Amplifying VOICES for Social Justice with Lien Diaz

In this interview with Lien Diez, we discuss Lien’s work with Georgia Tech’s Constellations Center for Equity in Computing, what CS educators can do to learn more about and incorporate anti-racist practices, the importance of encouraging and developing both students and teachers as leaders, the shifts and pivots in education as a result of COVID, and much more. After listening to this episode, make sure to check out Lien’s podcast, Voices of Innovative Compassionate Experts in Society (VOICES).

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary in
this week's episode i'm interviewing
lynn diaz in our conversation we discuss
lin's work
with ap computer science as well as her
work with georgia tech's
constellation center for equity in
computing in our conversations we talk
about what cs educators can do to learn
more about
and incorporate anti-racist practices
the importance of encouraging and
developing both students and teachers as
leaders
some of the shifts and pivots in
education as a result of kovid
and many more topics as always you can
find a link to the show note in the app
that you are listening to this on
or by visiting jaredoleary.com where
there is nothing for sale no
advertisements nothing like that
just hundreds of free resources with
that being said we will now get started
with
lynne introducing herself i'm lynn diaz
i'm a
former classroom teacher i taught middle
school and
high school math and science i've been
in education for
over 20 years and i just realized that's
actually 24 years
i can't believe i get to say that live
on your podcast
it's gone by too fast i do want to take
a moment to acknowledge
the tremendous gratitude that i feel
right now for educators and teachers
all across the country who are you know
are just getting back to class like they
just started
yesterday and they're you know
navigating through what i think is one
of the most
challenging academic years of our
lifetime the risks with
covet 19 are still high in many cities
but you know they're figuring it out and
they're wanting to keep it safe so i
have tremendous amount of gratitude for
them
doing that and i think it's part of our
role is to have their backs
so i just want to say thank you to all
the teachers out there
i'm currently at the constellation
center for
equity and computing at georgia tech
started the fall of 2017
so we're you know a little over two
years
young at georgia tech and i'm working on
several different projects there
currently what's the story from
working with kids to doing computer
science education and working with
constellations
interestingly jerry my background is
actually not in computer science right
so first time i was introduced to
computer science was
maybe my second maybe third year in
college i had to take this fortran
class and that surely is going to set a
timeline
as to how long ago that was early 90s
right
anyway i was one or two female students
in that class i can
still clearly remember because i
honestly was struggling to understand
what was being taught and you know it
was pretty isolating
it was mainly like just you were given a
set of instructions to type into a
computer
i'm pretty sure it was a pc at the time
but that
monitor oh my gosh i will never forget
that
gray screen and that green colored
little blinking
rectangular cursor you know
i remember thinking gosh what are these
commands what do they mean and
why are there so many go-to lines you
know
so needless to say wasn't really one of
my favorite courses i took in college
but ultimately it proved to serve a
purpose
for me years years later after i had
gone into teaching and
i was leading teacher professional
development i got a job at
a college board with the advanced
placement program which i was really
interested in doing because
it was you know sort of at a larger
scale
implementing curriculum doing
professional development and you know
just working
as a director of it was a curriculum
instruction assessment
for calculus and statistics after i got
hired i found out that i
also was going to oversee ap computer
science
and at that point there was the apcsa
course
and apcs a b course which was like a
heavier focus on data structures in java
for months i just immersed myself in
learning everything i could about those
two courses
soon after i started working with the
national science foundation because they
wanted to have some serious
conversations about the state of
computer science in the country
and they were basically saying and this
was at the time when the av
course was being discontinued
unfortunately because there were
too few students actually taking that
course at the time
but nsf was basically saying you know
the way
ap computer science was sort of situated
in american education and the way it was
being
implemented it was like detrimental for
computer science for opportunities for
women to get into computer science
for the economically disadvantaged and
for students of colors to enter into
this discipline
and i mean this was a massive problem
and so
there were a lot of universities
obviously that had to weigh in on this
problem as well and honestly at the time
i mean
again this was maybe 13 years ago it was
really too much for higher ed faculty
to take in and to admit you know so i
was a part of those
conversations i led a lot of and
facilitated a lot of those meetings
i mean i remember some faculty who like
lashed out
at the thought of changing the current
apcsa course because
like that was their world right and they
wanted college board to bring back the
av
course and i think there were some that
just
some were really too reluctant to think
about like having to restructure
computer science at the college level
because then you know that would have a
ripple effect in
how we would shape high school computer
science and so on and so forth right
so these were some tough conversations i
was having with them and
even with some colleagues but anyway in
the midst
of it all this strong partnership with
the national science foundation was
formed they helped to fund the
development of the ap computer science
principles i was one of the
pis on that project and we created this
curriculum framework for the ap computer
science principles course
you know a lot of back and forth a lot
of work but it turns out that it was one
of the
it is still the largest most successful
course launch in the history of the ap
program where in its first year there
were nearly 40
the ap exam and so
that was a great success it started
about 13 years ago
the course is you know three or four
years old now
but there is you know we see things have
gotten a little better but there's so
much to do
i think that transition from having
completed that project
college board and then transitioning
into the consolation center was the next
step for me to really now be
very critical in analyzing the
factors and the barriers that are
limiting
women and students of color into not
just entering
into this discipline but also succeeding
you know we need to be sure that they
can
succeed as well and that's where the
equity part comes in
so if you were to give an elevator
speech of constellations
and what it strives for what would you
say
i'd say that from my perspective having
been a classroom teacher because that's
something that i
try to keep close you know in
my subconscious we strive to make what
seems the impossible possible
we can't solve all the problems in
education but we can work to open
avenues
we can work to really remove barriers
for upward mobility and i think computer
science can do that there is a lot of
doubt for minority students and more
than that there's
really no opportunity and that's what
we're trying to do we're trying to
remove barriers
and provide that access and opportunity
and supports for success and
so far our comprehensive approach shows
that
you know we can do that we can remove
barriers you can set a plan in motion
and then we can
show how to sustain that plan for
success that's what we've been able to
do since we started
and what about voices for social justice
i know that was a project that you
recently started
this really stems from the idea that
there is no
better time than now
to lift the voices the voices of
very thoughtful and compassionate people
that we know
ordinary people like you and me and so
many others that are
going through these tough times in
different ways and so it did stem from
having faced challenges with coven 19
and having to pivot
to you know support teachers and sort of
trying to be
really empathetic in terms of what
schools and leaders even our politicians
you know what they were going through
and acknowledging that each one of us
has something to say about it
we've asked for different perspectives
and we're aiming to capture diverse
perspectives on you know not just the
pandemic but how it affects communities
of color especially minority populations
and how that's all connected to
healthcare and how that's all connected
to
you know the disparities in economic
advantages and disadvantages and we
wanted to know more about how teachers
were coping with the current demands
either teaching in person or online but
we also wanted
to highlight the racial injustices and
how that's being addressed
in classrooms outside of classrooms by
teachers
and you know other educators by
researchers as well i know that there's
this
like rhetoric circulating at
structural or stomach racism doesn't
exist i think you've heard that as well
too especially in recent news briefings
and whatnot
i want to give you one example that is
very close to home for me here in
georgia it's called a 287
g program which is a partnership between
county
sheriff departments and ice right and
this program
is meant to screen incarcerated
immigrants
or prior infractions so for whatever
reason
they're in jail this 287g allows
these immigrants that are incarcerated
to be screened and if they've committed
prior crimes
then the sheriff department turns them
over to ice for deportation
the intent is to keep our city safe our
country safe i get that
but you know what's been happening now
in some parts of the country like here
in georgia that in some areas where
there's like dense populations of
immigrants
what it's turned into is direct racial
profiling on the asian community the
indian community the hispanic community
there's all these sorts of arrests
happening let's say
simple traffic violations all right
they're suspected
undocumented immigrants okay so
this is just an example of how policy
can turn into enactment
of systemic bias and racial profiling
this is currently in effect in 26 states
including here in georgia
and it's impacting so many of our
communities and schools and students
and so i think these discussions are
extremely important to have
at least at the level that can inform
and rally the cs education community
to have a voice in these matters and to
really truly understand what's happening
with our students and their families all
of that is why we
started voices for social tests the
podcast interview that i did with joyce
mccall she has a great
metaphor of systemic racism and she uses
the shire from the lord of the rings
and so if anyone hasn't listened to that
yet it's a very nerdy
example of what systemic racism and
forms of oppression looks like
it's one of my favorites that i've heard
so i'm curious with your experience
working with constellations and
just working in education and whatnot
like what is some advice
related to equity or inclusion or
diversity
and whatnot that has really resonated
with you with regards to cs education
you know i'm not quite sure yet how we
completely
eradicate racism it's in so many little
things that we do and so many little
falsehoods and stereotypes that you know
ultimately lead to
discrimination and racism i do think
that this is a very
personal type of transformation that
happens at the individual
level part of how we're brought up it's
part of the environment
that we're surrounded by i think
continuing to reflect on our own
individual biases is one way to be able
to
maybe shift our minds and our beliefs
and our mindsets and be able to have
more productive conversations
around issues of race and racism and
all of that i think is part of
understanding
what it means to actually conduct
efforts around equity
you know i think being able to
understand that
there are systems of oppression
that you have to fight against to you
know again remove barriers and provide
these opportunities
that takes time there's this op doc
that the new york times produced several
years ago
about three or four years ago it's
called a conversation
on race and it's a series of short films
about identity in america
they do these interviews of people of
different races
and they're talking about their
experience about the first time or when
they've had to discuss race and racism
and there's this one video that i can
recall focus on a teacher who shares the
story about a third grade student
that asked her a question and this was
after the killing of eric garner i don't
know if you remember back in 2014 he was
a black
man that died because he was put on a
choke hold which by the way
it was illegal to do that at the time
but still was put on a chokehold by a
police officer
you know and unfortunately died in this
third grade student asked this teacher
the third grade student was a
young black male student and the teacher
is a
white female teacher and they teach the
student asked her
do you have ever have to think about
race and being scared
you know about the color of your skin
and
she even says she didn't want to
sugarcoat it she said no
and that's not fair but then the way she
describes the
look on the student's face when he just
realized
wow you know not everybody actually
experiences these things
that was heartbreaking so i would
recommend
that i think the first thing is to
really you know internalize
you know what it means to have these
injustices you know be surrounded
by you just because of the color of your
skin and that these videos i think
they're very interesting to watch
they're very
palatable right and very honest and
personal
but that may be a good and sort of easy
place to start
you know that there are a whole list of
like books and articles and journals
as well and that this is important too
you know for educators right
i mean especially in the cs community
when we are very focused on
diversity and inclusion now and equity
right
they get these different perspectives
and try to internalize
you know what can be used to really
do better you know when it comes to
equity and diversity and inclusion
in the work that we do yeah i'll make
sure to
link the playlist to those videos in the
show notes for this
one of the things that you said at the
beginning of that was
like being unsure how to change racism
at large and one of the
recommendations that i've seen i forget
the person's name but
he's a black man who befriended members
of the kkk
and eventually got them to realize that
wow this is really problematic and the
assumptions that i was making were
completely inaccurate about this
person that i now call a friend who
happens to be black
and it started with just initial
conversations
and talking with somebody one on one and
the conversations that i've been
having with people who i completely
disagree with like online or family
members or things like that
they're at a place where they're just in
complete denial and so going into this
with
the perspective that i've heard it
phrases just like think of your
conversations and your questions
as like you're a pebble in that person's
shoe it's going to kind of like annoy
them throughout the day they'll be
thinking about it and eventually they're
going to have to take the pebble out of
the shoe and analyze it and
like think about it some more to remove
it that's an approach that i've seen
work but when it comes to what can we do
bigger than that
i don't even know if we can really
address how do we quote solve like
racism
when we still have people who like deny
that racism is a thing like
thinking that oh because obama was
president we live in this like
post-racial society but
there's just so many other indicators
that point to no that's not the case
one of the things that i've noticed in
particular for these people who deny
racism is they often live in communities
and associate with communities
that don't experience these problems
like you mentioned that teacher who like
well no i don't have to worry about
what's going to happen to me because of
my race
like that's something that i have also
admitted to on this podcast like it's
not something i've had to think about
but what would you recommend for
educators who might
be living in similar experiences where
like i don't have to worry about this
what can they do to kind of learn more
about the
approaches at constellations or just
what you would generally recommend
we have purposefully chosen
to work in school systems where
the majority of the students and
actually teachers
are people of color and immersed
ourselves
in better understanding you know the
context their lives
in the schools that we're working with
we purposefully chose
to do that because we knew that's where
there was
no opportunities to get into advanced
stem and computing
the way we saw it happening in other
school systems
you know it's not the easiest thing to
do jared
there is some time that you have to take
to build trust
there is some time that you have to take
to also be
open-minded it's a continual learning
process
but i would encourage teachers it's hard
now during these times of code but if
they had an
opportunity to you know see what other
school systems are like
to hear from other teachers that are
working in these other school systems
to build some kind of connection a
partnership or
even a virtual meet with some of these
other teachers but that's what we're
trying to do
you could say that atlanta in many cases
is a
special case but not really this is
happening all over the country
but the way atlanta is situated the
northern part of atlanta is where you're
more affluent
neighborhoods and residents reside and
they're mostly your white families that
live there in the southern part of
atlanta
this is where most of your non-white
families reside
a lot of them are largely black or
african-american but also hispanic and
some asian as well too
and there's a clear divide so in that
context it may be
i believe the second most segregated
city next to chicago
in the nation atlanta public schools
resides in the southern part
and there are maybe six or seven other
school systems
around the metro atlanta area jared when
we looked at
the data in terms of you know who was
offering
advanced computing and who was not
offering advanced computing almost every
other school system
had a pathway or had something in place
but
there was you know really almost nothing
in place for
atlanta public schools and that begged
the question why
right you know what is happening in
these other schools that are
not more than 10 miles away from atlanta
public schools
and you know as we dug in deeper
of course really didn't have teachers
with the qualifications to be
teaching computer science obviously
that's a problem in a lot of places
but that specifically is a huge problem
for school systems like atlanta public
schools that
all of these students are missing out on
that opportunity
so that's you know so all of those are
reasons why we wanted to work in atlanta
public schools and now
when we're connecting these teachers
with other
teachers from across the nation but also
in their neighborhood 10 miles away
it's incredible how teachers can learn
from each other regardless of which
school system you work in
and building you know that network but
building community with teachers is also
you know hugely important i think
especially for computer science so
that's what we're
we're trying to do better so i would
encourage teachers
to reach out have an open mind and learn
what's happening
in other school systems and the reasons
why you know the root of the problem
is that they're not well resourced they
don't have the teaching capacity
yet right they need the teaching
capacity to be built
and it is not it is absolutely
not about a lack of talent with students
it is absolutely not it is about the
lack of access and opportunity
yeah i i wonder if teachers were to
participate in like the georgia chapter
of csta
if like that would help them to connect
and learn more about other communities
within
their area even if it's only 10 miles
away that's still 10 miles away so they
just might be unaware
of what's going on in other parts of the
city or
state yeah and so now that you mentioned
that we
are working very hard to reinvigorate
the georgia csta chapter
and working with the president of the
georgia csa chapter teresa yarbo to
help you know kick start
the meetups again and building that
network that you're talking about
so one of the blog posts that i read
that you wrote it was titled i can't
breathe
and you said quote we can do better to
develop leadership
that enable empathy community building
partnerships and justice
and quote so i'm wondering like what
kind of advice might you give to
educators who are interested in helping
kids
to become future leaders i think when i
wrote that you're right i was really
thinking about building capacity
with students you know to become these
leaders in the communities that they
need to become i
i really was thinking that i think
what is lacking right now is
a way to be honest with students about
some of these realities i mean they're
seeing it now right all over
i mean brianna taylor ahmad
arbury here in georgia that was just a
brutal shooting and killing of
a young black man jogging in this
neighborhood
george floyd you know so many so many
now right
it's happening right in front of their
faces and so i do think
that there needs to be a way to have
these conversations honestly with
students and providing them a platform
and a way to share their stories
and their ideas as well and
one of the ways that i think we can do
that is
through the computer science honors
societies
that can provide that platform for
students
to do that part of the honor society is
having to
complete a project or complete service
learning hours as well too
and i think integrating issues on
social justice and you know what it
means to be an empathetic leader
i think those things could be integrated
very nicely
in that program but quite honestly
darren i really do think that
we need to allow students
to to somehow like take lead
on these conversations that need to
happen in these communities
we're hearing a lot of adults we're
hearing a lot of
you know leaders in communities and we
need to we need to hear that
but we really need to provide them that
space
at that level with these community
leaders with these
you know politicians we need to provide
the young
adults the youth that space the time and
that space
and that platform to voice you know
their thoughts
and their their ideas and i don't think
we do that well enough
i think that's something that
collectively the css community might
you know rally around and strive for
that but i don't see that happening
enough
even in school board meetings i mean you
know where are the students in school
board meetings
yeah one of the more recent examples
that i've
seen of students realizing that they
have a voice and it needs to be heard
was like a year or two ago when there
was just one school shooting after
another
and students finally started to protest
and like
going and marching and saying no i'm not
going to school unless you're going to
do something to help
keep me safe etc but it would be
interesting
if there was more of that going on with
not only that topic but also topics
around systemic racism
or just even how can i engage in
some kind of a school project that can
better the community that i work in can
help in some
way like a problem that i see so if
you're going with problem-based or
project-based learning
how could you situate that within the
communities that students live in
and use computer science to kind of
benefit in some way
or help in some way yeah absolutely
and i think that you know the idea
of using or leveraging social media
for social good is something that
young adults you know the youth that
they can latch onto
and really lead us
in understanding how to do that well
in these tough times they have some
pretty good ideas about doing that and
there's so many new apps now you know
well tick tock right now is like
hugely popular some of the videos that i
have seen
on you know the statements that young
adults that students are making
on the racial injustices you know are
quite clever
and i also just want to say too that
i heard somewhere that there are like
millions like 14 million or some number
like that 14
million 17 year olds that are going to
turn 18
before election day or the final day to
vote just the thought of 14 million
young adults that can
vote in this election year is
just striking yeah so you know
how do we effectively reach
a population like that to help the whole
country
make good decisions about how to
you know how our government should be
run and getting them excited about being
part of that process
and doing that through social media or
doing that through the use of technology
you know and the use of computation with
this
population i think is a missed
opportunity that i think many of us
are you know not involved with and so i
would also encourage
computer science teachers perhaps to if
possible
to use that context in terms of how
computer science or computational
thinking
you know can be a part of rallying
populations and citizens and you know
residents in their community
to be active at the polls during
elections
so i'm curious what kind of advice might
you give for a cs educator who's
interested in designing a course that
promotes that kind of activism or
civic engagement or whatever is because
you mentioned when you were designing
like redesigning the ap cs principles
course and
like going through that you had some
reluctant professors who didn't want to
change
and whatnot so what lessons could
potentially be extrapolated out of that
in terms of here's what i learned from
this and here's what
k-12 teachers or even professors might
be able to do
based on those kind of lessons that are
learned yeah so
one idea is to you know
leverage the power of computation with a
computer
to analyze and visually
display data on you know
many different issues and topics that
are being discussed
healthcare for one healthcare the
disparities in healthcare across
communities in america you know gather
that data
and you know computationally and
visually display
that data for students and for the
community
and using that as a context to have
really good conversations
about our healthcare system yeah you
know that's just
one idea right another idea is to
and i'm really talking about
collaborating you know cross-disciplines
here
you know our history teachers are very
resourceful our history and government
you know
teachers are very resourceful in
showing like the evolution of
politics in our country and the
importance of civic engagement and
including them
in conversations and leveraging them to
like i said understand what role has
technology played
in that history in our history of
politics and our history of
law making you know and decision making
in our country
you know i think those might be simple
ideas but it's a start
it's a start to to having those kinds of
conversations that might spark
more interest in civic engagement yeah
and i know some
states have a standard that is almost
exactly what you just described for
social studies
and history it's like talking about the
use of tools and technology and how it
impacted or influenced
everyday life and policy and things like
that so
it's a great way to integrate with other
subject areas
other than just cs alone and also i
think
to you know that could help
spark interest in other students that
may have never even
thought that computer science was a cool
thing to do or coping to learn
you know i think your art teachers as
well
can be very crucial in helping to
get kids excited about computer science
like doing 3d art or
hand painting and all of that is awesome
photography
you know is awesome i love art but doing
art
digitally entails a lot of like critical
thinking and skills that
many people can't even imagine
effectively using software
you know to create the most beautiful
art and then also
creating a program you know that can
digitally display like just beautiful
art
those are things that we wanted to
integrate in the ap csp course while we
were
talking about you know the kinds of
things that teachers could do
yeah i know i'm biased but like one of
my favorite things was to explore like
algorithmically generated music and like
what are potential uses for that and
what can you create
and so i had so much fun creating this
infinite drum set
that would just like make up random
grooves and drum fills
infinitely and every time you did it it
was something completely different i've
also like dabbled in
procedurally generated world making so
like if you feed in this algorithm what
kind of a world
comes out whenever you press this button
so like what
level will this player go through et
cetera it's a fun way of combining
computer science with the arts and again
that could also spark interest in
students that may have never even
thought about
like exploring computer science too i
also wanted
to say that you know the the issues that
we're seeing
in society right now the you know racial
injustices
and the disparities in health care and
income disparities that have surfaced
due to the covet 19 pandemic
clearly see that marginalized groups or
minoritized groups are impacted
negatively and greatly because of these
disparities
there is a direct parallel to computer
science education
in terms of disparities i say parallel
because
the same kinds of gaps that we see in
healthcare and the economy
and upward mobility are the same kind of
gaps that you see in computer science
education
and so if you kind of you know take the
conversations
maybe one or two or three levels up we
need to be
really looking at this very
systematically
and looking at the policies
and the you know structures that exist
that are causing those gaps
in computer science education because
very often they're the same kinds
of structures and policies in place that
are causing those gaps in healthcare and
economy and
jobs and you know the workforce they're
very similar
very parallel that's what i say so if
there happened to be any like elected
officials that were listening
if you could ask them to write some kind
of a policy or change
them some kind of policy what
recommendations would you give so like
as an example
first thing that comes to mind for
myself is in arizona
the governor released some funds for
computer science professional
development great that's awesome but it
was only for high school teachers
so what about everybody k through eight
they didn't have any kind of funds to
receive that professional
development so it created some
inequalities in terms of when
kids could start learning computer
science
the first thing that i would say is that
we
already live in such a
technologically advanced society
and it's only advancing more every day
and so i would say
that computer science really needs to be
part of the core
learning academics throughout the system
pk 12.
we are not doing the best we can
currently
to prepare all of our students for
technological type of society
what some people would call like a
technopolis
society that is increasing in our
country and
you know in other countries too and so
the learning about technology but also
learning computer science and
computational thinking
really needs to be an integral part and
a core
learning area throughout our american
education system
there are a lot of organizations out
there and you know all of us
collectively i think have done a good
job in the last decade to
get things started in every state across
our country to do that
yeah it can't just be oh oh it can count
for a math or science and sometimes a
a foreign language no it has to be a
computer science part of the
academic experiences for all students
and
we need policies that can support that
and the justification is not just the
jobs
it's not just jobs in tech which i get
those are important
don't get me wrong and it's a great
opportunity for upward mobility
and i will acknowledge that and i
believe in that
but it's how computational thinking
and effective use of technology is
integrated now in
almost every single part of our society
our voting polls and our
medical professionals need to you know
learn technology
and that kind of computational thinking
as well
it's the fashion industry you know the
entertainment industry
almost every facet of our society
includes
people that need to be knowledgeable
with technology
computational thinking and computer
science yeah i'm glad you
added that last part that's a big
thing that i try to emphasize with
people it's like look not everyone's
going to become a computer scientist and
go into a career for computer science
but anyone could use this regardless of
what career you go into or what you
decide to
do in life even if it's just for fun
yeah
and i think then we would be
just a little closer to really bridging
the gaps
between you know all races in our
country
it's not going to fix everything i get
that you know people have told me well
you know there's so many problems that
we can't fix and i said i get that
but if we can do a much better job in
this discipline right here
and provide the opportunities for all of
our students
right it's only going to help them
succeed
better in this technologically advanced
society that we're living in and it's
only advancing
faster every day you know
i'm curious what you mentioned with the
advancing like in terms of
how things are different today versus
like even
five years ago 10 years ago what's
something that you first believed when
you were like first working in education
now that you've had different
perspectives and life experiences
you no longer believe that how has it
changed
well something that might be relevant
to what's happening now is when i first
started teaching i could
never imagine that i could effectively
teach virtually you know and it's hard
i'm not saying it's perfect
right you know 24 years ago i could
never imagine being able
to do that effectively yep and
now there are different tools
and platforms that can help improve
the situation you know now and there's
all sorts of you know views and
perspectives on this you know kids need
to be in school they need to
be in a safe environment i think i get
that and we need to be able to
you know feed kids and i totally totally
get all of that but i do
see that virtual learning or
online teaching and learning could
become
an important part of education in the
future in the near future
perhaps because it does meet the needs
of some students that i've seen thrive
in an online environment it may not be
everyone yet
we're not there yet right but there are
already
examples of you know successful
implementation of online learning here
at georgia tech we have the omscs
program for computer science it's a
masters in computer science through
an online format and
it really already has experience a lot
of success and a lot of that i think is
attributed to
not just the platform that they're using
but to the instructors who are
dedicated to making sure that this is a
successful program for
all the students that are enrolled in it
and this is like deployed
worldwide globally so i think that now
i mean 24 years ago i couldn't imagine
that but i think now
i can actually see it happening you know
much better
yeah it's interesting how like a year
ago there were a lot of
schools and companies organizations that
said no we need to
meet in person for whatever business
that we're doing or education we're
doing and
it's it's amazing how those perspectives
have shifted some people are like well
we're wrong
this is actually better and we're going
to continue to do this even when covet
is a thing of the past
yeah and i do get that there are still a
lot of like societal
issues that you know we're faced with in
terms of schooling and you know kids in
school
and the way schools are funded as well
too they need to
show up and so we're working
you know through those things when i say
we i mean like the school districts this
is what they have to think about
school systems this is what they have to
think about but i do think that
in during this crisis during this
pandemic
helping to keep people safe is important
and you know finding ways to really
leverage
platform and online tools to continue
the best quality education possible at
this point
you know right shift and pivot and make
changes and i and it's hard it's hard
for teachers
but i think in time given the
opportunity i think we could figure it
out
i think we can figure it out and it is a
lot about
expectations we know school is important
we know that we need to educate the mass
and we want our
kids to grow up to be very educated you
know citizens and be
able to contribute well to our society
but i also think too
that it's an opportunity you know for us
to lead by example
while we're virtual with kids and even
you know with our own family at home
too but even during these extraordinary
difficult
times that you know we can show them how
to be kind
how to how to take care of each other
even virtually
there are ways that we can do that and
how important it is to
be caring and thoughtful of each other
and i think that work is part of
equity and fairness too and how treat
each other and
you know whether it's in school or out
of school and these are life lessons
that i think
now in this moment when kids are doing
things virtually or even in person too
i think this is what kids will remember
if we can teach them
fairness kindness empathy the kids all
over the country this is what they're
going to carry with them the rest of
their lives that in these difficult
times
you know we were able to show them how
to lead
in times of crisis so with everything
that's been going on recently
and how long you've been in education
i'm curious how do you stave off the
burnout because there are a lot of
educators and researchers
who only last in the field for a few
years because of how difficult it is
overall and the amount of like the
weight and the burdens
that a lot of educators and researchers
work through every day
yeah so two things come to mind and that
i
really try to do almost on a daily basis
one is i really have taken up
exercising for me it really is
has been my outlet and i try to do this
you know every day i go for long walks
jogging here and there in some exercise
and that really has helped me
to sort of remove myself from
the harsh realities the political
darkness
you know sometimes that we're faced in
and especially here
you know in georgia things of that
nature so i've gotten into that
more consistently lately but the other
thing that i
i do is i've really immersed myself
into becoming a better coach for
my team and the role that i have i'm
very fortunate to have a small team
and we hone in on coaching skills and
strategies to help each other
you know cope through what we're all
going through but more importantly
we leverage coaching and coaching skills
in the work that we do with teachers so
it helps all around
it helps us effectively communicate
collaborate and work together and
support each other as a team
but it also helps in having these
conversations with teachers and
principals
and you know building trust and poor and
just knowing that
we can be there for each other but we're
also there for the schools
that we're working with so done a little
bit more
reading and freshening up on coaching
skills
and by the way i just want to put a plug
in for
audio books too i love audio books and
that's something else that has helped me
too is you know to
not not honestly having to be on a
screen for hours and hours
every day you know i know that's not the
same thing as like picking up a book and
reading but
audiobooks has really helped me kind of
also de-stress and you know immersed in
really good books one that i'm
currently reading right now is a book
called how schools work
by arne duncan he is the former
secretary of education
and i just you know started that
audiobook but
so far the first three chapters are
quite fascinating and
i'll just share one little part it's
sort of you know relevant to
our discussions he talks about
a student that he was tutoring at some
point while he was in
college and he talks about
school systems being a system of lies
how for many years in the school systems
that he
was familiar with you know they they
would lie
to teachers they would lie to students
but not in the way that you would think
it's it's just how the school systems
were set up
that you know students were thinking
that they were learning what they needed
to learn
and if that was the case
why then did you know so many eighth
graders
he was talking about chicago public
schools and like so many eighth graders
weren't up to par in reading like they
were reading at like a third grade level
but they were already in eighth grade
so what happened they just passed them
on you know
from year to year pretty much lying to
them thinking that they had acquiring
skills that they needed to
have to go on into high school and he
applied that sort of same
scenario with the student that he was
tutoring
this student was a phenomenal
basketball player college bound
you know i mean like bound to play in
college is what i meant
and his mother had asked him you know to
help tutor him
to pass the s.a.t exam
and soon found out that here was an
all-star
you know basketball player who really
didn't have
the academic skills to really succeed in
the sat and it was a heartbreaking story
as i was listening to that i you know
kept thinking
in the work that we do in terms of you
know equity and computing
we really need to be careful not to fall
into the same trap too
when i talk about equity and computing
it is about access and it is about
opportunity
but we also need to build in the right
structures
and the right supports for students to
be successful
in computing all the way through you
know whether it's just one course or two
courses or three
you know whatever that is we really need
to build in the right pedagogy the right
support
systems for them to be as successful as
they can be
i don't want the case to be that we
didn't do the best that we could
to help them succeed and then end up
sort of in this
trap of lies i thought about that one
night
all night long and i thought we cannot
fall into that trap
yeah it reminds me of a recent
discussion that i had on like the hidden
curriculum the things that you were
taught that
are not overt that you learn through
school and curriculum and experiences
and whatnot it's
it's a fascinating area of curriculum
nerd dumb that i really like to explore
i too by the way love audiobooks so it
makes chores
just that much more enjoyable because
it's like oh i gotta listen to a book
while i
vacuum the floor
what do you wish there is more research
that could
inform your own practices and what you
do
one of the things that we're working on
this year is really
on not just building teaching capacity
but building on a leadership capacity
with
teachers and we're
investigating now what that looks like
and what that should be because it is
important
and i'm talking especially like in you
know school systems like in chicago
public schools or atlanta public schools
you know where they're really
teaching like a high population of
students of color
you know i think that it is important to
build teaching capacity content
knowledge
you know efficacy increase confidence
but it's the leadership part that i
think
we really need to do a better job in and
there's
all sorts of ways to build leadership
capacity
there's not that much much research for
building
leadership with computer science
teachers and i'm not talking about
taking them out of the classroom that's
not what i'm talking about i'm talking
about
these teachers then becoming you know
the next
generation of leaders for teachers so
teachers as
leaders and perhaps in general
you know we haven't been able to do that
well enough
and i think that could really help
promote
the profession the teaching profession
lifting teachers you know and provide a
much higher level of reverence
for teachers and the teaching profession
so that's something we're working on now
yeah i like that i know like apple
distinguished educators and then
cstas what is the award for teaching
excellence in computer science like
programs and awards like that are trying
to develop leadership capacity and
whatnot so it's nice to see some of that
popping up but yeah i agree
we could definitely use more of that
it's also the fact that
it's about changing beliefs too about
what teaching is about it's all
connected right but
i really do wish that we had a
different perspective on teaching on
teachers and you know and teaching
i think there's still a lot of
misconceptions you know
based on how the school year is set up
oh teachers get the summer off
oh that's not what this is about you
know oh
well how hard can it be i'm like
so you know there's still a lot of
misconceptions about that but i think
there's an
opportunity specifically with cs
teachers
to you know integrate some of that
leadership
building leadership with cs teachers and
really changing perspectives about
you know teaching in general like for
example
i think cs teachers all teachers are
very resourceful
okay but there's an opportunity for cs
teachers
to for us to help cs teachers to build
connections and networks with industry
and you know there's a lot of that
happening but i don't think we're doing
it
specifically to build leadership
with cs teachers so i think you know
there are some
nuances there that we need to work on
and help improve
obviously you know nominating teachers
for awards that's one thing
you know for sure too but imagine if we
could apply
the process of becoming like a national
board certified teacher
that's a very rigorous process and it's
very prestigious too
it's also very costly and and time
consuming
i get all of that but sort of that same
concept
same but different you know and applying
that to
computer science teachers leveraging
their expertise
and really making them like leaders for
the next generation
and helping to improve on and sustain
that
teaching workforce that we need to teach
computer science
not just for today but you know for
years to come
i think that's what i'm thinking about i
like that it was making me think
what was it three four years ago i was
one of the recipients
for the teaching excellence for computer
science award and like it was great
and since then i've been like a reviewer
for it and
while reviewing it a lot of the
questions are
like revolved around not just the impact
that you're having with the students
that you work with but with your
community at large
so like are you a leader outside of just
your classes alone and that was a very
important thing that
the review process focused on but
it would be interesting if they turned
it more into a community
because like i've met people that also
have won the awards but like there isn't
like this community where we can
actually get together and like share
ideas and exchange things it's like yeah
you won this thing cool
see you later it would be interesting if
it was
more communal and something kind of
conversation that continued beyond the
award itself
but that's just kind of me thinking out
loud so if anyone at csta or infosys is
listening to this there's an idea for
you
yeah that's a great idea are there any
questions that i haven't asked that you
want to talk about
i kind of did want to ask you a question
yeah go for it
so i've seen you present before and
earlier you mentioned
you have a passion for creating music
and wanted to learn more from you about
how you
got into that and you like what sparked
that interest and
what have you created lately so it's a
long story but
in high school like i was a musician
in band class marched on the drumline
did all that and i loved it
but i was like well how am i going to
make a job like a living doing this
thing that i really enjoyed and so i
started just looking up salaries what do
people make and one of the higher paying
ones was a computer programmer
and so i took the ap cs course it was
the first year they
offered it at my school and the teacher
was like learning it as he went so he'd
give us like a month's worth of
assignments and then we wouldn't get
anything for a month so i'd like finish
at the stuff in a week or two and then
i'd be bored
so we'd literally just play video games
in the class while we'd wait for the
next
set of content so i realized that
because i was just bored with it like
that wasn't challenging me
and the thing that was keeping me alive
the time because i was suicidally
depressed and
and whatnot was making music and so i
went into music education to help others
through similar things and it wasn't
until my doctorate when i took
a class that i audited just for fun
called electronic
music studio 2 which is a very generic
name
and it just so happened to be about
creating music apps with this graphical
programming language
and that's like reignited my interest in
coding
and it situated it in this type of
project that i was just fascinated with
because i was making all these like apps
and
fun things related to music technology
with code
and so while i was engaging in it i was
like okay when is this music when is
this coding and when are the two
inseparable and those questions were
like nagging at me so when i
finally finished my coursework and went
back into the classroom
i applied for this generic like
technology teacher position
and i went into the interview and was
like hey instead of teaching microsoft
office
and stuff like that how about you teach
code and how about you use the arts to
do that
and they just so happened to shift over
to coding
that year so like i got in and then just
like have been running with it ever
since
so that's kind of my very short version
of
how i got into cs education through my
music education background
but in terms of like what i'm creating
lately i've been creating
all these projects that are integrating
computer science concepts with standards
from ela
and standards from social studies and
doing this for
the northern arapaho and eastern
shoshone tribes on the wind river
reservation in wyoming and so that's
been something that i've been creating
lately and have been working on
do you make your productions public
yes it will be eventually it's going
through review phase right now but
eventually all these resources will be
and i will say it's an exciting project
and i can't wait for
people to use it outside of this small
group that's currently
taking a look at it well we can't wait
to see it either
so the last question that i have for you
is where my people go to connect with
you
and the organizations that you work with
yes so we do have
a website at constellations.gatech.edu
you can also find me on twitter at
lynn l i en underscore diaz d-i-a-z
constellations is also on twitter and on
instagram
at gtccec
on both of those and with that that
concludes this week's episode of the
csk8 podcast
i hope you enjoyed listening to this
interview with lynn and i hope you check
out all the
resources that lin and constellations
have created
again you can find links to all of those
in the show notes as well as links to
many of the other
resources we discussed in this
particular episode if you haven't done
so yet please consider sharing
this episode or one of your favorite
episodes of this podcast with somebody
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thank you so much for listening and i
hope you are having a wonderful and safe
week