Show Notes for "TEECH: A Third Space for Community-Connected Educators"
"TEECH: A Third Space for Community-Centered Educators"
Season 3, Episode 3
In this episode of Equity Unlocked, we hear from four Twin Cities educators who talk honestly about what it means to teach in today’s political and social climate. The teachers featured in this episode are participants in the TEECH program, a nonprofit founded by Dr. Muhammad Khalifa with the mission to develop community connected educators. The name “TEECH” is an acronym that stands for Teaching for Equity, Empowerment and Community Healing. Hosted by Kandace Logan, Executive Director of TEECH, the group discusses the real challenges culturally responsive teachers are facing in their school communities today, especially in this political climate. From multilingual classrooms and refugee communities to identity, safety, and student organizing, this conversation centers the lived realities of teachers who are committed to culturally responsive, community-connected practice. Together, they reflect on the power of finding a “third space” for educators and what school leaders need to understand if they want to truly support teachers doing equity-centered work. They not only explore how they’re supporting students and families, but also their own wellbeing by finding ways to sustain themselves through the TEECH program.
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Teaching for Equity, Empowerment, and Community Healing (TEECH)The educator community and professional learning space that connected the guests in this episode. TEECH bridges schools and their communities by supporting educators to learn community-based ways of knowing and being, while also offering the collective care, coaching, and connection that teachers need to thrive in a challenging profession.
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1968 LA School Walkout
Discussed as an example of how youth organizing builds across movements, with students walking out to demand bilingual education and language rights. -
The Children's Crusade
Referenced during the discussion of student agency and historical examples of youth-led organizing during the Civil Rights Movement. -
Window, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors
Referenced by educators when discussing the importance of representation in classroom texts, helping students see themselves (mirrors) and others (windows) in literature.
- Teaching can be an isolating profession despite constant proximity to students
- The importance of spaces outside school buildings for reflection, connection, and growth
- TEECH brunches and shared meals as relationship-building and professional learning spaces
- Finding affinity, allyship, and validation across schools and districts
Identity, Representation, and Literacy
- Using windows and mirrors in curriculum to support student identity and empathy
- The critical role of diverse literature in classrooms, especially when teacher demographics do not reflect student identities
- Teaching students language to name inequity, notice patterns, and articulate lived experiences
- Representation as essential not only for students, but for teachers as well
Youth Agency, Organizing, and Civic Action
- Supporting student agency through identity work and critical literacy
- Helping students notice injustice and understand that action is possible
- Historical examples of youth organizing as inspiration for modern student movements
- The educator’s role in supporting student organizing while prioritizing safety and care
Teaching in the Current Political and Social Climate
- Educating in a time of pervasive fear, uncertainty, and dysregulation for students and families
- Students, educators, and communities living in ongoing fight-or-flight conditions
- Teaching through moments of crisis without having been trained for them
- Learning “on the job” as political and social conditions shift locally and nationally
Community-Centered and Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Prioritizing community care before content and crisis
- Building classroom rituals and routines that support empathy, grounding, and courageous conversation
- Centering student identity, belonging, and emotional safety as prerequisites for learning
- Seeing students as full human beings, not just consumers of information
What School Leaders Need to Understand Right Now
- Trust in teachers’ professionalism, care, and judgment
- Transparency and vulnerability as leadership practices
- The importance of assuming positive intent and sharing information
- Flexibility over performative productivity
- Intentional recruitment and retention of teachers of color
- Humanizing educators, not managing them as if schools are corporations
01:30 – Finding TEECH and the need for a “third space”
How each educator connected to Teaching for Equity, Empowerment, and Community Healing (TEECH), including teacher brunches, summer learning, and the importance of gathering outside school buildings.
05:05 – Teaching as an isolating profession
Reflections on isolation in teaching, the limits of school-based collaboration, and the power of cross-school educator community and deep reflection.
09:15 – Teaching in the current political and social climate
Candace contextualizes today’s fear and uncertainty for students and educators, drawing on historical moments of crisis in schools.
10:45 – Community-first, culturally responsive teaching
Prioritizing safety, belonging, and community care before content, and building classroom rituals that support courageous conversation and empathy.
13:05 – Minnesota’s multilingual and refugee context
Teaching in one of the nation’s largest refugee-receiving states and the responsibility to ensure students and families feel safe and supported.
15:20 – Teacher demographics and representation gaps
Discussion of Minnesota’s gap between student diversity and teacher diversity, and why representation matters for both students and educators.
16:15 – Shared responsibility and coalition building
Partnership among educators, reducing invisible labor for educators of color, and inviting white educators into equity work without paralysis or guilt.
19:20 – Being a “singleton” educator of color
Isolation, burnout, and the structural limits faced by educators of color, including the absence of affinity spaces and institutional support.
21:20 – Identity, literacy, and seeing students as human
Using identity work, windows and mirrors in literature, and language to help students name inequity and see themselves and others clearly.
26:10 – Student agency, organizing, and historical connections
Youth organizing, climate justice, and historical examples including the Children’s March (1963) and the Los Angeles student walkouts (1968).
31:10 – What educators need from school leaders right now
Trust, transparency, vulnerability, flexibility, and moving away from corporate-style management of schools.
35:35 – Recruitment, retention, and representation for teachers of color
The need for intentional recruitment, mentoring future teachers of color, and addressing the emotional cost of being one of few in a building.
37:20 – Closing reflections and care for educators
Final affirmations, gratitude, and a reminder of the importance of sustaining educators doing this work.