Hey, hey, ba fam, I am so excited to bring you another how To throwback. I hope you guys enjoy this and while you're listening, don't be shy. Leave us a review. We will read them on the show. And yeah, we just love y'all so much. Okay, here is our how To episode for this week.
Hey, hey, hey, look, yes, I was like I always forget our damn sorry y'all. Hey, hey, hey, we're back.
We're black, We're.
Brown, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, we're extra black brown today and stew we have a guest today. Her name is Robinson. Let me read you a little taste about miss Lacy. First of all, she is an educator like myself,
so you already now it's on like Donkey Kong. Lacey is the president and CEO of Unbounded, which is an education organization that offers standardize that offers standards aligned resources and immersive professional learning for teachers and leaders seeking seeking equity. She has over twenty years of experience and education and focuses on helping educators in school systems disrupt systemic racism and its legacies.
Yeah.
Oh, and she's the author of a new book. See if y'all watch me on YouTube, like I'll be telling y'all can see the book. It's beautiful yellow. It is called Justice Seekers, Pursuing Equity in the Details of Teaching and Learning. As we both got our books out, you know, you know black goes so good with yellow.
You see, look at that looks so that's blue.
So welcome to the podcast, Lacey. You so excited. How I met Lacey? She just dope, I'm not gonna tell all your business, girl, but just to meet adult black woman on social media, like we should connect, and then we literally did. It was just on something like hey girl, hey, and then we spoke for three hours.
Oh my god, I told somebody.
I was like, if that had been a first date, that would.
Have been a perfect first date, like like, oh my god, I'm met my spirit I'm at my spirit person and I've never seen her in person.
But yes, it was Honestly, it was awesome. We just like you know, some people you just connect with, Like that's what it was. We got connected on social media, had a phone call that I thought it'd be like, oh, twenty thirty minutes. No, Like I told the lady to walk with me. I walk, we talk, we cried, we laughed, chat. This is about BSF now. And so when I saw that she had a book coming out, I was like, Hello, come on the podcast. Hello, let's promote this book. You know.
But honestly, so much your story is so interesting, Lacy, because so many of our listeners have like pivot stories, you know. So I would love for you to kind of share how because one y'all might not be familiar with Unbounded. But it's not a small nonprofit, you know. They got a big budge, right lady. Sixty million?
Oh shoot, we are we are our way there. I'd say close to forty forty three, you.
Know, forty million, you know, now something like we have.
We have a for profit and nonprofit side, and my goal is one hundred million. You know, I mean dream right, but I mean into reality. So and I have we we're about one hundred and ten employees across the United States, and so we do three national convenience I have the next final Convenient that's happening this season in DC next week.
Last month, in June, we had our Standards Institute Convenient, where almost two thousand educators from across the United States got together and for an entire week and did what we call made their brain sweat around standards, aligned curriculum, and the equity that is essential to close the opportunity gap here in the United States. So just excited and feel really blessed to lead this organization.
So I love that. So how but you didn't always? Obviously no one starts off as a president and CEO, right, So what was your trajectory? Like, how did you get here?
Oh? My gosh, okay, So like you, I started out as an early childhood teacher.
I actually taught in an early childhood.
Center to put myself through undergrad I went to the Florida A and M University, thank you very much. And honestly, I didn't really want to be a teacher.
I wanted to be an actress.
And my mother was like, I'm going to need you to get a four to one k and have some health infits, and so she's like, I've watched you as from the time you were a child. You love children, you love reading, you love teaching people, and you're a little bit bossy. So I think you should try being a teacher. And so I went into the teaching profession.
I started an undergrad and by the time I reached my junior year, it became am a calling, Like I could literally feel my spirit lift and soar when I thought about the potential that is yielded in a classroom when you have the right mix of a teacher that is dedicated, that is well prepared, that has the passion students regardless of social economic status, regardless of background, but have that desire, you know, that desire that like the three and four year olds have when they're learning, and
the hunger, the right materials, the support, Like what all those things are mixed in. I'm telling you, you know this persthand magic happens in classrooms. We see it on a daily basis. And so that's what started to drive me from there. Honestly, it was a set of unforeseen opportunities that I never said no to. So when I went to do my residency, somebody said, you should go observe Marva Collins Preparatory School in Cincinnati. If no one
knows about Marva Collins, please look her up. She is, I'd say, one of my original She ros African American women in the city of Chicago had enough with the way her kids were being schooled.
And decided to open up her own classroom in her living room in Chicago, and word got out in the neighborhood that her kids were not only learning but excelling, and the neighbors started bringing their kids, and all of a sudden, her living room is packed, and regardless of where the students were, they were learning Shakespeare and Chaucer
and algebra. Like she had just this insurmountable belief that brown and black children have all the potential to become whatever they want, and when we set the right environment for them, they can learn.
So I got an opportunity to intern in a school that was modeled after her schools. I got an opportunity to go live in Germany and observe after school programs on dods, and also get opportunity to look at how kindergarten is done Europe very different. I got an opportunity to go to Columbia University and work for someone who's a really big gurgu. Well I'm not going to say their name.
My first lent sent around professional development.
I ain't even know there was a career professional development. I thought you could be a teacher or a principal, but a professional developer I never even heard of it, and then became a principal with new leaders, started to work for new leaders.
After becoming a turnaround principal.
Coaching and then lo and behold, honey, I went and applied to this company called Unbounded. Didn't get the job the first time around, which is I always tell people, is a testimony, okay.
Because right ever, no, and.
They didn't. They didn't hire me, but they said come back and facilitate at one of our national convenience and I did that and all of my I would say, gifts and talents, and they invited me to apply again for a job at Unbounded and I worked first. I was a senior director. That's the other thing too, Get in because if it's meant to be, you will fit in, okay, if you have gifts and talents, and those gifts and
talents have an opportunity to shine. Don't worry about what level you come in on, because those gifts and talents are going to carry you. And that's what happened. Month after month, I kept getting a promotion, to the point where my mother was like, now, what is you doing
over there? Did they promote you? Everything? For me? And I went from senior director to chief and then got an opportunity where they allowed me to take their standards institute, their national committee, and add some touches to it and shift it and make it about equity, which is one of our pervasive issues in education today.
And we took off our sales, our revenue sword.
Already getting weight less for people to come to our institutes. And my board at the time needed to replace the CEO and kenye me and said do you want to do it?
Like all teacher to Girden and CEO. I'm gonna like something forty million dollar. You know, it's just like what I just I hope listening to that, y'all are like, okay, you know that. You know sometimes you think you're stuck in a place, or how are your skills transferable? But they are, ye know they are.
Yes. Especially I want all I hope educators because I know it's tons of them that listen to you and follow you. I want them to understand something. Number One, your gifts and talents are beyond measurable. We can only capture a snapshot in that evaluation if it's any good. Second, of all, we are some of the most creative. I mean, look at yourself, self sufficient, magvering kind of professionals you will find, okay, And I think you also have to
allow yourself time to develop. Who said you got to drop.
It to a career and be instematic?
No, it's true. I think that, Like I think so many of us don't realize. Like I talked for ten years and then that it was that skill. People always ask me, what do I credit the success of the budgetista? And I'm like that preschool classroom. I learned all I need to learn about leadership, about presentation, about different personalities, about like you know, about management. I mean, because you're doing it all and so so many of the skills.
Like I saw this really fun meme about like first stay at home moms who think they can't join the workforce, and then listed all of the the skill sets that these stay at home moms have that absolutely translate into the workforce. So no, I love that. So what made you decide with all of this knowledge and all this experience, Is this your first book? Justice Seekers?
It is, it's my first published book.
Yeah, So what made you decide to write it?
Well, I will tell you I've been a storyteller since I was a child. Storytelling runs in my family. I always dripped of being a writer from the time I think I was like five years old.
Never thought my first would be a nonfiction piece.
But it's a passion piece that I did with the organization, and I do keynotes. I do national keynotes around the United States and began to notice that the keynotes started going viral. A big chunk of the keynotes is my own personal journey.
I got an opportunity, which is rare, Tiffany. I got an opportunity to stand on stage in front.
Of what I call it edgy sphere and make my confessionals about being an educated right like admitting that I did not always have the greatest.
Learning environment for my students because.
I didn't know. I didn't know the nuances of how to teach reading, and I tried my hardest to get my kids to learn, but without the proper professional.
Development, I was amiss.
You know. I was a middle school turnaround principal, and I allowed the system to put a.
Cloud of unbelief in my students over me because of the zip codes they lived in, because of their social economic status, because of the former reputation that.
The school had, and rather than seeing my kids for the beauty and the gifts and the talents and who they were, I saw them as this group of people that in.
Some instances were nuanced, you know.
Were nuisances to the system, and I made mistakes. I wanted them to excel, but I wanted them to excel what assimilation's lensed, because I thought that was the way
that I made it. And it wasn't until I left the principalship and I had time to sit back and think as an educator and realized that my own internal meter about who I was as a black woman, as a black child, as a black student, who I showed up as a teacher and a principal was based off of my own internalized racist beliefs and values, and that there were times, as much as I believed in my students,
those values superseded what I did. And so as I started to reflect, I started writing to tell the story. I looked at the keynotes that I did and I said, at the end of the day, I'm just trying to seek justice, Justice for our students, justice for our teachers, but most importantly, justice for this nation because we're at a time where we don't have anything any more time to waste.
So I started writing it down and I kept saying to people in the organ.
I was like, I got a book. I got a book. I got a book. And they were like, Lacey, if you say you're gonna do it, we know you're gonna do it, go and write it. So my yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got help from unboundd community.
I got people in the community, smart people, superheroes I call them. But that's what the book is. It's an amalgamation of my story as a student teacher, principal. Our story is unbound.
It No, I love that, So what do you well, one, this is like, aside from the book, what do you think some of that? Because one of my friends, doctor artis, we're gonna put some respect on her name. But Maria to me, Maria is a vice superintendent of New York Public Schools, which is the largest school district, yes, in New Jersey, and she was just sharing like what a hard time they're having recruiting teachers, just because it's such a crazy time. I know, I left the classroom because
it was too much. But as if someone is listening in the considering going into education, or they are a teacher already, what can they do to be a justice secret because like you said, sometimes you have this own bias that you bring in with you because I'm not on line until I grew up in a very African household and then I went to I but in school, my school, I lived in Westfield largely, which was very white, and so it was like African at home, White at school,
and so I had not although I am black, I had not had a lot of access to Black American you know, like, of course it's not a monolith, but the experience, you know, not fully and completely because like at home, I just didn't get that, you know. So when I got to teach in Newark, you know, of course new Ork, like I said, does not represent all
black the whole African American experience. But one of the things I brought with me was if you just work hard enough, the bootstraps, you know, like the same as you. And I was like bootstraps, like you know, and then I can't to teaching this preschool where the babies were so smart. Our kids are so dag all smart. But they were also coming to say, like I remember went to the park once and one of the little boys
got poked by a needle that was left behind. I was like what, And I just remember, like, so, my classroom was at the bottom of a of a senior building but also SSI social Security, so a lot of people that had mental issues. But also there was a lot of drug dealing in the building. And I distinctly remember having to decide because we had a closet on the third floor for the kids, like you know, like
paper and scissors, any excess materials. So every time I had to go to the closet, I had to decide, do I want to take this elevator and maybe get stuck in the small elevator with someone who is not in their right mind, or do I take the stairs where you don't know what you're gonna see. I mean, I have seen in action prostitution happening. Once I ran up the stairs and I smelled a sickly sweet smell
and when I looked, someone was literally smoking crack. Yeah, And that said, wait, how is the baby supposed to come to school talking about ABC's one, two three, Like I said, this is obviously I know this is not the I don't want to misconstrue thinking that this is the African American experience across the board. But I had never experienced that this is that this is what my kids could be experiencing. Because I was twenty two, twenty three, and I was blown away, and I threw that maybe
throw out the whole bootstraps. Girl, I'm barely making it. It was. It was hurting my spirit. How is a four year old supposed to learn? So the question is if someone is if someone wants to be a justice seeker, how does someone kind of get past the bias that they might bring into the classroom that's harmful for kids.
Well, first and foremost, let me say this your experience that you're talking about, there are hundreds of thousands of other educators across the United States experience the same thing. I used to call it the robin Hood mentality that I had. I had made up in my mind that in some years I wanted to go and work in what they call urban districts, you know, the districts that are mostly bron and black. So I'm in digit in
this students low social economic status. And in other years I would push myself to go work in the suburbs because I wanted to see, like, okay, the kids in the suburbs, the teachers in the suburbs. It sounded like the land of good and plenty. But what I began to understand, and I talk about this and justice seekers, is that the teachers in the suburbs were justice ill prepared as the teachers in the urban city schools that I taught in, and that it wasn't Yes, we're materials
of plenty. Yes were experiences of plenty in those suburbs, yes, but teachers on average did not get supported. And so the first thing I tell people about becoming a justice seeker is one, come and join us, right, Come and join our community.
I call it the Edgy Sphere.
You don't have to walk this road alone. There are the hundreds of thousands of us across the United States. We have our national conveniens.
We invite people to but we also have online opportunities.
We have a platform called the Ecosystem. You could go on and join the community. You teach third grade and you want to know, you want to hook up what other third grade teachers from across the United States. Our Ecosystem offers that, And I would say this, find your edgusphere locally right, make sure that you are building the community within your building and across schools and other educators.
We got Facebook, we got Instagram.
Start a collective educator page where you all are coming together locally to support one another. Here's the other thing, the professional development. That's one of the biggest issues I believe in our profession. Tiffany, if you went to a doctor and you had a cold, and you told the doctor that you you had a cold and your throat was sore, and the doctor pick said, let me see your foot, and you say, well, wait a minute now, I said that my throat was sore. Well what are
you looking at my foot for? And the doctor said, you know, I ain't. I ain't really get a chance to study grades anatomy. I got to the foot, and you know, and I ain't really had you would you would take your paper, gown, hey, getting your things, ma'am, and walk up out that office. When you look at educators, I believe our profession is not looked upon the same
as other professions. We don't receive the same kind of professional development that is ongoing, consistent and comprehensive, that is up to date around research, and development that looks at the landscape of global majority learners and gets us to ask the question, how do I teach students and allow them to come to school as their whole selves? How do I teach my students academic English while honoring their
home language at the same time. And so I tell educators all the time, you got to find a network where you are professionally developing yourself. You got to ask the system, what's the professional develop you're providing me on teaching and needing? How do I become a better math teacher? So those are the pieces that I really try to push for folks. Join us as a community, find your community local, look at the professional development that you're being
doused with. And for God's sake, this is the last piece. You gotta do a self examination. You got to ask yourself, why am I standing in the middle of this classroom? What is it that I What is it that I as a profession what am I looking for? What am I seeking? And what is it that I can offer my students standing performing? I think when a lot of people ask themselves that question, did you become a teacher.
Because you couldn't think anything else to do?
Because and if that's the case, honey, you need to go on. Indeed, okay, because this profession is worthy of those who deem it as essential as their passion, as something that they want to grow in, just like being a doctor, a loyal, a candlestick maker, or a baker.
And it's true though, like it's not. I used to always tell like my when I first started teaching, you know, I had some coworkers that didn't really share my enthusiasm for teaching. And I used to say, you know, if we were packing boxes, girl, I wouldn't care. You could do whatever. You could cheat on the job, you could. I'm like, well you cutting out early, we could do all that time. I'm like, we pack a boxes, girl,
I said, but these are kids. Yeah, this is the same kid that's going to either take your purse or stitch you up in the hospital. How you wanted to go? You know, like, these are kids, And so you don't get to say, you know, I don't feel like I don't want to know, like sorry, this is not the kind of profession. There's no space for that here.
Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, there are greatest commodity.
Don't you ever think about that as a.
Nation, our greatest commodity, it's our youth, it's the future.
None of this AI or infrastructure or fly in the mars.
Is ever going to continue unless we properly educate the entire masses.
But there are few, I believe, And let them send me out to you, Captain my mom and showed us, say what song is that?
Show them.
Google it.
It's chosen out the future, the late great Whitney that song like give us a sin.
I feel like every like graduation or whatever do at that time, like we all say in that song.
And the children, the children have to learn to.
Hold that thought lazy. We have to pay some bills. We are going to throw to break and we'll be right back black and brown. What do you hope that may be an educator or non educator, what do you hope that people take away? Like, what do you hope? What changes? What hope like guess mentally you hope they take away and emotionally, but also what changes you hope you know that they in their lives as a result of reading it?
Yeah, well, I say Justice Secrets is my love letter to educators, you know, and I really truly mean that, Like, you know, you get a love letter, and the person is expousing how much they care about you, but they're also telling you like what they're concerned about, you know, and what they appreciate, what ate about you, appreciate about you, and what they want to see in the future, you know. And that's what this is. It's my love letter to
the edu sphere. It's my love letter to the students, and most importantly, I'm gonna say it's my love letter to this nation. Because here's the thing. I what I wrote and decided to include my own personal stories in the book, and this is something I do in my keynotes. You know, I'm the first step out to be like, hey, guess what I made the mistake? If I as an African American woman who grew up in a single mother household with some powerful figures right with some powerful people
behind me telling me you can do it. You know, you are your you are your best cheerleader. You know it doesn't matter what they think about you, keep going. If I had all of that, and just like you, attended predominantly white schools and still got the message I wasn't good enough and still got the message I wasn't included and very rarely had the opportunity to read, see, or hear from people that look like me, let alone the history that my people have been a part of
in this country. And dare I say the main character in this country? If out of all of that. After finishing my K twelve experience, I still grapple with who I was. And it wasn't until I attended an HBCU that it got hammered home. How brilliant, how bright? And yes, you might struggle on math, Lacy, but guess what, we can get you to proficient. We can get you to proficient because we believe in you. And so I use those storyes of what I thought I knew when I
knew better. I used the stories of the observations that I've had the privilege of having with teachers and leaders and students, those moments. You know, there's a little girl I talk about in the book. I was doing a walk through the New Orleans and I think about this and it brings tears to my eyes. A couple of years ago, I was in a fifth grade math class. A little black girl, braided, long hair, beautiful, all coco,
buttered up. You know, you can tell somebody to take care of putting presses down her edges and had all the bowls in her hair. And they were in a math class just doing this wrote three plus three is six fifth grade now and I'm walking through the classroom and she grabs my arm and pulls me down and says, will you be her teacher?
Please?
Please? Will you be our teacher? And it's in those moments as an educator that I was just whipped apart because I knew what she was asking me.
Do you see me?
Do you hear me? Could you come and care enough about me and what I'm learning? And that's not a dig on the teacher that was in front of the student who wasn't prepared. I'm gonna say that even the principle admite it the teacher wasn't prepared, not the teacher's fault, but the system's fault. And so it's those moments I
talk about in the book. I have a real truth and telling moment in US as a nation in the role that African Americans, Indigenous LATINX and other people of color have played in the role of education, the misguidedness, and so I invite people to not just read the stories, but to answer the questions in the text about themselves and their systems and their schools.
So you probably have heard the statistic by twenty forty four that we will be for the first time in this country, say majority minority country. Yes, And so what does that spell for education? If the minority majority of people will no longer be white, that it will be black, brown, and indigenous indigenous? Like, what does that look like in the education system? How much more important is it to
have black, brown, and indigenous teachers? Knowing that you know that we will be overly represented in the general population.
It looks like the warning signs that are going off now, the warning signs we are literally out of lace. You know, you know when your.
Fire alarm goes off and you overcooked your food, and it's like, it's.
That is actually happening in education right now, and people want to blame it on COVID. But I got news for you. We were already in an educational pandemic before
the health pandemic even happened. We were already starting to see the signs that we as a nation weren't paying close enough to the development of educators, that we as a nation weren't paying close enough to the pay you know this, talk about this as an educator, and the amount of sacrifice that is expected of you, even though you gotta.
Pay bills, meet your mortgage, feed your kids, support your family like everybody else.
We as a nation. The warning signs have been going off since before Brown and Board of Education that in order to educate us all, in order for this to be these United States, where the pursuit of happiness is part of our creed, you have to educate your masses. Horace Man said that when he proposed to public school, and so the warning signs are going off. One all
students are struggling, but pride, all students are struggling. Broad and Black students pervasively have been underserved in these United States. I've doubled dog there somebody to go to their local system and ask for the data and not see the trend of broad and Black students versus their white peers.
Second of all, our GDP, wayman, now speaking your language, GDP is at risk because if you don't educate the masses, if they can't read, if they can't write, way Man, Now, I'm really about to touch on I believe this is the world according to the lakes. The reason why your work is so essential is because your counteracting the first misstep that happens. And you already know what I'm about to say. People have a phobia about math, they have
a phobia about numbers. Brown and black people, nine times out of ten aren't shown the representation, the gifts and talents. Aren't told that you have the innate ability to be a mathematician a financial analysis. And so what ends up happened You become scared of numbers, let alone budgets.
We're talking about just numbers.
And I dream of a day where your work gets magnified because we have educated the masses of brown and black children to understand that they have mathematical ability. They understand the concepts and the foundational skills, and they could be applied to budgets, engineering, food service, anything. So that is our warning side. Now the cohort of teachers that are needed, and I talk about this in the book.
First of all, brown and black teachers aren't needed to keep Jerome and Anna in place, that's how they've been used in the past. They are needed because all students need to see representation.
All students need to understand.
That people who are not from where you're from can't be discounted, have to be included, and if we are to continue to be these United States.
We have to start to educate our youth around that. So I'm gonna say it's about the teaching force. You think you think we would be in such a dire need for teachers if if they were paid the way that they should be paid.
I think in part yes, I mean I think also like a lot of teachers teach because obviously for the love, not but the money. But also too, I think it's not just the money. For me, it was also just the lack of support. So I think in some part that yes, you would maybe have more teachers apply. But like for example, I look at I hear Maria talking NERD pays well, okay, they pay very well, and yet they're still struggling to attract teachers. So I don't think
it's just the money. I think it's also like, is there a system in place to support these teachers once they have the job.
It's the money, it's the system. Now let's look at this, it's the legacies of community. So think about this. You want to increase brown, black, Indigenous communities and education, you can ignore their financial histories that they've had. So even though and I'm not saying Newark doesn't pay well, because I've seen their pay skill, it pays well.
But I want you to think about you're somebody.
That's being moved into a pay scale who's financial legacy has never had had a leg up. Right, So let's say you took out student loans. Your your mom and your daddy, your grandmother, your auntie, they couldn't help you get through school. You got the student loans. You already know what I'm gonna say. You're already behind you probably credit card your way through school. And where you are now. You're in newer public schools making the salary, but it's
not quite cutting it yet. And what ends up happening you have to go work a second job, right to not just pay your bills, but to try to catch up from all of the financial legacy that you had missing. So it is, it's the salary, it's the professional development, it's getting providing opportunities for educators to get a leg up. You want to talk about removing student loan, maybe we should start with the education for us first, and.
Really mean it, and really mean it.
There needs to be more education around folks like you coming into our school systems and saying to brown and black cohorts of educators, let's talk about how we can build your budget. Let's talk about how we can start financial legacies so that you could get down into the passion of teaching. There is a revolution that needs to happen in the teaching profession. If you want the brown and black communities to play a role in it, don't
ignore their financial legacies that have been absent. I think if we start to answer those questions, the professional development paying them well, acknowledge how we can support them in building healthy financial legacies for themselves, then that takes the burden off of getting into the passion of teaching.
Because honestly, when I think about when I was teaching, I mean I was making decent money for the time a preest GARL was making thirty nine thousand, but then I still toutored on the side because he needed the extra money. You know, I still babysat on the side, and that made me an extra like five or six thousand dollars a year, you know, to try to close some gaps. So no, absolutely, and I love that you're right that I think folks don't understand. I mean, well,
the folks listening, you know, y'all brown ambition. But folks who are not a part of this community do not understand that my hundred thousand that I make is not the same as someone who's white and one hundred thousand that they make, because that one hundred thousand for them, like Tashays the first girl to go she's the first to go to college, so she's the one hundred thousands for her, for granny, for couso, for mom or dad.
It's like that money. And then on top of them, you took out student loans because other people did not have to do so, and so on top of that, you're trying to like you don't literally get to start at zero and build, you know, we're literally starting at negative one hundred thousand, negative two hundred thousand, and so it's not the same. That money is not created equally.
So no, absolutely, And Tiffany, imagine this.
If you didn't have to tutor, if you didn't have to babysit, could you have imagined using your time in bettering your your self and your profession, maybe taking a class, reading a book, joining a group. You know, when you think about that and the impact that it has on communities that we're inviting, that we want to be a part of this educational landscape, you got to take all that into consideration.
I love that because it's not because what I'm learning more and more about my community is that it's not just throwing money at the answer, you know exactly. That's what I mean. I've been lately been on my soapbox trying to strong arm these organizations to say, like, yo, I've been teaching financial education for the last fifteen years. I've not built an online school that teaches financial education.
I have subsidized so many over one hundred thousand students have joined my online school, the Literature Academy, and we keep the cost as low as possible. I have been subsidizing, you know, so much of that. Just even just this year, we had a financial education challenge that was totally free and we educated two hundred and eighty thousand people. But why I always got to come out of pocket? Where are you big banks?
You know what I mean?
Do you want me to tap dance for you on your to be a spokesperson? Why I always got to come out of pocket, you know, like, and I'm just I'm just like, no, I'm holding them to task. You come see me, No, tell me how you are going to subsidize black and brown people getting free financial education. I got to school. It works. It's seven years old.
We've already we've already educated one hundred thousand people. Subsidize that, you know, Like I would love to be able to say to your point lazy, like, hey, you know, we have all these educators that unbounded. Why not why not fund them to have free access for one year to the literature Academy? Why why do I always have to
pay for that? You know? And so you just be surprised because these companies have I mean I have gotten contracts that are multiple six and seven figures to do not multiple seven from my lips of God's Ears, one day figure contracts to you know, to do next to nothing as the budgetista, you know, like a little live here on a stage there, and that's cute and I'm grateful for it, you know, and I brought back into
the community in the company. But I would honestly would really love instead to say, hey, how much can five hundred thousand how many students. Can we can we educate for five hundred thousand, how many students? I mean agent for a million? You know, I mean not students like kids. I'm talking about these grown people who are like if I didn't have to worry about my personal finances, then I could be present here for these babies. So yes, I mean.
Think about the revolution, were about to start hunting, were about to start revolution, Because think about the revolution that you we could have if your financial university became a part of the scope and sequence for undergraduates that are going into education. You know what if the alternative program said, come and join us, will not only teach you how to be a teacher, but we'll also get you into the financial university so you can learn more about budget.
This is my question to you. And this ain't no dig and don't send me no emails and snaps or whatever y'all stand out, well.
Riddle me this.
We prepare professional athletes.
Better than we prepare professional educators for their budgets and beyond. And I ain't talking about you know, some people would be like, well, there's there's some places that offer you could buy a house, and honey, if you see some of them, houses they'd be offered educated. First of all, you and your husband or your spouseball have to be buying the building in order to even move into it.
I'm talking out beyond that. I'm talking about educating them so that they understand that I can be a teacher. I can be an educator and I don't have to babysit and tutor. I can figure out how to create a budget, how to save, how to have vacation money, how to you know what I mean? What about your taxes? I said. I used to say, it's an educator. I wish somebody would come and teach me how to write off be all these materials I ended up buying as a teacher.
Okay, you at the local buying fifteen judicters. It was like, how many kids do you have? When I see the teacher, I literally used to set aside money from my paycheck for my baby. Yes, because you can't as a teacher. It's literally impossible as a teacher not to invest some of your own money because there is a gap. So no, you're right, and honestly, that's the soap op option that I'm on now. I am holding brands and things that reach out to me the task to say, all that's
good on what you want me to do. You want me to dance for a dollar, then do this for me, you know, not even for me, do this for this community. That my father would always say every time we graduated, like from high school or college or advanced degree, he would give the same speech to me and my four sisters. He would always say, you are now at a different level of life because of this education that you've now acquired. And the beautiful thing about knowledge is knowledge, once given,
can never be rescinded. They can't take this back from your baby. And so that's the thing I am here as a result of my father. He's in his eighties now, but as a he has his master's and economics and his bachelor's in finance, and so he poured that financial education to my sisters and I. So it allowed me to choose what I wanted to do based upon what I love to do. You know, because I was able to budget, I was able to learn how to save and start investing in all those things, even now start
with starting the budget, Nissa. I was able to do those things because I knew how to live well below my means. So I would have space to do this thing that I'm doing now, and I always wonder, like, you know, how could that be different for other people?
So I am on my soapbox crusade to get every black and brown person access to financial education, but meaningful culturally relevant because people are like, well, they could just google meaningful culturally relevant financial education because some of the stuff out here. Even I'm like, what are you saying now that is a sense or you tell me, you know you're telling me like, oh, you're talking about pull myself up by my shoe strings. Oh you're one of those.
Now I'm good. No, meaningful culturally relevant financial education that makes sense for who I am and how I show up in this world. And so I'm like, yeah, that's so we gonna talk late. So like, what do I got to do because I've already been partner. There's a I guess I'll announce later, but there's a nonprofit that there's already agreed, a huge one that everybody knows their name,
kind of like work with us behind the scenes. So basically kind of white label online school because oftentimes, which is so crazy, a brand or a bank or a funder or whatever will be like, hey, nonprofit, we want to give you a bazillion dollars to do this financial education thing. And they're like, well, why don't you go girl. That's a black owned financial education company that's been existed. But the menu of you white label.
It's part oh child, here's all the well.
We got to do all that. So I said, all right, cute, that's what we're gonna do. Go ahead and white label what we've already created and already vetted. I mean, I had these women from Stanford come and do a and I wanted to make sure all my research and everything that I believe was true was true. We made some changes based upon what they've said. We've retaped everything. It's just like it's frustrating because when I show up in all my black and brownness and womanness, yea, you know,
there's doubt about what I'm capable of. But to slap you know, like some you know, old ancient like you know, name on it, and all of a sudden, there's valuable. And if that's the game I have to play to get financial education to black and brown people for free, then so be it.
And so that right now you singing my song, honey, we could start acquired because I feel like I say this to people all the time.
Okay, I went to Columbia.
University Teachers College, right, I didn't go to Harvard, I didn't go to Yale, you know. And I have this sheer audacity as a student, as an educator, as a leader in education, to stand all my platforms and to announce, you know, our equitable charges to talk about. We have a framework that's called GLEAN is a grade level, engaging, affirming, meaningful instruction for all students, you know. And you are
absolutely right. I had to authorize myself, right, which is what we often have to do as people of color, particularly as women of color. And once I authorize myself, the edgy sphere got up behind me and authorized me as well. And I see, and I know that to be true about you and what you're doing. But you are absolutely right, we are. There has to be some sort of white label or stamp to say like, okay,
this person is and not just from sheer. I mean, when you think about your story, the sheer experience alone authorizes you to get up in front of the masses and speak. And that should be enough because guess what it's enough for some other people.
Yes, yes, but you know the fight continues. That fight can tell you, so go ahead.
Sorry sorry, I.
Was gonna say, we go, We're gonna run. I believe we're gonna run all and see what the end gonna be.
Okay, I haven't lost yet. Okay, where if the people want to buy Justice Sea write your book pursuing equity and the details of teaching and learning. Where can the people get your book?
Oh my gosh, Amazon, Target, Barns and Nobles, any of your online bookstores. I've just literally received a message today that people in Australia are starting to buy the book and so and also bookstores, you know, bookstores when the when the book demands come, they will start to fill up the shelves in the actual retail stores. But we've received just a huge, huge amount of support. It came out as number one of new releases in its category in Amazon, and so the edgisphere is showing up and
showing out and spreading the words. So yes, I would say, also code to Unbounded dot org.
If you go to our landing page, it'll not only tell.
You where to purchase the book, but it'll tell you how to sit shoulder to shoulder with us and the work.
So yeah, I love it. And where can they connect with you? I mean, you know, I don't know how much you want to be on your business and on social could be I don't know, right if they want to follow you and connect because I always see you on somebody stage, I'd be like, yes, yes, I gotta say she's on stage every day.
People want to follow.
An amazing black woman doing her space. Where do you feel comfortable with them following you on social media?
So they can find us on Instagram at unbalumed dot org or miss ms Lacy Robinson. They can find me on Facebook, same thing unbound dot org or miss Lacy Robinson with ms Yeah, shoot me a d M. I can't promise I'm be on the hands at all the time, you know, I'm not, as I ain't got to people support me like the way timmany do.
But uh, but I could try to get to the messages.
Yes, So again, give you a copy. We're gonna put a link hopefully in that show description. I'll get the money. Are our amazing, beautiful brown producer to put the link for Justice Seekers in our show notes? Justice Seekers by Lacey Robinson. Yeah, I just I love that there are people like you continuing the work in the education space where so many of us were like tap out, tap out. You can't all tap out. Some of us got to
tap in, and so I'm so glad you're there. Thank you so much for coming, Lacy, You're really amazing.
Oh my god, thank you so much for having me tick me. You are such an angel. I want you to understand that you really are. Your words of wisdom carry us through. So I just really appreciate everything that you do for us.
And you still are teacher girl in a different class.
Yes, low key. Actually, I'm y'all. Hope you're enjoyed it. Share this with your favorite teacher educator because you know she needs to hear it, because or he or they somebody needs to hear it. Yeah, and we will see you, so I'm not seying. Lacey's actually gonna stay for a ba QA, so you know, tune in on Friday because we're gonna get some questions to answer and until next week, by y'all.
Bye,