Alli + Asha about Schools, Writing + Race

Aurora: Hello, ladies.

Kelly: Yes. So would you mind sharing who you are, where you’re from and any key highlights of your journey thus far?

Asha: My name is Asha Youmans. My pronouns are she, her and hers. And I’m a lifelong Seattle resident – a proud Seattleite. I’m a black woman. I’m married to a white man. I have two sons and I come from a long line of what I like to call pioneers. My grandmother was one of the original Rosie the Riveter was during the Second World War. My dad is the first generation of black graduates from Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington, a premier private school, and then went on to Harvard, where he was among the first to graduate and African American studies. He was part of the student protest in 1968 to rally the school to create an African American studies program at Harvard Graduate in 1972. And I am a second generation lakeside graduate. I went on to UC Berkeley and taught there for 20 years. And I’m grateful to be here with all of you ladies today.

Aurora: Beautiful. Welcome, welcome.

Alli: I’m Alli Frank. The second half of our duo and I grew up in rural Washington where we were one of very small handful of Jewish families in a robust farming community. But I went on from rural Washington and went to Cornell for undergrad, Stanford for graduate school and then into teaching myself. I was a high school teacher, went from teaching in high school for quite a long time to actually working with the Annenberg Institute at Harvard University to create a series of films about unique private schools and public schools all across the country left of that and became an administrator in public and private high schools and went from always being in San Francisco, in the Bay Area to moving to Seattle with my husband and first one daughter. Now I have two and ushe. And I met working together at a small private school in Seattle.

Aurora: Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. So clearly from each of your personal journeys and your family journeys, you all have much engagement, involvement in the system of education. And in your book sort of sort of unpack and share this perspective. And so the question is what have you seen, what have you experienced that you believe needs to be immediately changed, evolved, eradicated, transformed in our academic system?

Asha: One of the things that I would say on a large scale is changing the way that schools are funded. The lines around schools, public schools are drawn in favorable ways to people that have deep pockets and in unfavorable ways for those that don’t have deep pockets and those lines are often coincide because of this system we have and that is perpetuated for so long but often along racial lines as well. If we have a school district, there should be a pot of money so that the collective can raise up their children, not small pots divided by what neighborhood you happen to live in. I think that parents themselves can help remedy this by visiting a public school outside of their area. You visit a public school not too far from my home, you’d ask yourself what if I sent my child here. Is this OK for my child? And if the answer is no. Then why is it OK for anybody’s child? And there shouldn’t be such great disparity in our public schools. Even adults without children add to the tax pot that supports our public schools. So even they should care about what happens to their tax dollars. And dividing it the way that it is is unfair to our students and unfair to our future. The other thing I would say is on a smaller level, for each individual teacher to demand excellence at every moment from all of their children and to expect it. We have these biases, all of us, and they even extend to children. And we have to examine that within ourselves. Make sure that we are. As supportive and as encouraging black and brown students, as supportive and encouraging as our female students. As we are, as we want others to be of ourselves, I mean, that’s something I would challenge all teachers to do to examine your classroom and work on the biases that exist there.

Alli: For me, we still have an entire country that school operates around a farming calendar. And we no longer live and die by seasons and about by crops, by when the sun is up the highest and when the sun is down the lowest, yet we still have a system of education where all children go to school nine months of the year and then they have three months off where there is a great summer learning loss. And then kids return to school in the first two months spent reviewing last year. And then really in that new school year, you have six months of new learning out of a 12 month, a year. Kids who come from families who can afford camps or can afford to send their children to the Boys and Girls Club can even afford a babysitter for social interaction, for creativity, they have in get some engagement over that summer that there is a whole percentage of our kids that don’t get at all. And the greatest way in terms of our year and our calendar and the structure of school to create equity among learning is that if we had a balance to your calendar where kids, all children are in school for three months, there’s three weeks off in that three week time off, kids that are falling a little bit behind. It hasn’t been nine months that they’ve fallen behind. It’s just been a couple of months. There can be some intercessions. They get caught up. Everyone gets a bit of a break. And then you’re back in school and the learning is cyclical and the summer learning loss goes away. And there’s phenomenal data around schools and districts who have done this for child learning, but also to alleviate teacher burnout. And then my other one is we need to treat our teachers like we do our greatest professionals.

Aurora: You know I think you both have touched on so many incredible points there. And, you know, I think about a couple of things. One, with the backdrop of COVID. You know a lot about what you just talked about Alli has has now become exasperated with what I think mothers, duel income families, single moms, are juggling with in this moment in time. I think I think the models continue to be obsolete for where we are. And then I know Asha you know, which you also talked about, which was was, I think this disparity, this disparity and inequity that continues to exist in who is teaching and how fundamentally our students are being served. So how do we change it? You mentioned a couple of things — but at a legislative level, at a state level, what do we need to do?

Asha: Well, I think that one thing is that we all have to get rid of the nostalgia about schools. They need to be ever changing environments. And we as parents keep thinking about sending our kids to the same school we went to and expecting no difference in. I mean, there’s there’s no difference in what the turnout is if you don’t change. So we we really do have to let go of some of those things that Ali was talking about, the old ways we have new kids. So we have to be ready to embrace change. But I would say get involved attending school board meetings, as boring as it sounds. Boy, running for office is a big deal. I watched my father do it. And if anybody out there has that in him, more power to ya. If there are issues that you have concerns about. Get on on your local school board.

Alli: My next step beyond that is so much of the debate around schools is about what the is best for the adults. And the conversation of what is best for the children is nowhere in the room.

Kelly: Yeah. And both of you mentioned working with or in or having gone to a private school. I went to I went to high school myself. What’s the role that private schools play in this discussion. And do they cause more harm? Are there ways to improve the situation a quicker way? Like what is the role that private schools play?

Asha: Well, I think private schools are here to stay for now. And I think that like an organization called PSP People, Private Schools, Public Purpose, this foundation partners schools with private organizations that have an interest in something that they’re doing. They want to help sponsor. But it’s an opportunity for private entities to give back to public schools. You know, private schools or came about in Seattle in great numbers in the 80s, right when I was coming of age. And it was a result of white flight here in Seattle. Seattle’s the very first Amarjit school district ever to desegregate without a court order. Once bussing came about, private school numbers jumped. It was an effort to continue to separate. And that’s just not going to work anymore. We can’t throw up walls and we can’t run away from each other. This planet is too small and Brown and Black folks are everywhere.

Alli: Another word that uses independent schools – and the draw to independent schools for many teachers and administrators is more of an ability to try out, whether it be curriculum or structures that you believe best serve kids. But I think that when some things that happen in private schools are successful for children, then it is on the onus of the private school to figure out then how can we best share this with the greater community of educators, not just hold it in our own school for our own precious children, but if we have the privilege of being able to be more experimental when we figure out some things that work well. And we want it for our children, we should want this for all children.

Aurora: So, you just said something, Ali, which is this notion of sharing, this notion of distributing a true or democratizing knowledge. And I think that that we don’t do that becaus it’s a white supremecist characteristic behavior that prevents us from doing that freely. I love this idea of sharing. I mean, I think, you know, it’s a huge part of what the premise of what Kelly and I believe. I mean, we put ourselves out here because we believe tha modeling the uncomfrotable-ness as well as the love as well unpacking of difficult topic topics is something that thing that we don’t do and that white people don’t have a bird’s eye view into or don’t engage with it themselves. So we think it is so important to share, to talk about what’s working, what’s not working – to uplift everyone’s awareness and knowledge, because that’s accountability and a service to all versus a service to self only.

Alli: I think there’s a history in our country and it’s, you know, create your own destiny. I came into my professional being in the Bay Area during dot, you know, com 1.0 and 2.0. And this very much this idea of like, I have this great idea, I’m going gonna go out and make it happen. I’m going to get all the credit and the accolade. And maybe if you’re lucky, the person next to me in the coffee shop, maybe you’ll be lucky, too. But I’m not going to help you be lucky. Just for me, when I think about the not sharing, I go right to this like, so then everyone’s reinventing the same wheel. And that just takes time and energy that burns people out versus brings people together because they’re in a sharing in a collective mode. 

Aurora: So I’m going to take it one step back. As parents we will do anything and everything to support our children. So talk to us about how that overlay that over these most recent scandal with regards to college admissions, particularly led by Felicity Hoffman and obviously it got a lot of a lot of buzz and especially where we were, we let you know here on the main line in Philadelphia, there’s a lot of pressure. You know, I think that the point both make, which is which it ends up being, is that it’s less about the children or the child and more about more expectations, ego – You know, I’m an alumni. There is legacy here for my child. So what are your thoughts about thoughts about that.

Alli: So many parents, you know, they’re there with their four year old to get into kindergarten and their top questions are, where do your graduates go to high school? Where do they go to college? And without even taking into consideration, you have no idea what you even have on your hands with your little bundle of love. And my response was always to the we’re here to help figure out with you who this person is you have on your hands. I actually never even acknowledged that question because, again, that was doing no service to the child. So in, you know, in the elementary school level, really working with parents to enjoy where you are now because it’s gone in the blink of an eye. So with the college scandal, you know, neither Asha or right were surprised in the history of private institutions and public institutions. We’re used to seeing it on the university level. It happens at other levels as well. But families have built buildings, families have built swimming pools and, you know, hockey rinks and dining halls. You know, and then getting their children into a university or a school that maybe was not the best place for that child. That’s always the question that’s missed. OK, great. So you paid all that money. Your child’s now there. But is that the right place for them? But that aside, you know, those large gifts to institutions to build whatever they’re creating, at least was always public knowledge of public record and all childre, all students at the school could enjoy the benefits of labor, a family built a library. Their child who shouldn’t have been there, went all right. Not great, but everyone got to go to the library or, you know. Twenty five scholarships were formed. So there is a trade off that’s necessary for those institutions to exist. The level that the Laurie Loughlin and the Felicity Huffman’s took it to. The immorality and the ethics and the doing it in a way that only served their child. No other child. It was not creating a better world at USC for all students or so you know, a select amazing few could come in through, you know, financial aid, whatever it was. It was so back door and only about their child. That was the part that I think differentiated it from what’s been going on for centuries. And that exact case and I think that’s the part that was most disappointing about it. It was just so ugly and dirty.

Kelly: So I know I personally can’t wait to talk about Tiny Imperfections, the book that you wrote together. And so I would love for you to give a brief summary of the book because then I want to back up and I just want to know what the big learnings were.

Asha: Well, Tiny Imperfections is a book we co-wrote together. We are one of few if  partnerships like ours,  a Black and white co-authorship. Not writing in two separate voices, but using our collective experiences and our collective knowledge and our collective love for schools and creating this book. It is a story of a multi general family of women, mothers, mothers and daughters and of second chances, all set against the backdrop of an elite private school in San Francisco. And the book does address race and single parenting. And a little bit of romance and dating at 40. It is not only our love letter to schools, but it’s an example of our humor that was kind of developed watching human behavior, especially through the eyes of children. Their honesty is so beautiful and also quite jarring in many ways. 

Kelly:  I am just curious to what do you hope that wealthy white, you know, privileged parents,  take away take away from this super fun rich read. 

Asha: Part of it is, you know, that whole magic of fiction itself. Fiction has a unique place, I think, in art to allow person to develop true empathy and sympathy and put yourself in the character’s shoes and do it privately. You don’t have to tell anyone about it. You can feel fiction in your heart. You can feel it in your mind. And it’s wonderful for discussion. 

Alli: The underlying message is that all parents in different situations can be crazy. You know, everyone has something. That when they become a parent, send you over the edge into la la land. It could be sports, school, behavior, manners, whatever it is. Something will make you crazy. And that’s a very universal thing that has nothing to do with race, that is becomes this becomes this collective action among parents. 

Asha: Schools exist for everybody. You know, we love to be there for the parents through the admissions process to remind them that if this is not the school for your child, there is a public school down the street that you can put your love and heart and energy into that has dedicated teachers. And also, I taught there because I wanted those children to see me, just like the parents in the book needed to see Josie. They needed to see a Black and Brown person around their child every day, helping to raise them with love and affection, not cleaning out their toilets, cutting their grass. Those students needed to see me every day so that when they think back and they had the supervisor that tells them, no, you may not have the day off to go and do that, they’ll remember teacher Ahsha said, I couldn’t have a day out that day either. And it’s OK. You can take authority from somebody that looks like me. You should take authority. So the whole experience every single day was a was a goal for me: show up and be here for these kids, show them that you love them, show their parents that it’s OK if a Black lady tells, you no, you’re going to be fine. And I’ll still show up for you the next day. Part of the training that we have as teachers, Ali and I, as to lay our judgments down at the front door of our classroom. It is not fair to come in there and raise and help teach a child with judgments on your back. He got to lay those down and be open to them. And I think that practices helped us be open to adults that have questions. White folks ask me about my hair. Black folks ask me about my hair. You know, I have a white folks ask me, how do you get into that college? And black folks too, How do you get into that college? And everyone needs to examine themselves and their biases. We all have work to do.

Kelly: So I know I personally can’t wait to talk about Tiny Imperfections, the book that you wrote together. And so I would love for you to give a brief summary of the book because then I want to back up and I just want to know what the big learnings were.

Asha: Well, Tiny Imperfections is a book we co-wrote together. We are one of few if partnerships like ours, a Black and white co-authorship. Not writing in two separate voices, but using our collective experiences and our collective knowledge and our collective love for schools and creating this book. It is a story of a multi general family of women, mothers, mothers and daughters and of second chances, all set against the backdrop of an elite private school in San Francisco. And the book does address race and single parenting. And a little bit of romance and dating at 40. It is not only our love letter to schools, but it’s an example of our humor that was kind of developed watching human behavior, especially through the eyes of children. Their honesty is so beautiful and also quite jarring in many ways.

Kelly: I am just curious to what do you hope that wealthy white, you know, privileged parents, take away take away from this super fun rich read.

Asha: Part of it is, you know, that whole magic of fiction itself. Fiction has a unique place, I think, in art to allow person to develop true empathy and sympathy and put yourself in the character’s shoes and do it privately. You don’t have to tell anyone about it. You can feel fiction in your heart. You can feel it in your mind. And it’s wonderful for discussion.

Alli: The underlying message is that all parents in different situations can be crazy. You know, everyone has something. That when they become a parent, send you over the edge into la la land. It could be sports, school, behavior, manners, whatever it is. Something will make you crazy. And that’s a very universal thing that has nothing to do with race, that is becomes this becomes this collective action among parents.

Asha: Schools exist for everybody. You know, we love to be there for the parents through the admissions process to remind them that if this is not the school for your child, there is a public school down the street that you can put your love and heart and energy into that has dedicated teachers. And also, I taught there because I wanted those children to see me, just like the parents in the book needed to see Josie. They needed to see a Black and Brown person around their child every day, helping to raise them with love and affection, not cleaning out their toilets, cutting their grass. Those students needed to see me every day so that when they think back and they had the supervisor that tells them, no, you may not have the day off to go and do that, they’ll remember teacher Ahsha said, I couldn’t have a day out that day either. And it’s OK. You can take authority from somebody that looks like me. You should take authority. So the whole experience every single day was a was a goal for me: show up and be here for these kids, show them that you love them, show their parents that it’s OK if a Black lady tells, you no, you’re going to be fine. And I’ll still show up for you the next day. Part of the training that we have as teachers, Ali and I, as to lay our judgments down at the front door of our classroom. It is not fair to come in there and raise and help teach a child with judgments on your back. He got to lay those down and be open to them. And I think that practices helped us be open to adults that have questions. White folks ask me about my hair. Black folks ask me about my hair. You know, I have a white folks ask me, how do you get into that college? And black folks too, How do you get into that college? And everyone needs to examine themselves and their biases. We all have work to do.

Aurora: What prompted you, somebody to write this book?

Alli: I helped co-found a school and I’d been traveling around quite a bit, looking at different schools. And I was at one particular school and the school has an insane amount of money and they have. Built this building that is a true image to sort of the Scandinavian minimalist aesthetic. Everything’s very pale, very pale white. Very pale yellow. Very stark. But the director of admissions there is this beautiful, statuesque, dark Black woman. And I remember being in the school and having a great conversation with her. And given that the aesthetic the school went for her being in the center of that atrium and I just had this moment of like, wow, what is it like for her holding the keys to this kingdom? . So in my enthusiasm and my inelegance at the same time, I called the Asha up and I was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, I should you want to get together and, like, have coffee and talk about race in schools.

Asha: I was like, who is this? Who is on my phone?

Alli: I’m like, oh, my God. Glad I did that five years ago versus today. Were killed at the altar. But it was from a place of like, oh, I think there could be such an interesting, unique tale to tell here. So when this idea came, I knew I wanted to do it with someone. And as the assistant head in the score and I were together, I would read every single report card narrative that was written by every teacher. So and Asha for years, I read Asha’s narratives about all these kids, and she was such a phenomenal writer writing about children. So I had all this data on what a good writer Osho was. She had zero data on me, if I could, like, write a lick other than emails. So I knew I was trying to bring in a great partnership. Asha had to go way more on faith. I don’t know what – you can you can answer that.

Asha: Well, you know what? My daddy didn’t raise no fool. OK. And just like Aunt Bib teaches to Jose then Jose teaches to Etta in our book, you you use what you got to get where you want to get. And at that moment, I had a friendship with Alli. I’ve always loved to write. I absolutely love to tell stories. And she had an in already. You know, it’s kind of like what we didn’t want to buy my house. I sent my husband to the bank. You think that Baker’s gonna give us as good of a percentage rate if I show up? No, no, no. I’m sending a white dude in. But Alli had these great connections, which honestly, I knew would be harder for me to attain. Publishing is largely white. It is not a constantly changing beast. They’re very, very rooted in an archaic system. So Ali was my key to that kingdom and I had a lot of experience and was very, very interested in examining what I had gone through as one of only in so many situations in my life in education. I was often just one Brown face the entire classroom of kids for years. And then to go and teach in a largely white school. I really, really felt compelled to unpack all of that. And Ali has such great administrative experience. I could see where the two of us can make something happen. And we did.

Kelly: Mm hmm.

Aurora: Fantastic. You know, so you came together and together. It worked. It worked.

Kelly: Were publishers like, Yeah, we want this?

Alli: Asha and I received such amazing feedback about the book that we really thought. We have a great book. So we thought we have a great book and we’re really easy and eager to work with. So we’re going to be a slam dunk. And we were quite surprised that when we got to the point with some different publishers of having conversations on the phone with them that how they picked apart. How we spoke on the phone to get to a place of assumption about our relationship as black white writers. And just to give a concrete example, Asha’s father is a phenomenal person. And sometimes when you’re meeting people for the first time, you don’t want to come across as a total bragger. And, you know, throwing around everyone you know and what you are. So, I was like Asha I’m just going to bring up your dad really low key, and then you jump in and then you can talk about him. So it doesn’t sound like you’re breaking out of the gate. But I gave you the in, I mean, we were that sort of scripted. We got feedback: Well, lli was the first one to mention Asha’s father. So clearly she is exploiting Asha. And you know, another one we got: well, Alli was the first person to say hello on the call. Clearly, there’s exploitation going on there or they’re not a real partnership. So there’s this very tiny parceling of our conversations that we would imagine does not happen in other conversations with writers.

Asha: I don’t want to get used to racist situations. I’m going to remain surprised every time somebody throws – I’m clutching my pearls. I want to call it out right at that moment. And that’s something that I’ve practiced and learned on this journey working with Ali. Usually I’d just be like, whatever, forget it. I’m onto the next. I don’t have time for that person. But talking about it feels more like doing something with it and doing something about it.

Kelly: And we’re like, someone somewhere like no one said no to us? How dare they? Because I want to push back and say white women have has a terrible record forHarm and opression and exploitation and flat out taking advantage, taking advantage, not giving credit, not giving credit. All of the ugly, monstrous things. So it actually surprised me that that publishers were publishers were concerned about. Because there is a sense, you know, who does speak first and I do carry the privelage. I can speak whenever and no one is going to stop me, blah blah blah. And I’eI had to learn like the hell up. Shut the hell. Your personality was created in a white supremacist culture and Kelly that’s not gonna fly all the time. But has there been any learnings of your own whiteness or white privilege in the process?

Alli: Well, there’s been a ton. You know, Asha and I wrote a book together – I mean, down to every last comma. And so in our book is about wealth and privilege and single parenting and being female and all those things and you know, Asha and I had a lot of hard conversations on behalf of our book. You know, there’s a ton of learning that has gone on for me. But I also recognize the privilege that it was an important, essential part of our work. So I got to have that, which is very different than people who are out there in the world trying to make sure they can feed their families. How’s their families go to work every day, take care of their business, and then figuring out where in my life can I then also take on this very necessary learning that needs to – that must happen. So I like I in a way, I have doubled privilege being, you know, the double privelage of being a white female and having the time, space and capacity to do a lot of learning, because that’s what Asha and I are in the business of by being writers.

Asha: And sometimes it would take a few days. I might start a conversation with Ali where we are on two different pages with what our character would experience, with what our character would express, with how she, our character might feel. And I had to take my time with Ali if I wanted her to truly learn it. I could tell it to her and say, move on, because just believe me. I know. But to bring someone along with you and and and help their heart grow. That’s big work. And it can’t be done in a moment. So it would often take us two, three days to move ahead.

Aurora: So I just think that it’s so beautiful what you both just articulated. I mean the gift of that in your relationship is really one of your thing, one of the core things we feel is so missing in our culture and our society and our system, quite frankly, it’s what Kelly and I expect, Kelly. I explore every day. But we’re willing to hang in there with each other. And so with the beauty, the attention, and the gorgeous vibration by which you co-wrote ratio and co-created this beautiful book. What is your hope for your readers would take away would take away?

Asha: One of the things that I know for sure is that all of us have some learning to do. I don’t want Black and Brown people to even get in all the other colors to get so comfortable with thinking I’m woke because I’ve experienced this life. There are other cultures to appreciate, respect the moan about. And then to pass that on to your children. No one’s work is done. I’m not sure if it’ll ever be done as much as we evolve as humans, we shouldn’t look forward to it ending. And so get on that bandwagon and open books, share them with your children. There are so many lessons to connect with and to question in fiction.

Alli: And my you know, my hope is really to white readers that we’ve become a salesman culture. The person in the room that talks the most and speaks the loudest gets the attention. And I might be hypersensitive to that because I’m an introvert. But that is very culturally who we are. And we have now been challenged at a point in our evolution of our country to become listeners and to own a beginners mindset. There is no excuse not to explore worlds and lives that are different than ours. You know, Asha and I would love love love for people to look at their Instagram feeds or their Facebook pages and say to themselves, like, this is pretty monochromatic and kind of boring looking and I should spice this up. That’s what we would love more than anything.

Asha: That’s right. Check your feed, everybody. If you are representing yourself to the world and you have an Instagram and Facebook and all the accounts and you scroll through, what are you telling a face like mine by how welcome it is on the story of your life that you’ve put out there in pictures, what are you saying to your children? And I want people to know that they’re welcome to come into my inner circle any time, as long as you’re ready to lead with, you know, love and learning.

Aurora: That is so beautiful. Thank you so much for summarizing, not only your hope and intention is for the book – these ladies shared the opt-in. Check yo’ feed. Pick up a book.

Kelly: Alli and Asha what is next for you?

Asha: We are working on another book. Yes. So very exciting.

Aurora: Fabulous ladies. We love you guys. This guy is credible. He knows you’re credible. Keep writing. Keep right. Wishing the conversation completely modeling he your beautiful relationship with the learning that it shares and learning yourselves and for all.

Kelly: Thank you. Thank you for your labors of love.

Asha: Our pleasure. 

Aurora: That was awesome! Okay so I feel like we covered so much ground in this conversation with Alli Frank and Asha Youmans. 

Kelly: I know…me, too.

Aurora: Thank you all for listening. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @theoptin.

Kelly: Music for this episode is by Jordan McCree. And the Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Kelly: See you next week.

Aurora: Bye