e049. Empowering Students with Kelly Yiadom

Including You Interview with Kelly Yiadom

Full Interview Transcript

Voiceover Announcer:

This is Including You, the new series from Lead at Any level. Including You features stories from chief diversity officers and other executives who are creating inclusive cultures in their organizations. Our goal is to show what’s working in companies just like yours, to give you the tools you need to keep pushing for progress in your own workplace. We want to create belonging and opportunity for everyone including you. And now here’s your host, Amy C. Waninger.

Amy C. Waninger:

Welcome back to Including You. I’m Amy C. Waninger, the Inclusion Catalyst. My guest today is Kelly Yiadom. She’s the Director of Equity, Justice, and Belonging at Westtown Lower and Middle School of Westtown School. Westtown is steadfast in their commitment to developing intelligent, reflective, extraordinarily prepared and deeply ethical human beings with an expansive and inclusive worldview and to help them find their passions. Westtown School serves about 700 students from pre-K to grade 12. Kelly’s focus is on the lower and middle school divisions. Kelly, welcome to the show. Thank

Kelly Yiadom:

You so much for having me, Amy. I really appreciate it.

Amy C. Waninger:

I am so excited to talk to you because I think I mentioned to you before, I’ve talked to folks in higher ed, but I believe you’re my first guest in the traditional school environment and the fact that you at a private school, that’s also partially a boarding school is just fascinating to me. Can you tell me a little bit more, just give me some context around the school environment that you serve.

Kelly Yiadom:

First of all, thank you for having me and I am completely honored to be your first guest in the K-12 sector, and I’m extremely excited to talk about what’s happening at Westtown. Westtown, as you said, is a pre-K to 12 boarding school. And let me clarify, the boarding school is really 9th through 12th grades. It also serves as a day school, so students who opt to be day students may do that, but what’s really special about our school is we serve international students. We have students from all over the world that could go anywhere and have chosen Westtown, and I believe that’s for many reasons. One, we are a friend’s school, so that means we’re a Quaker school. We rely heavily on our Quaker values and as Quakers, we’re … Many Quakers, not all but many Quakers were abolitionists and social justice and being upstanders and standing up for what is right is really at the core of our school’s values and mission.

In addition to that, we have a very family oriented school. So many of the faculty and some of the staff live on campus with the students, and so they serve as dorm parents. And so that just provides I think an even deeper bond and connection with someone that you know is caring for you at night, but also during the day is your teacher, your educator, making sure that you are gaining knowledge and having access to global thinking and really the best of what it means to be a good human being. So it’s an extremely special place.

This is my third year there and I really do feel like I’m a part of a family and that is essential on so many levels, not only for students, but for people who work there or for people who work at any place. You are going to get the best out of an employee when they feel that they are cared for. That is when engagement increases. That is when commitment increases. And so work in a sense doesn’t feel like work because you know that at the end of the day someone is caring for who you are as a person. So it is truly a unique and special place.

Amy C. Waninger:

Now is the focus of your work on students or on staff or a mix of both?

Kelly Yiadom:

So the focus of my work is what I really call the village. My focus supports students, families, alum, colleagues, and really any community member that is at Westtown. Again, when you are connecting this work, when you’re connecting equity, justice and belonging to every member in the community, that is when the work can actually come into fruition. That is actually what moves the work forward. And so we have invested a lot of time in equity, justice and belonging, not only during our in-service days when we are working on professional development. But also at the beginning of the year, at the end of the year and all throughout the year at our faculty meetings, we invest almost an hour each month on equity, justice and belonging.

Amy C. Waninger:

And so what does that look like in practical terms? Can you walk us through what that hour of your meeting looks like or what specifically you’re doing to move the needle in this space for your campus?

Kelly Yiadom:

Sure. It really varies. A lot of times at the beginning of the year, our sessions are longer. We might have about 90 minutes or more. And so that’s actually an opportunity for us to just start connecting as people, tell us something about yourself, tell us a story, tell us about a tradition. And really the work that we’re doing is work that we can model or do in our own classrooms. So what I’m working and collaborating with my colleagues is something they can really take back with them so it’s not done in a silo. So a lot of times it’s like starting out with who we are as people. And then we might go into something a little deeper around the professional development aspect, which for example, this year we are studying Dr. Gholdy Mohammed’s frameworks, and that is really how you develop a lesson or how you develop curriculum that is just not solely focused on skills. Skills obviously are at the center of a lot of what we do. We want our students to go into this world proficiently and in the area of skills, but also who we are as people.

So her framework also encompasses identity, not only who are you, but who are the people all around you. It also focuses on intellectualism. So not only are you gaining this knowledge, but what are you doing with that knowledge? It focuses on criticality, which is really the questioning aspect. So learning how to question, to think about what you’re being taught, not just literally taking the information as is, but being able to synthesize that information and process it and say, what does this mean to me? What does this mean to me as an individual? What does this mean to me as an individual in this community that’s a part of a community?

In addition to that joy. Joy, there’s happiness in learning. Again, that piece is you’re going to get buy-in and engagement from students when they feel happy about what they’re doing, when they’re connected to the people that are doing the work and to the work that they’re studying. I feel like I’m missing one of the frameworks, but this is all based on Black literary societies that obviously are still in existence today. But a lot of times when we talk about Black history, we talk about the oppressive side of Black history. That is one part of the narrative, but there’s also a part of people who serve their community that understood that knowledge is power and that literacy is a part of how you push back against policies and laws and things that people are saying should happen when they really should not, when it’s really working against human rights and civil rights.

And so Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s frameworks really stem from that and have really blossomed into this framework that teachers can now look at a lesson in a more holistic manner and something that really encompasses more than just skills. So students are coming away with a fuller perspective and a fuller learning opportunity and really being prepared to go out into the world. And I always think about it like this. I’m from New York City, so there’s built in just culture, but every turn of, I grew up in Manhattan, I took the train to school, there’s just built in … When I’m coming home, my neighborhood’s Dominican, I can go to my church, which is in Harlem, which is mostly Black. I can go to this and go East Harlem, which is filled with mostly Puerto Rican people. And so there’s just this constant exposure that if you live in a community where there’s not constant exposure, you have a very limited, or you could have a very limited worldview if your family is not intentional about making sure you have those exposure opportunities.

And so that’s really what these frameworks do. They allow us to expand the way we think and truly prepare our students so that when they go into the world, when they go into their first year of college, it’s not the first time that they’ve heard Ramadan, or Eid, or eaten all different types of food. They are really entering with this amazing worldview because that is at the center of what Westtown does. And that is an example of something we might do. And then we continue that all throughout the year in addition to me weaving in other conversations, what is an inclusive classroom look like? How are we establishing a strong sense of belonging amongst our students? And a lot of reflective opportunities working together. So that’s what that looks like in that framework.

But in addition to that, there’s just also the coaching mentor aspect, collaborative aspect. I really look at my colleagues as partners really who can come to me with anything. “Kelly, I have a question about this lesson. I have a question about this curriculum. I have a question about engaging with a particular family. I want to make sure I’m saying the right thing.” And so there are those opportunities as well. It really is a fluid process that I think that I know benefits our students and our families.

Amy C. Waninger:

There was so much in what you said that I want to just dive in on and ask you follow up questions about. I want to start with this notion of critical thinking in the classroom because I think in a lot of classrooms around the country, we’re still in a model of memorize and regurgitate. Our classrooms not as much maybe as 20, 30 years ago, but are still very much gearing people toward a manufacturing kind of society where you learn, you repeat, you move to the next thing, you learn and repeat. And this notion of critical thinking, not just about the content that you’re presenting but about the content that’s missing, the perspectives that might be missing from a body of work or the people who are left out of the narrative, I think is so critical to teach young children because that sets them up then for later in life, drawing those connections, connecting those dots and seeing who’s missing from public discourse, whose perspectives are not represented in laws, whose voices are being left out of critical decisions and why.

And then I think there was even an activism component in that, what you were saying around the intellectualism, not just what do you know, but what are you going to do with what you know? Are you seeing students disproportionately come out of Westtown engaged in not necessarily public policy work, but more active and more engaged as citizens than maybe some of the schools around you?

Kelly Yiadom:

I’m going to be honest in that I can’t truly speak to what our alum are doing. That is honestly a question I would have to go to our admissions department or even our alum department and say, “What are our Westtown grads doing?” I know they’re doing great things, but that’s a great question that now you’re going to make me go back to my job and say, “I want to know what Westtown grads are doing.” I’m going to guess, especially having attended Swarthmore College, which is also a Quaker school and I know a lot of Swarthmore grads come out of Swarthmore doing very people-centered change maker work. So I believe that is what’s happening as well with our Westtown grads. Only because I know what’s happening all along the years, it behooves students to say, “When I go out into this world, I go out into this world to leave it better than it was.” But you’re going to make me now do some homework.

Amy C. Waninger:

I don’t know whether to say I’m sorry or you’re welcome.

Kelly Yiadom:

No, listen, it’s good to be knowledgeable. And I think that’s a great question. What I can say, what I could speak to is what our students are doing now and what our students are empowered to do. I think that’s really at the center of this is our students are empowered from the littlest ones all the way up into the seniors to make change. And for example, we have a student that said, “I want to see more Asian representation in our curriculum, and in our conversations, and on our walls.” And we, and she and her mother, we’ve been on a quest to see what this looks like. So just yesterday I walked into the lower school building and I smell this amazing smell of dumplings being prepared with the second graders. And this was something that this fourth grade student brought to our principal and said, “Listen, I want to see more of me. I want more mirrors of Asian culture for me. I don’t want to feel like I’m not being seen.” And so that is something she felt empowered to do, to know she can go somewhere and make that shift.

I know her teacher in addition to that, did an author study with Grace Lynn to really highlight the power of voices around Asian culture. And so there’s just this constant movement and shift in making sure that there are mirrors and windows for our students. We had a student reach out and say, “I want our community to be more diligent about recycling.” We aren’t recycling properly. And so literally reached out to the teachers, no hesitation. “Hey, can I set up a meeting with you? I’d love to come to the middle school.” And I think, I believe this is a ninth grader. “I’d like to come to the middle school and really talk to the teachers and the students about how they can be better stewards of recycling.” And that again is in our Quaker values. We believe in sustainability. We believe in protecting our Earth.

So the fact that students are constantly at the helm of change right here in their school only creates that mindset to go out into the world to do that same thing. And that’s just like a snippet of what’s happening. I run a social justice group and these students have all selected issues about which they’re passionate. These are middle schoolers. And so some students are talking about racism connected to police brutality. Some students are talking about homelessness, but specifically connected to homelessness and disabilities. We have students talking about climate change and what that means. But not only have they done their research, they are also putting together like a call to action.

So they’re basically preparing something for their peers to do in order to enact this change. And so they’ve done their research and now they’re going to put together, either they’re going to do an interview, a panel discussion or a news report, we’ll film them, and then we’ll put that out into the middle school. We have a lobby with a TV where that can be played. But we also have these video periods where students will be able to see the work of their peers. So this is constant. I see a need and I can do something. I’m empowered in this space to do something about it. It is truly incredible.

Amy C. Waninger:

This makes me want to go back to school. I can’t imagine having that experience as a child. I was raised, take up a little space, less than that, a little bit less than that. And the fact that you’ve got a fourth grade girl coming to you and saying, “No, I want to be in all these spaces” and just pushing out and making space for herself and for others to see her and her culture represented is incredible. And then this notion that these kids can bring forth ideas and create change and are encouraged to do so and not told to sit down and be quiet or told to wait their turn or that it’s not their problem. This is incredible society changing work you’re doing.

Kelly Yiadom:

And Amy, I really want to lift up that it’s work we are doing. I can only do this with the community that surrounds me. What I’m sharing with you is a small, literally as you’re saying, I’m like, oh, I have to talk about my colleague who went to a workshop this summer on learning about the Lenni Lenape and not only the culture but their language. And she started a project with her students to gather rocks around our campus and students have painted these rocks and added Lenni Lenape language on these rocks to be permanent displays on our campus, to lift up the Lenni Lenape on whose land we sit. This is a constant conversation. We’re talking about how you talk about social justice in math. A lot of times we think that equity, justice and belonging belongs in the humanities. No, it is essential to everything that we do. And so it exists in STEM, it exists in humanities, it exists in all the spaces. And that is something I’m truly proud of because it’s not something we just talk about. It’s something we do.

And I’ll give you another example. A lot of times, like I said, I’m in collaboration with a lot of different departments. I work with our admissions committee and every now and then I’ll get a note or a thank you from a prospective family. And it is always, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe what I saw on these walls. I saw during Hispanic Heritage Month, the faculty, the Hispanic faculty and staff being represented and celebrated on the walls. For Día de los Muertos, I saw an [foreign language 00:17:57] celebrating ancestors.” This is constantly happening. We had prospective parents who were told about the school from another set of parents who walked in and were almost at tears because of the Lunar New year decorations that they saw. Our parents came in and literally just, I’m at a loss for words. Our lobby has lanterns and a lion and oranges for good luck and all the symbols and traditions of the Lunar New year. And these parents were like, “Oh my goodness, what they told us is real. This is real.”

And sometimes it’s tricky because you can sometimes see all the decorations, but there’s nothing behind it. It’s very surface. There’s something behind our decor. There’s something behind what we see. So not only did we have all this decor, we had 10 parents come in and run sessions on Lunar New Year, on Chinese New Year, on Korean New Year for each of our grades, pre-K through five. For Chinese New Year, it’s also referred to as Spring Festival. Our students in pre-K are learning this. It’s truly incredible. And honestly, it should be the way of all schools. It should not be the exception. It should not be unique. It should not be special. It should just be what we do. But I know that’s not happening everywhere. And so I’m really proud of what Westtown is doing.

Amy C. Waninger:

Absolutely. Oh my goodness, I feel like this needs to be a coffee table book of the photos of the decorations and the celebrations and the blocks. It would just be amazing to have a project yearbook for the school of all of these initiatives that are happening that you could memorialize and then replicate elsewhere because it is so important that all students feel valued, all students feel seen, all students have their perspectives represented, and can hear, and learn about their own culture and share that freely with others. And you’re right, that doesn’t happen in every school. What you’re doing is truly extraordinary, the collective you.

Kelly Yiadom:

The collective. Yeah. And I’ll give you another example. I know there’s so much, I just want to give you this one because it’s so precious. So I collaborated with our primary circle teachers to teach about melanin. We teach about melanin so that students can understand that our skin color is a scientific matter and that race is a social construct. It’s something that humans have built. And so yesterday we have students holding out their hands of all different shades after we talked about ancestors. And your ancestors often determine what your skin color looks like and that people whose ancestors live closer to the equator have darker skin or more melanin in their skin. And people who live further away from the equator and obviously have less melanin, but obviously there’s a spectrum. And then we also have students that are adopted and we have to help them also figure out what does this mean for you and what your skin tone means?

And so you have to think about every student in your building. And a lot of times, and I think historically we’ve taught to the majority. It’s just easier to teach to the people that are represented the most. But then we’re losing something. Not only are we losing something for the underrepresented students, we’re losing something for the students who are represented more because they too need windows into the lives of other people. The thing that’s central is we’re all different. We are all different. We all bring differences to table. There is not one person that is the same. And so just being able to celebrate skin color, I think about my own childhood and how I attended a predominantly white school and K to six, I was the only Black student in my grade. Can you imagine? The only Black student in my grade.

And while I came from just a very loving home where I think just having that love made me feel supported and okay, there’s nothing like going in and not seeing anyone who looks like you. Not a teacher, not a student, no one. And so I wish someone was telling me to look at my brown skin and to say how beautiful it was. I wish there was someone to tell me, “Oh, your curly hair is amazing.” I wish there was somebody lifting … I wish there were a me or a teacher, like I said, all my partners who get that, who know to tell my daughter, “Oh, I love your hair. It’s so pretty. It’s so curly. Oh, I love your skin. It’s so beautiful and smooth.” Those things matter. And as much as people don’t think about it, these experiences last into our adulthood. And so if we can shape the experiences of these children to see themselves in a positive light and to have self-love from this age, do you know how powerful that is? Because when you have self-love, you also love others easily, easier.

Amy C. Waninger:

Yes.

Kelly Yiadom:

And when you have self-love, you want to make a difference because you’ve got, I think, my husband and I always talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If you’ve got those basic needs met, you can move on to the higher part of that hierarchy. You can move on. But if you’re constantly focused on, I’m not beautiful enough, this society tells me that I have to be this size, I have to be this color and my hair has to be this way. When you’re always dealing with that, you can’t do anything outside of yourself. So we really want to build up these students to be their best selves, to believe in themselves, to love themselves.

Amy C. Waninger:

You’re reminding me of the notion of you can’t pour from an empty cup. And people talk about that a lot of times in terms of energy, but not nearly as often about things like love. And if you are constantly seeking love, it is hard to give it to others. But it sounds like your students’ cups are overflowing, making it very easy to show.

Kelly Yiadom:

I hope so. We are constantly checking in. We have belongingness surveys. We are constantly assessing because the other thing is you can’t get comfortable. You can’t say, “Oh, I did this.” This is not a box check job or position. This is a constant evaluation, constant reflection. What are we doing well? And what can we do differently? What can we do better? So we always just have to be on about spaces that we can improve. And I think a lot of times, not just schools but businesses, a lot of people can get into the box check, all right, I did this workshop, I read this book, I had this conversation, I’m good. This is ongoing work, it never ends. And as long as that is a consistent focus, then we’re always going to be winning in terms of supporting our students and families. And I think that’s really critical.

Amy C. Waninger:

And I like the way you look at this as it’s ongoing work. The work is never done, but it doesn’t mean that we’re lacking something. It means we have so much to celebrate along the way in terms of the progress that we are making, in terms of the steps that we are taking and the ongoing work allows us to celebrate even more.

Kelly Yiadom:

Absolutely. Think about it like any habit that we built for you. If you decide that you want to go to the gym and you want to be fit in a particular way, you don’t get to the place you want to be and say, “Okay, I’m done working out now.” You maintain, you keep working out, you change it, you’re constantly assessing what you need to do and I attribute that to anything. You need to have constant focus, reflection, discussion. It needs to be happening all the time. And so again, I think that’s why we’re having some success in this space is because we are not stagnant in this work.

One of the things I want to mention too is I work with a full team of EJB practitioners. So there’s a me in the upper school and then we have a dean that oversees all three divisions who’s more outward facing to our administrative council, our board of trustees doing training with them. So again, you can see that this work is going even outside of the people who are in Westtown. We need to make sure everybody understands this work. So to have three people, three full-time people focused on this in a school, really, it’s not commonplace.

Amy C. Waninger:

It’s incredible. And I am so glad that you are there doing this work and I’m so glad that I was able to have you on the show to amplify this incredible progress that you’re making, the incredible initiatives, student-driven initiatives in large part that your school is involved in. Kelly, thank you so much.

Kelly Yiadom:

Thank you, Amy. I really appreciate it. I just want to take a moment to thank all the people I work with. You fill my cup. I have to say this because I truly, I really could come to tears. I could not do this work without that community and I am incredibly grateful. I’m grateful for the people I work with, my team, my colleagues, head of school, everyone who was invested in this and said, “This matters. This is important.” And so thank you for having me. Thank you for allowing me to celebrate Westtown. I’m truly grateful.

Amy C. Waninger:

You’re getting me now.

Kelly Yiadom:

Amy [inaudible 00:27:04] you can.

Amy C. Waninger:

Thank you so much. Kelly, thank you so much for just being so open and your enthusiasm and your energy, I’m sure just from what I’ve seen, I’m sure is as appreciated by your colleagues as you appreciate them.

Kelly Yiadom:

Thanks so much Amy, I appreciate it.

Voiceover Announcer:

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, follow Lead at Any Level on LinkedIn and YouTube, then join us for Including You video simulcast every Thursday at Noon Eastern. Including You can also be enjoyed each week as part of the Living Corporate Audio Podcast Series available on all major podcast platforms. Learn more at living-corporate.com. Including You is brought to you in part by Lead at Any Level, a boutique training and consulting firm improving employee engagement and retention for companies that promote from within. Lead at Any Level, leaders can be anywhere and should be everywhere. Learn more at leadatanylevel.com. Lead at Any Level in its logo are registered trademarks of Lead at Any Level, LLC. The views and opinions of guests on our show do not necessarily reflect the positions of Lead at Any Level, Living Corporate or the sponsors of Including You.

Amy C. Waninger:

That’s it for this week’s episode of Including You. Be sure to join me next week when my guests will be Dr. Gina [inaudible 00:28:19] and Marcos Navarro Garcia of Aspire, Indiana Health.