Yolanda Abel, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, will deliver the closing keynote during the 2024 SAIS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Institute in Atlanta. She will speak on how everyone’s journey is unique, but ideally we cross paths and/or work together as we engage in our reason, season, or lifetime of DEIJBA-focused work. She will share how honoring our path and the paths of others can help us build coalitions and utilize our collective wisdom and efforts to achieve our goals across the DEIJBA spectrum.

Diversity at its most elemental can be defined as difference. As humans we are all diverse, yet the term diversity may be one of the most divisive terms in current times. Why? Usually, because we as a people are using diversity as a code word for something we may not want to say for fear of not being viewed as politically correct or culturally competent.

As we travel our path, how do we embrace the difference of diversity and use it to build stronger relationships and partnerships to help us achieve our goals, whatever they may be? In this instance I am referring to some of our loftier goals, such as a quality educational experience for all learners. However, for me that big goal is achieved through our collective smaller goals. What do I mean by this?

I am an educator. It is quintessentially who I am at my core. My desire is to help people identify their goals and the best pathway for them to achieve them. I view myself as a connector and the mobius strip is a visual representation of how I see my journey and every human’s journey as our paths cross or run parallel for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. We intersect at various points along our respective pathways and each of us gives and receives something that makes us a better person and contributes to the larger loftier goal, in this case a quality educational experience for all learners.

Each of us has come into the profession of education at different times in our lives and through various pathways. There is no one size fits all. Yet, most of us most likely share similar experiences as we prepared to enter the profession or while we stay actively engaged as lifelong learners. One of my memorable experiences, as I took classes to earn my certification, and as I taught human development, learning, and diversity courses to in-service teachers, was that of the teaching metaphor. Take a moment and think about your educational pathway; does it contain a similar activity like the teaching metaphor? If so, what was yours? Is it still relevant today? Why or why not? If not, take a moment and think about what a teaching metaphor might be for you today and why? Some of you may be thinking I am an administrator, a coach, a counselor and not a teacher. I asked you to think about a teaching metaphor, not a teacher identity metaphor. Most of those roles have an element of teaching embedded within them. I am using the verb of teaching and not the noun and of the many definitions of teaching that the Oxford dictionary lists I am drawn to, “causing someone to learn something by example or experience.”  Most of us do this daily, consciously, or unconsciously.

My teaching metaphor is one of a candle. I created it over 30 years ago and it still stands true for me today. It has been my lifetime. It is okay if yours has been a reason or a season. Each of us has a different purpose to fulfill to interweave a collective tapestry that supports all learners receiving a quality educational experience. I struggled with this assignment in one of the classes I took to earn my master’s and be eligible for certification. Why did I struggle with this assignment? It comes back to diversity and all the things we often think, but rarely say when we use the word diverse.

I identify as a Black woman. I grew up in a major metropolitan city on the East Coast. My parents are from small towns in the South and were a part of the movement often referred to as the Great Migration in U.S. history books. So, as I had this assignment, I wanted my candle to be visually represented as white. That was such a loaded thought for me. In this country, white is often perceived as right, good, angelic, clean, and mostly positive attributes compared to black. How could I as a Black woman want my candle to be white? It was a source of much angst for me as I contemplated how to convey my teaching metaphor.

In the end my candle was white, partially because it can be hard to undo years of formalized education and conditioning, but the idea of white as a beginning and a sense of peace was what I wanted to convey about teaching and how I saw my role as a connector. My white candle was lit and had yellow/orange flames to represent optimism, imagination, and joy, which is how I view teaching and learning. The fire also represented illumination and destruction; the inner and the outer as shown in a mobius strip. I see learning as helping us to understand what might have been previously unknown about ourselves and the world (an inner critical reflection of how we move in the world) and destroying what we thought of as known (think about traditional stereotypes and almost any ism) as we evolve and act in the present, while laying the foundation for the future.

Last, but not least, my candle has pieces of wax dribbling down its sides and pooling at its base. Why? I see myself as a connector; you often lose pieces of yourself as you give to others, which is why personalized self-care is so important. It is important to nurture our inner self, so that our outer self can be receptive as we connect with others to accomplish our work. We have a finite amount of time on earth and the wax on the sides is symbolic of the passage of time and the burning of my candle or the igniting of other’s love of teaching and learning and being a steppingstone on someone else’s educational journey. Once my candle is extinguished the remaining wax could be combined with other remaining pieces of wax and the process could begin again. Illustrating the mobius strip, there is no ending or beginning; it is a continuation of the circle of life and the process of teaching, learning, and living. 

What is your teaching metaphor?
What is your goal?
How are you contributing to a quality educational experience for all learners?

The candle described above was my class assignment, but it did not quite sit well with me still, because my candle was white and all the associated baggage of the terms black and white in the United States. As I did a similar activity with my graduate students that I called a cultural autobiography instead of a teaching metaphor I made changes to what started as my teaching metaphor. I identify as Black and as a child of parents who came of age in the 60’s in a Southern state in the U.S. Being Black was and is a core part of my identity. In the cultural autobiography version of my teaching metaphor, I added a black base as my foundation, and I bordered it with red and green. It was a visual representation of the African American flag.

The African American flag was created to represent people of the African Diaspora and to symbolize Black liberation in the U.S. The period of enslavement in the U.S. means most people who identify as African American cannot trace their linage to a particular country, the way most, though not all people who can be identified as White can, so this was an effort to codify the connection and think about how powerful symbols are in our learning. This flag consists of three equal horizontal bands colored red, black, and green. Black was my base since it represents the people who identify as Black and connects us to our ancestors and all Black people throughout the world; that grounds me. Red symbolizes the blood of Black people, both in terms of what gives us life and in terms of the blood that has been shed in our quest for liberation, which has included movements to achieve a quality educational experience. Green symbolizes the vibrant natural wealth of the continent of Africa. This foundational piece supports that burning white candle. As this was now a cultural autobiography, I also had symbols like a red apple, to signify my identity as a New Yorker, a picture of my daughter to show the continuation of my lineage and my role as a mother. There was also a picture of an ocean to show the vastness and wonder of the world and one of my happy places and a plane as I often must travel to reach some of my favorite places near an ocean. These are some of the key symbols of my pathways and I have connected with many for a reason, a season, or a lifetime during my journey of teaching and learning.

As you reflect on your own educational journey, who have you connected with? Who do you desire to connect with? Being Black was and is a central component of my identity and is still at my core, but there are many facets to my being (think about intersectionality), but my work is still very much steeped in providing quality educational experiences for Black and Brown learners across the age spans. However, I do that by working with all people, a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Sometimes my work is with educators, novice or seasoned, White or People of Color; sometimes directly with P-12 students, sometime with their families, sometimes with community-based affiliates who support educational endeavors. Thinking about that mobius strip we are all connected and as each of us traverses our own journey it is important that we connect with others and add to their learning process (think of my candle). As we see the diversity or difference in each of us, we will see the commonalities and similarities we share across identities. For me, that is how we deliver quality educational experiences for all learners. Take a moment and celebrate your success and see how you can take those moments and use this as inspiration and a blueprint for continuing to live and work in your truth. That is how we walk different paths, connect and run parallel, and achieve the goal of a quality educational experiences for all learners.

Yolanda Abel is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education. She is also a faculty affiliate with Center for Social Organization of Schools, the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, and the Center for Africana Studies. Her publications appear in American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Negro Education, Education and Urban Society, and School Science and Mathematics Journal.

Yolanda will deliver the closing keynote during the 2024 SAIS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Institute in Atlanta.