love them, let their light shine on you because if we can go to the light, toward the light, just everything shines brighter. And I know it's a hard, it's just a very hard time and even when we get together in February will still be potentially in a very hard time.

So I just really want people, I want to encourage people to be excited about the conference. Of course, it's a little while away, so, please, anything you can do with the people in your household, schools, wherever, go toward the light.

Rachael Maves: It'll make us all better. I'm certainly trying to do that right now. I love it. I love it. Jamila, thank you for joining us.

Jamila Dugan: I'm really looking forward to seeing you in Fresno in February.

Rachael Maves: Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Parsec education is hosting the measure what we value Summit on February 5th through 6 in Fresno, California. Don't miss out on our limited time 20% off discount on tickets. Join us for impactful conversations on empathy, engagement, hard truths and more, alongside leaders like Shaka Booker, Rich stool, Jamila Dugan and student speakers like Liliana Sanchez. Early bird pricing ends soon.

Secure your spot today. Get your tickets at parsecsummit.com.

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This transcript was created from the episode's captions and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors; please refer to the audio for exact wording.