“I think my parents hate me” 


That is how a student, who we’ll call “Earl,” recently started a conversation with his teacher, Cornelius Minor, after class one day. On today’s podcast we’re talking about advocating for our students with Cornelius Minor. Mr. Minor is a frequent keynote speaker and Lead Staff Developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in New York where he works with teachers, school leaders, and leaders of community-based organizations to support literacy reform in cities. In his work, Cornelius draws not only on his years teaching middle school in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but also on time spent skateboarding, shooting hoops, and working with kids. He’s also currently writing his first book for Heinemann.  

Cornelius says it best; "we may not have the answers for every situation we face, but we can’t choose to do nothing." So what did Cornelius do? How did he advocate for Earl and all of his students? Listen below to find out.



Also, be sure to join Cornelius Thursday – May 4, 2017 as he co-hosts the #G2Great Twitter chat with Courtney Kinney (@KinneyCourts) on: "Building Classrooms that Reflect the Lives of the Children Who Inhabit Them."

We offer many resources based on the conversation we're having on this episode. Here is a complete list:

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The Journey Project: http://thejourneyproject.us/for-families/

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LGBT Community Centers: lgbtcenters.org

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Gender Spectrum: genderspectrum.org

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Human Rights Campaign: hrc.org

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The National PTA: pta.org

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GLSEN: glsen.org

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PFlag: pflag.org

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Teaching Tolerance: tolerance.org


See below for a full transcript of our conversation

Cornelius:    And that's such a huge question, Bret. Like, when I think about advocacy, that word just sounds intimidating. You know, like, I'm a seventh grade English teacher. I deal in the realm of verbs and gerunds and participles, like that's my realm. So when you throw out words like advocacy, for me, what comes to mind is that Morgan Freeman movie Lean On Me. Everybody wants to be Morgan Freeman, but that guy's got skills. I don't got skills like that, and so how do I, with my regular every day nerdy self, stand up for kids in a big way. So I've really been trying to think about, like, yeah how do I do that? 
    When I think about Earl, and I think about the struggle that he's having with his parents right now, I don't have answers. I think a lot of times we ask ourselves, what should I do? And when we don't know, we choose to do nothing. I'm just at a point in my career now, even though I'm wildly imperfect at standing up for kids, and even though my advocacy game is in it's infancy, doing nothing can't be an option for me anymore.