- 2 days ago
What does it take for every child to thrive? Communities, educators and allies are doing the work every day to help children succeed, yet we still confront widespread inequities and challenges for children of color, children from low-income families and English-language learners in the United States, with collateral impacts on the economy and the workforce. Anchored by a conversation with award-winning actor Tyler James Williams from Abbott Elementary, we explore this question through the lens of personal experiences and identify what we can all do to support the educators around us. (W.K. Kellogg Foundation)
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00:00Oh
00:30Got a joint
00:33Got a joint
01:00Got a joint
01:02I said I got a joint
01:04In my bones
01:06I said the sins
01:08That I got
01:10Won't even know
01:12I said I got a joint
01:14In my bones
01:18I said the sins that I got
01:20Won't so know
01:22Oh no
01:24All my natural life
01:26I've been waiting
01:28Oh no
01:30Everything that belongs to me
01:32Oh
01:34I won't be slain
01:36Every single person
01:38What I wouldn't do
01:40To get next to the things
01:42That I meant for me
01:44Oh
01:46I said I got a joint
01:48In my bones
01:50Oh
01:52I said the sins that I got
01:54Won't even know
01:56Oh
01:58I said I got a joint
02:00In the bones
02:02Oh
02:04I said the sins that I got
02:06Oh no
02:08Oh no
02:10Oh no
02:12Oh no
02:14Oh no
02:16Oh no
02:18Oh no
02:20Oh no
02:22Oh no
02:24Oh no
02:26Oh no
02:28Oh no
02:30Oh no
02:32I said I got a joint
02:34In my bones
02:36I said the sins that I got
02:38Won't leave me alone
02:40Oh no
02:42I said I got a joint
02:44In my bones
02:46Oh no
02:48I said the sins that I got
02:50Won't even know
02:52Oh no
02:54Oh no
02:56Yeah
02:58Oh
03:00Oh
03:02Oh no
03:04Oh no
03:06I said the sins that I got
03:08Won't even know
03:10Oh
03:12Oh
03:14Oh
03:16I said I got a joint
03:18In my bones
03:20I said the sins that I got
03:22Won't leave me alone
03:24Oh
03:26I said I got a joint
03:28In my bones
03:30Yeah
03:32I said the sins that I got
03:34Oh
03:36Oh
03:38Oh
03:40Oh
03:42Oh
03:44Oh
03:46Oh
03:48Oh
03:50Oh
03:52Oh
03:54Oh
03:56Oh
03:58Oh
04:00Oh
04:02Oh, yeah.
04:03Oh, yeah.
04:04Oh, yeah.
04:07Oh, yeah.
04:08Said I gotta do, do, do, yeah.
04:12Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:16That'll be right.
04:17Yeah.
04:18Choon, chooon.
04:20Yeah, so that little thing.
04:22Yeah, ooh, ooh.
04:23Come on.
04:24Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
04:26Shh, du, ooh, ooh.
04:28Let me, ooh, ooh.
04:30I said I can't jump in my bones
04:35I said the things that I got won't leave me alone
04:41I said I can't jump in my bones
04:46I said the things that I got won't leave me alone
04:52I've got all the dreams
04:55I said the things that I got won't leave me alone
05:05I said I can't jump in my bones
05:08I said I can't jump in my bones
05:12I said I can't jump in my bones
05:18I said I can't jump in my bones
05:24I said I can't jump in my bones
05:37I said I can't jump in my bones
05:43I said I can't jump in my bones
05:49In my bones
05:52In my bones
05:55In my bones
05:58In my bones
06:00I know you see it, girl
06:28This ain't sittin' real good in my soul
06:31Everywhere this little girl goes
06:33She pick up another obstacle
06:37She was my heart
06:39I don't know the tribe or default
06:42But by default, she don't think of me
06:46I thought she was an Indian
06:51She be slangin' thangs like a simian
06:54All my life I wanted me an Indian
06:59And now she's far away
07:04But I had to know
07:07Listen
07:09I know you see it, girl
07:11This ain't sittin' real good in my soul
07:14Everywhere this little girl goes
07:16She pick up another obstacle
07:20She was my heart
07:22I don't know the tribe or default
07:25But by default, she don't think of me
07:29I thought she was an Indian
07:31But she be slangin' thangs like a simian
07:36All my life I wanted me an Indian
07:42Ooh, girl, let me in
07:47In the street with a wedding ring
07:53And she hit the box
07:54Silly bae
07:55Are you down to cheat?
07:56He looked in the eye
07:57Chivalry
07:58Is he really there?
07:59He pulled out a tip
08:00Uh
08:01Jumpin' right
08:02Don't know
08:03Think it wasn't good to intervene
08:04And I lost her
08:05Awesome to the world
08:06And the girls and the posters
08:08Entertain
08:09I doubt it'll pay
08:10And it cost her
08:11I ain't mad at me, but it hurts
08:12And I thought she wasn't an Indian
08:14Now she only worried about the Benjamin
08:19Uh
08:25She be looking
08:27In my dreams
08:28I swear that it won't feel
08:31When I did
08:32I swear that it won't feel
08:34Uh
08:39I swear that it won't feel
08:41Hey
08:43I swear that it won't feel
08:48Until I do, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need to make you see, what you mean to me, until I do, I'm hoping you will know what I mean.
09:18It is 4am, and I'm waiting in our bed alone, dreaming of your grave, wishing you would come back home, but you don't come, and you don't come, and you don't say.
09:48That you miss me, and you don't stop on your way by to say hi.
09:59I'm feeling crazy.
10:03It is 5am, and I'm waiting by the phone again.
10:15This is not how it's supposed to be.
10:22You're supposed to be here with me.
10:26But you're gone now, you're just gone now.
10:31You don't even think about the way I feel.
10:37You don't even think about the way I feel.
10:39Cause you're gone now, you're just gone now.
10:42You don't even think about the way I feel.
10:46Hey everyone, I'm Tyler James Williams, and I'm honored to partner with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
10:51We'll be sharing some incredible success stories about communities that are helping children thrive.
10:56Children are at the absolute heart of the Kellogg Foundation.
10:59Everything they do focuses on giving all children an equal opportunity to succeed.
11:04To learn more, please visit everychildthrives.com.
11:13Please welcome LeJune Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of Kellogg Foundation.
11:32So hello everyone.
11:35Good afternoon, Essence.
11:37I'm honored to be with you today.
11:39As was stated, I'm President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
11:44And we work with grantees and partners to make sure that every child thrives.
11:52And we know that children thrive within the context of communities and their families.
11:59Our work consists of looking at inequities in systems and institutions that care for our children.
12:11And we know that when these inequities exist, outcomes for children and families are not quality outcomes.
12:21But we also know that as we improve these systems and address these inequities, that every child can thrive.
12:33We know that the way to dismantle these inequities is to begin to unpack and look at the systems very deeply.
12:44And we look at systems of health, economic equity, and education.
12:54Today, we're going to talk about the education system.
12:59And it's an interesting timing as we're reflecting on the Supreme Court decision yesterday, which, as we believe, takes us back on our efforts to provide quality and equity within the education system.
13:20But this will not deter us.
13:22But this will not deter us.
13:23We're going to continue to move forward.
13:25And in fact, we're learning solutions that work.
13:30And we will continue to create those pathways for our young people and for children of color.
13:38So today, as we talk about the pathway forward to dismantling inequitable systems and creating an education system for all of our children, I am honored to have with me today someone who is helping in this space to build broader awareness around what's actually happening in our education systems.
14:06Through the eyes of educators and those who are doing the work day to day on the ground.
14:15So today, I'm going to introduce you to a great partner of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Tyler James Williams.
14:29We know that Tyler, through his portrayal of Gregory on Abbott Elementary, that he gives us a picture of what our education system looks like today for children.
14:56And they show us the challenges.
14:59And they also show us the creativity of our teachers and the providers within this system who do all they can to improve the lives and outcomes for our children.
15:11So Tyler and I are going to talk about our personal experiences with the education system, our professional experiences, and what's happening day to day as Tyler encounters these systems and portrays them on Abbott Elementary.
15:30So I'm going to start out with just a question to anchor us.
15:35And Tyler, I just want to ask you, when you think about your early educational experience, what made an impression on you as it relates to early care in your life and how did that form your understanding and your encounter with the education system?
15:57Hello.
16:00I feel like, for me, the beginning of my educational journey started at home.
16:07My mother was a really big advocate for us, me and my brothers and I.
16:12And she became a very active part of advocating for us in our school system to the point where at one point, as we transitioned into working in the industry, she made the choice to homeschool us and become the first line of defense when it came to making sure that we were properly educated and advocating for our ability to maintain our education, even in the midst of an industry that didn't necessarily prioritize it.
16:38So for me, a lot of it did start at home.
16:43That's wonderful.
16:45Now, I heard that you are the ninth out of 10 children.
16:52That's correct.
16:53God bless your mother.
16:54Yes.
16:55How did that affect your ability to relate to the education industry?
17:01And how do you think that that upbringing affects how you see kids today?
17:06Absolutely, yes.
17:08I say I was homeschooled as well.
17:11But there was no formal homeschool curriculum then.
17:14It was my sister, who was five years older than I was, who would go to school every day and come home and teach me everything she learned.
17:23So I had a very quality early childhood education.
17:27And that same sister today is a teacher and is actually a preschool teacher and prepares thousands of children to enter the K-12 system in very productive and prepared ways.
17:42So let's go to Abbott Elementary.
17:46And as you can see here, we all love this show and we praise the writing and the narrative that comes through when we watch this show.
18:02And it's just a wonderful reflection of teachers, people of color, educators, the LGBTQ community.
18:10And Tyler, let's talk a little bit about the episodes and the moments that have resonated with you the most as you think about the depiction of the education system through Abbott Elementary.
18:25Did anything surprise you about the current state of education or anything that reminded you about your own experience?
18:35I think I was definitely shocked by how little resources the teachers in the educational system have and how difficult it was for them to obtain support.
18:50It was one of the things that came up in our pilot episode, which, you know, whenever you do a pilot, it establishes the arc of the series.
18:56And I very quickly began to realize that this was going to be a recurring theme that would come up for our show.
19:02And as it did, I heard feedback from people who watched the show that that was a recurring theme in teachers' actual lives.
19:11So that was incredibly shocking to me.
19:14And it was one of the reasons why I felt it so important to not just entertain people and to have a way to make light of this and start the conversation, but then hopefully continue the conversation and affect change, because it should not be that difficult to educate the next generation.
19:30Exactly.
19:31Exactly.
19:32And Tyler, I want to reflect on a quote that you made.
19:37You said that Gregory, your character, is an amalgamation of all the men in your life, and they set the standard for you for manhood.
19:49So talk a little bit about what you want the audience to see when they connect with Gregory.
19:58And why is it important for kids to see a black man in the role, a teacher, as Gregory plays on Abbott Elementary?
20:09I think that's precisely it.
20:12I think black men, oftentimes, our narrative is created for us by the media, by the press, by all of it.
20:22And a lot of times that narrative shows us as bereft in educating and supporting the next generation.
20:29That is not the grouping of black men that I grew up with.
20:32My father was very involved in my life and in the lives of those in my community.
20:37My grandfather was as well.
20:39My uncles were as well.
20:40And I feel like it's part of my job is to represent that and show a difference from what is oftentimes portrayed.
20:48Because I think the more we see it, the more we can create that reality.
20:53So that's where that quote comes from.
20:56Absolutely.
20:57Yes.
20:58Yes.
20:59And really, that's the beauty behind the entire show, Abbott Elementary.
21:06It's really bringing reality and showing us how we're impacting our children every day unless we address these systems that continue to create disparate experiences for children and impact our children of color mostly.
21:26Now, one of the things that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation does is it addresses equity in the early lives of children and childcare.
21:37And I think it's something that a lot of people don't really focus on.
21:40And it was one of the things I found the most interesting.
21:43Can you explain a little bit what that means and what the foundation does in influencing the lives of children earlier than most people would anticipate?
21:52Absolutely.
21:53And, you know, our work is about the entire development cycle of a child.
21:59So when we talk about early childhood education and development, it's from zero.
22:05It's age zero.
22:06It's prenatal.
22:07And it definitely looks at those early years prior to entering the K-12 system.
22:14And, again, when I reflect on Abbott Elementary and you think about the resources that it really requires to prepare a child and you see the reality of the lack of those resources and what our teachers and what our caregivers must do.
22:34What we know is in early childhood, our providers are underpaid.
22:39They're not well prepared.
22:41We saw this during the pandemic.
22:44We saw how people who give the best and earliest care to our children left to seek unemployment because it was a better wage than what they were paid to care for our youngest children.
22:59And those are the kind of inequities that we at the Kellogg Foundation want to address.
23:06We're trying to professionalize early care so that our providers can begin a career that is a quality job and it values their contributions to the development of a child.
23:22And that's the work that's needed across the system.
23:29So, Tyler, as we think about the children and the impression that Abbott Elementary has on the children, what do you want the children to see as they encounter the show?
23:47And what should they experience as they're going through education?
23:52I think first and foremost that they're cared about.
23:56I think when you have a school system that does not supply their needs, what you send the message is that they do not matter.
24:07And that permeates throughout their lives.
24:10They feel as if their voices do that matter.
24:12Then they don't know how to advocate for themselves.
24:14And I think ultimately it leads to where we are currently, where a bunch of people are not feeling like they can be active participants in our political system, active participants in their communities, that they can't advocate for the children in their communities.
24:30It doesn't just start at adulthood.
24:32It starts at a child level.
24:34And when you consistently tell people that they do not matter, eventually they begin to realize that.
24:40So hopefully what this show can do is show that there are teachers and people every day who actively care about them, who choose the field even when it's not glamorous, when it barely provides for their needs, that they are cared for.
24:55We should make that easier.
24:56It shouldn't be that way.
24:58But hopefully they can see that they are loved and cared for and hopefully will then lead to creating more of them leading into the next field.
25:06We have to invite children into the field of education.
25:10That's the only way we get more black teachers.
25:14Absolutely.
25:16And before we close, I spoke earlier of the Supreme Court decision as it relates to affirmative action.
25:27And what we know at the Kellogg Foundation is when we think about inequities, this could have an impact on higher education and beyond that will maybe take us backwards as it relates to
25:45filling the gaps of inequities and providing opportunities for all young people to thrive.
25:54So when you think about the reality of Abbott Elementary, and I say, you know, part of racial equity is racial healing.
26:04And part of racial healing is truth telling.
26:07And Abbott Elementary is about truth telling.
26:11And so when we think about where people are on the issue of affirmative action, how do you hope Abbott Elementary will spark the conversation around the challenges that we are facing in schools moving forward?
26:29I hope that it changes the conversation from a political conversation to a human conversation.
26:38We're not just talking about applications.
26:41We're not just talking about schools and politicians.
26:43We're talking about people.
26:45We're talking about human beings who are seeking a higher education to better their lives.
26:50And oftentimes we make this a political issue and it's actively a human issue.
26:55And I think that's something that we miss.
26:57And hopefully Abbott Elementary can continue to remind people of the human side of the education system, not just this political sparring.
27:06But while we're on the topic of affirmative action, I think what a lot of people are feeling right now, including myself, is this sense of helplessness.
27:16Right?
27:17That this is just happening and there's not much that we can do about it.
27:21But you have actively been in this field.
27:23You have been pioneering in this field for so many years.
27:27What, in your opinion, do you feel we as individuals, as people who care about this, can do to actively affect the change that we want to see?
27:38Absolutely.
27:39And there is much that we must do.
27:43Our work continues in this space.
27:45We are going to be steadfast.
27:47But there's a place for every last one of us to step up, to be engaged, to advocate for our young people.
27:56Whether we have a young person in school or not, we must be their champions for quality education.
28:05When we think about the Supreme Court ruling, we know that it only gives us a space for creativity and creating new pathways.
28:17I look at it and I think about what a great position it puts our HBCUs in.
28:24Yes.
28:25It is time to elevate.
28:29It is time to invest in the institutions that truly care to produce the outcomes we know are needed for our children and young people to thrive.
28:43We can all be a part of that.
28:45We also know that this is an opportunity for us to be creative, for us to be bold.
28:51Narrative is key because I believe that as I hear the debate around affirmative action, many people are misunderstood.
29:01They aren't clear.
29:02They don't understand.
29:04They can't really address the practices.
29:07But this is a moment for us to be very clear and to have narrative and for all of us to understand what that practice is about.
29:18How we can build equity into it.
29:21How we are not advantaging people of color.
29:25We are actually correcting long disparities of disadvantage.
29:30And as people understand that, I think there can be a great place in a conversation to advance the practices that truly create equity within our education system.
29:42I think a lot of times people in the argument about affirmative action see it as an unfair leg up.
29:51Exactly.
29:52That's something that gets lost in the conversation a lot.
29:55What, in your opinion, are ways that we can redirect that conversation to be more productive and that we get less tied up in the semantics of what it represents and the inequities that we deal with?
30:09Yeah.
30:10A lot of our work, again, starts with what we call racial healing.
30:16You don't get to racial equity without going through the healing process.
30:22And racial healing is about truth telling.
30:25It's about connecting people through our common humanity.
30:30It's a space where you can build trust and have trusting relationships where you can have these conversations.
30:37Because we haven't had these conversations.
30:40We've been divided.
30:42And we see how we haven't had spaces where our humanity comes together in a way where we can have conversations to gain a shared understanding.
30:54That's what our work is at the Kellogg Foundation.
30:58But in some ways, I think Avid Elementary has been a space for healing.
31:04It has created that conversation.
31:07And your legacy and this work will provide a space for people to dialogue around these issues.
31:14And people may see the comedic side of it or they may see the humanistic side of it.
31:20But the narrative there is what we need to continue this journey.
31:23And I think that was really the intent behind the work.
31:27And I think that's what you continue to share every day in this work.
31:32Absolutely.
31:33I hope that people can continue to see that inequity in education doesn't start at the collegiate level.
31:41It starts at the elementary level.
31:44We shouldn't have to wait until you're putting in a college application to be concerned about where you'll be able to get a quality education.
31:52That should start in utero beforehand.
31:55And that's what I love about what the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is doing.
31:59It's starting at age zero.
32:01Thank you, Tyler.
32:02And our work, the stories continue on everychildthrives.org.
32:08Please join us there to continue this conversation.
32:12And I thank you so much, Tyler Williams.
32:15We love your work.
32:49So niggas can catch red
32:50I'm the motherfucker grip of the mic like it's a joke
32:53Niggas fall in love with the music like it's a hoe
32:56Put down your mic, you lost your whole role
32:58You take it too seriously like it's a gamble
33:01Fuck this rap shit, I listen to classical
33:03In the studio, new ass, usual
33:06Love it, my lyrical
33:07Fuck bitches that you would know
33:09I'm outta this, cause you wanna be below
33:11Niggas in love with the S
33:13Y'all niggas in love with the S
33:16Stop
33:17Don't fall in love
33:22Things you do
33:27Don't sell, don't sell
33:30To fall in love
33:32Things you do
33:37Yeah, JD, man, I shoot some times
33:39I sit and wonder when I think about these written rhymes
33:42How'd I get to the point constantly taking all my time
33:45Time I could've been spending game cash
33:46Time I could've been spending game cash
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