In this impactful episode of The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators, Oakland educator Whitney Redd discusses how her experience in after-school programs, youth shelters, and mental health settings has shaped her approach to teachingcombining heart, structure, and intentionality. After being diagnosed with ADHD, Whitney redefined discipline as creating joyful structure, fostering a classroom environment built on positive reinforcement, trust, and student voice. As a teacher, I already have power, she states. I dont need to enforce it, I need to build it." Whitney openly shares her experiences leading a third-grade class of 39 students, tackling systemic inequities, and addressing the emotional challenges faced by Black teachers expected to do it all. Despite these challenges, her story is filled with joy, humor, and a fierce dedication to her students brilliance. Through Thee Redd Method, Whitney now helps other educators balance accountability with compassion and data with care. Her story emphasizes that true liberation in the classroom begins when educators embrace curiosity over control, and when Black joy becomes the foundation rather than a reward.

In this heartfelt and inspiring episode of The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators, Dr. Asia sits down with Dr. Franita Nita Ware, educator, author, and the brilliant mind behind Warm Demander Teachers. Together, they trace Dr. Wares unexpected journey from substitute teacher to scholar, exploring the purpose, joy, and community that fueled her path.

Dr. Ware shares how being invited into education changed her life, the lessons she learned teaching at Spelman College, and the challenges she faced as a Black woman principal navigating racialized experiences in Denver. She opens up about the trauma of pushout, her path to healing, and how she transformed her recovery into the powerful professional development series Radical Self-Carea framework that helps educators reconnect to themselves, rewire their brains for wellness, and reclaim joy in the classroom.

Listeners will gain insight into the warm demander teaching approachbalancing care with high expectationsand how schools can cultivate cultures rooted in authenticity, rest, and community. With humor, honesty, and deep wisdom, Dr. Ware reminds us that before teachers can pour into others, they must first pour into themselves.

Key themes: warm demander teaching, radical self-care, educator wellness, racial battle fatigue, culturally responsive practice, Black educator leadership, and community healing.

In this episode of The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators, Dr. Asia sits down with Candice Renee Person, a 20-year veteran educator, organizer, writer, and soon-to-be digital nomad. Candice shares a deeply layered journey that spans classrooms in New York City, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Virginia, and beyondeach chapter shaped by resilience, grief, discovery, and a fierce commitment to both education and community.

Candice opens up about her unexpected entry into teaching through the New York City Teaching Fellows program and the steep learning curve of working in special education without adequate preparation or support. She reflects on the vital mentors and assistants who kept her grounded during her toughest first years and how family circumstances, especially the loss of her mother, shaped major moves in her career.

Listeners are taken inside her experiences teaching in challenging special education settings, including building a thriving, joyful classroom in an autism unit that had once been unsafe and chaotic. She speaks candidly about being treated like a pawn within school systems, constantly shuffled between placements, and what that revealed about how little care is often given to educators humanity.

Her story expands beyond teaching, highlighting her time as a writer in an MFA program, where summers abroad in Argentina, Italy, Paris, and Ireland rekindled creativity and reminded her of the importance of honoring multiple passions. She explores the challenges and beauty of raising her children while teaching, and the ways motherhood informed her approach to education.

Back in Massachusetts, Candice delved deeply into anti-racism and equity work, helping transform a local charter school into a space where community partnerships, storytelling, and racial justice were at the center. She describes the excitement of creating community walks, affinity groups, and equity-driven professional development, as well as the heartbreak of eventually facing gaslighting, pushback, and grief as the organization shifted away from its initial commitments.

Today, Candice has found joy in new forms of teaching. She adjuncts at the college level, runs her own business, The Edu Tutor Hub, and is preparing for her next adventure: a digital nomad lifestyle with her children, which will begin in Mexico. She reflects on what wellness means to her, emphasizing the importance of therapy, authenticity, exploration, and honoring her whole self, and offers a powerful reminder that Black educators are multifaceted individuals whose gifts deserve to flourish both within and outside the classroom.

This conversation is rich with lessons about perseverance, grief and healing, the power of community schools, and the possibilities that open when educators permit themselves to imagine more.

From publish or perish to learn to liberate, Dr. Lance Bennett shares how he reimagined higher ed to serve actual people. We unpack the community care roots of his model (yes, the Black church is a blueprint), the role of therapy and mentorship in big career shifts, and why being well can mean picking Option B or C over the plan you wrote. Come for the origin story of The Peoples Institute for the Common Good; stay for the reminder that joy and learning dont need permission.

What happens when the bad kid becomes the kind of educator the system never saw coming? In this episode of The Exit Interview, Dr. Asia sits down with Aurelius Raines II, whose unorthodox path into education began not with a degree, but with curiosity, care, and disruption. From aftercare teacher to museum-based innovator, Aurelius shares how his early struggles with school shaped his radical approach to teachingand why his students thrive because of it. Together, they unpack what it means to teach without permission, learn outside the lines, and reimagine what a science education can look like when rooted in joy, justice, and relevance.