The Work No One Sees with Rebekah Pierce

Did you ever think of the work you naturally do as a woman, mother, and/or teacher, work that holds up the whole system, isn't actually harmless? In fact, Rebekah Pierce uses a different word for it: Destructive.

In this episode of Roar, Danielle Davies sits down with educator, author, and womanist thinker Rebekah Pierce to talk about something that feels specific to classrooms, but isn’t. Because while this conversation starts with teaching, it quickly becomes about something much bigger:

who is expected to carry people, absorb pressure, and create stability inside systems that were never designed to support them in the first place.

Rebekah’s work challenges one of the most deeply ingrained assumptions in education—that learning begins with productivity.

Instead, she asks a different question:

What happens when we center humanity first?

And even more importantly:

Who is already doing that work, without recognition?

Together, Danielle & Rebekah talk about

• 🔥 Why classrooms often rely on emotional labor more than curriculum

• 🔥 The invisible work teachers do to create safety, stability, and trust

• 🔥 How “care” becomes an expectation, not a choice

• 🔥 The womanist lens: who is doing the sustaining work (and why)

• 🔥 What it means to operate inside systems that were never built for wholeness

• 🔥 How women internalize the role of “holding everything together”

• 🔥 The cost of constantly choosing humanity inside productivity-driven environments

• 🔥 Why systems don’t change

This conversation starts in a classroom, but it doesn’t stay there.

Because once you see it, you can’t unsee the ways women hold space,

absorb impact, and make things work that were never designed to.

Key Takeaways

• Systems often function because of people, not because they work well

• Emotional labor is not extra. It’s what makes environments survivable

• Women are disproportionately expected to carry that labor

• Care has been reframed as obligation instead of choice

• Real change would require systems to stop relying on over-functioning individuals

Links Related to this Episode

Before the Lesson Begins:

Rebekah's Substacks: and

Rebekah's website:

Marcus Garvey:

Sojourner Truth:

Listen to ROAR with Danielle Davies: Women, Culture & Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New conversations every Tuesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y44-BjvvocQ

Full Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.

The problem is, and the problem has always been [music] that women are not nurtured outside of that and inside of it. We're not given the tools. We're told to just figure it out. This is why we're very creative and intuitive, right? And we've had to figure out how to make this [music] work for our charges and but mostly at the detriment of our own well-being.

That's Rebecca Pierce and this is Roar. Hi everybody. This is Danielle Davies, the host of Roar. Today's guest is Rebecca Pierce, educator, author, veteran, and a womanist whose work sits at the intersection of teaching, healing, faith, and care. Among other things, Rebecca is the author of Before the Lesson Begins, a book that challenges one of our most deeply ingrained assumptions that learning should begin with productivity rather than humanity.

Drawing from decades in the classroom, she argues that before content, before assessment, before performance, there must be breath, reflection, and affirmation. What makes this conversation especially aligned with ROAR is Rebecca's womanist lens. Womanism asks us to pay attention to who's doing the work of sustaining communities emotionally, relationally, and spiritually, especially in places in spaces shaped by inequality. in education that sustaining labor has long fallen to women and disproportionately to women of color. This episode is about what it means to teach, lead, and advocate inside systems that were never designed for wholeness, and how women so often become the ones holding space, absorbing harm, and quietly creating conditions for others to survive and grow.

Rebecca, welcome to Roar. Thank you. That was a lovely intro. Oh, thank you so much. I'm starting to think it's my it's my specialty.

I was like, if it nobody listens to anything else, just listen to the intro. I love it. It was good. It was good. Oh, good.

I'm so glad. And thank you so much for being here. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Oh, I appreciate it. Well, I'm just going to dive right in because I know that, you know, feminism is like, you know, a big catchall term and I am a feminist. I consider myself a feminist. But you identify explicitly as a womanist, not just as an educator or an advocate or even a feminist. What does womanism give you intellectually or spiritually that mainstream feminism doesn't?

Well, feminism doesn't consider spirituality or individuality in terms of your connection to whatever you choose to call the energy that guides your life. God, the divine, Yahweh, whatever. I refer to it as God of course or the universe. And so, feminism is really, and believe me, I was a feminist too. I'm still partially a feminist, right?

But feminism does not allow for introspection on an individual level and then to be able to bring that introspection, that self-awareness into the classroom and then attach it to curriculum. It doesn't do that. Femin feminism only looks at gender equality, inequality, excuse me, and systems. But what womanism does is it allows you to go even further than that. How are these how are people impacted by systems on both a spiritual level, an emotional level, a physical level, a financial level?

How are we impacted by that? And when you look at the classroom, that is the greatest micro microcosm for where you can see the impact of systems on individual learning, access to learning, but also as a group. the impact of a system that was designed to keep others out. You can see that impact in the classroom. And again, I teach at the collegiate level, but I started out in a public school teaching high school English.

And this is where I started seeing that there was a huge gap in being able to connect the individual to what it is that they're learning and why they're learning it. the why was missing just the oh we got to learn this today but why how is that connected to my own lived experiences especially when you're not saying like the why is to pass a test like exactly and you know passing a test is not always indicative of having learned anything and you know I say that to my students if you get an A in my class whether you get an A or a C you know that you worked your butt off and you did the work because my class is not about a grade. It's about who you are as an individual that is connected to a community. So, how can I bring you to the awareness of your individuality so that then you can be ready to receive what I'm about to teach you, the skills I'm about to give you? How can you do that?

So, womanism for me is all-encompassing. It looks at race. It looks at gender inequality. It looks at social economic status. It looks at all of that and then says, "But who am I as a human being?

And h and what is my what is my role in this world? What is my why? " I love this. Thank you for the explanation because I was looking into it and it seems like it's like a more rob I mean not to just compare it but a more robust it is it goes further you know because I'm also a humanist I mean that's how I started teaching as a humanist and you know humanism looks at the humanity that's what that's what you do look at the totality of the picture like how did we get here so when you merge humanism with the microcosm a little small piece of humanism which is femin feminism, but then wrap it around womanism. That gives you a bigger picture of all of these things and the and the little dot in the middle is the human being, the self.

How is the self impacted by the outer circle, all these things that are out there? How does it allow you to grow? How does it styy growth? You know, how does it do that? And that's that's a big thing that's missing for young people.

You know, I hear a lot of talk about, oh, young people don't know this and they don't feel that. That's because nobody's teaching them context within the frame of all of this rah. Who am I in the middle of all this? Who do I want to be? Who do I need to be?

And how do I get there? That's what's missing. And that's what I feel, you know, womanism kind of allows I mean there's there's different branches you could say. I hate to say branches, but I consider myself a womanist ethicist and that I'm looking at the ethics the ethics of the human being. And then around that is leadership.

How do you become an how are you an ethical leader you know and then of course you have womenist theology and you know bringing in the spiritual context and all that. So yeah it does it does have arms. but the overall reaching the overall umbrella is that womanism allows us to first look at self and then our I love that. Thank you. I appreciate it.

And speaking of you know self and even coming from the perspective now of the educators who might read your book or the even just I think lay people would get a benefit from it but you know teaching is a profession dominated by women. It also requires constant emotional regulation. Having been a sixth grade teacher I can tell you that is what I lacked. That is why I'm no longer a teacher. there.

How [laughter] how do you see women educators being asked to carry far more than they're resourced or recognized for? It's destructive. It is destructive. And the reason why teaching is a heavily female dominated industry [clears throat] is because it's the only place they allowed women to go in the first place because women were supposed to be responsible for the nurturing of children. It's part of the women's sphere philosophy of what the role of a woman was.

It wasn't to be in public speaking or to be in these so-called male-dominated world of, you know, journalism, politics, blah blah. Our responsibility was to, or let me rephrase that, the role of white women, the responsibility was to nurture the home and the children that are in the home. By extension, black women, particularly after slavery, our role was to almost do the same thing. that patriarchal white patriarchal assumption about what a woman's role was. Now that black women were considered to be quote unquote women, although partially in treatment, you know, that became our role too.

And that and a lot of people can say, well, that's because women are more nurturing. We do have multi- emotions. We are able we are able to see around the corner and predict and make decisions based on what we think is around that corner based on our lived experiences. So teaching by extension becomes the quote unquote the role of the woman because it's about nurturing. The problem is and the problem has always been that women are not nurtured outside of that and inside of it.

We're not given the tools. We're told to just figure it out. This is why we're very creative and intuitive, right? And we've had to figure out how to make this work for our charges and but mostly at the detriment of our own well-being. Yes.

[laughter] at the detriment of our own well-being and that has been the biggest cross that we as women have carried particularly in the field of education and I say that has to change because I cannot authentically and intentionally and in wellness give what I do not have in my will to give. And so this is why teachers, you know, are are dropping out. they're leaving their profession, why we're burnt out, why we're tired, why we're angry, why we're frustrated. And then this leads into why we're overstressed, why cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of black women in particular, you know, why we're overeating, why we're obese, why we smoke, why we drink, you know, these effects of the of the cause, which is y'all just get in here, figure it out. You're women, you'll figure it out.

That is so harmful. And that's 26 sets of eyes on you like what you know. [laughter] Yes. 26. And then and then and then with 26 not only 26 eyes but 26 different stories.

Yes. 26 different personalities. 26 different traumas. 26 different lived experiences. How do you get a class to buy into growth and expansion and wellness when the teacher isn't even well?

That's the question. How do you do? You can't. That's why the system is so broken. That's why these kids are if they make it to me at the collegiate level, why they don't have reading skills intact where they should be.

I have grown people reading at third, fourth grade level with assistance, writing at third, fourth grade level with assistance. These young people don't know how to analyze rhetorical analysis. All they know is opinion. And that is an absolute no in the classroom. We're not here for your opinion.

We're here for your position. What is your argument? What is the evidence to support it? How do you defend that? And when you have young people who are coming in a system that only that because they're tired, our teachers are tired and worn out and they're not supported and because they're coming from a system where the teachers are just like here, just go ahead and do this.

Just go ahead. Then how they're not learning those skills in a way that is life sustaining, that is skill building. So when they come to our classes, a lot of teachers are not going to rebuild that skill. They're just going to press forward and that means we have young people failing. I me I just can't do that.

You're gonna we're gonna I'm going to give you I'm going to teach you and you're going to leave this classroom better than when you get it. But that also requires energy. It requires a love, a passion for what you do, but it also requires wellness. I have to be low because and I feel like [clears throat] I wasn't even prepared to ask you this and this is opening up a whole giant this is potentially like six hour long conversation but I won't do that. I'll just I'll just briefly touch on it because you've got obviously suggestions that are practical and personal and can be used in the classroom but systemically in the nation [laughter] in the world do you have any thoughts because you're right it's all just one cycle I mean I know as a young teacher I was totally overwhelmed totally afraid literally without resources until physical resources books textbooks until November of my starting year.

the lack of support and it's it is no one single person's fault. This is a systemic issue. It goes on and on and on. You can't blame one principal, one school. It's all intertwined so much and it and of course it leads to crises when people are older.

It leads to a failing economy. It leads to everything stems from education and so I'm just curious what your thoughts are on education as a whole. I realize this is not Oh wow. Yeah. Just curious.

It's it's killing our young people. It is killing creativity. It is stifling joy. It is terrorizing children. I'm sorry.

It is. It is. Cuz when I when I see these young people coming to my classroom, first week of school, these young people are legit broken. I mean, I when I returned back into the classroom in 2022, excuse me, 2024, I literally witnessed young people falling apart at the slightest question. And I'm like, why are these babies falling apart?

because I'm asking them what did they why did you write that or how what other way can we reframe this and what I just what I have come to believe is that it's because they have no foundation of self you know co did a number I think co really revealed the true depths and despair of the educational system in this country because we had students coming in that are just not there and for me to answer the question is it's a hard it's a load of question. It literally is one person at a time. I can't change the I mean when I first started teaching I went there like a lot of young teachers. Oh, I'm going to save the world. I'm going to save all the children.

No, ma'am. What I ended up doing by [laughter] Sorry, I just it's relating. Go ahead. Right. And that's the thing I think that's missing.

We're not teaching teachers how to teach. We're not teaching teachers how to do that. We're not teaching them how to be cognizant of their own strengths and weaknesses and the and the and the fantasy and the illusion of what a teacher is. And so, and so I had to come to the terms with if I can get one young person to get that light bulb to go off for one young person in this entire school year, then I have done my job. Because all it takes is one.

If you can reach the one, then the one can go out and reach the many. And so, it's always been my drive of I'm focusing on the students who want to learn, who want to be here. I can't save everybody. The rest of you, we don't want to be here. There's nothing I can do about that.

But if I can get that one student to buy into what I'm offering, if I can continue to buy into what I'm offering, what I'm giving, and what I'm receiving, then that's the only thing that I can that I can do. I can't I you know this system the educational system in this country is just it was never founded it was not founded on equal footing in the first place. I can get into a whole history of the educational system in this United States of America as an English teacher. [laughter] That's a whole six hour conversation right there. Exactly.

Exactly. it was never founded on equality just or equal access to resources. And so we're already behind the eight-ball. So what I feel in writing my book is that if I can just get the teacher, if I can get that one teacher, that one human being to buy into I know I'm supposed to be here. This is my calling, but I'm tired.

I'm worn out. I'm overwhelmed. How do I reconnect to get back into this? And for me, the answer is you've got to begin with self. You've got to start taking care of yourself mentally, spiritually, physically, because you cannot walk into that classroom broken.

Quick pause because if you're listening to Roar, I have a feeling you're exactly the kind of person I write for. I send out a Substack newsletter where I go a little deeper, more personal stories, behind the scenes thoughts, and honestly, some of the things we don't always say out loud here. com. com. I'd love to have you there.

And now back to your regularly scheduled podcast. This leads me back to your book. So you write about this, right? Leading with breath, affirmations, reflection for, you know, before academic content, not just for the students, but for the teacher, right? It helps everybody.

But these practices are often treated as secondary, right? Even unnecessary within the traditional educational system. I one time was like, we're going to do yoga poses. my class I was a very shortlived teacher. Why do you think forms of care are so often associated with women?

Why do you think these thoughts these forms of care are so often undervalued both in education and beyond? I mean there's no doubt about the benefits people have done so many studies on the benefits of meditation affirm self-care. It's taking care of oneself but we poo it like it's not that important. Well, I mean for me, I can only speak for me. I made it a requirement.

I made it part of my curriculum, my syllabus. This is what this is my classroom. This Listen, this is I'll be honest, my students know day one, I'm the alpha and this is my space. And in this space, this is what we do. This is what we do.

And it's on your syllabus. We will begin every class with breath and affirmation and freewriting. This has to be a habit. You create a disciplined structured moment for young people because that's one of the things they're missing. They're missing structure consistency.

They're missing that. And the teacher has to be adamant that this is how my classroom will go and we will do this regardless of what is happening. externally or internally because we need this in order for the lesson to begin. We need this. My students need this moment.

These kids are coming in rushed, pressed, stressed, overwhelmed. That doesn't make for an effective learning environment. That that does not. So, how do I get you to stop for a moment? How do I get you to just sit for a moment and close your eyes?

Relax your shoulders. Put your phone down. Close your tablet. Close your eyes. Let your tongue rest at the bottom of your mouth.

And let's just breathe. Big breath in. Exhale. The next time you inhale, I want you to think of something positive. Love, joy, peace, understanding, whatever it is you need.

And then on the exhale, get rid of the garbage. Fear, worry, doubt. All right. Now, let's go into freewriting. What's on your mind?

If you don't know what's on your mind, write that down. That's the first line. I don't know what's on my mind. And then they write for five minutes. Don't ask me.

If you can share, I don't want to know. That is between you and the paper. That's between you and spirit. I don't need to know. We don't share.

We don't share. All right. Five minutes. All right. Here's your affirmation statement for today.

I am the architect of my life. I build its foundation and I choose its contents. What does that mean? Who has control over how your life goes? We do.

Exactly. What is the foundation of your of your building? And that's where I get into I talk about in the book gratitude versus grievance. Did you wake up this morning? Was the first thing on your mind?

gratitude or grievance. Cuz whichever one you started with, that's how your whole day is going to go. So the foundation of your life is either gratitude or grievance. There's only two emotions we come into this world with. Fear and love.

And everything falls under one of those. Pick one. So if your foundation is gratitude, then what are the contents that you are now putting into that building? And you have to stick with that because again, it's not just for them. It's also for you the teacher.

It is the reminder for you, the teacher, of your why. Why am I here? Cuz I sure as hell don't get paid. Well, [laughter] we don't get You're right. Even just even just listening to you go through that.

Yeah. It settles the mind and it settles you so that you are able to take on more. It's like that whole filled sponge thing, you know, like but you know, you I love the writing component also and I know writing is central to your pedigogy like but for women and girls in particular and I realize you're writing for all students but for our purposes we're also specifically leaning towards women and girls. How does reclaiming voice become a form of survival? No, I don't like to say survival thriving.

Thriving. How does it become a form of thriving? It allows young women in particular to reconnect itself cuz I mean again I cannot tell you how many young women come to this class. these girls. I have so many stories of young girls who are just I had one young lady last semester born and raised in Afghanistan brought to this country.

Yeah. I tell you how many times that young lady stood before me crying because of the conflict between her parents and what she wanted now in America. Because my class challenges belief systems in ways that harm the individual. But when you belong to a culture where women are not allowed to have voice, my class can be quite challenging because I'm I'm giving you pieces, I'm giving you stories, and I'm giving you activities, opportunities that allow you to tap into self. And I don't have all the answers.

You have to figure out how do you now take that into your community that doesn't allow that or that looks down upon that. And you know that young lady, the last time I saw her because she disappeared the last two weeks of class, the last thing she said to me was she gave me a hug and she cried. She was crying. " And it broke me because I know, oh God, I'm probably going to cry and think about it because there's nothing I could do but to encourage her to just keep finding you, keep looking for you. keep reading, keep writing, you know, keep present because it's so overwhelming when these young women, they want so much for their lives, but the gatekeepers have hidden the key.

And in some cases, they have to re redesign a key, their own unique key to their to their lives. And so I also say kind of going back to the breath work, what I do for students who don't want to engage with that type of process, I say to them, well, you will respect everyone else in this class while we do this. If you don't want to participate in the breath work, then you are to sit there and to remain quiet until we are done because what we will not have is disrespect of others choices. You don't have to participate, but you must remain quiet because we are a collective. We are a group and in this class we are rolling on this train together.

So if you don't want to participate that is fine. I'm not going to be mad at you. There's no grade for this. But I would hope that at some point you would want to try this. Right.

And so for what you begin to see in the writing is that the young women in particular but even the young men they begin to express in their writing how this these activities before the lesson activities have begun to help them outside of the classroom reenter and gather themselves. It's beginning to help them find a voice, their voice. It's beginning to help them shape that voice, getting to help them see that they have a voice and they can speak on certain things. And so for young women, what it's beginning to do is it's beginning to allow them to say, "Oh my god, I do matter. " Yes, you do.

You do. And so it's given it's given confidence by the end of 15 weeks. I mean again, how do you get 18 to 20ome students to buy into this type of activity for 15 weeks? You have to be persistent. You have to be consistent.

You cannot get off the track. Every time we meet, this is what we're doing. It's on the syllabus. This is what we're doing every week. Every time you It's awesome because you're giving them like it's it's in some ways it's like creating focus, right?

like so that they have focus, but it's also giving them the space to like open up and breathe and kind of get clear on things. Especially, you know, you talked about that young woman and so many women here, even growing up here are conditioned to be good, quiet, composed, don't be too much, don't speak up, you know, put yourself kind of in the corner. I'm just all of a sudden thought of baby in the corner. But what happens when girls are given space to be fully human and then connected to and then connect them to stories where that is demonstrated. So I talk a lot I talk a couple times in a book about how one of the first stories we read is so generous ain't I a woman.

Now this piece is powerful not just for the young girls because I'm going tell you most of the young men in my class gravitate to that speech by the time we're done because what I show them in this speech is this. How could a woman newly free from slavery who sued had the audacity to sue the United States government to get her child back from her master from the master saying that her child was sold illegally and not only to have the bravado to find a lawyer and go do that but to win and then to say that God called me to travel this country to speak against the evils of gender inequality and race by extension. And then for her to walk, because there ain't no buses, there ain't no train, ain't none of that. in 1851 for her to walk to Ohio, stand in front of that National Convention Center building. And this is where I always stop my students and I say to them, what must she have been thinking and saying to herself before she walked into that building where she knew behind those doors was a group of white men and white women that could immediately sell her back into slavery?

Because what law was just instituted one year prior to 1851? One out of maybe 27 students knows the law. And that law is the Fugitive Slave Law Act, which says you can snatch any colored person off the street and sell them back into slavery. So you got this big six foot and some change black woman who is standing in front of this door and on the other side is all these white folks who could put her back into slavery. " What had what kind of belief system did she have about herself [snorts] that she felt she could do that?

Who gave her the authority to do that? What do they say? What did a kid say when you when you position it like that? What do they say? " And these people are they know who she is cuz her reputation precedes her.

And nobody tells her no. And she stands up there and the first thing she says is, "I am for women's rights. Not I'm a slave, former slave. Not I'm a black woman, negro woman. colored woman, but I am a woman.

And that is claiming of self. No matter what anybody says about you, that is claiming of self. And yet we go into, you know, that this was re, you know, transcribed by another woman, a white woman reporter. That was very rare for the time for a white woman to be a reporter, to have that as her job. And we go into these, you know, I do touch upon these different translations, but the fact of the matter is everybody agrees that the opening was, I am a woman's rights.

And so I say to them, if she can do that in 1851, what how many years ago was that? And they'll say 160. Mhm. So if this woman who had everything against her, who risked her life to do that, can declare and stand for who she knows herself to be, why can't you do the same thing in 2026? Why can't you do that?

Ain't nobody about to put you in slavery. There are no [laughter] no [clears throat] there are no you know dangerous men waiting out the door to snatch you and sell you back down to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. What are the responses? " [laughter] because they begin to attach her to the to the discovery of their own voices. Yes.

And I must say, you know, you are a phenomenal storyteller. So, how you approach this and how you tell a story has got to draw them in too. And it, you know, everybody anybody who's been lucky enough to have an amazing teacher at some point in their lives remembers these things, these lessons that you've gotten. and you know they're like little tiny highlights in your life and I'm sure that you're giving that to your students through this but yes when institutions fail students when they don't offer this because this is this is like lifechanging stuff like what you're offering is life-changing stuff when it's not like that when the alternative is you know you've got a teacher and they're not all new teachers right new teachers are overwhelmed but some teachers have been they're like I've been doing it like this for 40 years yeah and I'm sticking it. This is the way it is.

We come in, it's the blah blah blah blah. Who's left to carry the consequences of this? " I said, "I already told you there ain't nobody else in the world like me. " Because listen, I had some great teachers. My education was multicultural.

I grew up in Stockton, California in the 80s and the 90s around gangs and gang violence, gun violence, drug violence. I speak to that a lot. I let my students know, baby, I'm from the hood. I'm educated, but I'm from the hood and I she will come out when necessary, right? But I had phenomenal teachers in high school.

I had two in particular two white female teachers in high school. Mrs. Sherry Pratt, rest in peace and Mrs. Sarah Davenport. Mrs.

Pratt was my English teacher and Mrs. Davenport was my history teacher. Mrs. Davenport is still alive and I sent her a copy of my book, which I'm so excited I got to do that. but they brought what these two women gave to us was permission to find ourselves in the text.

The way that Mrs. Pratt taught English, I had an AP English, freshman English. the way that she brought storytelling alive for us and the way that Mrs. Davenport even with the constrictions then about teaching history. She allowed us to find ourselves in the text and then to bring that in the classroom was like potlucks and bringing in different foods and stories from each of our different cultures because it was a multicultural high school and both of these women marched for women's rights in the 60s civil rights and women's rights.

Awesome. " And then my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Knight, Miss Knight, eighth grade English teacher, excuse me, Miss Knight, she was also phenomenal. And then when I went on to college, you know, San Francisco State is where, well, I started at UC Santa Barbara. I had teachers from all over the world.

I had teachers from Africa. I had teachers from Scotland, from England. And these teachers were renowned experts in their craft. So I had one teacher who was a renowned expert in Frederick Douglas and yes I did challenge him and he loved it. I had questions because I had never heard of Frederick Douglas unfortunately.

I had teachers who I had English teachers that gave us because they allowed us to understand context and then at San Francisco State I had a law professor who really cemented everything for me and showed me how to further draw in context into the instruction. So the ability to tell stories, this is the teachers investment on trying to find out who these people were. This is called lived or lived teaching, lived history. Don't teach these people as if they were not real. You need to give context again.

What law was going on that made the situation dangerous for Sojunorm? The Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law Act. what was going on with in one of the other pieces I give that I talk about is Erin Aubrey Kaplan's Black Like I Thought I Was, which is a non-fiction piece. What was going on in the 80s excuse me, in the late 90s, early 2000s with the creation of at home DNA test, the census, what did the census tell us in the early 2000 that the country was going to be what by 2040? Primarily brown.

And then all of a sudden, you start seeing these changes in laws and access. Why? It's a response to that census, that data saying that this country is going to be predominantly brown. And so you it unfortunately it does fall on the teacher to find the connections between the text, the lived experiences of the people that they're teaching, and then connect that to the students. " Okay.

Did it really? [clears throat] You know what? Imagine what does it mean? Yeah. You're like, why the context?

Like, why did the Emancipation Proclamation truly free anyone? Y'all better read the language. It did not. It did not. But you got to ask yourself, why would Abraham Lincoln establish such a such a doctrine?

What was he doing? What's going on? And again, that's why I give, you know, my book, I talk about the f the art of writing. And the fifth one is writers write about what's happening in their world. So, if I'm going to give you this story from 1851, I need to be able to explain to you what was happening in 1851 because writers write about what's happening in their world.

That is what's missing in instruction today. Teachers are rushed and pressed to just push kids out the door. And it is a you have to fight to say no, I'm not pushing these young people out. I'm going to give them context, but I'm also going to help me be better at my craft and enjoy what I do, and I'm going to learn a little bit about these people. And it makes the whole thing so much more fulfilling, I would imagine, from being a successful teacher, right?

[laughter] And then it also gives again the it gives the students the young people regardless if it's an English class, a history class, a music class or theater class, it gives the young the students permission to believe that they can tell their stories, too. So if Sojaner, even though she was illiterate, if she could still get up there and tell her story, why can't I? And I have the gift of reading and writing. I have that. Absolutely.

It's like that shared bravery and inspiration to see to see something like that. But you know, you said too about the educator getting something out of it also. And let me ask you, so you're giving a lot, right? You're you're you're giving a lot to the kids. You're giving a lot of thought.

Like you said, you're keeping the time. You're not rushing these kids. So that's a lot on you as the person leading the classroom. What boundaries have you had to learn as a woman, as a teacher, between serving others and disappearing yourself? Oh, no.

I don't disappear. [laughter] No, no. I learned a long time ago about that. I think that's one of the things my military background kind of gave me before I came to the classroom is that I had seen so much in the service that I had made the decision as a young woman. I mean, I joined at 20 and got out at 26, 27.

That I was not going to let anybody make me hide. but that I also had to learn how to pull back when it was becoming too overwhelming for me. " Number one, and again, this is not for everybody, but the first thing I do before I ever enter my classroom is I have a prayer. And it's always, Lord, whatever it is you need me to give these young people today, use me to do that. But I, you know, whatever is for me, let it be, let me see it and let it be for me, too.

So it is always my thing that I pray and then I do my breath before I walk into the classroom because I know it's heavy what I'm bringing and then how do I support these young people through this entire 15 week you know 15 and 10 or 15week process and so sometimes I have learned to be very aware hyper not even hyper vigilant but vigilant about if this is going if this is pulling too much on my students Okay. " And I'll go back and I'll look at my syllabus and I'll be like, "You know what? I'm moving this. I'm moving it. " And sometimes I'll even say, "You know what?

Today's just the day to have fun. We're just going to have some fun. We're not going to do this today or I'm going to figure out a way to make it fun. I'm going find a creative writing opportunity for it because I also do a lot of creative writing in the class. I have them do activities called opening lines and I put that in the book, an opening line, a closing line to really get them into the to the head of a writer.

Like here's the opening line, now you got to finish the rest of the story. But they do it as groups. They rarely do it alone. So I try to make that fun. And then I've learned to let go of necessarily, you know, let go of hard deadlines.

You know, the only hard deadline is when they got to take a final exam. I'm not doing all that. So I'll be like, you know, we're going to spend 40 minutes. We're just going to have fun with this because they need to see in flex flexibility. They need to see that not everything is rigid.

That life is also about having fun. Life is about also paying attention to you and what's going on with you, how you're feeling, and then also paying attention to others, looking at the room. Oh, these young people are overwhelmed. Well, we pulling back today. Today's just going to be a writing day.

Today's going to be a writing lab. Whatever. It's interesting because you actually have, you know, the being having come from a military background which is so regimented and strict to have that flexibility is pretty unique that you've managed to kind of take the best of all of these worlds to create this classroom where your students have the structure and they have like the safety of that structure, but they also have that flexibility that just shows that you're human. It's important. It's important to do that.

Now, everything educa, well, I do tell my students this. Education should be uncomfortable because it needs to stretch you. It needs to help you expand. So, if you walk into a classroom and you are too comfortable, you're not learning. And what I mean by that is the assignments, the activities, they should grow you.

And but and so, who's to say that creative writing, that fun writing can't do that? Like why does it always have to be so rigid? So, oh, we're going to do ABC today. And I said, what the No, no. There's also lessons in creative writing and fun writing and group activities.

There's fun in that. And that's another way to learn. So, I just I try to be open. Whatever spirit needs me to do in this classroom today, I'm open to that. I know there are things that I have to get done like you know the school has requirements for you know certain things that have to be done at certain points but why can't I have fun doing that as well?

Why can't that? Why can't my classroom be the space where students know they're not only going to come to be challenged intellectually and in skill, but also they'll be it's a space where they can find themselves, where they can begin to craft voice, where they can understand the power of storytelling, and where they can have fun, where they can laugh. The teacher's tough, but she's fair, she's honest. And I'm not a huggy type person, but there have been moments when I've seen that students need a need a hug. And I will I will stop the whole class and say, "Oh, you know what?

If you need a hug, let's let's do it. " Because that's to be seen. That is the thing. And I and that's what my students have and you go back 20 years, they've all said that to be seen is everything. I'm not seen in a way that is that is [clears throat] false you know this false imagery this false sense of self you know like being an influencer for example not that but to be seen someone sees me I exist and so to offer that students especially our immigrant students they need that they absolutely need that and I'm here to offer that because I know what it's like to sit behind the desk and have a teacher who's been teaching for 40 years and they whip out the same lecture notes that are now yelled and frayed from 40 years ago.

Oh, yes I do. Right. I remember them days. I said, "I never want to be that teacher. " And but you know, you're you're it's interesting too because you clearly care so much about your students and then you're funny because you're like, "I'm not a hugger.

[laughter] But [clears throat] it's but you've got so much care in you and it's seems like there's like a lot of spirituality to that. Yes. And you've mentioned praying before you go into the classroom. How for you has faith shaped your understanding of womanhood leadership and care. It has.

It has. It's the grounding the grounding the foundation for who I am and what I do. Now I don't go in the classroom and tell students to pray. That's a no. We don't do that.

And I always tell them that ain't what I'm here for. No, no. That may be who I am, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm offering you the opportunity to connect to you. And these three practices allow me to do that.

And you can take these things with you wherever you go. " And that is important for them to be able to see themselves in the in the learning process, how far they've come. For me, faith has always been and will always be the center for who I am. " Or to bring in others into the classroom because they need to hear more than just my voice. to find another way to teach these very different learners to make this personal to tell the story.

It allows me to do that. Faith allows you to see others to see yourself in others. And so yes, I my prayer is that before I walk into the classroom, it will always be that. Do the students know? No.

And they don't have to know. All they know is that this class, this space, this is where I'm I'm growing. This teacher is firm, but she's fair. She's tough, but she's fun. And so, do they they need to see that?

And I think part of what's missing, again, as I said earlier in our conversation, was that young teachers are not taught that. We're not teaching young teachers how to bring our whole authentic self into the curriculum, the syllabus, and thus into the classroom. Okay, real quick. If you're listening and thinking more women should be hearing conversations like this, the best way to support the show is just to follow or subscribe wherever you are. It really does help it reach more people.

Thanks so much. Okay, back to the show. when you were a starting out teacher versus where you are now, was it, you know, it was different, I'm sure, in your classroom. You didn't have the self- assuredness. You didn't have all the stuff as a teacher, that experience that you had.

Is it was it very different than how you teach now? [clears throat] Actually, no. [laughter] That's awesome. No. Well, the only thing is that with public school, I knew in teaching public school I was not going to be able to go further with certain things like faith instru who you are as an individual in the high school in the in the secondary level because of all the constrictions around secondary education.

But how what kind of secondary teacher I was almost exactly is who I still am. I was very aware of my students, where they were at, where we needed to be. But I was also aware of the rules. And so, but I rules are meant to be broken. So, [laughter] for example, so for example, I remember I had a 10th grade class and we were in the textbook was a short story about Malcolm X and I was like, "Oh my god, yay.

" And I had already, you know, talked about who Malcolm X was and just the the not who he was as a as an antagonist, but who he was as an individual, you know, growing up without a father, who this person is. And I was like, we're going to read this short story. Well, one students I guess the parent asked what were they reading and the student told the parent and then the parent called up to the school and was vehement that u they didn't want their child to learn anything about that white manhating Malcolm X. And I said, well, clearly their education didn't go no further than 1963 because the Malcolm X that left this earth was not a white manhating Malcolm X. And that just really shows you about how certain characters are taught in class.

" I said, "Okay, that's fine. I'll go another way. " And I taught Marcus Garvey cuz don't know who Marcus Garvey is. [laughter] They don't know that you wouldn't have a Malcolm X if there hadn't been a Marcus Garvey. " Well, I'm not going to go into that.

Y'all have got to go find out who Marcus Garvey is. But know that he, you know, was a Jamaican born public speaker who came to America because he, you know, wanted to end colorism. He wanted black people of all colors and youths to feel a sense of pride in who they were. and he was just basically continuing the conversation about if America continues to treat black people in this particular way, should we leave? Right?

But more than anything, he ex he gave to black America this sense of pride in being I'm black and I'm proud. So he precedes Malcolm X. He precedes the Nation of Islam. He precedes James Brown. I'm black and I'm proud.

He precedes the black arts movement in this country. But ain't nobody teaching him because Okay. Well, I won't get into that because school. Gotcha. My specialty is African-American literature.

You don't want me. We won't do that. But just know that was my way around that because I'm like, you can't you can't disregard such a pivotal moment in American history and in American literature. You know, Alex Haley wrote Malcolm X's autobiography. You can't dismiss that because you only got one half of the story.

And that's my whole goal when I go into the classroom. We will not do half of the story. This is why context is so important. Those people didn't want Harry, excuse me, Souljenor to speak. Not only because they didn't see her as a woman, but because the womanist, the suffragist did not want to confuse women's rights with slavery, right?

with the ending of slavery. And so a lot of young people don't know that because that's not taught. These contexts are not taught. So, I have always been that kind of teacher that's [clears throat] going to find another way to teach this in a way that helps these young people find their way and see their voice and see that who they are, who they come from is just as beautiful as anybody else. Well, and I think that the fact that you have so much context around your own life, too.

There's so much and I wanted to ask you about that too. I know we don't have all day but I'm going to keep you as long as I have. But you create work across many spaces. So in addition to your expertise as a as a teacher, you've written a an affirmations journal. Repeat after me sis.

You're writing and teaching obviously your bakery. You host the podcast Beyond the Plate RVA. And you've talked about bringing all of that under what you call the Nourishment Collective. Yes. Right.

Could you tell me a little bit about that? Well, for a long time I did I struggled with these what a lot of young people struggle with and you know need help on finding their way through is what happens when you have multiple pieces of you that likes to do different things. The world this world is so pressed to make a person one thing and I just refuse and so I just I love you. I love you. You're like I just won't do it.

I won't do it because we come here with so many wonderful gifts. It's just that one gift is the umbrella for them all. And it's the trick is recognizing what that one umbrella is. And for me, and I've I've said this for years, the umbrella is education. And underneath that umbrella is teaching, writing, and speaking.

And so when I started looking at, well, who am I as a baker? Well, baking, I opened up the bakery because I was leaving teaching because I was burnt out. I was tired. And I knew that baking made me feel good. It calmed me down.

It was another way for me to express my love and sincerity for being here for families, for people, for my own story, my family's food story. And it's just an extension, a further extension of me. I'm a foodie person. I of course I love food. but I love the story of food and particularly soul food and just how our how our pallets are often shaped by our culture, our cultural experiences with food and how that also shapes our mindset about food.

And so I'm a writer. That's what I do. And I just feel like writers should try different genres. And so being a playwright is first and foremost who I am. I love theater and theater has informed my ability to tell stories in fiction and in non-fiction.

I just feel like writers should try those different modes or mediums to figure out where they can grow the most, but also to challenge them, right? So the nourishment collective I came down to and what spirit gave me was that do not be ashamed of these different pieces of you because no matter where someone finds you Rebecca they find you and it is that wherever that is that is what that person needed at the moment. So, if they find me on my foodie podcast, Beyond the Plate RBA, this is where they find me. And then that will might bring them to Rebecca, the non-fiction writer with the lemonade mindset over on Substack, or they might find my bakery. But wherever they find me, they have found me.

And so, I nourish in all of those platforms. I'm nourishing you in the bakery. I'm nourishing you on the foodie podcast. I'm nourishing you in our online bookstore, in my text. That's who I who I am.

I'm [clears throat] a nourish a nourisher. I'm a I think I described myself at the end of last semester as I am a gardener. I plant seeds. And so wherever you go, you'll find my seed. That's where I'm at.

And so that's kind of how I came up with the nourishment and kind of wrapping all these different pieces of me because I All of it is storytelling. All of it is storytelling. We tell our story through what we put on our plate. We tell our story through what we listen to and what we read. We tell our story and how we position words on the page.

We tell our story and how we show up. And that's that's my, you know, my whole framing for the nourishment collective. Wherever you find me, you have found me. You have found nourishment. I love this.

And I love that there are so many ways to find you and so many different ways that you do nourish. And that leads me to my last question for you, which is there are women listening who are exhausted from holding everyone else together and they and nourishing others. What do you want them to hear today? yeah. No, you come first.

Again, I don't I don't step [laughter] into I have to and I'm really serious about this and I've been writing about this for a long time. This is why I started the lemonade mindset and why I started affirmations for myself. I can't care for others if I don't care for the greatest love of my life first and that is me. And so if it's going to empty my well, then I can't do it. If someone says they love you, but they keep doing the thing that hurts you and you and you keep telling them to stop, but they keep doing it, that's not love.

And so you have to learn how to let them go. So my memoir that I wrote called I love me more that was my after leaving my you know my tumultuous violent marriage I learned from that experience that I can't give my light to other people that light belongs to me and it's my job to make sure that it continues to shine and so if it's going to rob me of my health which I have learned the hard way about being robbed of my health because I gave too much to every to everything. If it's going to rob me of my house, if it's going to rob me of my voice, if it's gonna try to steal my joy, then I don't want it. So, I work on me before I can give anything to anyone else. And that is so important.

I know the word no. It's a sentence and I don't have to explain it. And sometimes, you know, but sometimes even I struggle with explaining because people be like, why? And I've just learned how to tell people because I said no. [laughter] Yes, it is.

Yes. Right. " Uhuh. I don't care. And it's it's almost the same.

And I don't want to say I don't care because even caring is an emotion. But what I say is this, you know, particularly for my students. I'm not here to be your friend. I have a job to do and I'm going to do my job. But if by the end of this we become friends, then this is the best thing ever.

But I am not your friend at this moment. So you will call me Professor Pierce or you will call me Dr. Pierce or you will call me Miss Rebecca or you will call me Miss Pierce. But what you will not do is call me by my first name because we are not on the same level. And that's not to be disrespectful but that's to teach you to understand the journey that I have been to been through to find me and you have to respect that journey.

You ain't got to like it but you got to respect it. And so at some point, unless you want to be put in the ground at a young age, whether it's your children, your mate, or your co-workers, you're going to have to learn how to put you first. If it does not feed your soul, if it does not grow you and expand you, if it does not align with who you know yourself to be or who you want to be, then the answer is no. Stop trying to be seen in a negative way. Oh my god, she does everything.

Look at her. Cuz baby, when you die, what's going to go on your tombstone? The day you were born and the day you died. Not She made the best cookies on the planet. That ain't going on your tombstone.

[clears throat] This, by the way, is totally reminding me of when we first hopped on the phone. I'm like, I just cut my son a bagel. Yes. [laughter] That's going to go in between. She cut the best bagels.

She cut the best bagels. Yeah. No, I'm not doing that. And it's just really getting to that moment when you when you realize, you know, you have a choice and how you want to live your life. Gratitude or grievance.

How are you stepping into the classroom? Because I had a lot of teachers emailing me about, oh my god, I hate going I'm dreading going back to work. I'm like, why? That's a mindset. That's all you.

That is all you. You can change that instantly. It doesn't matter what them children are doing when you walk into that classroom. That's your classroom. The attitude you carry into that classroom dictates how that classroom is going to go.

So if you are learning how to quiet yourself, heal yourself. Begin that healing process. Figure out what works for you, what's growing you, what's stifling you, what's hindering you. Then you will look at not returning to the classroom as ug but as but returning to the classroom as this is my space. This is me.

This is where I shine. This is where I grow. And I have an opportunity to give that to someone else. Don't let them people upset you, Rocky. Oh, no ma'am.

Cuz at the end of the day, once again, the birth date and the date you die. No, ma'am. No, I don't play that. Not no more. No.

Rebecca, you are awesome. I am so grateful that you are here. I feel like there's so many takeaways and I love by the way I keep talking and not letting you go but how you say gratitude versus grievance because so many people are like gratitude gratitude and I've actually like said before in a gratitude class once I was like I feel like I'm so doing this like without thinking. It's not feeling like deep gratitude. I keep writing my coffee like h but when you look at it versus gratitude versus grievance it's the whole my it's your whole shift it's how you're it's you can see what you don't want exactly and again it's just again as I as I press into my students as soon as those eyes open you've got to start training your brain to go immediately to gratitude thank you and if you believe in God or not, whether it's thank you God or just thank you, because the truth of the matter is you really had no say as to whether or not your heart wanted to keep beating or if your lungs wanted to keep processing air.

[clears throat] You have no control over that. Your body works autonomously, right? Involuntarily, meaning you don't get to control that. The only thing you can control is how you think as soon as your eyes open. Oh, that's so good.

Thank you so much. You are awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. I can't thank you enough. And I'm going to have all the information you we talked about, including a link to Marcus Garvey in the show notes.

Please do that. I will absolutely do that. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Thank you so much for having me and have a great day. You too. I really appreciated this conversation with Rebecca, especially the way she challenged some of the assumptions we make so quickly about kids and behavior and how those assumptions often say more about what we've been taught to expect than what's actually going on. That shift alone can change everything. And next week, we're taking that idea of rethinking what's not working and turning it into something else entirely new.

We're talking about what happens when frustration isn't something to push through, but something to pay attention to. with the one and only Jess Xstrum. In the meantime, if this episode opened your eyes like it opened mine, send it to a friend. That's how these conversations keep going. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time on Roar.