Global Connections Conversations Podcast
Global Connections Conversations Podcast
Personal History Molding Professional Dreams: Against All Odds - I Did It!
What if your personal history could shape not just your life but your entire career? Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Dr. Joyce Pittman whose experiences growing up in the segregated South profoundly influenced her perspective and research focus. From a family that cherished education to owning land, a church, and a school in rural Arkansas, Dr. Pittman's upbringing is a powerful testament to the impact of personal background on academic pursuits. We explore the importance of building rapport in research interviews, much like the casual warm-up conversations in TV interviews, to draw parallels and enhance understanding.
The episode takes a deeper dive into Dr. Pittman's early education and the pivotal role of mentorship. Hear firsthand accounts of her mother’s activism in the civil rights movement and the unique perspectives gained from frequent relocations due to her father's military service. These experiences, coupled with the guidance of a district director of education who ignited her love for reading, shaped her ambitions in education, entrepreneurship, and politics. This enlightening episode shines a light on how personal history and mentorship can profoundly influence one's life and career, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersections of identity, education, and societal change.
You can conveniently order Dr. Joyce Pittman's Memoir, Against All Odds: I Did It! through the online bookstore at Xlibris Bookstore https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore
or
Simply search for the book using my name, book title, ISBN, keywords, or your selected category on Barnes and Nobles or Amazon for faster delivery.
Okay, so it is now four, so we'll go ahead and this is going to be 30 minutes, so I've had my little 15, we've had our time together to sort of warm up and get comfortable with it. I think that's very important, and when you start research you'll find that Never go into an interview or research situation without getting some background information and allow your participants to ask you questions so they can become comfortable with you as well. So what I'm doing here is kind of modeling the process for an interview, and that is, you always want to allow some time for each individual both the participant as well as the researcher to become comfortable with each other, so that you can be sure that any apprehensions whatsoever those things are out of the way before you begin. Thank you, make sense.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, definitely.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Great. If you watch TV interviews, you'll notice how they always have the little chit chat before they start the real hard questions.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, thank you.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Oprah was very good at that. I'm not as good as Oprah, I don't have as much money as Oprah, but you mentioned Oprah in one of your questions, which is why my mind went to Oprah that quickly.
Mr. Lassiter:Gotcha, so would that be something that you would like to accomplish in your career? I interviewed with Oprah.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:To be like Oprah? Oh, no, no, I'll tell you that. I'll answer that question a little bit later as we go along. In terms of what I wo wouql, w lik li would I'm not one of these people who like to be always on stage. I'm more of a behind the scenes kind of person. I'm not a person who loves to be out front. "I am a lot, but it's not something that you know, I don't get off on that. Oh, I, interview with Oprah Brings me nothing, unless it's going to put something in my pocket, unless it's going to help a lot of people. You know, it depends, it all depends, but just Oprah herself. But the value that Oprah could bring could be an incentive for me to be excited about interviewing with her Nice, nice.
Mr. Lassiter:It was nice Nice. I didn't think of it that way.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yeah, so now the floor is yours.
Mr. Lassiter:Awesome. So my first question is how has your background and identity informed your research?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And I thought long and hard about this question what do you want me to call you, Mr Lassiter?
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, that's fine.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:All right. So, Mr .Lassiter, that's a very good question. How has my background informed my identity, but, more so, my identity informed my research? Well, my research is informed through my personal and educational experiences into a family who saw education as a ticket to a way out, as most African Americans did. I was born during the baby boomer years in the 50s and the 60s, when we were just getting the right to free and what they called then free and separate education, which we learned, of course, in the segregated South, as many other places, that separate didn't always mean equal. However, during this time, educational opportunities were not available or accessible to many people, but this was especially true, I'd say, for African-Americans as well as immigrants, and back then we did have a very large Asian population, as we still do today, and I was fortunate to receive a good education, largely because, again, there were educators in my family and I was born into this family that was fortunate enough to have their own school, this family that was fortunate to have their own school.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So we lived in a rural area of Arkansas and my grandparents were landowners and they populated the area. We had our own church, we had our own school. We were basically a family town. Everybody there was pretty much related, and so when my aunts and uncles were the teachers, my granddaughter and grandmothers were the principal, were the leaders of the school, and so I, up until I was six or seven years old, that was the education I knew. But my real education really started at home when I was about four years old. So I started reading when I was between the ages of four and five, and I learned to read from my mother. Basically, my mother only had my mother had an eighth grade education. She later went back to school after we all grew up and we got her nursing associate degree, but she at the time, when I was young, she only had an eighth grade education.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:My father was a sharecropper and then, after sharecropping, started to die out. When blacks were allowed to go into the military, he went into the military and then we started to travel and so we became a travel. We traveled with him, we moved around a lot, and so I got to see the world through a lot of different lens that a lot of children really don't get to see. And at the time it may have seemed as a disadvantage to us, because every time we'd make new friends, then up we go, we'd have to sort of start all over again. But getting back to how this all informed my research, I was. Once we settled down, I became very active in the civil rights movement, largely because I observed my mother become active.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:My mother was a part of a movement for Black children to be able to ride school buses. That was particularly true and important to us because after grade three, when we started to get to fourth grade, then the town that we lived in, the state, said that we could no longer be homeschooled, that we had to attend the public school, which means that we had to be bused, because we live way down in the rural area and there was no public school around except for us to go to town. So we had to go to town, but at that time that's where all the white children were going to school anyway, and there were buses, but the buses were only for white children, they were not for black children, and at that time it wasn't integrated and so consequently, many black children were not able to go to school If they didn't have someone to teach them at home or the churches were not teaching them. But we were fortunate. So my mother organized a movement to protest. We were fortunate in that my father drove and they would take us to school. We had to drive our dad to get up, drive us to town every day to school, but that was an inconvenience because he had other responsibilities for work. He had workers in the fields and whatever. And my mother she had lots of children were 16 of us and we were a very large family, so it was awfully inconvenient.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:One day she just said this is enough, but she wanted us to get an education, and so I observed my mother become very active and I then started to question what would happen. What would happen to us if we were not able to go into these schools. Were we not Americans? Were we not entitled to have the same privileges as I would? We would stand on the road and watch these white children get on this bus and they would throw all manner of things out of windows at us and everything. And we'd be trying to, even when we were in being going to the family school, because I went from home school to family school and we'd watch these big yellow buses go by and all the white kids would be prepared because they knew we'd be walking along the roads to go to school, and so they would throw by the time we'd get to school. Sometimes we would be a mess and stuff they would throw by the time we'd get to school. Sometimes we would be a mess from the stuff they would throw out the windows at us.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:We got smart. We started not to walk the main roads we could go across the fields but to go across the field we had to deal with the cows and we had to deal with the hordes. We had to deal with some other elements there snakes, whatever but those were. We would determine we were going to school, we were going to get an education, and so that's how important education was. So from that time on, I started to make the decision at an early age that I was going to become either an educator or an entrepreneur, or I was going to be a politician, because I saw politics working for my mother, because eventually she got it passed so that we could ride the buses. We had to sit on the back, but we could ride. It only came through movement, through activism. So I learned the power of politics and also what it meant to be, what equality really meant and what it meant not to have it, and so, consequently, I've developed a very critical view of our educational system, as well as the political system and just basically the American system in general. I kind of looked at it from the side of my eye.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Even as a child, when I was, I was very observant and I, like you described, I was very advanced and I learned also from my mother became. She worked for white people. She would take in ironing, she would take in sewing, she would take in, and then oftentimes we would go to the white people's house for her to do work. And there was this one lady that my mother worked for. She became my mentor and for years and years she was the district director of education and for years, and so she saw that I took an interest in books and said every day when I would go to work with my mom, my mom would take me, we would leave with a stack of magazines and she'd say one day she asked me what do you do with those?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:What do you do with those magazines? Could I forget this and make paper dolls? I said no, I read them. She said you read them. I said, well, you can't read. I said, yes, I can. She said how you learn to read. My mother said she's been reading since she was four. She said, huh, so that school, y'all that home school, they said we thought all y'all did was church. In that school we thought all y'all did was the Bible.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:She said, well, that's how they learned to read. And so I thought, well, how do you think they learned to read? You can't study the Bible if you don't know how to read. So, anyway. So then she started taking time with me and she said okay, read something to me. And at that time she picked up on the fact that I was mostly reading. I knew some words, but I was mostly reading from the pictures or from my experiences, and I was interpreting as I was reading and she'd say is that what that says? And I said, let me see that. And I was so good at it that she'd have to look herself to see if that's what it said. She said, well, I don't know how you knew it, but yeah, that's what it says, because I could get the context. So then I knew that I had something, so I became really good at it and then, of course, my reading continued to improve and, um, so I, um again was curious about my own learning and about my own, uh, development. So then I started to um, uh, to, to move on. So she became my mentor.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And what I did, what I found out later? She wasn't even really white, she was passing Back. Then blacks would pass if they were white enough and had straight enough hair. And so she was passing. And one day I was almost in junior high, she mentored me, and one day I was almost I was in junior high. She still she mentioned me from the time I was a young child, taking time until what she until she passed, until she died a few years ago, and there's a book about her life that was published in museums in Arkansas for her contributions to the educational movement. But anyway, she would tell me that I could do anything or be anything that I wanted to be.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And then she revealed she says she finally again, she revealed that she was white, that she wasn't white, that she was Black, that she wasn't white, that she was black. And she swore us to secrecy. She said but you can't never say anything Because if they knew then I wouldn't be able to help you and many other people. She said so you keep that to yourself. And I went home to Mama. I said Mama, do you know she's not white? She said, yeah, you keep that to yourself. And I went home to mom. I said mom, do you know she's not white? She said, yeah, we know. She said all black people know, white people don't know, she said, but we all know, yeah, we know, and I was like, oh, again, another fascinating part.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So to me, so again, so many fascinating things happened in my life growing up that it made me curious, not only about education but about why the differences, what's the race card, what's and what is this all about? And you know, I was always concerned about Black children and children also with disabilities, because a lot of them never. I had three sisters with disabilities, uh, and they couldn't walk, they had muscle dystrophy. So I became their teacher and I would bring my books home from school and I would teach them and then I would look and I would say, why aren't they going to school? I would ask questions. So I grew up asking questions. I loved asking questions. So to me, this naturally emerged into me becoming a researcher later on, and so I valued my experiential knowledge, which is why. But I also knew how important it was to also have other kinds of information too, working, uh, with my mentor in that capacity from those different situations, and also with my father, who was an entrepreneur, because he, uh, he worked, he was a sharecropper, so he had a white boss, a white man that he worked for, um, even though he had his own land. He was still sharecropping a lot of the time when he wasn't getting enough crop, enough money on his own. He would still sharecropping. So like part-time job, whatever, and my job was to keep when they were picking cotton and chopping cotton, my job was to keep a track. When they would weigh it, I would write down how much the cotton weighed. I would write down how many rows they chopped the cotton wave. I would write down how many rows they chopped. I would add up. The white man told me how much they got paid for each pound. Because I was smart. Then I kind of found out the white man wasn't so smart as that, he was smart enough to cheat.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Anyway, I kind of was the bookkeeper At that time. I was 10 years old, about nine or 10 years old, and I was bookkeeping for my father and for this white landowner. And one day I observed, I looked at the numbers and I noticed that we need to pay the people. We need to pay the people. If I had, let's say, they pick 20.5 pounds of cotton, he would pay them only for 20. And I was keeping track of it. And finally I told dad. I said dad, that white man cheated. He said what do you mean? He cheated. I say he's not paying people, correct? I said because when it's two and 20 foot thighs, I said you're supposed to eat around up but you don't pay them. I said he gives them less. That means if he do that a lot of times he's saving a lot of money, because all those foot thighs add up to a whole pound.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And so dad said did you tell anybody this? I said no. He said don't you tell nobody. So I said okay, I kept to myself for as long as I could. So that's how I learned the importance of data.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Because then I told the white man I said you know my dad had told me not to say nothing. I said but I know you cheated. He said what you talking about, gal, at that time? That's how they talk to you. He said what are you talking about? I said you're cheating. I said this is what you. I said I don't know if you're doing it on purpose. That's what I said. He said you calling me a liar. I said no, I don't know. I said but let me show you how it's supposed to work.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So he looked and he said how about this? Each one of them half pounds that I don't. He said how about you split that? How about I give you a little extra what? I give you a little money, what your daddy pay you? I said, huh. He said why don't I just give you a few dollars? Can you use a few extra dollars? We'll just keep this between us? And I was like, oh no. So then I thought about trustworthiness, how important trustworthiness is in research and data and numbers and record keeping, and all of this again informed my position, that my worldview. I guess that I could see life differently depending upon your race, economic status, culture, location, community, as well as opportunity. And so, because I was always advanced and always asking questions, I think this is what eventually led me to become a researcher.
Mr. Lassiter:Awesome, awesome, and you kind of touched on ontology a little bit when you talked about so I gained that you are a subjective researcher, as you just mentioned. You believe that it's shaped through different experience of culture and things like that.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And I'll explain that in your next question that you pose. So what?
Mr. Lassiter:is your epistemology position.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, let's start with ontology, because normally your ontology informs your epistemology.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:At least that's the way that I teach it.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, yes, but I was, I guess you want to. You can expand on this. Sorry, I thought I kind of you kind of touched on it. But yes, if you would like to expand on.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I won't expand much. But ontology concerns our beliefs about the kind and the nature of reality. Yes, and the social world. That's how I see it. As for my ontological position or understanding of the world, I aspire to critical realism. Critical realism in that I believe reality is captured by deep critical analysis, including not only self-experiences but the experiences of others as well, in other words, the social, cultural environment. Critical realism is concerned with the nature of causation, agency, structure and relations and the implicit or explicit ontologies that I'm operating within.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I believe in multiple ontologies.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Just to be clear, I posit that the nature of existence or reality is socially constructed as a result of the life experiences within natural settings.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Within natural settings and I believe you kind of said that in terms of what you had observed about mind and psychology I do believe that we can have multiple points or multiple perspectives or multiple realities that sometimes might conflict with our primary ontological stance.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I believe that ontology is somewhat situated in context, depending upon what's going on and what's happening at the time as far as I'm concerned. So I believe that it's fluid and that informs my epistemology, in that in epistemology, we ask questions about how we know what we know, how we know, what we think we know, or the nature of knowledge itself, what we think the nature of knowledge is, and I believe in learning. This is what I believe. I believe for me that learning and this has to do also, I guess, a lot with learning style as well I think learning style and technology are closely linked. I believe that learning takes place for me by doing, by experience. I don't feel like I really know something until I develop, developed somewhat of an intimate relationship or that I've engaged in what you call this critical analysis that I talked about earlier critical realism in terms of looking at an issue from both sides.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yeah, yes, yes and in order to do that, I feel like I have to look at the data, the information, in more than one way, and that means that I'm not only inspired to subjective research, but also the objective, which makes me a mixed methods, mixed methodology, a person who believes that, uh, in the integration of these ontologies and epistemologies in order to inform my methodology also, because I, I see it the same way in a way, in a sense, and I also even proposed that a class, um, I like, I also kind of see this as a learning spectrum, uh, for students.
Mr. Lassiter:Uh like, on, you're trying to get students from this to this end, from, uh, positivism to participatory or whatever comes next unlike, because you you know, unless there's a longitudinal study that I'm not aware of in which you know.
Mr. Lassiter:You know, according to positivists, that there is an objective reality. It is what it is because it's able to if it has that natural instinct on how to survive get its own food. Because your belief is that there's knowledge that's instilled in us in some genetic way that allows us to be able to understand that this is this, because it is what it is, and as well as there's objective data and history that tells us this is what it is, objective data and history that tells us this is what it is.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So, if it's instilled in us, then it has to form in some way. We're born with instincts, we're born with survival, we're born with most of what we know, and this is what I believe, most of what we know. We were not taught most of what we know. Most of what I learned as a child. I feel that I learned it, but I learned it mostly from observation or from experience or some type of interaction that helped me to bring that thing into existence for me, which means we each interpret the world differently. We each can have that same experience, but we come away being a different person or seeing something totally different exactly so.
Mr. Lassiter:That's so. Would you? With that sense it sounds more interpretive than kind of critical, because I kind of see, I'm kind of in an interpretive zone, like there's an objective, but because I'm here in the United States in this present state, and you're there where you are, someone else is in China, where they are. That one reality has different views. I have a different perspective. I have a different perspective. I have a different role, a different everything in this reality that it is.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So that was going to bring me to my next statement was that I believe that we all acquire or encounter a lot of information, a lot of information, a lot of information. We see a lot, we hear a lot. It's all around us. I call it noise. Yeah, all around us. However, that information to me does not become knowledge anymore until I find a way to attach some type of meaning to its existence.
Mr. Lassiter:I can see that Kind of like hearing a noise and you're like what is that noise? Because you heard it for the first time, so it's novel to you, unless you either see a car use that same noise you won't be able to associate.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:You won't make the connection. And I think this is a gap. This is what in our classrooms a lot of sometimes this happens is that we throw a lot of information at our students and we say, well, the students aren't learning, these Black students aren't learning, especially white students. Well, why not? Well, because you're not connecting with them, because what you're putting at them they have nothing connected to. There's noise. So there are these gaps because we haven't fully assessed, we don't know enough about getting them from point A to point B. Where are they?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Like Bogoski says, the zone of proximal development. What is, what do we need to do to close this gap, to bring this into existence for them, to help them to understand that it does have meaning and that there is some way that they can connect with it. But we have to again be able to identify that. So for me that translates into sort of a pragmatic, sort of an advocacy for pragmatic thinking, in the way that I think about theories or beliefs, in that they must have some relevance in their practical application or understanding. I must have some way of connecting that to my worldview, to what I believe or to what I aspire to or to my experience. I need a point of reference there in order for it to have meaning.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So over time, my research methodology has evolved into predominantly what I would consider mixed methods. That brings me to how this all informs my research, how it informs my methods, because I believe that we need multiple ways of interpreting the world and, as your word, you wanted that interpretation in there. You should say that's more interpretive than you go in there. Ways of interpreting the world, to explain and understand these multiple realities is what we're talking about Multiple realities there's no one reality, which is why I don't believe in absolutes. There is always another answer. There's always another solution. There's always.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So you asked me a question later about what would it take for me to reach that pinnacle and say I made it and we're going to get to that because I was like ha, I made it. What does that really mean? And so this idea of practical application sort of goes back to Cresswell. You haven't gotten deep enough into your methods, enough. You might check out Cresswell's V1 Pragmatism, which he talks about pragmatic thinking and interpretivism and how multiple methods allow different worldviews and different assumptions to take place as we are collecting our data and as we are interpreting our findings and our results, and because you're just starting, methods I know some of this might be but you got a master's degree.
Mr. Lassiter:You know enough. Yeah, yeah, a lot of what you're saying in the office. It sounds familiar, I just haven't touched it on them in a while, exactly, exactly.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And so my positionality is that my research has emerged both through tacit experiences, real-life experiences, as well as through, of course, my training in the scientific research. And to say that I aspire to mixed methods does not mean that I don't give credence to someone who says I'm a quantitative researcher or qualitative researcher, because I do believe that, again, it goes back to one's ontology, it goes back to one's epistemology, in terms of what you have experienced and what you observe. That helps you to interpret reality. And so, for me, it takes both, it takes mixed methods.
Mr. Lassiter:Gotcha. So is that why you hold to your ontologies and epistemology? Because of your personal experiences?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Not just my personal experiences, but because of the research that I've read, research that I've participated in and also again, like I said, the research of others.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:But I largely hold to my intolerance to others, because I look at the works of others as informing what I believe and most of the time it just reaffirms it, it doesn't change it. To be honest, I just look at how it's different, how I think differently than what others do, because to me that's what keeps me asking questions about what I believe and I'm always hoping to change. And that's how we change. Because we say, well, I'm this and I'm always hoping to change. And that's how we change. Because we say, well, I'm this and I'm that, and it would become, you know, well, I'm not going to change because that's what I believe. And I do believe that as we grow and as we learn more, we do change. We do change our ways of thinking, we do change our worldviews. My worldview changed significantly when I started traveling abroad and living abroad. I could not believe how narrowly my thinking had been about other people and cultures before I lived in other countries lived in other countries.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And so you know, it just makes me, when I look at people and I engage with people who have not traveled, who have not had the international experiences or have not been open to other cultures and the globalization of their passions and their learning, I said, oh my God, they don't know what they're missing.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, and I'm glad that the school that I was working in, dcps, they had a very strong or continue to build a very strong global education program in which students were able to go abroad. So I had a great person, a person who was able to find grants like no one ever able to find donors from nowhere ever. I don't know how, but he knows people and so he was able to get the trips fully funded for the students. They didn't have to pay a dime. Take them to Puerto Rico, take them to other countries, and it's been an amazing because I hadn't been able to do that until my graduate time. So I'm like you getting that experience in high school versus in college is going to change your hope perspective on things entirely.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So why I hold on? So I guess the response to why I hold on to these ontologies and epistemologies is because holding on to them helps me to stay focused. It helps me to have a frame of reference in which to monitor my own growth and development in terms of you know where I am and where I want to go, or where I should be, or how I need to change, transform my thinking, and that helps me in that. It just goes back to the fact that I'm an active learner. I mean kids. I'm a questioner. I don't believe that there's any one way, so I'm always open to change. You might say I'm a lifelong learner. I know that's cliche.
Mr. Lassiter:Hey, it's true.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yeah, because it's part of me. I guess you might say well, you know part of me. It's why I hold on to it and I love me, I like me and it's been working for me.
Mr. Lassiter:So when you look at, I guess, all of the research that you have done and the research you look forward to doing, what would you say is the overall purpose for your research?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, it kind of connects to that last statement that I made and that is growth. The overall purpose of my research is to produce information that is of value, that contributes to my individual growth but as well as to the field, to the body of work that's already existing in the area that I do research. And most of all, I think the purpose of my research is it's not just empiricism but it's to bring about change. It informs action, and so a lot of my research is practice-based, that begets and calls for transformational change by changing the way that we identify and solve problems. Our research is about problem solving. It's about asking those questions and then looking for solutions and looking for ways of changing or making things or at least being able to explain what is going on so that we inform our knowledge base. So in that sense I love my research.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Again, because I am an instructional technologist, I'm always curious about technology and how it allows us to connect to opportunities now and overcome traditional or systemic barriers some of the barriers that again when I look back at how education was when I was growing up and coming up and depending on the bus and going there, because now we have virtual schools, we do homeschool. We got virtual learning, we got online learning. We are getting back. We have so many different ways that we can learn. Now, if we're open to to that kind of change, and we're open to changing our mindsets about what education is, what is knowledge, and, uh, in that sense, I think that, uh, the purpose of my research now is to again bring about that transformational change, to make education more accessible, to make it more equitable, so that everybody can have those same opportunities, or at least be knowledgeable and aware that these opportunities exist that these opportunities exist.
Mr. Lassiter:Awesome, and you actually just sparked a question that I realized I did not ask, which is probably within the question 10. You can think about it, but it's. How did you get into the technology aspect of your research and your profession? But we can go to that while you give some time to think about that. Go to question five.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, no, I can answer that now. How did I get into technology technology? I might say I was born into technology, but anyway, uh, technology I got into technology from working start number one, working with my dad, which is why, like I said, I think the home environment community is very important in development, and it starts in the home. Uh, my father was a construction worker. Um, he worked again. He sharecropping and farming, worked with a lot of equipment. I worked with him. One of his hobbies was bringing home old radios and TVs and sitting at a shack behind the house, and we would sit behind the house and take these radios and TVs apart, put them back together. He would show me how things work. And so I became fascinated by the technology. We were the first family to ever have a TV in the home because my parents were strong believers in the technology. If it came out, they were going to get it. Even when we had radio, we'd sit around the radio and listen to the music, listen to the movies on the radio. We didn't even see it. And so I grew up with technology, radio and didn't even see it. And so I grew up with technology. And then I became fascinated with technology in high school. It has followed me.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I was one of the first students. Again, I was part of school integration. I was one of 11 students the integrated black schools in the South and they were the only school that were teaching computers in the 60s and teaching typing. And I was only in the eighth grade and supposedly I wasn't supposed to take typing until I was in ninth grade or 10th grade. Well, I wanted to take typing in eighth grade and so my parents went up to the school and they petitioned. They could not get me into the class, so they took me to a community college, a technical college, and signed me up for typing. I had to sit on telephone books in order to reach the typewriter, and so I was fascinated by technology.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Then, when the first memory typewriter came out, I was the first one. Our family was. I said, hey, we gotta get this memory, we gotta see this memory. We couldn't afford a computer, we could afford that memory typewriter. And so technology.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I always saw what technology could do and it really. It helped to make things not always easier, but more accessible, easier, whatever I was just fascinated by. So that's how I became involved in technology, and so then I became a business education teacher. That was my first teaching job was business education teacher. I wasn't always a professor, I thought I high school, junior high school, I taught elementary school. I taught all the different levels. I have four degrees, so I've taught all the way up from kindergarten, all the way in high school. I taught typing, I taught shorthand, I taught introduction to computers. I taught and I was also the only student, the only girl, in auto mechanics when I was in high school. So how did I get involved in technology? I got involved in technology through my education, through my observation and through my personal experiences through my education, through my observation and through my personal experiences.
Mr. Lassiter:Awesome and BALOO, that's the high school I worked at. They have auto services and technology repair center built in the school and so students, they work on cars from the community inside the school to get that training and we have found that the girls excel better in that class than the boys.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I was just getting ready to say I was better than any of the boys in the class.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:However, we can't get girls to go into the program, so the few that we do, they excel the teacher would always call me and my father would get angry because I would be like the assistant to the teacher and I'd tell my dad. I'd say, daddy, he said well, how's that auto mechanics class going? I said it's going okay. He said what's wrong? I said, well, I don't get to work on the cars as much, I don't get to work on the stuff as much as the boys do. And he said well, why? I said because he has me reading the stuff from the book. I said because he has me reading stuff from the book. And then when somebody gets into trouble he sends me out to help them. And he said, well, that's not what you're supposed to do. I said yeah, he gives me. I said I'm getting a A's. He said yeah, but you ain't supposed to be there teaching them. Because I knew a lot from him, from working with him. So I already knew a lot about cars. I've been driving pickup trucks since I was 13. So I already knew a lot about automobiles, about cars and trucks and things like that. You know, I was a country girl and so again, very fascinating, very interesting, but yeah. So then, finally, you know, I did get to work on. The teacher did say he said well, she's just so good at it.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:The fourth thing is the boys didn't like to read. They could do it, but they didn't want the math, they didn't want to look at the instructions and some of them didn't understand the diagrams. You know, they weren't as good. It seems they weren't as analytical. I guess in some ways they wanted to, but once you would tell them they were more oral learners. But you told them, you showed them all right, I got this. They could do it, but they didn't.
Mr. Lassiter:They were impatient, they didn't want to take the time Something to consider there now, yeah, food for thought. But I guess that's a great segue into the next question about your biggest highlight in your career, the one that made you feel that you made it or you finally did it. And if that moment has not occurred, what would be that phenomenon that would generate that feeling?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, as I said, I was waiting for that one. But first of all, I don't think there for me. I don't think there is such a pinnacle that would ever generate a feeling that I made it. But I'll end when I finish this. I'm going to tell you at the end. You know I'm going to give you some middle part here.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Again, I've said that I'm a life. I believe that I'm not believe. I know that I am a lifelong learner, I'm a researcher. I'm always going to be asking questions. I'm always going to be asking questions. I'm always going to be thinking and looking for that next answer. But more or less I'm always looking for the next question more than I am the answer. For me, that pinnacle comes often because every time I see one of my students cross that finish line and graduate, I feel like I made it. And I sort of developed that attitude for my mom because every time one of us would graduate, like I said, we're a big family and every one of us got college degrees and every time one of us would graduate she would say I got another degree, I got another degree. She'd walk around telling people know I?
Mr. Lassiter:got 10 degrees and they said 10 degrees. Her name was maggie. How you get 10 degrees? I said it didn't work for you.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:No one know, you know I got 10 degrees and they said, what you got a degree? I got a degree. And they said what you got a degree? I got a degree in education. I got a degree in this. She was named because she knew and they just said they laughed, it's a real kid's degree. She said they not I made them, they wouldn't have had them without me, but anyway.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So I think I feel that every moment, like I said, any one of my students are successful, I feel like that's my success and I've reached that pinnacle. But I think for me it's every time one of my black sisters or one of my black brothers succeed because I watch the inequalities. I came through that era of the civil rights and I've watched the fights and I know the struggles that we go through and the adversity that we face as we try to reach that next level. And you made a statement you said you know, with being on the Oprah show or whatever, but to me, but to me for educational equality, diversity and inclusion to become as popular as the Oprah show, so that instead of having the performing arts academy awards or whatever the movies, we have the education academy awards, where education would be elevated to that level where we would have this world platform that everybody looked forward to every year to see who were those educators, who were those winners, who were those people that had sacrificed and made things happen. So an Education Academy Awards would be my dream. That would be my pinnacle to be to live to see something like that. My dream, that would be my pinnacle to be to live to see something like that.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:However, becoming the first family member to earn a PhD in education and being celebrated by my family, especially my parents, was absolutely the I made it moment for me, and just knowing that I was the first, just knowing that I was the first, just knowing that I was the first, that I was not the last, and it's the pinnacle, because now I'm watching some of my younger sisters and I'm watching my cousins and I'm watching my friends. I'm seeing others and they come to me in their life. They all can't wait to let me know that they are in a doctoral program or that they got to a doctorate, because they all remember that I was divorced and so, being that, having that, and it's not a sense of entitlement or anything like that, it's just a feeling of pride that I have of knowing that I showed them that it could be done and that in many ways I helped them. That's my chemical. Thank you for sharing.
Mr. Lassiter:Thank you. I read on your profile that you like to dance.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I was going to say is that a part of the class question? I like to dance. Everybody likes to dance, don't they? You know anybody that doesn't like to dance?
Mr. Lassiter:I don't know I like to dance. Everybody likes to dance, don't they? You know anybody that doesn't like to dance? I don't know. But what style do you practice, or do you?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:have. First of all, let me just say this I see life as dance. Life itself to me is a dance. Every day we're dancing here. I love all dance because I think dance is a form of self-expression, no matter what kind of dance it is.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I started dancing publicly, I would say, when I was young. As a child I was a cheerleader. In high school I was a majorette, I was a cheerleading coach, and so that all led me to appreciate. I know that's not really considered dance, but then I became part of a dance team. So I started dancing then and I my minor in college at Southern Illinois University was theater and performing arts. That was my minor. I wanted to major in that, but my parents made all of us major in education because they thought I'd never get a job. They thought it was cliche for Blacks to go into the performing arts. They say you know, do you know how many actually make it? And so that was so the kind of dance I've danced with Sammy Davis Jr. I've danced with Ernie Kidd. I've taken workshops with him when I was in college, and so I enjoy jazz dance and what you might call abstract dancing or whatever, but the interpretive dance. But jazz dance is what I really like Jazzercise. I've done that, but that's not so fun, but I like jazz dance and so that's mainly the kind of dance that I've done and my claim to fame there is.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I start in a musical rendition of the Billie Holiday story because I did more stage than I did dance. I used to be plays in small theaters and small playhouses and I used to perform with the Philadelphia Community College. They had a division of performing arts Alfie Pollitt I don't know if you know Alfie Pollitt, if you've ever heard of him. Anyway, he was on the dance program for the community colleges in Philadelphia and I used to star in a musical edition of the Billie Holiday story that he was putting on and I played Billie Holiday's story and it was a musical. So we got to dance as sort of a part of our performance there. And I also got to perform at the famous Schubert Theater in New York on Broadway for doing amateur. They had amateur seasons so I got to try out there and did a small performance there.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:That was back in the 90s, back in the 80s and 90s. It was the 90s when I was doing that and one of the most popular types of dancing that I enjoyed, being a Chicago girl, is what we call Chicago, what we call stepping. I don't know if you're familiar with stepping, but I'm a stepper and so I enjoy jazz dancing. Jazz, stepping is a part it's more bluesy, it's more part of that blues generation, I think. Or not blues, but what do you call it? R&b? Yeah, so stepping came with the R&B generation. So I'm a stepper and then stepping and jazz and that's the kind of dance that I do.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:But I do enjoy the kind of dance that I enjoy going to, I go to the theater, I love ballet, I love ballroom dancing, and those are good too. But when I say interpretive dance, I'm really talking about contemporary dance, and I think if you're being in dance you can probably find it. And so in the write-up that I did, I've been trying to do that, and so in the write-up that I did, I sent you a link to a type of dance that I do and you can see it for yourself. So I sent you a link. Thank you, yeah.
Mr. Lassiter:Changing gears a little bit to, I guess, one of a hard question. If you're willing, may you share some of the challenges you may have experienced in your research and academia because of your background or identity or I can teach you Well.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Challenges include, I'd say the first one that was really hardest. Has been the hardest to overcome, and this is for me as well as for other minorities in higher education is the challenge of having my research really included, I'd say, or accepted, in the scientific community in higher education, largely due to the practice-based nature and qualitative nature of my work, and this has been fueled by colorism in education because of my critical focus on inequities and inequalities. The Academy has, it's one, and I thought that we had gotten over that, but once again, critical race theory is now being challenged again, and it's so. That's been one of the greatest challenges where how do I be real and true to my own research but yet be truthful and yet be be accepted? Have my work accepted and evaluated fairly by my white colleagues and, uh, in, some black colleagues? I don't want to say all white, I'm not race conscious, but more often because I say white, because nationwide, just over 5% of full-time faculty members at colleges and universities are Black and a lot of people don't realize how few of us there really is when it comes to how many of us are actually in Research 1 universities and actually have our work accepted and published and we work 10 times as hard to get work published as some of our counterparts, and sometimes the only way we can get that work published is by bringing on one of them as a sort of a co-editor, co-writer, or bringing them into some kind of way. And to me that just reminds me of the old Jim Crow sharecropping days when, even though my father owned the land because he was Black, he had to share it with a white man and have's. That's. That's been a challenge, uh, for the last 15 years. Uh, we've not. I've studied that and looked at it and it really hasn't hasn't changed a lot, and we still see it in the media a great deal. And so there's never really been a golden age for black faculty or black researchers in the United States in higher education, and that's always been a challenge.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I had to fight for tenure the first time I went up for tenure and promotion. I had to fight for my tenure. I had to end up. Luckily they had the union. Had to fight for my tenure. I had to end up. Luckily they had the union. I had to go through the union and challenge it and get an attorney to get it overturned. We still see that happening today with Black faculty. Recently a North Carolina professor who was an internationally recognized Black journalist, who was in North Carolina State, I believe, or the Carolina universities, was all over the media. She was denied tenure, you know, after you know being fully qualified, and it happens all the time.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And so ageism is another challenge. Because I did go back to school. I had had a whole life, I'd say, outside of higher academia by the time I was in my 40s. I was in my mid-40s when I went back to school to get my doctorate and I was 49 for the time I finished it, which means I was getting a 50. And so ages being black, being female over 50. And those have been challenges. Those were challenges for me in terms of some of the barriers that I would overcome because I did not follow what you call the traditional pathway to becoming a higher education scholar and professor. It was sort of a non-traditional, what they call the non-traditional pathway.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I didn't just come to start out and educate bachelor's, master's and then get my doctorate and have built this whole solid career.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I worked in corporate corporations for a while.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I was a director of education and research at NTS, national Education Testing Service. I worked for the government, I worked out of this country, I worked for ministries of education doing practical, field-based research. I was the vice president for a corporation, silver Learning Centers and so I had, like you said, you didn't have an education background, so you felt like you needed to get that foundation. That's why I went back to get a doctorate, because I found out I was very knowledgeable, I had a lot of experience, but people were not listening to me. So I felt like, in order to be heard, that I had to get this DR or these three letters behind my name so that I would command attention and that people would listen to me. And as I did that, it did improve. But so so I say that to you because of what you shared with me about your journey being somewhat non-traditional in that you didn't have a teaching. I don't have a teaching background. I didn't have that. I worked in education, I worked around, but I wasn't like a part of the system.
Mr. Lassiter:I'm sorry I had to get something from my dog from eating it. I found a piece of cardboard.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Oh, so again. So my hope is that in overcoming these traditions, these kinds of structures, that hopefully the African-American educational community, faculty students as well as well, can move beyond these times and be able to move beyond just being called upon to serve on diversity and inclusion committees but to be called to sit on research committees and those kinds of activities that are gonna get them to scholarly recognition rather than the service recognition, because traditionally we get put into the service ranks when we're doing all the service and then when it comes time for promotion and tenure, they say well, you don't have enough scholarship because they've kept you so darn busy, you know, with service work, work that doesn't include publishing. It doesn't include publishing, it doesn't include research, it doesn't include grant funds, grant projects. You know they kept you busy on committees and things like that. So I would say to any young scholar, any working doctor be careful that you do connect yourself with activities that's going to yield some kind of a product, something that you can put on your beaded. That represents scholarship.
Mr. Lassiter:Awesome, thank you, great advice and the number that you shared, you know, with only 5% of college professors, the faculty being, you know, african-american. I recently learned in a class that you know it's the college professors who are randomly selected or chosen to kind of do the editing and reviewing the research when they're submitted for various articles and things. So to not have a number of us in that environment itself puts us in a situation where our voices aren't being heard, because they're not being approved.
Mr. Lassiter:We're not seeing it essentially, or there's not enough of us to pick it and review it and approve it essentially.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:That's correct.
Mr. Lassiter:Thank you. Thank you. What are some of the joys that you have experienced in your research and academia career because of your background?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, I can say this I'm always the person who I'm going to take something. If it's if it's supposed to be a negative, I'm going to turn it into a positive. So my back. Actually, I've used my background and identity to get into places where we normally get, by pointing out that you need some diversity and equity. So I've managed to elevate myself by being able to critically evaluate and analyze these environments and then go to those places where I know that there's a need and you have to, but I'm not. I've never been, but I've never had to. I've never gotten a position or a scholarship or anything. I've never had to use affirmative action, but I have had to use my I'd say my affirmative voice, but I've never had to use I like the way you put that yes.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yeah, and so my background, identity has afforded me, actually, and it's given me the courage as well as the privilege to represent racial diversity in some of the least likely scholar, scholarly and other workplaces where traditionally whites were the dominant group, and in this representation I was able to mentor emerging scholars from diverse cultures, backgrounds and identities to help them navigate the system.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So as I was able to move into the system, I've been able to help others to move into the system, to move through it or into it, and that's been a joy to me. I've had an extraordinary international career and experience that really excelled beyond my expectations. I was the only Black female and I was recruited by the shape, by the Ministry of Education for the United Arab Emirates, to come to the UAE and head up as the lead researcher, as the director of the Education Reform Project for the country, where I had six research teams from all over the world, researchers speaking all different languages, that I had to develop the plan for how we were going to come in there and all work together to do this research, to develop what they call the blueprint for using technology to transform their educational system into a more westernized platform. A Black woman.
Mr. Lassiter:That's interesting though.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And at the time I had just I, I had only had my doctorate five years. That was in 2005. I got my doctorate in 1999.
Mr. Lassiter:Wow.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:And that was after fighting with an American university for tenure and promotion that this country recruited me because of my reputation with the US Department of Education for bringing about change in teacher education programs and through training teachers and integrating technology into education. I was one of the writers of the first international technology standards, called the ISTE standards that are currently the standards for integrating technology into K-12 education.
Mr. Lassiter:Wow, I'm going to take a look at that, for sure.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Right, and so the National Education Teachers Exam. I was the project leader for transforming the paper-based version of the National Teachers Exam into what is now known as the Praxis Exam, which is an all-online test. That was my project. A black woman.
Mr. Lassiter:Wow, Now that the Praxis, that's a huge thing.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:That was my project. I named my team, named the Praxis. That came from my team when I was the director.
Mr. Lassiter:ETS, ETS.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:ETS Educational testing service. I did that before I even had my doctorate.
Mr. Lassiter:Wow.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I was working on my doctorate, so the joys for me have been using my diversity to overcome adversity. I've made my differences work for me.
Mr. Lassiter:And they're sustaining, still going on.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:You ask anyone in the College of Education who's graduated more doctorates in the School of Education, what one professor has graduated more students in the last 10 years than any other professor? That's me.
Mr. Lassiter:Amen.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Wow, what's my joy? My joy comes from coming adversity. Wow, making my diversity work for me and not against me.
Mr. Lassiter:Nice way to put it is learning the system, using the system to your advantage, which is not an easy thing to do.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:but once you do it you will go far.
Mr. Lassiter:And luckily I see a lot of myself in your story and because I am very observative and very data-driven, inquisitive, and you know I sit back and I just watch, inquisitive, and you know I I sit back and I just watch and I get so much from just watching, uh, that I learned the system. You know I had to uh file a grievance against my organization because they weren't doing what they.
Mr. Lassiter:They were following the rules and so I was like, oh, I learned the system, now I'm gonna work it. I see how other people have done it. I have seen from a high end how certain schools got resources and other schools didn't get resources. So when I got into the Title I school, I was like, look, I'm going to use the same strategy to get this school what they need Absolutely. Why not Get the people that they need? And, like, I used to oversee 65 schools, so I'm like I know how different people work across this diaspora and I know who the people that I need to contact because I work in the office. So I'm going to this school and we're going to get it done. I see it. I'm glad I am happy that you are the person that I'm interviewing for this project and I hope to be able to speak with you and continue to get mentorship and advisement from you as well as I continue on this journey, because it's been a great conversation. So that leads to my last and final question, because my research interest is in technology.
Mr. Lassiter:I'm currently doing a lot of research on game-based learning, but I'm open to other structures. So I want to improve staging and sequence of curriculum PK-212, to enhance instruction for the teachers and enhance learning experiences for the students. I guess. More specifically, I want to do it through the lens of civic engagement. So, for an example, for a pre-K class, instead of them learning one apple plus two apples equal three apples, they can learn one vote plus two votes equal three votes, changing the context. You know they don't need to know what a vote is, but they will be able to have an understanding.
Mr. Lassiter:But later on in the staging sequence maybe third grade, second grade, when they start learning more vocabulary, then they learn what a vote is and they will be like oh, that's what a vote is, I know how to count votes. One vote plus two votes equal three votes. Vote is I know how to count votes. One vote plus two votes equals three votes. And now I know what a vote is type of thing, and continue that sequence and staging all the way up through 12th grade. Essentially, any advice on how to get started on that? Who to connect with the type of individuals, teams, departments at Truxel that can assist?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, I know, dr Foster, Dr Ruth Foster, you mentioned game-based, I thought you were interested in. Did you say game-based? Yes, game-based learning, yes, game-based learning.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, right now, there are a number of curriculum software management systems that you might want to explore, some of them game-based, but most of them not. One of the real problems that you seem to have identified is that, not only in K-12 education, but all the way up to K-16, curriculum mapping and intercultural content, instructional analysis, assessment and the pathway to learning outcomes is somewhat inconsistent, and so I would suggest that you begin by examining the research on that topic, first of all, to see what we've been doing on the course. I know that's a cliche response, but start by looking at what's already available, and then you can perhaps start to look at the pros and cons of those systems that are available. That's, doing curriculum mapping, to see how are learning decisions made, how are teaching, our curriculum decisions going to be made, and what systems are being used to aid in that process. And I do have a couple of links that I'll send you that have some systems curriculum mapping systems that you might be able to take a look at.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:That will give you some idea as to how to define and narrow the problem that you're thinking of studying, and so that would be where I would first start, but you want to take a look at, I'd say, curriculum instruction of faculty members who are engaged in, perhaps, the curriculum committee, because we have to see you know what do they do and see you know what do they do.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:That's related to curriculum mapping for courses that are in K-12 education, in terms of how curriculum, how lesson planning is done, how the curriculum is structured. Take a look at courses like that methodology curriculum methodology courses because you're going to need to have a foundation in that, knowing where the system is now in terms of how those decisions are made, how they're designed, and then that will help you to perhaps come up with some theories about what a redesign might look like in order to get this ideal system that you have in mind, that you might develop to recommend in the future. So I would start with curriculum, again, faculty that are involved in the methods for curriculum instruction that would be in teacher education.
Mr. Lassiter:Gotcha.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, again, I'll send you these cut, these links to some sites that I think will give you some mapping systems to take a look at, so you can, some of them have critical reviews associated with them, to give you an idea of what some of the problems are, you know, with those systems.
Mr. Lassiter:Gotcha, and you mentioned a name very quickly. You said Louis Foster.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Arutus Foster.
Mr. Lassiter:Arutus.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Arutus Arutus. He's the Associate Dean of Academic Programs. He's also Director of the Game-Based Learning Center A-R-O-U-T-I-S Rudis Foster, and he's an African-American too oh cool. Not that it's important, but he is, so he understands the cultural yeah.
Mr. Lassiter:And I guess he will understand the civic engagement aspect of it as well.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yes, oh, that's why I said I would start with him. Yeah, I would definitely start with the movies.
Mr. Lassiter:Thank you. Any additional advice you would like to share?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, you did ask me what projects I'm currently working on. That was question 10.
Mr. Lassiter:Oh yes, yes, yes, I'm sorry. What project studies are you currently working? On where and are there any worth mentioning partners that you are partnering with?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Well, I'm currently the principal investigator for a research partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, working on identifying and exploring global teaching and technology competencies for teachers and faculty that are required for them to restructure their curriculum or their teaching pedagogy for more inclusive learning and inclusive classrooms to achieve the UNESCO quality education goal. To achieve the UNESCO quality education goal, and it is a four year federally funded project that uses methods designed to study global education designs and models to look at how teachers and faculty are currently integrating as well as assessing global teaching competencies. And that's what I'm working on now, and the goal is that we're going to develop, we're working on a certificate program, three modules that will prepare them to develop and implement global teaching competencies throughout the curriculum. Oh, nice.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:So that it doesn't become like the standalone global education course, but instead it is threaded throughout the curriculum, so that every course, every curriculum includes global competencies.
Mr. Lassiter:Oh baby, sounds kind of similar to what I'm interested in it is. It's kind of a natural. Yeah, oh, that's kind of amazing.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yeah, I saw that.
Mr. Lassiter:So the certification program, who I guess would be sponsoring that Would it be like. Is it a school that's sponsoring or is the federal government? So when they get it it's a certified?
Dr. Joyce Pittman:When they get it it would say oh, Dresden, School of Education, and the program itself is going to be aligned with the current standards that certify our school of education, which would be the in-test standards, and then so the same standards that now the standards that we have now that certify our teacher education program already states that our teachers and faculty are supposed to be modeling or teaching global competencies.
Mr. Lassiter:But in reality, if they were to really look, closely, you might find some gaps, I'd say, in whether or not that's actually happening.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Understood understood.
Mr. Lassiter:Which is why the federal government is paying us money to study it. That's really cool, and so it would be issued through Drexel, but it would be open to, I guess, teachers nationally.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:Yes, it would be open to everyone. It's being developed with federal funds. University of Pennsylvania received the funds and they have sub. They sub grant the money out there, the National Resource Center with the Department of Education. So they have the millions that we write proposals to say, hey, our school of education want to be a part of this, we want to bring our faculty and students up to par and go to competencies, and here's how we're going to do it. And then here's a part of money we need and then they give it to us and then we all it's a collaborative Cool.
Mr. Lassiter:I guess I'd be learning on all of that as I go throughout the program essentially. But I find that whole world fascinating and something that lacks the knowledge in a lot of African-Americans about grants and administration and all those types of things. So I'm like that's something I really want to get, I really want to learn of things. So I'm like that's something I really want to get, I really want to learn about too. So I want to thank you again, dr Pittman, for your time today. It was a very engaging conversation. I again feel like I kind of connected to you in a sense, because your story is very familiar to me. It probably would be very familiar to a lot of african americans, uh, going through this process or in general, just because of your upbringing and um, so I, just I, I, I I probably can't express that much, but I hope you can see how appreciative I am for you being so open and candid with me about your experiences and things.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:I feel the same way and I'm glad that, you know, today is actually a holiday, so a lot of places closed, a lot of things that I thought I was going to be doing. I didn't notice it was a holiday and so I said wow, and so I had that time. I said well, and so I said wow, and so I had that time. I said, well, it's a holiday, but if he doesn't mind meeting on a holiday because, yeah, I said you know, then, then I've got time in my schedule. So you know, a lot of people don't work on their day off.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:But somebody said to me, probably when I, when I found out you know, we're trying to schedule this meeting, they said, well, monday's a holiday, university's closed. And I was like, oh, and I started typing all stuff and telling people oh, it's a holiday on Monday. So that opened my day up. Initially I wasn't going to do anything at all and I said, well, I'll do this interview, that's all I'm going to do. Thank you, I really appreciate it. You're my only work today. Well, I hope it didn.
Mr. Lassiter:You're my only work today. Thank you, I hope it didn't feel like too much work, but I really appreciate it.
Dr. Joyce Pittman:It did, and it was actually a pleasure. It was actually a pleasure and I'm glad that the calendar opened up and that we had an opportunity to talk, because, oh, I could have just sent you the written responses, because I did write them out. But then, after that opportunity opened up, I said, well, I'll just talk to him and get to know him and see a little bit more. I think it'll be better that way. Thank you, thank you again I can still send you these written responses, if you want.
Mr. Lassiter:Yes, please, yes, please, Okay, and as well as the transcript, if possible, I would love to review it. Okay, as long as