Social Emotional Learning Is Liberated Learning: Dena Simmons on Teaching the Whole Child

Social Emotional Learning Is Liberated Learning: Dena Simmons on Teaching the Whole Child

What happens when we stop asking students to regulate themselves and start asking schools to become more human? Social emotional learning is about far more than managing behavior. In this episode of the Black Teacher Project Podcast, BTP Founder and Executive Director Dr. Micia Mosely is joined by Dr. Dena Simmons, founder of LiberatED [https://www.liberatedsel.com/] and former Assistant Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, for a powerful conversation on what it means to teach the whole child through relationships, healing, and racial justice. Drawing on her experience as an educator, teacher educator, and nationally recognized voice on social emotional learning and liberatory pedagogy, Simmons challenges conventional understandings of SEL, exploring how it can reinforce harm when disconnected from identity, justice, and community. Together, she and Mosely share practical examples of building trust, honoring student agency, integrating emotional learning into everyday instruction, and creating classrooms where every student feels seen, valued, and free to learn. This exchange between two great friends reminds us that teaching the whole child begins with caring for the whole educator. As Simmons reflects on the inseparable relationship between teacher wellbeing and student wellbeing, she offers a vision of schools rooted in humanity, collective care, and liberation. For educators seeking to move beyond compliance and toward deeper connection, this conversation is both an affirmation and an invitation to reimagine what social emotional learning can make possible.

From Compliance to Possibility: Zaretta Hammond and Abdul-Haqq Khalifah on Teaching for Learning Power and Liberation

What does it really take to move from a pedagogy of compliance to a pedagogy of possibility? In this episode of the Black Teacher Project Podcast, BTP’s Dr. Micia Mosely is joined by renowned teacher educator and Ready4Rigor architect Zaretta Hammond, bestselling author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain and Rebuilding Students’ Learning Power, and Abdul-Haqq (Hawk) Khalifah of Agency by Design Oakland, a Black educator and lead coach in Oakland Unified, for a grounded conversation on what it means to truly teach for liberation. Together, they unpack a critical gap in many classrooms: while relationships and cultural awareness matter, they are not enough. Their conversation centers the often overlooked work of building students’ information processing skills and learning power, shifting instruction from surface engagement to deep cognitive development. This episode is both a mirror and a roadmap. It affirms what many Black teachers already know intuitively while offering language, tools, and clarity to strengthen practice. As three Black educators reflect on what it looks like to move beyond performative strategies into intentional instructional decision-making, they name how systems train teachers into compliance, prioritizing control over curiosity. They also explore what becomes possible when teachers cultivate learning partnerships, slow down instruction, and coach students to think, struggle, and make meaning independently, inviting educators to move beyond managing classrooms toward building communities of learners where students do the thinking and own their learning.

Good Trouble in the Classroom: Black Educators on Literacy, STEM, and Teaching for Liberation

What does it mean to teach toward liberation in a moment shaped by fear, standardization, and political pressure? In this episode of the Black Teacher Project Podcast, BTP’s Dr. Micia Mosely is joined by educators JaVaughn Hardaway and Dr. Cecelia Gillam for a reflective conversation on literacy, STEM, and centering humanity in classrooms never designed for Black thriving. From Indianapolis to New Orleans, the educators name the realities Black teachers face today: rigid pacing guides, narrowing curriculum, high-stakes testing, and systems that value compliance over connection. They challenge the idea that literacy is limited to phonics or test scores, expanding it to include critical consciousness, identity development, and the ability to read the world as well as the word. In STEM, they uplift teaching grounded in real-world relevance, curiosity, and joy, where students learn how to think, question, and imagine. The conversation affirms Black teachers as “good troublemakers” who understand when and how to disrupt harmful systems. Community, cohort learning, and wellness emerge as essential, reminding us that caring for oneself is inseparable from caring for students. Looking ahead, they draw on freedom dreams to imagine schools where learning is not reduced to points or labor preparation, multiple literacies are honored, and all children, especially Black and Brown ones, experience robust, joyful education.

Teaching Black History as World-Making: Dr. Jarvis Givens on Carter G. Woodson, Memory, and the Work of Black Teachers

What does it mean to teach Black history in a moment marked by backlash, erasure, and renewed struggle? And what does the 100-year journey of Black History Month ask of educators today? In this episode of the Black Teacher Project Podcast, Dr. Micia Mosely, Founder and Executive Director of BTP, is joined by Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, professor of Education and African American Studies at Harvard University, for a deeply grounded conversation recorded during the centennial of Negro History Week. Together, they reflect on the legacy of Carter G. Woodson and the long history of Black history being treated as contraband, contested, and actively suppressed in schools.   Drawing from his scholarship, including Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching (2021), School Clothes: A Collective Memoir of Black Student Witness (2023), and American Grammar: Race, Education, and the Building of a Nation (2025), Givens shares concrete historical examples of Black teachers navigating hostility, confiscation, and surveillance while continuing to teach truthfully. He also discusses his forthcoming book, I’ll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month (2026), which traces how Black educators, families, and communities sustained this tradition across generations. Throughout the conversation, Givens names Black teachers as memory workers, institution builders, and world-makers who have always taught toward collective freedom, even in schools never designed for Black thriving. This episode invites listeners to understand Black History Month as a living inheritance and teaching as a responsibility that reaches far beyond the classroom.

DEI Is Under Attack: Black Educators Confront Political Backlash, Fear, and the Fight for Inclusive Schools for All Students

“Fear has overtaken everything.” Across the country, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work is under siege. In this episode of the Black Teacher Project Podcast, hosts Dr. Cecelia Gillam, Dr. Lena Hamilton, Dr. LaTesa Brown, and Lisa Harton gather to name the chilling effects of political backlash on schools, teachers, and communities. From Georgia to Indiana, North Carolina to Louisiana, the educators share firsthand how fear and censorship are reshaping classrooms. They describe teachers self-censoring lessons before laws are even passed, DEI committees being rebranded or dissolved, and families of color withdrawing children from school out of fear of deportation or surveillance. Programs supporting students, from summer food access to mental health services, are being cut in the same wave that targets DEI. And yet, amidst the fear, these Black teachers also remind us of what is possible. In New Orleans, leaders still fight the good fight to ensure equity and belonging. Across states, teachers resist silencing by speaking truth and holding space for their students’ humanity. The podcast becomes a mirror of what resilience looks like in practice: honesty, courage, and a refusal to let political forces strip away purpose. This episode is an invitation to listen deeply to the voices of Black educators who know both the stakes and the possibilities. It affirms that the fight for inclusive schools is not just about protecting words like DEI. It is about ensuring that all students, especially those historically marginalized, are seen, valued, and given the chance to thrive.